Government Or else by a friendly agreement with these or any other Governours If you resolve upon the first to destroy all that are not according to your conscience that your conscience may have liberty Then you would destroy all mens consciences but your own and all men for their consciences which is the most contrary to liberty of Conscience that can be Most contrary because you will endure none but your selves and that you would raise a war that you might establish a Law of cruelty which is a thousand times worse then to persecute by an established Law and Authority That power that you would have must be thorow the lives of thousands of your enemies and after that thousands of your friends for they that strive for a power never did nor never will agree in the sharing or administring of it But when through blood and destruction of friends and foes you have gotten it If you should prevail and you in your own persons escape yet that power gotten by war in that spirit you and we in reason must expect that it will be most cruel because raised and begotten by cruelty Indeed it is so horrid and irrational that the bare proposing of it will make reasonable men abhor such a thought For nothing but irrational and blind zeal with discontent and passion can so much blind the nature of man as to lead him into such unnatural things If your spirits do indeed drive to this to the removing and destroying the present state of things as an accursed thing then the ingenuous and seek not liberty from them nor complain of them for not giving it For every such acknowledgement of them doth confirm them and so contradict your prayers and endeavours to destroy them Sometimes secretly and cunningly to curse them and another time openly and for advantage to acknowledge them is falshood and deceit And will attain nothing but shame and confusion For there is little but shame and confusion in it It is a vile thing in private and secret to pray or warily to preach against a State and openly to comply with it in so doing our lives contradict our prayers or our prayers our lives But if this be the drift of your spirits though never so warily carried do you think it is not felt and understood by them that you so oppose you cannot conceal it from them It is wise counsel Solomon gives Curse not the King no not in thy thought or conscience for a bird of the air shall carry the voice and that which hath wings shall tell the matter It must be understood spiritually for it cannot be meant literally Angels are intelligences and intelligencers they are principalities and powers and attend both the Throne and Altar they are present in dominion at Court and in your Closets at your devotions They are the birds and that which hath wings that tell the matter Publick authority hath publick ears and eyes and reach all corners Spiritual intelligencers as well as outward informers If they know and feel that you intend their destruction must they not abhor that spirit that under pretence of liberty of Conscience really endeavours liberty of destroying and of overthrowing Governments to exalt themselves And if they understand any thing they must think These men seek our destruction and as they pray for it and preach it so they will if they can or dare attempt it as they have done And therefore they having such a sense of you you cannot in reason expect but that they should labour to suppress you If they find rebellion war and wrath in the principles of it though in religious duties and conscience will they not suppress both the rebellion and conscience and the duties or worship in which it is And shall they not be justified in so doing I am sure your Law and Practise will justifie them For the same thing hath been done often and would be again if you had power while you are in this spirit When you shall recover either your own nature and reason or the nature of the Lamb out of this Spiritual drunkenness and cruel zeal you will find First That Antichrist the great enemy of Christ is also an enemy to man to his life peace civil order Law and to all humane Ordinances Secondly That this enemy is a spirit the Angel of the bottomless pit And therefore his chief seat and place is in spiritual things in conscience and in the spirits of men and in those things wherein spiritual men or the spirits of men are exercised in gifts religion and holy duties and his last and greatest strength is not in corrupt forms but in those that are most spiritual most lively zealous and gifted Others are but the flesh these the horns of the beast Thirdly And therefore conscience and the spirits of men even in Religion and in lively or spiritual Religion is grievously polluted by him This Templo of God is defiled by him You must come to know it and feel it as I have done Fourthly The nature of this beast is to destroy whence he hath his name Apollyon a destroyer His highest place is conscience gifted mens spirits enlightened and his highest work is to kill and destroy and in order to that to curse and blaspheme with those spiritual gifts Fifthly This spiritual beast this destroyer cannot but be seen and felt by the common reason of men although they cannot judge him yet they must have a sense of him as an enemy to that life and peace in which they live and to that Authority and Government which is committed to them Sixthly As they cannot but discern and feel the horns of this beast that pushes them and wounds them so they cannot but arm themselves with such weapons as they have against him If it be a State it will defend it self by Laws punishments policies and power Seventhly This self-defence though it be earthly cannot be denyed them yea they will be justified in it so far as it is rational humane and necessary and for the preservation of peace and common safety Wherein any are cruel and revengeful that is devilish also and then it is the beast against the beast But an humane care to maintain Law Authority and Peace though it be no more yet it is good against a destroying spirit that would bring in war and confusion under the highest notion of Religion and Reformation The ordinary and common Ordinances of man are to be justified in acting against a Religion Zeal that seeks the subverting of them The first is useful necessary and profitable the other is hurtful and destructive Eighthly The Law and Authority of a Nation defending it self from this spirit by its own weapons being outward must necessarily fall upon the persons lives and liberties of them that are ngaged in this spirit I am grieved in my soul for both both wound my heart both the agents and patients In love to mankind I am afflicted for them and feel the
the intent of this Treatise to bring you off from that and to shew you a more excellent way Your former ministry is finished that state is perished you must have a new one Read diligently and you will find here is an entrance into that which will not fail I know the prejudices you have against me I know that there is weakness in what I write both may disadvantage my work I leave it to the Lord of all hearts and spirits The things I have written are I think just and it is just I should publish them The Law of love and truth in my mind led me to it and upheld me in it and therefore I am satisfied in my self And in the righteousness truth and faithfulness of God in whom I live and rest Yours W. S. The Contents SECT I. SHews the nature of the offences taken at the Inquisition and the Authors sense of them SECT II. Shews the justice due to them and the friendly way of dealing with them SECT III. Censures the Book and first for its unseasonableness with the cause of it and the Authors suffering for it SECT IV. Censures the multiplicity of things in the Inquisition and the sharpness of its reproofs Of several kinds of reproof SECT V. Opens the Allegories in the Inquisition and shews the thing intended in it A tryal of principles in order to peace SECT VI. Prosecutes the same thing of peace and shews the necessity and possibility of it And examines the ground upon which the opposition stands SECT VII Compares the Old Cause 1. With the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt 2. Out of Babylon 3. With the ministry of Christ and the Apostles SECT VIII Measures the same cause by the Propheticall Scriptures and compares it with Zion her self SECT IX Further examines the ground of the enmity and advances a standard of love SECT X. The original cause of the war it ceased SECT XI Hatred blinds the eyes else we may see that there is good in enemies with which we may agree There is good and evil in both Parties SECT XII Shews the root of enmity is the Devil How opposite it is to the Kingdom of Christ SECT XIII War and enmity are not for but against holiness SECT XIV Common liberty not to be in nor to be attained by war and opposition SECT XV. Liberty of Conscience animadverted Not to be obtained but by agreement with the Magistrate SECT XVI Animadverts the late sufferings and shews the nature and kind of them SECT XVII Considers the late Insurrection with respect to what hath been written and the use of it to both sides SECT XVIII Shews a rational and easie way for all opposite Parties to obtain a Treaty and by it an Agreement with his Majesty both for his security and their safety ANIMADVERSIONS Upon a Book entituled Inquisition for the Blood of our late Soveraign c. AND Upon the offence taken at it Sect. I. THat I did deny my name to go forth with that Book when it was first published was I think a foolish or weak niceness Possibly the want of that courage and confidence that was due both to my self and it may expose both to the greater contempt But I did resolve in my mind and promise that if ever it came to be questioned I would own it and either correct and amend it if it needed or else justifie and defend it if it deserved it What I promise is ordinarily required of me and if it be I am bound to perform it There is a justice due to things as well as to persons If to any thing then certainly to a mans own works which are his children and therefore he ought to Father them and either to call them home or maintain them abroad A mans Spirit Religion and Name are all tender things if I have any sense of any of them or of my self and what I have done I cannot but resent the grievous offence that is taken at that book and at me for writing of it The minds of many are exceedingly disturbed at it and the censures run as high against it and me as possibly they can It is judged the very Spirit of Antichrist and of the Devil the sin against the Holy-Ghost Apostacy Persecution Treachery Bloodiness and Cruelty And the condemnation is answerable the curse of horrour despair and self-destruction which are not only threatned and expected but reported to be already upon me These things are in their own nature weighty and they come thick upon me from all sects and sorts of people from friends and strangers and discharged at me from their very hearts with all the strength of their Religion with all their might in a bitter and angry Spirit sharp and fierce and in some with great seriousness and gravity yea in love to me And most of them solemnly in the name of God and for his cause as against an enemy to God to godliness and to his people This is the sense I have of them and I think the description is just and true These things being breathed forth from men friends Christians professing godliness and the Spirit of God besides the common rage that foames out Rogue Jesuite hang him c. They do requite and justly challenge from me that I should Animadvert and duly consider what these things are whence they come What they would have and what I am and have done to deserve them As these things drive me in to review both my self and book so they do peal and call me forth to shew in what Spirit and Light I live from what root this work came and upon what foundation that and my self stand so that I now count my self bound not only in honour and justice but in love freely to open and discover my self and my mind and spirit concerning my self my book and the great offence taken at it I confess I do feel that these censures are high and that men are hearty and serious in them and do lay them on with all their strength and with a sharp spirit angred and provoked And that they do sometimes sting and twinge a little and consequently stir some choler in me that I could be as heartily angry at others as others are at me But as yet I do not find that they go deep or abide long in me But on the contrary I have been well able to bear them yea to slight and neglect them as sick and sore passions which cannot live long and although they stumble at me and bruise me yet if I did but lie still I should quickly see them faln in their own dirt by their own darkness and weakness For that I find constantly to be the nature of Passion it is a blind thing that runs it self into ruin and needs no enemy to destroy it it is the Gunpowder of the mind while it is shot at another it doth crack stink and vanish As I must confess they do sometimes sting a little so I must
Being sensible that my mind is both weak and a great stranger to all the Forms and ways of Religion that are abroad and having found by experience that when I did look out I met with great trouble and opposition from all sorts of people I have been willing to enjoy my peace and comfort at home and alone I did the least think to come forth in opposition to any party having in my heart a general love to all men But I am by this Book unexpectedly engaged to come forth in some kind of opposition to many if not all sorts of spirits now stirring in the Nation The people that have severely censured this book and me for it are Independents Anabaptists Quakers Fifth monarchy men and such as profess themselves spiritual and are in no particular form I desire them all friendly to consider how high they have raised the controversie and what must necessarily be the issue if it be determined If any of them had taken the book and dealt with the reason of it and had answered it and convinced me I had been bound to have been their Scholler and to have subscribed to them as my Master And if my reason had been too good for theirs I might have expected the same from them and no more But they all leaving the reason and falling directly upon my person and the state of my soul my life and peace the â—ar is like to be of a higher nature and the question who is the Antichrist who the Apostate who hath sinned against the Holy Spirit and consequently who must go down into horror and trouble into Satan and the displeasure of God and so it is a war of souls and spirits about the most solemn things of life and peace with God And therefore the issue must be this if you subdue me and overthrow my state I must bow and seek for mercy and peace of you upon such conditions as you shall think good to give it This I know you do expect and as necessarily I must so I do believe I readily shall perform it on the other side if my state and peace be good and yours fail I may require the same of you that you should submit to me and accept of my peace and pardon according to that equal and just Law Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them I do earnestly desire that we may on both sides heartily engage in this quarrel if I find you do shrink from it I shall endeavour to compell you to stand to it till there be a compleat victory gained by one of us If you be men and true to any thing that you say or think you cannot avoid the tryal for I know and feel that you are come forth against me in your censures of me with all your hearts and with the strength of your God Religion and Life as against an enemy to God and his cause t is so evident it cannot be denyed And by it you have drawn forth my life and spirit which till now lay close and still to answer you and therefore you are bound to stand and abide the dispute This I write neither lightly boastingly nor threatning but soberly and seriously in love to you and to the good and peace of souls The combat may be sharp but it may be friendly also For I do constantly find this truth in my mind that as all good doth and will overcome evil because it is larger stronger truer and more durable then evil so doth love conquer swallow up enmity enmity is a mean inferiour base thing that is but a servant to the greatness and majesty of love And at this time I find a special love both of pitty and friendship provoked and stirred in my heart by these wounds that you have given me For I feel such a nature in me the more you pierce the more freely my love and life will flow forth to you so that there is a ring of love made for us in which we may safely try our strength and therefore though it be both a serious and sharp contest yet it must also be a friendly strife It may be love hath laid a train to catch us all and all the enmity of all men For observe our quarrel it is of a very high nature for no less then the life and peace of our souls yet if we fight it out the end will be this either I must return to you and receive mercy from you of you must come to me and receive it from me Either you must be my Pastors or Ministers and so heal and feed me as a brother or I your Bishop and Father The quarrell is Whether you shall serve me with your life or I serve you with mine Whether I shall forgive you or you forgive me Possibly after some anger spent in the conflict it may be comprimised and we may both have our ends both serve and be served forgive and be forgiven But let us resolve to try it out for if you draw back and refuse the combat you will go down into your dark holes of enmity but press forward and we shall certainly come to feel and understand one another though through some smart and at last after we have spent our heat end in love If we had dealt in opinions that concern the State you might have feared trouble but you shall have the state of my mind to deal with which you may do without danger of any suffering but in your spirits our war will be now purely in and about spiritual things If we should controvert National Church Episcopacy c. the power of the Nation might be with me but declining that as you do and dealing only with my spirit and life possibly the Bishops may be as different from me and from my spirit and life as you are yea and be more with you then they are with me and I am apt to think it may prove so How ever you may be confident you are free from outward danger in dealing with the spirit of a private person You have advantage enough you are many I am alone you are whole and sound I am I confess much broken and weak you stand firm I have been tossed about my infirmities and failings are many and visible to all the world and most of all to my self yet truly I do desire and shall endeavour a fair trial not doubting the issue which way soever it fall it must be good SECT III. FIrst for the Book I have had many complaints against it but only in general as a monstrous strange wicked and cursed thing I have invited many to shew me particularly what false or unrighteous propositions there are in it and to this day not one man hath said to me that this or that sentence is untrue or will give me any reason against any passage of it But when we come to the point either they have not read it or but part of it
beauty and glory to all and receive from none Secondly it is a sin against God a distrust of him not to commit our selves wholly to the leadings of his spirit it is an ignorance of his presence with and dominion over every spirit he being in and over all men he will plead the cause of Truth with them especially when it rises simply and purely from himself and his own good Spirit And will make it effectual to that end that he sends it It is most righteously due to him that he should have the managing of what light and grace he gives to any man and to employ it to his own holy ends and purposes to be a savour of life or of death as he please Thirdly there is in it want of love to Brethren for why should we be either afraid or ashamed to appear to them we love just as we are if I love my neighbour as my self why should not I appear to him as I do to my self and be confident of him that if I be found weak to him he will both pitty cover and help me as I would do to my self or as I would do to him Sure such confidence and openness of heart one to another will sooner gain entrance into the heart then formal and neat discourses into the head being most natural and familiar And if they obtain a place in the heart they will effect more then by pleasing the fancy yea weakness as well as confidence suits best with them that are weak A man may over-power a weak mind by too great an evidence and strength of Reason We are all weak if any will seem to be otherwise I doubt he doth but dissemble and get a covering but if any could attain a perfection he would by it be more a stranger to his Brethren except he could make them like himself or descend into their imperfection and be like them Fourthly I am not justified in rejecting or scorning infirmity There is a time for all things and a season proper for weakness A mixture of light and darkness makes the morning pleasant and growing simplicity and mistakes in children is better then cunning and politick exactness Yea natural weakness is better then artificial strength Christ became weak for us and what is any man that he should refuse what he chose or to be weak with the weak much less to appear so if he be so Exactness and compleatness is desirable and exceeding beautiful in its season when we grow up naturally to it But we must come to it by degrees and arise to it out of weakness In a child perfect strength or wisdom seems strange and monstrous if it be feigned or affected in any it is Serpentine deceit and hypocrifie Besides if we refuse to do good because we would and may do better or best of all we reject the first degree of good which is the root and foundation both of better and best And cruelly slay and destroy the first spring and buddings of life which are the fountains that only can nourish and feed unto perfect strength and Eternal Life Lastly there is in it as distrust of Truth God and Brethren so of a mans self and his own life If a man have any true life in him it is sufficient to carry him forth into the world because it is better and greater then the world He that is in you is greater then he that is in the world By distrust and diffidence of a mans own life he weakens it It is the design of the enemy to keep us in fear and bondage of spirit If that life that is in me be true it is best when it is natural all art and contrivance do weaken and clog it If it be not true it is abominable hypocrisie to personate an holy or heavenly thing We see all studied and made things come to base ends they will wear out and leave a mans soul destitute But true and genuine life will stand and increase Therefore I would be natural as in all things so especially in Religion which though it is supernatural yet is never good if it be not also natural Yet I may not wholly condemn the exercise either of fancy or judgement in composing and forming things for that they also are natural faculties and are excellent when the spiritual life doth purifie them fill them and rule over them By this you see the first and great evil in this Book and in my mind in writing of it delaying or dallying till another spirit had entred and so long till all parties were so engaged and disturbed that they had neither time nor clearness of mind to examine the reason of it For which I was so sharply afflicted and threatned not only to the rejecting of my present work and Ministry but of my life also Yet it was a sin not of wickedness but weakness and therefore I found mercy and God accepted of a sacrifice from me and not only permitted me to proceed in my work but continued and enlarged his assistance and healed my foul also Which gives me hope that though the book and my self suffer awhile yet I and others may at last reap fruit and comfort from it It is for the present in the fire and let it be tryed throughly that all may see what is in it SECT IV. YOu have seen the first and great evil of the book its unseasonable birth occasioned by my delaying to write it when the things contained in it first offered themselves to come forth You have likewise seen the severe chastisments suffered for it and animadversions upon both If this evil be really removed and taken away and what I have written may a little calm and compose your minds but into a willingness to read it and seriously to ponder the things contained in it other defects the consequents and effects of the former may be cured There is a continual spring and growth of light in my mind which makes me distaste this day what I wrote two or three dayes since this made me suppress things and not giving them vent in their season they multiplyed so fast upon me that at last they crowded out one over another so thick and in a huddle that people know not what to make of them whereas had they marched out in their own order although rude and natural yet they would have been more perspicuous and so more easily discerned and understood There is I am sure a strange mistake in men even of the very drift and nature of the book so much wide of reason that I wonder at it besides other causes this may be one things pressed out so fast when they found the door open that they obscured themselves by multitude and force Being born in turba they are children of strife from the womb and then it is no wonder if they disturb others But this is a curable evil if any will be at the pains to part the notions and conceptions and take them asunder
thing that opposed you was one and the same enemy In that troubled state you conclude I was turned to the world and backslidden to the present rising power Great guilt and great suffering meeting together must needs much disturb the mind of poor man If you in the trouble of your souls mistake me and if my mind be clear and at peace I may well bear it and pitty you and so I do My business was to be dayes-man between adverse parties I know I did not intrude into the office but refused and excused as Moses Who am I they will not believe nor hearken to my voice I am a man of no power or esteem and so put it off till I was compelled to appear and now I find the common fate of them that interpose to part the fray both parties fall upon him You think I am turned Courtier the Court thinks I am still a Fanatick T is but just I should receive both your neglects into me standing between you I am content to feel the evil of both because I love both and have in my soul good for both But you do not only judge me to be an enemy but worse an apostate brother and more wicked then your open adversaries for they only afflict the outward man I fall upon your spirits and principles We shall have occasion to discourse of spirits and principles hereafter but here I shall only mind you of two or three things First It is I confess a very difficult thing to judge of principles and spirits because they are inward and therefore strangers and enemies cannot judge of them It must be some friend or brother that hath conversed with them They that are still under them are judged by them and therefore they cannot judge of them It must be some that have travelled through them and have had experience of them spirits and principles are Gods and who can judge the Gods If any they that have been amongst them and tryed them you may from this find some reason why I should be chosen to do this service for you you generally know me my way and work hath been trying of spirits many years Secondly as it is difficult to judge spirits and principles so it is hard to bear the judgement of them Men can easier die and lay down their natural lives then suffer their principles to be touched Men of any common honesty do freely expose their flesh to death to save their Gods although they be but Idols But thirdly There are false Gods false spirits you know it and have familiarly accused others of it you know I know it I confess I do as we say to my cost it may be to your profit you have of late been hammering at a spiritual Antichrist an Antichrist within and it is most true many such there are can you think that you should be acting so many years against Antâ—christ all the while be ignorant of an Antichrist within who doth but now begin to peep â—ut and be discovered in you and you not guilty of receiving false principles or spirits Can all this smoke of confusion darkness and enmity be amongst you and no fire of false spirits Can there be so much reeling and staggering giddiness and instability and no wine of fornication no sophisticated or adulterated wine No spiritual harlots or false lovers Must all the corruption rotteness and filth he laid upon the poor flesh Is there no evil spirit that came in under the name of God to joyn with her to beget these bastard brood of hypocrisie covetousness and self-seeking Must man only bear the blame and not the unclean spirits that are gone out Or must God and his name only stand accused that he led his people by his Spirit into no better wayes Is it not then both justice to his name and mercy to man that these evil spirits and principles should be discovered and detected As it is proper for a friend or brother that hath been partaker with you in them and hath suffered greatly for it to discover them so it will be found a friendly and brotherly office to reprove them The plucking up these principles that lie deep and secret is I know terrible I have felt it so It seems to threaten the rooting out of religion and godliness it self I have found the same thing in my tryals God comes against them and his people engaged with them in great jealousie enraged as an enemy in fiery indignation and vengeance because nothing but his vengeance can destroy them but I have found great love in these fires of jealousie yea love to our nature and persons with forgiveness to our iniquities even then when he takes vengeance of our inventions I know you can neither be inwardly cleansed nor outwardly saved but by a death in your spirits and loss of these principles which have deluded you and brought you into this grievous snare and therefore shall in love and good will to man to your souls lives and liberties prosecute my purpose of manifesting those unsound principles that have deceived and mis-led you and shall not spare for your crying or frowardness SECT V. ANother objection against the Book is it is written much in Allegories because the present state of things is there represented in and by ancient Scriptures I acknowledge this to be a fault and possibly it might arise from the first great error of delay by keeping it in too long it might be thus overgrown with hair and get this dress or at least the same distrust that made me unwilling to write might make me willing to shrowd my mind under those coverings of Scripture wanting confidence to appear more open or strength to go without that help I might affirm that the things written are not meer allegories if they be so they are to me hatefull Idols for I know nothing more abominable then meer similitudes and forms of truth I may affirm that the same eternal spirit that brought forth those works in Adam and Noah of which you there read doth for ever keep the living image of them in himself and many ages after brought them forth in Moses mind and by Moses into writing so that the works done and the words writ are one and of one mind and spirit The same eternal spirit having in himself the same eternal image doth by it preserve the image written or the words and history The same eternal spirit eternally works and brings forth his own likness in all times and in our age and the same spirit that did them and writ them then doth them now and reveals them in that Book He that is wise will understand these things But let them go for Allegories and let me bear the blame of it I am content it should go so because I know we shall gain by all our miscarriages grow wise by mistakes For sin hath something of Physick in it many times if not alwayes it hath its own cure with it because
body to keep or recover life in it or are so lamentably angry for the loss of it I would have that charity to hope that it is because you think that holiness and godliness will be suppressed and prophaness and wickedness will get up To satisfie you know this assuredly 1. Iniquity unrighteousness had got a Sanctuary in and amongst you and was lodged more secure in your professions and gifts then in any company or state of men in the earth and therefore 2. It is a most holy and righteous God that hath pulled down or is pulling down that strong hold that spiritual wickedness in high places And 3. As God will not suffer iniquity to harbour under his own name and cause so he will not suffer it to rest upon the earth for the earth is the Lords and the creation is his 4. Sin and ungodliness got ground of you in your greatness and riches you know it did And while you thought to reform the world you were deformed by it and that the spirit that engaged for righteousness against the world betrayed that cause and fell into the unrighteousness and filth that it opposed The Lord rejects this pretender in great jealousie know assuredly God in this act is gone forth with vengeance against unholiness and will manifest himself in such holiness as you will not bear if you were not plunged into suffering 5. Know God hath set his holy Son upon his holy hill of Zion The Lord reigns in righteousness and in righteousness hath brought you down for your unholiness and if you have any true love to holiness but a spark of the truth of what you profess you will rejoyce more in these fires while they consume you and your dross then ever you did in your success and greatness because God is now avenging himself of his wicked enemies that lurked in the prayers preachings gifts prophecying of his kingdom and for the world trouble not your self with that he hath laid you aside as unworthy of and false to the work of reformation which you professed he that refuses that spirit because it was unholy and base hath a more excellent spirit which he will manifest to the purging of all things and all men I cannot without some indignation pass this point that men so palpably corrupt and unclean when under rebuke and judgement and that for their impurity yet should think that they are the only Champions of holiness as if the cause of holiness did die or fall with them No it is iniquity and hypocrisie that falls There is an incorruptible holiness that is mighty and will throughly purge away yours and others dross and cleanse the whole earth As to the things that I write in my Book concerning his Majestie and those principles of rest and grace laid in Noah and in that Covenant which God made with him and his seed for perpetual generations which I affirm to be the firm foundations of all the Kingdoms of the world that tried stone tried first in all Nations and then laid in Zion and is now the root of his Majesties restoration after his long sufferings I confess the things are deep and remote from common understandings What I feared and writ concerning these principles I find true that they are little understood being yet low and under a vail and therefore might appear remote and strange both to his Majestie and the Nation which way prolong our trouble c. They are so indeed understood neither by one side nor other Let them lie and sleep a while foundations must do so when shaking and troubles make us need them they will be enquired after if any do there they are But my friends let us reason a little together and lay aside all allusions and all passions and soberly consider what evil was offered to you in that book After the case of the prisoners and so of the partie was represented I still think to their advantage more then ever I yet met with elsewhere the desire was to wave that tryal and procure another Court that should try principles that might at least supersede or succeed that What the issue of that Court and tryal is we now see and had reason to foresee Supposing his Majesty and the Law of the Nation to be offended and provoked against them that took away the life of the late King what probable or rational way was left to save the Prisoners but by moving that they and their principles and so the principles of the whole party should be tried in a higher and more spiritual Court A trial must be the common Law and ordinary way certainly destroyes both life liberty and estate To avoid that another must be proposed What rests to be tryed but opinions and principles And how can that be done humanely but by such a Court and by such a Law as is there propounded If those principles are good they may not only be justified but prevail to rule if they be not found so then their deceit will be discovered your judgements delivered from them and the prisoners and Party in a fair way to be pardoned by and reconciled to the present power Or else a third and middle state would have appeared A large righteous and merciful Law might have been produced that might have united comprehended and saved both Parties I confess freely I do believe and know it is to be had and will come forth whenever the righteous and good Law of God may obtain among men and right reason may be heard I confess to obtain this I did declare to his Majestie my sense and judgement of your principles which I have long had and do still retain upon a judgement made by many and great trials in my spirit and confirmed by constant experience much examination and deliberation And being many years fully convinced of humbled and sore afflicted for that prophane carnal cruel and selfish spirit in which this work was begun and carried on I did and do still offer them up to trial and was and am still willing that his Majestie and the Nation might see that they need not seek the lives of men seeing they might have the principles which is the best satisfaction can be given It is that which I have long desired even of this Party when they were up That we might have a Bar of Religion and Reason where the right of all parties in the Nation may be fairly argued and heard but could never obtain it I do judge it the true and only Christian and humane way to come to Peace and therfore I shall and do earnestly desire it There is nothing in the earth that I do seek more then this That my mind and judgement may be tried by the Reason and Religion of the Nation or the Reason and Religion of the Nation tryed by my Judgement Had it been a known enemy that had propounded such a thing to you why should you be angry at it or why not embrace and
it is that upholds this state and spirit of opposition in your minds In order to peace I must pursue this enemy and if I can beat him out of all his holds therefore bear with me it is the enemy I pursue not you if he have gotten possession of your minds gifts and cause he will destroy you and them For I constantly find that he is worse to the subject then the object he doth more mischief much to him in whom he lives them to him whom he kills And he that acts wrath must needs be worse then he that suffers it For he that acts it is the servant and subject of that enemy or enmity but thâ— patient by suffering from it is removed from it into the contrary state the Lamb therefore enmity when it gets into an active knowing zealous people it is dangerously seated If it be by war success and advantage gotten into your hearts affections and spirits though I do some violence to all these to remove him if I be not judged a friend I am sure I am so For none but a friend will pursue enmity it self and my war is with enmity it self and my endeavour is to destroy it Let us therefore consider what it is that engages your minds so stiffly in an opposition to and hatred of the present authority of the Nation It is some Spiritual and Religious thing that commands your consciences and over-rules your judgements to that which to sense and reason is so full of danger It hath the place and power of a God in you and requires this of you under the notion of godliness and as a service to him and his cause You being so engaged it must needs be a high provocation to you for a man to question your God Religion and Principles I need not wonder if you be enraged at me You were dull souls if you did not come forth against me with all the might and power of your Zeal and Religion to condemn me for blaspheming your Cause Indeed I do not blame you for being angry at me I rather blame you that you do like women fret and scold but do not bring forth your reason against me If there be any courage or strength in you I shall do what I can to engage it It may be a mercy to you to draw you off from a fleshly and worldly contest with the Nation which will ruine you to a spiritual and friendly strife about Gods Principles and Religions In which war we shall draw no blood wast no treasure destroy no families nothing will be hurt that is right and good nothing be lost but the chaff and dust With this fire and sword of Spirit and Word will God plead with all flesh This is truly and only the war of God for the cause of God And the weapons of this warfare are not carnal but spiritual mighty to pull down the strongest holds of the enemy With this fire and sword of the Word and Spirit God pleads with all flesh with all Parties with all opinions Episcopal Prosbyterian Independants Anabaptists A fleshly war by fleshly means in a fleshly spirit of pride envy impatience self-seeking c. may destroy men but encreases division multiplies corruption provokes sin in the subdued swells it in the conqueror fills all with misery But this war is of one God one life one peace one salvation against all men in their fleshly opposing one another and proud exalting themselves one over another and destroys no men nor sort of men but the evil and enmity of all it destroyes only him that destroyes the earth The standard that I do advance in this war is love the royal Law of love love to man to mankind to all men to humane nature love to sinners to enemies to the worst of sinners You are religiously and conscientiously engaged to oppose pray against curse and destroy the present Magistracy and Ministry of the Nation because it is corrupt and sinfull both persons and things This was your cause and spirit and still is except you repent and desert the principles in which you have been acted Against this spirit and religion do I advance this standard it was asserted in my former Book but not raised high enough to be publikely observed or dealt with It is more fully this Since God hath revealed his good will to mankind and his large mercy to all men to sinners and enemies not only to the godly but to the ungodly and unrighteous and made his own example a Law and Rule in his house to all his children He that hateth his brother is in darkness knows not lives not in the true light of Christ is not of Gods mind If he saith he is in the light and pretends to religion and the way of God he is a liar and is in darkness until now and knoweth not whither he goeth 1 John 2.9 11. I know this is exceeding strange and contrary to the whole frame of religion wherein you have been exercised these many years For of late all religion and light hath only served to hate and destroy and in this kind of religion the further and higher men go the more they hate and with more cruel hatred first hate the evil Council then the King then the Lords then the Commons First hate the Bishops then the Ministers then the Presbyterian equal to the Episcopal then the Independant and Anabaptist Churches then all Religion and so one generation of hatred ha h begot another worse and worse but no salvation no healing no pardoning any Sure this is very different from that large and universal good will that is declared by Christ This hatred is condemned here to darkness to the Prince of darkness who is the enemy the wicked or malignant one For if we walk in the light as God is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Christ cleanseth from us all sin He is in the light and in him is no darkness at all the darkness is no darkness to him he doth not stumble is not offended at it he is pure and holy and nothing can pollute and defile him he shines in darkness and the darkness comprehends him not thanks him not loves him not yet he shines still And they that have fellowship with him may be and are where he is and see as he sees do as he doth and not be polluted or offended he that is taught of God as God is so is he in this world he shines in darkness and is not comprehended by it nor subjected to it nor offended at it and therefore quarrels not with them that are in it but pitties pardons and relieves them yea though they are not only dark and ignorant but malitious and spitefull against him and would destroy him yet he sets not himself against them but on the contrary feeds clothes sustains their outward and inward man their bodies and souls And this he doth as an example and pattern to his
a thing is to try the good and the evil all judgement supposes a right and a wrong and an indifferency to both with an endeavour to find out both Now consider how you are affected to your Adversaries and you will find that you do absolutely hate them as persons and things to be cut off from the earth As the people of Gods wrath and of his curse as enemies to Jesus Christ doomed to destruction for ever So that judgement is past if this be your minds and you have nothing to do but to seek their ruine As you see you cannot judge till you cease to hate so you may here see the nature and kind of hatred When God hath judged a people to be scourged and spoiled for their sins and given them up to wrath and the curse he hath instruments prepared for the execution of them some fierce self-seeking hating persons To these he discovers the Sentence and represents the Party to be punished as cloathed with his Curse and then they fall on with all their zeal and might as glad of such employment But poor wretches they know not the counsel of God not the measure nor end of his displeasure And therefore form up other conceits in their heads as the King of Assyria did Howbeit he meaneth not so neither doth his heart think so but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off Nations not a few Isa 10.7 Success in such employments are certain and constant which the proud Executioner cannot bear but his hatred is enlarged as hell and presently thinks of destroying Nations not a few glorying in the success he is swelled with pride and thinks to conquer all the world This is only to shew you the true original and nature of hatred it is rooted in the Curse of God and in the Devil the great minister of the Curse who hath power of death he sets man on to execute the Curse and then inflames him into high thoughts of himself for his work What a mercy it will be for poor man to be redeemed from this vile service and the absurd and woful errors that do attend it To return to our purpose while you hate you cannot judge of them you hate and the judgement you make is no judgement or a false one For Secondly You did judge them Babylon Antichristian enemies and that therefore their judgement was for ever and ever Such you know is the destruction of Babylon as a Mill-stone cast into the Sea as the Angel said Rev. 18.21 and be found no more at all The voice of Harps and Musitians shall not be found in her nor the light of a candle nor the voice of the Bridegroom c. So you thought of these that they would never recover more And now you see the Musick and the Candles and the Mirth is risen again out of the Sea and hath escaped the mill-stone and the drowning too Now remember and consider You judged them Babylon and therefore to be destroyed for ever but now you find it otherwise your judgement therefore is false Had they been what you imagined them they had never rose Or had you or your judgement been true they had never recovered nor you faln if you erred as to the kind of the punishment you erred also as to their state I know you must think that this recovery of theirs is but in order to an utter and final destruction And the reason of it is because if you do think it otherwise you must condemn all your prayers praises and interpretations of Scriptures that you have made for your selves and against them a long time Therefore till you repent of them you must believe your enemies must perish be it never so irrational For they cannot be justified till your enemies do fall they being grounded upon their ruine But pray consider this is a present shift and but a shift It will not cover your shame It is far easier to confess ten errours ten years errours the errours of ten thousand persons then to justifie one errour Be you never so good great and many you are but men you may err you have erred and run out of one errour into another many years together He against whom you have exclaimed delusions delusion is able to say to you now You have been and are under strong delusions I have thought it and published it and now it is proved to be so If ever it come to pass as you expect an utter and final destruction of your enemies it must be by a spirit that is more holy true and righteous then that in which you have hitherto acted And such a spirit you cannot have till you repent of the former I shall help you what I can An utter and final destruction will come and now is begun upon all wicked and ungodly works although it be not seen and felt for all wicked works are in the wicked one and he in the wrath of God in which he and they shall lie for ever All his works will be destroyed in judgement for this fire will destroy his works and save the persons But your spirit or the spirit in which you acted would destroy persons and things but did encrease ungodliness for both your selves and enemies also are not better but worse by what you have administred Thirdly I hope you will now confess that you and your Party are worse then you thought you were If you are worse then you judged why should you not think that your enemies are better then you judged If you are not such holy blessed heavenly Saints as you thought you were then by the Law of contraries they are not such Devils or brats of Antichrist as you conceived them If you are weak men as it appears you are then your judgement of them is like your selves weak and fallible And as you fall from your Mountain of exaltation so must they rise and stand upon even ground with you and be like your selves weak sinful men as you are If you are not quite void of modesty and reason you cannot but admit that they have some good in them because there is so much evil in you that have opposed them If there was so much folly giddiness and drunkenness in your opposition you cannot but think that there is some good in these that you oppose As I do admit that there was some good in you that did oppose some evil in them so you must admit that evil in you and that evil opposition that you made must be against something good in them For evil where ever it is it fights against good Indeed if there were no good in them and no evil in you you need not you would not oppose them for that which is perfectly good is above all opposition And that which is perfectly evil is below it That lives in a heaven in it self this in hell and confusion that is salvation and rest in it self this is destruction and sinks under the weight of its
not intangled in your self-righteousness and your minds not captivated by Satan the very principles of holiness that are in you would make you distaste your present state which hath been proved to be vain and false and full of opposition and contradiction There is in you a seed of truth love and purity which must make you loath that state that hath been and is found by constant experience unclean formal and full of enmity to one another and all men However you judge of me as unholy I must teâ—l you I have a long time not only witnessed against the corruption of it but have turned from it even from the best of what is abroad of every sect And that in the sincerity of my love and affection to the pure and holy nature of Jesus Christ And so far as I have in any small measure partaked of his holy Spirit I have born your iniquities and been pressed and burdened with them grieved for them and shamed of them I do not now blame you from a common or humane spirit though that also is able to find gross defects in you and in the best of your way It is by it men blame you And you by it blame one another But from that holiness wherewith I stand before God for you and in that love and pitty to you wherein I intercede for you and could lay down my life for you I may say more For I know and find that none comes unto the Father to intercede for sinners but by the Son both in the name and spirit of the Son None minister truly before God but in that love of Christ who can be accursed for Brethren From deep experience of God of my own soul and of your state and from a long and sore travel in all do I write this to you That whatever you account of your selves by comparing your selves with your selves or with one another or with them that are visibly worse then you Yet when you shall but strive to enter into the strait gate that you may indeed come into the Kingdom of God and his naked face and presence I say when you shall but seriously and in truth desire it and press after it you will abhor your selves and that kind of holiness in which you now live Yea I know in your approaches to God which are not spiritual naked and heavenly but earthly fleshly and in letter or image only yet in that presence of God which you enjoy you are full of self-condemnings and self-upbraidings But that being but an out ward Court into which your Religion brings you it may shew you the outward spots and blemishes of your Religion but cannot discover to you the root and bottom of the evil that is in you Thirdly You are now in a zeal for your forms of worship and for those gifts and graces that attend them opposing condemning and reviling in words and religious exercises to what that tends all men know the persons ministry and worship now set up in the Nation Against these you run headily and carnally for consider what you oppose not Satan in these persons offices and worship but the things themselves That which you oppose and sight against being outward and carnal such is that also by which you do oppose them So that the business is not to pull down sin and iniquity and set up holiness but to pull down the outward power means and ministry of the Bishop and set up the Pastor In truth it is to pull down them and set up your selves This being a carnal and fleshly contest though covered with the name of God 1. It is unclean 2. And being unclean that which comes from it must needs be unclean also and thereby you promote not holiness but the contrary sin For contention and war have done and still do wound and slay the holy life which is pure and peaceable and carnal strife wastes the meek and good spirit If you should attain what you aim at and destroy again the whole outward frame of Church and State and set up your selves except you had the holy and mighty Spirit of God to destroy the root and spirit as well as the form and to open hell and shut them up for ever as the Spirit did Christs enemies they would recover again as they have done But such a Spirit and such a Power you have not I suppose if you could damn them all to hell presently you would not do it you have more mercy in you as men to men your Brethren And I am sure when you have power to do it you will not do it because he that hath power to do it will not doth not do it And he will never give his power but he will give his goodness and mercy likewise Again if you could thrust out them and exalt your selves and way in their place how would holiness be advanced It would be but one thing removed and another of the same nature brought in for it is of the same kind with theirs humane earthly and living in the same region else it could not sight with theirs if it be but of the same earthly nature it must needs be worse not better because it rises by war and contention And therefore must needs be harder sharper and more cruel and thereby suppresses the softer and attains its place by force And yet when you have done this except you have a more holy Spirit to guide lead and unite you you will not be able to settle your selves It is a tryed and judged case that this spirit in which you act hath not that truth and power that can wholly destroy what is nor that love and light that can reform it nor yet that wisdom that can provide a better And therefore you did overturn this Government throw it in the dirt and leave the Nation void for more wickedness to enter and then suffer the old to recover maimed and broken into a fouler house then it was Or else you must go on to perpetuate and establish contention and confusion in the Nation This is both reason and experience and may convince you if any thing will If you have not a more holy more true and more excellent spirit you can never attain what you seek either an extirpation of this Power and Government or establish a better If you cannot effect this you will but sill your selves your Religion and the Nation with violence fury and enmity by all your opposition you make But raise a deal of dust to blind your own eyes and others But stir and provoke black and malignant spirits both in you and against you as you have done And if you had that holy Spirit which only can prosper you in such an undertaking Then I am sure you would forbear this kind of carnal and wrathful opposition For the spirit of Christ is of the nature of Christ most holy and most gentle gracious and merciful He is so holy pure and incorruptible that he can
shall only charge the principle that is our seeking self liberty or liberty for our selves Whatever good is in the thing it doth and will miscarry so long as it is upon this bottom self Such is the large and good nature of the God and Father of all that he will blast and wither every private and particular spirit It is contrary to him hath no root in him and therefore though he do sometimes feed it awhile and make use of it yet he will at last reject it and never suffer it to stand up with him in his Kingdom He may and doth admit it to work and act in some low remote and dark state But if he be true to his own Good nature or to the nature of his Son the Saviour of the world he must not admit it to raign with him nor will he Yea though it cloath it self with salvation either of our own of others souls which is a thing most agreeable to the mercy of God yet will he never save any in that spirit But resist and oppose that salvation and all the graces and gifts whereby men seek it till he kill that root of self For he hath given it as a Law to Christ and so by Christ to men he that will save his life shall lost it and he only that will lose his life shall save it It was the great lesson he taught his Son and the first that Christ teaches his Disciples Let him deny himself If Christ and his Disciples must deny so excellent and holy life and self that they may ascend unto the Father of all If that holy and blessed state must be abjured and renounced and so come to the curse What can you think of self-seeking of an out ward liberty and freedom from outward sufferings it is no wonder to see tins brought to shame and confusion God hath pursued this root of self-seeking even in spiritual things by many sore and severe tryals in my spirit By which I came to understand what an irreconcileable and desperate enemy it is to God and what deadly poyson there is in the nature of it and how dangerously it will corrupt the best things in men Where ever it is admitted it will and doth kill the life of Grace if God kill â—ot it And though at first it seem zealous and holy yet it will break out into gross self-seeking For he that prayes preaches believes studies and receives the promises of eternal life to himself or to a party which is but a large self will at last in all things mind himself and so will be cruel covetous ambitious and any thing that self suggests to him And this I find to be the root of all that narrowness that was in this Party and of that gross self-seeking that all men take notice of There is at the bottom of the whole business and at the root of all their Religion a spirit to seek their own salvation liberty exaltation and honour And being fixed and bound to this principle they could never enlarge themselves to the good of the whole nor were they ever capable of any larger principles nor can they be till this state be slain in them And though they shift from one thing to another they will find no rest till they subject this state to loss and thereby come to partake of the largeness of the love of God and Christ Who teaches us to seek not our own but the things of others not our own liberty or salvation but the liberty and salvation of others And therefore the Lord of all that he might discover judge and destroy this principle so contrary to his own love and life hath so ordered it That he that will not deny himself his life liberty and salvation for the good of others in conformity unto Christ and in obedience to his Gospel They will be found to be persecutors cruel destroyers of others lives and liberties and so be brought to shame and destruction They that will not suffer for and from others others must suffer from them And they that cannot give their life will take away others life It is and will be resolved into this that men must either live in the merciful and saving spirit of Christ or in the cruel spirit of the Devil And no shew or form of godliness nor pretence of right or religion can evade this judgement For strong is the Lord that thus judges It is therefore evident and God will make it good that there is not common salvation nor good will to man in any private spirit of any Party but in the Spirit of Christ the Saviour of the world And that this true publick spirit where ever it is it shews it self by this it will suffer for and from others and not make others suffer from it it will and doth give life and liberty and not take it away The first step into freedom is out of our selves and the beginning of all ingenuity is to be able to examine try and judge our selves If by experience and by what is here written you attain the least spark of true freedom and can but reflect upon your selves and remember the first rise of your work that it was to deliver your selves and that in the whole progress of it it was terminated and bounded in self either in a finer or a grosser way and could do nothing but prefer or exalt your selves and Party or them that would confirm and strengthen your selves by serving of you And that all the while you were busie in this work you could not but oppress others not only your enemies but the whole Nation And that none of you could ever produce any publick ease liberty or advantage to the people but on the contrary taxes and burdens If you have but so much ingenuity as to judge your selves state and spirit and justifie God and Christ we shall soon agree If you do so and come forth of that hole that pit of a narrow private Religion that self or party holiness and salvation which is really now a pit and snare whatever exaltation it hath had If you can now but look out of it and view things in the light of the universal goodness of God your reason will tell you That for you that are but a small part of the Nation it may be a tenth either for number or quality a tenth that is a more active vigilant more spirited part of the whole For you in times of trouble to get the sword into your hands and to overthrow the Government and Governors of the whole which the whole chuse and rest satisfied in and to seclude the nine parts of the representative of the whole and admit of none to rule but your own tithe To subdue the civil Government and exalt the sword To depose one natural chosen beloved and one in judgement and affection with the nine parts And to set up many in many various wayes and opinions all strange to the whole Nation if
men for an outward liberty They would rather suffer from them then so acknowledge them Therefore liberty of conscience will be found a new and upstart thing born in this age amongst many other weak things and that it is not of the old rase of the right generous and heavenly Saints It may be pittied and indulged but cannot challenge much Thirdly This liberty of conscience seeks earthly things and outward freedom Which is not only for conscience or but for an outward and earthly conscience and with that for worldly ease honour and advantage For conscience if the Son make him free and so he be free indeed it can and doth live with God and with men in heaven and in earth and under the earth in bonds chains and death and is still free with God and Christ and cannot be confined It is therefore some outward thing that is pleaded for as well as or more then liberty of conscience Fourthly It is a common observation that men while they have been under their enemies and in a low condition then they cry up liberty of Conscience but when the same persons have attained power they content not themselves then with liberty but set up their consciences to be a Law to others It hath been practised by all sorts of people as they have gotten power into their hands in some degree or other They have all punished some for Conscience Let this be well examined and if we can let us find out the reason of it it will enlighten mens minds and clear the truth Consider then First Whether conscience receiving its Law and rule from God the supream Lord ought not to exalt that Law as it hath opportunity and hold it forth as a Law to all men I believe it is so and therefore conscience taught and instituted of God is truly royal and Princely in his nature and both must and will rule Which is the reason why neither the Jews nor Christians would seek to their enemies or to the heathen States for liberty but knowing and loving the majesty of their Lord they would either raign with him or suffer with him and from him If this be the royal nature of truth then it follows 1. That whatever men profess when they are down and low yet we must expect that when they get up they will exalt that which they hold to be truth as high as they can and exalt themselves with it And 2. If they pretend otherwise they do either weakly or deceitfully hide and cover their minds or else basely stoop below the majestie of truth for present ease and advantage And 3. If we our selves by the Law of our own life and religion do exalt our religion as a Law we must not wonder if others do so also but have reason to be content with it and submit to it And 4. Knowing that the Law and Religion of our Lord Jesus must and will rule if we have it with us and in us it will be sufficient 1. To uphold us in a low state 2. To assure us that whatever other persons or spirits God sets up they must come down with shame 3. That when that Law comes to rise we shall rise and raign with it And 4. In the mean time suffering with it will prepare us to raign with it and him Secondly If this be true that conscience rightly taught and enlightened is and will be a Law to all men then what a poor or false conscience is that which craves liberty of men If it be only weak it is to be pittied if it be an evil thing it is to be judged Be it one or other we see by experience it is to be suspected For if it be carnal and naught when it is low it will be certainly worse when it gets power If it be base subtile and serpentine when it is poor it will be cruel and tyrannical when it rises Therefore though there be a natural right to liberty of Conscience yet it is just reason it should be examined For further Fifthly They that profess much for liberty of Conscience could never give it to others neither to their enemies that first denyed it to them nor to them that needed it from them I do think they that contend for it will never grant it That large and generous spirit that shall he able to give it will neither need it nor stoop so low as to ask it And that narrow low fleshly mind that knows not how to bear the darkness and shortness of them that are above him I doubt would less bear the darkness and shortness of them that are under him Sixthly This liberty of Conscience hath brought forth to the Church a very strange brood of absurd opinions loose practises proud and rebellious spirits to the scorn of Religion contempt of all kind of Government breaking of all relations of all bonds natural civil and religious Now that which is a cause or occasion of so much ill hath certainly an evil thing in it And therefore is no clear nor strong ground to engage upon There is no question but men in tenderness to their own flesh and bodies do when they are in danger of suffering cry up liberty of Conscience as a great thing and decry the contrary beyond measure Passion passion for self for self unmortified to avoid the Cross is not a proper judge of Laws Liberties Religions and Kingdoms It doth likewise appear from what hath been said that this liberty contended for is not according to the antient Christian and Apostolical spirit But a carnal impure and mixed thing Yet on the other side I do acknowledge there is a humane and natural right in it which although it be weak and low ought to be considered and pittied It being a thing of natural and rational equity if it be fairly and rationally demanded it may I suppose be had His Majesty hath in goodness and prudence graciously promised and declared it It is in it self a reasonable thing and therefore if reasonably claimed the reason of man cannot justly deny it And much less reason of State which is the reason of the Nation Besides the natural reason of it the present state of the Nation gives it a great advantage and makes it even to reason of State which is the preservation of civil peace necessary And therefore nothing so likely to endanger it as mens irrational heady and violent opposing the Government of the Church and Kingdom And therefore I affirm that for you to stand out in open enmity to the present Government in attempting war and hostility or in preaching and praying against it or cursing and reviling of it as wicked or Antichristian which tends to the destruction of it either by war or otherwise To continue in this is not the way to procure liberty of Conscience but to overthrow and destroy it This liberty of Conscience must be had either by an utter ruine of all that is against it and so of the present
unhappiness of them that are under a Law and necessity of so acting and them that are under a Law and necessity of so suffering If either my labour and pains or my knowledge and experience yea or my life if self may do any thing to cure this evil and quench this flame I should gladly expend them all And for you my friends to whom in love and mercy this is directed I know it will not only seem strange to you but be very grievous to bear to find so great a spiritual enemy in the midst of your spiritual gifts and enjoyments I know you little expected it and as little thought to find me the discoverer of it to you whom you have so much slighted But know this is the fruit of my long travels and dangerous encounters with this enemy With whom I have endured a long and tedious warfare with great expence of life and blood even in my soul and spirit and have received many desperate wounds in my inward man while you lived at case and in pleasure both outward and inward You now have that cheap which cost me dear For alas how much easier it is for you to receive this conviction from the hand of a weak broken man in love and compassion to you Then to receive it as I have done from an angry and jealous God How much easier is it for you to bear reproof from the experience of a friend then to conflict with this destroyer hand to hand and to graple with all his malice darkness and wrath in your own naked souls and spirits which God knows I have done again and again I know you have had strange thoughts of me I forgive you you might well think strangely of me when you beheld me encompassed with the darkness and smoak of this bottomless pit and sensibly lost and swallowed up by this enemy But I have by the mighty power and goodness of God escaped thorow many deaths and dangers and yet live to communicate to you the benefit of my conflicts sufferings and deliverance If you say you intend not war and destruction to them which you oppose but their repentance See that you be true to this I do believe many are wholly taken off from war by the great experience we have had of the beastly deceit the horrible cruelty and corruption that hath attended it And that the same honesty that led them out at first to engage in it leads them now to abhor it and to chuse rather to suffer then by war to seek a deliverance For the clearing and strengthening their spirits in that way of peace are these things writ And to inform and instruct others that are yet unconvinced We will then suppose that you intend not to get liberty of Conscience by violence and war which was our first branch but by a friendly agreement with the present Magistrates and Governours this is our second branch If we desire liberty first know That it must be from the Magistrate for all liberty Civil and Spiritual is in his power either to give or restrain Liberty is the fruit that grows only upon the tree of Government Law and Authority or is enjoyed only under the protection of them Take away Authority and Magistracy and all kind of liberty ceases we are presently exposed to the lusts of wilde and brutish men Therefore they that are truly conscientious are most faithful to Magistracy 1. Because they are bound to obey not only for wrath as others but for conscience sake in obedience to God who hath instituted Magistracy and ordained that power And they know and feel the Providence and goodness of God in the Magistrate as well as the weight of his Scepter 2. Because they may receive more benefit from him then others liberty not only for their outward man but for their spiritual man also which others need not 3. Because they being conscientious are more tender then others and so more subject to injury then those that are not bound by conscience The loose and prophane need the Magistrate to restrain and subdue their wills the conscientious is his own Law as to restraint and needs the Magistrate only for his protection So that indeed the sword of Authority if rightly understood the edge of it is against the loose and lawless life and the peace and favour of it is to the good and the godly The enemy of man and author of confusion hath brought forth much mischief amongst us both to the Magistrate and to the conscientious in dividing one from the other and setting of them against each other which have but one root For the Magistrate is the Minister of God for good Rom. 13.4 And conscience binds a man to subject to all the words and works of God and to all things that are administred from him or by him Upon a little sober consideration this mist of errour and mistake will be scattered But if the Magistrate give us this liberty of Conscience then in reason and conscience we are bound to defend the Magistrate that defends us in this liberty And if we desire liberty of him it is but equal and reasonable that we should profess that it is our judgements and consciences so to do For we cannot expect he should give liberty to a conscience that would destroy him and his Government Wherefore when men have professed conscience in destroying and changing of Governments there should be a Declaration and Profession against it answerable to the evil done by it or sufficient to wipe off that scandal Secondly If we desire liberty of Conscience from the Magistrate it must be either in a way of Reason or Religion or both if we seek it from him in a way of reason we must admit him a man a reasonable creature else it is in vain to seek reason of him If the Magistrate be man he hath the image of God as man and as Magistrate which is to be beloved honoured and defended by us not opposed hated and destroyed If there be man and reason it is possible and likely we may agree with and unite to man because we also are men of the same flesh and blood with him and he with us If we do not agree with our own nature though under many defects there is something unnatural in us which we may call Spiritual but if it be Spiritual it is not divine nor Christian for God loves man is reconciled to man Christ is a man and loves his Brethren If we confess them to be men then we are to deal humanely with them and to exercise reason to them openly clearly fairly If we think they err we are in reason to go to them and to inform them if we can or to receive information from them If we need anything of them we should reasonably propound our request to them If both parties be men and will exercise reason to each other there will be an understanding and agreement for there is but one reason in all
against the truth Jam. 3.14 So long as you suffer to bring others to suffering and are willing to endure for a time that others might utterly be destroyed So long as you pursue your old design of destroying though it be by and through this deep counsel of your own suffering first Glory not as if it were the Gross of Christ You lye against the truth against the true and meek suffering of the Lamb of God which is not to destroy but to save mens lives Therefore neither your life nor death is like his neither your Religion Worship nor suffering The rebuke of our Lord to his Disciples is proper for you when they would have had fire from heaven to consume their enemies the Samaritans because they opposed them in their way it is said Luke 9.55 He turned and rebuked them and said Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of I am certain you know not what spirit it is that leads you in all this Therefore as I have been and am against your actings so I am against your sufferings not only because they are impure and not evangelical but because I pi ty both you that suffer and them that inflict them I know the nature of man and of Christ is sorely and grievously injured in both And therefore it concerns me and every good Christian to do what we can to deliver you and them from this turmoyl It is my desire and must be my endeavour SECT XVII I Had now concluded with a proposal for peace had not this late Insurrection drawn forth my mind to a consideration of it Which although it be a very monstrous and strange thing yet it doth so much agree to what I have written in this Treatise that I cannot but animadvert upon it and enquire into the nature and reason of it I have largely discoursed of this spirit of wrath and opposition And shewed the evil and danger of it That if it be admitted into the mind and into Religious exercises in deprecating cursing and condemning it will raign and not be confined but will break out into war and open hostility in pag. 162 163. these words are opened Out of the Serpents root comes forth a Cock trice and his fruit is a fiery flying Serpent The old Serpent the Devil is the root of all malice from him and his spawn comes forth this hissing Adder or Cockatrice cursing If this be hatched in Religion and fed with zeal and holy duties it will soon get wings and flame forth in attempts to war This is I think a natural and true description on of this fiery flying Serpent that flamed out and flew abroad in this late Insurrection It seems while I was writing against it the thing was hatching I was by a secret spring in my mind directed to write of that subject not only beyond my thoughts when I began to write but contrary to the disposition of my soul which did often turn away from the consideration of such black dark and hellish spirits and practises But though my mind be very averse from taking pleasure in raking in such filthy sores yet I could not resist the power and justice of that reason that led me into a discourse of them I see there is a secret intercourse betwixt reason and the causes or principles of things True understanding knows things as fully in their causes as sense doth in their effects There is nothing so deep or dark but it is subject to be seen and over-seen by the light of right reason True reason is the image of God and one with that supream wisdom that rules all things And therefore will be justified and fulfilled by him that is the head and Father of it This I write not in the subtilty of wit and Philosophical observation but in authority And do require of all men not only consideration of but subjection to the righteousness and truth of what is written I know I am alone in what I write and not only singular but something strange and different from all mens present notion of things I know also my person is mean and contemptible Yet there is that justice and truth of reason in what I write that I dare challenge in the sight of God and man that it should be considered What is truly reasonable or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is both humane and divine and therefore they that refuse it must first sin against their own mercy their own life For the word or reason of God is our life and tha◠by which all men Nations and Kingdoms subsist Therefore to depart from the rule and reason of our beings must necessarily be the confusion and destruction of that life and being And secondly to refuse the truth of reason is a sin against the most high who is Lord and Father of that reason And therefore if he fulfill his own image his word and reason in man then he must bow all states and powers to it Which he will certainly do in justice to his own mind and law and in mercy to men For nothing is better for man then that he should be ruled by the law of his own nature and by his reason enlightened from and in union with the divine and eternal mind I have some reason to urge this because in the Inquisition I proposed unto his Majesty and desired a tryal of mens opinions spirits and principles by spiritual persons and by the Law of God and reason As the only way of curing the distmpers of the Nation which lie in the spirits and judgements of men And are the roots that bring forth these ill fruits of rebellion But it seems the proposal I made was either unseasonable or otherwise so weak and obscure I would blame none but my self that it was not considered or if considered it was rejected by his Majesty As it was neglected by his Majesty so the other side did exceedingly scorn and revile it and me for writing of it Whatever weakness there be in the things there written for which it may justly suffer both neglect and contempt yet there is that truth and reason in it as will stand before God and must be acknowledged by men For what is reason and truth agrees with the rule and Law of the most high God and therefore must sway and rule all States and Kingdoms And what is truth and reason and so one with the eternal mind will be either more true or more evidently so to morrow then to day And consequently that which refuses it will be found weaker and worse by refusing of it I sensibly find that both Parties are farther from that great blessing of peace and happiness then they were before they refused it and the Nation more disturbed Let us enquire into the reason on both sides and then possibly another Proposition of peace may find better acceptance If reason be so weak as not to prevail it will be confirmed and strengthened by experience And so our losses will
For every one that goes out of the world glorying in his righteousness makes a breath both in death and in the authority that inflicts it And when it comes to be easie and familiar as it will by a little practise Authority and Magistracy it self will be by such despised I shall commend to the Magistrate an Observation of mine own concerning the nature of man That he may consider what he governs and how he ought to govern him Man is a noble and stout creature There is so much of the majesty of the image of God in faln man that he retains much of the greatness though he have lost his goodness There lies raked up in this dust an invincible spirit that never will be subdued by force God could never break the rebellion of the Israelites by all his punishments upon them And therefore sayes Why should ye be stricken any more ye will revolt more and more Isa 1.5 All the terrours of the Law could never subject Paul but he sayes himself When the commandment came sin revived and I died Rom. 7.9 When the law came with terrour against him then fin roused up it self unto a desperate opposition There being such stoutness in mans heart that all the force of the Law could not subdue God sent his Son in love to this stout creature to take his flesh and so to soften and overcome it and in it to destroy both Law and sin This will shew us what is in man There is as much of this courage and greatness of spirit in the English as in any people under heaven which is very much awakened in these times both by the wars and by long liberty and a free exercise of their minds in Religion For first the people were inspired and impowered to execute the determined displeasure of God upon the Church and Nation which exalted them and subjected the Church and Nation under them Having as they think judged the former state of Religion they have opportunity and liberty to erect several new forms of Religion which is an act of spiritual principality and power and not without zeal for God and obedience to his Law By these things the genius of the Nation and the natural stoutness of the people is much lightened and encreased And therefore to reduce them into that state that they think they have judged and to destroy all their little principalities set up in their consciences only by outward force or by the meer letter of that Law which they have condemned without a superiour Law that judges them and their work to my reason seems not only impossible but dangerous Let the whole be considered and it will be found That meer legal and outward punishments upon such a people so spirited and principled so employed and exercised if their consciences and spirits be nor first fairly heard judged and convinced will inflame their minds into such a mad and desperate spirit as appeared in the late Insurrection into hardness and insensibility of death and danger which is the greatest enemy to Government that can be For it turns men into wild beasts not to be ruled by humane Laws And though they do attain nothing to themselves yet they may give disturbance and force the Magistrate from all humane and divine wayes of love and gentleness into violence and perpetual severity and fill the whole Nation with continual troubles and distractions It is true the Magistrate is bound by all bonds of Law of reason and nature to suppress and punish rebellion But when the seeds of rebellion lie in the mind and conscience the spiritual sword is as necessary as the secular and the one not effectual without the other What is written in this Treatise will I hope satisfie them that will read and consider that there is with us in the Church a spirit and understanding that will reach the root of rebellion in the mind and fully convince the conscience Which being joyned to the civil authority is sufficient to cure and heal the Church and Nation On the other side I must desire the present suffering Party that were so highly offended at my Book and at my proposition for the tryal of principles that they consider how much lower they are now faln There was certainly a loftiness and unsubjection of mind unsutable to their condition expressed in a glorying and boasting of their old cause and state which hath brought forth this contempt and suffering upon them I do believe that this late Insurrection was the work of a few rash and unreasonable men And do find that all sober men do express a great abhorrency of the act with resolution to wait patiently upon God for their deliverance Which truly I rejoyce in Yet the whole Party lying under the shame of these mens folly and madness they must seriously and deeply consider how far they yet stand unhumbled and unconvinced of those principles that carried these men into this practise Principles lie deep and when once they get rooting in the mind they are like ill weeds in a garden not presently destroyed Many times the judgement is enlightened against them yet they have a root in the heart which will spring up if not quite eradicated Their appearing in others and the evil fruit they bear is a good means to beget an utter detestation of them To make you sensible of the hand of God upon you and to help to clear your minds wholly of them I only propound these queries to you 1. First Whether those principles upon which they acted of the Cause and Kingdom of Christ and the honour and priviledge of the Saints above and against the world Have not been received into the minds and spirits of most men more or less that have erected new Churches and new Governments in the Nation Secondly Whether the same principles and the hopes of such things be not that which fills your heads and hearts with multitude of prayers and great confidences that you shall yet prevail and your enemies be destroyed And so though your understandings be more prudent then others yet whether the same things be not yet in your faith affections and duties Thirdly Whether these spirits and principles have not had a great influence upon the whole business a long time If so then if they be not rooted out by repentance and change of mind they lie not still in the heart though they seem not to act and appear Fourthly Whether men being upon an extraordinary bottom as the Saints of God distinct from others And exercising themselves in extraordinary duties with extraordinary hopes and confidences of extraordinary deliverances Are not thereby disposed and prepared to attempt extraordinary things to attain these extraordinary ends If so then you are drinking the same wine that intoxicated their heads that rose only they are weaker and you more able to bear it Remember Solomons counsel Who hath sorrow who hath contention who hath babling who hath wounds without cause They that tarry long