〈◊〉 〈◊〉 MY Soul hath stil in remembrance the grievous shakings and rendings that have been in this Nation which entred deep into the bowels of it and made every heart ake and every mind astonished This Nation was setled in religion and outward peace in such a way as was pleasing to most but yet there was a spirit within which had been long groaning under oppression whose sighs and cryes entred into the ears of the Lord and he arose up in his fury and jealousie and rent the heavens and rent the earth so breaking the very foundations of both that men generally were amazed and wondred what would become of all The former Religion was almost buried in confusion and in danger of being utterly lost a long-spun corroding war were we entangled in which administred no hopes nor likelihood of peace The hand of the Lord reacheth through all these dominions Mastracy Ministry the common people the people of God both such as were accounted so and such as were indeed so the line of confusion was stretched over them all they did all reel and totter like a drunken man as if they had been so to fal as to rise up no more But behold how suddainly and unexpectedly was there a settlement of al again The Nation setled in peace Magistracy setled Ministry setled the common people setled and those which were shaken in their Spirits got into their several waies in religion and setled again Thus there was a general healing of all again save onely of a few whose Spirits God had so reached that their wound was incurable and unless somewhat of God had been brought forth which the world cannot know nay the religions spirit of man which is below can no more reach it then the common spirit of the world they had remained miserable lost scattered and confounded to this day But the Lord hath in infinitemercy visited them in the season of distress and there hath a little foolish thing broke forth at which all the wise and religious in the Spirit of this world cannot but stumble which hath administred relief and discovered the foundation whereupon they also can settle So that now there is as it were an universal settlement as every creature is gathered into that center which is proper and sutable to its Spirit to bottom on Now this I have to say to all Let every one look to his foundation for the Lord can arise again yea and will arise again and shake once more and then the heavens and the earth which have not a true foundation cannot but fall If the earth be not founded upon and settled in righteousness its present establishment will not stand if the heavens be not founded upon and setled in truth they will melt and pass away before the fire of the Lord. There is a spirit that mourneth deeply to the Lord groaning inwardly and his ears are open to it and he will plead the cause of his seed and the Churches and religions wherein the seed of the Serpent can live and flourish shall wither and come to an end Dust is already become the Serpents food the Spirt of man in all his exercises of religion knoweth not the bread of life but the dead feed upon the dead and the dead spirit of man loves to have it so But this cannot continue for the Lord hath been at work all this while and when he brings forth the people which he hath been forming and their religion the religion of man will appear what it is and shame and sorrow will be the portion of all who have pleased themselves therein and trifled away the day of their visitation Be wise now therefore O ye wise ones be religious O religious ones Open the eye and ear that hath been shut shut the eye and ear that hath been open Stumble no longer least ye fall and rise no more I know ye cannot see for the wrong eye is open and the Lord hath designed to hide his wisdom from that eye If it be possible for you become poor in spirit least ye at last prove to be the rich whom the Lord will send empty away Sell all apace that ye may have wherewith to buy the Pearl Ye have not known the appearance of the Lord but in your wisdom have disdained it and he hath disdained to make use of you in this great work but it hath been pleasant to him to lay stumbling blocks before you that ye might fall and be broken The children the fools the blind can see the way and enter into life but ye that are men that are wise that have both your eys that can judge in religion and determine what is Orthodox and what erroneous yet cannot O hear that your souls may live Ye know not how short your time is the day of your visitation passeth away faster then ye are aware The cry hath long gone forth Behold the Bridegroom cometh and his Spouse hath been preparing for his bed Ye must off with your old Garments and have the new Garment on ye must have the true oyl in your Lamps or the door of the Kingdom will be shut upon you and there will be no entrance for you In plain terms ye must part with all your Religion which ye have gathered in your own wisdom which hath grown up in the Apostacy and which onely can make a fair show in the dark but cannot endure the searching light of the day of the Lord and ye must purchase the true religion the true righteousness the true innocency and purity of Christ the old must be done away truly done away and the new come in the place so that flesh and self may be quite destroyed and nothing but Christ found in you and you found no where but in Christ if you enter into his Kingdom for no unclean thing can enter Therefore put away pride and passion and enmity and fleshly reasonings and seek out that which is pure and enter into it and take up the cross against all that is contrary that so you may be wrought into it and found in it And turn from all imaginings and conceivings about the meanings of Scripture in the uncertain and erring mind and come to that which is infallible And know the silencing of the fleshly part that the spiritual part may grow in the wisdom that so ye may learn in the spirit and know the word of God and be able to speak it My bowels are toward you and in bowels hath this been writâ—â— not to anger or shame you but to provoke you to jealousie against that dark and evil spirit which leads you to destruction under the guise and appearance of a light and good spirit Nor is it to glory over you for my soul lyeth down in shame and sorrow before the Lord and the reproach of my own Apostacy and seeking relief from the world turning from thâ— Lord who had wounded me to earthly vanities for ease will not easily be covered The Lord
Christ was the same yesterday to day and for ever and the light that comes from him is like him that also is the same yesterday to day and for ever It was the same under the law the same before the law the same since the lavv As the darkness all along hath been the same so the light all along hath been the same also It vvas the same in the Jews and the same in the Gentiles It vvas this God expected obedience to from the Jews and the Prophet in the name of the Lord disdains their sacrifices and brings them to this Micah 6. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Their eye vvas upon sacrifices and oyl the prophet points them to that vvhich vvould bring them to the right sacrifice and to the true oyl And the Gentiles so far as they vvere obedient to this vvere accepted and excused in their ovvn consciences the faithful vvitness vvhereof is of God and vvil stand in the day of Christ Ro. 2. 15. 16. That which was from the beginning saith the Apostle John declare we unto you 1 Joh. 1. 1. And this is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at al ver 5. And the end of preaching this message is to dravv out of the darkness into the light to bring men to the feeling of the light of God in them and so to union vvith it vvhich being turned to dravvs out of the darkness God vvho is light is nigh to every man vvho is darkness though mans sense is very thick and can hardly see or feel him and a light from him shines in mans darkness but mans darkness comprehends it not So that this light is not nevv in it self but onely nevv to the old Spirit vvhich hath long lain hid in the region of darkness and death hath not known the light of life Object 2. That this is a natural light or the light of old Adams nature Answ It is in one sense a natural light it is of the nature of him from whom it comes of the nature of God and of his Christ whom it appears for but it is not of the nature of corrupt Adam whom it always reproved and against whom it stil stands a witness and condemns all corruption Man is darkness and when Christ comes to redeem him he finds him darkness and Christ finds no light in him to help him to discover sin to him but all the disoveries of sin that are made in the heart are by the light of Christ and not by any light of mans nature The Lord is the searcher of the heart and he searcheth it with his own candle and not with any left in mans nature Man fel into darkness knew not wher he was but the Lord cometh after him with his candle discovereth his state to him It is the light from which man fel and against which he sins that is alone able to make his disobedience manifest to him We know saith the Apostle that the law is spiritual but I an carnal Rom. 7. 14. The law is the lowest part of the light and yet that is spiritual and of Christs nature and not of Adams nature we know it saith the Apostle Such as know the nature of that which manifests sin know it to be spiritual It is the fallen man from the light the man in the darkness that cals the light darkness but that which discovers the darkness and reproves the darkness and warrs against the darkness is not darkness but the light of life And those who are spiritual and feel the nature and power of it in their spirits know it to be so But man hath set up a light of his own hath raised up a light by his study and invention in the strength of the fallen wisdom and now setting up this for light he must needs call the true light darkness as the Pharisees did Christ Object 3. That it makes the Scriptures void and useless Answ It came from the spirit that gave forth the Scriptures it is of the same nature with the light that shone in them that gave forth Scriptures it speaks the same thing with Scriptures it leads to the same thing and it opens witnesses to the words which the Scriptures speak and so it brings the Scriptures which have been long abused into their true use Indeed it puts an end to the corrupt use of Scriptures to mans inventing and forming things out of them but brings them into their true use and service It takes the Scriptures out of mans hand who hath slain the life by them and puts them into the hands of the spirit who makes the words again pure and quick and living purging away mans defiled and dead conceivings and interpretations of them A man must know the Spirit come to the spirit be joyned to and be in union with the Spirit before he can have the true understanding of the Scriptures The Scriptures of truth are the words of God or various expressions of his mind which he that searcheth into afore he hath his spirit cannot know and so man in this state can onely guess and imagine at things but cannot see the truth And from hence it is that so many sects and heaps are sprung up in the world according to the variety of their imaginations One sort of men cry this is the way this is the truth this is the Church this is the worship Another sort cry that is not it that is superstition and error but this is it and so a third and fourth c. So about Scriptures one saith this is the meaning another saith it is not so but this is the meaning The Papists say the Church must judge of the meaning of Scriptures and the Protestants who take more scope how do they doubt and differ and oppose one another about the interpretation of Scriptures which plainly showes that they do not plow with the right heifer for then there would be unity and certainty They let their own reasonings and imaginations loose and there is no foundation of certainty but had they waited for the Spirit to begin with and gone on no farther then he opened to them all these doubts and dissentions would have been choked in the birth or womb or not have come so far as either birth or womb Yet do I not altogether deny the reading of Scriptures even in this state if men read with fear and trembling not setting up his own understanding or the understanding of any man else but waiting for the spirit which can alone give him an understanding to receive the true knowledg But this I dare boldly affirm that mens reading of the Scriptures in their own wisdom and self-confidence or confidence of what interpretation others have given doth them no good at all
Apostles even al this time of the Apostacy since the man child hath been caught up to God and was not to be found in the earth which makes it seem such a strange thing for people to say Christ is in them and the woman hath been in the wilderness and not in the habitable part of the world Rev. 12. 5. 6. if al this time any one wil look for the true religon for the true Church for the true knowledg and worship of God he must not look on any Nation or any People or among the Tongues which are cried up in Nations and people for the original and as the chief interpreters of the original for they are al drunk with the whores cup they are under the power dominion authority and service of the whore who rides upon the beast to whom power was given over al kindreds tongues and nations But look among the Nations who was persecuted whose blood was drunk whom the powers of the Nations made war against ther alone the testimony of Jesus is to be found Rev. 12. 17. ther alone are the witnesses against the present idolatry and corruption and to some truths or other of Christs which God enlightned them with and wherto he stirred them up to give their testimony though with the loss of their estates liberties or lives Now by what hath been expressed is it not manifest to every ey that hath room but to let in the letter of the Scripture in simplicity and plainness that there hath been a great apostacy from the true knowledge of Christ and an universal corruption power of death sprung up instead of the power of his life and grace The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath disappeared and the abomination of desolation hath took up its place and filled it with deadly venome against the truth and against the life so that enmity against God under a pretense of love and zeal to him hath reigned generally in the hearts of men from the times of the Apostles to this present day And as the light breaks forth and their eys come to be opened they wil see that they have been and are haters of God and of his life and spirit but lovers of the world and of such a religion as suits the worldly Spirit Position II. THat in this great Apostacy the true state of Christianity hath been lost This must needs be for if ther was an Apostacy from the thing ther could not be a retaining of the thing about which the Apostacy was If they apostatised from the spirit from the light from the life then they wer gone from it they lost it Now it may be instanced in every particular how the state of Christianity was lost but that would be too vast and tedious it may suffice therfore to instance in some considerables ones which may lead into the discovery of the rest 1. The true rule of Christianity or the rule of a Christian which is to direct guid and order him in his whole course was apostatized from and lost What is a Christians rule whereby he is to steer and order his course A Christian is to be a follower of Christ and consequently must have the same rule to walk by as Christ had A Christian proceeds from Christ hath the same life in him and needs the same rule Christ had the fulnesse of life and of his fulnesse we al receive a measure of the same life We are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones Ephes 5. 30. yea we came out of the same spring of life from whence he came for both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are al of one for which cause he is not ashamed to cal them brethren Ebr. 2. 11. Now what was his rule was it not the fulness of life which he received And what is their rule is it not the measure of life which they receive Was not Christs rule the law of the spirit the law which the spirit wrote in his heart And is not their rule the law of the spirit the law which the spirit writes in their hearts How was Christ made a King and a Priest was it by the law of a carnal commandment or by the power of an endles life And how are they made Kings and Priests to God Rev. 1. 6. Is it by the law of a carnal commandment or is it by the power of the same endles life Lo I come to do thy will O God saith Christ when he cometh into the world Ebr. 10. ver 5. 7. but by what rule by what law thy law is within my heart Psal 40. 8. And the same spirit who wrote it ther is also to write the new Covenant with al the laws of it in the heart of every Christian from the least to the greatest Ebr. 8. 9. 10. yea the same spirit that dwelt in Christs heart is to dwel in their hearts according to the promise of the Covenant Ezek. 36. 27. This was Pauls rule after which he walked the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1 2. This made him free from the law of sinne and death Wher is the law of sin writ wher is the law of death writ is it not writ in the heart And must not the law of righteousness and life be writ ther also if it be able to deal with sin and death The spirit forms the heart anew forms Christ in the heart begets a new creature ther which cannot sin He that is born of God sins not and this is the rule unto righteousnes the new creature or the spirit of life in the new creature Gal 6. 15. 16. In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature And as many as walk according to this rule peace be on them Mark ther 's the rule the new creature which is begotten in every one that 's born of God If any man be in Christ he is a new creature and this new creature is to be his rule And as any man walks according to this rule according to the new creature according to the law of light and life that the spirit continually breathes into the new creature he hath peace but as he transgresses that and walks not after the spirit but after the flesh he walks out of the light out of the life out of the peace into the sea into the death into the trouble into the condemnation Here then is the law of the converted man the new creature and the law of the new creature is the spirit of life which begat him which lives and breathes gives forth his law continually in him Here 's a Christian here 's his rule He that hath not the new creature formed in him is no Christian and he that hath the new creature hath the rule in himselfe Ye have an unction from the holy one and ye know al things 1 Joh. 2. 20. How came they to know al things
doth not John say it was by the unction the anointing was in them a foundation or wel-spring of light and life issuing forth continually such Rivers and streams of life within as they needed no other Teacher in the truth and way of life ver 27. The Comforter did refresh their hearts sufficiently and lead them into all truth Search the Apostles Epistles and ye shall find them testifying of the Lords sending his spirit into the hearts of Christians and exhortations to them not to grieve or quench the spirit but to follow as they were lead They were to live in the spirit and to walke in the spirit Gal. 5. 25. and the spirit was to walk and live and bring forth his own life and power in them 2 Cor. 6. 16. And what can be the proper and full rule of Gods Sons and Daughters but the light of the spirit of life which they receive from their father Thus God did advance the state of a believer above the state of the Jews under the law for they had the law though written with the singer of God yet but in tables of stone but these have the law writ by the finger of God in the tables of their hearts Their's was a law without at a distance from them and the Priests lips were to preserve the knowledg of it and to instruct them in it but here is a law within nigh at hand the immediate light of the spirit of life shining so immediatly in the heart that they need no man to teach them but have the spirit of prophesy in themselves and quick living teachings from him continually and are made such Kings and Priests to God as the state of the law did but represent The Gospel is the substance of al the shadowes contained in the law A Christian is he that comes into this substance and lives in this substance and in whom this substance lives and his rule is the substance it self in which he lives which lives in him Christ is the substance who lives in the Christian and he in Crhist Christ lives in him by his spirit and he in Christ by the same spirit ther he lives and hath fellowship with the Father and the Son in the light wherin they live and not by any outward rule 1 Joh. 1. 6. 7. But what is the rule now in the Apostacy Among the Papists the rule is the Scripture interpreted by the Church as they cal themselves with a mixture of their own precepts and traditions Among the Protestants the rule is the Scriptures according as they can understand them by their own study or according as they can receive the understanding of them from such men as they account Orthodox And hence arise continual differences and heaps and sects one following this interpretation another that An this is a grievous apostacy and the root spring and foundation of al the rest for he that misseth in his beginning he that begins his Religion without the true rule how can he proceed aright in any thing afterwards Object But are not the Scriptures the word of God and is not the word of God to be a Christians rule If every one should be left to his own spirit what confusion and uncertainty would this produce Answ The Scriptures are not that living word which is appointed by God to be the rule of a Christian but they contain words spoken by the spirit of God testifying of that word and pointing to that word which is to be the rule Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they which testifie of me and ye will not come to me that ye might have life Joh. 5. 39. 40. The Scriptures are to be searched for the testimony which they give of Christ and when that testimony is received Christ is to be come to and life received from him But the Pharisees formerly and Christians since I mean Christians in name search the Scriptures but do not come to Christ for the life but stick in the letter of the Scriptures and oppose the life with the letter keeping themselves from the life by their wisdome and knowledg in the letter Thus they put the Scriptures into the place of Christ so honor neither Christ nor the Scriptures I had been no honour to John to have been taken for the light his honour was to point to it nor is it any honour to the Scriptures to be called the word of God but their honour is to discover and testifie of the word Now hear what the Scriptures cal the word In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the word was God Jho 1. 1. and the word was made flesh vers 14. This was the name of Christ when he came into the world in the flesh to sow his life in the world And when he comes again into the world out of a far Country to fight with the beast and false Prophets and to clense the earth of the Whores fornication and idols wherewith she had corrupted it he shal have the same name again his name is called The word of God Rev. 19. 13. So Peter calleth that the word of God which liveth and abideth for ever 1 Pet. 1. 23. And this word that liveth and abideth for ever was the word that they preached ver 25. And they that believed did not cry up the words that the Apostles spake for the word but received the thing they spake of the ingrafted word which being received with a meek quiet and submissive spirit is able to save the soul Jam. 1. 21. This is the word of faith that is nigh in the heart and in the mouth Rom. 10. 8. This is the word that stands at the door of the heart and speaks to be let in Behold I stand at the door and knock and when it is let in it speaks in the heart what is to be heard and done It is nigh it is in the heart and in the mouth to what end that thou mightest hear it and do it The living word which is quick and powerful and sharper then any two edged sword divides in the mouth and divides in the heart the vile from the precious yea it reacheth to the very inmost of the heart and cuts between the roots Ebr. 4. 11. and this thou art to hear and do Thou art to part with al the vile words the vile conversation the vile course and worship of the world outwardly and the vile thoughts and course of sin inwardly as fast as the word discovers them to thee and to exercise thy selfe in that which is folly and madnesse to the ey of the world and a grievous cross to thine own worldly nature yea when the word reaches to the very nature life and spirit within from whence al that comes that strong wise root of the fleshly life in the heart must not he spared nor that foolish weak thing to mans wise ey which is brought in stead
which would not that I should reign over them bring hither and slay them before me For of a truth the great Prophet is arisen and speaks in the heart and his sheep hear his voice there are many faithful witnesses thereof and he that will not hear his voice must be cut off there is no avoiding of it for the two-edged sword is in his hand and he will cut down the transgressor 8. The Church the true Church was lost The true Church was a company gathered out of the world into God begotten of and gathered into his life by the living word and so had a true place and habitation in God The Apostle Paul writing to the Thessalonians stiles them a Church in God A Church under the Gospel is made up of true Israelites gathered out of their own spirits and natures into the measure of the spirit of God in them as Christ was into the fulnesse They are such as are begotten of God born of his spirit led by him out of Egypt through the wildernesse to Sion the holy mount there they meet with the elect precious corner stone which is laid in Sion and they being living stones are built upon it into Jerusalem the holy City 1 Pet 2. 5 6. Ebr. 12. 22. This is the true Church Every one that believes in Christ is a living stone and being a living stone he is laid upon the living foundation and so is a part of the building in the Temple of the living God Yea his body and and spirit being clensed he himself is a Temple wherein God dwels appears and is worshipped And the gathering of any of these together at any time in the life in the name of Christ is a larger Temple and such a Temple as Christ never fails to be in the midst of But the great Temple the ful Church is the general assembly of the first-born This is the unerring pillar and ground of truth This alwaies bare up truth truth never failed here but when it was at any time lost in the world it might from hence be recovered again when God pleased and as far as he pleased Indeed the Law of the Lord hath alwaies gone forth from this Sion and the living word from this Jerusalem But what hath the Church been in the Apostacy a building of stone say some and that not onely among Papists but here in England also many have called the old Mass-house a Church a Temple the house of God pleading for it to be a holy place and have showed it by their practises keeping off their hats while they were in it Others say not the stone building but the people that meet there is the Church whereof many are openly prophane yea so far from being gathered into the spirit and so ignorant of his motions that they are ready to scoffe if they hear a man speak of being moved by the spirit What are these are these living stones whereupon the true Church alone can be built are these children of the day Nay these are children of the night children brought up in the Apostacy from the true light the true life the true rule of Christianity the true worship the true faith the true love c. and so are dead stones in that building but not true living stones in Gods building Other sorts separate from these and gather Congregations out of these but still in the same spirit in the same nature being not themselves gathered out of the Apostacy from the spirit into the spirit again and so they build but with the same stones as were in the old building and not with the new and living stones and so are but a more refined appearance of a Church but not a true Church Not a Church in God and by the gathering of his spirit but of their own gathering after a form according as they have imagined from their reading and studying of the Scriptures 9. Which may be the last instance The Ministry the true Ministry hath been lost The true Ministry was a ministry made and appointed by the spirit by the gift of the Spirit bestowed on them and by the spirit sending of them and appointing them to their work Christ bid his Apostles and Disciples wait at Jerusalem for the promise of the spirit and when he had given them the spirit he gave them to the Church for the work of the Ministry Ephes 4. 11. 12. Act. 20. 28. And if none can be a member of the true Church but by being begotten out of death into life by the spirit surely none can be able to minister to him who is so begotten but by the same spirit So these receiving their Ministry of the Lord Jesus Act. 20. 24. and the gift of the spirit from him they were made able Ministers of the new Testament not of the letter but of the spirit 2 Cor. 3. 6. They were able in God to minister from his spirit to the spirits of his people And they did not minister a literal knowledg of things to the understanding of man but they led men to the spirit of God and ministred spiritual things to that spiritual understanding which was given them of God Neither did they make use of their own wisdom and art to tickle the natural ear but spake to the conscience with the demonstration of the spirit in the sight of God as it pleased the spirit to give them utterance But how have Ministers been made in the Apostacy By orders from men set up in their own wils after their own inventions And how have they been qualified but by humane arts and languages which have been of high esteem in that which men call the Church since the language and skill of the spirit of God hath been lost God who chose in his own Church doth not chuse here who shall be his Ministers but any man can appoint his Son to be a Minister if he will but educate him in learning and send him to the University and so bring him into that way of order wherein men make Ministers and then he is able to minister unto man the things of man according to human skil And this in the dark night of apostacy must go for a true call to the ministery of God Indeed they are as true Ministers as the Church is to which they minister but they never were nor never can be thus made Ministers of the Church of God but as God alone can form and build his Church so he alone can fit and appoint the Ministers thereof And though others having seen the grossenes of this make their ministers by a call in their Church yet neither is that out of the apostacy but onely a striving of man to get out of it which man cannot possibly do till he meet with the spirit of God to lead out of it So that that Ministry also is but an invention of man made by man and comes not from the spirit nor is able to minister spirit to the spirit
Object But hath there been no true Religion since the daies of the Apostes no true rule no true worship no true faith no true love no true hope joy or peace no true repentance conversion regeneration no true wisdom righteousnes sanctification and redemption no true Church no true Ministry What hath become of all our fore-fathers did they all perish And hath not this ministry converted many to God were not yee your selves converted by it Nay have not many of them been Martyrs and witnessed to the truth of God And though some of them are bad yet are not many of them zealous and conscientious Preachers of the Word at this day By such reasonings as these the wisdom of man much strengthens and hardens it selfe against the truth Answ The rule in Nations the worship in Nations the faith love hope joy peace repentance conversion regeneration c. which have been cried up in Nations for the truth the Churches in Nations the Ministry in Nations all these have been corrupted and never recovered their true state to this day There have been changes from one thing to another but the restauration hath not been known The whorish spirit hath been hunted puriued and so run out of one form into another traversing her way and changing her ground and garments but hath not been taken and judged to the death and the true spirit hath not been able to find the bed of her husband but hath wandered from mountain to hil all the time of this cloudy and dark day forgetting her resting place Yet though the whole earth was corrupted and false doctrine and worship set up every where among the Nations which continued the fornication and whoredom from the spirit of life in the publick wayes and national worships notwithstanding this even all this while God reserved a seed to himselfe which he caused to spring up in a remnant and which he moved and carried on to witnesse against somewhat of these corruptions in their several ages and generations And as fast as the beast killed and knocked down these God raised up more yea though the whorish spirit in some Nations painted her self curioussy leaving some of the grosse Doctrines and Worships of Popery and got into a more refined way yet God raised up witnesses against her there also and still doth into what form soever she gets for though of late she hath decked her self very pleasingly as she think and covered her selfe round with scripture-words and professions and practises as like as ever she can form them to the practises of former Saints yet quick and lively is the spirit of God that searcheth after her who hath found her out and raised up witnesses against her there also Now this seed this remnant though they were not able to recover the possession of the life and power that was lost yet they had a true taste of it and their testimony which they gave out from that taste was true and so far as they kept to this testimony in the faith and in the patience which they had learned and received from God though but in a low measure they were accepted of him So that all were not lost in this night of darkness but such as feared God and knew and hearkned to his voice had the testimony of his presence with them and tasted of his life and power in measure God was not an hard master to them but tender and gentle and contented to reap what he sowed But the appearance of God in this dark time was weak and low and easie to be made a prey of And this is very observable that so long as the simplicity ran pure it was preserved but so soon as ever the spirit of man was tempted either into any old or into any new invented form the wisdom of the flesh got in with it grew up more than it and when it had gathered strength corrupted the vessel betrayed the simplicity and lost the life Thus many pretious beginnings and buddings forth of life have been betrayed in these late daies There was a pretious thing stirring in Queen Maries dayes the life whereof was more hurt and suppressed by that dead form of Episcopacy succeeding afterwards then by the foregoing persecution The persecution did clear and brighten it but the fleshly form of Episcopacy brought death over it And the forms of Presbytery Independency Anabaptism have been little lesse then graves to bury and keep down the life How many spirits that had a precious savour in them at their entrance into those forms did soon become fleshly earthly and very unsavory loosing the quicknesse and freshness that was in them before and falling into the deadness of the form withering with it And as touching the Ministry though in it self it was evill being in the degeneration from the true Ministry all this time of the Apostacy and the persons therein for the most very corrupt being brought up to it as to a trade and making use of it as a trade yet I do believe that there was a simplicity of heart in some persons among them which did cause them in some degree of faithfulnesse to seek the Lord his service and the good of souls And in the time of ignorance and darkness it pleased God to wink at and over-look the evill and to cause good to passe from the good in them to the good in others through the evil that hung about both And this was the great tenderness of the Lord in pitty to his poor creatures who were very destitute to help in the thick night of darkness and should not now be made use of to justifie and keep up the evil Do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unkind Because his mercy and goodness extended to you notwithstanding the evil which might have hindered will ye make that an argument to keep up the evill and to oppose the light which discovers it Because God causeth light to shine through the darkness and visiteth man in the dark wil ye therfore set up the darkness as his proper way of ministration The corrupt way call and exercise of the corrupt ministry could not keep out the tender love of God but he had respect to the simplicity of some who were found in it and to the simplicity of others who waited on him for instruction there and did please to give some answer to both And will ye make this uningenious use of it to interpret it as his approbation of that ministry which sprung up in the Apostacy from him among those that were apostatised and is a great dishonour to him and the abhorring of his soul A ministry of Christ a ministry set up by his spirit is precious but a ministry made by man according to his will and ministring in his wisdom the soul of the Lord beareth as a burthen and is pressed with it and as he raiseth up his own life wil ease himself of it And what do they minister from but the literal
or from the inventing wisdom though this wisdom hath founded its inventions upon the Scriptures are not in the true worship in the true Church or under the true Ministry They that are in the faith which hath since been gathered into the understanding and did not spring up from the mystery of life in the heart are not in the true faith The same may be said of love hope joy peace and all the rest mentioned before yea and all other things in religion for all hath been corrupted even the inward part And while here hath been a great contention about forms of worship and Church-Government the power of godlinesse and the Government of Christ in the heart hath been lost Observe diligently what I have now to say When the Apostles who had the true Ministry preached the Gospel they stirred and raised up the power of God in the heart and the power of sin corruption and deceit sunk down and was under foot and trampled upon by the power But when Antichrist and the false Prophets arose they raised up the corruption again and fed it with doctrines of deceit but the power sunk down and was not felt but buried all that time of the prevailing of the corruption and deceit Now the power was not lost all this while in it self but onely lost to man so that he knew not where to find it Yet this power in this time of loss did stir and move and make men in some degree sensible of the losse causing them to part and seek after the living truth And this was good this was of God But then there was an evil spirit which was neer to the good and lay lurking in the serpentine wisdom of the heart and that drew the mind which was bent toward the seeking of a right thing a wrong way that cryed loe here loe there look into the Scriptures the Church was so and so go get into such a thing the Christians there did so and so go do such a thing there 's the way there thou shall meet with the life and the power And thus it drew from that which stirred within into an imitation of a form without and there they came to a losse I dare appeal to all honest hearts Was there not a good thing stirring in you when ye went into your Church forms were ye not led into simplicity hoping to meet with life and power there did ye find it so did ye meet with the life and power there nay did ye not lose it there and become deader I know if ye have not forgotten the taste of life ye will confesse to me that that which now ye have is not life but far short of that which ye had when ye entred into your form Ah poor hearts the whore betwitched you the harlot in your bosomes and the false Prophets without helped to increase the witchery crying lo here and lo there but ye knew no that the kingdom of heaven was within from whence that stirring of life was in you where ye should have kept and not have gone forth But now ye are dead and buried in your graves lying there without sense and are now got into the spirit of the world and into the enmity against that life in others which was then your own life And do ye know where ye are and what ye are doing Can ye bear to hear it Of a truth ye are in the snare of the enemy in the inchantment from the life in the whores bed in the strumpets bosome and not in the bosome of your beloved And your practises are branches of the sornication parcels of the whoredom inventions which have been gathered in by that understanding and set up by that will which whored from God They are the effects and products of the whores cup which gets new dresses new habits new forms new wayes to cosen and deceive the simple with but still she remains the whore and those who are seduced by her are led into her whoredom For when God discovers and hunts her out of one form then she decks her self with another perhaps more seemingly spiritual more Scripture like and so more likely to take with the simple heart and then she lies in wait for the young man to entrap him again saying Come in hither This is the true way of God without doubt did not the Saints meet with life here formerly Come thou hither also here 's the bed of thy beloved take thy fil of life thy fill of love And thus the poor honest simple heart followes her going like a fool to the correction of the stocks not knowing that it is for his life until he come to feel the loss of life And there if she find she cannot keep him there but fresh stirrings of life spring up in him again and withdraw him from that which had deceived him then she paints again and lies in wait for him again to catch him in some more refined appearance or in some elevated notion or at least in the shadow of that which was true for the whore hath not onely art and power to invent forms and likenesses of that which is true and make Idols and Images of them but it hath power also given it over the outward Court so that that which is found there it can make idols and images of That which is corruptible it can get into and corrupt and make an enemy to that life which lived in it before it was corrupted and when it is corrupted then there is no more truth or life to be found there but the Idol and the idolatry The Apostle John who fore-warned of Antichrist and gave a mark whereby he might be known namely by his not confessing Christ come in the flesh 1 Joh. 4. 3. which he that setteth up any thing of the old Covenant or any invention or imitation of any thing therein doth not he bids also beware of Idols Little Children keep your selves from Idols 1 Joh. 5. 21. Now what is an Idol The Apostle Paul saith An Idol is nothing in the world An Idol is no true thing in its place but a false thing set up in stead of the true A false conception of God in the mind is an Idol A false Church or Temple is an Idol a false Minister who is not made according to the appointment of God and by the gift of his Spirit but came in another way by the appointment of men is an Idol-shepherd and the worship in this Church and by this ministry is publique Idolatry and all the worship in families which hath been erected after the same maner is without the guidance of the spirit of God is private Idolatry Were the heathens Temples Altars Priests Sacrifices and other inventions of theirs in imitation of the Jews Idolatrous and are not the inventions of the heathenish spirit or Antichristian nature in man are not they also Idolatrous Object But is praying Idolatry preaching Idolatry singing Idolatry Baptising of Infants Idolatry breaking
entrance into and abiding in the joy the rest the peace where the whore within which seduced from the life where the power is into some form where the power is not is burnt Learn then and know in thy self that spirit of prophesy which spake in all the Martyrs Hear that come to that keep to that feel the union the fellowship the spreading of that in thee When that bids thee go go when that bids thee come come when that bids thee do this do it But the flesh is grown strong and strongly resisteth this spirit both inwardly and outwardly and will not suffer him to rise up in the heart or to rise up in the Nation but at any time when he stirreth and offers to speak or lead to God there 's a reason rises up in the fleshly wisdom that knocks him down and denies his voice and hearkens to another voice in stead of his Thus they first give way to the fleshly wisdom and suppress the truth in themselves and then they would go forth and suppress it in others and they think them mad and their rage riseth against them where the truth is suffered to grow and mans reason or fleshly wisedom denyed And thus is the Lord of Glory evil intreated and slain at this day by this generation of Christians as he was by the Jewes slain formerly in the Prophets in that his appearance in a fleshly form and in his Apostles and his blood will be required for the earth shall not alwaies drink it up and cover it nor the adulterous woman be alwaies able to wipe her mouth and say she hath done no wickedness Ye have saved alive the unjust and killed the just The murthering nature is alive in you O ye Christians but the holy one is slain and lies buried in your graves and ye have painted your graves and speak good words of him but still keep him down and let another rise up and live in you Ye cry up that appearance of Christ in the flesh and the words he then spake and the words of his Apostles and think that if he had lived in those dayes ye would not have killed either him or his Apostles and yet ye resist and oppose the same life in your selves and in others with such a kind of wisdom in the letter as the Pharisees had O what will ye do the uncircumcised ear is got up in you and ye cannot hear and the uncumcised heart and ye cannot understand but when this is told you ye despise and wonder and go on in the perishing state My bowels my bowels I am pained at my bowels O England England thou that killedst the Martyrs in Queen Maries dayes thou that persecutedst the non-conformists afterwards that thou wouldst not suffer the people of God to meet together to seek him with an honest heart but wouldst confine them to thy gross formal wayes of worship Though the Lord hath appeared and broken the horns of the Oppressors yet the persecuting spirit is not broken in thee but thou still huntest after the precious life of the seed and wouldst not let it spring up in the Nation The spirit of enmity is still up in thee which knows not the Lord of life but by a natural instinct opposeth him and would fain keep up some grave or other it cares not what so it might but thereby keep down the life for thou canst now bear with any form and cherish it and thy onely enmity is against those who are sent by the Lord to gather out of all forms into the life How often would the Lord have gathered thee but thou wouldst not and yet seeks to gather thee but still thou wilt not but as if the former laws made in Queen Maries dayes were not sufficient desirest new laws to ensnare and entangle the innocent What wil become of thee or what wil thou say to the Lord when he ariseth to plead the cause of the innocent for that Spirit which he raised up to witness against the whorish spirit which lies hid in thy forms of worship and religion appears in all thy Laws Councils and waies of Government so far as they formed and so far as they are guided by the wisdom of the flesh is innocent even as that spirit which witnessed formerly against Popety and Episopacy was innocent before the Lord though accused by them as guilty of error in it self and of disturbance to the publique peace as this is now by thee Some Principles guiding out of the Apostacy to the Christian Spirit and Life again 1. THat there is no salvation but by the true knowledg of Christ The Jews had received the ordinances of God and knew of the Messiah to come and believed it and were very zealous in their worship in observation of Circumcision the Passeover New moons and Sabbaths c. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the high God and yet God complains of them by his Prophet My people perish for lack of knowledg And the state is the same under the Anti-christian Apostacy wherein the whore hath made all nations kindreds tongues and languages drunk with the cup of her fornication the true knowledg and worship hath been lost though the eyes of them that have been in the apostacy and drunk with the cup could not see it no more then the Jews could in their day But to come close to the thing The knowledge of Christ is not litteral traditional or fleshly nor can it be received by the natural understanding but it is spiritual and the understanding must be given by God which receives it He hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true 1 John 5. 20. A man may read Scriptures hear Sermons c. and thereby gather a knowledge into the old understanding but neither this understanding into which the knowledge is gathered nor the knowledge it self which is gathered is spiritual but fleshly and so cannot save He that comes once to receive an understanding from Christ and to have the knowledge of Christ powred forth from Christ into his heart knowes the difference between that and the understanding into which he gathers things The knowledge of Christ after the letter and a faith in him answerable to such knowledge will not save but a man must know him in that spirit life and power wherein he lived if he groundedly hope to be saved by him 2 Cor. 5. 16. 17. 2. That Christ saves by the new covenant Not by any thing got into the minde by the oldness of the letter but by a life begotten which is new There are two covenants made mention of in Scripture one whereof is called the old the other the new The old belonged to the Jewes which is done away with their ceremonies state and polity the new which is better then the former Christ is the mediator of Heb. 8. 6. By mediating between God and the creature or by bringing them together in and according
Christ reign in the heart and let him trample all mans invented forms of knovvledg and vvorship under his feet and give up thy self to be led by him into the true knovvledg and vvorship in the spirit and in the truth And now you who find your hearts touched and convinced of the truth and find any desire kindled in you after the living God and an hungring and thirsting after his righteousness Take notice of these three things which I have upon my heart to say to you by way of advice 1. Know and take up thy cross the Cross of Christ the daily Cross of Christ The Cross of Christ is that which crosseth the natural and this is the power of God to deliver from the natural How should the earthly understanding the earthly wil the earthly affections with the elementary nature which have had their swinge in the earth be crucified and slain but by the cross of Christ he therefore that wil have a Religion to please himself in any thing must not come hither and he who after he is come hither admitteth of any thing pleasing to the earthly and starteth from the cross which would deny and turn from it so far as it doth so he goeth backward and not forward It is no wonder that there is such an enmity in all sorts against the truth for it striketh at their life yea at the very root of their life If there were any new way or form of Religion held forth mens understandings and affections might by degrees be wrought of to it and find pleasure in it but this is direct death to that nature and spirit that hath lived in any form of Religion and to the whole course of that nature and spirit yet through this death the true life springs up in those who receive the strokes of it Therefore be willing and learn to die dayly and bring every thing which is contrary to Christ to the Cross Deny self in every thing take up the Cross in every thing follow Christ in every thing This is the way which Christ himself prescribes to become his disciples by If any man wil come after me let him deny himself take up his Cross daily and follow me seek not ease in the flesh no not in the least but take up the Cross every day in every thing till the earthly be slain til the wisdom and strength of the flesh be wholly subdued and then the wisdom and power of God will become natural 2. Keep to the sence keep to the feeling beware of the understanding beware of the imagining conceiving mind These cannot be for God not bring forth any thing for God until they be new cast and new moulded The one seed of life lies in the invisible in the hidden man of the heart among multitudes of seeds of death all which have their growth up into and strength in the corrupted natural So that this seed cannot shoot up into any part of the natural but the other seeds shoot up with it and endeavour to choak it Now the other seeds spring up two wayes either in a way of opposition against the the true seed or in a way of similitude There cannot a good thought or desire or beam of light enter into the understanding or will but multitudes of evil thoughts evil desire or fleshly reasonings against it wil spring up with it and strives to over bear it And if the enemy be at length overcome by the power of God fighting with him and vanquishing him then he hath his garments of light then he brings in thoughts and desires and motions like Gods which easily pass for good if the soul keep not close upon the watch The forward understanding is apt presently to own them and the forward will to embrace and the forward affections to let themselves forth into them until the soul come to feel a loss in life and miss the power and presence of God and find the enemy strong again Yea the enemy hath yet a more subtil way namely to raise motions like the motions of Gods spirit and suddainly before the light hath given the discerning of them to raise opposition and reasonings against them that so by the opposition which is manifestly evil the motion it self which is also evil though good in appearance might be the less suspected and swallowed Now the onely way of safety is to keep out of the natural whereof the enemy hath possession and where his strength lies and to keep in the sence and feeling of the invisible seed and onely to come forth with him into the natural in that sence and feeling And when he comes he wil come with strength above the strength that the enemy hath in the natural and by degrees conquer him But by no means rest or abide in the natural but retire with the Lord who will not dwel there until it be clensed into the resting place These words may be hard to you at present but hereafter as you come into the exercise you will feel them And this is the reason why the formal and outward part of Religion doth so commonly eat out the life because things there are sutable to and exercise that part wherein the strength of the enemy lies and there can never be perfect freedom and safety until that part be subdued and all that belongs to that part removed The Lord is risen to shake what may be shaken that the kingdom which cannot be shaken may appear and happy are they who are shaken by his hand in all that is outward and established in the inward life power and rest which remaineth for ever and cannot be shaken 3. Wait patiently the Lords leasure Be not hasty after life and salvation in the wil of the flesh but leave the Lord to chuse his own season for the showring down of his mercy and blessing The Lord will not presently entertain that spirit which hath adulterated from him prostituting it self to strangers and defiling it self into his bosom but there must be a time of sorrow a time of purifying and clensing The soul must know and feel that it hath been an evil thing and bitter that it hath forsaken the Lord the living fountain of living mercies and hath sought life from vanities and among dead Idols And all the Idols must be thrown away and the heart washed from that nature that ran after them and become a pure virgin to bear and bring forth the living seed and by faithfulness to that seed and waiting in that seed in the Lords season it shall receive the mercy and the blessing and the inheritance which belongs to that seed The Husbandman doth not presently reap but waits long even till the seed be grown up to maturity Jacob the type of the seed said O Lord I have waited for thy salvation It is the election that obtains it is to the seed and for the seeds sake that the mercy is bestowed and there must be a waiting till the seed be
tasted of in any of the Ordinances of the Apostacy ye wil all one day acknowledge this to be a true testimony held forth to you in true love it were good for you that ye could see it now J. P. A brief account of what we are and what our work is in the World WE are a people whom God hath converted to himself a people in whom God hath raised up the seed of his own life and caused it to reign over the earthly part in our selves a people whom God hath divorced from the spirit of whordom and joyned to his own spirit We many of us sought truly and only after God from our child hood our consciences bear us witness in the sight of God but the honesty of our hearts was stil betrayed and we led aside by the whorish spirit and knew not how to turn to that of God in us which inclined us towards God By this means we came to great distress and misery beyond all men Not but that all men were in as great a want of God his life power and presence as we but the sence thereof was not so quickned in others as in us Now it pleased the Lord at length to pitty us and to inform our minds towards himself to shew us where life lay and where death lay and how to turn from the one and to the other and he gave us his helping hand to turn us And by being turned to him we have tasted of the truth of the true wisdom of the true power of the true life of the true righteousness of the true redemption and by receiving of this from God and tasting and handling of it we come to know that that which the World hath set up in the stead of it is not the thing it self Now mark we are not persons that have shot up out of the old root into another appearance as one Sect hath done out of another till many are come up one after another the ground stil remaining the same out of which they all grew but that ground hath been shaken and shaking destroyed and destroying removed and removing in us and the old root of Jesse hath been made manifest in us and we have been transplanted by the everlasting power of life and a real change brought forth in us out of that spirit wherein the World lives and worships into another spirit into which nothing which is of the World can enter And here we have met with the cal of God the conversion to God the regeneration in God the justification the sanctification the wisdom the redemption the true life and power of God which the World cannot so much as bear the name of And what we are made of God in Christ we know to be truth and no lie and when we testifie of this to the World in the measure of the life of God in us we speak truth and no lie though the World which knoweth not the truth cannot hear our voice Now our work in the World is to hold forth the vertues of him that hath called us to live like God not to own any thing in the World which God doth not own to forget our country our kindred our Fathers house and to live like persons of another country of another kindred of another family not to do any thing of our selves and which is pleasing to the old nature but all our words all our conversation yea every thought in us is to be come new Whatever comes from us is to come from the new principle of life in us and to answer that in others but we must not please the old nature at all in our selves nor in any else And walking faithfully thus with God we have a reward at present and a crown in the end which doth and will countervaile all the reproches and hardships we do or can meet with in the World We are also to be witnesses for God and to propagate his life in the World to be instruments in his hand to bring others out of death and captivity unto true life and liberty we are to fight against the powers of darkness every where as the Lord calleth us forth And this we are to do in his wisdom according to his will in his power and in his love sweetness and meekness We are not to take wayes according to our own wisdom but there must be a strict watch set in the life least that get up again nor must we speak such words as mans wisdom would call wise nor may we go in our own will to seek any but the Lord must go before nor may we make use of our own strength but feel his arme in our weakness nor may we go forth in that love sweetness or meekness vvhich is pleasing to the fleshly minde but vve must be true to God handling the svvord skilfully and faithfully judging and cutting down the transgressor in the power and authority of God and when the meek the lowly the humble thing is reached and raised then the true love the sweetness the tendernesse the meekness must go forth to that The Lord God is tough with the transgressor and all a long the Scripture heweth and judgeth him and if we come forth in the same spirit we shall finde the same leadings where we meet with the same thing for the Lord God will never be tender there nor can that which comes from him lives in him is lead by him be tender there where he is not Now the very root of this severity is good and of God and hath love and sweetness at the bottom of it yea in pittie love and bowels do we use the sword It is in pitty to the poor captived creature that that might be cut down which keeps it in bonds and captivity And though we seem enemies to all sorts of men for the Lords sake yet we are not enemies nor could do the least hurt to them any way but are true friends to their souls and bodies also and our only controversie is with that which captives and makes them miserable for we fight not at all with flesh and bloud but with the principality and power which led from God and rules in it against God to the poor creatures ruine and destruction Yea if we had all the powers of the earth in our hands we could not set up our own way if after the manner of men I may so call it or so much as disturb others in their way thereby but should waite in patience till God gave us an entrance by his power Now let not men run on in heats against us but let them seriously consider whether we be of God or no and let them consider not with the reason and understanding which is alienated from God but with the witness which lies hid in the heart There is one great palpable argument that we are of God which is this all the World is against us the Wordly part every where fights with us the Wordly
had been kind to me in breaking of me in my religion and in visiting me with sweet and precious light from his own spirit but I knew it not I felt and could not but acknowledge a power upon me and might have known what it was by its purifying of my heart and begetting me into the image of God but I confind it to appear â—â— a way of demonstration to my reason and earthly wisedom and for want of satisfaction therein denyed it and rebelled against it and so after all my former misery lost my entrance and sowed seeds of new misery and sorrow to my own soul which since I have reaped So that I have no cause to boast over others but to lie low in abasement of spirit And what I write is not in any dominion or authority of my own but to bring others unto that dominion and authority which it is good for me and for every one else to be subject to The Lord strip us of our own understanding and of that righteousness which is but ours though we have called it his that so we may be gathered into and receive his understanding and be cloathed with his righeousness and feel his rest and peace And happy is he that loseth all to gain this but he that keepeth what he hath too long shall in the end lose all and yet not gain this neither Therefore be no longer wise in the eye of flesh or according to what man calleth wisdom but be truly wise If the Reader before he peruse this Book would be perswaded to amend with his Pen these Errors and mistakes of the Press some whereof make the sense difficult some wholly pervert it it may prove for his own ease and benefit Smaller errors as of adding or substracting letters or mistaking the stops the sence may somewhat help him in PAge 13 l. 7. r. And l. 31. r. It p. 16. l. 2. r. when l. 11. r. man p. 17. l. 3â— r. light p 18 l 15. r. is profitable p. 19. l 33. r. moving p. 21. l. 13. r. known p. 24. l. 11. r. enjoyed l. 36. r. cherished p. 27. l. 31. r. found p. 28. l. 19. for this r. the. p. 24. l. 15. r. of help p. 36. l. 8. r. to light p. 38. l. 27. r. pant p. 39. l. 1. 2. r. in simplicity l. 38. r. And then p. 40. l. 28. is dele p. 41. l. 2. got p. 44. l. 29. if ye p. 45. l. 1. thou that l. 23. were formed p. 51. l. 38. 39. would reach p. 53. l. 4. knew l. 20. he p. 54. slighted p. 60. l. 1. and witnesses p. 61. l. last Answ p. 66. l. 2. one of p. 67. 68. for the r. thee where the sence requires p. 68. l. 17. these l. 24. the delc p. 70. l. 7. as he doth p. 73. l. 14. as l. 24. betrayers of the life And so p. 75. l. 9. bringing forth p. 76. l. 16. world p. 77. l. last r. this p. 81. l. 6. seat p. 96. l. 19. this day l. 20. that Scripture l. 27. then they Some POSITIONS concerning the Apostacy from the Christian Spirit and Life Position I. THat ther hath been a great Apostacy from the spirit of Christ and from the true light and life of Christianity which Apostacy began in the Apostles dayes and ripened apace afterwards That the Apostles and Christians in their days had the true Spirit the true Light the true Life I think will not be denyed We know that we are of God and that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternall life 1 Joh. 5. 19. 20. They wer truly born of God and knew the Son of God come receiving from him a true understanding and the true light and knowledge in that understanding and both the understanding and knowledge was rooted and seated in him that is true wher their scituation abiding was we are in him that is true wher they met with the true Spirit the true God the true Life even life eternal That they had the true spirit from God because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts Gal. 4. 6. that they had the true light from God God who commanded the light to shine out of darknesse hath shined in our hearts c. 2 Cor. 4. 6. that they had the true life from and in the spirit if we live in the spirit let us also walk in the spirit Gal. 5. 25. is generally acknowledged concerning them Now of an Apostacy from this beginning even in their dayes and to be compleated not long after the Scriptures also make mention The Apostle Paul speaks expresly of the thing that ther must come a falling away and a revealing of the man of sinne the son of perdition 2 Thes 2. 3. Christ the man of salvation had shewed and declared the path of life had discovered the true Church which was the pillar and ground of truth against which the gates of he I could not prevail had sent the true spirit which could lead into all truth and preserve in the truth but ther must spring up a man of sinne a son of perdition who in a mystery should work against this and cause a falling from this to another thing And this the Apostle did not onely give a touch of here in writing but he had likewise told them of these things by word of mouth to which he refers them vers 5. This wer enough to an ey opened but for further illustration to the thick understanding of man which is surrounded with fogs and mists of darknesse some more evidences from Scriptures may be given Christ foretold of false Prophets Mat. 7. 15. Beware of false Prophets which come to you in sheeps clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves The Lord sent true Prophets under the Law and gave them true visions to declare Christ sent true Apostles and Ministers under the Gospel and gave them the truth which they should preach and propagate But then ther wer false Prophets false Apostles and Ministers to come after who never wer sent by Christ nor never received the truth from his spirit Now these do not come to gather into the life and truth of Christ but to scatter from it and so either to begin or uphold an Apostacy And saith Christ beware of them for they come very subtilly they come in the sheeps clothing They get the garment of the sheep upon their backs even that very garment which the sheep did wear but they have not the nature of the sheep but the nature of the wolfe which is ravenous after the life of the sheep Mark wher ther is the Garment without but not the nature within wher ther is the form of Godlinesse but not the power wher ther are Scripture-words and practises but not the spirit of
life from which they came ther 's the false Prophet ther 's the Wolf ther 's the Apostate ther 's the Seducer from Christ Aagin Christ fore-tells of many false Prophets Mat. 24. 11. And many false Prophets shal rise and shal deceive many and vers 24. For ther shal arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders insomuch that if it were possible they shal deceive the very Elect. And as Christ himself so his Apostles also after him by the same spirit foretel of the same thing The Apostle Paul speaks of seducing spirits in the latter times and of Doctrines of Devils which should prevail to cause a departure in some from the faith 1 Tim. 4. 2. And if in those days the power of Seducers was so great as to draw from the truth which was then so manifest and living how easie would it be to keep from the truth afterward when it had been long lost and out of remembrance and thereby deceit got into the place and name of it The Apostle Peter also foretold of false Teachers who should privily bring in damnable heresies even denying the Lord that bought them and that they should so prevail that their pernitious wayes should be followed by many and the way of truth evil spoken of 2 Pet. 2. 1 2. Again Paul in his 2 d Epist to Tim. speaks of the last days that the times therin should be perillous Chap 3. Christ had said The love of many should wax cold and iniquity abound Mat. 24. 12. And Paul showes how the times would prove very perillous by the abounding of iniquity In the last dayes perillous times shall come for men shall be lovers of their owne selves covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to Parents unthankeful unholy without natural affection truce-breakers false accusers incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good traytors heady high-minded lovers of pleasure more then lovers of God 2. Tim. 2. vers 1. 2 3 4. Behold what kind of fruit sprung up from the false doctrine of the false Teachers in the Apostacy from the truth And yet al this under a form of godlinesse Having a form of Godlinesse but denying the power therof vers 5. Christ sent the power of Godlinesse into the world to subdue the root from whence al this springs to kil the evil nature inwardly but in the Agostacy the evill nature is not killed but the power denyed which should kil it and the form kept up to cover the evil nature with The inwardly ravening nature which devours and destroyes the stirrings and shootings forth of the just one in the heart that gets the sheeps clothing the form of Godlinesse to cover it selfe with Look any wher among the Apostates from the Apostles spirit and doctrine and see Is selfe-love killed is covetousnesse killed is boasting and pride killed is the love of pleasures killed are Persecutors and oppressors killed and is your honour and glory laid in the dust Nay they are but covered with the form there life is stil in them the power wherewith they should be killed was at first denyed and now is lost and not known wher there is the life ther is the power and wher ther is the power the evil nature is killed but wher the evil nature is not killed ther is onely a form of godlinesse a covering a painted Sepulchre but rottennesse within Now those last dayes and last times were not far off but begun then For the Apostle exhorts Timothy to turn away from such vers 5. From such turn away intimating that even then there wer such to be turnedaway from And he saith vers 8. that they did then resist the truth like Jannes and Jambres who with a likenesse of what Moses wrought but without life did strive to resist the life and power that was in Moses And this is the work of all deceivers to get their own spirit into the likeness and then to make use of the likenesse to oppose and suppresse the true life and power So that they were come even then when the Apostle wrote this Epistle to Timothy And Jude saith that ungodly men turning the grace of God into lasciviousnesse and denying the onely Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ were crept in already vers 4. of his Epistle And the Apostle John speaks very expresly 1. Joh. 2. 18 19. Little Children it is the last time and as ye have heard that Antichrist shal come even now are ther many Antichists wherby we know that it is the last time They went out from us c. Christ instructing his Disciples concerning the last times tells them ther shall arise false Christs with great power of deceit Mat. 24. v. 24. Now saith John here ther are come many Antichrists wherby we know it is the last time Mark Ther wer many Antichrists to begin and lay the foundation of the apostacy and make way for the great Antichrist who was to be their successor in the apostacy and not the successor of the Apostles in the truth And these did not abide in the doctrine of the Apostles who preached the everlasting Gospel nor in the spirit and principle which they were in but went out from them from theit spirit from the anointing to which they kept and by which they were kept into another spirit and preached another Gospel a Gospel which was not the power of God to kil the earthly but consisted in such a dead literal knowledge of things as the earthly might be fed and kept alive by And as the great Antichrist was to come so there Antichrists who were to make way for him were already come and were already laying the foundation of and beginning the apostacy So that the Spirit of Antichrist that very spirit wherein Antichrist succeeded and in which he grew up and perfected the apostacy was then in the world as this Apostle saith yet more manifestly 1 Joh. 4. 3. This is that spirit of Antichrist wherof ye have heard that it should come à nd even now already is it in the world Nor was it idle but it was at work working it selfe into the form of godlinesse that it might eat out the power drive out the true spirit and make a prey of the life The mystery of iniquity saith the Apostle Paul doth already work 2 Thes 2. 7. This spirit did work in a mystery of iniquity to eat out the mystery of godlinesse and to set up this mystery of iniquity in the world instead of the mystery of godliness And it did prevail to wind it self into the form get possession of the form and also to trample upon keep under the life It gained the outward Court for when that spirit had corrupted it the Lord did not regard it but gave it up to it and it trod down the holy City Rev. 11. 2. And this mystery of iniquity did not begin to work many ages after the Apostles but even then in their dayes already The mystery
to this covenant he saves Man by his disunion and distance from God he perisheth by being brought again to God he lives again which thing Christ effecteth by the new covenant So then he that is not lead by Christ into that covenant is not in the state of salvation 3. That the new covenant is written in the heart or there is no other way of coming into the new covenant whereof Christ is the High-priest and Mediator but by having the Laws of God written in the heart This is the covenant c. I will put my Laws into their minde and write them in their hearts c. they shall not teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother saying know the Lord for all shall know me from the least to the greatest Heb. 8. 10. 11. He is speaking of the covenant whereof Christ is mediator ver 6. which he cals a new covenant ver 8. and saith it is not like the old ver 9. instancing in two main particulars wherein it is very unlike 1. The old was writ outwardly in letters to be read by the outward ey but this is writ inwardly in the heart and minde and so can only be read by a spiritual ey 2. Under the old they needed teaching from men the priests lips were to preserve knowledge and they were to seek the law at his mouth but now they should have the law so neer them so cleerly written in them that they should need none to teach them From the law is the knowledge of God the law is in the heart and from the law in the heart springs up the knowledge of God in the least and in the greatest that are within this covenant that they need not say know the Lord. This is the state of the new covenant which the Christians came to in those dayes 1 Joh. 2. ver 27. but it hath been a strange thing in this dark night of Apostacy and is yet a strange thing to many But let such consider can a man be a Christian and be out of that covenant whereof Christ is the mediator Can a man be brought back again to God by Christ and yet be out of that covenant whereby Christ brings men back to God O how hath Satan deluded poor souls in this thick night of darkness to make men believe they have faith in Christ and shall be saved thereby while they are quite ignorant of and strangers to that covenant whereby Christ the mediat or saves They shall all know me from the least to the greatest Marke there is not the least in this covenant but hath the law so written in his heart that he need not seek out for knowledge 4. That the spirit of God alone can write the covenant in the heart or that Christ writes the covenant by his spirit Man by all his wisdom cannot attain it Man is driven out from God and cannot finde the way back again to him without the teachings and leadings of Gods own spirit It is not the being educated in any way of Religion from ones childhood or the leaving of that and running into any sect afterwards that will avail any thing hereto but the alone hearkening to the true voice of the true spirit It is written in the Prophets concerning the children of this covenant that they shall be all taught of God And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord. It is the Lord alone who by his spirit teacheth them to come to Christ and to receive the new covenant into their hearts from Christ For man is in an incapacity to know or receive Christ or his covenant until the spirit hath fitted and taught him John 14. 17. but when he hath prepared and fitted his heart then with his own finger he writeth the pure law of the nature and life of Christ therein by the receit where of he cometh out of his old dark spirit and nature into the true knowledge of God and union with him I will put my spirit within you Ezek. 36. 27. This is part of the covenant and indeed that part whereby all the rest is wrought 5. Therefore the first proper step in Religion is to know how to meet with Gods spirit There is no progress no true progress to be made in the true Religion till a man comes into the covenant and there is no coming into the covenant but by the spirit therefore the first thing that is absolutely necessary to be known in Religion is the spirit his writing or at least his motions and stirrings in the heart It may further be evidenced thus all things in Religion acceptable to God flow from the spirit All knowledge is to come from him for he alone hath revealed and can reveal truth and is appointed by Christ to lead into all truth All worship is to be offered up in him they that worship the father must worship him in the spirit and in the truth for the father seeketh such to worship him but rejecteth all other worshippers and worship how glorious soever their worship may seem to them Particularly praying is alwayes to be in the spirit Ephes 6. 18. Jude 20. so singing c. yea the whole life and conversation is to be in the spirit Galath 5. 25. The mortifying of all corruption is to be done by the spirit If ye through the spirit mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live Rom. 8. 13. Indeed a Christian is nothing and can do nothing without the power and presence of the spirit of God in him So then if nothing in Religion can be done with acceptance to God without the spirit then the spirit is the first thing to be looked after by him who would be truly and well-groundedly religious 6. The first way of meeting with the spirit of God is as a Convincer of sin Here is the true enterance This is the Key that opens into life eternal He that can receive it let him It is not by soring alost into high imaginations and forms of worship but by coming down to this low thing This is the first and most proper work of the spirit of God toward fallen man whereby he makes way toward the writing of Gods Law in the heart namely to convince of sin And where should man look first to meet with him but in his first work upon him When Christ promised the comforter the spirit of truth he said this concerning him that he should convince the world of sin John 16. 8. They who are created a new in Christ and become his Disciples receive comfort from the spirit but what is he to the world or how may they feel any operation of him why he is to them a convincer of sin and they may finde him checking them for and convincing them of their sins So that the great work for man while he lies in the darkness for when he is translated into the light it will be easy is to know how to distinguish the movings and
light and there enjoyes the fulness of life and he gives a measure of his own light to draw from the darkness and he who believes and follows this is led by it unto God from whom it came and being come out of the darkness unto him he begins again to feel the springs of life the fresh springs of life which are in him He that believeth is come to the well of salvation and draws living water out of it and drinks of the living water continually so that he can thirst no more yea out of his belly flow rivers of living water This is the fruit of the true faith but this is not the fruit of the faith of the Apostacy but there the soul remains stil disunited to God and united to the darkness and drinks not of the living streams but drinks dead water the fountain of pure life is not open to it but the fountain of iniquity and that blood which clenseth and taketh away the sin is not known There is onely a dream of these things in the dark night of apostacy by which dream the conscience is a little quieted for the present but when the witnes awakes and the light of the day shines the soul which is lean wil find it self in the hands of the enemy in the bonds of sin and feel that it never new that power that could redeem it but the subtil Serpent deceived it with a name in stead of the thing This is the true way the narrow way I can in the presence of the living God set my seal to the truth of it which it hath pleased God to discover and make manifest again after the long dark night of Apostacy And we come not to it by hearing or receiving of any new notions or apprehensions of things but by feeling that which puts an end to all creaturely notions and apprehensions and we grow in it by the increase of that thing in us The seed to which the promise was made the seed which was before Abraham was is felt and his day is seen and rejoyced in and by the light thereof the darkness is discovered and the kingdom of darkness is assaulted And as it dayly fals in many particulars so it shall at length fal in the general and the Kingdoms of this world shal become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ and ye shal reign upon the earth where sin and Antichrist have long reigned and kept him down And though there be a great rage and out-cry among the people and heathenish professors yet the decree is gone forth and Sions King shal reign upon the holy hill of Sion and the hills and mountains shal melt before him and the earth shal shake round about him Therefore gather your selves together muster up your strong forces O ye several sorts of carnal professors Let all your differences one against another fal and joyn together against him who is against you all improve the Serpents wisdom and form arguments out of the Scripture thereby with the utmost of the skil and understanding of flesh get the Kings Rulers and Magistrates of the earth on your side too handle all the weapons of the flesh skilfully Dispute reproach revile whip stock imprison starve nay put to death See if you can uphold your kingdom for there is a mighty one come forth against you who will take the vineyard the kingdom the inheritance from you and give it to another and on you shall come that death and darkness that misery and destruction which ye have put far from you and preached as the portion of others Therefore consider your condition in the fear of the Lord and if ye feel not your selves able to fight it out make your peace betimes and let your greatest crowns your choisest wisdom and strength in the flesh be laid down at the feet of Christ at the lowest appearance of his light in the conscience Let not the least check of his spirit be spighted there but esteemed above the highest notions of light that ye have gathered in or can gather with your fleshly understandings And indeed it is no less then its due for this which runs fresh from the Spirit is more living in it self and more proper to that mans present estate to whom it comes then whatever he himself by his understanding can gather from the letter There hath been a precious seed of God long stirring in this Nation but it hath been oppressed and kept in bondage by the spirit of Pharoah and his wise Egyptians who would subject it to their laws and worships and not let Israel go out of Egypt at Gods cal to worship him in spirit and truth but would keep him in forms and waies of mans invention The Lord hath poured out his plagues upon this spirit and more and more wrought out the liberty of his people but as the plagues cease this spirit hardens it self and assaies the reducing of Israel into bondage again And as Pharoah renews the bondage of Israel so God renews the plagues on Pharoah and his Egyptians Pharoah hath a stubborn wil and a great wisdom and power and is loth to let Israel go but the Lord also is wise and strong and hath a wil more righteous then Pharoahs and by his wisdom and strength will he effect his will and Pharoahs shal not stand Who is such a stranger in Israel that hath not observed that as God began to raise up the seed in this Nation and cal it into liberty so the spirit of the wise Egyptians rose up against it exclaiming of error heresy blasphemy new waies new lights c And doubtless many tares have sprung up but the aime of the enemy was not so much to pluck up these tares as to destroy the one good seed of wheat Herod did not aime at killing all the Infants in Bethlehem but he would rather kill them all then have Christ live What preaching on the one hand what running to the Magistrate on the other hand and all to destroy this young babe When any different way of worship did appear as of Independency Anabaptism or of seeking and waiting for the truth how did they make an head against them and cry out against them for fear the young child should be born and appear there And now they see their own image brought forth there they are at peace with them and having discovered that where no part of the image or mark can be received but there is another nature in life and truth brought forth and no form without life wil down now they know where to shoot all their darts now they know against whom to invent and speak all manner of evil and against whom to direct all their envy rage and out-cryes and to prepossess all sorts of persons every where with all manner of prejudices that the truth may not spread any where but be opposed every where And all persons minds there are so filled before hand with the venome of the
gown up to age and able to defend his portion from his elder Brother who otherwise would be ready to seize on it and waste it upon harlots again Therefore lie stil and bear the indignation of the Lord against that which hath transgressed til he judg it and deliver from it and lead into the innocency and righteousness and then he wil find a time to arise and plead the cause of the innocent and give the crown of immortal life to that which he hath prepared for it Therefore think not the race long nor the battel hard nor be weary of the afflictions and chastisements in the way but follow the Captain the guid the leader whose light strength courage and wisdom wil overcome all and bring the soul which abides in it into his own throne Now as you thus wait taking up the Cross and keeping in the feeling so the corrupt natural the mortal wherein Satans throne and power hath been wil wither decay and grow weak daily and the tender plant of God the immortal seed will shoot up and gather strength daily and you will come to a will in God and an understanding in God and that which is of God wil manifest it self and you wil come to know and desire and take delight in the things of God Then the soul which is immortal wil come to hear and receive and feed on the immortal word which is the bread of life and which alone is able to preserve and nourish up to eternal life Then ye wil know what it is to tremble at this word and to have all the powers of nature melt and fail before it Then ye will know the faith which gives the victory and the knowledg which lets into life and the fear which keeps the hearts clean and the hope which anchors the soul immortal in the immortal God and the patience which wins the Crown And so ye wil come to witness the several conditions of the Saints in Scripture at ye grow up into them wil not need men to give you meanings of Scriptures from their brain-studies and acquired arts and understandings but wil know the meaning from the thing felt in your own hearts and hear the words from the living voice of that spirit that first spake them who alone is able to interpret his own mind and open the words which he himself spake And then ye wil know and love life and need no more exhortations to depart from all dead corrupted and corrupting forms which ever were and ever wil be enemies to and be traytors of the life And to the peace of God the rest of God the true Sabbath of God the everlasting light and life of God wil come to be your own and enjoyed by you past all gain-saying or dispute in you while the natural understanding in others is reasoning contending and disputing about them but can never know while they are from the thing within for that mind is not the heir nor must not inherit the kingdom of God A Postscript TO those who have had a seriousness and depth in their Religion who could not sit down in empty forms and shadows of things but have been pressing after the living substance and missing of that through error of judgment the true eye being not fixed in the head have come to a loss and so are returned to overgrown with and hardned in the old nature and have taken up a pittiful rest and centre in the earth having let fal the pursuit of their spirits after the true center of rest in the life a word to such from the love in the life There was a spirit soul or image of God brought forth and standing in his life before the fall This soul was brought into death under the burthen and bondage of corruption out of its proper centre and resting place by the fal Now as there is in this state a true loss so there is in this spirit a sensibleness a groaning under the burthen a feeling the bitterness of the captivity and a panting after redemption and restoration to its former state Now though the whorish part which seduced from the life make a great noise in the flesh about Saints words and tempt to pleasures of the outward part and pleasures in the mind and draw into forms and religious worships and frame deep centres of satisfaction in the understanding perhaps from true openings of the life quenching it and so seek to quiet the soul and stil the cry yet the lost state remaining the soul being not truely redeemed but a false rest taken up by the way in the false part this wil fail and the sense be again renewed in the day of tryal and sore trouble For the soul by any imagination or notion or feeling of a centre in the corrupt mind cannot be healed or restored but onely by having the true life raised up again in it and it brought into its proper place and mansion in the fountain of life There have been in the shakings of this Nation great stirrings the seed springing up and great openings to the seed the spirit of prophesy hath been enlarged in us above what many of our fore-fathers felt but the way into the spring of life hath not been known where the preservation is so the whorish part the corrupt part the understanding which was not purified brought into subjection unto the truth this harlot caught the openings and prophestes of the true spirit conceived with them and brought forth children to the flesh bringing for a more inward apprehension of things a more spiritual kind of knowledg as of God to be all all to be good and in God and all sin and evil done away there c. and so such a centre for the fleshly mind as it were in him as was not known before And now the redemption is forgotten the pantings after life slain and the flesh can lie down quiet in the un-redeemed estate and say it is his wil it is good and it can rest satisfied there in that wil of his which is good Thus the great abomination from the subtle flesh sprung up which made many hearts desolate of very precious springings up and buddings forth of the true life and power of God But after this great loss and betraying of the life in them it hath pleased God to raise it up in others and to discover the hammer the sword the fire which can knock down cut down burn up this whorish part and thither the whore is brought when she comes to betray again and the springings up of life shrink back and lie safe in the centre while the whore is burning And as the whore is burnt the heir comes up and the Spirit which is the portion of his inheritance descends and rests upon him and by this he is known and that which is in union with him knows him Therefore if you will live come to that hammer that sword that fire which flesh dreads and let the flesh