open the Scripture for the edification of the people and it was appointed so to be afterwards as is evident by the Books of Policy and Discipline framed and presented to the Council Anno 1560. which thing by you is called disorder and confusion and it was an usual practice among them without distinction of Clergy-man or Layely when they met together to speak of the things of God and of his work on their hearts every one according to his gift and these who spake were not distinguished from these who heard by the name of Master and stepping up into a Pulpit and by getting the hands of so many laid upon them or by a black Gown or Canonical coat And Iohn Husse an eminent Instrument of the Reformation and Preacher in Germany did wear a gray coat which he gave to his friend some dayes before his death as Fox's Book of Martyrs relates And ye that are so much against Women-preachers some of you may remember upon a day when ye met together apart men and women and spoke of the operation of God on your hearts without the distinction of Sex and women allowed dearly to exhort pray or speak of God's dealings with their souls and now ye would bring Paul's words against womens speaking in the Church or rather against Christ the man his speaking in them being ignorant what women Paul meant when he wrote that he permitted not the women to speak in the Church now are not two or three or half a dozen of men and women fearing God gathered in his Name a true Church or are not two or three godly women met together a Church though a man be not among them and may they not exhort one another and pray and give thanks together and is not that speaking in the Church and the Scripture speaks of a Church in one family and if a woman or rather the man Christ speaking in the woman may speak in the audience of six or twelve why not in the audience of six or twelve hundred and the woman having experience of God's work on her heart and who hath felt the love of God shed abroad in her soul is she not fitter to speak of those things then a hundred men who are ignorant thereof So foolish are ye become in your reasonings and there are many living yet in the Nation who remember of women who have spoke so feelingly so lively and experimentally of the Lord's work upon their hearts that many eminent Preachers and Ministers so accounted have thought shame to open their mouth in their presence 8. Your Fathers the primitive Protestants and Reformers made not Latine Greek and Hebrew and Aristotle's Logick and Philosophy with other humane Learning and the passing of so many years course at the Colledge and that you call School-divinity the qualifications of a Minister of Christ many yea the most of them never was at Colledge nor had the opportunity of any to go unto unless to a Popish nor had they any of these Languages or curious Arts but were honest plain simple men such as ye now call Rusticks and Tradesmen many of them and yet they passed among your Fathers for Ministers but if these men were alive now ye would cry Away with them non-sensical fellows what can they say they are not learned should ignorant men preach should Wives Shoo-makers Plow-men Herds-men be Ministers of Christ should they incroach upon our sacred Function should not they hold them with their Callings So say ye against many of us who are not Book-learned and are Tradesmen and this same was the very plea of the Papists against your fore-fathers being Ministers See how ye have borrowed their weapons whereby they fought against them whose successors ye boast your selves to be but as these Popish arguments were too weak against them so are they against us for our answer to you is though we be not taught with humane Learning nor have the Languages many of us wherein the Scriptures were writ yet we are taught of God and that is better we have been with Jesus and have been made eye-witnesses of his Majesty and yee are worse then the Iews who crucified Christ for when they admired that Peter being an unlearned man did preach yet this caused their admiration to cease they took notice that he had been with Jesus as we have been and some of us can truly say whereof I am one we have learned more in one hours company with Jesus then we did in seven years from the Gamaliels and Rabbies among you at whose feet we have so long sitten and we are come to the Spirit of God that gave forth the Scriptures and gives us their meaning and sence though we have not the Languages and which all the Languages of the world cannot afford to us and though many of us know not to preach in the excellency of mans wisdom and some of us who could yet have renounced it and dare not use such a way lest the Cross of Christ should be of none effect yet we can speak and have spoken in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit the words which the holy Ghost teacheth us and he hath made us able Ministers of the new Testament not of the letter which kills but of the Spirit which gives life and God hath blessed our Ministry so that many unto whom we have ministred have been quickned and brought into the fellowship of the Gospel with us and such a Ministry had Paul which he learned not of man and yet had Book-learning enough and such a Ministry God hath raised up in this day which is the free gift of God to which I bear my testimony and a part of which I have received and now is that Promise fulfilled and fulfilling in many hundreds I will make a new Covenant with them and they shall be all taught of me from the least to the greatest and I will write my Law in their hearts in a Language which is neither Hebrew nor Greek but such as he that is born of the Spirit can only understand and I will put my fear in their inward parts And now our hearts are come to delight in the fear of God which teacheth us the hidden mysterious wisdom which none of the Princes or Rabbies of this world knows and by the Word and Law of God writ in our hearts we are made wiser then our Teachers and when this dispensation shall fill the earth as it is doing what shall then become of the Scribe what shall become of the Senator what shall become of the Doctor and Rabby and Disputer of this World who spoke to us in a Language that neither they themselves nor we could understand but now saith the Lord as Isa. 33.19 Thou shalt not see a fierce people a people of deep speech that thou cannot perceive of a stammering tongue that thou canst not understand Glory to God the pure Language is known which was before Babylon was wherein the many Languages
foundation which is not of my building to pluck up root and branch and all which is not of my planting I have said to my Messengers and servants go ye up upon her walls break down her battlements bull-works for they are not mine level all to the ground and let them not be built for ever and ever Amen saith my soul. And it is God's rich mercy love and compassion that he hath brought this day over you could ye but open your eyes to see it and some shall see that ye may suffer loss in these things which have been and are a loss and snare unto you The 10 th Month 1664. from the Tolbouth of Aberdein George Keith The word of commandement from the Lord which filled me with heavenly joy and comfort came unto me the 30. day of the 10 th Month called December saying Shew unto the people of Scotland my true and righteous judgement concerning the particulars above-mentioned And now however these be received by you I have peace in my God The blessed long looked for day of God broke up amongst us the Lords people called Quakers with a declaration of the Lords loving kindness to us and what he hath done for our Souls in causing the light of his countenance to shine on us And a brief description of our Church Ministry Word Worship order and Government And a Proclamation of the foresaid day of the Lord to the People of Scotland in judgment and mercy With a loving Exhortation unto them and dear and tender counsel concerning what the Lord requires of them in order to a perfect and thorow reformation which they have often assayed but never as yet come at Also a few words to such who expect the breaking up of the day of God and yet deny it broke up among us Written in the fear and will of the Lord and in bowels of love and compassion to the people of my native Country THe day of God is the Revelation of his living and eternal arm in and among the children of men to put an end to transgression and recover lost man to the blessed holy pure innocent state wherein he was created by God who breathed in him the breath of life and he became a living soul it 's the setting up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ the eternal King of righteousness in the hearts of the Sons and Daughters of Adam and the pulling down the Kingdom of Satan who hath ruled over the sons of men as God and swayed his Scepter as an absolute Monarch in the earth It 's the arising of the Son of righteousness with healing under his wings in the shinings forth of his pure Light for the dispelling the the thick Egiptian darkness that hath long covered the earth and brought upon the Inhabitants a sad sore and dismal night wherein the blessed sweet and amiable countenance of God hath been eclipsed and vailed from men whereby they could not live to God for that life is in the light which by the power and prevalency of darkness hath been much shut up so that it hath not shined forth in its glorious brightness upon mankind It 's the pouring forth of the Spirit of the Lord upon all flesh and the breathing of life upon the dead bones that they may stand up and live with flesh and sinews in strength beauty and comeliness of proportion It 's the manifestation and discovery of that great and glorious mystery hid from ages and generations Christ within the hope of glory Jesus Christ in his powerful spiritual glorious heavenly appearance in his Saints triumphing victoriously over death and hell and all the powers of darkness giving to his Saints to sit down with him upon his throne and making them partakers of that glory he had with the Father before the world began It 's the bringing of many from the East and from the West and from the North and from the South to sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of God and the gathering of his elect seed from the four winds of the earth which hath been long scattered and pended up in the holes and caves thereof lying in death bondage and captivity The day of God is the redemption of his beloved seed and raising it up out of the grave to live in the blessed and glorious presence of its God It 's the marriage day of the Spouse with the Lamb and the bringing of her into the Chamber of Presence and the Banquetting-house where she is entertained with the sweet fellowship and communion of the noble plant of renown the beloved of her souls and under his shadow she sitteth down with great delight and his fruit is pleasant to her taste where she gets access to him in the bed of love and sees his sweet comely soul-ravishing countenance and hears the sweet melodious voice which pierceth the heart with darts of love so that she is constrained to cry Stay me with apples comfort me with flagons for I am sick of love turn away thy face from me for it hath ravished me being filled with the glory of his Majesty that the sight of it is scarce tollerable in the house of clay which often trembles at the Revelation of the weight of glory The day of the Lord is the tabernacling and habitation of himself with men the Immanuel God in us bringing them up out of all visible and corruptible perishing things into fellowship with him and his Son through the eternal Spirit It 's the dispensation of the new Covenant taking place in the earth the tenour whereof is I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my People and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto che greatest saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more Jer. 31. And again I will sprinkle clean water upon you and yee shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your Idols will I cleanse you a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and yee shall keep my Iudgements and do them and yee shall dwell in the Land that I gave to your Fathers and yee shall be my People and I will be your God Ezek. 36. It 's the coming down of the new Ierusalem from above out of Heaven upon the Earth cloathed with the Garments of Salvation the Lambs Glory which is her Light so that She needeth not Sun nor Moon nor Candle and the pure white linnen which is the Righteousness of the Saints It 's the causing the old Heavens and the old Earth to pass away and the
getting many of the outward forms and words of the Saints the sheeps cloathing but inwardly adulterated from the life and Spirit of Jesus Christ the only foundation of the true Church and was not the ground of the Dragons Whores Beasts false Prophets quarrel against the Martyrs and witnesses of Christ principally this that they held the testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of Prophecie Rev. 19.10 and bear witness against the Whore who had the form retained without the power yea denyed the power of godliness denyed the teachings and leadings of the Spirit of Christ and the Revelation of him in the hearts of the children of men this is the Antichrist who denies Christ the Son come thus in the revelation of himself in the heart for that coming of Christ in his bodily appearance at Ierusalem Antichrist will not does not deny it being he knows it will never harm his Kingdom so to confess him come providing Christ his Kingdom be not set up in the heart now was there not such a dispensation in the earth were there not a people in the Apostles dayes who witnessed Christ come again in spirit according to his promise who said If any keep my commands I and my Father will come and dwell with him And again I go away but I will not leave you comfortless I will come again unto you Iohn 17. And after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ were they not indued with the Spirit from on high and filled with the holy Ghost did they not live in the Spirit walk after the Spirit did it not give the knowledge of the mysteries of God's Kingdom unto them did not the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation open the eyes of their understanding to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge and while they kept here did they not remain a pure chast Church unto Christ and while the eye was kept open and single by the revelation of the Spirit of Truth could the Dragon or Whore or Antichrist prevail over them could the many traditions or inventions get place as the Ordinances of Christ had they kept to the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit of God Now was not the principal Defection and Apostacy from this even the pure chast Light Life and Spirit of Christ revealing God and the things of this Kingdom unto them and when people wandred from this there the inventions took place and Babylons cup was drunk for the vail came over whereby the true discerning was lost and a wrong eye opened which could not but judge amiss of the things of God and of his People and wrest and abuse the Scriptures Now ye who say That there was indeed such a dispensation but now it hath ceased and is never any more to take footing in the eaâ—th do ye not hereby demonstrate your selves to be of the whorish Church for hath not this been her plea all along this dark night of Apostacy that the Revelation Teachings and leadings of the Spirit of Chirst is ceased therefore another Head was set up in the Church then Christ Jesus and the Pope and his Council was made Judge to determine all controversies of Religion and no man was to look at an infallible Judge the spirit of Truth within him and are ye not become as bad who openly affirm that ye are not led by the infallible Spirit and consequently not by the Spirit of God and your Church Confession of Faith saith The former way of God's revealing himself by Prophecy and immediate Revelation is ceased and God hath committed his counsel wholly into writing or to the Scriptures and nothing is to be added thereto by any new revelation of the Spirit And oh how faâ— are ye in this point degenerated and apostatized from the primitive Protestants and Reformers who not only affirmed that there was immediate Revelations from God and that the Spirit of Prophecie was not ceased but witnessed the same in themselves and foretold many things of consequence by the spirit of Prophecie which came to pass did not Iohn Knox and George Wishard prophecie exceeding clearly of whom it was said That from the day he entred upon his Ministry tâ— his death there never came a storm upon the Church but he foresaw the end of it as may be seen in the Book of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland and many others did prophecie as ye may read in Fox's Book of Martyrs and was not this the main and only pillar of the Protestant cause against the Papists who should be the Judge of Controversies and the interpreter of Scriptures The Pope and his Council with the Fathers said The Papists no said the Protestants but the Spirit of God And I read in the fore-cited Book of Martyrs how when some who were burnt for their testimony to the Truth in Queen Maries dayes were called before the Popish Clergy and Bishops who disputed with them and when the controversie arose concerning such points or Scriptures the Popish party alleadged the determination of the Church but the Martyrs pleaded for the determination of the Spirit of God and when it was queried if such had the Spirit of God and it was answered Yea and one brought that Scripture for his assertion who is Antichrist but he that denyeth that Christ is come in the flesh the people partly flouted thereat and laughed them to scorn as yee do us at this day because we affirm that we have the Spirit of God and that Christ is come and his life made manifest in our mortal flesh as saith the Apostle Paul And that which sounds very harsh in your ears at this day and is mocked at by you yea accounted delusion and blasphemy viz. Enthusiasm or the Inspiration of God and the motion of his Spirit was a thing usually known professed and possessed also by them as may be read at large in the aforesaid books and they said faith was the Inspiration of Gods Spirit and so it is and I deny that there is any true faith but that which comes as really and immediately from the inspiration of the Spirit as ever Paul or Peter or any of the Apostles and Prophets witnessed the same whom yee your selves acknowledge to have been inspired and were they now living yee would hiss at them as yee do at us calling them Inthusiasts and Oh what a time are we fallen in that the inspiration of the Spirit of God which is the very breath of life into the souls of the Lords people should be scorned and such as witness such a blessed and glorious dispensation nick-named Fanaticks and mad men even by them who have pretended so highly to be the reformed Church and at such a time wherein the day of God is broke up in such clearness in the midst of them yet they know it not 2. Your fore-fathers the primitive Protestants and Reformers who saw a little further into mysterie Babylon then others that went before them for the day brake up gradually and
charge you with and have been snares unto you and matter of provocation unto him against you for although a true and tender Zeal in a measure there was in many of your hearts in that day for the Lord and his Name and Truth yet much of a fiery headstrong furious false Zeal not according to knowledge and which was not begot of the Lords Spirit nor kindled at his Alter did company the same and much prevailled over that which was pure and tender and of his begetting and yet he regarded this and because of it he loved and pittyed you and suffered you long till he could bear no longer for ye were become as those yea and worse whom he spued out before you against whom his controversie was and you went forwards in the counsels of of your own hearts and advised with flesh and blood and not with the Lords spirit what yee should do and yee relyed upon the arme of flesh and thought to have reformed the Land with your carnal weapons and power and force and might not considering his determination which he spoke by the word of his mouth to his Prophet of old not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord. And yee dealt cruelly and roughly with such as had not freedom nor clearness to go on with you in the manner and way of your proceedings and so yee became guilty of the same iniquity yee cryed unto him against in those men who dealt cruelly and tyranically with your selves and yee constrained many hundreds of poor people in the Land to vow unto God and make a Covenant with you who knew not what they were doing no nor knew him at all and because yee mixed your selves in with a company of ignorant vile prophane and abominable persons without all fear of God and drew them along to concur with you thereby thinking to make your selves stronge and mighty by reason of number and unformity therefore was the Lord provoked against you for he regarded none of these things the vows of the wicked are an abomination to him with all their services and he accepteth no uniformity but that which is of his spirit which knits the members of the body together and admits nothing unto union with the body but that which is of his begeting and but two or three fearing the Lord joyning together in a perpetual Covenant to stand up witnesses for his name and truth are dearly regarded by him but many thousands associating together out of his fear he regards not at all And forasmuch as by your vowing and covenanting yee proceeded to put a stop and limit to the Lords spirit in any further discovery of his name and truth his wrath waxed exceeding hot against you and he loathed both you and your Covenant and suffered it as it is at this day to be trampled under foot and permitted your enemies which were buried in the very dust and their memory almost perished to rise up against you to wit the Prelats and bring you in greater slavery and subjection then ever and now they are doing their work and when it is done they most return to the place whence they came and the time is near and many other circumstances in your proceedings the Lord never own'd nor shall own in which as yee mind his witness in all your Consciences it shall instruct you and also show unto you the hypocritical treacherous deceitful ambitious forward spirit that moved in you and set you on work many times whereby his Spirit was grieved and that of his begetting over topped and oppressed And above all the great controversie of the Lord with and against you was and is that yee got up above the cross of Christ and turned from it the cross which is the power of God which would have kept your feet in a straight even stedy course so that yee should not have declined out of the right path either to the right or left hand and it would have proved a righteous ballance unto you whereby ye might have weighed every motion that arose in your hearts and thereby known what was of the Lords spirit and what was of your selves and of the suggestiâ—â— of the Devil which laid his snares before you and catched you in them and for that ye kept not chast to his Light in your Consciences nor to the leadings of his spirit this was it that which discovered to you the Popish and Prelatical abominations and begat a loathing in you against them so that yee could have no rest till yee came to forsake them and had yee kept chast to this it would have carried you on all along in his work and steered your course from first to last in the streight even righteous path of judgment Oh ye did run well who did hinder you but yeare become so foolish who began in the spirit to end in the flesh and now when yee got up upon the walls and bulwarks of your enemies building and leveled it to the ground when yee had rooted out Prelacy and the many corruptions and superstitions accompanying the same and digged down a good part of Babylons upsetting then yee betook your selves to build and yee thought it should have been a a house for God and it was but another Babylon for yee had gone from the true foundation the light life power and spirit of Christ in your particulars and yee gathered hay and stuble and cast upon it and suffered the earth in you to come over and ye hid the talent the Lord had given you therein even the noble and precious and blessed gift of his Light and the manifestation of his Spirit given to every man to profit withal as saith the Apostle which would have been a sure foundation unto you and would have taught you in the infallible wisdom how to have reared up the building and frame even to the setting of the least stone or pining thereof and it would have cemented and knit every part together and given it a comely proportion and all its due and proper dimensions in height bredth and length and made every stone living and it should have been a glorious building indeed a spiritual house to offer up a spiritual service and sacrifice to God continually and though the winds had blown and the rains descended and the floods had come and assaulted it yet it should have stood which it hath not but hath fallen and the fall of it is great and it hath filled you with amazement confusion and astonishment and darkness hath so overtaken you and the vail is grown so thick over your hearts that you see not as yet cannot see your own folly and that your building was but on the sand and the work of your own imagination out of the wisdom of God and this I am moved of the Lord to declare unto you that it hath been so and though your frame was somewhat more spacious and taking to the eye of man being somewhat in appearance