we must be all very low and humble before our Father and honour Him with fear trembling and thanksgiving in all states and conditions and be very single simple and innocent in his pure Eye and exceeding tender to one another in the Pitties wherewith he hath been merciful unto us and covered us with his own Compassions and take occasions in the Life of Love to speak to one another and visit one another in the holy Bowels with the Greeting and Salutation of the holy Kiss where the World reacheth not for in this Spirit we know that we are of God and the whole World lyeth in Wickedness which stand in the enmity to this Love which is the manifest Power of God revealed in us which delivereth us from all evil for in the Love we witness the Strength which takes up and bears the Cross to the crucifying of the Old Man with all his lusts and affections whereby we receive the Testimony of the true Faith and in it do also witness in our own spirits the taking up of a Life in the Heavenly Places of the immortal Joy which nothing is able to bereave us of having by abundant blessed Experiences the assured knowledge That the more our Adversaries wrestle to deprive us of the Blessing and Inheritance for the Revelation of the most exceeding Mercies of our Father to us through the prosperity of the Life and Glory of his Power in us the more are we strengthned in Him that also by it if happily our enemies may come to see the certainty of the Lord on our side and thereby be converted unto the Grace of his Goodness and saved by the incomprehensible Work of his Wisdom in the pitties of the bosome of his Mercies Ah my Beloved This is the Love indeed wherewith you are beloved of the Father and of me his poor needy hungry and thirsty Servant which opens unto you and in you the Doors of the twelve Houses of the Heavens which you know The first is Judgment and Fearfulness the second Humility and Lowliness the third Meekness and Mercifulness the fourth Temperance and Savouriness the fifth Patience and Setledness the sixth Hope and Resolvedness the seventh Faith and Perseverance the eighth Peace and Quietness the ninth Thanksgiving and Remembrance the tenth Prayer and Watchfulness the eleventh Glorification and Praises and the twelfth Content and Fulness Now therefore all ye Lambs of the Flock of the Shepherd's Pasture look well into that house in which you are made inhabitants and by the Virtue of Covenant is yours as a proper possession that you may see the glory of the sign thereof which shews you the perfect Signs of the Times yea and look again and again and lo the Canopy of Gladness together with the Curtains of Joyes and Bed of Pleasures in each of them is an immensity too vast for your aspect to reach the utmost thereof whereby you may perceive something of the incomprehensible Renown Viz. What an honour of honours is it to be one though but as the least in the House of the Lord wherein the World with its fulness stands intirely in subjection to a thought Ah! the Dominion yea the glorious Dominion of Love which is obtained in the Acts of his Championism Surely the sence of his Strength is able to catch you into Raptures and overcome your souls in the Heavens of his Supream Authority and through the constriction and violence of Ravishments to make you cry out with the loudest lift-up voices saying Hail O Jerusalem and Help O ye Inhabitants of her City for the forcibleness of Love is upon me Oh! Oh! Oh! Love is the strongest Love is the powerfulest even of all the Supernal Hosts yet my Beloved you shall all remember in the dayes of the Floods when the Banks of your Rivers are filled up to the brims that then even in them dayes you shall in no wise say How can my Love be greater seeing my Current runs brim-full but rather contain the recordance as the Memorial of a Covenant in you that the streams of your Rivers have the passage of their influences in the Valleys beneath the risings of the Hills and therefore shall thirstily wait for your Floods through the rentings open of the Fountains of the greatest Deeps to surmount until they have covered the Hills above you yea procelsively to ascend as in the highest heaps over the loftiest Mountains of the Earth that the Ark of Salvation may swim on tops of all without danger of shipwrack by bulgings and yet wait without wearisomness in the sensibleness of their Movings until they are mounted from a stream in the Valleys to have reached the Upper Waters which are lockt within the Windows of the Heavens that the Ark of your Rest may safely arrive to anchor in the Haven of Zebulon And so let this cast you into the bosoms of Affection and become a Covenant of Unity in the vertue of an eternal Oath in the bottoms of the bowels of each other And so the everlasting God of Heaven and Earth enrich you with the Treasures of the Love of his own Life which is Incomprehensible and Infinite and seal you in such a nearness of relation and dearness of affinity in the holy Unity in such an inward manner as that always you may stand at the motion of a moment prepared as ready Sacrifices to offer your lives for the Brethren and the Crown of Immortal Glory of the Father be your recompence in his Kingdom of Life Amen Daily are my Prayers encreased for you in all quarters of the Earth and the abundance of my Spirit doth often minister amongst many Finally dear Lambs Wait all to receive the Spirit of Supplication and of Prayer and in that same holy Spirit present me in your living breathings to the pittiful God of all our Mercies for his eternal Eye doth well know that I am weak and poor having no strength but from him nor wisdom without him but in him And therefore again I say in the importunity of a beseeching soul pray without ceasing for your poor bruised and often oppressed Brother And O ye holy Witnesses of the Lord our Righteousness my pure and living Brethren and Sisters the dear sympathized suffering Prisoners my reins are a current and stream running forth with willingness towards you in the tenderest compassions of God's Life of Love which melts my bowels casting mine eye of remembrance upon you Ah! it is your Faithfulness yea it is your Integrity in the Covenant of Righteousness that is the Vertue which reacheth me at this distance renting my soul for your sakes to whom it is not onely given to believe but also to suffer for the Witness of the Power of the most High Verily your Crown must be certain on your head and a Fountain of the Treasures of Life must assuredly compass you as an everlasting Reward of your Service For he is infallibly just and righteous and his Covenant is Faithfulness Amen who hath called and drawn you to glorifie him in the vertuous sanctified Life of your blessed Tryals and Tribulations for no man can suffer for God for naught but his Righteousness will be a Recompence unto him O my dearest Companions I am most inwardly in the nearest feeling with you and am made a true partaker of your conflicts besides the God of our sustentation knoweth with how many tears sighs and groans with numberless prayers and holy fervent requests and spiritual desires I have remembred you and still do supplicate that in the Faithfulness you may all be kept to the end and continually exercised in the spirit of thanksgiving and praise to God for all things and to dwell in the life and power of Contentation which is a Mansion of most infinite latitude where a perfect fulness of strength is partaked of and possessed which gives victory over all the world Summarily The sound of New-England Sufferers and the fame of the Indian Martyrs in the Continent of Virginia hath pierced to my bottoms within me O let it be as a Razor 's edge to our desires and as a Spur like a Spear in our sides pricking us on in the eagerness and swiftness of our race that we who have started and put on at first and ran in the course before them may not in the end fall short of the Glory of their Crown which is great in the Kingdom upon them So all dear Plants of God's Renown in all Quarters of the Earth the most Mighty be alwayes on your side and his Supremacy at your right hand and his eternal Omnipotency save you from all evil Amen THE END
Glorious Glimmerings OF THE LIFE OF LOVE UNITY And pure JOY VVritten in Rome Prison of Madmen in the Year 1660. but conserved as in Obscurity until my arrival at Barbados in the year 1662. From whence it is sent the second time to the Lord's Lambs By J. P. LONDON Printed for Robert Wilson 1663. JOHN the Prisoner for the Witness of the Power of GOD in the blessed Tribulation Patience Content and Peace of the Lamb To the sanctified heavenly Flock of Gods only and alone Pasture in the Bowels which is a daily Supplication and Intercession most internal Salutation c. THe Magnificency of the Most Mighty and his Supremacy stands on high in Dominion over all things So Omnipotent is his Essence in all his Purposes and Passages that if he but thinketh of Visitations Nations are scattered before him or if He but steppeth among Kings and Princes in the Jealousie of his Displeasure and spurneth with his foot at their Thrones As the storms of the East wind rooteth up the lofty trees of the Mountain of the Forest even so of a sudden becomes their Seats besides the foundation of their Palaces sinks down as a Wall which the openings of an Earthquake hath swallowed in her hungry womb who reduceth the banks of Pride and Munitions of Arrogancy unto the destiny of a fall into the gaping Gulf of the mouth of exceeding Misery Let Mountains now be bent to roar like Oceans Noises And let the Rocks be rent converted into Voices For how can Stones but speak with Iron Steel and Brass And Adamants but break at what is come to pass And sound in one set hour forth shouts of his Renown Whose glorious mighty Power Eternity doth crown For hath not he made Owls with Moles and Batts to sing Like as the chanting Fowls harmonious tunes in Spring And Eagles he and she made both to loath their prey Two Turtle-Doves to be in Shilo's shining day And hath not be the Bear the Panther and the Lion In substance made appear like Lambs in holy Sion And by his Mercy rich transform'd the Serpents sting Into a Vertue which from Death to Life doth bring And made of Rocks a Fountain and Stones refreshing streams And of a Grain a Mountain and Darkness Orion's Beams And made of puddle mire a Limpid Pond of pleasure Whence Fishes joyes as fire ascend exceeding measure He turn'd the hiddious Night into a glorious Day And cut through clouds a Light and Hills a Level way And made a Seed a Sheaf the Sick Sound and Strong Weak The Blind to see and Deaf to hear and Dumb to speak And Wine did purely sever from mud which man did mingle Which is enough for ever to make all ears to tingle Sure whilst I meditate his glorious Wonders The Heavens praise Him with the shouts of Thunders The Stars with Hymns harmonious abound And each bright Cloud like as a Trump doth sound The showrs of Rain melodious Message brings And Dews descend with tunes of Cymbal strings The Rainbow's bent with Viol strings above Shooting her Musick Shafts of Orions Love Which fly through Heav'n with loud Organs sound Which opens Seas deeps yea and rents the ground These Influences dropping down like Showers And piercing through my Vitals over-powers My Soul with Solace and on Wings doth carry Her up above in Melody to marry Sweet Pleiades who gathers with imbraces Her in his Arms of his Supernal Graces Whose virtuous Breath like Brooks doth overflow His own Plantation in the Valleys low Which makes the Seed spring up and Plants to flourish In all her Branches which the Root doth nourish And each green Bough with fruits of Joy doth bend At Blessings root that Joyes may never end Ah! thou the Building founded on the Rock Whose Door Arts engines never can unlock Nor can thy Scituation by fierce blusters Be shaken nor can Force which Pharoah musters Drawn up with roaring Cannons for to prove The substance of thy Walls which Hell can't move ' Cause thy Inhabitants as Wind to waver But they in war sweet Songs to Lutes do quaver Whom Combats crown with conquest by the might Of God who for them doth the Battle fight For he 's Victorious under whose blest Banner They are preserved in securest manner Who rushes in the Woods among the Trees And makes his foes drop down like smother'd Bees There 's no Enchantments nay nor Wizards charms Can Him withstand nor forcs of Hostile Armes Who makes his Opposits in blood to wallow And Earth to gape them greedily to swallow Wherefore ye Sons your Instruments prepare With strained strings most exquisitely rare And sweetly tun'd with Muses whet most sharp Our God's Renown and Praise thereon to harp Since from his hand abundantly your Souls Have drunk Salvation up like Wine in bowls And made you eat of Mercies numberless And cloath'd you with Compassions in distress And let his Glory be your meditations And his high Honour all your contemplations For such effects will sure produce increase Of Joy and Gladness joyn'd to endless Peace And now the countenances of an illustrious Off-spring and comliness of a numberless train of the most enamoured beautiful Virgins doth compass my waste as with the girdings of a cincture of ravishment to whom though I have but the weakness of utterance and feebleness of stammering expressions yet with the sincerity of a simple soul and fervency of a burning spirit I am impulsively constrained to vocifie although but through the smallest Organ of the Quire saying to my beloved O ye enamoured Daughters of Jerusalem and Sons of Sions King in whom the Righteousness of his Majesty is revealed and the Wisdom of his Holiness from above to seek an entrance of utterance towards you I may wisely first interrogate saying How may I utter or in what manner may I paraphrase to render you an ample proportioned Remonstrance of that Love of our only Father which is locked up as mine everlasting debt and your peculiar treasure in the most secret Cabbinet of my inner Closer reserved for the day of your service Verily nothing can open it as it is besides the Key of the Kingdom within you nor declare it as it ought to be spoken but the tongue of the Learned which is given you and being declared not an ear can hear it save that of the Lamb without spot or if it were printed on Parchment or engraven on Brass not an eye could discern the perspicuity of the Characters so as to give a voice of fluentness of the liberal sound thereof except the tender Eye of the Turtle-Dove whose Sight is a searcher into secrets in all which you are known unto me by whom I am perfectly received and manifestly understood as the Savory Voice of your Beloved instantly and intimately with you in the dearest conjunction of Eternity which must never end for as fuel which is cast into flames yeeldeth but the same natural effect of fervour and as Gold that is melted with
and maketh the buds of the Garden shoot forth into flowers and gives the Roses the fragrant odours the beds of Spices have Myrrh in their dropings and the ground of their plantation gives the fruits of her goodness as a congratulating present to the Gardner when she combs her head the Dews do fall which refresh the grass of the field and make the Earth to smile with Rejoycings whilst she arrayes her with the Garments of green trimming her with the Blossoms of fruitful trees and attiring her with the Ornaments of Jewels and Pendencies on Vine-branches Her Face is as the Meridian Sun which giveth light unto the ends of the Earth Her Eye is as the Beams of the rising of Orion which pierceth thorow the crevices of the doors of obscurity and darkness Her Mouth is the door of the treasures of Counsel where Wisdom and Life is conconserved Her Tongue is the Key which unlocks the Graves and opens the jaws of the Seas She calleth with her Voice from the scituation of her Rest and they vomit up their dead before her She breatheth on bones and sculls and they rise upon their feet and walk in the strength of revived men Her Hands are the bountifulness of Blessings which fill up the baskets of the Obedient Her Arms are an endless compass of Compassions which reach to the ransomed with refreshments to the Sores of the wounded she is a Salve of Salvation for her Medicine is the multitude of Mercies Her Breasts are like Hills of refined Gold which as fountains of unemptible fulness are an everlasting streaming of the the most precious Vertue of Life he which layeth his head in her bosome his hair becomes as a Wood of Pomegranate Trees which are laden in a fruitful year and the leaves of his boughs become dropping with Myrrh as with showers of the early Rain She is cloathed with the spreadings of the Heavens which have not a confine of space Her Mantle is wrought with all the Constellations as with a needle by the hand of Art She is girded with the Rainbow of God as the Child which is wrapped in swadling She is laced with the cord of the Covenant which is called the Meridian Line Her Skirts are trimmed with the spangles of Lightenings which astonisheth the Beasts of the field Ah! how amiable is her Countenance and her Attirements wherewith she hath decked her self verily of such a transparent nature of the excellency of illustrious Glory are they that it 's altogether unfathomable by the longest line of every comprehensible capacity to reach in the Currents of his Conceptions and notwithstanding her unparallel'd resplendency yet is she totally vailed from the vultrous eye as with Pillars of the blackest Clouds of most hiddeous darkness and fire which burns within them But O ye her first-fruits unto God! look look into her superabounding Basket and behold the Crop of her Clusters of her Vineyard which are gathered in the first year of the Vintage and cast your eye into the house of her Winepress that you may see the multitude and blessings of her increase where the Fat 's are overruning as floods and the influences of Oyl as Rivers And then after all this yea and much more than all this which I have spread but as a napkin before you say unto your souls within you If the Glory of our Mother be so illustrious in her externals and outer parts Ah! What is her resplendency within If such is her Hand what is her heart if such is her bosome what are her Bowels if such is her Visage what are her Vitals if such be the Sound of her Voice Ah what is the Solace of her Soul and if such is the radiancy of her Eye what is the glory of her Spirit Verily though I see in the Vertue of her dignity an excellency and magnificency yea and glory potential covered with all supremacy which in the Spirit also is utterable within me transcending all as far as the East is from the West what ever my pen hath characterized even in such an ample spatious vast and infinitely unequalled manner exceeding all Orations of the wisest Orators and Poems of the profoundest Poets which are Sons of Achitophel's Seed yet must I cease for a season that the Lambs may learn and read the beauty of her ravishing Visiognomy within them assuredly knowing that herewith the very life of my spirit as a key of Oracles shall fly hence as with the Wings of Lightening and pitch upon many as the Dove of the Ark on the Olive Tree and rest in them as the Lord of an everlasting Sabbath of Joy which shall reveal unto them the riches of her Glory yea and draw them also as it hath my tender Soul into an endless and unsearchable labrynth of loss amidst the numberless odoriferous Flowers of the over-spreading Pleasures of her Life Yet thus may I interrogate my soul within me saying Canst thou waste thy fulness or count the drops of thy bottle prodigally spent as water that is spilt on a stone which is poured out upon so blessed a Seed And she responsively resolves with a Nay saying I never can in waste spend this my treasure On you the Doves which are my bosomes pleasure Nay neither can I ever empty'd be To you which in God's Life are joyn'd to me For sure the more I love the more increase Of Love in me doth flow which cannot cease Their running streams of Shiloh's sweet affection Since Loves Flames are the Walls of my protection I feel your Life and therefore must retort On you my love whilst I in Life exhort Most dear Beloved prize the springing Grain And unto such Souls be as Clouds of Rain And in this day let my experience preach Unto your life and let my Witness reach In deeps profound wherein you purely ought To prize a Babe surpassing every thought Ah! prize a Babe even as I prize indeed The very least as fruits of God's own Seed And that you may esteem a Lamb the better Chain'd in Affection by Loves Lock and Fetter Mark ye my Pilgrimage through craggy wayes Since sure not all have seen such heavy dayes For loe my spirit speaks when I do stand To turn and look about on ev'ry hand I quickly see as through an open Cleft A Fox approached very nigh the left And thence but casting this my open sight A ravenous Wolf appeareth at my right Before a Lyon and behind a Bear Which fills my soul with most exceeding fear Besides on th' ground a subtile Serpent creeping And poysonous Viper Crocadile-like weeping Aloft a Dragon soaring in the Air I 'm sure enough to make all flesh despair Thus I am compassed in every hour Yet sav'd in God by his Almighty Power And therefore I do prize a Lamb in love As God's own Treasure seal'd in Heavens above Which Fruits of love our God from all requires And such sweet Streams run joynt with my desires And all dear Plants of God