light and there enjoyes the fulness of life and he gives a measure of his own light to draw from the darkness and he who believes and follows this is led by it unto God from whom it came and being come out of the darkness unto him he begins again to feel the springs of life the fresh springs of life which are in him He that believeth is come to the well of salvation and draws living water out of it and drinks of the living water continually so that he can thirst no more yea out of his belly flow rivers of living water This is the fruit of the true faith but this is not the fruit of the faith of the Apostacy but there the soul remains stil disunited to God and united to the darkness and drinks not of the living streams but drinks dead water the fountain of pure life is not open to it but the fountain of iniquity and that blood which clenseth and taketh away the sin is not known There is onely a dream of these things in the dark night of apostacy by which dream the conscience is a little quieted for the present but when the witnes awakes and the light of the day shines the soul which is lean wil find it self in the hands of the enemy in the bonds of sin and feel that it never new that power that could redeem it but the subtil Serpent deceived it with a name in stead of the thing This is the true way the narrow way I can in the presence of the living God set my seal to the truth of it which it hath pleased God to discover and make manifest again after the long dark night of Apostacy And we come not to it by hearing or receiving of any new notions or apprehensions of things but by feeling that which puts an end to all creaturely notions and apprehensions and we grow in it by the increase of that thing in us The seed to which the promise was made the seed which was before Abraham was is felt and his day is seen and rejoyced in and by the light thereof the darkness is discovered and the kingdom of darkness is assaulted And as it dayly fals in many particulars so it shall at length fal in the general and the Kingdoms of this world shal become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ and ye shal reign upon the earth where sin and Antichrist have long reigned and kept him down And though there be a great rage and out-cry among the people and heathenish professors yet the decree is gone forth and Sions King shal reign upon the holy hill of Sion and the hills and mountains shal melt before him and the earth shal shake round about him Therefore gather your selves together muster up your strong forces O ye several sorts of carnal professors Let all your differences one against another fal and joyn together against him who is against you all improve the Serpents wisdom and form arguments out of the Scripture thereby with the utmost of the skil and understanding of flesh get the Kings Rulers and Magistrates of the earth on your side too handle all the weapons of the flesh skilfully Dispute reproach revile whip stock imprison starve nay put to death See if you can uphold your kingdom for there is a mighty one come forth against you who will take the vineyard the kingdom the inheritance from you and give it to another and on you shall come that death and darkness that misery and destruction which ye have put far from you and preached as the portion of others Therefore consider your condition in the fear of the Lord and if ye feel not your selves able to fight it out make your peace betimes and let your greatest crowns your choisest wisdom and strength in the flesh be laid down at the feet of Christ at the lowest appearance of his light in the conscience Let not the least check of his spirit be spighted there but esteemed above the highest notions of light that ye have gathered in or can gather with your fleshly understandings And indeed it is no less then its due for this which runs fresh from the Spirit is more living in it self and more proper to that mans present estate to whom it comes then whatever he himself by his understanding can gather from the letter There hath been a precious seed of God long stirring in this Nation but it hath been oppressed and kept in bondage by the spirit of Pharoah and his wise Egyptians who would subject it to their laws and worships and not let Israel go out of Egypt at Gods cal to worship him in spirit and truth but would keep him in forms and waies of mans invention The Lord hath poured out his plagues upon this spirit and more and more wrought out the liberty of his people but as the plagues cease this spirit hardens it self and assaies the reducing of Israel into bondage again And as Pharoah renews the bondage of Israel so God renews the plagues on Pharoah and his Egyptians Pharoah hath a stubborn wil and a great wisdom and power and is loth to let Israel go but the Lord also is wise and strong and hath a wil more righteous then Pharoahs and by his wisdom and strength will he effect his will and Pharoahs shal not stand Who is such a stranger in Israel that hath not observed that as God began to raise up the seed in this Nation and cal it into liberty so the spirit of the wise Egyptians rose up against it exclaiming of error heresy blasphemy new waies new lights c And doubtless many tares have sprung up but the aime of the enemy was not so much to pluck up these tares as to destroy the one good seed of wheat Herod did not aime at killing all the Infants in Bethlehem but he would rather kill them all then have Christ live What preaching on the one hand what running to the Magistrate on the other hand and all to destroy this young babe When any different way of worship did appear as of Independency Anabaptism or of seeking and waiting for the truth how did they make an head against them and cry out against them for fear the young child should be born and appear there And now they see their own image brought forth there they are at peace with them and having discovered that where no part of the image or mark can be received but there is another nature in life and truth brought forth and no form without life wil down now they know where to shoot all their darts now they know against whom to invent and speak all manner of evil and against whom to direct all their envy rage and out-cryes and to prepossess all sorts of persons every where with all manner of prejudices that the truth may not spread any where but be opposed every where And all persons minds there are so filled before hand with the venome of the
gown up to age and able to defend his portion from his elder Brother who otherwise would be ready to seize on it and waste it upon harlots again Therefore lie stil and bear the indignation of the Lord against that which hath transgressed til he judg it and deliver from it and lead into the innocency and righteousness and then he wil find a time to arise and plead the cause of the innocent and give the crown of immortal life to that which he hath prepared for it Therefore think not the race long nor the battel hard nor be weary of the afflictions and chastisements in the way but follow the Captain the guid the leader whose light strength courage and wisdom wil overcome all and bring the soul which abides in it into his own throne Now as you thus wait taking up the Cross and keeping in the feeling so the corrupt natural the mortal wherein Satans throne and power hath been wil wither decay and grow weak daily and the tender plant of God the immortal seed will shoot up and gather strength daily and you will come to a will in God and an understanding in God and that which is of God wil manifest it self and you wil come to know and desire and take delight in the things of God Then the soul which is immortal wil come to hear and receive and feed on the immortal word which is the bread of life and which alone is able to preserve and nourish up to eternal life Then ye wil know what it is to tremble at this word and to have all the powers of nature melt and fail before it Then ye will know the faith which gives the victory and the knowledg which lets into life and the fear which keeps the hearts clean and the hope which anchors the soul immortal in the immortal God and the patience which wins the Crown And so ye wil come to witness the several conditions of the Saints in Scripture at ye grow up into them wil not need men to give you meanings of Scriptures from their brain-studies and acquired arts and understandings but wil know the meaning from the thing felt in your own hearts and hear the words from the living voice of that spirit that first spake them who alone is able to interpret his own mind and open the words which he himself spake And then ye wil know and love life and need no more exhortations to depart from all dead corrupted and corrupting forms which ever were and ever wil be enemies to and be traytors of the life And to the peace of God the rest of God the true Sabbath of God the everlasting light and life of God wil come to be your own and enjoyed by you past all gain-saying or dispute in you while the natural understanding in others is reasoning contending and disputing about them but can never know while they are from the thing within for that mind is not the heir nor must not inherit the kingdom of God A Postscript TO those who have had a seriousness and depth in their Religion who could not sit down in empty forms and shadows of things but have been pressing after the living substance and missing of that through error of judgment the true eye being not fixed in the head have come to a loss and so are returned to overgrown with and hardned in the old nature and have taken up a pittiful rest and centre in the earth having let fal the pursuit of their spirits after the true center of rest in the life a word to such from the love in the life There was a spirit soul or image of God brought forth and standing in his life before the fall This soul was brought into death under the burthen and bondage of corruption out of its proper centre and resting place by the fal Now as there is in this state a true loss so there is in this spirit a sensibleness a groaning under the burthen a feeling the bitterness of the captivity and a panting after redemption and restoration to its former state Now though the whorish part which seduced from the life make a great noise in the flesh about Saints words and tempt to pleasures of the outward part and pleasures in the mind and draw into forms and religious worships and frame deep centres of satisfaction in the understanding perhaps from true openings of the life quenching it and so seek to quiet the soul and stil the cry yet the lost state remaining the soul being not truely redeemed but a false rest taken up by the way in the false part this wil fail and the sense be again renewed in the day of tryal and sore trouble For the soul by any imagination or notion or feeling of a centre in the corrupt mind cannot be healed or restored but onely by having the true life raised up again in it and it brought into its proper place and mansion in the fountain of life There have been in the shakings of this Nation great stirrings the seed springing up and great openings to the seed the spirit of prophesy hath been enlarged in us above what many of our fore-fathers felt but the way into the spring of life hath not been known where the preservation is so the whorish part the corrupt part the understanding which was not purified brought into subjection unto the truth this harlot caught the openings and prophestes of the true spirit conceived with them and brought forth children to the flesh bringing for a more inward apprehension of things a more spiritual kind of knowledg as of God to be all all to be good and in God and all sin and evil done away there c. and so such a centre for the fleshly mind as it were in him as was not known before And now the redemption is forgotten the pantings after life slain and the flesh can lie down quiet in the un-redeemed estate and say it is his wil it is good and it can rest satisfied there in that wil of his which is good Thus the great abomination from the subtle flesh sprung up which made many hearts desolate of very precious springings up and buddings forth of the true life and power of God But after this great loss and betraying of the life in them it hath pleased God to raise it up in others and to discover the hammer the sword the fire which can knock down cut down burn up this whorish part and thither the whore is brought when she comes to betray again and the springings up of life shrink back and lie safe in the centre while the whore is burning And as the whore is burnt the heir comes up and the Spirit which is the portion of his inheritance descends and rests upon him and by this he is known and that which is in union with him knows him Therefore if you will live come to that hammer that sword that fire which flesh dreads and let the flesh
had been kind to me in breaking of me in my religion and in visiting me with sweet and precious light from his own spirit but I knew it not I felt and could not but acknowledge a power upon me and might have known what it was by its purifying of my heart and begetting me into the image of God but I confind it to appear â—â— a way of demonstration to my reason and earthly wisedom and for want of satisfaction therein denyed it and rebelled against it and so after all my former misery lost my entrance and sowed seeds of new misery and sorrow to my own soul which since I have reaped So that I have no cause to boast over others but to lie low in abasement of spirit And what I write is not in any dominion or authority of my own but to bring others unto that dominion and authority which it is good for me and for every one else to be subject to The Lord strip us of our own understanding and of that righteousness which is but ours though we have called it his that so we may be gathered into and receive his understanding and be cloathed with his righeousness and feel his rest and peace And happy is he that loseth all to gain this but he that keepeth what he hath too long shall in the end lose all and yet not gain this neither Therefore be no longer wise in the eye of flesh or according to what man calleth wisdom but be truly wise If the Reader before he peruse this Book would be perswaded to amend with his Pen these Errors and mistakes of the Press some whereof make the sense difficult some wholly pervert it it may prove for his own ease and benefit Smaller errors as of adding or substracting letters or mistaking the stops the sence may somewhat help him in PAge 13 l. 7. r. And l. 31. r. It p. 16. l. 2. r. when l. 11. r. man p. 17. l. 3â— r. light p 18 l 15. r. is profitable p. 19. l 33. r. moving p. 21. l. 13. r. known p. 24. l. 11. r. enjoyed l. 36. r. cherished p. 27. l. 31. r. found p. 28. l. 19. for this r. the. p. 24. l. 15. r. of help p. 36. l. 8. r. to light p. 38. l. 27. r. pant p. 39. l. 1. 2. r. in simplicity l. 38. r. And then p. 40. l. 28. is dele p. 41. l. 2. got p. 44. l. 29. if ye p. 45. l. 1. thou that l. 23. were formed p. 51. l. 38. 39. would reach p. 53. l. 4. knew l. 20. he p. 54. slighted p. 60. l. 1. and witnesses p. 61. l. last Answ p. 66. l. 2. one of p. 67. 68. for the r. thee where the sence requires p. 68. l. 17. these l. 24. the delc p. 70. l. 7. as he doth p. 73. l. 14. as l. 24. betrayers of the life And so p. 75. l. 9. bringing forth p. 76. l. 16. world p. 77. l. last r. this p. 81. l. 6. seat p. 96. l. 19. this day l. 20. that Scripture l. 27. then they Some POSITIONS concerning the Apostacy from the Christian Spirit and Life Position I. THat ther hath been a great Apostacy from the spirit of Christ and from the true light and life of Christianity which Apostacy began in the Apostles dayes and ripened apace afterwards That the Apostles and Christians in their days had the true Spirit the true Light the true Life I think will not be denyed We know that we are of God and that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternall life 1 Joh. 5. 19. 20. They wer truly born of God and knew the Son of God come receiving from him a true understanding and the true light and knowledge in that understanding and both the understanding and knowledge was rooted and seated in him that is true wher their scituation abiding was we are in him that is true wher they met with the true Spirit the true God the true Life even life eternal That they had the true spirit from God because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts Gal. 4. 6. that they had the true light from God God who commanded the light to shine out of darknesse hath shined in our hearts c. 2 Cor. 4. 6. that they had the true life from and in the spirit if we live in the spirit let us also walk in the spirit Gal. 5. 25. is generally acknowledged concerning them Now of an Apostacy from this beginning even in their dayes and to be compleated not long after the Scriptures also make mention The Apostle Paul speaks expresly of the thing that ther must come a falling away and a revealing of the man of sinne the son of perdition 2 Thes 2. 3. Christ the man of salvation had shewed and declared the path of life had discovered the true Church which was the pillar and ground of truth against which the gates of he I could not prevail had sent the true spirit which could lead into all truth and preserve in the truth but ther must spring up a man of sinne a son of perdition who in a mystery should work against this and cause a falling from this to another thing And this the Apostle did not onely give a touch of here in writing but he had likewise told them of these things by word of mouth to which he refers them vers 5. This wer enough to an ey opened but for further illustration to the thick understanding of man which is surrounded with fogs and mists of darknesse some more evidences from Scriptures may be given Christ foretold of false Prophets Mat. 7. 15. Beware of false Prophets which come to you in sheeps clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves The Lord sent true Prophets under the Law and gave them true visions to declare Christ sent true Apostles and Ministers under the Gospel and gave them the truth which they should preach and propagate But then ther wer false Prophets false Apostles and Ministers to come after who never wer sent by Christ nor never received the truth from his spirit Now these do not come to gather into the life and truth of Christ but to scatter from it and so either to begin or uphold an Apostacy And saith Christ beware of them for they come very subtilly they come in the sheeps clothing They get the garment of the sheep upon their backs even that very garment which the sheep did wear but they have not the nature of the sheep but the nature of the wolfe which is ravenous after the life of the sheep Mark wher ther is the Garment without but not the nature within wher ther is the form of Godlinesse but not the power wher ther are Scripture-words and practises but not the spirit of
life from which they came ther 's the false Prophet ther 's the Wolf ther 's the Apostate ther 's the Seducer from Christ Aagin Christ fore-tells of many false Prophets Mat. 24. 11. And many false Prophets shal rise and shal deceive many and vers 24. For ther shal arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders insomuch that if it were possible they shal deceive the very Elect. And as Christ himself so his Apostles also after him by the same spirit foretel of the same thing The Apostle Paul speaks of seducing spirits in the latter times and of Doctrines of Devils which should prevail to cause a departure in some from the faith 1 Tim. 4. 2. And if in those days the power of Seducers was so great as to draw from the truth which was then so manifest and living how easie would it be to keep from the truth afterward when it had been long lost and out of remembrance and thereby deceit got into the place and name of it The Apostle Peter also foretold of false Teachers who should privily bring in damnable heresies even denying the Lord that bought them and that they should so prevail that their pernitious wayes should be followed by many and the way of truth evil spoken of 2 Pet. 2. 1 2. Again Paul in his 2 d Epist to Tim. speaks of the last days that the times therin should be perillous Chap 3. Christ had said The love of many should wax cold and iniquity abound Mat. 24. 12. And Paul showes how the times would prove very perillous by the abounding of iniquity In the last dayes perillous times shall come for men shall be lovers of their owne selves covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to Parents unthankeful unholy without natural affection truce-breakers false accusers incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good traytors heady high-minded lovers of pleasure more then lovers of God 2. Tim. 2. vers 1. 2 3 4. Behold what kind of fruit sprung up from the false doctrine of the false Teachers in the Apostacy from the truth And yet al this under a form of godlinesse Having a form of Godlinesse but denying the power therof vers 5. Christ sent the power of Godlinesse into the world to subdue the root from whence al this springs to kil the evil nature inwardly but in the Agostacy the evill nature is not killed but the power denyed which should kil it and the form kept up to cover the evil nature with The inwardly ravening nature which devours and destroyes the stirrings and shootings forth of the just one in the heart that gets the sheeps clothing the form of Godlinesse to cover it selfe with Look any wher among the Apostates from the Apostles spirit and doctrine and see Is selfe-love killed is covetousnesse killed is boasting and pride killed is the love of pleasures killed are Persecutors and oppressors killed and is your honour and glory laid in the dust Nay they are but covered with the form there life is stil in them the power wherewith they should be killed was at first denyed and now is lost and not known wher there is the life ther is the power and wher ther is the power the evil nature is killed but wher the evil nature is not killed ther is onely a form of godlinesse a covering a painted Sepulchre but rottennesse within Now those last dayes and last times were not far off but begun then For the Apostle exhorts Timothy to turn away from such vers 5. From such turn away intimating that even then there wer such to be turnedaway from And he saith vers 8. that they did then resist the truth like Jannes and Jambres who with a likenesse of what Moses wrought but without life did strive to resist the life and power that was in Moses And this is the work of all deceivers to get their own spirit into the likeness and then to make use of the likenesse to oppose and suppresse the true life and power So that they were come even then when the Apostle wrote this Epistle to Timothy And Jude saith that ungodly men turning the grace of God into lasciviousnesse and denying the onely Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ were crept in already vers 4. of his Epistle And the Apostle John speaks very expresly 1. Joh. 2. 18 19. Little Children it is the last time and as ye have heard that Antichrist shal come even now are ther many Antichists wherby we know that it is the last time They went out from us c. Christ instructing his Disciples concerning the last times tells them ther shall arise false Christs with great power of deceit Mat. 24. v. 24. Now saith John here ther are come many Antichrists wherby we know it is the last time Mark Ther wer many Antichrists to begin and lay the foundation of the apostacy and make way for the great Antichrist who was to be their successor in the apostacy and not the successor of the Apostles in the truth And these did not abide in the doctrine of the Apostles who preached the everlasting Gospel nor in the spirit and principle which they were in but went out from them from theit spirit from the anointing to which they kept and by which they were kept into another spirit and preached another Gospel a Gospel which was not the power of God to kil the earthly but consisted in such a dead literal knowledge of things as the earthly might be fed and kept alive by And as the great Antichrist was to come so there Antichrists who were to make way for him were already come and were already laying the foundation of and beginning the apostacy So that the Spirit of Antichrist that very spirit wherein Antichrist succeeded and in which he grew up and perfected the apostacy was then in the world as this Apostle saith yet more manifestly 1 Joh. 4. 3. This is that spirit of Antichrist wherof ye have heard that it should come à nd even now already is it in the world Nor was it idle but it was at work working it selfe into the form of godlinesse that it might eat out the power drive out the true spirit and make a prey of the life The mystery of iniquity saith the Apostle Paul doth already work 2 Thes 2. 7. This spirit did work in a mystery of iniquity to eat out the mystery of godlinesse and to set up this mystery of iniquity in the world instead of the mystery of godliness And it did prevail to wind it self into the form get possession of the form and also to trample upon keep under the life It gained the outward Court for when that spirit had corrupted it the Lord did not regard it but gave it up to it and it trod down the holy City Rev. 11. 2. And this mystery of iniquity did not begin to work many ages after the Apostles but even then in their dayes already The mystery
of iniquity doth already work And look now into the estate of the Churches then according to what the Scripture records of them and the symptoms of its working will plainly appear The Church of Ephesus among whom some of the grievous wolves had encred Act. 20. 29. had left their first love Rev. 2. 4. The Churches of Galatia wer bewitched from the Gospel Gal 3. 1. The Church at Coloss was entangled and made subject to the rudiments of the world and ordinances which perish with the using after the commandements and doctrines of men Col 2. v. 20 22. Mark When once one comes to be subject to the commandments and doctrines of men to perishing ordinances and worldly rudiments which men teach and command the true state is lost and the apostacy is entred into Here the wrong Teacher is teaching and he teacheth the wrong thing the wrong doctrines the wrong Commandments and the wrong ear is hearing which hears the wrong voice and knoweth not the true and so the more it heareth and practiseth and the hotter its zeal groweth the deeper it stil runs into the apostacy The Church at Corinth also was haunted with false Apostles 2 Cor. 11. v. 12 13. insomuch as the Apostle was afraid lest that Church should be corrupted by them vers 3. The Church in Pergamus had them that held the doctrine of Balaam Rev. 2. 14. The Church in Thyatira suffered the woman Jezebel which called her selfe a Prophetess to seduce and bring forth children in the apostacy Rev. 2. v. 20. and 23. The Church in Sardis had a name to live but was dead Rev. 3. 1. having defiled her Garments vers 4. The Church in Laodicea looked upon her self as rich and increased with goods as having need of nothing but was wretched miserable poor blind so then the ey was put out and naked wanting the gold wanting the rayment wanting the eye-salve Rev. 3. 17. 18. And lastly all the Gentiles were warned by Paul in his Epistle to the Church at Rome whereby that Church might look upon her selfe as more particularly concerned therein to look to their standing lest they falling from the faith from the truth from the life into the apostacy as the Jewes had done might also feel the severity of God as the Jewes had Chap. 11. ver 20 21 22. Thus it is evident that the apostacy had got footing and began to spread in the Apostles dayes and the Apostle John in the spirit beholding the future state of things sees it overspread and over-run al al Nations drunk with the cup of fornication Rev. 18. 3. The way of truth had been evil spoken of long before 2 Pet. 2. 2 and the rock of ages which alone can establish in the truth had been forsaken and al became as a Sea and up gets the beast which could not rise while the power of truth stood and the woman upon the beast with the cup of deceit and of errour from the life in her hand and this she gives all the Nations to drink and they drink and are drunk with it so that al Nations have been intoxicated with the doctrines and practises of apostacy They have took that for truth which the Whore told them was truth and they have observed those things as the commands of God which the Whore told them were the commands of God And by this means they have never come to be married to Christ to be in union with him to receive the law of life from his spirit and to know the liberty from the bondage of corruption but have been in the bed of fornication with the Whore and have pleased glutted and satisfied the whorish principle in themselves with this fornication And thus corruption did over-spread al the earth for taking in a corrupt thing in stead of the truth it cannot purifie the heart but corrupt it more A corrupt profession corrupt doctrines may paint and make a man to himselfe seem changed but the corruption still lodges within which a spiritual ey can easily discern though he that is in the corruption cannot The Pharisees did seem glorious to themselves but Christ saw through them And every sort of people now in their several strains and forms of apostacy seem glorious to themselves but the spirit of Christ sees through them al to that which lies underneath in whom it raigns and ther it finds corruption increased and strengthned in its nature by the form though outwardly painted with it Doth not fornication defile corrupt so doth the fornication of the Whorish spirit the earth was corrupted with it Rev. 19. 2. So that this hath been the universal state of Christendom since the apostacy the errour the deceit the fornication of the Whore hath corrupted them and withheld their eys from the sight of that life and truth which hath power in it to purifie them Peoples Multitudes Nations Tongues have been al waters weak unstable without any foundation in religion but fit to be swayed and tossed up and down with every wind or breath of the Whore of whose cup they had al drunk and by whose spirit they were all guided for the whore sate upon them Rev. 17. 15. The whore which had whored from God and so was not the true Church sate upon Peoples Multitudes Nations and Tongues She sate upon them she had them under her she ruled and guided them by her cup of fornication and with her spirit of fornication as a man would guide the beast whereupon he rides So that al that the Nations do from henceforth in religion is under the Whore according to her guidance by virtue of the wine that they have drunk out of her cup. And though God reserved to himselfe a remnant to worship him and give so ne testimony to his truth al this time yet the beast which was managed by the Whore had power over them power to make war with them power to overcome them Rev. 13. 7. The beast had power over all kindreds tongues and nations every wher to overcome the Saints and suppresse the truth they at any time were moved to give testimony to and to set up the worship of the beast and make al the earth fal down before that Rev. 13. 7. 8. And the second beast had and exercised al the power of the first beast and set up his image and gave it life and caused men generally to worship it Rev. 13. 12. And he caused al both smal and great rich and poor free and bond to receive his mark some way or other either in their right hand or in their forehead vers 16. And such as would not receive his mark nor worship him he had power to persecute and kil and he did kil them vers 15. and the Whore drunk their blood Chap. 17. 6. and God required it at her hand Chap. 19. 2. though she made the hand of the beast execute it and would seem to wash her own hands of it So that now since the dayes of the
Apostles even al this time of the Apostacy since the man child hath been caught up to God and was not to be found in the earth which makes it seem such a strange thing for people to say Christ is in them and the woman hath been in the wilderness and not in the habitable part of the world Rev. 12. 5. 6. if al this time any one wil look for the true religon for the true Church for the true knowledg and worship of God he must not look on any Nation or any People or among the Tongues which are cried up in Nations and people for the original and as the chief interpreters of the original for they are al drunk with the whores cup they are under the power dominion authority and service of the whore who rides upon the beast to whom power was given over al kindreds tongues and nations But look among the Nations who was persecuted whose blood was drunk whom the powers of the Nations made war against ther alone the testimony of Jesus is to be found Rev. 12. 17. ther alone are the witnesses against the present idolatry and corruption and to some truths or other of Christs which God enlightned them with and wherto he stirred them up to give their testimony though with the loss of their estates liberties or lives Now by what hath been expressed is it not manifest to every ey that hath room but to let in the letter of the Scripture in simplicity and plainness that there hath been a great apostacy from the true knowledge of Christ and an universal corruption power of death sprung up instead of the power of his life and grace The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath disappeared and the abomination of desolation hath took up its place and filled it with deadly venome against the truth and against the life so that enmity against God under a pretense of love and zeal to him hath reigned generally in the hearts of men from the times of the Apostles to this present day And as the light breaks forth and their eys come to be opened they wil see that they have been and are haters of God and of his life and spirit but lovers of the world and of such a religion as suits the worldly Spirit Position II. THat in this great Apostacy the true state of Christianity hath been lost This must needs be for if ther was an Apostacy from the thing ther could not be a retaining of the thing about which the Apostacy was If they apostatised from the spirit from the light from the life then they wer gone from it they lost it Now it may be instanced in every particular how the state of Christianity was lost but that would be too vast and tedious it may suffice therfore to instance in some considerables ones which may lead into the discovery of the rest 1. The true rule of Christianity or the rule of a Christian which is to direct guid and order him in his whole course was apostatized from and lost What is a Christians rule whereby he is to steer and order his course A Christian is to be a follower of Christ and consequently must have the same rule to walk by as Christ had A Christian proceeds from Christ hath the same life in him and needs the same rule Christ had the fulnesse of life and of his fulnesse we al receive a measure of the same life We are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones Ephes 5. 30. yea we came out of the same spring of life from whence he came for both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are al of one for which cause he is not ashamed to cal them brethren Ebr. 2. 11. Now what was his rule was it not the fulness of life which he received And what is their rule is it not the measure of life which they receive Was not Christs rule the law of the spirit the law which the spirit wrote in his heart And is not their rule the law of the spirit the law which the spirit writes in their hearts How was Christ made a King and a Priest was it by the law of a carnal commandment or by the power of an endles life And how are they made Kings and Priests to God Rev. 1. 6. Is it by the law of a carnal commandment or is it by the power of the same endles life Lo I come to do thy will O God saith Christ when he cometh into the world Ebr. 10. ver 5. 7. but by what rule by what law thy law is within my heart Psal 40. 8. And the same spirit who wrote it ther is also to write the new Covenant with al the laws of it in the heart of every Christian from the least to the greatest Ebr. 8. 9. 10. yea the same spirit that dwelt in Christs heart is to dwel in their hearts according to the promise of the Covenant Ezek. 36. 27. This was Pauls rule after which he walked the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1 2. This made him free from the law of sinne and death Wher is the law of sin writ wher is the law of death writ is it not writ in the heart And must not the law of righteousness and life be writ ther also if it be able to deal with sin and death The spirit forms the heart anew forms Christ in the heart begets a new creature ther which cannot sin He that is born of God sins not and this is the rule unto righteousnes the new creature or the spirit of life in the new creature Gal 6. 15. 16. In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature And as many as walk according to this rule peace be on them Mark ther 's the rule the new creature which is begotten in every one that 's born of God If any man be in Christ he is a new creature and this new creature is to be his rule And as any man walks according to this rule according to the new creature according to the law of light and life that the spirit continually breathes into the new creature he hath peace but as he transgresses that and walks not after the spirit but after the flesh he walks out of the light out of the life out of the peace into the sea into the death into the trouble into the condemnation Here then is the law of the converted man the new creature and the law of the new creature is the spirit of life which begat him which lives and breathes gives forth his law continually in him Here 's a Christian here 's his rule He that hath not the new creature formed in him is no Christian and he that hath the new creature hath the rule in himselfe Ye have an unction from the holy one and ye know al things 1 Joh. 2. 20. How came they to know al things
worship not God they honor not the Scriptures but they honor and worship the work of their own brain And every Scripture which man hath thus formed a meaning out of and hath not read in the true and living lights of Gods eternal spirit he hath made an image by he hath made an idol of and the respect and honor he gives this meaning is not a respect and honor given to God but to his own image to his own idol Oh how many are your idols ye Christians of England as ye think your selves to be how many are your idols ye gathered Churches how full of images and idols are ye ye spiritual Notionists who have run from one thing to another with the same mind and spirit wherewith ye began at first But the founder of images hath never been discovered and destroyed in you and so he is still at work among you all and great will your sorrow and distress be when the Lords quick eye searcheth him out and revealeth his just wrath against him In my heart and soul I honor the Scriptures and long to read them throughout with the pure eye and in the pure light of the living spirit of God but the Lord preserve me from reading one line of them in my own-will or interpreting any part of them according to my own understanding but only as I am guided led and enlightened by him in the will and understanding which comes from him And here all Scripture every writing of Gods spirit which is from the breath of his life profitable to build up and perfect the man of God but the instructions the reproofs the observations the rules the grounds of hope and comfort or whatever else which man gathers out of the Scriptures he himself being out of the life have not the true profit nor build not up the true thing but both the gatherings and the gatherer are for destruction And the Lord will ease the Scripture of the burthen of mans formings and inventions from it and recover its honor again by the living presence and power of that spirit that wrote it And then it shall be no longer abused and wrested by mans earthly and unlearned mind but in the hand of the spirit come to its true use and service to the seed and to the world 2. The true worship was lost The true worship of God in the Gospel is in the spirit The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeketh such to worship him Joh. 4. 23. The true worship is in the spirit and in the truth and the true worshippers worship there and such worshippers the Father seeks and such worship he accepts but all other worship is false worship and all other worshippers are false worshippers such worshippers as God seeks not nor can accept their worship Did God refuse Cains sacrifice formerly and can he accept any sacrifice or worship now that 's offered in that nature why he that worships out of the spirit he worships in that nature But he that worships aright must have his nature changed and must worship in that thing wherein he is changed in that faith in that life in that nature in that spirit whereby and whereto he is changed For without being in this and keeping in this it is impossible to please God in any thing He that is the true worshipper is a believer and in his worship he must keep to his rule the law of faith the law of the spirit of life in him the law which he receives by faith fresh from the spirit of life continually He must heat and observe the voice of the living word in all his worship and worship in the presence and power and guidance of that as that moves and as that carries on or it is not worship in the spirit I shall instance only in prayer Praying alwaies with all prayer and supplication in the spirit Ephes 6. 18. Mark all prayer and supplication must be in the spirit yea it must be alwaies in the spirit which speaks in the heart to God and makes the intercession or is is no prayer If a man speak never so much from his own spirit with never so much earnestness and affection yet it is no prayer no true prayer but only so far as the spirit moves to it and so farr as the spirit leads and guids in it If a man begin without the spirit or go on without the spirit this is out of the worship this is in his own will and so will-worship and according to his own understanding and so fleshly worship both which are to be crucified and not to be followed in any thing under the Gospel Wee are the Circumcision which worship God in the spirit here are the true worshippers the circumcision and here 's the true worship in the spirit and they have no bounds and limits in the flesh wherein their strength and confidence is broke and have no confidence in the flesh If a man address himself to any worship of God without his spirit hath he not confidence in the flesh If he begin without the ving of his spirit doth he not begin in the flesh if he go on without the spirits carrying on doth he not proceed in the strength and confidence of the flesh But the worship of the spirit is in its will and in its time and is carried on by its light and power and keeps down the understanding and affectionate part of man wherein all the world worship and offer up the unaccepted sacrifices even the lame and the blinde which Gods soul hates Now this worship as it is out of mans will and time and in that which continueth so it is continual There is a continual praying unto God There is a continual blessing and praising of his name in eating or drinking or what ever else is done There is a continual bowing to the majesty of the Lord in every thought in every word in every action though it be in worldly things and occasions yet the spirit of the Lord is seen there and the tongue confesseth him there and the knee boweth to him there this is the true worship And this is the rest or sabbath wherein the true worshippers worship When the creation of God is finished when the child is formed in the light and the life breathed into him then God brings him forth into his holy Land where he keeps his Sabbath They that are in the faith which is the substance of the things hoped for under the Law are come from all the shadows and types of the Law and from all heathenish observation of dayes and times in the spirit of this world where the spirit of man is hard at work into the true Sabbath into the true rest where they have no more to work but God works all in them in his owntime and according to his own pleasure We which have believed do enter into rest Ebr.
4. 3. and he that is entred into his rest hath ceased from his works as God from his vers 10. He that hath the least taste of faith knows a measure of rest finding the life working in him and his soul daily led further and further into life by the working of the life and the heavy yoke of his own labouring after life taken of from his shoulders Now here 's the truth here 's the life here 's the sabbath here 's the worship of the soul that 's led into the truth and preserved in the truth But what is the worship now in the Apostacy Among the Papists a very grosse worship a worship more carnal then ever the worship of the Law was for that though in its nature it was outward and carnal yet it was taught and prescribed by the wisdom of God and was profitable in its place and to its end but this was invented by the corrupt wisdom and set up in the corrupt wil of man and hath no true profit but keeps from the life from the power from the spirit in fleshly observations which feed and please the fleshly nature Look upon their daies consecrated to Saints and their canonical hours of Prayer and their praying in an unknown tongue with their fastings feastings saying of Ave-Maries Pater-nosters Creeds c. are not all these from the life out of the spirit and after the invention and in the wil of the flesh Ah their stink is greater then the flesh-pots of Egypt And the worship of the Protestants comes too near them for their worship is also from a fleshly principle and in their own times and wils and according to their own understanding and apprehension of things and not from the rising up and guidance of the infallible life of the spirit in them for that they will quench They also observe dayes and times and perishing ordinances and are not come out of the flesh into that spirit where the worship is to be know and to be in 3. The Faith the true faith was lost The faith which gives victory over the world the faith which feeds the life of the just and slayes the unjust the faith which is pure the mystery whereof is held in a pure conscience the faith which gives entrance into the rest of God the faith which is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen this hath been lost and is not yet to be found among those who go for Christians For those who challenge the name of Christians and say they believe in Christ and have faith in him cannot with their faith overcome the world but are daily overcome by the world Where is there a Christian but he is either in the honours or in the fashion or in the customes or in the worships of the world if not in them all He is so farre from overcoming these that he is overcome with them yea so overcome so drunk therewith that he hath even lost his senses and thinks he may be a Christian and in a good state while he is there And the life of the just is not fed by their faith but the unjust nature is fed and the righteous witnesse which is raised up and lives by the true faith is kept down and cannot bring forth his life in them because of their unbelife for that is the proper name of their faith for being not true faith it is not faith but unbelief And the faith of Christians so called is not a mystery they know not the mystery of it which is held in a pure conscience but consists in believing an Historical relation and in a fleshly improving of that and can be held in an impure conscience Neither are they entered into rest by their faith for they know not the Sabbath in the Lord but are still in a shadowy Sabbarh Neither is it the substance of what they hope for but the substance of what they hope for is strange to them They are not come to Mount Sion to the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem to the innumerable company of Augels to the general assembly and Church of the first born to God the Judge Christ the Mediator and the blood of sprinkling and so to unity and certainty in the life but are in opinions waies and practises suitable to the earthly spirit which may easily be shaken and must be shaken down to the ground if ever they know the building of God and the true faith 4. The love the true love the innocent love which think no il nor wishes no ill much lesse can do any il to any but suffereth long and is kind meek humble not seeking its own but the good of others this love is lost The love unfained is banished and a fained love such a love as enmity and violence proceeds from is got in the place of it The true love loves the enemy and cannot return enmity for enmity but seeks the good of them who hate it but this love can persecute and hate that which it calls the friend nay the brother because of some difference in opinion or practice The love that was in Christ taught him to lay down his life for his sheep and he that hath the same love can lay down his life for his brother But the love that is now among Christians tends rather to the taking away of life What is the love among the Papists See their Inquisitions their wraths their fire and fagot c. What is their love in New-England is it not a love that can imprison or banish their brother if he differ but a little from them in judgement or practise about their worship yea they can whip burn in the hand cut off ears just like the Bishops of old England If one had told them when they fled from the persecution of the Bishops here that they themselves should have done such things they would have been apt to reply with Hazael what are we dogs But they fled from the Cross which would have crucified that persecuting spirit and so carried it alive with them and being alive it grew by degrees to as great an head there as it did in the Bishops here And what is the love here in old England is it not a love that whips stocks imprisons stones jeeres yea the very Teachers which should be patterns of love to others they will cast into prison and distrein the goods of their brother even almost to his undoing for maintenance according to a Law of the Land made in the Apostacy See the Record of Sufferings for Tythes in England which may make any tender heart bleed to read it and is like to lie as a brand of infamy on the Magistracy and Ministry of England to succeeding generations Is this the love of the righteous seed or is it Cains love which is in profession in word in shew but not in deed and in truth And how can these love God nay if the true love
part of the Scriptures which killeth and cannot give life and what do they minister with but their own understanding part what meanings they can invent what deductions the wisdom can draw from the Scriptures but do not see the true meaning in the infallible and unerring light and what do they minister to but the understanding part in you whereas there is somewhat else to be ministred to by the true Minister and what do they minister to you but food for the understanding food for the serpentine wisdom which alwaies fed upon knowledge but never upon the true bread and hereby another thing is fed in you and not your souls but they are kept in leanness and barrenness under death and the bondage of corruption which Paul cryed out upon as a wretched state and could find no ease rest or freedom from condemnation there and without the true life and redemption I do do not deny but ye may there meet with some kind of warmth in the affectionate part which may be heated by a fire and sparks of mans kindling and blowing up and this may go for life with you now but in the presence of the truth where the eye is opened it vanisheth yea the spirit of the Lord hath so blown upon it that it is even withered in the sight of a more inferiour eye in many people Position III. THat there is to be a recovery a true recovery out of this state of Apostacy into the true state of Christianity again God will not let the desolations of Sion remain for ever but he will again build up Sion and appear in his glory He will set his King upon his holy hill of Sion The new Jerusalem shall again come down from heaven The Man-childe which was taken up shall come down again conquering and to conquer the Lamb shal get the victory over the Whore and over all her apostatized Nations and Churches that have a name and not the life and he shall rule them with a rod of iron and make them a desolation which have made his holy city desolate and trample them down which have trampled upon it The lofty City he will lay low he wil lay it low even to the ground he wil bring it even to the dust The foot shall tread it down the feet of the poor the steps of the needy The whore shall be judged with the beast whereupon she rode the life which they trod upon shall rise up in the mighty power of the Lord and over-turn them The everlasting Gospel shall be again preached to them that dwel on the earth and to every Nation and kindred and tongue and people Rev. 14. 6. Mark the Gospel that was preached to the Nations all the time of the Apostacy was not the everlasting Gospel that Gospel did not bring life and immortality to life but they were hid from mens eyes and men had only a sound of words in stead of the thing And thus poor Nations kindreds people tongues were every where bewitched with a form of things with an outward knowledg a perishing knowledg in the perishing part a vain traditional invented worship which stands in the wisdom and will of man but had no union and fellowship with that which is everlasting And thus all the Nations in the smoke of the bottomlesse pit run into the pit from whence the smoke came But the Lord hath a time to pitty the poor Nations and to send forth his true everlasting Gospel again to deliver the Nations from that witchery and sorcery and spiritual inchantment which got up in the dark And as this everlasting light springs up then down goes Babylon down go all invented doctrines all invented forms all invented worships and that wisdom and evill spirit that raised them up Babylon is fallen is fallen that great City because she made all Nations drunk of the wine of the cup of her fornication Rev. 14. 1 And now the new wine of the kingdom which is tasted of in the everlasting Gospel purges out the old wine and the drunkennesse which thereby came upon the Nations wasts And they that have tasted of this life and know this life can never be bewitched back again by the whorish spirit to dead forms â—nd likenesses without life Nay when Babylon falls she can rise no more Though the life fall often it can rise again but when the witchery from the life is discovered and cast into the pit it can get out no more Indeed the beast hath had all the strength of the Nations and the whore hath had all the wisdom all the esteem all the honor who can make war with the beast who can shew miracles and wonders like the false Prophets who can teach but the wise learned orthodox men that have the arts and know the original yea there 's another that can make war and a Prophet that can preach better then them one that can preach life one that can preach the everlasting Gospel and knows the original of it one that is wiser and stronger then the whore and by his wisdom and strength is able to judge her and cast her out of the Nations though she hath got very strong possession Rev. 18. 8. Now learn wisdom know the parable of the fig-tree come to the life that is arisen and abide not in the death that is passed and passing away Ye have heard the voice of the Whore ye have drunk of her cup ye have been bewitched ye have set up her inventions but have wanted the thing which cannot be invented and which the inventing understanding cannot comprehend But if the force of the wine still remain upon you so that ye cannot hearken after or let in that which is everlasting assure your selves as the life rises ye will meet with plagues and wrath from it in stead of the refreshments it brins to others and know what it is to sit down under a dead talk of without feeling the living power of redemption Therefore be wise and know the times and seasons That will not be born with now which was born with formerly but as the love and power of God to salvation hath more appeared so the severity against those who now resist will appear more also And death shall have its sting which they that will love darknesse and hate the light shall feel Position IV. THat they that are in those things which have been set up in the times of the Apostacy are not yet come to the recovery from the Apostacy They that are in the Doctrines and bodies of Divinity which have been formed since are not in the true Doctrine They that are in the rules of life which wise Church-men or Synods or Councils have given or which they themselves have gathered by their industry out of the Scriptures are not in the true living and everlasting rule They that are in the worship or under the Ministry or of any Church which hath been set up since by the power of man
entrance into and abiding in the joy the rest the peace where the whore within which seduced from the life where the power is into some form where the power is not is burnt Learn then and know in thy self that spirit of prophesy which spake in all the Martyrs Hear that come to that keep to that feel the union the fellowship the spreading of that in thee When that bids thee go go when that bids thee come come when that bids thee do this do it But the flesh is grown strong and strongly resisteth this spirit both inwardly and outwardly and will not suffer him to rise up in the heart or to rise up in the Nation but at any time when he stirreth and offers to speak or lead to God there 's a reason rises up in the fleshly wisdom that knocks him down and denies his voice and hearkens to another voice in stead of his Thus they first give way to the fleshly wisdom and suppress the truth in themselves and then they would go forth and suppress it in others and they think them mad and their rage riseth against them where the truth is suffered to grow and mans reason or fleshly wisedom denyed And thus is the Lord of Glory evil intreated and slain at this day by this generation of Christians as he was by the Jewes slain formerly in the Prophets in that his appearance in a fleshly form and in his Apostles and his blood will be required for the earth shall not alwaies drink it up and cover it nor the adulterous woman be alwaies able to wipe her mouth and say she hath done no wickedness Ye have saved alive the unjust and killed the just The murthering nature is alive in you O ye Christians but the holy one is slain and lies buried in your graves and ye have painted your graves and speak good words of him but still keep him down and let another rise up and live in you Ye cry up that appearance of Christ in the flesh and the words he then spake and the words of his Apostles and think that if he had lived in those dayes ye would not have killed either him or his Apostles and yet ye resist and oppose the same life in your selves and in others with such a kind of wisdom in the letter as the Pharisees had O what will ye do the uncircumcised ear is got up in you and ye cannot hear and the uncumcised heart and ye cannot understand but when this is told you ye despise and wonder and go on in the perishing state My bowels my bowels I am pained at my bowels O England England thou that killedst the Martyrs in Queen Maries dayes thou that persecutedst the non-conformists afterwards that thou wouldst not suffer the people of God to meet together to seek him with an honest heart but wouldst confine them to thy gross formal wayes of worship Though the Lord hath appeared and broken the horns of the Oppressors yet the persecuting spirit is not broken in thee but thou still huntest after the precious life of the seed and wouldst not let it spring up in the Nation The spirit of enmity is still up in thee which knows not the Lord of life but by a natural instinct opposeth him and would fain keep up some grave or other it cares not what so it might but thereby keep down the life for thou canst now bear with any form and cherish it and thy onely enmity is against those who are sent by the Lord to gather out of all forms into the life How often would the Lord have gathered thee but thou wouldst not and yet seeks to gather thee but still thou wilt not but as if the former laws made in Queen Maries dayes were not sufficient desirest new laws to ensnare and entangle the innocent What wil become of thee or what wil thou say to the Lord when he ariseth to plead the cause of the innocent for that Spirit which he raised up to witness against the whorish spirit which lies hid in thy forms of worship and religion appears in all thy Laws Councils and waies of Government so far as they formed and so far as they are guided by the wisdom of the flesh is innocent even as that spirit which witnessed formerly against Popety and Episopacy was innocent before the Lord though accused by them as guilty of error in it self and of disturbance to the publique peace as this is now by thee Some Principles guiding out of the Apostacy to the Christian Spirit and Life again 1. THat there is no salvation but by the true knowledg of Christ The Jews had received the ordinances of God and knew of the Messiah to come and believed it and were very zealous in their worship in observation of Circumcision the Passeover New moons and Sabbaths c. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the high God and yet God complains of them by his Prophet My people perish for lack of knowledg And the state is the same under the Anti-christian Apostacy wherein the whore hath made all nations kindreds tongues and languages drunk with the cup of her fornication the true knowledg and worship hath been lost though the eyes of them that have been in the apostacy and drunk with the cup could not see it no more then the Jews could in their day But to come close to the thing The knowledge of Christ is not litteral traditional or fleshly nor can it be received by the natural understanding but it is spiritual and the understanding must be given by God which receives it He hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true 1 John 5. 20. A man may read Scriptures hear Sermons c. and thereby gather a knowledge into the old understanding but neither this understanding into which the knowledge is gathered nor the knowledge it self which is gathered is spiritual but fleshly and so cannot save He that comes once to receive an understanding from Christ and to have the knowledge of Christ powred forth from Christ into his heart knowes the difference between that and the understanding into which he gathers things The knowledge of Christ after the letter and a faith in him answerable to such knowledge will not save but a man must know him in that spirit life and power wherein he lived if he groundedly hope to be saved by him 2 Cor. 5. 16. 17. 2. That Christ saves by the new covenant Not by any thing got into the minde by the oldness of the letter but by a life begotten which is new There are two covenants made mention of in Scripture one whereof is called the old the other the new The old belonged to the Jewes which is done away with their ceremonies state and polity the new which is better then the former Christ is the mediator of Heb. 8. 6. By mediating between God and the creature or by bringing them together in and according
to this covenant he saves Man by his disunion and distance from God he perisheth by being brought again to God he lives again which thing Christ effecteth by the new covenant So then he that is not lead by Christ into that covenant is not in the state of salvation 3. That the new covenant is written in the heart or there is no other way of coming into the new covenant whereof Christ is the High-priest and Mediator but by having the Laws of God written in the heart This is the covenant c. I will put my Laws into their minde and write them in their hearts c. they shall not teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother saying know the Lord for all shall know me from the least to the greatest Heb. 8. 10. 11. He is speaking of the covenant whereof Christ is mediator ver 6. which he cals a new covenant ver 8. and saith it is not like the old ver 9. instancing in two main particulars wherein it is very unlike 1. The old was writ outwardly in letters to be read by the outward ey but this is writ inwardly in the heart and minde and so can only be read by a spiritual ey 2. Under the old they needed teaching from men the priests lips were to preserve knowledge and they were to seek the law at his mouth but now they should have the law so neer them so cleerly written in them that they should need none to teach them From the law is the knowledge of God the law is in the heart and from the law in the heart springs up the knowledge of God in the least and in the greatest that are within this covenant that they need not say know the Lord. This is the state of the new covenant which the Christians came to in those dayes 1 Joh. 2. ver 27. but it hath been a strange thing in this dark night of Apostacy and is yet a strange thing to many But let such consider can a man be a Christian and be out of that covenant whereof Christ is the mediator Can a man be brought back again to God by Christ and yet be out of that covenant whereby Christ brings men back to God O how hath Satan deluded poor souls in this thick night of darkness to make men believe they have faith in Christ and shall be saved thereby while they are quite ignorant of and strangers to that covenant whereby Christ the mediat or saves They shall all know me from the least to the greatest Marke there is not the least in this covenant but hath the law so written in his heart that he need not seek out for knowledge 4. That the spirit of God alone can write the covenant in the heart or that Christ writes the covenant by his spirit Man by all his wisdom cannot attain it Man is driven out from God and cannot finde the way back again to him without the teachings and leadings of Gods own spirit It is not the being educated in any way of Religion from ones childhood or the leaving of that and running into any sect afterwards that will avail any thing hereto but the alone hearkening to the true voice of the true spirit It is written in the Prophets concerning the children of this covenant that they shall be all taught of God And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord. It is the Lord alone who by his spirit teacheth them to come to Christ and to receive the new covenant into their hearts from Christ For man is in an incapacity to know or receive Christ or his covenant until the spirit hath fitted and taught him John 14. 17. but when he hath prepared and fitted his heart then with his own finger he writeth the pure law of the nature and life of Christ therein by the receit where of he cometh out of his old dark spirit and nature into the true knowledge of God and union with him I will put my spirit within you Ezek. 36. 27. This is part of the covenant and indeed that part whereby all the rest is wrought 5. Therefore the first proper step in Religion is to know how to meet with Gods spirit There is no progress no true progress to be made in the true Religion till a man comes into the covenant and there is no coming into the covenant but by the spirit therefore the first thing that is absolutely necessary to be known in Religion is the spirit his writing or at least his motions and stirrings in the heart It may further be evidenced thus all things in Religion acceptable to God flow from the spirit All knowledge is to come from him for he alone hath revealed and can reveal truth and is appointed by Christ to lead into all truth All worship is to be offered up in him they that worship the father must worship him in the spirit and in the truth for the father seeketh such to worship him but rejecteth all other worshippers and worship how glorious soever their worship may seem to them Particularly praying is alwayes to be in the spirit Ephes 6. 18. Jude 20. so singing c. yea the whole life and conversation is to be in the spirit Galath 5. 25. The mortifying of all corruption is to be done by the spirit If ye through the spirit mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live Rom. 8. 13. Indeed a Christian is nothing and can do nothing without the power and presence of the spirit of God in him So then if nothing in Religion can be done with acceptance to God without the spirit then the spirit is the first thing to be looked after by him who would be truly and well-groundedly religious 6. The first way of meeting with the spirit of God is as a Convincer of sin Here is the true enterance This is the Key that opens into life eternal He that can receive it let him It is not by soring alost into high imaginations and forms of worship but by coming down to this low thing This is the first and most proper work of the spirit of God toward fallen man whereby he makes way toward the writing of Gods Law in the heart namely to convince of sin And where should man look first to meet with him but in his first work upon him When Christ promised the comforter the spirit of truth he said this concerning him that he should convince the world of sin John 16. 8. They who are created a new in Christ and become his Disciples receive comfort from the spirit but what is he to the world or how may they feel any operation of him why he is to them a convincer of sin and they may finde him checking them for and convincing them of their sins So that the great work for man while he lies in the darkness for when he is translated into the light it will be easy is to know how to distinguish the movings and
Christ was the same yesterday to day and for ever and the light that comes from him is like him that also is the same yesterday to day and for ever It was the same under the law the same before the law the same since the lavv As the darkness all along hath been the same so the light all along hath been the same also It vvas the same in the Jews and the same in the Gentiles It vvas this God expected obedience to from the Jews and the Prophet in the name of the Lord disdains their sacrifices and brings them to this Micah 6. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Their eye vvas upon sacrifices and oyl the prophet points them to that vvhich vvould bring them to the right sacrifice and to the true oyl And the Gentiles so far as they vvere obedient to this vvere accepted and excused in their ovvn consciences the faithful vvitness vvhereof is of God and vvil stand in the day of Christ Ro. 2. 15. 16. That which was from the beginning saith the Apostle John declare we unto you 1 Joh. 1. 1. And this is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at al ver 5. And the end of preaching this message is to dravv out of the darkness into the light to bring men to the feeling of the light of God in them and so to union vvith it vvhich being turned to dravvs out of the darkness God vvho is light is nigh to every man vvho is darkness though mans sense is very thick and can hardly see or feel him and a light from him shines in mans darkness but mans darkness comprehends it not So that this light is not nevv in it self but onely nevv to the old Spirit vvhich hath long lain hid in the region of darkness and death hath not known the light of life Object 2. That this is a natural light or the light of old Adams nature Answ It is in one sense a natural light it is of the nature of him from whom it comes of the nature of God and of his Christ whom it appears for but it is not of the nature of corrupt Adam whom it always reproved and against whom it stil stands a witness and condemns all corruption Man is darkness and when Christ comes to redeem him he finds him darkness and Christ finds no light in him to help him to discover sin to him but all the disoveries of sin that are made in the heart are by the light of Christ and not by any light of mans nature The Lord is the searcher of the heart and he searcheth it with his own candle and not with any left in mans nature Man fel into darkness knew not wher he was but the Lord cometh after him with his candle discovereth his state to him It is the light from which man fel and against which he sins that is alone able to make his disobedience manifest to him We know saith the Apostle that the law is spiritual but I an carnal Rom. 7. 14. The law is the lowest part of the light and yet that is spiritual and of Christs nature and not of Adams nature we know it saith the Apostle Such as know the nature of that which manifests sin know it to be spiritual It is the fallen man from the light the man in the darkness that cals the light darkness but that which discovers the darkness and reproves the darkness and warrs against the darkness is not darkness but the light of life And those who are spiritual and feel the nature and power of it in their spirits know it to be so But man hath set up a light of his own hath raised up a light by his study and invention in the strength of the fallen wisdom and now setting up this for light he must needs call the true light darkness as the Pharisees did Christ Object 3. That it makes the Scriptures void and useless Answ It came from the spirit that gave forth the Scriptures it is of the same nature with the light that shone in them that gave forth Scriptures it speaks the same thing with Scriptures it leads to the same thing and it opens witnesses to the words which the Scriptures speak and so it brings the Scriptures which have been long abused into their true use Indeed it puts an end to the corrupt use of Scriptures to mans inventing and forming things out of them but brings them into their true use and service It takes the Scriptures out of mans hand who hath slain the life by them and puts them into the hands of the spirit who makes the words again pure and quick and living purging away mans defiled and dead conceivings and interpretations of them A man must know the Spirit come to the spirit be joyned to and be in union with the Spirit before he can have the true understanding of the Scriptures The Scriptures of truth are the words of God or various expressions of his mind which he that searcheth into afore he hath his spirit cannot know and so man in this state can onely guess and imagine at things but cannot see the truth And from hence it is that so many sects and heaps are sprung up in the world according to the variety of their imaginations One sort of men cry this is the way this is the truth this is the Church this is the worship Another sort cry that is not it that is superstition and error but this is it and so a third and fourth c. So about Scriptures one saith this is the meaning another saith it is not so but this is the meaning The Papists say the Church must judge of the meaning of Scriptures and the Protestants who take more scope how do they doubt and differ and oppose one another about the interpretation of Scriptures which plainly showes that they do not plow with the right heifer for then there would be unity and certainty They let their own reasonings and imaginations loose and there is no foundation of certainty but had they waited for the Spirit to begin with and gone on no farther then he opened to them all these doubts and dissentions would have been choked in the birth or womb or not have come so far as either birth or womb Yet do I not altogether deny the reading of Scriptures even in this state if men read with fear and trembling not setting up his own understanding or the understanding of any man else but waiting for the spirit which can alone give him an understanding to receive the true knowledg But this I dare boldly affirm that mens reading of the Scriptures in their own wisdom and self-confidence or confidence of what interpretation others have given doth them no good at all
Christ reign in the heart and let him trample all mans invented forms of knovvledg and vvorship under his feet and give up thy self to be led by him into the true knovvledg and vvorship in the spirit and in the truth And now you who find your hearts touched and convinced of the truth and find any desire kindled in you after the living God and an hungring and thirsting after his righteousness Take notice of these three things which I have upon my heart to say to you by way of advice 1. Know and take up thy cross the Cross of Christ the daily Cross of Christ The Cross of Christ is that which crosseth the natural and this is the power of God to deliver from the natural How should the earthly understanding the earthly wil the earthly affections with the elementary nature which have had their swinge in the earth be crucified and slain but by the cross of Christ he therefore that wil have a Religion to please himself in any thing must not come hither and he who after he is come hither admitteth of any thing pleasing to the earthly and starteth from the cross which would deny and turn from it so far as it doth so he goeth backward and not forward It is no wonder that there is such an enmity in all sorts against the truth for it striketh at their life yea at the very root of their life If there were any new way or form of Religion held forth mens understandings and affections might by degrees be wrought of to it and find pleasure in it but this is direct death to that nature and spirit that hath lived in any form of Religion and to the whole course of that nature and spirit yet through this death the true life springs up in those who receive the strokes of it Therefore be willing and learn to die dayly and bring every thing which is contrary to Christ to the Cross Deny self in every thing take up the Cross in every thing follow Christ in every thing This is the way which Christ himself prescribes to become his disciples by If any man wil come after me let him deny himself take up his Cross daily and follow me seek not ease in the flesh no not in the least but take up the Cross every day in every thing till the earthly be slain til the wisdom and strength of the flesh be wholly subdued and then the wisdom and power of God will become natural 2. Keep to the sence keep to the feeling beware of the understanding beware of the imagining conceiving mind These cannot be for God not bring forth any thing for God until they be new cast and new moulded The one seed of life lies in the invisible in the hidden man of the heart among multitudes of seeds of death all which have their growth up into and strength in the corrupted natural So that this seed cannot shoot up into any part of the natural but the other seeds shoot up with it and endeavour to choak it Now the other seeds spring up two wayes either in a way of opposition against the the true seed or in a way of similitude There cannot a good thought or desire or beam of light enter into the understanding or will but multitudes of evil thoughts evil desire or fleshly reasonings against it wil spring up with it and strives to over bear it And if the enemy be at length overcome by the power of God fighting with him and vanquishing him then he hath his garments of light then he brings in thoughts and desires and motions like Gods which easily pass for good if the soul keep not close upon the watch The forward understanding is apt presently to own them and the forward will to embrace and the forward affections to let themselves forth into them until the soul come to feel a loss in life and miss the power and presence of God and find the enemy strong again Yea the enemy hath yet a more subtil way namely to raise motions like the motions of Gods spirit and suddainly before the light hath given the discerning of them to raise opposition and reasonings against them that so by the opposition which is manifestly evil the motion it self which is also evil though good in appearance might be the less suspected and swallowed Now the onely way of safety is to keep out of the natural whereof the enemy hath possession and where his strength lies and to keep in the sence and feeling of the invisible seed and onely to come forth with him into the natural in that sence and feeling And when he comes he wil come with strength above the strength that the enemy hath in the natural and by degrees conquer him But by no means rest or abide in the natural but retire with the Lord who will not dwel there until it be clensed into the resting place These words may be hard to you at present but hereafter as you come into the exercise you will feel them And this is the reason why the formal and outward part of Religion doth so commonly eat out the life because things there are sutable to and exercise that part wherein the strength of the enemy lies and there can never be perfect freedom and safety until that part be subdued and all that belongs to that part removed The Lord is risen to shake what may be shaken that the kingdom which cannot be shaken may appear and happy are they who are shaken by his hand in all that is outward and established in the inward life power and rest which remaineth for ever and cannot be shaken 3. Wait patiently the Lords leasure Be not hasty after life and salvation in the wil of the flesh but leave the Lord to chuse his own season for the showring down of his mercy and blessing The Lord will not presently entertain that spirit which hath adulterated from him prostituting it self to strangers and defiling it self into his bosom but there must be a time of sorrow a time of purifying and clensing The soul must know and feel that it hath been an evil thing and bitter that it hath forsaken the Lord the living fountain of living mercies and hath sought life from vanities and among dead Idols And all the Idols must be thrown away and the heart washed from that nature that ran after them and become a pure virgin to bear and bring forth the living seed and by faithfulness to that seed and waiting in that seed in the Lords season it shall receive the mercy and the blessing and the inheritance which belongs to that seed The Husbandman doth not presently reap but waits long even till the seed be grown up to maturity Jacob the type of the seed said O Lord I have waited for thy salvation It is the election that obtains it is to the seed and for the seeds sake that the mercy is bestowed and there must be a waiting till the seed be
by this woman and her seed and this hath been the state of the Church for many ages since the dayes of the Apostles she hass been fled and her seed made war against and killed and her heir caught up to God and the Nations which should have been ruled by her heir the whore hass set upon them and the peoples and the multitudes which he should have governed hath been the seat of the Harlot the mother of all abominations and was it not like to be so and how should it be otherwise when the manchild the womans heir hass been caught up to God and he hass been as prevailed against and the remnant of the womans seed made war against and killed and this hath been since the dayes of the Apostles and so all you Churches and sects by what name soever you are known in the World you are the seed of the great whore and she hath brought you forth while the other woman hass lodged in the Wilderness and remains childless if any man have an ear to hear let him hear Now it may be objected to me and thus may it be said by this accompt the Church the Lambs wife hass been prevailed against by the whore because it is said she hath killed the Saints the members of Jesus and of the Church this seems to shew as if the Church of Christ had been prevailed against but Christ sayes the gates of hel shall not prevail against them but she should remain for ever and the gates of hel should not prevail against her and how doth these two things agree it seems doubtful to us may some say Answ To all this I do answer the true Church the spouse of Christ in her self was never prevailed against so as not to be in being or that she was not but in her self hass remained in being and not prevailed against so as not to have a place or being and Christs words are true she hass had a place and being to wit in the desert Wilderness which place was prepared her of God there to be fed for such a time So she hass a place and has a being though in the Wilderness a place desolate and of mourning So she hass not been prevailed against as that she hass not had a being but the Lambs wife the mother of the heir that which is perfectly so which was and is to be joyned to Christ which is of his flesh and bones taken out of him that cannot be prevailed against never was nor never shall be for the divel nor Satan hath nothing in him of whose flesh and bones she is which is taken out of him and it is as possible for to prevail against him as to prevail against her for she is of him as Eve was of Adam if any have an ear to hear they may hear But her off-spring hass been overcome her seed made war against and her heir taken away and caught up from her so she not prevailed against nor overcome though banished into the Wilderness fled thither and there hass she fed and had a place and hass been left childless as I have said So the mother and the Lambs wife hath had a being and in her selfe never prevailed against nor overcome and Christ's words are true yet hath her seed been killed and made war against and overcome as John said and both these are true and this is my answer and if any have an ear to hear they may hear though a parable to the world yet plain to the seed which now God hath raised and is raising for the woman again is returning and her seed again is springing and she is becoming as fruitful as ever and her glory shal be as great the light of heaven shal cloath her and the light of the night shal be under her feet as perfectly when she is restored as it was before the apostacy though people cannot believe this in the apostacy No revevelation nor immediate teaching nor miracles now to be expected cry the professors and these false sects and Churches it was extraordinary times and extraordinary manifestations were amongst the Apostles and Churches of old say they but the same now is not to be expected nor never to be looked for but thus they are in blindness and ignorance and unbelief But we believe the glory of this woman that hath been long fled into the wilderness and hath been long without issue while she hath been fled shal have the same fruit and issue and the same clothing that she had before she fled When the whore and her seed is removed from the face of the earth the glory of the Lambs wife shal be as great her beauty as fair her fruit as plenteous as before the whore was and they that believe it not believes not the Scriptures for that testifies of the glory of the Church to be the greatest in the last dayes as we are sure and certainly know it shal come to pass when the waters are dried up which hath been the seat of the great whore Now though all those Churches and sects of people are said to be and known to be the seed of the whore and not of the Virgin as I have declared and though Nations and Peoples and multitudes have been all running to sornication and been deceived and made drunk yet this I have to say in all sorts of people and amongst all those sects amongst Papists and Protestants and all sects risen out of them in thousands of people notwithstanding the darkness and all the Apostacy that has ruled in the general yet in some of all sorts and sects there hath been a sincerity and simplicity and a desire and zeal for God and of God in them and amongst them yet the sincerity simplicity and desire which hath stirred in some of all sects it hath no soonet appeared but it hath been smitten and betrayed by the wicked without and so by the error of judgement within for even amongst the worst of sects we know there is some in whom there is simplicity and sincerity and zeal and yet erre in judgment for this is possible and we know it is so with thousands and ten thousands at this day there may be a simplicity and zeal and sincerity of heart and yet err in judgement the judgment not truly guided by the Spirit of the Lord but a false spirit and a false thing even the spirit of whoredom it self ruling the judgment and be chief there and this destroyes murders and betrayes the zeal and simplicity and this is and hath been ever since the dayes of the Apostles great error in judgment and the judgement of all those sects have been mis-guided and misted and a false thing and not the spirit of the Lord has guided the judgment and thereby the true sincerity zeal and simplicity hath been enslaved and held under by reason of the erring in judgment and the state of such are truly to be lamented where simplicity is devoured and sincerity
tasted of in any of the Ordinances of the Apostacy ye wil all one day acknowledge this to be a true testimony held forth to you in true love it were good for you that ye could see it now J. P. A brief account of what we are and what our work is in the World WE are a people whom God hath converted to himself a people in whom God hath raised up the seed of his own life and caused it to reign over the earthly part in our selves a people whom God hath divorced from the spirit of whordom and joyned to his own spirit We many of us sought truly and only after God from our child hood our consciences bear us witness in the sight of God but the honesty of our hearts was stil betrayed and we led aside by the whorish spirit and knew not how to turn to that of God in us which inclined us towards God By this means we came to great distress and misery beyond all men Not but that all men were in as great a want of God his life power and presence as we but the sence thereof was not so quickned in others as in us Now it pleased the Lord at length to pitty us and to inform our minds towards himself to shew us where life lay and where death lay and how to turn from the one and to the other and he gave us his helping hand to turn us And by being turned to him we have tasted of the truth of the true wisdom of the true power of the true life of the true righteousness of the true redemption and by receiving of this from God and tasting and handling of it we come to know that that which the World hath set up in the stead of it is not the thing it self Now mark we are not persons that have shot up out of the old root into another appearance as one Sect hath done out of another till many are come up one after another the ground stil remaining the same out of which they all grew but that ground hath been shaken and shaking destroyed and destroying removed and removing in us and the old root of Jesse hath been made manifest in us and we have been transplanted by the everlasting power of life and a real change brought forth in us out of that spirit wherein the World lives and worships into another spirit into which nothing which is of the World can enter And here we have met with the cal of God the conversion to God the regeneration in God the justification the sanctification the wisdom the redemption the true life and power of God which the World cannot so much as bear the name of And what we are made of God in Christ we know to be truth and no lie and when we testifie of this to the World in the measure of the life of God in us we speak truth and no lie though the World which knoweth not the truth cannot hear our voice Now our work in the World is to hold forth the vertues of him that hath called us to live like God not to own any thing in the World which God doth not own to forget our country our kindred our Fathers house and to live like persons of another country of another kindred of another family not to do any thing of our selves and which is pleasing to the old nature but all our words all our conversation yea every thought in us is to be come new Whatever comes from us is to come from the new principle of life in us and to answer that in others but we must not please the old nature at all in our selves nor in any else And walking faithfully thus with God we have a reward at present and a crown in the end which doth and will countervaile all the reproches and hardships we do or can meet with in the World We are also to be witnesses for God and to propagate his life in the World to be instruments in his hand to bring others out of death and captivity unto true life and liberty we are to fight against the powers of darkness every where as the Lord calleth us forth And this we are to do in his wisdom according to his will in his power and in his love sweetness and meekness We are not to take wayes according to our own wisdom but there must be a strict watch set in the life least that get up again nor must we speak such words as mans wisdom would call wise nor may we go in our own will to seek any but the Lord must go before nor may we make use of our own strength but feel his arme in our weakness nor may we go forth in that love sweetness or meekness vvhich is pleasing to the fleshly minde but vve must be true to God handling the svvord skilfully and faithfully judging and cutting down the transgressor in the power and authority of God and when the meek the lowly the humble thing is reached and raised then the true love the sweetness the tendernesse the meekness must go forth to that The Lord God is tough with the transgressor and all a long the Scripture heweth and judgeth him and if we come forth in the same spirit we shall finde the same leadings where we meet with the same thing for the Lord God will never be tender there nor can that which comes from him lives in him is lead by him be tender there where he is not Now the very root of this severity is good and of God and hath love and sweetness at the bottom of it yea in pittie love and bowels do we use the sword It is in pitty to the poor captived creature that that might be cut down which keeps it in bonds and captivity And though we seem enemies to all sorts of men for the Lords sake yet we are not enemies nor could do the least hurt to them any way but are true friends to their souls and bodies also and our only controversie is with that which captives and makes them miserable for we fight not at all with flesh and bloud but with the principality and power which led from God and rules in it against God to the poor creatures ruine and destruction Yea if we had all the powers of the earth in our hands we could not set up our own way if after the manner of men I may so call it or so much as disturb others in their way thereby but should waite in patience till God gave us an entrance by his power Now let not men run on in heats against us but let them seriously consider whether we be of God or no and let them consider not with the reason and understanding which is alienated from God but with the witness which lies hid in the heart There is one great palpable argument that we are of God which is this all the World is against us the Wordly part every where fights with us the Wordly
part in every sort and Sect of men opposeth us the rage of man every where riseth up against us But those that are so hot against us if at any time they become but meek and calme patiently considering our cause and consulting there upon with the testimony that they finde in their own hearts concerning us they soon become pacisied and see that we are no mans enemies against no righteous Law not against relations not against Governments not against any thing in the World that is good but only against that which is evil and corrupt And of a truth the corruption of things God hath shewed unto us and daily cals us forth after an immediate manner to witness against Therefore let men be sober and take heed what they do least they be found fighters against God for the reproaches the scoffs with other presecutions which seem to be cast at us light on him It is not as we are men but as we are obedient to him as we stand witnesses for him that we meet vvith these things Novv as it is not vve our selves that do these things but the life and povver of God in us so it is not vve that are struck at but that life and povver If it vvere not for that vve might be as acceptable as other men It is because vve are not of the World but God hath called us out of the World that vve are so hated of the World This is the true cause though the World vvill no more novv acknovvledge it than it vvould in former ages Yet I do not speak this for my ovvn sake to avoid my share in the cross for the reproach of Christ is our riches yea far greater treasure then is to be found in the Palace of Egypt Yea the presence of God the svveet povver of life makes up all our losses so that vve have no cause to complain It is very svveet pleasant and profitable for us to be found sufferers for God but vve knovv it vvill not be profitable for you to be found persecutors and this is told you in true love and good vvill by one vvho vvishes no evill to you for all the evill that ye have exercised tovvard the dear and precious people of God for these many years O that God vvould open your eyes that ye might see vvhom yee have opposed and against vvhom ye have hardened and strengthned your selves that ye might bovv to him and receive life from him and not perish in your gainsaying and opposition I. P. The cause of all error from the truth and the Universall call out of it into the low voice and beginnings of the true Eternal light which is the only leader to Eternall life and to followship in it NOw is the calling in of the Jews of the Papists of the Christians of all Sects upon the earth to the Lord into the fould into the covenant of God into the end of the Prophets the end of Moses the end of Abrahams words the end of the Apostles preaching into the substance Christ who is come to gather together in one and reconcile in one things in heaven and things in earth into covenant with God and this is the age the call is gone out the voice is gone out and the trumpet sounding for all to come in and the spirit bids come and he that hears may come and the bride and the Lamb saith come who raigns and the great war is begun and the slaughter shall be till the tenth of the spoile shall be offered up and the gathering of all Nations is come and the war among all Nations shall be and all shal be on heaps before the light of the Son of God be risen in the hearts of all people with which he must be seen and receive his government upon his shoulders Now is he come to raigh who doth enlighten every man that comes into the World Jews Gentiles Papists Christians Independents Baptists Heathens and all the Sects upon the earth whatsoever and all in the light are to be gathered into one minde and heart and soule and spirit concerning God and the Scriptures concerning the Prophets concerning Christ and the Apostles and concerning the types and parables and the figures with the light they shall see all and have unity with all who being out of the light they see not one another nor the Prophets nor Christ nor parables nor types nor figures and so have not unity with their words and so out of covenant with God and one another in the earthly nature in lusts strife and pride which causeth the wars which must be all burnt up and the cause of all peoples upon the earth setting up Images and Idols is because they are gone from the light which Christ hath enlightned them with all and so bows down to them but to the light should every one bow to Christ and to confesse him to the glory of God the cause of all them that are called Christians in Christendom setting up and making Images crosses and Idols likenesses and pictures names and worshipping Names 〈…〉 hath enlightned them withall and so they set up likenesses Images and Idols and fals down to them to put them in minde of Christ which coming to the light which Christ hath enlightned them withall every knee shall bow to him who is Immanuel and confess him to the glory of God and receive his minde and they need not have any outward thing to put him in their minde and the cause of all high notions of God Christ and Scriptures that are making Images and likenesses of things in heaven and setting up their imaginations of the Prophets Christs and the Saints words and falling out about them is because they be from the light which Christ hath enlightned them withall and t is the cause why the Jews rest in the types in the outward letter preist tythes temples shadows is because they be from the light which Christ hath enlightned them withall in which all people should have unity one with another with God and with Scriptures Jews and Gentiles to be gathered together in one with God with one another with Scriptures in which light people should have peace with God and one with another which is the covenant of God with man in which covenant people being in covenant one with another shall shake all Nations saith the Lord that that may appear that cannot be shaken and such an earth-quake shall be upon the World and the cause of all heresy and Sects and opinions Judgments and errors and false Prophets and deceiving men is going from the light which Christ hath inlightned them withall and the devil going out of truth which truth destroyes him and his works and death who being the power of it who hath blinded the minds of all the transgressors upon the earth who went out of the truth So this is the true light who hath inlightned every one that cometh into the World that all through the light might believe and
unto entring into the spirit of love by true union with Christ in the spirit which union is by the faith which comes from Christ 5. That this justification or righteousness is upon all that believe v. 22. He that receiveth the faith believeth and he that believeth hath the righteousness and he that believeth not cannot have the righteousness but the condemnation wrath abideth on him 6. That this justification is freely by the grace v. 24. There is no way to come to this righteousness but by the gift of grace which gift is given freely Therefore if ever man wil be justified he must know the grace and the gift which comes from the grace and receive it receiving it he cannot miss of justification and not receiving it but either being ignorant of it or resisting of it he cannot possibly be justified 7. That this justification is by the redemption in Christ v. 24. Christ is redeemer the redemption wherein is the justification is in him and there is no way of meeting with the justification or redemption but by receiving of him in whom it is and he who hath him hath the justification and is made partaker of the redemption and he who hath not him hath it not Mark then the justification or redemption is not by believing of a thing done without man though that also is to be believed but by receiving of him into the heart For the virtue of all Christ did without is within him I cannot be made partaker by believing that he did such a thing without or that he did it for me but by receiving the virtue of it into me and feeling the virtue of it in me This is that which saves me and makes that which was done without to be mine 8. That Christ is the propitiation v. 25. or that which pacifies and makes way for sinners to God so that he that truly receiveth Christ hath the atonement but he that hath not received him only dreameth of peace with God but stil remaineth in the enmity and is liable to the wrath having the bond of iniquity over him and is in the night 9. That this Propitiation is by faith in the blood v. 25. There is nothing pacifies God but the blood of his Son and thre is nothing feels the blood but the faith and that which is in the faith A man may read Scriptures and gather notions about justification and think he believes a right and shal be justified but he never comes to feel the blood nor the life which is in the blood till he receive the faith and then he knoweth the true propitiation and the true peace which before he did but talk of 10. That this faith is the righteousness Faith is the gift of God and this gift justifies this gift is the justification this is that which God imputeth for righteousness ch 4 v. 3. 5. The faith is in the blood and the blood is in the Son and in the true receiving of the Son both the faith and the blood are known and felt These are true words though hard to the fleshly ear do not stumble in the wisdom but calmly wait for the revelation of the spirit and then thou wilt say the price of this knowledg is not to be valued if once thou come to tast truth here all thy knowledg in the letter wil be but dross with thee Ye are come to the blood of sprinkling O do not rest in an outward way of believing an outward thing but seek out the way of coming to the blood of sprinkling 11. That the justification is of the ungodly v. 5. He whom God maketh righteous was ungodly before he made him righteous There was nothing but unrighteousness could be imputed to him in transgression before he gave him his Son and made him righteous in his Son for nothing is righteous with God but Christ and man only as he taken into his righteousnes which is done not by a believing from the bare leter but by a receiving of faith in the life 12. That the justification of the ungodly is by believing in him that justifieth v. 5. The gift of faith goes forth from him is received into the heart now both by the gift it self and by the exercise of it is the justification by receiving of the gift is the person justified by the exercise of the gift are all his actions justified Christ being let in to the heart justifies the heart into which he is received and Christ being in the heart justifies every motion and action that comes from his life and any other motion or action is not justified for it is out of that which is justified and is in and from that which is condemned Abraham believed God and it was counted anto him for righteousness v. â— God promised him a seed he believed God God bid him sacrifice this type he believed This was it was imputed to him for righteousness Now if he had not believed if he had not received the gift or not exercised the gift could he have been righteous so that Abraham was not justified by any work he did or could do but by receiving and exercising the faith in the seed by going out of his country kindred and fathers house not of himself but by faith and by living to God and obeying his voice in that land to which he was led not in his own wil or power but in the faith And by hearing the call of God and receiving the faith and living out of self out of a mans own understanding wil and power in the faith and living power and wisdom of God is the justification now and they that do thus are the children of Abraham born of the free woman when as they that take up practises from the letter without being ingraffed into the life are but children of the bond woman but such children of Abraham as the Jews were if so much and can not inherit that promise which belongs to the spiritual seed while they live in that state 13. That wher the faith which is imputed unto righteousness is found there sin is not imputed but covered which is a blessed state v. 6 7 8. Sin cuts off from God who is life blessedness sin laies open to the wrath of the creator which is too great for the creator to bear woe and misery wil be his portion to whom God imputes sin But happy is he who has his sin covered this is an happy condition life and immortality will soon be opened to him Now this blessedness cometh not by the works of the law for they cannot remove the sin but by the righteousness of faith which is able to cover the sin even from the pure ey of God O Christians christians do not imagine your selves covered from sin but know it feel it never rest till ye are so made partakers of the true righteousness that by its virtue in you ye may be past all doubt that it is it