that good in the office and institution of a King and that good in the nature and person or his Majestie as a man and a Prince if we consider no more that you may live under him with more Peace spiritual comfort more holiness and godliness and with less sin and evil then you have done all these wars or since This I affirm upon knowledge of a sure root and foundation laid by God and Jesus Christ in the beginning of the world now manifested and revealed so firmly and strongly that no humors passions or lusts of men nor any spirits and powers of darkness can overthrow so that what ever men say or do the foundation is sure they may prejudice themselves and deprive themselves of the comfort and benefit of it but the foundation remains firm for it is that tried stone that hath born all Nations in all ages I have likewise affirmed to his Majestie concerning you and your way and work that the spirit of that Ministrie in which you acted against him is dead that your power both Civil and Military hath resigned to him and that the principles or opinions being proper only for that work of destroying and of their own nature weak and short are reducible And then that there are in you those gifts and abilities that may be of singular use to him and the Kingdom So that upon a good understanding between you the King may be happy in you and you in him As the thing propounded is not only just and honest in the sight of all men but also good and profitable for all Parties To you no less then saving of life liberty and estate To his Majestie security honour and the great advantage of the hearts affections and judgements of a great and considerable people And to all the Nation that rich blessing of Peace in knowledge and right understanding So the means propounded to this end is as innocent and safe That wise sober and spiritual men of large hearts and indifferent in their judgements should have the hearing and trying of mens principles and opinions The end being unquestionably good peace and love and the means to that end proportionable a trial of mens opinions before the wisest and best in the Church We cannot reasonably doubt of a good effect except we conclude one of these two things that there is not with men or in the Church that Grace and Spirit of Christ which is able to judge and lead into a way of Peace or else that men are not willing to receive that blessing of Peace though it should be manifested No man can conclude the first without the guilt of unbelief and denying the truth of the Promise of God that his spirit shall abide with his people for ever nor the second without great injury and uncharitableness to mankind But if his word and Spirit be with us and that Word and Spirit be sufficient for that end whereunto it is given which is to purifie enlighten heal and unite the body of Christ to deny it is blasphemy against that Spirit then walking according to the rule of that Word and Spirit we need not doubt of obtaining that end which is so much according to his own nature which is love peace and salvation Why you should think that such a proposal should come from an enemy I can impute it to nothing but this the extremity of your anguish under your fore and grievous loss and disappointment which makes all things seem harsh while the mind is drowned in that sense It is true you meet with sharp reproof there but you must come to find true love in the severest reproof before you can be soundly healed Proposals of a Treatie and Peace for the preventing of present and imminent danger use not to be the way of enemies If such things should come from a professed enemy I think the nature of the things deserves acceptance and not scorn or reviling I confess I think you have wronged me and the Book and I therefore might require reparations of you I know in time you will give it There is that right and reason in you which will give me satisfaction when it shall recover it self from the passions of fear grief and anger which now darken and suppress it In the mean time let us consider whether there be not something in the Book that is yet improveable for the good of the whole Party that stand in opposition to the present Government and so are in danger to be destroyed by it We hope his Majestie and in him the Law is satisfied and by that sacrifice of blood that hath been shed is attoned as to past things yet the breath is not healed but your spirits are still set in opposition to the power of the Nation and the Law and Power of the Nation looks upon you with jealousie and an evil eye thinking that yet you may attempt against the Peace of the Kingdom Great discontent appears in you it cannot be hid all endeavours are used to uphold and revive the cause and consequently that enmity and war that hath formerly been acted against his Majestie and Party This is seen known and felt and doth undoubtedly provoke the Power of the Nation to endeavour the suppressing the Party for preventing future inconvenience It cannot be otherwise all men do it When you had the Power you did as they now do you interrupted their meetings and required Oathes of them This now fills the prisons ruines many Families exasperates mens Spirits into bitterness and wrath which destroyes the sweetness and comfort of religion wounds the life and power of godliness and grieves the good spirit of love and peace in Christ What ever you think of it now I know it is in it self a good and mercifull work and will be so acknowledged by you in time to reconcile a poor broken people guilty by Law and their own consciences to the authority and power of the Nation in which they live For a naked people to be in their judgements and affections zealously set against the Law and Government of a Nation which is provoked and enraged newly recovered and restored experienced fore-warned and fore-armed against them what ever may be expected hereafter there is in it apparent ruine for the present Alas a Law and Power is an Iron Scepter and in the hand of a self preserving spirit such as was in you and is in all men yet must needs be hard to them that are professed enemies to it The consideration of it wounds my soul and affects my bowels of compassion to you which urges me to do what I can to prevent misery to your persons and families And therefore I do earnestly entreat you to consider seriously whether your botom upon which you stand in this divided and opposite state to the present power and Government of Church and Kingdom be sufficient to bear you up against what you are likely to suffer if you persist The foundation upon which you
stand is this You presume and conclude First That you are the select and only people of God his Zion and Israel the true and only Gospel Saints And those that you oppose are Aegypt Babylon the World and Antichristian Secondly that your way in which you have and do walk and the works that you have done and would do again are according to the pure word and Law of God and that which you oppose is all Wickedness Superstition and Idolatry Thirdly That the war in which you have been engaged and upon which you stand is the way of God according to his will and word and therefore hath been and will be owned and justified by him Supposing all this that you are the people of God and Zion in Gods way and word engaged in his cause against Babylon and Antichrist there is then an unquestionable ground and assurance of a blessed success from the manifold promises of the Scripture But if this be not true and that you in this state and in this opposition are not that body that shall attain those promises And this be not the only way of God in which you walk and this war and engagement be not the means appointed by God to attain that glory you expect then be your intentions never so good and zealous your prayers never so fervent your gifts never so many your constancy never so great yet you will fail and the further you proceed in it the greater your loss will be If all this should be true that you should be the people yours the way war the means yet if you fail but in the circumstance of time if this be not the time determined for the fulfilling of what you expect there is righteous and mercifull reason for your retreating from such an opposition and engagement To have faith exercised about the promises of God to be fulfilled in these latter dayes to his people is an excellent thing whereby God will have glory his people deliverance and the whole earth peace But you may have a sight of this at a distance and know assuredly you shall have your share of it and be entertained with great joy concerning it have strong perswasions about it and yet may not attain it in that state of enmity and opposition in which you stand but in another more large holy and spiritual way Or the whole Church may enjoy it here and your souls for ever and yet your bodies may fall as carkasses in the wilderness for the impurity carnality uncharitableness frowardness and enmity of your way and spirits in your present state And therefore it is love and mercy to you to put you upon a thorough tryal and examination of your bottom spirit and way I consider not now your particular forms of Worship which are various and opposite one to another Nor your private and personal holiness fear of God conscience of his commands obedience to his word so far as you know which are not only to be admitted but approved and encouraged in a right way and in a right spirit but I would consider the way actions and work of the whole body in this publick engagement against the Government of the Nation and your private forms gifts and godliness as they have acted and still continue in the same opposition in order to turn your minds towards that which else is like to ruine your selves and families If this great affair and cause in which you have acted and do constantly persist in be the right and that you are the people yours the way this the means and time to attain the glorious things expressed in the Scripture then you must have these two things for your foundation strength and rule the Word and the Spirit of God If you are led by them and stand in them you will certainly prevail if not you will fall and must repent We may consider them either joyntly or severally for though they are two yet they are one also and never separated Let us consider the word of God the Scriptures There are three great works of God declared in it The deliverance of the children of Israel from Aeypt The redeeming of them out of Babylon And the grace and salvation revealed in the Gospel We have built our work upon all these and do think that our cause is the same with them all and therefore we have been fed continually with strength which we got as we could from them all But whether our work do justly evenly square to any of them is the question I am fully satisfied in my self that it doth not And that you if you will be ingenuous and in any measure of uprightness examine what you have done you will quickly find that you have not in your whole business come near your foundation and pattern I shall only hint some few things to you as they do occurr and leave you to consider the rest Only by the way be perswaded to think and feel that you are but men and may err many may err many good men may err actually you have erred though you be much better then others yet you may err and err greatly sometimes the best people err most Israel sinned beyond all the Heathen God will shame and humble all and make first last and the last first the best worst and worst best The Jews that seek shall not attain the Gentiles that sought not shall attain You differ one from another and so must err one against another you have all sinned and come short of the glory of God And therefore you may have erred as to this business fundamentally and either not know your bottom or be upon a false bottom And so through loss and missing come to attain a true right bottom If once you be but willing to be tried you will quickly see much SECT VII COnsider first Whether this great business you have and are engaged in do justly and evenly square to the first foundation Israels deliverance out of Aegypt It hath been so believed so prayed preached and praysed but not so done For 1. Israel was visited by God he came expresly to Moses spake to him in the bush when he had called him he sent him to Israel to lead them forth they stirred not till he had proved his commission But we can boast of no such visit the troubles of the Nation gave us opportunity to deliver our selves the necessities of the Parliament made us usefull whereby we got power and so by degrees broke the yoke that was upon us 2. Isratl had a King and High-Priest given of God to be their Leader and Guide he was also himself their Leader he went before them in the wilderness in a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night and never left them We had neither King nor Priest no Guide nor Leader but left to shift for our selves and wander from one thing to another as our own crooked and blind reason led us 3. They had Officers sent by
immediate conjunction and union And the Lamb is with her dwells in her she is the Mountain of God or the City of the living God 4. She is washed cleansed enlightened and filled with the Spirit of the Lord whereby she is established strengthened guided and kept in even and straight pathes she is adorned and beautified with righteousness wisdom peace honour and salvation and therefore when she appears she will be a praise in the earth 5. She is in all things ordered and ruled by the pure and perfect Law and Word of God whereby she walks steadily surely justly to God to men and to all creatures These things in word and notion are not strange to you that Zion is a Body a Nation a holy People united and compact according to the heavenly pattern joyned unto God sanctified established and adorned by the Spirit ruled by the eternal Word Then consider and compare your state with this Zion where is this body this holy matter or when was this body formed was it in the Parliament at what time though you sifted and purged it yet it was mixed unclean and corrupt and afterward rejected as chaff Or was the Army this holy body with all that vile and filthy rabble If this was the body how came it to be such an offence to you why did it at last cast you off and betray you and your cause Or is it all the godly people why then are you not drawn out united built into a holy Nation or City by your selves Zion and no Union Consistencie or Order No Magistrates nor publick Ministers Can you say when in which of the ten powers that you set up in twelve years you were formed by the Spirit or Word of God which state Oath Protestation Covenant or Engagement was made by the Word of God If all then you were led into contradictions if any one why did not that one judge and condemn all the rest and why doth it not still stand and defend it self and you It grieves my soul to think that you should be so drunk with the wine of your own gifts and success as to need such sensible demonstrations to convince you of the evil of your state We have briefly shewed you the beauty of Zion I can give you a view of your own state possibly you have not observed it as I have done now you have time and opportunity to think seriously of it It is this You are a confused heap raised from the earth by the tumults and commotions of the people being impatient of suffering and full of consultations for self-ease self-safety and advantage actuated and stirred by the Providence of God who can make use of all creatures natures and dispositions And sanctified by and furnished with a spirit and gifts fit to execute his displeasure upon the Nation for their sins Finding success beyond your expectations you grew into high opinions and conceits of your selves overthrew the Government of the Nation break all Oathes and Bonds prey upon the wealth of the Nation enrich and exalt your selves under a name and profession of Godliness for which you are rejected into misery and shame I do feel what effect this may have upon your minds some will think it very hard and severe so think all children when they are beaten Others will rage and gnash their teeâ—h yet it must be born Others will say this is true but why should it be published to all the world I would avoid it if it were possible but it cannot be otherwise how can one write to a people but all may read that will But alas I see it is most righteous and just that you should bear shame for you have put the Lord to open shame and your iniquities and abominations are discovered in the sight of all the Nations they cannot be hid and publick sins must have publick shame publick confession and repentance Eze. 16.52 Thou that hast judged thy sisters Samaria and Sodom bear thy own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable then they they are more righteous then thou yea be thou confounded also and bear thy shame in that thou hast justified thy sisters And know for certain that till you are ashamed and confounded for your abominations you never can never shall know a better state But when you see God pacified towards you it will make you to remember to be confounded and never more to open thy mouth And then will he lead you into a better state Therefore know this I do not charge all this upon some eminent persons of the Party as some do nor upon the persons of the whole Party as most do My soul pitties you I know you have a sore and grievous burden upon you and your personal sins are punished with personal judgements I do both pitty and forgive you and if I could prevent it I would It was the intent of the other Book and is the intent of this to take you off from your state and spirit of opposition to the power of the Nation from which you have do and will suffer so long as you persist in it The judgement I pass is upon the state in which you stand and the spirit by which you are acted This state which I have discoursed to you it is not Zion but Babylon Her filthiness is discovered in the sight of all the world and can no longer be hid In one hour is her judgement come Great is the Lord that judgeth her Righteous and true are his Judgements and they are made manifest God hath openly shewed what was in you it is seen known and felt that it is Babel confusion Therefore is the name of it called Babel because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth Gen. 11.9 Shall I need to apply it to you Do you not remember how much your language was confounded And do you not now feel how much you are scattered Doth it need to be said This is Babel As to your persons gifts and graces I do admit them to be the Lords and to belong to Zion But it is Zion that dwells with the daughter of Babylon Therefore I do write this to call you forth of Babylon Come out of her my people and be not partakers of her sins that ye receive not of her plagues Sword war blood killing persecuting wrath cursing and destroying are her sins and must be her plagues Neither you not any men can live in them but they will perish by them No man or men can act in them but they must suffer them It is the righteous jugdement of God against the beast and for the Lamb he that takes the sword shall perish by the sword and the meek suffering Lamb only shall reign If you had again or could recover all the power and force you had and an hundred times more you could hold it but one hour with
by the sword to raigning and ruling by force They are surely most contrary and therefore Christ knowing he was to suffer commanded Peter to put up his sword and gave this rule for ever He that taketh up the sword to defend himself from suffering or to fight for Christ shall perish by the sword Note 1. We took up the sword at first to avoid suffering and to deliver our selves and Party 2. We now perish by that sword 3. If we now begin to learn what we then refused we go back and repent of all these twenty years work We may I think well do it as it was our work and therein justifie both the righteousness of God in his works and our honesty and innocency in serving of him This your Profession of suffering for Christ will I think overthrow all your active dispensation and if you be true to it it will lead you to an open declaration of the change of your minds and to a faithful resolution wholly to commit your cause to God and never more take up arms to deliver your selves and destroy others If you can do this pluck up this root of bitterness and cut out this core it will be a great ease both to your selves and the Nation If you are able to pull it up and remove it from you by a full honest and clear demonstration of your hearts and minds that may be sufficient to satisfie the Magistrate It will effect one of these two things Either it will overcome your enemies with love and so heal all the distractions of the Nation Or if they continue to persecute after such a declaration of your minds they will soon break themselves For by love and patience Christ hath and doth overcome all enmity and will do so for ever it is the most certain and invincible strength that ever was When you prosecuted the King and his Party beyond bounds and measure you went into confusion and there lost your selves And if they should be guilty of the same thing and pursue a weak faln people beyond the measure set by God the same confusion will be in their affairs that was in yours I think this of your present sufferings That in a large and common sense they are the sufferings of Christ as the sufferings of all men are his so far as they are humane though weak In all their afflictions he is afflicted The sins and sufferings of all are laid upon him We all like sheep have gone astray and the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all and as our sins so our sorrows Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows Even of all Parties and of the worst of all not the godly only but the wicked not the obedient only but the rebells He made his grave with the wicked Even for the rebellious that the Lord God might dwell amongst them Therefore we do see that all Parties are enabled to suffer for that Cause they engage in And do find mercy to pardon their sins and strength to suffer death The common resolution of a man strengthened with the common grace of the Gospel and with any measure of common honesty or an opinion of the justice and truth of their cause do carry men off the stage of the world into death handsomly and steadily That some of you that have suffered have met with more peace and more innocency in suffering then in acting And more love and comfort in a prison and death then in a corrupt toylsom and sinful life in war and contests I do not wonder and yet cannot magnifie it as Martyrdom This I am bold to affirm That Christ hath not yet in these times so clearly or visibly set up his standard and gathered a people to it into distinction from other men as to commit his name truth and cross wholly and only to them Nor hath he formed a body by any law rule spirit or ministry into an outward profession under any visible charracters as he did in the Primitive times And therefore there are none whose sufferings can challenge this peculiar honour of fighting under this standard the Cross of Christ Therefore I do much fear that this profession and glorying in the Cross will cost you dear and involve you in deeper sufferings then you are aware of You will sooner come to a true feeling of your selves and a sober sense of your condition if you would sink down into your confession and acknowledgement of the righteous hand of God upon you for your sins And alas not so much for your personal sins as for the evil state and spirit in which you have acted Against it hath God very great indignation I feel in my soul God hath great pitty to your persons as men and as his creatures and servants And because as weak men you have been deceived and misled But that corrupt state and that spirit that misled you is judged for ever and never can nor shall recover It is not the lowness of a condition that keeps a people down but the unsoundness of it Were we once true and single we should find rest and peace in the worst things and deliverance out of them The upright may and shall rejoyce in the hottest fires and soon come forth But a false and unsound state must fall from heaven though it be exalted thither To fall under sin and shame to be humbled under the feet of the vilest creatures in the world to bear first our own sins and then the wrath scorn and revenge of all the world Is nearer to Christ shews more of innocency then t◠〈◊〉 our selves For the first part of 〈◊〉 Christian righteousness is to bear sin to judge and condemn our selves and to intercede for others To justifie our selves and condemn others is very contrary to the Cross of Christ This may seem and is strange to men but the mysterie of the Cross of Christ will open it to them that seek wisdom To conclude this point I do judge that as there was confusion in your actings so there is in your sufferings And though you are much to be pittied yet not to be justified in them or for them There is much mixtures in them Ingagements and necessity make men stout in their way Naturally what men cannot make good by wisdom and power they will maintain by resolution in suffering It is easier far for men to do so and die then to repent A false spirit and zeal will carry men out in suffering even to death it self as well as a true Yea the anguish and pain of so great a disappointment will make men chuse rather to die then to live in the shame and disgrace of it Shame is the greatest affliction to some tempers And therefore it is easier to die then to yield confess and give glory If there should be none of all this in your present sufferings yet so long as there is bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not and lie not
Being sensible that my mind is both weak and a great stranger to all the Forms and ways of Religion that are abroad and having found by experience that when I did look out I met with great trouble and opposition from all sorts of people I have been willing to enjoy my peace and comfort at home and alone I did the least think to come forth in opposition to any party having in my heart a general love to all men But I am by this Book unexpectedly engaged to come forth in some kind of opposition to many if not all sorts of spirits now stirring in the Nation The people that have severely censured this book and me for it are Independents Anabaptists Quakers Fifth monarchy men and such as profess themselves spiritual and are in no particular form I desire them all friendly to consider how high they have raised the controversie and what must necessarily be the issue if it be determined If any of them had taken the book and dealt with the reason of it and had answered it and convinced me I had been bound to have been their Scholler and to have subscribed to them as my Master And if my reason had been too good for theirs I might have expected the same from them and no more But they all leaving the reason and falling directly upon my person and the state of my soul my life and peace the â—ar is like to be of a higher nature and the question who is the Antichrist who the Apostate who hath sinned against the Holy Spirit and consequently who must go down into horror and trouble into Satan and the displeasure of God and so it is a war of souls and spirits about the most solemn things of life and peace with God And therefore the issue must be this if you subdue me and overthrow my state I must bow and seek for mercy and peace of you upon such conditions as you shall think good to give it This I know you do expect and as necessarily I must so I do believe I readily shall perform it on the other side if my state and peace be good and yours fail I may require the same of you that you should submit to me and accept of my peace and pardon according to that equal and just Law Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them I do earnestly desire that we may on both sides heartily engage in this quarrel if I find you do shrink from it I shall endeavour to compell you to stand to it till there be a compleat victory gained by one of us If you be men and true to any thing that you say or think you cannot avoid the tryal for I know and feel that you are come forth against me in your censures of me with all your hearts and with the strength of your God Religion and Life as against an enemy to God and his cause t is so evident it cannot be denyed And by it you have drawn forth my life and spirit which till now lay close and still to answer you and therefore you are bound to stand and abide the dispute This I write neither lightly boastingly nor threatning but soberly and seriously in love to you and to the good and peace of souls The combat may be sharp but it may be friendly also For I do constantly find this truth in my mind that as all good doth and will overcome evil because it is larger stronger truer and more durable then evil so doth love conquer swallow up enmity enmity is a mean inferiour base thing that is but a servant to the greatness and majesty of love And at this time I find a special love both of pitty and friendship provoked and stirred in my heart by these wounds that you have given me For I feel such a nature in me the more you pierce the more freely my love and life will flow forth to you so that there is a ring of love made for us in which we may safely try our strength and therefore though it be both a serious and sharp contest yet it must also be a friendly strife It may be love hath laid a train to catch us all and all the enmity of all men For observe our quarrel it is of a very high nature for no less then the life and peace of our souls yet if we fight it out the end will be this either I must return to you and receive mercy from you of you must come to me and receive it from me Either you must be my Pastors or Ministers and so heal and feed me as a brother or I your Bishop and Father The quarrell is Whether you shall serve me with your life or I serve you with mine Whether I shall forgive you or you forgive me Possibly after some anger spent in the conflict it may be comprimised and we may both have our ends both serve and be served forgive and be forgiven But let us resolve to try it out for if you draw back and refuse the combat you will go down into your dark holes of enmity but press forward and we shall certainly come to feel and understand one another though through some smart and at last after we have spent our heat end in love If we had dealt in opinions that concern the State you might have feared trouble but you shall have the state of my mind to deal with which you may do without danger of any suffering but in your spirits our war will be now purely in and about spiritual things If we should controvert National Church Episcopacy c. the power of the Nation might be with me but declining that as you do and dealing only with my spirit and life possibly the Bishops may be as different from me and from my spirit and life as you are yea and be more with you then they are with me and I am apt to think it may prove so How ever you may be confident you are free from outward danger in dealing with the spirit of a private person You have advantage enough you are many I am alone you are whole and sound I am I confess much broken and weak you stand firm I have been tossed about my infirmities and failings are many and visible to all the world and most of all to my self yet truly I do desire and shall endeavour a fair trial not doubting the issue which way soever it fall it must be good SECT III. FIrst for the Book I have had many complaints against it but only in general as a monstrous strange wicked and cursed thing I have invited many to shew me particularly what false or unrighteous propositions there are in it and to this day not one man hath said to me that this or that sentence is untrue or will give me any reason against any passage of it But when we come to the point either they have not read it or but part of it
spirit in obedience to his Father and in all his work knew no sin yet he himself was made sin His Father by a superiour Law judged him as the sinner and acquitted pardoned and justified them This is Christs way first reprove severely as a legal Minister purely and holily and finding that short or weak he layes down his life for them he had condemned And when he had administred the Law in its highest purity he then nailed it to the Cross as a weak thing that could not save and died under it to bring in a better Law of peace and forgiveness The fourth and last is the best the reproofs of the Spirit which Christ prefers above his own John 16.7 8 c. It is expedient that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgement Christ reproved of sin from righteousness The spirit reproved of sin and righteousness Christ reproved of sin in the flesh in weakness as under it and the Law and so grieved at it The Spirit reproved of sin and of righteousness in glory and power because saith Christ I go to my Father where he was glorified Being now exalted not only over their sins but by the worst of their sins by their crucifying of him The Son of man was lifted up His love and life overcame both Law Sin Death and the Devil having taken away their sins his Spirit could now manifest to them this one only sin unbelief That there was in him love peace pardon and salvation for them and their worst sins hatred of him that he had born them himself and was acquitted of them and so they were all done away and this sin only remained that they believed not this blessed and mighty grace that could overcome all that evil and bring forth glory to himself and good to them out of their sins and his death And this the Spirit did not only declare but convince so strongly that they could not resist it For his own descending upon them was an undeniable proof of it He convinces of righteousness by shewing that they had a righteousness as well as sin and that as their sins were Christs so his righteousness was theirs that their righteousness was with the Father in a heavenly invisible state because I go to the Father That this is true his own coming as Gods gift is a sufficient proof And therefore it is conviction with judgement or of Sin Righteousness and Judgement For except both the evil and the good be produced both Sin and Righteousness in the light and power of the Spirit there may be wrath administred but not Judgement It is said of Judgement because the Prince of this world is Judged And that is true Judgement that convinces the creature of Sin and of Righteousness and by the Spirit releases him and judges the wicked one the enemy that is the principal the author and worker of all this mischief This Judgement doth right to man to Christ and to God to man it humbles and abases him and brings him to God where his righteousness is It doth right to Christ and the sufficiency of his love life death and resurrection to save the world And it exalts God his love mercy fulness and justice that he hath the righteousness of the whole world with him and that he hath accepted Christ to it as Lord and Prince of the whole world as head of man and hath given him power and spirit to reveal and dispence that righteousness freely to whom he will Now it much concerns you and me and all men that are busie in reproving others to examine our selves by these things what kind of reproofs we do administer If you will admit your work to be tried which you now cannot avoid upon a little humble and sober consideration you will find that in the administration of condemnation upon the Magistracy and Ministry of Church and Kingdom persons and things officers and offices you are very much short of the second of these which I call a Legal or Angelical reproof and punishment for sin For true legal lawful or angelical justice is administred First upon men as Gods creatures made in his image and so his children though drawn away by Satan into the worst evils It is secondly not to ruine or destroy but to reform Thirdly it is by a just holy stable Law and not from mens uncertain and broken imaginations Fourthly it is from a just holy and godly life and nature If these things be true as they are then consider What spirit have you acted in Is it not mercy and justice to you and all men that this should be known That you dealt with them not as men but as brats of Antichrist And sought not to reform either persons or things but to destroy root branch abjure and curse for ever And that by no steddy known Law of God or man such you never could own or profess but by uncertain opinions and imaginations which you never were nor could be true to or agree in either for Church or Common-wealth yea generally ye acted besides all rule Law and authority only by that you call necessity self preservation and interest And this you did not from a pure nature as is too grosly manifest but from a mixture at least of pride envy malice covetousness and self-seeking seen now by your selves and all men If you fall so short of the second I know you will not presume once to think of the third kind which Christ our Lord administred in the flesh first to discover sin and then to bear the curse and punishment of it himself This was â—nce an example and the Saints of old were called to practise the same thing read 1 Pet. 2.19 20 c. and chap. 3.17 18. But alas you are not yet instructed in the doctrine of such a thing but are taught the contrary that this is only for Christ to do and not for men But you are sheep gone astray and led away by false spirits and for the present have lost the Sheeps nature and acted as Woolves When you return unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls chap. 2. v. 25. he will teach you another and more excellent way And therefore as you are short of the second so you are opposite to the third in the very form of your spirits For Christ the holy one dies for the ungodly your holiness serves only to punish and destroy the ungodly his holiness to your practice must needs seem either unrighteous or foolish and impolitick to suffer the just for the unjust and only for well-doing and to commit his cause to God Why did ne not justifie himself and condemn others Had he power in his hands Yes he could command legions and that of Angels Why then did he not cut off the wicked out of
thing that opposed you was one and the same enemy In that troubled state you conclude I was turned to the world and backslidden to the present rising power Great guilt and great suffering meeting together must needs much disturb the mind of poor man If you in the trouble of your souls mistake me and if my mind be clear and at peace I may well bear it and pitty you and so I do My business was to be dayes-man between adverse parties I know I did not intrude into the office but refused and excused as Moses Who am I they will not believe nor hearken to my voice I am a man of no power or esteem and so put it off till I was compelled to appear and now I find the common fate of them that interpose to part the fray both parties fall upon him You think I am turned Courtier the Court thinks I am still a Fanatick T is but just I should receive both your neglects into me standing between you I am content to feel the evil of both because I love both and have in my soul good for both But you do not only judge me to be an enemy but worse an apostate brother and more wicked then your open adversaries for they only afflict the outward man I fall upon your spirits and principles We shall have occasion to discourse of spirits and principles hereafter but here I shall only mind you of two or three things First It is I confess a very difficult thing to judge of principles and spirits because they are inward and therefore strangers and enemies cannot judge of them It must be some friend or brother that hath conversed with them They that are still under them are judged by them and therefore they cannot judge of them It must be some that have travelled through them and have had experience of them spirits and principles are Gods and who can judge the Gods If any they that have been amongst them and tryed them you may from this find some reason why I should be chosen to do this service for you you generally know me my way and work hath been trying of spirits many years Secondly as it is difficult to judge spirits and principles so it is hard to bear the judgement of them Men can easier die and lay down their natural lives then suffer their principles to be touched Men of any common honesty do freely expose their flesh to death to save their Gods although they be but Idols But thirdly There are false Gods false spirits you know it and have familiarly accused others of it you know I know it I confess I do as we say to my cost it may be to your profit you have of late been hammering at a spiritual Antichrist an Antichrist within and it is most true many such there are can you think that you should be acting so many years against Antâ—christ all the while be ignorant of an Antichrist within who doth but now begin to peep â—ut and be discovered in you and you not guilty of receiving false principles or spirits Can all this smoke of confusion darkness and enmity be amongst you and no fire of false spirits Can there be so much reeling and staggering giddiness and instability and no wine of fornication no sophisticated or adulterated wine No spiritual harlots or false lovers Must all the corruption rotteness and filth he laid upon the poor flesh Is there no evil spirit that came in under the name of God to joyn with her to beget these bastard brood of hypocrisie covetousness and self-seeking Must man only bear the blame and not the unclean spirits that are gone out Or must God and his name only stand accused that he led his people by his Spirit into no better wayes Is it not then both justice to his name and mercy to man that these evil spirits and principles should be discovered and detected As it is proper for a friend or brother that hath been partaker with you in them and hath suffered greatly for it to discover them so it will be found a friendly and brotherly office to reprove them The plucking up these principles that lie deep and secret is I know terrible I have felt it so It seems to threaten the rooting out of religion and godliness it self I have found the same thing in my tryals God comes against them and his people engaged with them in great jealousie enraged as an enemy in fiery indignation and vengeance because nothing but his vengeance can destroy them but I have found great love in these fires of jealousie yea love to our nature and persons with forgiveness to our iniquities even then when he takes vengeance of our inventions I know you can neither be inwardly cleansed nor outwardly saved but by a death in your spirits and loss of these principles which have deluded you and brought you into this grievous snare and therefore shall in love and good will to man to your souls lives and liberties prosecute my purpose of manifesting those unsound principles that have deceived and mis-led you and shall not spare for your crying or frowardness SECT V. ANother objection against the Book is it is written much in Allegories because the present state of things is there represented in and by ancient Scriptures I acknowledge this to be a fault and possibly it might arise from the first great error of delay by keeping it in too long it might be thus overgrown with hair and get this dress or at least the same distrust that made me unwilling to write might make me willing to shrowd my mind under those coverings of Scripture wanting confidence to appear more open or strength to go without that help I might affirm that the things written are not meer allegories if they be so they are to me hatefull Idols for I know nothing more abominable then meer similitudes and forms of truth I may affirm that the same eternal spirit that brought forth those works in Adam and Noah of which you there read doth for ever keep the living image of them in himself and many ages after brought them forth in Moses mind and by Moses into writing so that the works done and the words writ are one and of one mind and spirit The same eternal spirit having in himself the same eternal image doth by it preserve the image written or the words and history The same eternal spirit eternally works and brings forth his own likness in all times and in our age and the same spirit that did them and writ them then doth them now and reveals them in that Book He that is wise will understand these things But let them go for Allegories and let me bear the blame of it I am content it should go so because I know we shall gain by all our miscarriages grow wise by mistakes For sin hath something of Physick in it many times if not alwayes it hath its own cure with it because
sort of men because they are against them and their wayes they will exercise the same to all that oppose their way He that will kill a Cavaleer because he is not godly will likewise kill a Presbyterian Independant Anabaptist or any other if he cross his way and notion be he never so near to him in the kind of his life And he that will kill an Episcopal person or party for his own safety or for the Cause of God will for the same Cause kill his Brother Independent or Anabaptist Fourthly This kind of corruption of a body or society of people into deadly hatred and exercise of their spirits and gifts against each other is the worst kind of corruption that can be of Holiness or Religion Because 1. it is against love which is the supream Law 2. It tends to a dissolution For a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand if not a Civil then much less a Religious Kingdom 3. Where this sin is all others are also For where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work Jam. 3.16 Therefore if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not and lie not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual and devilish ver 14 15. The wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie ver 17. From all which we must conclude that the Religion and Holiness in which you glory and upon which you stand is earthly and sensual It began in strife and self-seeking and its end is devilish It is corrupted and faln As great and greater things then these have corrupted the Scripture witnesses it I testifie it upon experimental knowledge and your works manifest this of yours to be faln If you glory in this and think there is not a better you lie against the truth as the Apostle saith I know there is a more excellent heavenly and perfect state which now judges this of yours and you will know it also when you are ashamed of this SECT XI LEt me mind you what we are upon He that hateth his Brother is in darkness walketh in darkness and knoweth not whither he goeth because darkeness hath blinded his eyes I am proving that the darkness of hatred hath blinded your eyes that you know not 1. What you are 2. What your enemies are 3. What the way is you are going or whither you go You are blinded as to your selves and in a mist of strife and confusion have lost 1. your Cause 2. your Religion you retain the form or carkass of both but have lost the justice of one and the life of the other I shall now shew you how you are blinded concerning your enemies that you do not cannot understand them in the present state in which you stand I will not urge upon you my apprehensions of them which I have declared in my Book They are there published and let them abide the tryal I meet with nothing yet that is of sufficient authority to make me retract them You wonder and are offended at the good that I have written of the King from those antient foundations of rest and grace in Gods sight laid in Noah My authority for it I tell you pag. 65. in these words My love is my first and chief guide in this application to your Majestie I believe it will uphold and justifie me against that weakness or strangeness which either is in it or may seem to others to be in it For I do in my soul give unto love the most absolute authority as the most supream royal Law in heaven and in earth the most certain and infallible rule For that only is without errour that is able to cover the errours and supply the defects of all things else I only advance it as a standard let it stand naked by it self I do it to invite you to deal with it Both reason and sense are against it Overthrow it if you can I do desire it may be throughly tryed because I know it is a stranger in the world You have other thoughts of this application that it comes from the vile and base principle of flattery I profess the most honourable principle of love if you have I any strength of truth and righteousness in you suffer not so gross an evil as this to pass uncorrected My business with you is to slay that enmity that is in you to the present power and to take you off from that dangerous opposition in which you are engaged that so you may come to live a quiet and sober life under it And to let you see how hatred hath blinded your eyes No man that hates ought to judge while he hates he cannot judge All passions darken the judgement above all hatred which is a foul black devilish thing it is of the wicked one whom God hath cast down from all authority of rule and judgement And made him a slave a vile Executioner of his wrath I pleaded this in my Book in the behalf of them that since have suffered pag. 152. and now plead it with you And shall I hope never cease to plead it with God and with men and with God in man till this base spirit of malice be cast out of all power both Civil and Religious For I know that hatred though it seem to judge and to be very forward in judging yet it hath neither true right nor light to judge any Only it is a servant to the justice of God It is true God hath given this beast a kingdom greatness and power but it is only in wrath and destruction Foolish man is deceived miserably by him poor dust if he can get up into any kind of power though it be only to plague and destroy yet he thinks it a great attainment if he hath so much knowledge religion or power as to inflict punishment he fancies himself a god because he administers divine displeasure But if ever you come to so much light of God as to know what you do you will abhor your selves for that which you now glory in If you will shew your selves men and but exercise your reason you will quickly see that you cannot judge of your enemies that you hate and therefore that they are not what you judge them to be while you judge in hatred First No man can judge when he hates or after he hates For when men hate they suppose those they hate are to be destroyed and therefore they are already judged and condemned For hatred is the executing of one condemned and that with the worst condemnation unto the utmost and irrevocable ruine Men think when they hate there remains nothing to do but to prosecute to utter destruction to spoil pull down shame disgrace and ruine them And it is impossible that they should judge that are thus employed to execute For to judge a person or
not intangled in your self-righteousness and your minds not captivated by Satan the very principles of holiness that are in you would make you distaste your present state which hath been proved to be vain and false and full of opposition and contradiction There is in you a seed of truth love and purity which must make you loath that state that hath been and is found by constant experience unclean formal and full of enmity to one another and all men However you judge of me as unholy I must teâ—l you I have a long time not only witnessed against the corruption of it but have turned from it even from the best of what is abroad of every sect And that in the sincerity of my love and affection to the pure and holy nature of Jesus Christ And so far as I have in any small measure partaked of his holy Spirit I have born your iniquities and been pressed and burdened with them grieved for them and shamed of them I do not now blame you from a common or humane spirit though that also is able to find gross defects in you and in the best of your way It is by it men blame you And you by it blame one another But from that holiness wherewith I stand before God for you and in that love and pitty to you wherein I intercede for you and could lay down my life for you I may say more For I know and find that none comes unto the Father to intercede for sinners but by the Son both in the name and spirit of the Son None minister truly before God but in that love of Christ who can be accursed for Brethren From deep experience of God of my own soul and of your state and from a long and sore travel in all do I write this to you That whatever you account of your selves by comparing your selves with your selves or with one another or with them that are visibly worse then you Yet when you shall but strive to enter into the strait gate that you may indeed come into the Kingdom of God and his naked face and presence I say when you shall but seriously and in truth desire it and press after it you will abhor your selves and that kind of holiness in which you now live Yea I know in your approaches to God which are not spiritual naked and heavenly but earthly fleshly and in letter or image only yet in that presence of God which you enjoy you are full of self-condemnings and self-upbraidings But that being but an out ward Court into which your Religion brings you it may shew you the outward spots and blemishes of your Religion but cannot discover to you the root and bottom of the evil that is in you Thirdly You are now in a zeal for your forms of worship and for those gifts and graces that attend them opposing condemning and reviling in words and religious exercises to what that tends all men know the persons ministry and worship now set up in the Nation Against these you run headily and carnally for consider what you oppose not Satan in these persons offices and worship but the things themselves That which you oppose and sight against being outward and carnal such is that also by which you do oppose them So that the business is not to pull down sin and iniquity and set up holiness but to pull down the outward power means and ministry of the Bishop and set up the Pastor In truth it is to pull down them and set up your selves This being a carnal and fleshly contest though covered with the name of God 1. It is unclean 2. And being unclean that which comes from it must needs be unclean also and thereby you promote not holiness but the contrary sin For contention and war have done and still do wound and slay the holy life which is pure and peaceable and carnal strife wastes the meek and good spirit If you should attain what you aim at and destroy again the whole outward frame of Church and State and set up your selves except you had the holy and mighty Spirit of God to destroy the root and spirit as well as the form and to open hell and shut them up for ever as the Spirit did Christs enemies they would recover again as they have done But such a Spirit and such a Power you have not I suppose if you could damn them all to hell presently you would not do it you have more mercy in you as men to men your Brethren And I am sure when you have power to do it you will not do it because he that hath power to do it will not doth not do it And he will never give his power but he will give his goodness and mercy likewise Again if you could thrust out them and exalt your selves and way in their place how would holiness be advanced It would be but one thing removed and another of the same nature brought in for it is of the same kind with theirs humane earthly and living in the same region else it could not sight with theirs if it be but of the same earthly nature it must needs be worse not better because it rises by war and contention And therefore must needs be harder sharper and more cruel and thereby suppresses the softer and attains its place by force And yet when you have done this except you have a more holy Spirit to guide lead and unite you you will not be able to settle your selves It is a tryed and judged case that this spirit in which you act hath not that truth and power that can wholly destroy what is nor that love and light that can reform it nor yet that wisdom that can provide a better And therefore you did overturn this Government throw it in the dirt and leave the Nation void for more wickedness to enter and then suffer the old to recover maimed and broken into a fouler house then it was Or else you must go on to perpetuate and establish contention and confusion in the Nation This is both reason and experience and may convince you if any thing will If you have not a more holy more true and more excellent spirit you can never attain what you seek either an extirpation of this Power and Government or establish a better If you cannot effect this you will but sill your selves your Religion and the Nation with violence fury and enmity by all your opposition you make But raise a deal of dust to blind your own eyes and others But stir and provoke black and malignant spirits both in you and against you as you have done And if you had that holy Spirit which only can prosper you in such an undertaking Then I am sure you would forbear this kind of carnal and wrathful opposition For the spirit of Christ is of the nature of Christ most holy and most gentle gracious and merciful He is so holy pure and incorruptible that he can
and doth make these things uphold them and walk in them and in all the wayes and forms of men in the midst of all their vanity and iniquity and not be defiled with them And this Spirit when you are led by him will enable you to live either above them or besides them or in the secret of his Tabernacle which is within all there forms and that with purity peace and content And this Spirit that upholds and gives being to all forms and persons doth distinguish and perfectly judge between the good and the evil of all persons and things and doth eternally chuse and gather unto himself that which is holy in all and casts the chaff and dust to the Serpent and him and it into the Lake of fire If therefore you have this Spirit and will do that visibly which he doth eternally then you must by him first gather all these things and all the parts of the broken Church and Nation under his wings that he may do with our Chaos as he did when he made the world first sustain cherish and brood upon this desolate state and then form a new one For if you cannot receive all into your hearts and bowels of love you will never renew or reform any thing For love is the first moving cause of all good It is love only that hath in it that mercy that life that goodness that can heal and reform the poor diseased and decayed state of man and of the Church This excellent divine nature of God Love hath rejected with indignation your harsh and severe spirit of self-sasety and self-seeking into confusion and shame And hath taken the work out of your hands into his own after you have by violence and unskilfulness spoyled wasted and ruined he will himself save and restore And in order to it takes the whole frame of things in all its sin death curse and misery both persons parties forms and states into the bowels of his most tender compassions into himself and his own nature life and being who is Emanuel God with us In our flesh and so in and under our sins and curse bearing of them for us and from us He hath love to those persons that you would destroy finding his own image in them for they are his own creatures and children therefore he will save them and first pardon and then remove their iniquities In those offices that you would destroy he knows there is good in them and in the honour and riches belonging to them and therefore will take away the abuse and corruption of them And in that service that you so much vilifie there is heavenly excellency which must be preserved purified enlightened and all the death darkness and prophaneness separated from it The holy one of Israel will do this Therefore to conclude this point of holiness you may and must know That you were sanctified with a measure of gifts for a service for the execution of Gods displeasure Its work is finished the gifts corrupted and now as to publick work upon the Nation rejected and under a judicial blindness and confusion because of an evil spirit that did and doth still possess them It is the righteous judgement of the Spirit of God upon them who hath though your gifts and performances be many and solemn cast them as dung in your faces If you will retreat with them in humility and repentance to attend the purifying of your own souls and the purging away your own sins you will find mercy to your selves But if you think by them to exalt your selves again into dominion and power in the Nation you will but involve your selves in more misery and wrath and like a Bull in a net entangle your souls in greater errours and outward troubles The holy Spirit I know and have felt did bear you a long time as a heavy burden and at last eased himself of you as a clog and cumber to him And now I with joy feel that he is free to exercise his own power to effect and perfect what you have failed in It will be your only safety now to retire into deep silence and humility and leave the Church and Nation to him that is Lord of both who made both and I can assure you will perfectly reform both SECT XIV BEsides the two things mentioned of the Kingdom of God and of holiness there are some other things that you have sought in these late wars which are still in your minds As common liberty or the liberty of the people and liberty of conscience But it is most certainly true and by experience now manifested that these things are not in that spirit in which you have acted and still stand Nor is this way of strife and contention the way to obtain them but the contrary For as war and enmity is against the Kingdom of Christ which is a Kingdom of peace And as they harden pollute and vitiate the mind of man which is contrary to holiness So they do naturally exalt will and force rage and jealousie and so must necessarily eat up and devour all liberty and turn all into the worst kind of tyrannie if the Father of mercies and Spirits doth not enlarge mollifie and sweeten the nature of man which wrath and war doth imbitter and harden It is true common liberty is written in the common nature of man in some degree though it be very weak This liberty came forth in you in notion profession and affection beyond what it doth in other people and it hath been not only talked of but desired by you yet that spirit in which you rose and in which you seek it hath not any true liberty in it And if it hath not liberty in it it can neither attain it for you from others nor give it by you to others it never could do either Mind well what I write else you will not understand it For it is I know besides the common reason and apprehensions of men and therefore seems to be and is strange to the dark and private spirit of the world but you and all men must know that there is a divine reason in these things which ought to be and therefore shall be the rule of mans Reason Know then first That we began our wars upon this principle of delivering our selves from the yoak of the Law and Government of the Church and Kingdom being of another spirit and way from them And upon the same principle of self-safety and self-freedom was the war carried on and the whole business from step to step This seemed to us very just and righteous that we should have liberty to serve God according to what light and understanding he gave us And there is an undoubted right in it Yet we see to what infinite confusion and strange enmity and division this principle hath brought us And therefore there is some notable evil either in the principle or in the liberty or in both I think both will be found faulty I
boasting glorying and quarrelling and then where bread is they must bow for it and will and then the Bishop and Shepheard that can feed them will be honoured by them But if England be still a Church or there be a Church in England of old and late and all men professing faith in Christ are members and neither the worst nor best are dismembred but all continue one body though broken and under confusion Then as every particular member is apart so parties united by any bond of spirit perswasion or opinion must needs be a great part an integral part And if so there can be no peace nor building but of all these parties And it is easier for a workman to constitute a house of all then for another to make a shed or hovel of some parts But there will never be any harmony nor health in the body if every joint supply not its place It is love only can unite and heal and only an intire love or a love of the whole to the whole If any part be rejected there is want of love or love is not in that agreement that leaves out any part and if love be not there the agreement will not hold Love the more the divisions the wider and greater the distance the more able it is to unite and the more pleased to do it because it is infinite And the greater the variety is the more wisdom delights to shew its skill in ordering and composing of them into harmony and the more excellent will the musick be when composed It is not imaginable that any one Party can comprehend the whole nor can any one Party comprehend any other Party And therefore every person and Party will in their divided state think and conclude an union impossible But as it is impossible for any party or few parties to agree or to think how to agree so it is impossible but the whole must agree because she comprehends all the parts and they all do consist in her and she consists only by and in all Therefore as the reason of any or many parts be they eminent parts cannot unite the whole while they stand as parts divided from any of the whole So the reason of the whole cannot but comprehend and gather into it all the parts and consequently must unite all For all do already meet in that universall reason wherein and whereby both all the parts and the whole subsist This is the reason of the liberty of conscience that is in my mind I would that all may have liberty to come forth to come together and to agree and to agree first in this point of liberty For it is impossible that ever we should agree or consent by force No man will agree to be beaten If we give not liberty to men to profess enquire and bring forth their minds we deny them liberty to consent For there cannot be a free consent till there be all freedom to profess and to debate and of all means both of professing and trying all things What is restrained and imprisoned by jealousie and enmity is thereby shut up in division and denyed both the first step to and the right means of agreement And is thereby enforced to dwell in it self and to maintain its own private divided state being thrust out from all fellowship with the whole The admitting all to come abroad into open light and profession with liberty to try is the beginning of peace and agreement But as I would give this liberty of conscience so I expect and may justly challenge a liberty to deal with this conscience in the way of conscience For therefore would I that their consciences may come forth that they may be convinced and instructed Sure then you will not deny me liberty to reprove and rebuke and if I can to wound and afflict your consciences if they be guilty If they be not guilty I cannot hurt them if they be it must be known felt and discovered else they cannot be healed It is a freedom that God hath given me to reprove and reform I shall use it and I hope so use it as not to be denyed the exercise of it At this time I would examine this plea of liberty of conscience as it hath been urged all along in our late troubles I do very much suspect this title and claim of conscience to liberty or liberty for conscience as it hath been and still is promoted by many that there is some notable evil in it more then hath been yet discovered For First Where the whole is unsound the parts must needs be so also And therefore if there hath been deceit and hypocrisie in the whole state and spirit of this work this of liberty of conscience being a great part of the business must necessarily partake of the corruption of the whole Secondly I cannot derive it from any antient and honourable root The Jews while they were in their own land they needed not liberty for they were under a Law of necessity and duty I do not remember that ever they desired it when they were in captivity In Aegypt they would not sacrifice Lo shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Aegyptians before their eyes and will they not stone us Gen. 8.26 And in Babylon they said How shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land Psal 137.4 I am sure if you had been as sensible of your spiritual al captivity as they were of their outward you would not have made such haste to sacrifice and set up so many notes or songs When you feel the confusion that is in your spirits you will find you are still in Babylon and hang up your harps and mourn instead of singing I am most certain of this there hath been a whorish impudency in the great liberty taken to pray profess build Churches Ministries and Worship And for this spiritual whoredom is liberty pleaded as well as for conscience Neither did the Apostles or the Primitive Christians seek for liberty of conscience from the Princes of the world But having commission from Christ the supream Lord to preach the Gospel they executed it boldly and freely They were called both to preach and suffer and therefore did not seek liberty from the cross A true spiritual Ministry derives it self immediately from the person of Christ who is exalted far above all principalities and powers And being far above them they need not cannot rightly seek for a licence from them to obey the commands of a superiour Lord. If the powers of the world be only worldly and the life and religion of the Saints heavenly the heavenly is above the earthly and may justly bless preserve and instruct the earthly and the earthly is to submit to the spiritual and heavenly If the powers of the world are as they were then in the wicked one then it was not only in vain but a wicked thing for the servants of Christ to seek to his enemy the devil and his enemies wicked
Government Or else by a friendly agreement with these or any other Governours If you resolve upon the first to destroy all that are not according to your conscience that your conscience may have liberty Then you would destroy all mens consciences but your own and all men for their consciences which is the most contrary to liberty of Conscience that can be Most contrary because you will endure none but your selves and that you would raise a war that you might establish a Law of cruelty which is a thousand times worse then to persecute by an established Law and Authority That power that you would have must be thorow the lives of thousands of your enemies and after that thousands of your friends for they that strive for a power never did nor never will agree in the sharing or administring of it But when through blood and destruction of friends and foes you have gotten it If you should prevail and you in your own persons escape yet that power gotten by war in that spirit you and we in reason must expect that it will be most cruel because raised and begotten by cruelty Indeed it is so horrid and irrational that the bare proposing of it will make reasonable men abhor such a thought For nothing but irrational and blind zeal with discontent and passion can so much blind the nature of man as to lead him into such unnatural things If your spirits do indeed drive to this to the removing and destroying the present state of things as an accursed thing then the ingenuous and seek not liberty from them nor complain of them for not giving it For every such acknowledgement of them doth confirm them and so contradict your prayers and endeavours to destroy them Sometimes secretly and cunningly to curse them and another time openly and for advantage to acknowledge them is falshood and deceit And will attain nothing but shame and confusion For there is little but shame and confusion in it It is a vile thing in private and secret to pray or warily to preach against a State and openly to comply with it in so doing our lives contradict our prayers or our prayers our lives But if this be the drift of your spirits though never so warily carried do you think it is not felt and understood by them that you so oppose you cannot conceal it from them It is wise counsel Solomon gives Curse not the King no not in thy thought or conscience for a bird of the air shall carry the voice and that which hath wings shall tell the matter It must be understood spiritually for it cannot be meant literally Angels are intelligences and intelligencers they are principalities and powers and attend both the Throne and Altar they are present in dominion at Court and in your Closets at your devotions They are the birds and that which hath wings that tell the matter Publick authority hath publick ears and eyes and reach all corners Spiritual intelligencers as well as outward informers If they know and feel that you intend their destruction must they not abhor that spirit that under pretence of liberty of Conscience really endeavours liberty of destroying and of overthrowing Governments to exalt themselves And if they understand any thing they must think These men seek our destruction and as they pray for it and preach it so they will if they can or dare attempt it as they have done And therefore they having such a sense of you you cannot in reason expect but that they should labour to suppress you If they find rebellion war and wrath in the principles of it though in religious duties and conscience will they not suppress both the rebellion and conscience and the duties or worship in which it is And shall they not be justified in so doing I am sure your Law and Practise will justifie them For the same thing hath been done often and would be again if you had power while you are in this spirit When you shall recover either your own nature and reason or the nature of the Lamb out of this Spiritual drunkenness and cruel zeal you will find First That Antichrist the great enemy of Christ is also an enemy to man to his life peace civil order Law and to all humane Ordinances Secondly That this enemy is a spirit the Angel of the bottomless pit And therefore his chief seat and place is in spiritual things in conscience and in the spirits of men and in those things wherein spiritual men or the spirits of men are exercised in gifts religion and holy duties and his last and greatest strength is not in corrupt forms but in those that are most spiritual most lively zealous and gifted Others are but the flesh these the horns of the beast Thirdly And therefore conscience and the spirits of men even in Religion and in lively or spiritual Religion is grievously polluted by him This Templo of God is defiled by him You must come to know it and feel it as I have done Fourthly The nature of this beast is to destroy whence he hath his name Apollyon a destroyer His highest place is conscience gifted mens spirits enlightened and his highest work is to kill and destroy and in order to that to curse and blaspheme with those spiritual gifts Fifthly This spiritual beast this destroyer cannot but be seen and felt by the common reason of men although they cannot judge him yet they must have a sense of him as an enemy to that life and peace in which they live and to that Authority and Government which is committed to them Sixthly As they cannot but discern and feel the horns of this beast that pushes them and wounds them so they cannot but arm themselves with such weapons as they have against him If it be a State it will defend it self by Laws punishments policies and power Seventhly This self-defence though it be earthly cannot be denyed them yea they will be justified in it so far as it is rational humane and necessary and for the preservation of peace and common safety Wherein any are cruel and revengeful that is devilish also and then it is the beast against the beast But an humane care to maintain Law Authority and Peace though it be no more yet it is good against a destroying spirit that would bring in war and confusion under the highest notion of Religion and Reformation The ordinary and common Ordinances of man are to be justified in acting against a Religion Zeal that seeks the subverting of them The first is useful necessary and profitable the other is hurtful and destructive Eighthly The Law and Authority of a Nation defending it self from this spirit by its own weapons being outward must necessarily fall upon the persons lives and liberties of them that are ngaged in this spirit I am grieved in my soul for both both wound my heart both the agents and patients In love to mankind I am afflicted for them and feel the
men If we seek liberty of Conscience upon grounds of Conscience and Religion which is most proper and most for the advantage of the Cause of Conscience who hath most strength in his own Court then we must conclude the Magistrate hath a Conscience For if he have no conscience he cannot consider conscience to give it freedom If the Magistrate have a conscience then 1. If we plead liberty of Conscience he must be himself free to exercise that Conscience in Religion and Worship Can you then freely grant that to the Magistrate which you desire of him And let him in his way be as free from your tongues and pens as you desire to be from his sword and officers If so then you must cease all rayling reviling and reproaching for that from the subject to the Magistrate is persecution of the tongue in name and dignity as well imprisonment from the Magistrate to the subject is persecution of the body Object But ought we not to reprove evil and testifie against it Answ Yea according to the Gospel which is to reprove them as Brethren with meekness long-suffering love gentleness but to speak evil of their persons and worship not to them but to others against them is not to convince but to defame which to a dignity is to oppose and so to overthrow it and to set up your selves either against or above them If so you go beyond a Gospel-rule which forbids to speak evil of dignities and commands to honour all men If it be not according to the Gospel of Peace and Love then it is carnal strife and will bring forth fruits accordingly And will stir up answerable disaffection in the Magistrate For him to restrain and imprison is the same thing with your opposing them whereby you would restrain them from setting up or practising what their consciences lead them to Observe this well If you expect liberty of Conscience to worship you must give liberty of Conscience to worship And they that have liberty to worship God in Jesus Christ are part of his House and Church If you and others will admit this That men walking in different wayes of worship of one God are all servants of that God whom they worship and so members of the body and of the Church though under much darkness many mistakes â—his alone will kill all enmity To enlarge your minds to this do but consider that which both your reason and your wants will necessarily lead you to For can you ask liberty of Conscience of them that have no Conscience If they have Conscience they must have liberty to worship God If they be worshippers of God in the name of Christ they are Christians And this they do therefore they are members with us though dead or corrupt members And as our reason and wants will lead us to it so our judgements may well admit it For the body of Christ is this day most large and the House of God is a House of prayer to all Nations The name of Jesus Christ is published received and believed on in the world and consequently called upon And all that call upon the name of the Lord are saved that is according to the degree or measure of Faith Religion Obedience and Worship they exercise so is their salvation either outward temporary and worldly or inward spiritual and eternal For we plainly see that all men do worship God and have some kind of Communion with him They give him some service and receive some good from him life and support for that life for the soul and body Which doth not deny the exercise of justice either to God or men neither of temporary or eternal civil or ecclesiastical but establishes all For by admitting all to this common priviledge they are thereby subject to all divine christian and humane judgements And either we must admit all Parties to this priviledge or else we must admit them to no outward civil or natural priviledge For the House of God and visible body of Christ is more large then any Nation and the love of God to man in Christ is larger then any other law or light civil or natural The Spirit of Jesus is more merciful long-suffering and gentle then any other spirit And therefore if we cannot admit them to be partakers of Gods goodness in his House we shall not allow them a place in the earth And they that pray against men as enemies to God as wicked and Antichristian they will also thrust them out of all rule and dominion and consequently out of Possession in the earth and either destroy them quite or reduce them to slavery If this be considered it is so vile a thing that the nature of man will abhor it And if it abhor the effect it must also abhor the cause that spirit and way that produces such cruel things in the earth And as it is vile in it self so it engages Party against Party to their utter destruction and leaves no means of peace which is most contrary to all the grace of God in Jesus Christ It further follows if we allow the Magistrate a Conscience and freedom for his Conscience we must allow him the Conscience not of a private person only but of a Magistrate If he have freedom of Conscience as a Magistrate he hath not only liberty of worship but liberty as a Magistrate to countenance advance and promote that worship which he practises and judges to be the worship of God For every one is bound as to worship God so to be zealous for that worship and to promote it And every one in their place doth it Ministers in their way Magistrates in their way and People in their way This then is the great difficulty and the knot of the business every Conscience requires liberty not only for their practise but for their zeal to promote their particular way This zeal wanting knowledge and rule to walk by and therefore in confusion makes men clash oppose and quarrel one with another It cannot be expected that I should at this time shew the place and duty of all degrees and Parties with their distinct bounds and limits it would require a Treatise by it self I shall only say this at present 1. I know there is a holy righteous and a good Law for all men to walk by in their several orders and places in the great House of God without offence and hurt one to another 2. There is work and employment for all both Magistrates Ministers and People to exercise themselves and all the power committed to them either civil or spiritual against the common enemy of mankind wickedness unrighteousness and unmercifulness And the Church of God and the Nation have both need of all their power and gifts and of every good thing that God hath made and right to them all 3. While they oppose one another the Church and Nation doth not only lose the benefit of all these parts but envy strife confusion and so every
become our advantage if we be made wise by our failings Let us first observe the process of things After his Majesties return there was by the sweetness and gentleness of his Government a great calmness and stilness in the Nation and in a degree in the most opposite The trying condemning and executing of the prisoners for the death of his late Majesty stirred a new passion in the spirits of many people And the execution together with the resolution of the sufferers revived a zeal confidence and boasting of their cause and an extraordinary earnestness in their minds which was expressed in incessant meetings discourses and prayers day and night These passions and religious exercises boyl up their minds into new heats which kindled this wild-fire and at last blowed it up into this open Insurrection That you may understand the reason of these things let it be considered what I have expressed in this and the former Treatise 1. That God had a controversie with this Church and Nation because of its sins and its sinful state and standing not with the things themselves only as they stood in darkness and weakenss 2. God must have some to plead this controversie with the Government and Governors of Church and State 3. Those that he called forth for that purpose he inspires and impowers with spirit for that work 4. The seat and subject of this spirit and ministry is the judgements and consciences of men For men by being inspired and led into opinions and judgements contrary to the received Law of the Church are thereby fitted to be instruments in Gods hand of his displeasure to the Church For the Church cannot be tried but by such spirits and judgements which differ from it and are contrary to it 5. They that are thus impowered for such a service so far as they do the will of the most high Lord in it are to be owned and justified Though the office be never so mean and never so contrary to â—he honours wills and wayes of States and Kingdoms yet it is the rod of God and must be kissed 6. These ministers of this displeasure have transgressed exceeded â—heâ—r Commission and exalted themselves in their service And so corrupted themselves and defiled their work This also is true Therefore there is in them that have executed this displeasure and in their consciences and work something that is just and something that is unjust and unrighteous Till these are distinguished there is no right judgement of them It must also be considered and it is granted by all Divines That the works of divine Providence and Government are executed by the administration of Angels Both the standing and changing of Governments is by the ministry of these principalities and powers Therefore in the great revolutions of this Kingdom both good and bad Angels have been employed They being spirits their proper sphere in which they move is the spirits and consciences of men Therefore it follows that as there hath been in these great Providences a righteous work of God and with it much unrighteousness so there are both Angels of light and of darkness inspiring the minds and consciences of men Now to administer justice upon men that have acted in these things without any judgement made of the principles and spirits that have moved in them cannot be thought to be perfect nor a right way to cure our distractions For outward punishments upon the body will not remove the evils that are planted by spirits in the consciences and judgements of men 1. For all men know First That if there be but a little truth and uprightness in any conscience it will bear up the person in the greatest outward suffering Neither death nor hell are able to over-power the least grain of honesty in the poorest wretch that ever lived That which is sincere is able to live and triumph under many sins and sufferings and will never yield till right be done to it 2. Mens spirits and consciences and the spirits that inspire and lead them are above the reach of the secular sword and only subject to the Scepter of Christ in his Church to the sword of the Spirit 3. Conscience though erroneous and seduced will enable men to suffer bodily punishment imprisonment and death with great chearfulness And if they are laid upon men without the means of conviction they do harden men in errour And therefore legal proceedings only to bodily punishments are not sufficient remedies to cure these distempers The case of the Nation under its present distempers is certainly extraordinary and far different from what it was an hundred or fifty years since Great variety of spirits are gone forth which have raised up the minds of men to a greater height of reason religion and resolution And old ordinary remedies will not cure new and extraordinary diseases If the Physick be not proper to cure and remove the disease it will by stirring the humours and enraging of them make dangerous commotions in the body For if men either from some measure of simplicity be it in the least degree and much mixed or from some spiritual operation be it of what kind it will or from an erroneous conscience If from any of these the sufferer be able to repell the Sentence of the Judge and to glory in his suffering and in a shew of righteousness to triumph over death he doth notably affront and wound that authority and judgement under which he suffers A man and his cause when he comes to judgement is brought out into the open view of all men and not only made publick but he and his cause is exalted to endure a conflict and tryal with the Law If the Law comes forth with that brightness and majesty that it ought the man is condemned in his own conscience and so justifies the Law and submits to his sentence and by this the Law and Authority is honoured But if the person judged stands clear in his own conscience upon any account and acquits himself in the face of dead when all men ordinarily yield such have a kind of conquest and do seem to overcome the sentence which must needs have an effect upon the people For people do naturally mind dying men death is King of terrours and it is a great thing to die it raises men on high And therefore in them that can die comfortably and confidently there is a great appearance of righteousness and worth which doth much affect the minds of people some are moved to pitty the sufferer and thereby his words and cause steals into their minds Others are convinced and drawn to the Party Others are hardened and strengthened by it For men think with themselves I cannot live comfortably bur here is that which will make me able to die comfortably and that is worth embracing That which makes the Magistrate to be feared and reverenced is his power of life and death That which makes men able to overcome death secretly overcomes the Magistrate