to the whole world is come it cometh it hath sounded and is sounding The mighty day of God is at hand therefore whilest you have time repent And allthough the Gentiles resist and all the Heathen every where gain-say yet the Lord will be glorified over all the world unto whom the Light is the sure message of the Most High whether they will hear or forbear AN EPISTLE TO THE GREEKS I Have heard a rumor in mine ears of a hard cry among the people Alas alas Our glory is defaced and our ancient praise and renown is utterly defamed Our wives are made the Vassals of other women and we are become slaves to a strange Nation We are no more under the Government of the Scepter which swayed our Fathers but the wills of another people works violence over us Our houses are but as habitations lent unto us and our substance and portion at pleasure may be spoyled by the hand of the Devourer Our children unto us are not as were the children of our fore-fathers in their Generations our wives and children treasure and substance is but a burden unto us when the eyes of our Lords looks over us Alas alas our misery is great and none regardeth it the sound of our cry hath reached far yet few have pondered it And the Lord said unto me Cry also among the Professors of Christian Religion even thus it is come to passe in many Regions of the earth the bondage it great and the captivity is doubled with violence and with cruelty The chains and yoaks are twice laid on and the people are under the indignation of the Lord The judgements of their adversaries lyes heavy upon their heads and their Loins are banded with the oppressions of their Rulers as with Iron and with Brasse and they cannot break the Cords to cast off their burdens and this and much more is the misery of the Greeks which their fathers iniquities first brought upon their heads in their dayes and the children of their Generations drinking of the Cup of their abominations unto this present Seed of evill doers Wherefore the hand of vengeance still toucheth their shoulders and in this manner God hath seen it equall to lay the burden upon that man which with his transgressions hath laden and pressed down the righteous soul of the Lord as a Cart is laden and pressed down with sheaves This is the end of their labours they ploughed the fields of the pleasure of their own hearts they sowed the seed of unrighteousnesse in the depth of the ground of iniquity who notwithstanding the Lord watered them with the water of adversity yet returned they not in the day of affliction wherefore of corruption they have reaped this abundance of misery YE Greeks unto whom I write for the seeds sake as a husband unto a wife not covering the diseased parts or falsly solving up the forest and most dangerous wounds not seeking to seal up your states in hidden sentences from your understandings or your conditions in parables nor to shut the door of the Kingdom against the seed of the Kingdom It hath pleased the Lord contrary to every part of the natural and desire of the carnall to lead me through some of the Countryes wherein as Sojourners you are Inhabitants among whom I did earnestly seek but could not find and then I returned to the Lord and sought with tears yet truly could not find one in a City that was worthy Ye ought to bear with me for the Truths sake nevertheless whether you will hear or forbear for the Lords sake and his seeds sake I am obliged by that which stretcheth forth love unto souls in this manner to stretch forth mine hand to draw back the Curtain that you may look to the Light which breaks through the Lattice and to remove the skirt which it folded over your nakednesse that your eye may see your filthinesse O misery misery the seed is in bondage that 's your greatest misery within the burdens of which is the ground of your misery without Consider consider and lay it to heart use diligence in the search of your hearts for the Lord God cometh quickly to try and to search every heart and to reward and give unto all according to their deeds done in the body whether they be good or whether they be evil Consider your Life which is the ground and cause of the mourning of the Land Jer. 23.10 I have passed through you and have seen the life of your people Behold abominable swearing lying cheating coveting drunkenness whoredom adultery murder Rom. 1.23.24 c. Changing the glory of the incorruptible God into Images made like unto corruptible man Wherefore God also hath given you up to uncleannesse through the lusts of your corrupt hearts Who have changed the truth of God into a lye and to worship and serve the Image of the creature more than the Creator Whos 's own Image only praiseth him who is blessed over all for ever and evermore Amen And this is truth in the presence of the Lord God of Heaven and Earth and unto the Light of Christ which shines in all your Consciences which shews you all your sins even unto that true Witnesse in your own hearts I speak I have been an eye witnesse of the bowing of the bodies of many of your people unto the works of your Fathers idolatrous hands unto which your corrupt hearts and deceitfull affections are joyned whilest not one of you in a Nation which mine eye ever beheld came to bow his heart in Righteousnesse and his life in Spirit and Truth before the Lord God who is a Spirit John 4.23 Whose day cometh and now is that the true Worshippers do worship him in Spirit and in Truth And for as much as Ye with other Idolaters do make these few following dark words the seeming ground of your standing places saying Viz. That you are the Roman Catholique Church and that you believe in Christ and do believe the Words and Doctrine of Christ the Scriptures of the Prophets and writings of the Apostles and that you hold the Precepts and do follow the instructions of the ancient Fathers c. Answ You whose Fathers made many Temples and painted Pictures therein that they might worship and bow down unto the works of their own hands Ye see the day in the midst of your calamities and time of sorrows how that many of the houses which they built are left unto you desolate And if now you the seed of the corruption of their generation were but come to the losse of your Fathers naturall Image in your carnal hearts and affections You would also as clearly discern your greatest misery which through the grosse vail of darknesse over your hearts is hid from your eyes Oh the captivity the captivity you are held in the possession of bondage and captivity under the profession of the name of Christ and Christians in the lusts of unrighteousnesse and the pleasures of
the world in the unrighteousnesse and uncleannesse thereof in fornication and covetousnesse in drunkennesse pride malice and murder lying and swearing vain jesting and foolish talking As a people through the abominable lusts of uncleanness in your lives void of the knowledge or at least wise not considering and laying it to heart how Ephes 5.5 That no unclean person nor Idolater hath any inheritance in the Kingdome of Christ and of God being as it were stupified and benummed in your senses so far degenerated from the power of Truth and mystery of Godliness that ye have lost the generall forme and do retain but the least part thereof wherefore among you and upon you the words and prophesie of the Apostle is fulfilled 2 Tim. 3.13 Evill men and Seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived And yet a little while and it shall also be shewn unto you that desire to understand wherein you are fallen below the form of the profession of Godliness as in divers particulars I shall query for the opening of your understandings that by your diligent search in the Scripture with the Light you may see which will effectually make for the manifestation of the ground of your customes and practices in your idolatrous and superstitious worships And this unto you all is held forth for the tryal of your wayes seeing the Lords mighty day is at hand which will rip open and make manifest all hearts and declare and preach that which hath been hid in secret upon the house tops Many of your Fathers were the worshippers of the works of the Philosophers untill the sound of the fame of Christ came among them whose Miracles and Resurrection confounded the depth of the working of their wisdom by which the wise men came to confesse a greater than themselves which suddenly rang through the Nation and so from Nation to Nation from the report and credit of the confession of the Philosophers and learned Doctors the ignorant also in all your Nations joyned with the humane learned and so with one consent they cryed up the name to wit of Christ whereof they had received the report who sometime before that had slaughtered the Apostles who finished their testimonies in the Life and Spirit of Jesus holding forth his name in power whose name in words as the Apostacy came and grew as the deceivers and false Prophets and false Brethren and false Apostles went forth your Fathers the Philosophers and wise men came to confesse mark the time of the coming in of this which at this time ye stand in which had not an entrance by the Doctrine or Example of Peter or life and preaching of Paul but by such as was spoken of should destroy the little flock of Christ and make havock of the Heritage of God concerning whom I have shewn you Johns witness and Pauls testimony and yet furthermore do write Judes and Peters prophesies Jude 4. For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before ordained to this condemnation ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousnesse filthy dreamers that defile the flesh murmerers complainers walking after their own lusts and their mouth speaking great and swelling words having mens persons in admiration because of advantage Such as the Apostles of our Lord spake of should come Mockers who should walk after their own ungodly lusts who are sensual having not the Spirit of Truth To the Church saith Peter 2 Pet. 2.1 There shall be false Teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable heresies and many shall follow their pernicious ways of whom the way of Truth shall be evill spoken of having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin beguiling unstable souls and hearts they have exercised with covetous practices cursed children which have forsaken the right way who are the Angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitations God hath reserved in the everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day Seeing therefore that the Scriptures are true as is manifest by the coming of these things to passe according to the words of the Apostles prophesies and finding you in the cursed ground and nature of uncleanness bringing forth fruits of iniquity Hereby I know even by your fruits Matth. 12.33 into what stock you are grafted mine instrument hath reached your root And again I say all men upon the face of the earth who have the least discerning may truly understand that ye are in the Apostacy working the unrighteous works of your Fathers who were the first Apostates from the true Faith in whom iniquity wrought in a mystery who when Satan had his end in destroying to the uttermost in the slaughter of all the holy Apostles in like manner as the Jews after they had slaughtered the true Prophets garnished their Tombs in honour of their persons even so also did the Deceiver set your Fathers a work to build Idols Temples and to draw out the Saints Pictures and to do hommage to the Pictures of Christ Mary and the Apostles in honour of their Persons and those things which your Fathers built ye garnished wherein ye witnesse that ye are their children and are filling up the measure of their iniquity and thus the Devil gained his dominion in you and among you by transforming himself in a nearer shape like an Angel of Light in divers other things and Ceremonies and wrought in and among your Fathers as he did in the dayes of old among the sons of men who sought out many Inventions insomuch that the righteous soul of God was grieved with them so that God repented that he had made man for straightway after the spirit of Antichrist had so greatly wrought through the earth as that Nations came under and in subjection to the wills of the Philosophers even to the confessing of the name of Christ outward Your Fathers they entered into divers consultations and what they sought out by their Inventions were set up as Laws and Ordinances and Statutes in the forms of your worships and thus came in as I have said the buildings of Idols Temples the carving of Images the painting of pictures the making of Beads and Crosses of Wood Bone Stone Gold Silver and other dead created things and the Invention of Candles and Lamps and Altars for your sacrifices and all manner of Surplesses and deceitful coverings and hood-winking garments the observations of times and seasons and weeks and dayes and divers other heresies and damnable doctrines of Devils 1 Tim. 4.1 2.3 Forbidding to marry and to abstain from meats which God had created to be received with thanks-giving All these and many more of your customes and Idolatrous worships are neither according to the command of God or of Christ or the president or example of the Holy Apostles through the Witnesse of the Scripture In few words the root of these things was the invention and working of iniquity in
Kingdome you who are called Jesuits also mark this your figure the Chamelian which lives by the Aire which according to the Law is an unclean Beast which can change himself into all colours perfect white onely excepted Read your similitude and see how you who live in your lusts can without a mock of the Truth be titled with the name of the Church of Christ Jesus in which is neither spot nor wrinkle nor blemish nor any such thing as uncleannesse or unrighteousnesse 1 Cor. 6.11 Although such were some of them but they came to be washed and were cleansed and sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Which Spirit of truth the light is this day the Leader of the Saints and servants of God into all truth Now therefore doe ye Read What is the Chaffe to the Wheate And what relation hath the Spirit of truth unto your life which is squared and fashioned in the frame of Error Deceite hath been the Master-builder of the fabrick of your habitation the spirit of Iniquitie working in a mystery the foundation of your walls and the strength of lyes and lying wonders the pillars of your house which by the gilded appearance of the beauty of the wisdome of the ancient and learned in Philosophy Rhetorick and Sophistry is covered with many painted tiles of vanitie under the shaddow whereof you bow to the Images and pictures which the unrighteous hearts of your fathers Invented whose Gods are before your eyes unto which the affections of your naturall sences are joyned whereby with the carnall and naturall according to the motion of the Spirit of Error and Deceit in you you are led to worship the workes of their hands as is manifest by your bowings and bendings to the Image and likenesse of the naturall which the naturall invented and the carnall made And this also came in in the Apostasie when that was forsaken which the Eternall Spirit did command And now through the custome of your forefathers and you in the dayly practice of their invented Ceremonies being setled on the leese of their abominable Idolatries are come in your generation Matth. 15.9 to teach for doctrine the traditions of men And therefore in vaine is your worship as saith the Lord But yet ye have also to speake in the commendation of your fathers seniority and wisdome who gave commandement for such resemblances by Images and pictures not as if they were the gods of your worship but the resemblances of the Lord Christ c. whom by these resemblances you teach the ignorant for to worship Answer The greatest blindnesse is in the hearts of your learned Fathers I speak out of the spheare of their Colledges in mine Answer to their plea for their sinfull Idolatries and over all your Nations doe cry out and lift up my voyce as one in mourning lamenting for the lost seed among you which they that should rather in righteousnesse handle the plow to break up the clods to uncover the seed have used the spade and shovel and have heaped up dirt and stones thereon to the miserable burden thereof Oh horrible Ignorance a people bound with the chaines of darknesse can any thing be the resemblance of the Lord or the likenesse of his Image who is the Infinite Eterternall a pure holy glorious endlesse living Spirit but that which he maketh in his likeness and formeth in his own Image by the power of his own Almighty hand And doth he who is a pure Everlasting Spirit of life make or fashion any whom he fashioneth but in the likenesse of that which all the world by wisdome by Philosophy or by arguments can never attaine to reach unto the sight or understanding thereof Can any make the resemblance of God who is Immortall which the mortall never saw Can the corruptible and mortall which never did nor never shall see incorruption and immortalitie make with their corruptible hands and changeable unrighteous Idolatrous hearts the resemblance or likenesse of the Incorruptible Spirit From the Lord God I say and declare unto you all your bowings to your Crosses and Images and Pictures praying upon Beads to Mary and Saints is abomination to the Lord God of Heaven and Earth and in these things you are but a stinke to the rest of the Heathen who with you doe stand Enemies to the Doctrine Gospel and Crosse of our Lord Jesus for as they in words doe hold the name of our Lord in contempt you with your deceitfull shaddowes doe make a mock of truth and his sufferings in loathsomenesse you are seated as an abomination in the sight of God who created you and in the eye and sight of the servants of the Lord who by the price of blood are redeemed and with pure water are washed from the polutions of the iniquitie and the blood and envie which is among you and the rest of the Nations kinreds tongues and peoples of the Earth and now are the followers of the Lambe whethersoever he goeth Abundantly do the Scripture beare testimony against your practices mark from the precepts and commandements of God Exod 20.4 unto Moses through the house of the Prophets and the life of the Saints search and then see Isa 44.3 might not you with as much confidence make a calfe and say to the ignorant this is the resemblance of God worship ye it and draw the picture of a Monster and say this is the resemblance of the wonderfull Spirit which was in Paul or Peter bowe ye before it Read Jer the 23.11 12 13 14 15 verses Oh miserable blindnesse and the greatest darknesse is the Priests ignorance who teach the people lyes and cause them to erre in their wayes With the light search and see how far you are from being under the power of the word of the Lord who contrary to the letter of the Scriptures Do worship in the forme of the traditions of your fore-fathers Christ said to his Disciples in those dayes Joh 4.23 The houre cometh and now is that the true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit and in truth for the father seeketh such to worship him mark such as are in the Spirit Math 23.29 having one father which is in Heaven but ye being yet in your sins and in the flesh are the false worshippers who have many instructions and traditions and observations given to you according to the wills as the product of the inventions and conceptions of your many fathers and now as ye shall turne your minds to the light of the Lord Jesus which will rip open your hearts you will finde that rule to be the equall measure of your wayes which will give you a true fight that you are not in the truth as it is in Jesus who is the truth in whom and by whom and through whom the Prophets writ their prophesies and the Apostles had their utterance whose words do stand to the bearing
Lord and the wicked shall be turned into hell But every member according to the diversities of their measures of the Spirit of life who are of the true Church can witnesse and read the Scriptures with the life in their life which is hid with Christ in God Col 3.3 but you standing only in that which hath written Annotations and which draweth Inferences Conclusions and meanings from the Scriptures that witnesseth sufficiently concerning you that you are not in the life of the first Principle of pure Religion which giveth the understanding of the Scriptures Ignorance therefore is the cause of your error Math 22.29 Math 13.34 as saith Christ You erre not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God Wherefore unto you they are parables and hidden sentences from the darknesse of your clouded understandings who is he that seeth your misery and doth not lament you who have consented to the blinding of your selves through the yeelding of your minds captives to the perverse wills of your Instructers they have trodden out paths in unrighteousnesse and you have walked in their crookednesse Verily I am as one wounded for your sakes and heavily pressed with the clods which the ploughers have ploughed upon your backs Oh where is the hand which hath holpen you Have not your watchers forgiven you your sins in vanitie and strengthened your hands with the strength of their own hearts in iniquitie In what manner have they brought you unto confession and what will that availe you if after your confessions the same and worse sins and iniquities are wrought and committed by you Are you so ignorant as to thinke that their words of absolution is the covenant of pardon and salvation Or do you thinke that bare confession of your sins only will bring you under the Condition of mercy Mark the order of the declaration of Solomon's wise sentence which maketh frustrate the expectation of your vaine confidence Pro 28.13 He that covereth his sins shall not prosper but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall finde mercy Oh people why therefore will ye thus rest and remaine in the night of slumber when will ye be awakened to come to see the works of your teachers how that they have double-girded your loynes with the cords of ignorance and have made that the strength of their renowne and praise in the Nations and your cloathing with the clouds of darknesse is your Priests garment of glory over you by this their power governes in Dominion and Majesty and you remaine as Subjects chained under the yoak of their iniquitie Oh who can declare your misery It is my sorrow for the Seeds sake to behold it and I know that it suits not with the delight of your hearts to read the explanation of it But hath the Lord a Remnant and shall he not visit for the sake thereof yea verily and this therefore in love to the soules of the simple that they may come to the light of the day each one in the sensiblenesse of his own heart and life to reade with understanding the mystery of godlinesse and Scriptures of truth which do speak one and the same thing in the word and intention and not of many things as by more then one but of all things in and by one through whom the worlds were made and the Covenant of God stands sure through whom also grace mercy and peace is come to as many as are joyned to that one in the clearnesse of the naked truth through the relinquishing of the hidden things of deceit and all the former wayes vanities customes traditions superstitions and ungodly words and works and renouncing the counsells of the many fathers and men of the world through the spreading of whose spirit and the fruits of their life delusion hath a long time reigned in the world cleaving to the only sound counsell of the living God father of truth which deceiveth nor deludeth any man but establisheth all men that come unto it in a holy way exceeding the errors of mans wayes even in that new and living way which he hath prepared wherein the uncleane cannot walke Isa 55.8 but it is unto those the way-faring men though foales shall not erre therein Wherefore all people be not any longer blinded under the perverse crooked wills of your Instructers and Pastors but examine and try truly whether they have lead you in the way of God wherein the wicked cannot walke And now in all this will you count me your enemy in putting you upon diligent inquiry and also in telling you the truth Lay it to heart oh people and you Doctors and Teachers of the Nations Come forth and consider assemble assemble the principal members of your bodyes together and call a full Councell of the Magicians of your Lands and suffer us then to prove you before all men provide your rods that you may cast them in the presence of the Nations and behold ours is ready to be cast also that it may be knowne whether God is the God of Egypt or of Israel and that all the Inhabitants of the Earth may have an understanding who are the people that have stolen the name of Israel that were never borne of his Seed and if it shall be seene that the Serpent of our rod shall eate up the Serpents of your rods then of a truth it shall be knowne that God worketh with us and not with you but against you But if the Serpent of our rod shall be swallowed up and by the Serpents of your rods utterly devoured then let not the Nations spare to publish and cry in their streets that the God whom we worship hath utterly forsaken us Againe I say assemble your Prophets and let the worke of the Lord and his word answering by fire give testimony to the Prophets whether the Prophets of your Lands are the true Prophets that the Inhabitants thereof may truly know and understand that if the Lord be God then let them follow him but if Baal whom ye worship he God then do you continue following of him no hurt will come unto your Nations through the tryall of the Prophets so that if the Lord answers our Prophet by fire and kindles the sacrifice of the oblation in your sight then shall ye know that our Prophet is the true Prophet of the Lord but if your Prophets shall cut themselves even to the drawing of blood of their bodyes and no word of answer to their supplications as the answer of the Lord by fire from Heaven but afterwards if in their madnesse and wilfulnesse they shall kindle a fire in their wrath and charge you to kindle fires in your houses to burne this testimony among whomsoever it comes then behold that shall be a signe unto you that God is not among them for if the Lord be their God then would he plead for them or if they be Jealous for the Name of the Lord God of Hosts then will they stand forth to plead
testimony against your Idolatrous wayes And verily the same words which once Paul declared upon Mars hill unto your fathers Acts. 17.22 now turneth upon the heads of you their children Ye men of Athens I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious for as I passed through your City I found an Idolls Temple which was abundantly painted with pictures on every side within which was the Inscription which I John did reade TO THE UNKNOWN GOD Which with the bowings of your bodies unto those superstitions Idolatrous Images ye ignorantly worship Him declare I unto you God that made the world and all things therein seeing that he is Lord of Heaven and Earth dwelleth not in Temples made with hands neither is he worshipped with mens hands by Temples of Pictures or the customary and traditionall bowings of your bodyes unto pictures as though he needed any thing seeing he giveth unto all life and breath and all things and hath made of his blood all Nations of men for to dwell upon all the face of the earth And hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation that they should seek the Lord if happily they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us For as much then as we are the off-spring of God we ought not to thinke which if we were come to the life of the seed ye could not then in the least measure imagine or thinke that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone graven or pictures made or drawne by art or mans device and the times of this Ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to Repent because his mighty DREADFULL DAY is at hand which he hath appointed wherein he will Judge in righteousnesse the whole world of mankinde Carlo Dessio Gumene Stephaci called Greek Doctors of your people in the City of Athens among whom I was conversant in the power of the Spirit of the Lord and preached unto you the Everlasting Gospel in crosse to your wisdomes wherefore ye resisted my testimony and called me fool and said all young men are fooles Acts 13.41 In like manner as your fathers the Philosophers Epicurians Stoicks called Paul babler do not you shew your selves herein to be the despisers spoken of What would you have said to Timothy 1 Tim 4.12 if he had come unto you even as I came in doctrine and Example And what would you have said to Jeremiah Jere 1.6 17 18. would you have said otherwise unto him then you did unto me if he had come unto you as in his day he visited your nature in the Jewes that sought to slay him Jere 26.8 And will you say also that all the young Prophets in the dayes of old were fooles And when John did write unto young men 1 Joh 2.13 14. did he then write unto fooles Will you call such fooles who knew the Father who were strong and had overcome the wicked one And are you so ignorant as not to consider these to be the latter dayes in which God will fulfill the Prophesies of old Joel 2.28 Your old men shall dreame dreames and your young men shall see visions for God hath said that he will powre out his Spirit upon them and are ye not wicked in your words to call such fools Consider this also did not you manifest your selves to be most ignorant to seek for a signe and a miracle then from me whom you called fool Did not that as much manifest your perverse ignorance as it did your unbeliefe Wherein you also shewed your selves to be in the same nature of that generation which sought for a signe in the dayes of Christ whom the Lord answered and said unto them Math 12.38 that they were an evill and an adulterous generation yea your sin is worse then theirs was who say that you see with a better eye then they did and by so much the more it remaines Are not you the hypocrites Math 16.3 that can discerne the face of the skies but cannot discerne the signes of the times Like as Jonas was three dayes and three nights in the Whales belly and came forth a Preacher of Repentance Even so are the times at hand Math 24.32 Learne ye therefore the parable of the Figge tree when his branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves know ye that the Summer is nigh for as the dayes of Noah were so shall also the coming of the Lord be In short words your faith is fathomed and your hope is comprehended your fruits gives the testimony of you one cluster of your grapes were enough to shew the nature of your Vine planted in the Mountaines of Sodome the proverb followes your age The fathers have eaten sower grapes and the Childrens teeth are set on edge yet I shall also further shew you how that as the Jewes stood in the dayes of Jeremiah so you do stand in the same nature perversenesse pride and obstinacie ruling your hearts now unto whom God sent Jeremiah to cry against saying Trust ye not in lying words speaking to your selves Jer 7.4 The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are these and Paul said to your fathers the Athenians God dwelleth not in Temples made with hands Yet you contrary to the Scriptures do assemble your selves as the Jewes did to worship the works of mens hands and of your own hands in the Temples which are made with hands and so you walk contrary to the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles and touching this matter whereof ye say that ye follow the Councell of the Ancient fathers you who are called the wisest fathers in these dayes shew by the best testimony that ye are able in what manner you esteeme the Councell of your Ancient fathers and how that it is greater and ought more to be esteemed and followed then the counsell of our only father the Lord God of Heaven and Earth who gave the utterance of his counsel thorow Jeremiah Paul Jer 26.12 and others crying against the Temples and against your customes the traditions of your fore-fathers and Christ said Behold your house is left unto you desolate and Paul cryed against the Temples made with hands Where had you or your fathers ever a command from God or from Christ to build such houses and to paint them full of pictures Consider and lay it truly to heart ye men throughout the earth is not your building of these houses one and of the very same nature and the fruits of the very same Spirit in those which made the Calfe whilst Moses was with God and not in the Camp amongst them Exod 32. In the dayes of old upon a much more seeming account of assured confidence was the opposition of the Jewes of Jeremiah's testimony then yours possibly can be in these latter dayes for as much as their fathers
for as all things and deeds which are done and wrought out of the Light are reproved by the Light even so also that which maketh manifest is light and the Light wherewith you are lightened is the measure of the gift of God which he hath given unto all men and the grace of God which hath appeared unto all men which taught the Saints to deny ungodlinesse and worldly lusts through which that is to say by the Light being Judged as men in the flesh they became Justified with God in the Spirit the Light will lead you unto life if you love it and obey it according to the voyce of it Isa 8.20 therefore to the Law and the Testimony take heed speaking alwayes according to this word Ye Greekes in all quarters and parts of the earth read this commandement as the quick sharp and short message of the Lord unto you even of the Righteous God whom your fathers provoked unto wrath through their Idolatrous superstitions and all manner of abomination for which cause he brought their necks under the miserable yoak of bondage to draw under the cords and chaine of the same Instrument of cruelty of the Jewes captivitie and this came to passe if peradventure in the time of trouble they might early seek and cry unto the Lord with unfained hearts but from generation to generation even to the evill dayes of this present generation he hath not found Repentance in your Land and therefore could not your Land finde nor feel the day of deliverance and breach of the bowes of your yoaks by his hand of Redemption Repent therefore lest ye be made an utter spoyle even unto the determination of time and there come no end of your misery and desolation Remember the declaration of the dayes of old and the sayings concerning the times which are already past there were a people unto whom the sure testimonies of God were given but they forsooke the mercy and through hard-heartednesse and self-conceitednesse departed from the fountaine to aske councell of their own wills in the house of Rimmon Isa 49.6 they expected the Covenant in their way wherefore when Christ the Light came contrary to their conceptions they rather resisted unto death then chose to be gathered unto life they once had the Law and the Prophets and the testimony of the Law and the Arke of the Covenant and the Temple which God gave them and yet because of their unbeliefe God spared not the Jewes which were the naturall branches according to the promise Heare this all ye Gentiles throughout the earth Rom. 11.22 If God spared not the naturall branches because of their unbeliefe why boast ye your selves against the naturall branches who are your selves fallen from the Root If God spared not the Jewes who received not the Light which testified for Christ which was and is the Light which shined in all their Consciences Shall he spare you who despise the Light and in Enmitie to Christ who is the Light walke contrary to the Light in all your Consciences Behold the goodnesse and the severitie of God on them which fell severitie but towards the Gentiles which stood goodnesse and unto as many as now continue in the good which cometh from God mercy and peace but as for such as forsake the Light which comes from Christ even they 〈◊〉 fruitfull branches shall also be cut off and with God there is no respect of persons And if the casting away of the Jewes were the reconciling of the world what shall the receiving of them be but your torment Rom 11.13 and the resurrection of the life of the seed from the dead and the redemption thereof from the bondage of the grave to the glory of God Amen Trust ye not therefore in lying words even as once the Jewes did saying The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are these say not in your hearts the wisdome of God is the councell of our fathers such words shall not save you or if you farther say that you have Abraham to your father that shall not profit you but rather read your birth of the bond-woman that you may come to the casting out of her seed and generation of her wombe for be it knowne unto you God can out of rockes raise a remnant and out of stones a seed unto Abraham for not every one that saith Lord Math 7.22 shall enter for many shall say we have prophesied in thy Name and in thy Name have cast out Devills and yet it shall be said â—â—to them depart ye cursed workers of iniquitie and Virgins also loosed the Inheritance even such as were to seek oyle when the Lord came Math 25.12 and these are States beyond the conditions of all your Roman members throughout the earth the Scriptures are true in the declaration as Christ spake although you are false in your words and wayes and interpretations and if the doore of the kingdome be shut against carelesse Virgins how thinke you that wicked lyers drunkards swearers whore-mongers or harlots shall have an entrance therein therefore whilst you have time Repent This is the summe unto the pertaking of the purchase that you follow the Lambe of God Christ the Light of the world which taketh away the sin of the world He is the highest Priest Prophet and King of whom this is the signe and testimony unto Jew and Gentile He hath lightened every man that cometh into the world and this is the message unto the whole world God is light and in him is no darknesse at all Look therefore to your lives for behold this day is set before you death and darknesse life and light chuse you whether if you perish in your sins your blood be upon your own heads henceforth for ever prize your time Heb 12.17 Remembering that Esau had a time but Esau neglected his time so that when he carefully sought a place of Repentance with teares he could not finde it This is the testimony which we that do walke in the light as God is in the light do hold we know that whosoever is borne of God unto the Inheritance of the kingdome of God he sinneth not but he that is begotten of God 1 Joh. 3. 6 9. keepeth himselfe that wicked one toucheth him not and we know that we are of God and we also know that the whole world who are enemies to God lyeth in wickednesse And we know that the Sonne of God is come and hath given us an understanding whereby we know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ this is the true God and Eternall life Oh all ye Nations abstaine from Idolls The Saints by the seed of the Apostated Jewes first in contempt were called Christians and we who have received the same testimony of Jesus by the seed of the Apostated Christians in the Northern Islands are scornfully called Quakers J P SOme Queries propounded