I might have said much more in return to thine but that I see and know that Words and Declarations tho never so true unless the Life it self speak them and go along with them have but little strength And I could also tell thee that to forsake your Form yea and to speak against it too were not to forsake Truth as thou chargest And is it not strange that you should so complain of my disturbing your Meetings in a Song or few words of Truth when as your selves have gone to others assembled even with railing Accusations calling them Dumb Dogs Liars Hirelings Baal's Priests c. yet cannot bear with such as come to admonish you O that the time were come that those who desired Liberty of Conscience would give it to others I know you cannot believe the Truth when told you nor cease from reproaching judging and condemning it neither will you let the Innocent go free to serve the Lord according as their Light shall lead them till the Judgments you have pronounced against the Innocent fall upon your own Heads For I know that the Lord hath poured out upon you a deep Spirit of Slumber which hath so blinded your Eyes and hardened your Hearts that in seeing you should not see neither perceive the Truth in things that differ And there is yet a Treasure a Dispensation of Grace where you have as yet by reason of your Self-exaltation and bitter Spirit seen but little into the which some have seen felt and handled To this you must all stoop and bow tho never so high before you find Peace and Rest to your Souls or be free from vain Contention and Strife R. R. to M. B. and other Quakers THis I have to say unto thee or rather to G. F. who hath begot many of you into his Image That you no longer tempt any of the innocent Lambs of Christ to withdraw from the leading and teaching of the Unction of God which is Christ to follow the Letter or your Teachings or Traditions wherein you must and shall perish in the dark Wilderness of your own Imaginations for the Lord hath sworn in his Wrath that you who call your selves Good old Friends and the Israel of God who have so falsly accused condemned and bitterly persecuted your innocent Brethren for those things the Lord hath and doth justify shall never inhabit the good Land I know G. F. is raised of God for this very end to try refine and purify many as Pharaoh was and tho many fall in the Trial under his Power yet many will be delivered into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God I likewise see that daily more and more will fall off from that Body and that some that separate from them will with Daniel stand in their Lot and follow the Lord in the Spirit of the Lamb more fully than they have done whilst they that oppose shall stand with Lot's Wife turned into a Pillar of Salt continuing their preaching up Truth in Words without Power whilst others baptize with the Holy-Ghost and with Fire Thou writest of my going to the Steeple-house To which I answer Blessed are those that have Rest Peace and Satisfaction in themselves for they that look forth are like to find but little in this the day of God's searching Jerusalem with Candles wherein he will stain the Pride and Glory of all Flesh R. R. in Answer to some Friends not Quakers YOu judg me to be a Ranter and to hold their Principles I can truly say I have been but little acquainted with that People or with their Principles I would not be thought to be an Advocate for the loose and licentious Practices of any sort of People much less for Them who from the itching ☜ Notions of Liberty have run without their Guide into the excess of all Riot and Prophaneness who while they greedily catch at the Bait are caught with the Hook till a Dart strike through their Liver and they are led with the Fool to the Correction of the Stocks and there plagued with their own Iniquities I desire this may be shewn to Mr. Bacon as to all others who seem to stumble at my Love to this dark Beelzebub this mad ranting Crew THe time is coming and now is that we shall not know and own each other as we are of one Sect or outward way but as the Grace and Principle of God appears in each other the Love of God shed abroad in our Hearts and where this is witnessed thither will the Upright resort and gather If you see any dividing among the Religious Parties take you notice of that I know every one must divide till all unite in the Word in the Heart My Love flows to all that in uprightness of Heart serve the Lord in any Form For as all Forms are alike to me so is the Substance the Power of Godliness also and altho Uprightness God accepted in all Forms and suffered all Sects to walk in them yet now calleth all Men to reject the evil in each Form and to wait on Him to be their Teacher from henceforth and for ever J. N. and J. P. tho dead yet speak who declared they were to cease from words even of Truth spoken from the comprehending part of Man's Understanding and from thus speaking in set Meetings and so to give way for a greater Glory viz. the Spirit 's teaching leading and speaking in the Saints Also they declared that they had received greater Wounds from the House of their Friends than from the House of their Enemies And I can assure you they who meddle with the Quakers had need be fenced within and without with the whole Armor of God Truth and love to Righteousness David â—s Sling and Stone and enabled to use both hands the left as well as the right the Wisdom of the Serpent as the Innocency of the Dove And truly till the Spirit of Love and Reconciliation be brought forth wherewith every Christian shall willingly leave each other to the guidance of God's holy Spirit of Grace in that Form or Way they are persuaded to walk in the Strife which is occasioned by outward Traditional Observations will never cease And I have this further to declare to all the World to Jew Gontile Barbarian and Christian tho I know it will be an Offence and Stone of stumbling to G. F. and all Masters of Assemblies in every Sect who prescribe impose and would have Dominion over the Faith of others that the Eternal God who wills not the death of any Sinner hath sent his dear Son Emanuel his Light and Spirit of Grace into the World his everlasting Covenant a Divine Law writ in every Man's Heart that whosoever believeth in Him and followeth Him shall have Eternal Life And this Divine Law and Word in the Heart is the Ensign to gather together all things into Himself and to present every Man perfect in God being thereby sanctified justified and saved from their Sins To which Word
through the fellowship of his sufferings despising the shame of being cast out of your Synagogues and of being disown'd of their Mother's Children who in Patience and great Tribulations will follow the Lamb and possess his Crown And these are the true Tribe of Joseph or Jesus that are fit to make Princes in all Lands And whereas one of you asked me Whether I would have you one with the World and turn Drunkards Cheaters c. I replied Canst thou not see a middle Path to walk in betwixt these two Extremes of open Prophaneness and close spiritual Wickedness in high places nor put a difference between the true Christ that filleth all and is the First-born in every Creature and the false Christ that is only here or there in that Mountain or in this secret Chamber covered over with appearing righteous before Men yet inwardly ravening and with Simon Magus in the bitter Spirit giving Wormwood with Gall to drink pushing with the side and shoulder and piercing all those innocent Ones that can call neither you nor no Man Master of their Spirits save God only nor receive your Mark nor yet the Number of your Name And is not this the Abomination that maketh desolate and standeth in the holy Place the Heart where Love and Innocency should dwell And Proselytes thus begot and made tho appearing never so righteous whether such be not seven-fold more the Children of Hell than before let the wise in Heart judg Well my Friends when you come to understand how an Habitation may be built for the Devil by your Anger Wrath Backbiting evil Surmises c. and by your hearkening to and following after Men observing of Days and appointed Meetings together with other Traditions and outward Observations which the Power of Love leads not to but are begotten and continued either by the Letter or else Man's vain Philosophy or Example in which having once lost your Guide viz. the pure and single movings of the Lord as by a great and strong Wind ye are whirled about and left to your own Thoughts and Imaginations where the Lord is not felt so you run again into those outward Observations where once his presence was and there are struck blind as the Assyrians Egyptians Israelites c. were and as Saul was that ye utterly lose the Door and Way that leads to Life Read that can understand And here in this Spirit is the silly Woman led captive ever learning and talking of Truth Light and Love to Enemies and brotherly Kindness Meekness Gentleness and of patient bearing and suffering of all things but never able to come into the things talked of no nearer than in shew or in self-imagination and outward appearance only And in Truth I have been oft made to cry out amongst you how that I saw Christ must suffer and that he must die or disappear and then afterwards rise and enter into Glory Which thing I now see you have not rightly understood And if these my words seem to you as a Dream yet why are you angry with me for my Dream's sake But these things I leave to the Judgment of the Great Day near at hand wherein many will be smitten with Sickness VVeakness and the Sleep of Death because they discerned not Love to be the Lord's Body and could not patiently wait for the Resurrection thereof but have set up other Idols in their Hearts instead of him yet as for the innocent harmless merciful meek loving and kind hearted amongst you and of every Nation such shall obtain and inherit the Blessing of Peace Plenty and Rest which none can disturb but not till the last Enemy or Enmity which is the Sting of Death be destroyed and put underfoot Thus by the Life of Love Death loseth its Sting the Grave its Victory the Law its Strength and all resigned to the Conquest of Love unfeigned Then are the Kingdoms of this VVorld become the Kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ and he alone reigneth Go ye with all Sects and learn what this meaneth Oft-times many amongst you in much contempt have asked me Whom I have coverted and where the Fruit of my Ministry is To whom I now answer That my Work is with the Lord having delivered up my Kingdom unto him my self can do nothing but as Love moveth so I either go or come speak or am silent And I am not sent to call the Righteous or to gather into Sects or Opinions nor is it the ground of my rejoycing to have a Multitude follow me or to flock about the outward Court or that Devils themselves are made subject no I know no true Happiness nor a Kingdom everlasting in these things neither see I any reason to prefer one Sect above another only such whose Names are written in the Book of Love and by it are gathered into the Life thereof those to me are most choice and precious My Ministry is neither Lo here nor Lo there I am not so sent to preach but as a Light to the Gentiles and to open Mysteries interpret Dreams and hard Sayings that have lain hid ever since the World that lies in the Apostacy began that so the blind in Heart may see the things that belong to their Souls Peace and VVelfare that so every one in all Forms may sit under his present Attainment as his proper Vine and drink VVaters of Life from his own Cistern without the least spot or defilemenr of Enmity in their Feasts of Charity both with the Lord and with one another And who will be offended at the foolishness of this Preaching except it be the Scribes and Fair-sayers in every Sect that are highly exalted in themselves and in others because of their Gifts both in praying and speaking and in their Zeal earnestness and fervent working of their own Spirit where sits that painted and well-favoured Harlot upon all Waters or Sects speaking as with the Tongue of Men and Angels the Words of Truth and of the Fame of Life and Love but from that Principle which leadeth into the Chambers of Death in all which things the Good Man not being at home nor endowing with Power from on high great Abominations Murders and Adulteries are committed in Spirit and Heart as in the matter of Peor in the days of Balak and Balaam Figures of this untoward Generation whose Ear being once opened heard the words of God and with the single eye saw and knew the secret Counsel of the Most High but afterwards falling into a Trance mark into his own Imaginations he then opened the double Eye for he had two and this saw Evil and loved the Wages of Unrighteousness yet nevertheless what he had once seen with the single Eye he could talk of as you do and so speak of exceeding high and great Mysteries as one having all Knowledg mark that puffs up so could speak of the Seed of God its beginning and end and of the Light or Way through which it passeth and that it should
any other by which they could only convey the Truth to their Understandings Or is Thou more acceptable to God than You in the declaration of Truth I believe those Words and that Language which proceeds from the Spirit of Love is best and most acceptably received by them that are in the same Spirit And what is there in refusing to swear after that manner the Magistrate commands while in the mean time you will call God to witness to what you affirm for Truth Is it any more than to oppose the Magistrates Form by your own Doth not he that speaks the Truth and calleth God and Man to witness the same swear by Christ Jesus the Truth and Oath of God Doth true swearing consist in the meer Ceremony of kissing the Book or standeth it not rather in calling God to record to the Truth which we declare And yet this manner of swearing is owned by G. F. and his Friends and frequently practised by them both by Word and Writing And what is all this but to swallow the Camel and swear substantially while you strain at a Gnat of some small Ceremony which the Magistrate thinks fit to enjoyn perhaps more to obtain Credit from those who have Conscience in such a Form of Swearing rather than to offend them that know how to distinguish between the Ceremony and the Substance And is not Verily verily an Asseveration and kind of Oath and more than Yea and nay And doth not St. Paul say who had Christ in him that he call'd God to record c. And is not this a great Oath And whether you have any other thing to rule and guide you in not swearing save the * Which tho it saith Swear not at all yet no where forbids laving on the hand or kissing the Book the only thing you scruple Letter And whether that be not more against you than with you let the wise in Heart who are acquainted with the Scriptures judg in this Case Thou sayest That the Gospel of Christ is Yea and Amen and that it leads not back to what it led from I say This hath been a Principle long received and taught by your Teachers and indeed hath occasioned much Persecution to the Innocent amongst you to call your outward Observations and Traditions the Gospel or Truth for when any have bin carried out of the way of your received Traditions into any new Appearance how have you upon this ground risen up against them with Floods of Reproaches to devour them To which Principle or rather Opinion of yours I answer and say That the Gospel Truth or Kingdom stands not in any outward Observations for why may not the Lord do both in Heaven and Earth whatsoever he pleaseth and lead his People howsoever or wheresoever he will How dare any find fault with him And who shall say unto him What dost thou He leadeth Abraham Joseph and all Israel into Egypt yea Jesus of Nazareth into the Wilderness and doth when he pleaseth turn the Course of his Dispensation leading them back again from whence they came Why may not God command Moses to set up a Brazen Serpent yea and give power to it also and then again withdraw his power from it and by his Light lead Hezekiah to pull it down and call it Nebushtan which is an Idol or nothing altho to the very day of its dissolution the Children of Israel burnt Incense to it supposing it may be as you also do that the Lord would not relinquish that Appearance once established by Himself The Lord hath had his sundry ways of appearing to his People as in the Mount of Samaria and at Jerusa em and yet she that was limited in her self was led by the Light from all this to worship the Father every where and in all places and things in the Spirit and Truth Christ appeared in divers Forms as the Scripture testifies yet no other save them only that saw him would believe the report of him according to their Testimony but counted their Words as Joseph's Brethren did his Dreams idle Fables as ye do while you judg your Brethren whom the Lord hath visited in a different manner from your selves What if the Lord will so strangely appear as to leave the Jew and turn to the Gentile to call them a People that were not a People What if God will make you that have been first and highest in Profession last and lowest in the Kingdom What if Capernaum now exalted to the Heavens should be brought down to Hell It will then be manifest that the Almighty is not confined to either Persons or Appearances But further why may not the Lord lead Mordecai openly to withstand the Pride and Oppression of Haman and at the same time lead Hester in a clean contrary work to feast him hereby overcoming Evil with Good If one Person should act these two parts which seem so contrary to each other as is Light to Darkness being led thereto by the Light whether that may not be accepted of God tho all Men should therefore condemn it And why may not one abstain from Meats to day and to morrow see a liberty to eat or have Conscience of an Idol now and anon know it to be nothing VVere not some led to sacrifice circumcise and baptize as being all beautiful while the Power of God was in them but that being departed the Practisers of those things may now tell you that they avail and profit nothing Surely did but all Sects knowingly consider that in my Fathers House are many Mansions and that his Commands are exceeding broad and various that there are diversities of Administrations and Operations yet the same Spirit working all and in all and was the Substance which is the Grace appearing to all more minded by Professors and the Form less also were the weightier Matters of the Law as Mercy Justice Truth and Love more in estimation than the lesser which only stand in outward Observations and are but the outside of the Dish and Platter in all Forms there would not be such tearing one another for the Form's sake For in the Substance and weightier Matters all People of all sorts do without controversy agree yet every one in and for the House of his Imagery rends and devours his Brother not equally fashioned and made up in the same proportion of Understanding as touching our outward Behaviour in the Truth 's Profession by which the Image of the Heavenly is indeed so defaced that the pure Love which thinks no ill amongst all Professors of Godliness is very rarely and hardly found These are indeed the bitter VVaters that cause the Curse upon all Sects Nations Tongues and Peoples as at this day this devours the Earth and makes all desolate this profanes the Lord 's own Sanctuary and the Princes thereof and causeth Jacob to be given to the Curse and Israel to Reproaches For this kind of Spirit of bitter envying is indeed that City Meroz which no way
helpeth the Lord in his VVork for it doth not beget to love And is it not most just that that Name or Form should be left for a Curse that despiseth the Innocent for these outward things but I trust and am assured that the Lord will in his due time free the Earth from this Curse Thou askest me How I could compare or liken thy Friends Actions to the Pope or to them in New-England calling them your Forefathers seeing as thou sayest thy Friends bear their Testimony against the Pope's Idolatry and Persecution and also have suffered Deach for a Testimony against the New-England Oppression To all which I answer and say That the Spirit of Persecution is but one throughout all Generations and Forms tho never so refined for he that murders in New-England is the same that imprisons at Rome yet each bear a Testimony against one anothers Forms The same Spirit of Persecution have I seen and observed amongst those which thou callest Friends who for a Song of Zion or a Shout of inward Gladness or any other thing that suites not with their Traditions or Forms can with the same Spirit of Persecution cast out of their Synagogues smite with the Fist of VVickedness and wound with the venomed Arrow of their Reproaches those who cannot submit or join with them in their way And this is not falsly to accuse the Brethren as thou chargest me withal for any to tell you what they have heard and seen amongst you but rather a just return of your own Money into your own Sacks that you may measure your dealings with the Innocent by your own Practices and when the Witness of God ariseth amongst you and sheweth you your Transgressions and wherein you have offended those that have been otherwise acted than our selves then will you know that these things are Truth and the Desolation that shall be in your House at that day shall testify to your Faces that a Prophet hath been amongst you When mark what I say it shall so come to pass that the same Wrath and Vengeance shall break out upon you from others which you have heaped upon the Backs of those who were justified in their Hearts and Ways before the Lord then know and you shall assuredly that I have not spoken Lies unto you or forged a false Divination amongst you What I have here charged upon some I would not be understood to lay it upon all that have been called and are known by the Name of Quakers I know the Lord hath his People amongst them as in all Forms both of Jews and Gentiles such as love and fear the Lord doing the thing which is just and right and such are accepted with me as Bone of my Bone and as my Brother Benjamin that came of the Free-Woman and are in that Freedom fitted to act in all Forms as the Lord their Light shall lead them that they may replenish the Earth And those who are come to this Freedom viz. to give the Light its Liberty of leading according as it enlightens every Man that comes into the World in all Forms and Appearances the Curse is taken away the Enmity is departed and the Earth become the Lord's and his Christ's Let him that can receive it as doth R. R. And when your Work is done and come to an end then shall the Stone from Sion you stumbled at be set up with shouting crying Grace Grace unto it Zech. 4.7 THere are divers Operations and Dispensations yet all good as having their beginning and End in God And why therefore may not God enjoin that as an Ordinance to day and give his power to it also which to morrow he will lay aside as useless and by his withdrawing his Power from it leave it no better than an Idol Such was the Brazen Serpent such was the Temple and Tabernacle such were the Legal Offerings the Jewish Ceremonies and Sacrifice and such also are many things at this day both amongst the Quakers and other Sects which have been Forms and Figures of good things to come which were beautiful in their season whilst the Presence of God filled them but that being withdrawn are become dead and cold as Idols of no use Wherefore my advice is that all Men walk as they see and have received from the Lord and none to look out at others or to call any Man Master or Father of their Spirits save God only And if the Lord commands any to forsake Father or Mother the Forms and Traditions they were brought up in ought not all rather to obey God than Man Consider this G. F. and whether to forsake our own Guide and to follow thee or any Number of People that call themselves a Church who take upon them to impose upon their Brethrens Consciences be not Apostacy And whether this Usurpation did not at first lead the Church of Rome into the Apostacy And whether it will not the second time lead the Quakers to apostatize from the true Faith once delivered to them let the wise in Heart judg J. C. THou accusest me of being fallen and deeply revolted from the Truth and of being brutish and uncivil at your Meetings c. What thou hast here laid to my Charge is not so much by far as thy Generation at sundry times hath also cast on the Innocent and upright-hearted even all manner of Evil for bearing record to the Truth as made manifest in the Light viz. by witnessing to small and great that the Lord is my Shepherd and Teacher alone and that I needed no Man to teach me save him only and that to those who had received the Anointing it was sufficient to bring to Peace and Rest with God and Man and to preserve Union and Communion with Him in all his Creation And for this and my rejoycing which daily I have in Christ Jesus my Lord have I suffered all these things at your hands and been set at nought by Herod and his Men of War even by those amongst you that would be accounted Some-body who desire preheminence and to have Dominion over the Faith of others and that glory in making Proselytes and to have a Multitude to follow them calling you Masters or Teachers For by such and in this manner have I long and oft received your Arrows even bitter Words and Writings which sometimes as I saw cause I have returned back again into your own Bosoms and this you call a wrangling and unruly Spirit At present I have little more to say than that I am resolved to be faithful to what is committed unto me and to declare the same to day and to morrow and also the third day even till the Body be perfected and Him set upon the Throne even that Light that is in true Love whose right it is to reign which thing tell Herod that Fox your King so that all may have Peace and Rest in Him who is only worthy of Praise Honour and Glory alone even so saith my Spirit Amen