immediate conjunction and union And the Lamb is with her dwells in her she is the Mountain of God or the City of the living God 4. She is washed cleansed enlightened and filled with the Spirit of the Lord whereby she is established strengthened guided and kept in even and straight pathes she is adorned and beautified with righteousness wisdom peace honour and salvation and therefore when she appears she will be a praise in the earth 5. She is in all things ordered and ruled by the pure and perfect Law and Word of God whereby she walks steadily surely justly to God to men and to all creatures These things in word and notion are not strange to you that Zion is a Body a Nation a holy People united and compact according to the heavenly pattern joyned unto God sanctified established and adorned by the Spirit ruled by the eternal Word Then consider and compare your state with this Zion where is this body this holy matter or when was this body formed was it in the Parliament at what time though you sifted and purged it yet it was mixed unclean and corrupt and afterward rejected as chaff Or was the Army this holy body with all that vile and filthy rabble If this was the body how came it to be such an offence to you why did it at last cast you off and betray you and your cause Or is it all the godly people why then are you not drawn out united built into a holy Nation or City by your selves Zion and no Union Consistencie or Order No Magistrates nor publick Ministers Can you say when in which of the ten powers that you set up in twelve years you were formed by the Spirit or Word of God which state Oath Protestation Covenant or Engagement was made by the Word of God If all then you were led into contradictions if any one why did not that one judge and condemn all the rest and why doth it not still stand and defend it self and you It grieves my soul to think that you should be so drunk with the wine of your own gifts and success as to need such sensible demonstrations to convince you of the evil of your state We have briefly shewed you the beauty of Zion I can give you a view of your own state possibly you have not observed it as I have done now you have time and opportunity to think seriously of it It is this You are a confused heap raised from the earth by the tumults and commotions of the people being impatient of suffering and full of consultations for self-ease self-safety and advantage actuated and stirred by the Providence of God who can make use of all creatures natures and dispositions And sanctified by and furnished with a spirit and gifts fit to execute his displeasure upon the Nation for their sins Finding success beyond your expectations you grew into high opinions and conceits of your selves overthrew the Government of the Nation break all Oathes and Bonds prey upon the wealth of the Nation enrich and exalt your selves under a name and profession of Godliness for which you are rejected into misery and shame I do feel what effect this may have upon your minds some will think it very hard and severe so think all children when they are beaten Others will rage and gnash their teeâ—h yet it must be born Others will say this is true but why should it be published to all the world I would avoid it if it were possible but it cannot be otherwise how can one write to a people but all may read that will But alas I see it is most righteous and just that you should bear shame for you have put the Lord to open shame and your iniquities and abominations are discovered in the sight of all the Nations they cannot be hid and publick sins must have publick shame publick confession and repentance Eze. 16.52 Thou that hast judged thy sisters Samaria and Sodom bear thy own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable then they they are more righteous then thou yea be thou confounded also and bear thy shame in that thou hast justified thy sisters And know for certain that till you are ashamed and confounded for your abominations you never can never shall know a better state But when you see God pacified towards you it will make you to remember to be confounded and never more to open thy mouth And then will he lead you into a better state Therefore know this I do not charge all this upon some eminent persons of the Party as some do nor upon the persons of the whole Party as most do My soul pitties you I know you have a sore and grievous burden upon you and your personal sins are punished with personal judgements I do both pitty and forgive you and if I could prevent it I would It was the intent of the other Book and is the intent of this to take you off from your state and spirit of opposition to the power of the Nation from which you have do and will suffer so long as you persist in it The judgement I pass is upon the state in which you stand and the spirit by which you are acted This state which I have discoursed to you it is not Zion but Babylon Her filthiness is discovered in the sight of all the world and can no longer be hid In one hour is her judgement come Great is the Lord that judgeth her Righteous and true are his Judgements and they are made manifest God hath openly shewed what was in you it is seen known and felt that it is Babel confusion Therefore is the name of it called Babel because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth Gen. 11.9 Shall I need to apply it to you Do you not remember how much your language was confounded And do you not now feel how much you are scattered Doth it need to be said This is Babel As to your persons gifts and graces I do admit them to be the Lords and to belong to Zion But it is Zion that dwells with the daughter of Babylon Therefore I do write this to call you forth of Babylon Come out of her my people and be not partakers of her sins that ye receive not of her plagues Sword war blood killing persecuting wrath cursing and destroying are her sins and must be her plagues Neither you not any men can live in them but they will perish by them No man or men can act in them but they must suffer them It is the righteous jugdement of God against the beast and for the Lamb he that takes the sword shall perish by the sword and the meek suffering Lamb only shall reign If you had again or could recover all the power and force you had and an hundred times more you could hold it but one hour with
thing that opposed you was one and the same enemy In that troubled state you conclude I was turned to the world and backslidden to the present rising power Great guilt and great suffering meeting together must needs much disturb the mind of poor man If you in the trouble of your souls mistake me and if my mind be clear and at peace I may well bear it and pitty you and so I do My business was to be dayes-man between adverse parties I know I did not intrude into the office but refused and excused as Moses Who am I they will not believe nor hearken to my voice I am a man of no power or esteem and so put it off till I was compelled to appear and now I find the common fate of them that interpose to part the fray both parties fall upon him You think I am turned Courtier the Court thinks I am still a Fanatick T is but just I should receive both your neglects into me standing between you I am content to feel the evil of both because I love both and have in my soul good for both But you do not only judge me to be an enemy but worse an apostate brother and more wicked then your open adversaries for they only afflict the outward man I fall upon your spirits and principles We shall have occasion to discourse of spirits and principles hereafter but here I shall only mind you of two or three things First It is I confess a very difficult thing to judge of principles and spirits because they are inward and therefore strangers and enemies cannot judge of them It must be some friend or brother that hath conversed with them They that are still under them are judged by them and therefore they cannot judge of them It must be some that have travelled through them and have had experience of them spirits and principles are Gods and who can judge the Gods If any they that have been amongst them and tryed them you may from this find some reason why I should be chosen to do this service for you you generally know me my way and work hath been trying of spirits many years Secondly as it is difficult to judge spirits and principles so it is hard to bear the judgement of them Men can easier die and lay down their natural lives then suffer their principles to be touched Men of any common honesty do freely expose their flesh to death to save their Gods although they be but Idols But thirdly There are false Gods false spirits you know it and have familiarly accused others of it you know I know it I confess I do as we say to my cost it may be to your profit you have of late been hammering at a spiritual Antichrist an Antichrist within and it is most true many such there are can you think that you should be acting so many years against Antâ—christ all the while be ignorant of an Antichrist within who doth but now begin to peep â—ut and be discovered in you and you not guilty of receiving false principles or spirits Can all this smoke of confusion darkness and enmity be amongst you and no fire of false spirits Can there be so much reeling and staggering giddiness and instability and no wine of fornication no sophisticated or adulterated wine No spiritual harlots or false lovers Must all the corruption rotteness and filth he laid upon the poor flesh Is there no evil spirit that came in under the name of God to joyn with her to beget these bastard brood of hypocrisie covetousness and self-seeking Must man only bear the blame and not the unclean spirits that are gone out Or must God and his name only stand accused that he led his people by his Spirit into no better wayes Is it not then both justice to his name and mercy to man that these evil spirits and principles should be discovered and detected As it is proper for a friend or brother that hath been partaker with you in them and hath suffered greatly for it to discover them so it will be found a friendly and brotherly office to reprove them The plucking up these principles that lie deep and secret is I know terrible I have felt it so It seems to threaten the rooting out of religion and godliness it self I have found the same thing in my tryals God comes against them and his people engaged with them in great jealousie enraged as an enemy in fiery indignation and vengeance because nothing but his vengeance can destroy them but I have found great love in these fires of jealousie yea love to our nature and persons with forgiveness to our iniquities even then when he takes vengeance of our inventions I know you can neither be inwardly cleansed nor outwardly saved but by a death in your spirits and loss of these principles which have deluded you and brought you into this grievous snare and therefore shall in love and good will to man to your souls lives and liberties prosecute my purpose of manifesting those unsound principles that have deceived and mis-led you and shall not spare for your crying or frowardness SECT V. ANother objection against the Book is it is written much in Allegories because the present state of things is there represented in and by ancient Scriptures I acknowledge this to be a fault and possibly it might arise from the first great error of delay by keeping it in too long it might be thus overgrown with hair and get this dress or at least the same distrust that made me unwilling to write might make me willing to shrowd my mind under those coverings of Scripture wanting confidence to appear more open or strength to go without that help I might affirm that the things written are not meer allegories if they be so they are to me hatefull Idols for I know nothing more abominable then meer similitudes and forms of truth I may affirm that the same eternal spirit that brought forth those works in Adam and Noah of which you there read doth for ever keep the living image of them in himself and many ages after brought them forth in Moses mind and by Moses into writing so that the works done and the words writ are one and of one mind and spirit The same eternal spirit having in himself the same eternal image doth by it preserve the image written or the words and history The same eternal spirit eternally works and brings forth his own likness in all times and in our age and the same spirit that did them and writ them then doth them now and reveals them in that Book He that is wise will understand these things But let them go for Allegories and let me bear the blame of it I am content it should go so because I know we shall gain by all our miscarriages grow wise by mistakes For sin hath something of Physick in it many times if not alwayes it hath its own cure with it because
stand is this You presume and conclude First That you are the select and only people of God his Zion and Israel the true and only Gospel Saints And those that you oppose are Aegypt Babylon the World and Antichristian Secondly that your way in which you have and do walk and the works that you have done and would do again are according to the pure word and Law of God and that which you oppose is all Wickedness Superstition and Idolatry Thirdly That the war in which you have been engaged and upon which you stand is the way of God according to his will and word and therefore hath been and will be owned and justified by him Supposing all this that you are the people of God and Zion in Gods way and word engaged in his cause against Babylon and Antichrist there is then an unquestionable ground and assurance of a blessed success from the manifold promises of the Scripture But if this be not true and that you in this state and in this opposition are not that body that shall attain those promises And this be not the only way of God in which you walk and this war and engagement be not the means appointed by God to attain that glory you expect then be your intentions never so good and zealous your prayers never so fervent your gifts never so many your constancy never so great yet you will fail and the further you proceed in it the greater your loss will be If all this should be true that you should be the people yours the way war the means yet if you fail but in the circumstance of time if this be not the time determined for the fulfilling of what you expect there is righteous and mercifull reason for your retreating from such an opposition and engagement To have faith exercised about the promises of God to be fulfilled in these latter dayes to his people is an excellent thing whereby God will have glory his people deliverance and the whole earth peace But you may have a sight of this at a distance and know assuredly you shall have your share of it and be entertained with great joy concerning it have strong perswasions about it and yet may not attain it in that state of enmity and opposition in which you stand but in another more large holy and spiritual way Or the whole Church may enjoy it here and your souls for ever and yet your bodies may fall as carkasses in the wilderness for the impurity carnality uncharitableness frowardness and enmity of your way and spirits in your present state And therefore it is love and mercy to you to put you upon a thorough tryal and examination of your bottom spirit and way I consider not now your particular forms of Worship which are various and opposite one to another Nor your private and personal holiness fear of God conscience of his commands obedience to his word so far as you know which are not only to be admitted but approved and encouraged in a right way and in a right spirit but I would consider the way actions and work of the whole body in this publick engagement against the Government of the Nation and your private forms gifts and godliness as they have acted and still continue in the same opposition in order to turn your minds towards that which else is like to ruine your selves and families If this great affair and cause in which you have acted and do constantly persist in be the right and that you are the people yours the way this the means and time to attain the glorious things expressed in the Scripture then you must have these two things for your foundation strength and rule the Word and the Spirit of God If you are led by them and stand in them you will certainly prevail if not you will fall and must repent We may consider them either joyntly or severally for though they are two yet they are one also and never separated Let us consider the word of God the Scriptures There are three great works of God declared in it The deliverance of the children of Israel from Aeypt The redeeming of them out of Babylon And the grace and salvation revealed in the Gospel We have built our work upon all these and do think that our cause is the same with them all and therefore we have been fed continually with strength which we got as we could from them all But whether our work do justly evenly square to any of them is the question I am fully satisfied in my self that it doth not And that you if you will be ingenuous and in any measure of uprightness examine what you have done you will quickly find that you have not in your whole business come near your foundation and pattern I shall only hint some few things to you as they do occurr and leave you to consider the rest Only by the way be perswaded to think and feel that you are but men and may err many may err many good men may err actually you have erred though you be much better then others yet you may err and err greatly sometimes the best people err most Israel sinned beyond all the Heathen God will shame and humble all and make first last and the last first the best worst and worst best The Jews that seek shall not attain the Gentiles that sought not shall attain You differ one from another and so must err one against another you have all sinned and come short of the glory of God And therefore you may have erred as to this business fundamentally and either not know your bottom or be upon a false bottom And so through loss and missing come to attain a true right bottom If once you be but willing to be tried you will quickly see much SECT VII COnsider first Whether this great business you have and are engaged in do justly and evenly square to the first foundation Israels deliverance out of Aegypt It hath been so believed so prayed preached and praysed but not so done For 1. Israel was visited by God he came expresly to Moses spake to him in the bush when he had called him he sent him to Israel to lead them forth they stirred not till he had proved his commission But we can boast of no such visit the troubles of the Nation gave us opportunity to deliver our selves the necessities of the Parliament made us usefull whereby we got power and so by degrees broke the yoke that was upon us 2. Isratl had a King and High-Priest given of God to be their Leader and Guide he was also himself their Leader he went before them in the wilderness in a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night and never left them We had neither King nor Priest no Guide nor Leader but left to shift for our selves and wander from one thing to another as our own crooked and blind reason led us 3. They had Officers sent by
it is that upholds this state and spirit of opposition in your minds In order to peace I must pursue this enemy and if I can beat him out of all his holds therefore bear with me it is the enemy I pursue not you if he have gotten possession of your minds gifts and cause he will destroy you and them For I constantly find that he is worse to the subject then the object he doth more mischief much to him in whom he lives them to him whom he kills And he that acts wrath must needs be worse then he that suffers it For he that acts it is the servant and subject of that enemy or enmity but thâ— patient by suffering from it is removed from it into the contrary state the Lamb therefore enmity when it gets into an active knowing zealous people it is dangerously seated If it be by war success and advantage gotten into your hearts affections and spirits though I do some violence to all these to remove him if I be not judged a friend I am sure I am so For none but a friend will pursue enmity it self and my war is with enmity it self and my endeavour is to destroy it Let us therefore consider what it is that engages your minds so stiffly in an opposition to and hatred of the present authority of the Nation It is some Spiritual and Religious thing that commands your consciences and over-rules your judgements to that which to sense and reason is so full of danger It hath the place and power of a God in you and requires this of you under the notion of godliness and as a service to him and his cause You being so engaged it must needs be a high provocation to you for a man to question your God Religion and Principles I need not wonder if you be enraged at me You were dull souls if you did not come forth against me with all the might and power of your Zeal and Religion to condemn me for blaspheming your Cause Indeed I do not blame you for being angry at me I rather blame you that you do like women fret and scold but do not bring forth your reason against me If there be any courage or strength in you I shall do what I can to engage it It may be a mercy to you to draw you off from a fleshly and worldly contest with the Nation which will ruine you to a spiritual and friendly strife about Gods Principles and Religions In which war we shall draw no blood wast no treasure destroy no families nothing will be hurt that is right and good nothing be lost but the chaff and dust With this fire and sword of Spirit and Word will God plead with all flesh This is truly and only the war of God for the cause of God And the weapons of this warfare are not carnal but spiritual mighty to pull down the strongest holds of the enemy With this fire and sword of the Word and Spirit God pleads with all flesh with all Parties with all opinions Episcopal Prosbyterian Independants Anabaptists A fleshly war by fleshly means in a fleshly spirit of pride envy impatience self-seeking c. may destroy men but encreases division multiplies corruption provokes sin in the subdued swells it in the conqueror fills all with misery But this war is of one God one life one peace one salvation against all men in their fleshly opposing one another and proud exalting themselves one over another and destroys no men nor sort of men but the evil and enmity of all it destroyes only him that destroyes the earth The standard that I do advance in this war is love the royal Law of love love to man to mankind to all men to humane nature love to sinners to enemies to the worst of sinners You are religiously and conscientiously engaged to oppose pray against curse and destroy the present Magistracy and Ministry of the Nation because it is corrupt and sinfull both persons and things This was your cause and spirit and still is except you repent and desert the principles in which you have been acted Against this spirit and religion do I advance this standard it was asserted in my former Book but not raised high enough to be publikely observed or dealt with It is more fully this Since God hath revealed his good will to mankind and his large mercy to all men to sinners and enemies not only to the godly but to the ungodly and unrighteous and made his own example a Law and Rule in his house to all his children He that hateth his brother is in darkness knows not lives not in the true light of Christ is not of Gods mind If he saith he is in the light and pretends to religion and the way of God he is a liar and is in darkness until now and knoweth not whither he goeth 1 John 2.9 11. I know this is exceeding strange and contrary to the whole frame of religion wherein you have been exercised these many years For of late all religion and light hath only served to hate and destroy and in this kind of religion the further and higher men go the more they hate and with more cruel hatred first hate the evil Council then the King then the Lords then the Commons First hate the Bishops then the Ministers then the Presbyterian equal to the Episcopal then the Independant and Anabaptist Churches then all Religion and so one generation of hatred ha h begot another worse and worse but no salvation no healing no pardoning any Sure this is very different from that large and universal good will that is declared by Christ This hatred is condemned here to darkness to the Prince of darkness who is the enemy the wicked or malignant one For if we walk in the light as God is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Christ cleanseth from us all sin He is in the light and in him is no darkness at all the darkness is no darkness to him he doth not stumble is not offended at it he is pure and holy and nothing can pollute and defile him he shines in darkness and the darkness comprehends him not thanks him not loves him not yet he shines still And they that have fellowship with him may be and are where he is and see as he sees do as he doth and not be polluted or offended he that is taught of God as God is so is he in this world he shines in darkness and is not comprehended by it nor subjected to it nor offended at it and therefore quarrels not with them that are in it but pitties pardons and relieves them yea though they are not only dark and ignorant but malitious and spitefull against him and would destroy him yet he sets not himself against them but on the contrary feeds clothes sustains their outward and inward man their bodies and souls And this he doth as an example and pattern to his
a thing is to try the good and the evil all judgement supposes a right and a wrong and an indifferency to both with an endeavour to find out both Now consider how you are affected to your Adversaries and you will find that you do absolutely hate them as persons and things to be cut off from the earth As the people of Gods wrath and of his curse as enemies to Jesus Christ doomed to destruction for ever So that judgement is past if this be your minds and you have nothing to do but to seek their ruine As you see you cannot judge till you cease to hate so you may here see the nature and kind of hatred When God hath judged a people to be scourged and spoiled for their sins and given them up to wrath and the curse he hath instruments prepared for the execution of them some fierce self-seeking hating persons To these he discovers the Sentence and represents the Party to be punished as cloathed with his Curse and then they fall on with all their zeal and might as glad of such employment But poor wretches they know not the counsel of God not the measure nor end of his displeasure And therefore form up other conceits in their heads as the King of Assyria did Howbeit he meaneth not so neither doth his heart think so but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off Nations not a few Isa 10.7 Success in such employments are certain and constant which the proud Executioner cannot bear but his hatred is enlarged as hell and presently thinks of destroying Nations not a few glorying in the success he is swelled with pride and thinks to conquer all the world This is only to shew you the true original and nature of hatred it is rooted in the Curse of God and in the Devil the great minister of the Curse who hath power of death he sets man on to execute the Curse and then inflames him into high thoughts of himself for his work What a mercy it will be for poor man to be redeemed from this vile service and the absurd and woful errors that do attend it To return to our purpose while you hate you cannot judge of them you hate and the judgement you make is no judgement or a false one For Secondly You did judge them Babylon Antichristian enemies and that therefore their judgement was for ever and ever Such you know is the destruction of Babylon as a Mill-stone cast into the Sea as the Angel said Rev. 18.21 and be found no more at all The voice of Harps and Musitians shall not be found in her nor the light of a candle nor the voice of the Bridegroom c. So you thought of these that they would never recover more And now you see the Musick and the Candles and the Mirth is risen again out of the Sea and hath escaped the mill-stone and the drowning too Now remember and consider You judged them Babylon and therefore to be destroyed for ever but now you find it otherwise your judgement therefore is false Had they been what you imagined them they had never rose Or had you or your judgement been true they had never recovered nor you faln if you erred as to the kind of the punishment you erred also as to their state I know you must think that this recovery of theirs is but in order to an utter and final destruction And the reason of it is because if you do think it otherwise you must condemn all your prayers praises and interpretations of Scriptures that you have made for your selves and against them a long time Therefore till you repent of them you must believe your enemies must perish be it never so irrational For they cannot be justified till your enemies do fall they being grounded upon their ruine But pray consider this is a present shift and but a shift It will not cover your shame It is far easier to confess ten errours ten years errours the errours of ten thousand persons then to justifie one errour Be you never so good great and many you are but men you may err you have erred and run out of one errour into another many years together He against whom you have exclaimed delusions delusion is able to say to you now You have been and are under strong delusions I have thought it and published it and now it is proved to be so If ever it come to pass as you expect an utter and final destruction of your enemies it must be by a spirit that is more holy true and righteous then that in which you have hitherto acted And such a spirit you cannot have till you repent of the former I shall help you what I can An utter and final destruction will come and now is begun upon all wicked and ungodly works although it be not seen and felt for all wicked works are in the wicked one and he in the wrath of God in which he and they shall lie for ever All his works will be destroyed in judgement for this fire will destroy his works and save the persons But your spirit or the spirit in which you acted would destroy persons and things but did encrease ungodliness for both your selves and enemies also are not better but worse by what you have administred Thirdly I hope you will now confess that you and your Party are worse then you thought you were If you are worse then you judged why should you not think that your enemies are better then you judged If you are not such holy blessed heavenly Saints as you thought you were then by the Law of contraries they are not such Devils or brats of Antichrist as you conceived them If you are weak men as it appears you are then your judgement of them is like your selves weak and fallible And as you fall from your Mountain of exaltation so must they rise and stand upon even ground with you and be like your selves weak sinful men as you are If you are not quite void of modesty and reason you cannot but admit that they have some good in them because there is so much evil in you that have opposed them If there was so much folly giddiness and drunkenness in your opposition you cannot but think that there is some good in these that you oppose As I do admit that there was some good in you that did oppose some evil in them so you must admit that evil in you and that evil opposition that you made must be against something good in them For evil where ever it is it fights against good Indeed if there were no good in them and no evil in you you need not you would not oppose them for that which is perfectly good is above all opposition And that which is perfectly evil is below it That lives in a heaven in it self this in hell and confusion that is salvation and rest in it self this is destruction and sinks under the weight of its
own shame and guilt Most of you that have had any light or sense of things have of late found a spiritual Antichrist which is within This conviction was but late upon you and but weak and therefore you have possibly now lost the sight of this enemy in you But there he is and will be found out This spiritual Antichrist was in you from the beginning of your work though he appeared but lately And being in you he did work with you pray with you fight with you protest and covenant with you was in all your zeal judgings fastings and engagements You never had any thing pure or clean without him If this be indeed Antichrist as certainly he is the Antichrist for spiritual Antichrist is greater then fleshly Antichrist more dangerous wicked and malicious The nature of this Antichrist is to oppose Christ he doth it constantly and cannot do otherwise Then if he hath been in you and acted in you in your wars and works he hath opposed Christ in those wars and works And then there must be something of Christ in them that you oppose I shall still help you what I can This spiritual Antichrist hath opposed Christ First in your own spirits and slain that Lamb meekness innocency and love in you and set up a proud cruel bloody spirit in the worship of God and in you his semple Secondly this spiritual Antichrist made you fierce and cruel to your Brethren that d ffered from you And thirdly it made you false cruel and unmerciful to your enemies not admitting them to the common favour and mercy which God shews to all men My intent is by levelling the lofty confidences of men to bring them nearer together and so to prepare them for peace and reconciliation All have sinned and come short of the glory of God God hath concluded and shut up together all men in one pit of darkness and enmity that he might have mercy upon all that none may glory or exalt themselves one over another None are righteous nor saved because they are righteous nor shall any be destroyed because they are sinners for therefore are all shut up in one pit that mercy may bring them all forth If any be worse then others it is they that have most knowledge and sinned against greatest favour And they may again receive most mercy for where sin hath abounded Grace shall much more abound They that are first humbled will first see and partake of this large excellent and eternal salvation Therefore my friends be not stout against the Lord but fall under his rebuke Of pride comes contention If you be truly humbled you will cease to strive You have been as Capernaum exalted to heaven in gifts success titles names expressions and are now brought down to hell not only to outward shame and lofs but to the filth lies pride and enmity of hell Who can deny the most high this prerogative to set up as high as heaven in the brightness and glory of a Ministry and bring down again to the blackness and foulness of hell Shall foolish man think that because God dresses him up and calls him forth to serve him he cannot again reject that man and his service also Or because he makes things honourable at least in mans esteem that he shall not again dishonour them Hath not the Potter power over the Clay to form it a vessel of honour or dishonour Hath he not power to fashion it for a service employ it in that service and then break it in pieces and make it new again He that knows not himself knows nothing truly for all wisdom begins at the knowledge of our selves We know nothing till we know our selves And we know nothing fully till we know it in our selves We know nothing rightly till we our selves rightly measured are the measure of others It is apparent you are mistaken in your selves and in your work and therefore those unexpected corruptions of division envy covetousness and self seeking are broken forth and discovered After those corruptions unexpected confusions After those confusions unexpected ruine and destruction is upon you Therefore you have over-valued your selves And they that over-value themselves must necessarily undervalue their enemies One cannot be without the other Most men their righteousness is of that nature they are good because others are worse Enemies can no longer think themselves good then they think their enemies wicked And therefore men are necessitated when they become enemies to any to aggravate their evils all that they can to feed and satisfie their own anger at them and not only to think them evil but to rejoyce when their evil appears either of sin or punishment which shews the vile nature of enmity it engages a mans soul to mischief it makes men study it long for it thirst after it and if it comes not his hatred stirs him and pricks him on both to think it to speak it to pray for it and to act it as much as he can Therefore consider your selves you have read Luke 16.15 That which is highly esteemed amongst men is an abomination in the sight of God You highly esteemed your work and state It is become abominable in the sight of men in part in your own sight It was first so in Gods sight For if he had not abominated it it had not faln into that vile state in which it now lies under guilt shame and loss Consider then if that which is highly esteemed by men may be abominable in the sight of God may not that also which men have abominated become highly esteemed of God Yea is it not alwayes so What men reject God chuses The base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen yea and things that are not that he might bring to naught things that are 1 Cor. 2.28 And for this reason v. 29. that no flesh might glory in his presence If one Party only should be accepted as sometimes it is for a season then doth that Party glory in his presence as you did in the time of your exaltation Now God rejects you and chuses them whom you scorned Yet they must not be happy alone for God will have mercy upon all It were no dishonour to you that forgiveness and reconciliation should begin in you To prepare you for it are you brought down from your confidence You laid all the evil upon your adversaries and now must be content to bear shame with them You are not the only Saints and Zion nor they the only Antichrist and Babylon You have found an Antichrist within and he is worse then one without A spiritual Antichrist is worse then a fleshly Antichrist Their Religion is corrupt and not pure Hath not yours also been corrupted with the worst kind of corruption malice and hypocrisie Theirs is clogged with outward pomp worldly honour Yours was so awhile But theirs was given by blind superstitious people And yours was taken by force of arms But their
Religion is not according to Scripture nor is any form of Religion now in the Nation All build something of their own and therefore they differ None are exactly according to the pattern of the Apostles neither in form nor power As all are sharers in the evil so in the good also You are not Angels of light nor they Devils you are all men Englishmen weak and sinful men You have personal gifts but an ill state They have personal defects they have a better state an outward at least They are upon the foundation of Law whether spiritually or no is the question It is not with you it may he found among them You have suffered they have suffered But they are not better by sufferings It is well this is an objection for by this there appears an expectation that they should mend Nor are you better by mercies And mercies are more Gospel and effectual means of Grace then judgements Israel was punished and was worse by it and yet not utterly rejected You suffered for conscience so did they But their sufferings are not for a pure conscidence neither are yours purely for conscience Not only for well-doing there is a mixture in both yours and theirs There is great reason why you should come to know one another for one Party succeeds another and is content to let the other be their rule and pattern You learned of your enemies lordlinses gentility wayes and forms of state of greatness they come after you and learn your wayes of finding plots disturbing meetings discountenancing disgracing imprisoning Adversaries They are and do now where you were and as you did not long since They ride upon you as you rode upon them They crush you as you crushed them You afflicted and vexed them they do the same things to you Must not the word of Christ be fulfilled Mat. 7. 1 2. Judge not that you be not judged For with what judgement you judge you shall be judged And with what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again This I declared to you when you began this judging and oppressing way that it would return upon you you would not bear then will you understand now Then know this and let all men learn by it First you began this hardness in them against your selves You reap what you sowed spoyling imprisonment hatred death Secondly God acts and rules in all mens spirits in these things and that justly and therefore be not wrathful against them but submit to God in it The Lord hath said Curse Thirdly And may we not say as Rom. 11.28 They are enemies for your sakes but as touching the election they are beloved for the Fathers sake It is for your sakes that they are acted thus against you to make you sensible of the work you have done What a goodly thing it is to ride upon men and to watch over them for evil When you come to a right sense and repentance of that work and spirit you yet glory in then will that spirit cease to afflict you because it is for your sakes For God delighteth not in afflicting If he doth send evil it is for good As it is the just fruit of your own doings so certainly will repentance remove it Be not therefore angry at the hand but feel the staff of Gods indignation in their hand And when you come to mourn over your selves that you have been so acted your will pitty them that succeed you in that kind of employment For it must be found on all sides to be but a sad service to be a tormentor of others And when you come to pitty them that they should be made enemies for your sakes that they should be made a rod because you want chastening and be that rod to you that you were to them You will then see that both you and they are beloved for the Fathers sake neither for your own sakes And may also see that they have a good root and will bring forth better fruit in its season When we are fit to partake of it SECT XII HAtred so blinds men that they know not themselves nor their enemies It makes men worse then otherwayes they would be and yet to think better of themselves then ever they were It makes men think their enemies worse then they are and it makes those enemies worse then they would be And therefore the third thing follows they that hate their Brethren darkness hath blinded their eyes and they know not whither they go Enmity is of the Devil and he is in darkness God hath with-held light from him he hath neither the light of Christ nor of Angels no nor of men All his wayes and all the wayes of men that are acted in his spirit are most irrational and absurd things All men so far as they are led by malice are hurried and driven by the wrath of God blowing up their passions unto unreasonable things without any judgement or understanding Let us look back upon our wars Did any of us know when we begun whither we should go or did we once dream or imagine the things we have since done and the strange paths we have trodden Have we not been driven beyond all our purposes Declarations and Vows into crooked and contrary wayes which our Reason and Religion did at first condemn and will again when we recover either the one or the other Was there ever such a heap of inconsistencies and independencies such a mass of confusion in Church and state And if we were blinded then we are so still if we persist For we are not better but worse now then at first we have multiplied notions and opinions but have decayed both in innocency and love We were then more simple more moderate and less guilty and bloody And are now more enraged more hardened and more polluted Therefore the further we go in this way the worse we are and the deeper shall we plunge our selves in misery The whole Party that stand out in opposition to the present Governors and Government of the Nation are divided in all things and in the kind or degree at least of their enmity Some are more gross and carnal and thirst for war and blood but many are taken off in part from hopes of any good by war but yet their spirits are still in enmity preaching against praying against or cursing reviling and condemning them as enemies to God and his people and denouncing and expecting judgements from heaven against them Both these are of the same nature are from the same root or fountain and will If there be occasion fall into the same Channel Indeed all strife and envy though it be but in the heart yet it is in the judgement of the holy Apostle James chap. 3.15 earthly sensual and devilish And therefore it doth darken pollute and defile the soul And by how much more inward or seeming spiritual it is it is by so much the more dangerous because more devilish And being so no man
can command it it will master every mind in which it is and lead him at last to carnal wayes if it be not outwardly restrained ' For he that will curse will also destroy And he that doth the greater what should hinder him to do the less They that condemn men to Satan and to hell they will hardly forbear killing of them if they have power and opportunity or doing such mischief as their hatred directs them to The root of all this is the Serpent Out of the Serpents root comes forth a Cockatrice and his fruit a fiery flying Serpent from this root the Serpent shoots forth this hissing Adder or Cockatrice of cursing And the fruit is a fiery flying Serpent the former soon gets wings and flames out in open hostility I aim at no less then the root of this hatred â—n all men the Devil And finding that he hath at last taken Sanctuary in Religion and the profession thereof and hath therein acted with so much vigor and security I must pursue him into your heart and spirits It is his main fort Zeal for God and his Cause if we can heat him hence we shall hope to drive him out of the earth For if this hold be taken from him he will have very little strength to make resistance any where else That this enemy is amongst you we have sufficient proof We follow him by a train of blood and by the track of all the beasts his companions pride covetousness falshood self-seeking And we see the smoak of his confusion and hear the noise of his violence among you Therefore you must endure to be assaulted and searched I know it will cost you dear it will shake the whole frame and foundation of your Religion to have him quite destroyed in you it did so in me his root lies deep But if you can bear the tryal and become free from this soul enemy your persons and gifts will shine in the true and everlasting glory of the Lamb of God Possibly you may have the honour of yielding up and slaying the last and greatest strength of this enemy of mankind I am satisfied that the horns of his beastly power are both sawn off and scattered And that the Lamb of God is conqueror and doth begin already to bud and spring forth in many persons who do abhor the filth and deceit of war blood and wrath And do see that nothing springs from thence but mischief and confusion To help forward the birth of this spirit of love and to guide your feet in a way of peace have I engaged in this discourse It will be an honourable and lasting conquest to overcome him He hath betrayed and spoyled all other your conquests Now we shall be revenged on him and destroy him who hath destroyed by you and then destroyed you also I suppose there is a rich treasure of life righteousness and holiness hid in the nature of man Yea I know it and am one with it Even the very Kingdom of God is amongst us and in us This rich treasure hath come forth in profession name and prophesie in your spirits But it hath miscarried and faln short This is certainly from this evil one it is he that hath done you this michief And it is he amongst your selves For an open enemy could not hurt you could not stand before you It is he that hath betrayed you His great strength lies in enmity whereby he brings darkness confusion and every evil work You know confusion and enmity divided distracted and ruined you What need we any plainer evidence Therefore it must be enmity and hatred that hath destroyed you And it must be victory against him and it that must save you We have already shewed you that hatred though it begin against those that are further off yet it will not stay there If it be admitted it will reign He that will hate any man because he differs from him or because he is sinful will hate his nearest friend because he may and doth differ and is sinful He that to preserve himself and his own way of Religion will destroy a Cavaleer will upon the same ground destroy a Presbyterian Independant or Quaker and consequently all that oppose him Indeed he that will not suffer for sinners for enemies must resolve to kill all sinners and enemies or all that will not conform to him Therefore it is the same enmity wherewith you prosecuted your first enemies and your brethren the very same violence and self-love that enraged you against them kept you from agreeing one with another And the same conceits that you were the people of God and that yours was the only way of God that made you abjure and renounce the King and Church the very same opinion and confidence made you oppose one another Each man being confident his own way was the only way made you unyielding one to another For that which will not submit to any thing but what is Gods mind and what he knows to be Gods mind must necessarily oppose every man that differs from him You know whereunto this tends And therefore there can be no peace but in that love which can bear with that which to him doth not appear to be Gods mind or can submit to them that do not in all things the holy and perfect will of God And if we have so much love and pitty as to bear them that do err in a little if we have more love we may bear them that err much The truth is we must either quarrel with all or bear the weakness of all in love to all It is therefore this enemy that hath abused you and misled you into those dark wayes in which you now he Hitherto you have not known whither you have gone he perswaded now by light reason and experience not to follow him who draws you into a snare and there spoils you of your peace and safety We suppose you are travelling towards the Kingdom of Christ I believe you would see him upon the throne The enemy tells you These men that you oppose hinder him and his Kingdom and that by their destruction Christ shall be exalted You are herein quite out of the way to his Kingdom First While you seek to gain a Kingdom for him you deny to acknowledge that Kingdom which his Father hath already given him He is set down upon his Fathers Throne And that throne is everlasting You may therefore seek a Kingdom for your selves but not for him And in doing so you do both deny and resist his Kingdom And fight with him because he doth not set you up with him Secondly His Kingdom is first in patience The Kingdom and patience of Jesus And a blessed Kingdom it is to rest in suffering They that are truly Kings with him have the Kingdom in themselves and first enjoy it on the Cross triumphing there They who by the riches of their natures or by God in them can enrich poverty make bonds free
Government Or else by a friendly agreement with these or any other Governours If you resolve upon the first to destroy all that are not according to your conscience that your conscience may have liberty Then you would destroy all mens consciences but your own and all men for their consciences which is the most contrary to liberty of Conscience that can be Most contrary because you will endure none but your selves and that you would raise a war that you might establish a Law of cruelty which is a thousand times worse then to persecute by an established Law and Authority That power that you would have must be thorow the lives of thousands of your enemies and after that thousands of your friends for they that strive for a power never did nor never will agree in the sharing or administring of it But when through blood and destruction of friends and foes you have gotten it If you should prevail and you in your own persons escape yet that power gotten by war in that spirit you and we in reason must expect that it will be most cruel because raised and begotten by cruelty Indeed it is so horrid and irrational that the bare proposing of it will make reasonable men abhor such a thought For nothing but irrational and blind zeal with discontent and passion can so much blind the nature of man as to lead him into such unnatural things If your spirits do indeed drive to this to the removing and destroying the present state of things as an accursed thing then the ingenuous and seek not liberty from them nor complain of them for not giving it For every such acknowledgement of them doth confirm them and so contradict your prayers and endeavours to destroy them Sometimes secretly and cunningly to curse them and another time openly and for advantage to acknowledge them is falshood and deceit And will attain nothing but shame and confusion For there is little but shame and confusion in it It is a vile thing in private and secret to pray or warily to preach against a State and openly to comply with it in so doing our lives contradict our prayers or our prayers our lives But if this be the drift of your spirits though never so warily carried do you think it is not felt and understood by them that you so oppose you cannot conceal it from them It is wise counsel Solomon gives Curse not the King no not in thy thought or conscience for a bird of the air shall carry the voice and that which hath wings shall tell the matter It must be understood spiritually for it cannot be meant literally Angels are intelligences and intelligencers they are principalities and powers and attend both the Throne and Altar they are present in dominion at Court and in your Closets at your devotions They are the birds and that which hath wings that tell the matter Publick authority hath publick ears and eyes and reach all corners Spiritual intelligencers as well as outward informers If they know and feel that you intend their destruction must they not abhor that spirit that under pretence of liberty of Conscience really endeavours liberty of destroying and of overthrowing Governments to exalt themselves And if they understand any thing they must think These men seek our destruction and as they pray for it and preach it so they will if they can or dare attempt it as they have done And therefore they having such a sense of you you cannot in reason expect but that they should labour to suppress you If they find rebellion war and wrath in the principles of it though in religious duties and conscience will they not suppress both the rebellion and conscience and the duties or worship in which it is And shall they not be justified in so doing I am sure your Law and Practise will justifie them For the same thing hath been done often and would be again if you had power while you are in this spirit When you shall recover either your own nature and reason or the nature of the Lamb out of this Spiritual drunkenness and cruel zeal you will find First That Antichrist the great enemy of Christ is also an enemy to man to his life peace civil order Law and to all humane Ordinances Secondly That this enemy is a spirit the Angel of the bottomless pit And therefore his chief seat and place is in spiritual things in conscience and in the spirits of men and in those things wherein spiritual men or the spirits of men are exercised in gifts religion and holy duties and his last and greatest strength is not in corrupt forms but in those that are most spiritual most lively zealous and gifted Others are but the flesh these the horns of the beast Thirdly And therefore conscience and the spirits of men even in Religion and in lively or spiritual Religion is grievously polluted by him This Templo of God is defiled by him You must come to know it and feel it as I have done Fourthly The nature of this beast is to destroy whence he hath his name Apollyon a destroyer His highest place is conscience gifted mens spirits enlightened and his highest work is to kill and destroy and in order to that to curse and blaspheme with those spiritual gifts Fifthly This spiritual beast this destroyer cannot but be seen and felt by the common reason of men although they cannot judge him yet they must have a sense of him as an enemy to that life and peace in which they live and to that Authority and Government which is committed to them Sixthly As they cannot but discern and feel the horns of this beast that pushes them and wounds them so they cannot but arm themselves with such weapons as they have against him If it be a State it will defend it self by Laws punishments policies and power Seventhly This self-defence though it be earthly cannot be denyed them yea they will be justified in it so far as it is rational humane and necessary and for the preservation of peace and common safety Wherein any are cruel and revengeful that is devilish also and then it is the beast against the beast But an humane care to maintain Law Authority and Peace though it be no more yet it is good against a destroying spirit that would bring in war and confusion under the highest notion of Religion and Reformation The ordinary and common Ordinances of man are to be justified in acting against a Religion Zeal that seeks the subverting of them The first is useful necessary and profitable the other is hurtful and destructive Eighthly The Law and Authority of a Nation defending it self from this spirit by its own weapons being outward must necessarily fall upon the persons lives and liberties of them that are ngaged in this spirit I am grieved in my soul for both both wound my heart both the agents and patients In love to mankind I am afflicted for them and feel the
by the sword to raigning and ruling by force They are surely most contrary and therefore Christ knowing he was to suffer commanded Peter to put up his sword and gave this rule for ever He that taketh up the sword to defend himself from suffering or to fight for Christ shall perish by the sword Note 1. We took up the sword at first to avoid suffering and to deliver our selves and Party 2. We now perish by that sword 3. If we now begin to learn what we then refused we go back and repent of all these twenty years work We may I think well do it as it was our work and therein justifie both the righteousness of God in his works and our honesty and innocency in serving of him This your Profession of suffering for Christ will I think overthrow all your active dispensation and if you be true to it it will lead you to an open declaration of the change of your minds and to a faithful resolution wholly to commit your cause to God and never more take up arms to deliver your selves and destroy others If you can do this pluck up this root of bitterness and cut out this core it will be a great ease both to your selves and the Nation If you are able to pull it up and remove it from you by a full honest and clear demonstration of your hearts and minds that may be sufficient to satisfie the Magistrate It will effect one of these two things Either it will overcome your enemies with love and so heal all the distractions of the Nation Or if they continue to persecute after such a declaration of your minds they will soon break themselves For by love and patience Christ hath and doth overcome all enmity and will do so for ever it is the most certain and invincible strength that ever was When you prosecuted the King and his Party beyond bounds and measure you went into confusion and there lost your selves And if they should be guilty of the same thing and pursue a weak faln people beyond the measure set by God the same confusion will be in their affairs that was in yours I think this of your present sufferings That in a large and common sense they are the sufferings of Christ as the sufferings of all men are his so far as they are humane though weak In all their afflictions he is afflicted The sins and sufferings of all are laid upon him We all like sheep have gone astray and the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all and as our sins so our sorrows Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows Even of all Parties and of the worst of all not the godly only but the wicked not the obedient only but the rebells He made his grave with the wicked Even for the rebellious that the Lord God might dwell amongst them Therefore we do see that all Parties are enabled to suffer for that Cause they engage in And do find mercy to pardon their sins and strength to suffer death The common resolution of a man strengthened with the common grace of the Gospel and with any measure of common honesty or an opinion of the justice and truth of their cause do carry men off the stage of the world into death handsomly and steadily That some of you that have suffered have met with more peace and more innocency in suffering then in acting And more love and comfort in a prison and death then in a corrupt toylsom and sinful life in war and contests I do not wonder and yet cannot magnifie it as Martyrdom This I am bold to affirm That Christ hath not yet in these times so clearly or visibly set up his standard and gathered a people to it into distinction from other men as to commit his name truth and cross wholly and only to them Nor hath he formed a body by any law rule spirit or ministry into an outward profession under any visible charracters as he did in the Primitive times And therefore there are none whose sufferings can challenge this peculiar honour of fighting under this standard the Cross of Christ Therefore I do much fear that this profession and glorying in the Cross will cost you dear and involve you in deeper sufferings then you are aware of You will sooner come to a true feeling of your selves and a sober sense of your condition if you would sink down into your confession and acknowledgement of the righteous hand of God upon you for your sins And alas not so much for your personal sins as for the evil state and spirit in which you have acted Against it hath God very great indignation I feel in my soul God hath great pitty to your persons as men and as his creatures and servants And because as weak men you have been deceived and misled But that corrupt state and that spirit that misled you is judged for ever and never can nor shall recover It is not the lowness of a condition that keeps a people down but the unsoundness of it Were we once true and single we should find rest and peace in the worst things and deliverance out of them The upright may and shall rejoyce in the hottest fires and soon come forth But a false and unsound state must fall from heaven though it be exalted thither To fall under sin and shame to be humbled under the feet of the vilest creatures in the world to bear first our own sins and then the wrath scorn and revenge of all the world Is nearer to Christ shews more of innocency then t◠〈◊〉 our selves For the first part of 〈◊〉 Christian righteousness is to bear sin to judge and condemn our selves and to intercede for others To justifie our selves and condemn others is very contrary to the Cross of Christ This may seem and is strange to men but the mysterie of the Cross of Christ will open it to them that seek wisdom To conclude this point I do judge that as there was confusion in your actings so there is in your sufferings And though you are much to be pittied yet not to be justified in them or for them There is much mixtures in them Ingagements and necessity make men stout in their way Naturally what men cannot make good by wisdom and power they will maintain by resolution in suffering It is easier far for men to do so and die then to repent A false spirit and zeal will carry men out in suffering even to death it self as well as a true Yea the anguish and pain of so great a disappointment will make men chuse rather to die then to live in the shame and disgrace of it Shame is the greatest affliction to some tempers And therefore it is easier to die then to yield confess and give glory If there should be none of all this in your present sufferings yet so long as there is bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not and lie not
become our advantage if we be made wise by our failings Let us first observe the process of things After his Majesties return there was by the sweetness and gentleness of his Government a great calmness and stilness in the Nation and in a degree in the most opposite The trying condemning and executing of the prisoners for the death of his late Majesty stirred a new passion in the spirits of many people And the execution together with the resolution of the sufferers revived a zeal confidence and boasting of their cause and an extraordinary earnestness in their minds which was expressed in incessant meetings discourses and prayers day and night These passions and religious exercises boyl up their minds into new heats which kindled this wild-fire and at last blowed it up into this open Insurrection That you may understand the reason of these things let it be considered what I have expressed in this and the former Treatise 1. That God had a controversie with this Church and Nation because of its sins and its sinful state and standing not with the things themselves only as they stood in darkness and weakenss 2. God must have some to plead this controversie with the Government and Governors of Church and State 3. Those that he called forth for that purpose he inspires and impowers with spirit for that work 4. The seat and subject of this spirit and ministry is the judgements and consciences of men For men by being inspired and led into opinions and judgements contrary to the received Law of the Church are thereby fitted to be instruments in Gods hand of his displeasure to the Church For the Church cannot be tried but by such spirits and judgements which differ from it and are contrary to it 5. They that are thus impowered for such a service so far as they do the will of the most high Lord in it are to be owned and justified Though the office be never so mean and never so contrary to â—he honours wills and wayes of States and Kingdoms yet it is the rod of God and must be kissed 6. These ministers of this displeasure have transgressed exceeded â—heâ—r Commission and exalted themselves in their service And so corrupted themselves and defiled their work This also is true Therefore there is in them that have executed this displeasure and in their consciences and work something that is just and something that is unjust and unrighteous Till these are distinguished there is no right judgement of them It must also be considered and it is granted by all Divines That the works of divine Providence and Government are executed by the administration of Angels Both the standing and changing of Governments is by the ministry of these principalities and powers Therefore in the great revolutions of this Kingdom both good and bad Angels have been employed They being spirits their proper sphere in which they move is the spirits and consciences of men Therefore it follows that as there hath been in these great Providences a righteous work of God and with it much unrighteousness so there are both Angels of light and of darkness inspiring the minds and consciences of men Now to administer justice upon men that have acted in these things without any judgement made of the principles and spirits that have moved in them cannot be thought to be perfect nor a right way to cure our distractions For outward punishments upon the body will not remove the evils that are planted by spirits in the consciences and judgements of men 1. For all men know First That if there be but a little truth and uprightness in any conscience it will bear up the person in the greatest outward suffering Neither death nor hell are able to over-power the least grain of honesty in the poorest wretch that ever lived That which is sincere is able to live and triumph under many sins and sufferings and will never yield till right be done to it 2. Mens spirits and consciences and the spirits that inspire and lead them are above the reach of the secular sword and only subject to the Scepter of Christ in his Church to the sword of the Spirit 3. Conscience though erroneous and seduced will enable men to suffer bodily punishment imprisonment and death with great chearfulness And if they are laid upon men without the means of conviction they do harden men in errour And therefore legal proceedings only to bodily punishments are not sufficient remedies to cure these distempers The case of the Nation under its present distempers is certainly extraordinary and far different from what it was an hundred or fifty years since Great variety of spirits are gone forth which have raised up the minds of men to a greater height of reason religion and resolution And old ordinary remedies will not cure new and extraordinary diseases If the Physick be not proper to cure and remove the disease it will by stirring the humours and enraging of them make dangerous commotions in the body For if men either from some measure of simplicity be it in the least degree and much mixed or from some spiritual operation be it of what kind it will or from an erroneous conscience If from any of these the sufferer be able to repell the Sentence of the Judge and to glory in his suffering and in a shew of righteousness to triumph over death he doth notably affront and wound that authority and judgement under which he suffers A man and his cause when he comes to judgement is brought out into the open view of all men and not only made publick but he and his cause is exalted to endure a conflict and tryal with the Law If the Law comes forth with that brightness and majesty that it ought the man is condemned in his own conscience and so justifies the Law and submits to his sentence and by this the Law and Authority is honoured But if the person judged stands clear in his own conscience upon any account and acquits himself in the face of dead when all men ordinarily yield such have a kind of conquest and do seem to overcome the sentence which must needs have an effect upon the people For people do naturally mind dying men death is King of terrours and it is a great thing to die it raises men on high And therefore in them that can die comfortably and confidently there is a great appearance of righteousness and worth which doth much affect the minds of people some are moved to pitty the sufferer and thereby his words and cause steals into their minds Others are convinced and drawn to the Party Others are hardened and strengthened by it For men think with themselves I cannot live comfortably bur here is that which will make me able to die comfortably and that is worth embracing That which makes the Magistrate to be feared and reverenced is his power of life and death That which makes men able to overcome death secretly overcomes the Magistrate
For every one that goes out of the world glorying in his righteousness makes a breath both in death and in the authority that inflicts it And when it comes to be easie and familiar as it will by a little practise Authority and Magistracy it self will be by such despised I shall commend to the Magistrate an Observation of mine own concerning the nature of man That he may consider what he governs and how he ought to govern him Man is a noble and stout creature There is so much of the majesty of the image of God in faln man that he retains much of the greatness though he have lost his goodness There lies raked up in this dust an invincible spirit that never will be subdued by force God could never break the rebellion of the Israelites by all his punishments upon them And therefore sayes Why should ye be stricken any more ye will revolt more and more Isa 1.5 All the terrours of the Law could never subject Paul but he sayes himself When the commandment came sin revived and I died Rom. 7.9 When the law came with terrour against him then fin roused up it self unto a desperate opposition There being such stoutness in mans heart that all the force of the Law could not subdue God sent his Son in love to this stout creature to take his flesh and so to soften and overcome it and in it to destroy both Law and sin This will shew us what is in man There is as much of this courage and greatness of spirit in the English as in any people under heaven which is very much awakened in these times both by the wars and by long liberty and a free exercise of their minds in Religion For first the people were inspired and impowered to execute the determined displeasure of God upon the Church and Nation which exalted them and subjected the Church and Nation under them Having as they think judged the former state of Religion they have opportunity and liberty to erect several new forms of Religion which is an act of spiritual principality and power and not without zeal for God and obedience to his Law By these things the genius of the Nation and the natural stoutness of the people is much lightened and encreased And therefore to reduce them into that state that they think they have judged and to destroy all their little principalities set up in their consciences only by outward force or by the meer letter of that Law which they have condemned without a superiour Law that judges them and their work to my reason seems not only impossible but dangerous Let the whole be considered and it will be found That meer legal and outward punishments upon such a people so spirited and principled so employed and exercised if their consciences and spirits be nor first fairly heard judged and convinced will inflame their minds into such a mad and desperate spirit as appeared in the late Insurrection into hardness and insensibility of death and danger which is the greatest enemy to Government that can be For it turns men into wild beasts not to be ruled by humane Laws And though they do attain nothing to themselves yet they may give disturbance and force the Magistrate from all humane and divine wayes of love and gentleness into violence and perpetual severity and fill the whole Nation with continual troubles and distractions It is true the Magistrate is bound by all bonds of Law of reason and nature to suppress and punish rebellion But when the seeds of rebellion lie in the mind and conscience the spiritual sword is as necessary as the secular and the one not effectual without the other What is written in this Treatise will I hope satisfie them that will read and consider that there is with us in the Church a spirit and understanding that will reach the root of rebellion in the mind and fully convince the conscience Which being joyned to the civil authority is sufficient to cure and heal the Church and Nation On the other side I must desire the present suffering Party that were so highly offended at my Book and at my proposition for the tryal of principles that they consider how much lower they are now faln There was certainly a loftiness and unsubjection of mind unsutable to their condition expressed in a glorying and boasting of their old cause and state which hath brought forth this contempt and suffering upon them I do believe that this late Insurrection was the work of a few rash and unreasonable men And do find that all sober men do express a great abhorrency of the act with resolution to wait patiently upon God for their deliverance Which truly I rejoyce in Yet the whole Party lying under the shame of these mens folly and madness they must seriously and deeply consider how far they yet stand unhumbled and unconvinced of those principles that carried these men into this practise Principles lie deep and when once they get rooting in the mind they are like ill weeds in a garden not presently destroyed Many times the judgement is enlightened against them yet they have a root in the heart which will spring up if not quite eradicated Their appearing in others and the evil fruit they bear is a good means to beget an utter detestation of them To make you sensible of the hand of God upon you and to help to clear your minds wholly of them I only propound these queries to you 1. First Whether those principles upon which they acted of the Cause and Kingdom of Christ and the honour and priviledge of the Saints above and against the world Have not been received into the minds and spirits of most men more or less that have erected new Churches and new Governments in the Nation Secondly Whether the same principles and the hopes of such things be not that which fills your heads and hearts with multitude of prayers and great confidences that you shall yet prevail and your enemies be destroyed And so though your understandings be more prudent then others yet whether the same things be not yet in your faith affections and duties Thirdly Whether these spirits and principles have not had a great influence upon the whole business a long time If so then if they be not rooted out by repentance and change of mind they lie not still in the heart though they seem not to act and appear Fourthly Whether men being upon an extraordinary bottom as the Saints of God distinct from others And exercising themselves in extraordinary duties with extraordinary hopes and confidences of extraordinary deliverances Are not thereby disposed and prepared to attempt extraordinary things to attain these extraordinary ends If so then you are drinking the same wine that intoxicated their heads that rose only they are weaker and you more able to bear it Remember Solomons counsel Who hath sorrow who hath contention who hath babling who hath wounds without cause They that tarry long
it hath its own destruction in it yea not only it s own but of other evils also T is certainly true to the godly Dan. 11.35 And some of them of understanding shall fall to try them and to purge and to make them white And therefore I shall learn and get experience by this weakness I now see plainly the Scripture may be and is a vail in some it is made use of to cover filthiness others make use of it out of fear to hide the truth of their hearts It serves sometimes to reveal and sometimes to conceal the mind But withal I see there is no hiding place for me I am necessitated to forsake my coverts and come forth naked Many have hid their poyson of error and enmity under Scriptures by them conveyed their deceit lyes neatly wrapped up in similitudes allusions and that to destroy I would convey peace and truth by it and it will not be endâ—â—ed I am beaten from these bushes and necessitated to all kind of openess and plainness I was unwilling to come to it I confess but I see I must say aside the Velvet scabbard and draw the naked sword or else must be content with such shamefull usage as no man can bear As sin so shame hath its own cure because its curse with it He that obscures himself for shame or from it and for fear of it is driven into a hole must suffer double And there is reason for it because first he is weak and then a coward and so deserts himself his name his mind his cause and betrayes his life and righteousness if he have any in him If a man be upright he need not go into a corner if he do he cannot stand upright in that hole and corner holes are for Bats and Moles for dark creatures the light is for truth and the open heavens for uprightness I hope I shall find room and place abroad I cannot hodestly abide any longer at home sure the open heavens and earth are made for me as well as others why should not I enjoy them As I see a necessity and my duty to cast off all coverings so I now experimentally find how little you have of the Spirit of God or of true reason and that both these are exceeding low in the minds of men at this time If not quite slain yet very feeble weak and ready to die imprisoned also and shut up under false imaginations and fancies of things And therefore if we think to instruct men it must be not only by truth but with that evidence and demonstration that may heal and recover mens spirits arid understandings I profess this that the same eternal Spirit that wrought those things in Adam and Noah and writ them by Moses keeps that image in himself and by it contains and upholds the Scripture the outward image of his eternal mind and the same spirit working according to himself produces the same works now from the same foundation and from the same light gives forth a discovery of them yet because the works were wrought long since and in a remote part of the earth from England as in Paradise in another world and at Mount Ararat therefore they are to us strange and forraign things or at best but allusions Whereas to a spiritual man all times and places are present and all things in heaven and earth and under the earth are gathered into one even into Christ In whose spiritual person we at once see and measure all things and ages because they are all in him and made by him I am sensible that there is as much shortness of reason in men as want of the Spirit For we are the natural children of Adam and Noah and do as truly derive our natures from them as we do from our Fathers or Grandfathers yea we derive our selves more from them because they are heads roots and common or publick Fathers or Stocks of mankind our immediate parents are but means branches or conveyances of life from those roots to us And we are more certainly and infallibly the children of Adam and Noah then of our later Ancestors And do receive greater benefit from them Moral Natural and Personal blessings from Adam these renewed by Noah and conveyed to us by him with the addition of civil and politick blessings And these given by Covenant for ever establisbed with him and his seed for perpetual generations Gen. 9.11 Me thinks it shews great shortness if not sensuality and slavery in mens minds that will enquire after every foot of Land that was their Fathers and Grandfathers and boast of their descent if they have it from a Lordship in England or a Mountain in Wales and not enquire after their natural or moral properties civil and religious priviledges which they do derive and may challenge by descent from these Ancestors yea not only not enquire and search for this royal and noble pedigree but reject it when produced as if they were beasts not men and rose out of the earth and Sea as the beast in the Revelations and as if we were sons of the earth that came into the world in some by-way and were of another case then that which God made in Adam or saved and Covenanted with in Noah For truly if the same life be in us that God made in Adam and saved blessed and covenanted with in Noah it will as naturally lead us to its outward and visible head by a line of reason as our spititual life leads us to Christ by a line of faith For all ages times and states of things wrought in our nature are the proper objects of our understandings and reason and we if we were not captivated to foolish and brutish darkness and silly conceits might as freely converse with them as with present sensible things yea we cannot discern any present thing if we know not the reason and principles of it and they are only to be seen in the first founding and forming of them men are therefore drunk in fancies and are not yet come to the exercise of reason which fathoms and measures all the things of man from the beginning to the end indeed he is not truly a man that comprehends not in some measure his own nature in all ages For the whole history of the world and all the parts acted in it are but the things of a man and so pieces of our selves if we are men Every thing is beautiful in his time also he hath set the world in their heart Eccles 3.11 But saith he I know that whatsoever God doth it shall be for ever ver 14. There is under these things which you call Allegories real substantial Truth if you will not crack the shell to have the kernel accept of my help I will give forth that which is there writren concerning your selves at least in a few plain affirmations I have and do affirm concerning that party that acted against the life and power of the King and are
now faln 1. They had many of them a work upon their spirits and many gifts wherewith they were anointed 2. These works and gifts were but flesh but earthly but man after the image of the first Adam which is of the earth earthly and not the second Adam the Lord from Heaven Not the Lord nor from Heaven 3. As they were earthly and fleshly so they were private and personal servile and ministerial not the Lord no largeness to comprehend the whole nor authority to subject the whole nor wisdom to rule the whole either the whole Nation or their whole party 4. That they had Commission only to destroy subdue and punish the Church and Kingdom standing in darkness and corruption There never was in that party or people any union strength glory or success in any thing but in fighting and killing And therefore could never attain any Civil or Religious body either to be a Church or Kingdom but an Army to fight And for this work they were anointed and sanctified So was Cyrus and his Medes Isa 13.3 and 45.1 which is not only a Legal Ministry but a heathenish and bloody one 5. That when they had subdued and broken down they had nothing to build no new Law or Religion either from heaven or earth either for themselves only or for the whole Nation No man or sort of men did ever so much as pretend that they were Legislators nor did ever tender to the Nation a Law either from heaven or earth but after they had cursed and rejected the old state they dressed up the carkase of King Lords and Commons in a Protector another House and a Parliament and had more stability in it then in any of their inventions beside They never could produce any thing like unto the wisdom and reason of a Law but every bird would chatter its own note such broken stuff and absurd confusion never was 6. They never had a publick or healing spirit talk they did of the common good of all men But their spirit was not only narrow but stood in opposition to the spirit of the Nation They were alwayes bound up most firmly and strongly to a private and so to a selfish spirit and could never be perswaded to accept of any thing that was large Those miserable principles of Interest Self-preservation and Necessity began carried on and ended the War and Party 7. Their gifts and work being fleshly and earthly and having only figures and prophesies of the heavenly Kingdom of God â—nd not the nature and substance of that Kingdom with them they could not administer it but those prophesies and figures must cease and die before the truth of the Kingdom can come forth 8. Their gifts being only private and personal and their work only to subdue and â—ull down when they aspired beyond their â—bility and commission to reign and to make â—ew Common-wealths and new Churches â—hey corrupted into pride enmity opâ—ression covetousness self-seeking greedily â—evouring the wealth riches pleasures hoâ—ours and places which they had cursed and condemned and therein were more foul â—hen those that they cast out 9. And from corruption they fell into divisions jealousies persecuting others and â—ne another and so into destractions and confusions 10. And by that into their present reâ—ection from all power authority riches â—nd estates into contempt imprisonment poverty plunged into a deep Baptism of afflictions and disappointment 11. Into which if they can retire with meekness humility and repentance they will find rest safety and purifying A condition more sweet and clean and as to God and their souls more comfortable and profitable then their former greatness though it be to the flesh grievous 12. There the Book would leave them in quietness and cover them from the wrath of their enemies justifying them in the exercise of their private and personal gifts as honest men And promising them a resurrection in a more large pure spiritual and durable state Ministries and Dispensations of a far more excellent glory then this have perished and why there should be such unwillingness to bury this I know not It died to me and in me long since and hath been ever since corrupting rotting reeling and staggering till it fell in pieces It hath had its time done its work fulfilled its Ministry emptied and poured out all the wrath it had upon others and when it had executed others it was a torment and vexation to it self wanting other matter to work upon The Party it self was weary of it complained of the vanity corruption and filthyness of it were ashamed of it annoyed by it it stunk so in the nostrils of every ingenuous and enlightened spirit none pleased at it but for what they got and kept by it none easie under it but sick of it and it self sick and hated at last executed it self to fulfill that word He that taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword even by that sword they took up and by that force they fomed That Power that Army they raised against the King turns to the King and against them that raised it It was long dying and every Party watched to have had it themselves and were pulling and catching at it some had it one while and some another whilest quarreling amongst your selves it is faln into your Adversaries hands and that I suppose is the great trouble You would be content it should die and you would execute it but thought also it belonged to the Executor to have its riches honours power and success But it seems there was an elder Brother an heir alive that you did not dream of Though this work of yours with its power fall very contrary to your hopes designs purchases and carnal confidences yet not contrary to many hints of prophesies in their own spirits nor contrary to common justice and reason For first it hath been often said to you and in you Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit That an Army is a harsh cruel worldly brutish self-seeking power and that while it stood it was a burden to all but them that received pay in it or by it And secondly if it doth fall as you thought and desired what must necessarily follow The antient Government of the Nation was suppressed by force if it had been by Light and Reason that Light that removed one would have shewed us a better but that we could never see The old one being suppressed and only suppressed for all you could do could not root it out and no other prepared if that force that suppresseth it be weary sick forsaken and spent whether should it go but to its center to the standing foundation If the force ceales that suppressed what can be expected but that the old suppressed Government should rise When therefore either the purity or truth of your spirits or the power of your reason shall prevail over your passions and losses you will rest satisfied That you still arc chafing and rubbing this dead