with another in the invisible heavenly life and though at a distance as to the bodily appearance yet nigh to and present one with another in Spirit and partakers together as members of one body in sufferings and afflictions in joy and consolations which as sufferings abound do abound also And now though the Scriptures declare of this word yet they are not that Word more then a Map or description of Rome or London is Rome or London or the image of Cesar is Cesar or bread and wine is the body and blood of Christ which rude draught shadow description and representation of such things and the like may and do borrow the names of the things by them signified or represented and thus the Scriptures may borrow the name of the Word of God and may sometimes be so called as the words or Prophecy of Isaiah is called by himself his Vision and the words of Iohn is called his Revelation whereas they but signified these things and it 's my testimony with thousands we have found another Word then the Scriptures which is not repugnant to them but teacheth the same things and bears a like testimony with them in a more excellent way so that they have a sweet harmony and concord together yet differing as much from them as bread wine corn oyle water light fire differing from a verbal description or likeness of those things And this is no dishonour to the Scriptures but a putting them in their proper place as a declaration of the eternal life which though pointed at by them yet is not to be found in them as the Jewish people foolishly thought and as Professors think at this day for which Christ checked them because they would not come to him to get life of whom the Scriptures testified That it was in him not in them Ioh. 5. And thus much concerning our Ministery and the object thereof or thing which is ministred and preached to wit Christ the living and eternal Word nigh and in the hear and our Worship and Sacrifice we offer up unto God in this Building House Temple City or Church of God is spiritual prayer and praise spiritual even from the pourings forth of the Spirit of Life from God praying and singing and making melody in our hearts and with our mouths and lips also as the Lord opens them with the spirit and understanding in all things making our requests known unto God and giving thanks alwayes for all things through Jesus Christ our life at whose Name our knees are bowed down and our head uncovered and the glory is over all and the Lord hath turned to us the pure language and the pure lip and given us to the throne of glory an abundant access and hath accepted our prayers and savoured a good savour in them and hath largely answered the desires of our souls blessed be his Name and we witness him a God who heareth prayer even to the least desire or breathing of the upright heart and he is worthy to be waited for who hath come to us in an acceptable time and prepared our hearts to seek and his ear to hear and given us strength and ability to wrestle and prevail with him to the break of day and we have not let him go till he hath blessed us and called our name Israel And as the Ministry and Worship of the Church or house of God among us is spiritual so is the Order Discipline and Government among us and we witness the Lord present with us in our Assemblies and the head Christ in us whether few or many passing sound righteous and infallible judgement concerning the particulars that come before us and we take not that blind fallible way of the many Sects and Professions in the world to determine controversies by viz. Plurality of Votes but we look up to the Lord and call upon him to decide the matter and pass righteous judgement and he doth it and each in the measure of the Word of Truth which they have received doth perceive the mind of the Lord therein and believeth it their faith standing in the wisdom and power of God revealing the thing in and to each particular and we are manifest in one anothers consciences and as Epistles written and read in one anothers hearts and we are of one mind and one spirit and life and here is sweet unity concord harmony and agreement not like Babylon and where the Lord goeth not before us and openeth not the particular or particulars unto us we stand still and forbear till we receive his mind who never is nor will be wanting to us in whatsoever exigence And now the power we have is from God alone and his Son Jesus Christ and he bears the government on his shoulders and takes us up into the Throne with himself according to his promise and maketh us a free people Kings and Priests to our God and our power is free and unlimited as to any mans determination upon the face of the whole earth and we own no head in our Church but Christ Jesus nor can we submit our consciences to any man or yield to the precepts and commandements of men out of the will and power of God in a jot though to the loss of our very lives and especially no man or men is to impose on us the least circumstance in the matter of the worship of the living God and the exercise of our consciences therein but what man or men set up in place of authority calls us to what is equitable and righteous betwixt us and our neighbour we are free and holds our selves bound to give all due obedience for conscience sake thereto and the Magistrate who hath his power and authority from God we dearly own and honour and the obedience he requires of us will be answered with the Witness and Word of God in our consciences which if we should disobey condemnation from the Lord should fall upon us And when that which is sinful and unrighteous is urged upon us then God's witness does arise in our conscience and forbids us to yield thereto but to suffer patiently what may be inflicted upon us for our not bowing under the same and not at all to resist with any carnal weapon or outward violence but to commit our cause to him who judgeth righteously and hath said Vengeance is mine and I will repay it and so we have sweet peace and content in our sufferings for our consciences are kept free and we are redeemed to God and bought with a price therefore we cannot be the servants of men and we seek not any worldly power or force to maintain our Church it needeth it not for the gates of hell cannot prevail against the same nor to propagate our Religion for it will never do it and we are to force no mans conscience nor to lay any punishment upon them or put any to sufferings because of their not concurring with us for we matter no uniformity but that
typically dâ—d represent your estate As for this Moses we know not what is become of him let us take our jewels and ear-rings of gold and make it into a god that may go up before us into the Land and now after your long and sore travel in the Wilderness wherein ye have abode many years going backward and forwards wandring up and down having lost the sight of the cloud which pointed you the way and forgotten that rock which followed and accompanied your fathers out of which living waters flowed to their refreshment which rock was Christ and after many of your carkasses have fallen because of unbelief and more are yet to fall It hath pleased the Lord to raise up to us among your selves that Prophet whereof Moses wrote and his Word we have heard sounded forth which is near even in our hearts saying to us by the powerful breath of his Spirit Arise arise this is not your rest it is polluted it will destroy you with a sore destruction and the voice was so powerful that it hath quickned us who were dead with you while we were living and the firy-piller hath appeared to us glory to God for his gift and shineth forth with beams of glory and the Lord hath opened the windows of Heaven and rained down on us the Manna from Heaven which is the food of Angels and not like the Manna which the Iews did eat and died but that which feedeth us unto life everlasting and the rock even the eternal rock and salvation of Gods people is revealed unto us out of which springeth pure living water from the fountain of life and Ioshua which is Jesus is given us for a head to lead us into the Land of Promise an entrance into which many witness at this day and others are in the way and have got a fore-taste of the Vine-grapes of the Land and hath sounded forth a good report concerning the same and many hath believed the report and tryed the truth thereof and found it to be true even some of your selves who were as you whose eyes the Lord out of his infinite mercy hath opened and they have found a place of repentance for all their hard speeches and enmity against the people of the Lord in the time of their ignorance and his work and appearance and have become ashamed and confounded therefore and I know assuredly it shall be so with others who for the present through the ignorance that is in them may be persecuting the Saints of God but alas alas how dangerous and deplorable is the condition of the most part of you for the time with whom our testimony can have no room nor find place in you and the good Land whereof we report has no more credit with you then if it were a cunningly devised Fable even the Kingdom of God and of his Christ in the Revelation of his eternal Light Life Power and Spirit in our hearts which fills us with joy unspeakable and full of glory and satisfies the desires of our souls so that we have true content in the injoyment of our God and have all and abound possessing him in whose favour is life and at whose right hand are pleasures for ever more the streams thereof your thick walled prisons and bolted gates within which ye shut us up cannot hinder from flowing into our souls and for the pretiousness and excellency of his dear and sweet love which he hath caused and does cause us to feel shed abroad in our hearts are we made willing patiently and contentedly to go thorow all the reproach and opposition we can meet with from you if possibly we be made instrumental to reach some of you that thereby ye may be saved with us and induced to walk in the Light of the Lord with us which has appeared and shined forth in its glory and as Solomon said Truly it is a sweet and a pleasant thing to behold the light O how sweet is it how pleasing how refreshing how healing how comforting how sure a Guide what assurance and satisfaction it gives to the soul none knows but such as are come to perceive it in their own hearts this this was it discovered unto your fathers the many gross abominations and superstitions of Popery so that they came to loath and abhor them this led them forth out of Egypt this discovered unto them Babylon the mother of fornications and the cup wherewith she had bewitched them so that they had no rest till they vomited up so much of the same as they perceived to be poysonous And oh had you their posterity kept chast to the leadings of the Lord by his Light which was near unto you as well as unto them even the light of Christ which enlightens every man that comes into the world and shineth in darkness though the darkness cannot comprehend it had you I say kept chast thereto and given it the preheminence above all how unspeakable had your happiness been at this day and now is your misery the greater that ye have adulterated there-from and become so impudent and shameless as to deny it for a leader or to give it the preheminence for have ye not set the letter of the Scriptures above it and made them unto your selves a golden Calf to be a Guide Leader and Rule unto you whereas if ye had given them the proper place setting them under the Light and Spirit of Jesus Christ from which they came and to which they point it being their own testimony that they are not that light but were given and sent forth to bear witness of the light that all in the light not in them might believe I say had you given to them their proper place they had been as jewels and ear-rings of gold unto you and useful in their room whereas through your abuse of them and setting their testimony above the inward and immediate testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of Prophecie Rev. 19.10 they are become your snare and a sealed book unto you that ye cannot read nor understand their interpretation because ye have gone from the key the Light and Spirit of Christ which would have opened them unto you and now they are parables unto you and dark sayings though you call them plain but plain indeed aâ—e they and easie to be understood by the children and Babes of Light and because ye have so gone a whoring from that which would have proved a soveraign remedy and antidote against the wayes and wiles of the Devil and Babilons cup of fornications therefore the light being a holy pure and chast thing hath been provoked much to withdraw and 〈◊〉 have cause to be afraid lest it eternally depart from you and you be shut up in blackness of darkness who hath so forsaken and undervalued your own mercy and misprized the gift of God unto you given you to profit withal and which only can open your eyes and give you the knowledge of the glory of God
which is life eternal and you being wandred from the light which is the first principle and key to open up the oracles and mysteries of God's Kingdom you have come to read the Scriptures with a false eye and have understood them yea and used them as weapons to fight against the appearance of Christ in his people at this day as the Iews did against the same Lord Jesus Christ in his appearance according to the flesh at Ierusalem they disputed against him from the Scriptures whereas they testified of him but the vail was upon their eyes and they had lost the key which was the light and Spirit of Christ that gave them forth which their Teachers had taken from them as your Teachers have done from you Oh let this be a Lamentation for ever that of the rock that begot you yee are become so unmindful and turn'd against that which was the very life marrow and substance of your reformation and you having lost the same what remains but a dead carcass or rather an image of a reformed Church 〈…〉 with a wrong spirit which is the life of the Wâ—â—re Beast and false Prophet who are all for the Pit And Oâ— how have yee betrayed your own cause and given it a way into the hand of your enemies as appears by your arguments yee make use of against us the very self same the Papists took against your Fathers did they not upbraid them with innovations and the novelty of their Religion being but of a few years and dayes standing did not they upbraid them with the fewness of their number did they not upbraid them with their ignorance calling them idiots and unlearned as indeed they were to Humane Learning many of them but they were taught of God which was far better did they not nick-name them calling them after such base and contemptible names whereby to render them odious unto the people did they not raise up many false slanders and reports against them did they not persecute them with fire and faggot imprisonment and spoyling of their Goods which they took joyfully and did they not question them as the Iewes did Christ and his Disciples and as yee do us concerning the authority who gave them a command to preach and reform and had your Fathers any recourse to make but unto that which could well bear them thorough as it does us to day viz. the immediate call of Gods Spirit in their hearts and have yee not so used us have yee not nick-named us and raised many false reports concerning us and greedily sucked in the fame of them from others who invented them Oh how strange have we been and are to you at this day have yee not refused us the name of Christians which yee will not scruple to give to drunkards cursers whoremongers murderers prophane and abominable persons among your selves whom yee own as your Church members have yee not called us worse then the very vilest of men even then Turks or Pagans saying we are unworthy to live and have yee not given it forth that our design is to overthrow and root out of the world the Christ an Religion and that we strike at the very foundamentals thereof Oh that we should be so mistaken by you if your Predecessors were live in the body many of them we could willingly appeal unto and next under God set them to judge betwixt you and us in this matter and we are sure they would not have so mistaken us as yee have done for although they had not come to see things as they are at this day seen and were far short of the knowledge God hath now given to his people being as it were the morning dawning or twy-light unto them so that they had not discovered the bottom of all Babilons treasures nor got rid of the many inventions and traditions of men yet a measure of truth many of them received from the Lord and were gathered in a measure to walk in the Light and life thereof and had confidence in the Lord to seal their Testimony with their blood against the Man of sin and they being in a measure of truth themselves could not but have known us for all the children of light and who are begot of the living word of truth which gives a discerning to know one another in the truth and in the light and spirit which first begot them and this is the true rule of knowing one another and who come hither can dearly own and haue uniâ—n with others as brethren though differing from them in some things if they can feel them in the living word and spirit of truth in which their life stands and their fellowship and communion with God and one with another and it 's not the many opinions agreed upon that is the bond of peace but the unity of the spirit now yee having wandred from the Word of truth and light and spirit of Christ which gives and preserves in the discerning and feeling one another as members of one body yet retaining somewhat of the form of truth and some of their opinions yee could not but mistake and oppose us as your greatest enemies and your fathers enemies also in whose succession ye so much boast though we be much nearer them then your selves both in principles and practices excepting some things they had not got rid of some of Babylons waâ—es and baggage which they brought away with them I mean some Popish opinions custâ—ms and traditions which in that day passed for the matters of God but now they are seen in the light which hath broke up in a greater measure to have Antichrists superscription upon them and Babylon the Whores superscription which we coming to disceâ—n could not but give her what was hers now it hath been so alwaye that such who have got into the form of truth and not into the power spirit and life thereof hath most persecuted these who had come thereunto witness the Professors among the Iews with their Priests Teachers Doctors and Rabies who were the greatest enemies to Christ and his Disciples Oh how shall I bemone and bewail you people of Scotland who have been and are in your own apprehensions exalted unto the Heavens and looked upon your selves and were so reputed by others as the choicest Nation in the World for the purity of the Gospel and Gospel Worship and Ordinances Oh how are yee fallen and become a hissing and reproach to all round about you and the enemy hath gotten this advantage over you saying ah so would we have it this is the day we looked for and it is come is this the royal and magnificent City which gave her self forth to be the praise of the whole earth and a dread and terrour to her enemies round about let our eye look upon her for she is become defiled she is become as one of us how is the stately City fallen how is her glory defaced how is her bulwarks and walls broken down who boasted
getting many of the outward forms and words of the Saints the sheeps cloathing but inwardly adulterated from the life and Spirit of Jesus Christ the only foundation of the true Church and was not the ground of the Dragons Whores Beasts false Prophets quarrel against the Martyrs and witnesses of Christ principally this that they held the testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of Prophecie Rev. 19.10 and bear witness against the Whore who had the form retained without the power yea denyed the power of godliness denyed the teachings and leadings of the Spirit of Christ and the Revelation of him in the hearts of the children of men this is the Antichrist who denies Christ the Son come thus in the revelation of himself in the heart for that coming of Christ in his bodily appearance at Ierusalem Antichrist will not does not deny it being he knows it will never harm his Kingdom so to confess him come providing Christ his Kingdom be not set up in the heart now was there not such a dispensation in the earth were there not a people in the Apostles dayes who witnessed Christ come again in spirit according to his promise who said If any keep my commands I and my Father will come and dwell with him And again I go away but I will not leave you comfortless I will come again unto you Iohn 17. And after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ were they not indued with the Spirit from on high and filled with the holy Ghost did they not live in the Spirit walk after the Spirit did it not give the knowledge of the mysteries of God's Kingdom unto them did not the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation open the eyes of their understanding to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge and while they kept here did they not remain a pure chast Church unto Christ and while the eye was kept open and single by the revelation of the Spirit of Truth could the Dragon or Whore or Antichrist prevail over them could the many traditions or inventions get place as the Ordinances of Christ had they kept to the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit of God Now was not the principal Defection and Apostacy from this even the pure chast Light Life and Spirit of Christ revealing God and the things of this Kingdom unto them and when people wandred from this there the inventions took place and Babylons cup was drunk for the vail came over whereby the true discerning was lost and a wrong eye opened which could not but judge amiss of the things of God and of his People and wrest and abuse the Scriptures Now ye who say That there was indeed such a dispensation but now it hath ceased and is never any more to take footing in the eaâ—th do ye not hereby demonstrate your selves to be of the whorish Church for hath not this been her plea all along this dark night of Apostacy that the Revelation Teachings and leadings of the Spirit of Chirst is ceased therefore another Head was set up in the Church then Christ Jesus and the Pope and his Council was made Judge to determine all controversies of Religion and no man was to look at an infallible Judge the spirit of Truth within him and are ye not become as bad who openly affirm that ye are not led by the infallible Spirit and consequently not by the Spirit of God and your Church Confession of Faith saith The former way of God's revealing himself by Prophecy and immediate Revelation is ceased and God hath committed his counsel wholly into writing or to the Scriptures and nothing is to be added thereto by any new revelation of the Spirit And oh how faâ— are ye in this point degenerated and apostatized from the primitive Protestants and Reformers who not only affirmed that there was immediate Revelations from God and that the Spirit of Prophecie was not ceased but witnessed the same in themselves and foretold many things of consequence by the spirit of Prophecie which came to pass did not Iohn Knox and George Wishard prophecie exceeding clearly of whom it was said That from the day he entred upon his Ministry tâ— his death there never came a storm upon the Church but he foresaw the end of it as may be seen in the Book of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland and many others did prophecie as ye may read in Fox's Book of Martyrs and was not this the main and only pillar of the Protestant cause against the Papists who should be the Judge of Controversies and the interpreter of Scriptures The Pope and his Council with the Fathers said The Papists no said the Protestants but the Spirit of God And I read in the fore-cited Book of Martyrs how when some who were burnt for their testimony to the Truth in Queen Maries dayes were called before the Popish Clergy and Bishops who disputed with them and when the controversie arose concerning such points or Scriptures the Popish party alleadged the determination of the Church but the Martyrs pleaded for the determination of the Spirit of God and when it was queried if such had the Spirit of God and it was answered Yea and one brought that Scripture for his assertion who is Antichrist but he that denyeth that Christ is come in the flesh the people partly flouted thereat and laughed them to scorn as yee do us at this day because we affirm that we have the Spirit of God and that Christ is come and his life made manifest in our mortal flesh as saith the Apostle Paul And that which sounds very harsh in your ears at this day and is mocked at by you yea accounted delusion and blasphemy viz. Enthusiasm or the Inspiration of God and the motion of his Spirit was a thing usually known professed and possessed also by them as may be read at large in the aforesaid books and they said faith was the Inspiration of Gods Spirit and so it is and I deny that there is any true faith but that which comes as really and immediately from the inspiration of the Spirit as ever Paul or Peter or any of the Apostles and Prophets witnessed the same whom yee your selves acknowledge to have been inspired and were they now living yee would hiss at them as yee do at us calling them Inthusiasts and Oh what a time are we fallen in that the inspiration of the Spirit of God which is the very breath of life into the souls of the Lords people should be scorned and such as witness such a blessed and glorious dispensation nick-named Fanaticks and mad men even by them who have pretended so highly to be the reformed Church and at such a time wherein the day of God is broke up in such clearness in the midst of them yet they know it not 2. Your fore-fathers the primitive Protestants and Reformers who saw a little further into mysterie Babylon then others that went before them for the day brake up gradually and
there succeeded a people who saw over these who compiled or rather Englished the Service-book and they disowned it as they did also all other set forms of Prayer and cryed them down as dead lifeless things and they were for a worship in Spirit thus is was but even of very late dayes in Queen Elizabeth and King Iames the sixth and such were nick-named by their enemies Puritans and they affirmed that the Spirit of the Lord was only to teach them to pray and worship and not any Book or Man whatsoever and were not set forms of Prayer cryed down also in Scotland as lifeless barren things and the service-Book denyed and now have ye not again licked up that vomit and through your Cities men set up mostly also scandalous in their conversations at such hours of the day or night to read a set form of Prayer and is there any material difference betwixt this and the Service-book And have not your brethren in England taken it up again and when it 's offered to you to read will ye not also do the like there is no question of it but most of you will and worse also when ye are put to the tryal and oh what a mysterie is it to you praying and singing in the Spirit are ye not become so impudent as to mock this also as I have oft witnessed my self when your Church-members hath been so shameless as to cry in the very streets at us when passing by When came the Spirit last upon you give us a Prayer from the Spirit And do ye not flatly deny praying and worshipping in Spirit who deny Enthusiasm which is to say being interpreted for it 's a Greek word the inspiration of the Spirit of God which is the only flame that kindles up holy 〈◊〉 in the soul after God and you who can prate and talk unto God without a Book in your Pulpits and chief places of the Synagogues and elsewhere in your own wills and times and in the wills and times of others from a rhetorical strain as if ye were complementing some great Prince your prayers are as life ' ess and spiritless as those said of the Mass-book and were ye come truly to the spirit of prayer ye would know a bridle to your tongues without which your Religion is but vain and that the Spirit of God which bloweth as well when and where it listeth is also as far from being limitted to set times as to set forms and we read not in the whole Scripture that the Lord hath appointed any set times of prayer under the Gospel to his people at all whose great and most important work is to wait the movings of the Spirit of Life from God at all times whether to pray or give thanks or to any other spiritual exercise and blessed are they who come hither for they shall know that it is not in vain to wait upon the Lord for we have waited patiently upon him and have witnessed and do witness the pourings forth of the spirit of Prayer and praise supplications and thanksgivings filling our hearts and souls night and day to the God of our life and true prayer is the gift of God which cometh not at all in mans will or time and therefore the season is to be waited for which God hath kept in his own hand and hath the key of the heart to open it when he pleaseth and the key into the house of prayer where is the throne of grace without access to which in the drawings of the Spirit-of life man hath no acceptation with God nor his service or worship all is but idolatry and abomination only such who come to God through the Mediator and Intercessor Christ the Life feeling the living drawings thereof in the particular are accepted of him and made joyful in the house of prayer and hath it not been the regret of some among you and may be yet when ye are in a sober mood that the spirit of prayer is much lost and a dry complementing of God come in the room thereof 3. Were not your fore-fathers the primitive Protestants and Reformers a separated people did not they disown the Popish Assemblies and their preaching and worship as idolatry and forsake it and did not those called Puritans both in England and Scotland separate themselves from the other party who stuck to the Service-book and other superstitions and did not the sober people in Scotland in the former times of Prelacy separate from the Prelatical Assemblies and their Conformists did they not meet apart and talked together of the work of God on their own hearts and worshipped God in Spirit and his blessing and presence was among them while they kept chaâ—t to him and mixed not with Idolaters Now have ye not apostatized herein also and mixed your selves in with the profane rabble of the world as bad and worse then Papists Turks Pagans which hath provoked the Lord to withdraw from among you and ye can pray and sing and communicate with such Is not this Babylon indeed which is to say Confusion and is not our separation from you also as justifiable as the separation of your fathers from Papists being we have found you to be of the same spirit and mostly of the same principles and practices with them and generally as wicked loose scandalous prophane and covetous and abounding with all manner of iniquity as they and are not all such Idolaters is not thee vetous man an Idolater whereas covetousness is idolatry as saith the Scripture and are not all Idolaters to be denyed as to any fellowship with them in worship and your fathers did not plead such dirty stâ—ff as you the Professors have learned now to do to shun the Cross for keeping the Popish and Prelatical party their Assemblies Service-book worship alledging That they sit in Moses chair and therefore are to be heard and we may like their good and leave their evil Such reasons prevailed not with your fathers nor ought they for the Christians come not at all to the Scribes and Pharisees who sit in Moses chair but meet apart unless to bear a testimony against them and bad men with all their good words can never edifie a soul in faith or true knowledge which is life eternal all they can do is to edifie in the notion and feed the wrong part and spirit which delights in the notion of truth and is satisfied in the notional knowledge out of the life and the finest truest words out of a bad mans mouth can never reach the seed of God either to the raising of it up or refreshing it but on the contrary burdens and kills as said the Apostle of the false Apostles who had the letter and were Ministers of it out of the Spirit and Power and the letter sayes he kills and so we have found it in our experience but these above-mentioned arguments have prevailed with you so that ye are herein also apostatized from them 4. Your
open the Scripture for the edification of the people and it was appointed so to be afterwards as is evident by the Books of Policy and Discipline framed and presented to the Council Anno 1560. which thing by you is called disorder and confusion and it was an usual practice among them without distinction of Clergy-man or Layely when they met together to speak of the things of God and of his work on their hearts every one according to his gift and these who spake were not distinguished from these who heard by the name of Master and stepping up into a Pulpit and by getting the hands of so many laid upon them or by a black Gown or Canonical coat And Iohn Husse an eminent Instrument of the Reformation and Preacher in Germany did wear a gray coat which he gave to his friend some dayes before his death as Fox's Book of Martyrs relates And ye that are so much against Women-preachers some of you may remember upon a day when ye met together apart men and women and spoke of the operation of God on your hearts without the distinction of Sex and women allowed dearly to exhort pray or speak of God's dealings with their souls and now ye would bring Paul's words against womens speaking in the Church or rather against Christ the man his speaking in them being ignorant what women Paul meant when he wrote that he permitted not the women to speak in the Church now are not two or three or half a dozen of men and women fearing God gathered in his Name a true Church or are not two or three godly women met together a Church though a man be not among them and may they not exhort one another and pray and give thanks together and is not that speaking in the Church and the Scripture speaks of a Church in one family and if a woman or rather the man Christ speaking in the woman may speak in the audience of six or twelve why not in the audience of six or twelve hundred and the woman having experience of God's work on her heart and who hath felt the love of God shed abroad in her soul is she not fitter to speak of those things then a hundred men who are ignorant thereof So foolish are ye become in your reasonings and there are many living yet in the Nation who remember of women who have spoke so feelingly so lively and experimentally of the Lord's work upon their hearts that many eminent Preachers and Ministers so accounted have thought shame to open their mouth in their presence 8. Your Fathers the primitive Protestants and Reformers made not Latine Greek and Hebrew and Aristotle's Logick and Philosophy with other humane Learning and the passing of so many years course at the Colledge and that you call School-divinity the qualifications of a Minister of Christ many yea the most of them never was at Colledge nor had the opportunity of any to go unto unless to a Popish nor had they any of these Languages or curious Arts but were honest plain simple men such as ye now call Rusticks and Tradesmen many of them and yet they passed among your Fathers for Ministers but if these men were alive now ye would cry Away with them non-sensical fellows what can they say they are not learned should ignorant men preach should Wives Shoo-makers Plow-men Herds-men be Ministers of Christ should they incroach upon our sacred Function should not they hold them with their Callings So say ye against many of us who are not Book-learned and are Tradesmen and this same was the very plea of the Papists against your fore-fathers being Ministers See how ye have borrowed their weapons whereby they fought against them whose successors ye boast your selves to be but as these Popish arguments were too weak against them so are they against us for our answer to you is though we be not taught with humane Learning nor have the Languages many of us wherein the Scriptures were writ yet we are taught of God and that is better we have been with Jesus and have been made eye-witnesses of his Majesty and yee are worse then the Iews who crucified Christ for when they admired that Peter being an unlearned man did preach yet this caused their admiration to cease they took notice that he had been with Jesus as we have been and some of us can truly say whereof I am one we have learned more in one hours company with Jesus then we did in seven years from the Gamaliels and Rabbies among you at whose feet we have so long sitten and we are come to the Spirit of God that gave forth the Scriptures and gives us their meaning and sence though we have not the Languages and which all the Languages of the world cannot afford to us and though many of us know not to preach in the excellency of mans wisdom and some of us who could yet have renounced it and dare not use such a way lest the Cross of Christ should be of none effect yet we can speak and have spoken in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit the words which the holy Ghost teacheth us and he hath made us able Ministers of the new Testament not of the letter which kills but of the Spirit which gives life and God hath blessed our Ministry so that many unto whom we have ministred have been quickned and brought into the fellowship of the Gospel with us and such a Ministry had Paul which he learned not of man and yet had Book-learning enough and such a Ministry God hath raised up in this day which is the free gift of God to which I bear my testimony and a part of which I have received and now is that Promise fulfilled and fulfilling in many hundreds I will make a new Covenant with them and they shall be all taught of me from the least to the greatest and I will write my Law in their hearts in a Language which is neither Hebrew nor Greek but such as he that is born of the Spirit can only understand and I will put my fear in their inward parts And now our hearts are come to delight in the fear of God which teacheth us the hidden mysterious wisdom which none of the Princes or Rabbies of this world knows and by the Word and Law of God writ in our hearts we are made wiser then our Teachers and when this dispensation shall fill the earth as it is doing what shall then become of the Scribe what shall become of the Senator what shall become of the Doctor and Rabby and Disputer of this World who spoke to us in a Language that neither they themselves nor we could understand but now saith the Lord as Isa. 33.19 Thou shalt not see a fierce people a people of deep speech that thou cannot perceive of a stammering tongue that thou canst not understand Glory to God the pure Language is known which was before Babylon was wherein the many Languages
came in and the tongues of the sons of men were confounded so that they could not know nor understand one another And now ye who talk of the tryal of the Ministry have ye not lost the touch-stone of tryal which was among the primitive Christians and was lost but is found again among us even the spirit of discerning whereby we feel the true Minister in the power and discern him from the false so that his fairest yea soundest words that he hath stoln from the Saints cannot deceive us and this was Paul's rule to try them who boasted to be the true Ministers and were not I will know said he not the words of them that are puffed up but the power here was a deeper search then into the best of words into the power what power they spoke from if from the Dragons power and the ravening Wolves power within them which may stand with the finest words which aâ—e the sheeps cloathing wherewith that power decks it self to deceive and so to devour the ignorant or if from the Lamb's power the power and Spirit of Christ and from grace in the heart Oh is not that a parable unto you we cannot judge the heart say ye nor know the spirit within man which manifests you to be strangers unto the anointing whereby spirits can be tryed and to the spiritual man which judgeth all things and though sometimes ye would give it forth to the people that ye are not against the teachings of God's Spirit to you the Teachers I speak yet ye plainly deny it both in word and practice and ye have no other means to uphold your selves whereby to purchase your Hires and your Dignities and Honour which comes from below but to keep poor people in ignorance from the teachings of God therefore ye cry out so much against the Light calling it delusion and bididng people beware of it for if any people were come to the Light in their particulars they would turn their back upon you and deny you your Hires and then your Kitchins would not smoak so as now nor would ye be so gorgious and sumptuous in your gaudy Apparel nor your Wives either which is a shame for to see and the grief of many sober people to think upon your pride and vanity the cry whereof hath come up before God to his throne and ye may read your doom Isa. 3.24 25 26. and were it not that ye deny the teachings of God's Spirit why pass ye so many years course at Schools to learn from men what ye may say to the People and why buy ye so many books and have your book-dayes and take no imployment but your books except when some few hours in the first day of the week ye talk to people what ye have gathered and collected together out of old Authors or then what some of you which are better Artists have moulded together by the forge of your own imaginations and natural understandings or when ye were and that very sparingly too some little time in that you call your Catechizing and Visitations of Families and the bad fruit of all this shews its much lost labour and ye could be better imployed in holding a Plow or digging in a field or any other honest occupation then to be deluding poor people whom ye are ever learning and yet ye are never able to bring them to the knowledge of the Truth and the gross palpable ignorance of your Parishioners all abroad the Nation with their wicked lives shews they are evil master-stead and that ye are not taught of God your selves else your teachings would have better effect and why will ye not suffer such who are not book-learned nor passed their course at your Colledges to learn the trade of it to preach the Gospel were ye for the teachings of God's Spirit would ye limit him to use only bookish Clergy-men for the Ministry when the Spirit of the Lord instructs a man though he could not read a letter is he not well learned is he not an able Minister who hath his ability given him of God though man hath not taught him and yet ye cannot away with this and why persecute ye such who are taught of God and ye dare not say but their practice answers their profession and that they are better taught then your disciples are though they come not at you to learn and what means the form and manner of your Sermons when ye will take a sentence of Scripture or common head as it is called and branch it out as Aristotle's or Ronius Logick hath taught you and it is one main piece of tryal to young-men coming forth to the Ministry to make a Logical Analysis as it is called upon such a piece of Scripture as is allotted unto him and he is counted a brave Preacher who can handle his Text in such a Scholastick method and an honest plain man who is not acquainted with your School-method nor topical places such as Aristotle an Heathen hath taught you out of which as so many 〈◊〉 ye gather together your points of Doctrine Observations Reasons Motives Means Uses Applications Amplifications I say an honest simple plain man who is not acquainted with such trifles but can speak feelingly of the work of God on his heart should he come and speak among people ye will laugh him to scorn and say of him he hath neither rhime nor reason he speaks confusedly and non-sense he hath no method he is not worth the hearing and yet by such foolishness of preaching many hundreds at this day are converted unto God for the power of God hath accompanied such poor foolish mens Ministry and the Lord hath made them true Pastors to feed the people with knowledge and understanding and they have been instrumental to bring people to Jesus Christ the great Bishop and Shepherd of their souls whereas ye have nothing to feed the people with but wind and airy notions and at best words of truth ye have stoln out of the Scripture which spoke out of a mans mouth not declaring in nor the power of God accompanying the words are but a killing letter and let any sober spiritual minded man in the least measure judge if such things above-mentioned which are made the qualifications of a Minister and usually practised by them smells of mans wisdom or of the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit or if any of the Apostles or Prophets used such things who were taught of God 9. Your fathers the primitive Protestants were against Tythes and that Ministers should have temporal possessions as an Hire for their preaching so said Iohn Wicklife and they had not their hundreds and thousands allorted to maintain them far less would they force people against their wills to give them maintenance and poynd them or put them to horn and imprison them as ye will do And your fathers did bear a notable testimony against the greediness and covetousness of the then Priests as we do against you for
were not to regard they abusing it and when Oliver Cromwel wincked at you both I well remember your carriage and was an eye-witness of much of it with many hundreds how many Protestations were made in your Synods south and north and when the one party or faction would depose such a man or men from the so called Ministerial function the other party would bid him or them preach and maintain uphold and defend him and now the Churches authority not being backed with the Magistrates sword ye could break through it as Cobweb and some of you whom your Parishes would not receive yet yee urged your selves upon them whither they would hear or forbear All this and much more is fresh in the memory of thousands and this day hath abundantly discovered you And oh that yee could take shame and confusion of face to your selves and read the language of the Lords work in this day which would be answered with his witness in your Consciences saying with these Ier. 8.14 let us be silent for the Lord hath put us to silence for a more excellent Ministry the Lord hath brought forth in this day even that of his own spirit whereto yee have been and are great strangers and yee have need to learn the first principle of the Oracles of God which is the light of Christ shining in the dark heart although yee have been so long teachers of others and the Christ whom yee have preached so many years yee have him yet to learn and if ever yee receive a part of the true Ministry yee must come to know him revealed within you which for the time is a parable to you and yee call it delusion And now oh yee people of Scotland know that the Lord in his great mercy to your souls hath brought this day over your Teachers to let you see they were but broken â—â—sterns and their fair profession and many good words whereby they made merchandize of you hath much opposed and withstood the appearance of Jesus Christ and that which letted is much removed out of the way now and the Lord is come to teach his people himself and to gather them into his unchangable truth which is not subject to the windings and turnings of your teachers and the pure fountain of the water of life hath been opened unto us and we drunk thereof to our unspeakable refreshment and satisfaction and we cannot any more come at your pudled waters 14. And your fathers the Primitive Protestants acknowledge no head in the Church but Christ Jesus and they maintained the power and authority of the Church to be altogether independent from and not subordinate to the Magistrates power and Iohn Welshe and others of his brethren bore a testimony to this in his day for which together with their testimony against Prelacy they were imprisoned at Blaknes as appears by a letter of his with several that 's extant at this day and now how far have ye shrunk from this testimony of your predecessor judge ye your selves who call him in your Church-prayers supream Judge in all cases and over all causes Civil and Ecclesiastical There is also two other weighty particulars which is well known to have been maintained by many primitive Protestants both denyed by you viz. That Christians ought neither to swear nor fight with any carnal weapon both which were asserted by those called the Lollards of Kyle as ye may read in the book of the Reformation of the Church in Scotland but the setter forth of the aforesaid book hath added to their words to the first Article which is according to their assertion as it was found in the Records of Glasgow That in no case it is lawful to swear he hath added to wit Idely rashly or in vain and to the other That Christians should not fight for the Faith is added if not driven thereto by necessity which two additions manifestly appears to be put to by the publisher of the book and that they are not these mens words for that they are printed in another character and he alleadges their enemies to have depraved them for he sayes These Articles together with several others were found in their Records but his alleadgance is not so fair being he had no sufficient ground therefore and the Articles are true and sound without his additions and it 's a perfect contradiction which neither the Lollards of Kyle or any rational man could affirm to say we must not swear at all or in no case it is lawful to swear which is universal and exclusive and then to put a limitation thereto but in such cases viz. idely rashly and in vain I say these two propositions It is lawful in no case to swear It is lawful in some case to swear are a perfect contradiction and no rational man can affirm both for either the one or the other must be false and so the Lollards saying in no case it is lawful to swear it is clear that they were not only against swearing idely rashly or in vain which neither their adversaries denyed so that it needed not be a point of Dittay against them but against swearing in any case or at all So by these 14. or 16. Articles let all in whom there is any measure of ingenuity or simplicity try your present Church constitution and with the Light wherewith Christ hath enlightned you examine and ye will find that though ye call your selves the reformed Church ye are far from the first Reformers and that the whole Protestant Church in Europe hath much degenerated from the primitive Christians and Protestants both in principles and practices and is become quite another thing retaining the name like an old rotten Ship that hath been so often clamped and clouted that all the former timbers are worn out and others put in their place yet keeping the name and somewhat of the form and shape and ye have sailed long up and down in this old rotten Ship which is just upon the splitting and suffering shipwrack and it were happy for you if ye would swim forth out of her for your lives and the greatest loss of all is of the Spirit and Life of your first Reformers as appears by your fruits and conversations at this day Is not that fidelity honesty and simplicity much lost and quite decayed that some yet living remember was in the Land and treachery falshood guile and deceit come in the room thereof and one brother cannot trust another and love is waxen cold and much selfishness crept in and the profession or Religion made a meer cloak of maliciousness and that temperance and sobriety in words diet and apparel that was among many is quite gone and wantonness gluttony and drunkenness whoredom cursing and swearing and prophaning of the name of God and fearful oaths come in stead thereof and tyranny and oppression more then among savages and yet people given to such wickedness are accounted your Church-members and partake of all the Church-priviledges
with you and when any such die the cry goes through your streets there is a faithful brother departed c. or when any of them hath a child to be sprinkled the Priest will cause him to rehearse the Articles of his Faith and he hath no more faith nor so much as the devil for the true faith purifies the heart and lodges in a good conscience Oh horrid abomination and is not the zeal among Professors quite withered and deadness laziness stupidity security neutrality carelessness and sottishness generally overgrown them and all manner of iniquity abounds POSTSCRIPT ANd now ye who accuse us in derision called Quakers by you as Apostates and that we have denyed our fore-fathers Faith try your selves and parallel your fathers principles and practices with your own and also with ours and ye shall find ye are degenerated from them exceedingly as we were while with you but through the grace of God are we recovered and brought to witness the Spirit and Life of the primitive Protestants and Christians and in all 16. above-mentioned Articles we agree with them and ye disagree with them and ye cannot instance to us one particular wherein we dissent from them warranted from the very letter of Scripture for these things wherein we have forsaken them we have discovered by the Light which hath opened the Scriptures to us to have been but the inventions of men and Babylons more subtile cup of fornications which because that the day was not so broken up among them as among us now they did not discern but now the Light hath shined forth in such clearness that we have seen to the bottom of all Babylons treasures and were they living in this day they would concur with us in disowning these things and I am satisfied in it they have been accepted of the Lord according to their faithfulness but supposing ye were not shrunk from any of their principles it 's in vain for you to think that God will take that off your hands he received from them winking at their weaknesses in the day of ignorance for that which makes a people acceptable with God is their faithfulness to the dispensation of knowledge in their day and their answering his requirings therein and following him whithersoever he leads of which ye are very short and this is your condemnation Written in the 10th Month from the Tolbouth of Aberdeen G. K. True and righteous Iudgement from the God of judgement separating the precious from the vile concerning the late proceedings of the people of Scotland in the matter of their Reformation from and their covenanting against Prelacy with the corruptions and popish Superstitions accompanying it as also concerning their Church constitution Ministry Worship and Government set up by them after the pulling down of the former and discrying it as Antichristian wherein likewise the Lords controversie with them in laying them by and suffering this day to come over them is shewed in which their building is also laid in the dust and its the will of the Lord that it never be again rebuilt GIve ear unto me O ye people of Scotland of what quality or degree whatsoever and I will shew you the true and righteous judgement of God from whom I have received it and by whom I am moved to declare it unto you for your good concerning your late proceedings in the matter of your reformation from and your covenanting against Prelacy and the corruptions and popish Superstitions accompanying it and other particulars above-mentioned A zeal there was in many of you Rulers Teachers and People in that day for the Lord and his name and truth which he did tenderly regard and it was marked before him though the most of you all along minded more your selves and how to compass your selfish covetous and ambitious designs then his honour and ye made the name of truth and Religion a meer clock to cover and mask your hypocrisie with yet a true simplicity and uprightness of heart was among others of you and ye did well in disowning and departing from such men who gave themselves forth to be the Lord's Ministers and servants but they ran and he sent them not and their covetousness and ambition and seeking how to please men for their own ends and not his honour nor any true zeal for him set them on such a work to Lord it over the people which he had forbidden and it is abomination to him together with the many things accompanying them which they gave forth for his ordinances good order decency and comliness in the Church but were the meer inventions of men and Babylons golden Cup of Fornications and that ye vomitted up and refused any more to drink of this cup or to admit of such things as his Ordinances or belonging to his worship or as if he allowed it whereby your iniquity is exceedingly agravated before God and his indignation and jealosie burns as fire against you for your returning thereto and because of the iniquity of such men their pride pomp covetousness tirany and ambition his wrath kindled against them and he poured contempt and desolation upon them for the cry of their wickedness together with the Prayers and â—upplications which came from many in that day because of them ascended up into his Throne in the time of their great affliction of Spirit to see his Truth and Name so much dishonoured and the Lord heard and regarded and delivered them from that which was their trouble and grief of heart and he removed that out of the way which was a great let unto his work and glorious appearance in the Land and after the removal thereof the Lord put a fair oppertunity in your hands to have been blessed instruments in his work whereby had ye improved it ye should have been at this day a glory in the Earth a Praise a Renowne and a Blessing and your memory should have endured as a sweet savor unto all succeeding Generations But he had many things against you whereby he was provoked to lay you by also so that ye should not be honoured nor ever shall be in the state ye are in and way of your proceedings as instruments in his glorious work which he hath purposed to bring and is bringing forth in the earth even a work of wonders and admiration whereby he will make to himself a name everlasting therein and give matter to all the simple-hearted of thanksgiving and praise for ever and ever and this work he is bringing forth this day in the midst of you and yee are so far from joyning issue with him therein that ye are all opposing it but it shall go on and prosper over the heads and bellyes of all gainsayers on the face of the whole Earth and if yee repent not and give way unto his determination he will bring this word to passe against you Behold ye dispisers wonder and Perish And now hear the righteous judgment of God concerning these things he hath to
nearer the letter of the Scriptures then that other cast down by you yet it was as far from being the Temple or House of God being not of his Spirit for this ye had gone from in your own particulars and at length became so impudent as to deny such a thing could be expected to wit the leadings of the infallible Spirit of Christ to teach you and guide you infallibly in your proceedings and ye set the letter of the Scriptures above it and in it's room together with your own imaginations for ye being gone from the Spirit of Truth the eye which read the Scriptures aright came to be put out and the false eye opened which read them backward and the Scriptures were perverted by you to a wrong sence or meaning and ye drew them to the square and rule of your opinions which the erring mind through Satans suggestion had begot in you and now ye fathered your opinions upon the Scripture and they were but the brats of your own imagination And oh what were the materials of your building were they living stones polished and smoothed by the power of God or rather were they not the most rude profane rabble and multitude of the world the same whereof the Prelatical and popish frame was composed of and who were the builders were they men taught of God standing in his wisdom was your Ministry a spiritual Ministry were they able Ministers of the new Testament not of the letter but of the Spirit such as the Scriptures speak of were they called from heaven by the Revelation of Christ or rather was not your Ministry even such as the former of mens making which stood in man's wisdom and taught of men as among the very Papists yea it was even so Oh how little hath the teaching of God's Spirit been regarded were they not accounted able Ministers who could talk upon the letter and give many good and fine words to the people and speak the Saints experiences recorded in Scripture which generally they never knew themselves or if any knew somewhat of that nature as some did it was not principally regarded and men were let pass for Ministers who were gifted with humane learning and gifts under which the best induments of knowledge or utterance which come not immediately from the Revelation of the infallible Spirit of Truth may be comprehended and after ye had quit the Service-book and that way of worship in set forms and denyed them as dead life-less things your humane learning and abilities together with the customary way ye had inured your selves to prompted you to talk and utter many words before God which yet was as far from spiritual worship as the other and if at any time somewhat of the Lord's Spirit moved and breathed among you as it did for the Lord much pittied for his seeds sake yet it was much suffocated and choaked by your running forth after the imaginations of your own hearts ye not knowing the Cross which stayes the mind and gives a check to the forward proposterous spirit which is rejected of the Lord with all its services and because your minding more the words and form and visible things then the living power whereby the Lord was provoked more and more to withdraw from among you and leave your house desolate as at this day it is And your Presbyterian form of Church-discipline Order and Government it was nothing upon the matter better then the Episcopal there being no material difference in the sight of God to render it more acceptable to him beâ—wixt the one and the other neither of you knowing Christ the head in you teaching you by the Revelation of his Spirit to determine of things coming before you so that ye could not say with that Synod Act. 15.28 It seemed good to the holy Ghost and to us but ye went on in the same manner with them of determining of particulars in mans wisdom and by plurality of voices or consents which is but a very fallible way and hath done more evil then ever it did good and it is all one before the Lord whether one or a few should determine particulars as it is among the Bishops or whether many by an equality should do it as among the Presbyterians you being both out of God's wisdom and asking counsel and not out of his mouth and ye called Presbyterian Ministers did step into many things ye 〈…〉 the Bishops out of or things much what alike and of the same nature ye denyed their Lordships and took to your selves selves Masterships both being equally forbidden by Christ ye would not suffer them to Lord it over you but ye would Lord it over the People yea and did as tyrannically as ever the Bishops had done and ye were offended at the Surplices and the Canonical Coats and Belts of their Clergy and yet ye were equally superstitious and vain in your black cloaths and Gowns with Pasments and Ribbons upon them and other superfluity of naughtiness and ye were angry at their Revenues being so great and yet ye stept in also to many of them and some of you had as much by the year as some of them and into their pride covetousness lightness vanity ambition carelessness concerning the work of Jesus Christ and the salvation of poor people whereof ye took up the charge and many other iniquities they were found in for which the Lord was provoked against them ye have taken as it were a succession of and ye thought the Lord should have winked at you and indeed he boâ—e much with you and had respect unto that poor honest tender simple zealous thing that was once among you in a day but he could no longer forbear for the cry of your sins was great and his oppressed seed in your hearts as a Cart pressed with sheaves under your wickedness cryed likewise against you and he heard and brought desolation upon you also and laid all your stately building in the dust and now great is the lamentation and sorrow of your hearts because of the fall of your building and ye are crying in the anguish of your souls for a day again wherein ye may have an opportunity to repair the breaches and build up the old ruinous heaps and ye are saying in your hearts the tyles are fallen but we will build with hewn stones the Sycomers are cut down but we will build with Cedars and make the frame more able and firm then before to stand out the storm But I say unto you in the name and authority of the living God should ye attempt such a thing till ye come to his Light and the leadings of the infallible Spirit of Truth in your particulars it shall not prosper it shall be as with them who attempted the rebuilding the walls of Ierico and have no better success and ye shall but labour as in the very fire and weary your selves for very vanity I have determined saith the Lord God Almighty to race all to the
foundation which is not of my building to pluck up root and branch and all which is not of my planting I have said to my Messengers and servants go ye up upon her walls break down her battlements bull-works for they are not mine level all to the ground and let them not be built for ever and ever Amen saith my soul. And it is God's rich mercy love and compassion that he hath brought this day over you could ye but open your eyes to see it and some shall see that ye may suffer loss in these things which have been and are a loss and snare unto you The 10 th Month 1664. from the Tolbouth of Aberdein George Keith The word of commandement from the Lord which filled me with heavenly joy and comfort came unto me the 30. day of the 10 th Month called December saying Shew unto the people of Scotland my true and righteous judgement concerning the particulars above-mentioned And now however these be received by you I have peace in my God The blessed long looked for day of God broke up amongst us the Lords people called Quakers with a declaration of the Lords loving kindness to us and what he hath done for our Souls in causing the light of his countenance to shine on us And a brief description of our Church Ministry Word Worship order and Government And a Proclamation of the foresaid day of the Lord to the People of Scotland in judgment and mercy With a loving Exhortation unto them and dear and tender counsel concerning what the Lord requires of them in order to a perfect and thorow reformation which they have often assayed but never as yet come at Also a few words to such who expect the breaking up of the day of God and yet deny it broke up among us Written in the fear and will of the Lord and in bowels of love and compassion to the people of my native Country THe day of God is the Revelation of his living and eternal arm in and among the children of men to put an end to transgression and recover lost man to the blessed holy pure innocent state wherein he was created by God who breathed in him the breath of life and he became a living soul it 's the setting up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ the eternal King of righteousness in the hearts of the Sons and Daughters of Adam and the pulling down the Kingdom of Satan who hath ruled over the sons of men as God and swayed his Scepter as an absolute Monarch in the earth It 's the arising of the Son of righteousness with healing under his wings in the shinings forth of his pure Light for the dispelling the the thick Egiptian darkness that hath long covered the earth and brought upon the Inhabitants a sad sore and dismal night wherein the blessed sweet and amiable countenance of God hath been eclipsed and vailed from men whereby they could not live to God for that life is in the light which by the power and prevalency of darkness hath been much shut up so that it hath not shined forth in its glorious brightness upon mankind It 's the pouring forth of the Spirit of the Lord upon all flesh and the breathing of life upon the dead bones that they may stand up and live with flesh and sinews in strength beauty and comeliness of proportion It 's the manifestation and discovery of that great and glorious mystery hid from ages and generations Christ within the hope of glory Jesus Christ in his powerful spiritual glorious heavenly appearance in his Saints triumphing victoriously over death and hell and all the powers of darkness giving to his Saints to sit down with him upon his throne and making them partakers of that glory he had with the Father before the world began It 's the bringing of many from the East and from the West and from the North and from the South to sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of God and the gathering of his elect seed from the four winds of the earth which hath been long scattered and pended up in the holes and caves thereof lying in death bondage and captivity The day of God is the redemption of his beloved seed and raising it up out of the grave to live in the blessed and glorious presence of its God It 's the marriage day of the Spouse with the Lamb and the bringing of her into the Chamber of Presence and the Banquetting-house where she is entertained with the sweet fellowship and communion of the noble plant of renown the beloved of her souls and under his shadow she sitteth down with great delight and his fruit is pleasant to her taste where she gets access to him in the bed of love and sees his sweet comely soul-ravishing countenance and hears the sweet melodious voice which pierceth the heart with darts of love so that she is constrained to cry Stay me with apples comfort me with flagons for I am sick of love turn away thy face from me for it hath ravished me being filled with the glory of his Majesty that the sight of it is scarce tollerable in the house of clay which often trembles at the Revelation of the weight of glory The day of the Lord is the tabernacling and habitation of himself with men the Immanuel God in us bringing them up out of all visible and corruptible perishing things into fellowship with him and his Son through the eternal Spirit It 's the dispensation of the new Covenant taking place in the earth the tenour whereof is I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my People and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto che greatest saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more Jer. 31. And again I will sprinkle clean water upon you and yee shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your Idols will I cleanse you a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and yee shall keep my Iudgements and do them and yee shall dwell in the Land that I gave to your Fathers and yee shall be my People and I will be your God Ezek. 36. It 's the coming down of the new Ierusalem from above out of Heaven upon the Earth cloathed with the Garments of Salvation the Lambs Glory which is her Light so that She needeth not Sun nor Moon nor Candle and the pure white linnen which is the Righteousness of the Saints It 's the causing the old Heavens and the old Earth to pass away and the
God having experience of the saving work of his right hand on their hearts who speak because they believe and are indued with power from on high and filled with the holy Ghost whereby they are made able Ministers of the new Testament having received gifts by the ascending of Christ on high even for the rebellious that he may dwell among them for the work of the Ministry to the perfecting of the Saints and edifying of the body and such Minister from the Light and from the Life and from the power and Spirit and Word of God whereby those to whom they Minister may come into the fellowship of the mystery with themselves and be made partakers with them of the Unction or anointing from the holy one which may be with them for ever and a teacher unto them of all things good necessary and expedient for them to know even to bring them unto the Spirit of truth which may lead them into all truth and instruct them in the will councel and commandement of God at all times whatever it be and to espouse them unto Jesus Christ the great King and Lawgiver in and to his People the great high Priest from whose mouth the Law is to be received the great Prophet by whom God speaketh now to his People wherof Moses writes who is the head in all things and who so will not hear that Prophet shall be put to death and this Prophet Jesus Christ is nigh unto us yea more nigh then all the men or books upon the face of the earth he is both our Maker and our Husband the anointed of the Lord the breath of our nostrils so that our fellowship and communion with him is most intimate and immediate and nothing else does satisfie our souls but the immediate imbraces of his dear and sweet love the seeing of his Countenance which is comely and the hearing of his voice which is pleasant and powerful and glorious and full of Majesty and the Bride rejoyceth greatly because of the voice of the Bridegroom himself and now we need not say who will go down into the grave and bring up Christ to us or who will ascend to Heaven to bring him down to us or who will go over the Seas and bring us tidings of him from Ierusalem where he suffered in the flesh him whose name is the Word of God Rev. 19. we of a truth witness nigh us even in our hearts so that we need not either ascend or descend or go forth the word of life the word of power the word of faith which Paul preached and Moses before him and all the true Ministers and pointed people to this which was able to save them as they turned their minds thereto and gave up to be taught and led thereby And this the Ministers and Servants of the Lord among the People called Quakers do preach without money or price being the free gift of God and many have believed and received it not as the Word of Men but as it is indeed the Word of God and found it after diligent attendance turning their minds inward thereto to spring up in themselves and to be living and powerful and sharp as a two edged Sword to the dividing of soul and spirit and discerning every thought and intention of the heart and though one evil and unbelieving Generation will not give credit thereto no nor yet those of the National Ministry who give themselves forth for the Ministers of Christ but are found lyars they call it a fancy and delusion and turn People from it which is the only Rock that can save them yet we know it to be the Word of God and we have tasted the Heavenly sweetness of it yea and our very hands have handled that Word of Life and we have hid it in our hearts as an only Treasure and we do daily and hourly witness the pretiousness and worth thereof for it is the food of our souls the food of Angels the living bread which came down from Heaven to give life unto the World the Manna incorruptible which feedeth us unto life everlasting and when we are an hungred it refresheth us and satisfieth our souls with good things it 's milk to the babes and flesh to the strong it 's health to our navil and marrow to our bones it 's the bread which strengthneth mans heart and the wine which maketh it glad and oyle which maketh his face to shine and when we thirst living water springeth forth from this word of life in our hearts and ministreth drink unto us out of the living fountain and we witness the promise fulfilled he that believeth in me Christ the Word out of his belly shall flow a well spring of liveing water and when we are weak and our hands hang down and our knees wax feeble the Word maketh us strong and lifteth us up as an Eagles wings so that we run and are not weary and walk and are not faint and when we are heavy through sorrow the Word springeth forth in streams of pure joy and consolation from the presence of the Lord which causeth us to forget all our former troubles and we are comforted in our God in all our straits and difficulties and when temptations from the Devil and his Instruments assault us and the powers of darkness environe and surround us as if they would swallow us up the Word sendeth forth sweet and comfortable beams of Light and openeth the eye-lids of the morning upon us and breaketh through the thick Egiptian darkness as a fiery flaming sword and divideth asunder and giveth us victory and deliverance And when we are hated of the World the Word saith peace in us and causeth it to flow into our souls like the waves of the Sea and when Sathan transformes himself with his Messengers into an Angel of Light that he may deceive us coming up out of the deep with Samuels Mantle the Word of truth which searcheth into all the depths of Satan and to the bottom of the mystery of iniquity discovereth to us the foulers snare and the voice of the inchanter so that our souls escape as a bird out of the net and the Word defends us by night and by day so that we need not fear the terror by night nor the arrow that flyeth by day nor the pestilence that walketh in darkness being girded with the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God and the Word is a light to our feet and a Lanthorn to our pathes the Vâ—im and the Thummim by which the Lord answers us and giveth us counsel in all things pertaining either to the temporal or eternal life and herein we meditate day and night and by it are we made wiser then our Teachers and it 's sweeter to us then the honey and the honey comb and more precious then thousands of gold or silver and in the Word our fellowship stands with God and one to another whereby we know and enjoy and have communion one
which is of the Lord's Spirit perswading the hearts of people to be one with us in principle and practice and to stand up with us living witnesses for the name and truth of the living God which he is revealing and we assuredly know all the weapons that are formed either against the truth or the witnesses of it shall not prosper and the Lord shall make to himself a glorious name in the earth and we the people of the Lord whom he hath formed for himself shall shew forth his praise and the Lord will make it manifest that we are his and that he hath raised us up and put his Spirit in us and that he dwells in and among us to all the Kindreds and Nations of the Earth and they who will not see shall see and be ashamed and confounded for their envy at the people whom God hath blessed and will bless for ever and ever and no deceit nor violence shall prevail against them And therefore now O ye people of Scotland know ye that the day of God is broke up among us the people of the Lord called by you in derision Quakers but who indeed tremble at the Word of his power when it is sounded forth from the Throne of Majesty yea and the mighty dreadful terrible God of strength power and Majesty Victory and Dominion hath determined to shake the Heavens and the Earth and all the powers thereof to the utter confusion and fall of whatsoever standeth up in opposition against the seting up of his eternal Kingdom of Righteousness in the hearts of the Children of Men and the little stone cut out of the Mountain without hands shall grow and fill the earth and become a Mountain and it shall dash to pieces the Image of Clay and Iron Brass Silver and Gold and the Land of graven Images shall be smitten and all the Gods of the Heathen famished and all the Idols shall be broken and cast into the holes of the rock and Dagon shall not be able to stand before the Ark nor Babylon before the spouse of Christ which is coming forth to face all their enemies fair as the Sun and terrible as an Army with banners yea cloathed with the Sun and the Moon under her feet And the Lord is making a work in this day which shall make all ears to tingle and every heart to faint and fail that will not bow at the arm of his power stretched forth The day of the Lord is come and he is preparing himself to battle as a strong man as one awakned of out sleep who hath long suffered the reign and Kingdom of darkness and as one that cryeth out in the dread of his strength by reason of Wine and he is making bare his arme and covering himself with zeal as with a cloak now will I arise now will I lift up my self saith the Lord and who is able to stand up and make war with him whereof prepare to meet thy God O Scotland in the way of his judgments and repent repent repent of your iniquities from the highest to the lowest for the controversie of the dreadful God of power the zealous angry God who will not acquit the guilty is against the one and the other of you without respect of persons because of your abominations whereby his pure holy Spirit hath been grieved and provoked against you Oh Scotland Scotland the cry of thine iniquities hath come up before God into his throne and he is weary with forbearing to execute the fierceness of his wrath upon you though ye be not weary with sining but are drawing iniquity as with Cart-ropes and filling up the measure even to the brime Wherefore a Cup of trembling trembling saith the Lord God shall be put into thy hands if thou speedily repent not thou shall drink shall not escape and it shall be more tollerable for Sodom and Gomorab in the day of judgment then for you forasmuch as you have sinned against more Light and have had more warnings from the Lord one way and another and he hath borne with you long and strived much with you by his Spirit to reclaim you and would have healed you but ye will not be healed and oh how have your hearts turned back as a deceitful bow and shrunk from that measure of simplicity tenderness and zeal for the Lord that was once among you and because yee took up a profession of God above all the Nations of the Earth and have so treacherously backslidden therefrom in the day of tryal therefore is your sin exceedingly aggravated before the Lord and he will punish you above all the Nations of the earth if ye break not off from your sins by speedy and unfeigned repentance And now ye who mock at the quakings and tremblings of the people of God who feel the load of wrath ready to break out upon you and sink you down to the bottome of Hell and would faine stand in the gapes and hold off the wrath and are in great travel because of the dreadful day they see coming upon you and many times are crying unto God for mercy unto you when ye are adding drunkness to thirst and persecuting them and saying tush tush no evil shall befall us where is the promise of his coming ye shall be made to tremble and your loyns to shake and the joynts of your knees with Belshazar reading the hand writing against you to smite one against another and paleness shall come up upon your faces and pangs as of a woman in travel take hold of you and the Lord will roar out of Zion against you and tear in pieces as a Lyon and who will then be able to deliver you out of his hand and that comfort and peace will be far from you which we the Lords people do witness after all our fears and tremblings for the cup we have drunk at his hands is sweetly tempered with mercy and judgment and in measure he debateth with us and stayeth his rough wind in the day of his East and our hearts which once trembled for fear and dread and sorrow are now made to rejoyce with trembling at the powerful and glorious appearance of him in our souls so that we have been made to sing unto him that song we will praise thee O Lord for though thou wast angry with us thy anger is turned away and we are comforted And yet now O Scotland the Lord hath bowels of tender pitty and compassion towards thee which many times I have felt and do feel with many others and he is much put to it so to speak concerning thee what to do with thee and his mercy and judgement are at a kind of holy contest and wrestling about thee How shall I give thee up how shall I deliver thee O people of Scotland how shall I make thee as Admah and set thee as Zeboim my heart is turned within me my repentings are kindled together which word hath often sounded through me towards
all your Idols of silver and gold all the wares and pleasant things of Babylon and the Jewels and ear-rings ye have of the Egiptians to wit the many Inventions that hath crept in in the night of Apostacy to the ensnaring and bewitching of your people and father nothing upon the Scriptures nor upon God but that which is purely of him and revealed unto you from the Spirit of truth opening and interpreting the Scriptures unto you which holy men of God did write from the Inspiration of his Spirit and can only be understood in and from a measure of the same and put not the name of the Ordinances of Jesus Christ upon Babylons brats which whoso taketh them and dasheth to pieces against the stones blessed shall they be And away with all the Wisdom of this World which God is a confounding and all consultings and reasonings with flesh and blood and judging or determining of things but in the wisdom and councel of God in the Revelation of the Spirit of truth in each particular let that be your rule in all things and ye shall walk surely and put away this dead life-less ignorant prophane scandalous Ministry own no Ministery but such who is taught of God speaks because he believes and ministers from the power and spirit of life and away with makeing any humane gifts or indowments of Learning which is but flesh and must die and wither the qualifications of a Minister and do not limit the Spirit of the Lord in chusing or refusing any for the work of the Ministry they are well fitted whom he enables though foolish and contemptible to the carnal eye and by these foolish weak and despicable things the Lord hath brought and is bringing great things to pass and away with your dead life-less worship praying and singing which comes not from the breathings and movings of the spirit of life from God and away with your mungrel Church patch'd up of the prophance rable of the World let such who fear God separate and come out from among them and disown them for fellow members of the body whereof Christ is the head and have no communion with them in their worship which is Idolatry and away with your sprinklings of Infants it s but of Babylon with many other things the Light of Christ as ye heed it will discover unto you which in the night of darkness hath passed for Gods ordinance but the day hath discovered them to have the Beasts mark and superscription and away with setting Bread and Wine before a prophane wicked multiude who hath nothing but the bare name of a Christian telling them its the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ it 's abomination to God and away with the carnal false licentious unbounded liberty ye take to your selves in words diet apparel and worldly conversation mind the cross diligently and it will teach you the golden path of Mediocrity or Moderation in all things and away with all respecting of persons and the honour which comes not from God whose service is only to feed the lust of the eye the lust of the flesh and the pride of life and be willing and desirous to see the glory of the pride of all flesh stained and the Lord alone exalted honoured and glorified in and among the Children of men And away with all Uniformity which is not of the Lords Spirit and away with all force and constraint in the matter of Conscience and Religion and away with all carnal weapons either to defend or propagate the truth away with your Lording and mastering and monopolizing ministry who would limit the Spirit of the Lord and make a monopoly of the gifts of God away with your distinctions of Clergy and Laicks and superstitious Habits and attires for discriminating them and away with your set and alloted hires and maintenance for a Ministry and forcing of people to pay them which hath been a great snare unto many and hath lyen nigh all who from a principle of covetousness seeing thereby means of a livelihood hath intruded themselves into the ministerial Function and given poor people to believe they were called of God thereto whereas generally it is a thing well known they get into Parishes by worldly means they setting their friends and relations on work to sollicite and move the Patrons of the Parishes or such most concerned therein to give them entrance and when the thing is granted then he called the Minister steps up into a Pulpit and sayes thus to the people Beloved by the providence of God I am called to be your Pastor and a watch-man over you as one who must give an account for your souls in the day of judgement and the Lord knows it 's not any other principle but a vehement desire thorough love to your souls to teach and instruct you in the knowledge of God and to edifie you in the Faith that hath moved me to come among you and I have received a talent and I must improve it and the ability God hath given me to instruct you together with the great desire I have to use it for your edification I take for a sufficient call from God and I have also the Patrons and the most considerable in the Parish their call Whereas they make it manifestly appear that covetousness hath set them thereon for how soon any of their brethren dies so that another Parish becomes vacant which hath a greater stipend or maintenance they fall upon their first trade of solliciting for an entrance thereto and they stick not to quit the charge of their first Flock and to give their Wife to wit the Kirk which they say they are married to a Bill of divorce though oft-times there be no occasion on her part and it 's not the Patrons or people who hath called them but they first called them and when the people refuses to pay them their allotted hire they pursue them with horning and poinding which shews them to be far from the affection of husbands to their wives or parents to their children or Pastors to the Flock all which they pretend to be and were they good Pastors their Flock would afford them milk and wool not of constraint but willingly so that they needed not either squeeze the pap to the causing it bleed or tear the fleece off before the time of casting it to the pulling the skin in pieces many times and the ability they talk of is not of God but of men and it 's not God's free gift for it hath cost them both much money and time at Schools to purchase it and were it the talent of the Lord it would prove more effectual to the bettering of the people which it does not for at ten twenty thirty forty years end and upwards they are as bad as at the first coming among them and in many places much worse and the vehement desire to do the people good they tell of is but a suggestion of their deceitful