Government Or else by a friendly agreement with these or any other Governours If you resolve upon the first to destroy all that are not according to your conscience that your conscience may have liberty Then you would destroy all mens consciences but your own and all men for their consciences which is the most contrary to liberty of Conscience that can be Most contrary because you will endure none but your selves and that you would raise a war that you might establish a Law of cruelty which is a thousand times worse then to persecute by an established Law and Authority That power that you would have must be thorow the lives of thousands of your enemies and after that thousands of your friends for they that strive for a power never did nor never will agree in the sharing or administring of it But when through blood and destruction of friends and foes you have gotten it If you should prevail and you in your own persons escape yet that power gotten by war in that spirit you and we in reason must expect that it will be most cruel because raised and begotten by cruelty Indeed it is so horrid and irrational that the bare proposing of it will make reasonable men abhor such a thought For nothing but irrational and blind zeal with discontent and passion can so much blind the nature of man as to lead him into such unnatural things If your spirits do indeed drive to this to the removing and destroying the present state of things as an accursed thing then the ingenuous and seek not liberty from them nor complain of them for not giving it For every such acknowledgement of them doth confirm them and so contradict your prayers and endeavours to destroy them Sometimes secretly and cunningly to curse them and another time openly and for advantage to acknowledge them is falshood and deceit And will attain nothing but shame and confusion For there is little but shame and confusion in it It is a vile thing in private and secret to pray or warily to preach against a State and openly to comply with it in so doing our lives contradict our prayers or our prayers our lives But if this be the drift of your spirits though never so warily carried do you think it is not felt and understood by them that you so oppose you cannot conceal it from them It is wise counsel Solomon gives Curse not the King no not in thy thought or conscience for a bird of the air shall carry the voice and that which hath wings shall tell the matter It must be understood spiritually for it cannot be meant literally Angels are intelligences and intelligencers they are principalities and powers and attend both the Throne and Altar they are present in dominion at Court and in your Closets at your devotions They are the birds and that which hath wings that tell the matter Publick authority hath publick ears and eyes and reach all corners Spiritual intelligencers as well as outward informers If they know and feel that you intend their destruction must they not abhor that spirit that under pretence of liberty of Conscience really endeavours liberty of destroying and of overthrowing Governments to exalt themselves And if they understand any thing they must think These men seek our destruction and as they pray for it and preach it so they will if they can or dare attempt it as they have done And therefore they having such a sense of you you cannot in reason expect but that they should labour to suppress you If they find rebellion war and wrath in the principles of it though in religious duties and conscience will they not suppress both the rebellion and conscience and the duties or worship in which it is And shall they not be justified in so doing I am sure your Law and Practise will justifie them For the same thing hath been done often and would be again if you had power while you are in this spirit When you shall recover either your own nature and reason or the nature of the Lamb out of this Spiritual drunkenness and cruel zeal you will find First That Antichrist the great enemy of Christ is also an enemy to man to his life peace civil order Law and to all humane Ordinances Secondly That this enemy is a spirit the Angel of the bottomless pit And therefore his chief seat and place is in spiritual things in conscience and in the spirits of men and in those things wherein spiritual men or the spirits of men are exercised in gifts religion and holy duties and his last and greatest strength is not in corrupt forms but in those that are most spiritual most lively zealous and gifted Others are but the flesh these the horns of the beast Thirdly And therefore conscience and the spirits of men even in Religion and in lively or spiritual Religion is grievously polluted by him This Templo of God is defiled by him You must come to know it and feel it as I have done Fourthly The nature of this beast is to destroy whence he hath his name Apollyon a destroyer His highest place is conscience gifted mens spirits enlightened and his highest work is to kill and destroy and in order to that to curse and blaspheme with those spiritual gifts Fifthly This spiritual beast this destroyer cannot but be seen and felt by the common reason of men although they cannot judge him yet they must have a sense of him as an enemy to that life and peace in which they live and to that Authority and Government which is committed to them Sixthly As they cannot but discern and feel the horns of this beast that pushes them and wounds them so they cannot but arm themselves with such weapons as they have against him If it be a State it will defend it self by Laws punishments policies and power Seventhly This self-defence though it be earthly cannot be denyed them yea they will be justified in it so far as it is rational humane and necessary and for the preservation of peace and common safety Wherein any are cruel and revengeful that is devilish also and then it is the beast against the beast But an humane care to maintain Law Authority and Peace though it be no more yet it is good against a destroying spirit that would bring in war and confusion under the highest notion of Religion and Reformation The ordinary and common Ordinances of man are to be justified in acting against a Religion Zeal that seeks the subverting of them The first is useful necessary and profitable the other is hurtful and destructive Eighthly The Law and Authority of a Nation defending it self from this spirit by its own weapons being outward must necessarily fall upon the persons lives and liberties of them that are ngaged in this spirit I am grieved in my soul for both both wound my heart both the agents and patients In love to mankind I am afflicted for them and feel the
the intent of this Treatise to bring you off from that and to shew you a more excellent way Your former ministry is finished that state is perished you must have a new one Read diligently and you will find here is an entrance into that which will not fail I know the prejudices you have against me I know that there is weakness in what I write both may disadvantage my work I leave it to the Lord of all hearts and spirits The things I have written are I think just and it is just I should publish them The Law of love and truth in my mind led me to it and upheld me in it and therefore I am satisfied in my self And in the righteousness truth and faithfulness of God in whom I live and rest Yours W. S. The Contents SECT I. SHews the nature of the offences taken at the Inquisition and the Authors sense of them SECT II. Shews the justice due to them and the friendly way of dealing with them SECT III. Censures the Book and first for its unseasonableness with the cause of it and the Authors suffering for it SECT IV. Censures the multiplicity of things in the Inquisition and the sharpness of its reproofs Of several kinds of reproof SECT V. Opens the Allegories in the Inquisition and shews the thing intended in it A tryal of principles in order to peace SECT VI. Prosecutes the same thing of peace and shews the necessity and possibility of it And examines the ground upon which the opposition stands SECT VII Compares the Old Cause 1. With the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt 2. Out of Babylon 3. With the ministry of Christ and the Apostles SECT VIII Measures the same cause by the Propheticall Scriptures and compares it with Zion her self SECT IX Further examines the ground of the enmity and advances a standard of love SECT X. The original cause of the war it ceased SECT XI Hatred blinds the eyes else we may see that there is good in enemies with which we may agree There is good and evil in both Parties SECT XII Shews the root of enmity is the Devil How opposite it is to the Kingdom of Christ SECT XIII War and enmity are not for but against holiness SECT XIV Common liberty not to be in nor to be attained by war and opposition SECT XV. Liberty of Conscience animadverted Not to be obtained but by agreement with the Magistrate SECT XVI Animadverts the late sufferings and shews the nature and kind of them SECT XVII Considers the late Insurrection with respect to what hath been written and the use of it to both sides SECT XVIII Shews a rational and easie way for all opposite Parties to obtain a Treaty and by it an Agreement with his Majesty both for his security and their safety ANIMADVERSIONS Upon a Book entituled Inquisition for the Blood of our late Soveraign c. AND Upon the offence taken at it Sect. I. THat I did deny my name to go forth with that Book when it was first published was I think a foolish or weak niceness Possibly the want of that courage and confidence that was due both to my self and it may expose both to the greater contempt But I did resolve in my mind and promise that if ever it came to be questioned I would own it and either correct and amend it if it needed or else justifie and defend it if it deserved it What I promise is ordinarily required of me and if it be I am bound to perform it There is a justice due to things as well as to persons If to any thing then certainly to a mans own works which are his children and therefore he ought to Father them and either to call them home or maintain them abroad A mans Spirit Religion and Name are all tender things if I have any sense of any of them or of my self and what I have done I cannot but resent the grievous offence that is taken at that book and at me for writing of it The minds of many are exceedingly disturbed at it and the censures run as high against it and me as possibly they can It is judged the very Spirit of Antichrist and of the Devil the sin against the Holy-Ghost Apostacy Persecution Treachery Bloodiness and Cruelty And the condemnation is answerable the curse of horrour despair and self-destruction which are not only threatned and expected but reported to be already upon me These things are in their own nature weighty and they come thick upon me from all sects and sorts of people from friends and strangers and discharged at me from their very hearts with all the strength of their Religion with all their might in a bitter and angry Spirit sharp and fierce and in some with great seriousness and gravity yea in love to me And most of them solemnly in the name of God and for his cause as against an enemy to God to godliness and to his people This is the sense I have of them and I think the description is just and true These things being breathed forth from men friends Christians professing godliness and the Spirit of God besides the common rage that foames out Rogue Jesuite hang him c. They do requite and justly challenge from me that I should Animadvert and duly consider what these things are whence they come What they would have and what I am and have done to deserve them As these things drive me in to review both my self and book so they do peal and call me forth to shew in what Spirit and Light I live from what root this work came and upon what foundation that and my self stand so that I now count my self bound not only in honour and justice but in love freely to open and discover my self and my mind and spirit concerning my self my book and the great offence taken at it I confess I do feel that these censures are high and that men are hearty and serious in them and do lay them on with all their strength and with a sharp spirit angred and provoked And that they do sometimes sting and twinge a little and consequently stir some choler in me that I could be as heartily angry at others as others are at me But as yet I do not find that they go deep or abide long in me But on the contrary I have been well able to bear them yea to slight and neglect them as sick and sore passions which cannot live long and although they stumble at me and bruise me yet if I did but lie still I should quickly see them faln in their own dirt by their own darkness and weakness For that I find constantly to be the nature of Passion it is a blind thing that runs it self into ruin and needs no enemy to destroy it it is the Gunpowder of the mind while it is shot at another it doth crack stink and vanish As I must confess they do sometimes sting a little so I must
having written some part of it I offered it to the Press by the Book-seller that printed the Inquisition Upon consideration he told me that there was that rage kindled in mens minds against the other Book that his men durst not shew them in the shop and that nothing of mine would pass till that spirit was laid and therefore he durst not meddle with this to print it My mind being very weak and tender and apt to take check at such things this did not only put me to a stand but turned my mind quite about to hearken more attentively to this cry that did thus earnestly pursue me And to consider that sure this mouth that was thus opened against me did require something of me And that I could not fairly nor justly slight and neglect it any longer And that I could not proceed in my intended work till I had answered this plea against me SECT II. T IS a position in my mind that no persons or things that we converse with are absolutely evil but there is some good in every thing else it could not be and therefore nothing is to be reprobated or not till it be first sifted and tried By my own rule I am bound to think that though these angry speeches against me are my enemies yet sure there is some just reason in them such sounds at these are not without their significancy If so then I must not reject them because opposite and unpleasing but must admit them to the bar of my own reason and not only give them a fair hearing but all the advantage also that I can because the Court is my own mind where they are strangers and being weak distempered things I ought to humble my self to them though mine enemies and to descend from my own right to hear and satisfie them if I can or at least to do them justice For I consider though they be dark passions yet they are humane and every man is honourable and every affection in man though sick and distempered is of value besides they are zealous serious brethren friends Christians therefore I must query Have I not erred against them have I not done them wrong have I not detained something from them that is their due We have professed a Kingdom of Heaven within us if it be there indeed then we have in us a throne of judgement which must do right to all things that come before us In this Kingdom there is also sufficient to answer every plea and claim that is made to it or against it and therefore we need not fear to admit the greatest and strongest accusation to a full and fair hearing Where there is authority to judge and sufficiency to answer there is likewise wisdom to understand what there is in these clamours though they be of themselves very dark and confused things for the mind may taste and try all things throughly and every thing that comes into it must be opened and seen in that light that is in it because the mind is a supream light to which all things are subject that come before it Therefore setting my self to examine and consider these things I found first that although there was just reason in the book yet there was something that hindered men from the seeing of it and though there was love and good in it yet there was something also that denyed men the benefit of it and therefore t is righteous that it should be animadverted and endure a tryal And secondly I find that there is some thing in my self that is justly due both to my friends and brethren and to the Book it self that was not therein communicated which is my life and spirit the ground upon which I stand upon which I wrote and by which I am enabled to assert things so different from others As these high challenges of my spirit and peace do tell me that this is the thing wanting and now demanded of me so I am upon this review of things conscious to my self that I have not fully opened my self and my mind but have in a great measure concealed it as well as my name And therefore I must thus far justifie the plea against me That if a man bring forth a notion of things different from and contrary to the life of others they may justly refuse that notion if the Author do not bring forth his own life spirit and peace which only can maintain those notions and satisfie for that life that he would take away by those notions This is for you and therefore I hope you will well observe the justice of it I am content to condemn what I have done as guilty of this capital offence It may possibly stand as a Law to me and others hereafter That if any man write be it never so good reason and with good intention if he do not produce the head of the spring from whence it comes and his own heart soul and peace with it let it wither and be rejected truly I believe it will There is a further justice in the persons offended If any man utter his matters to his friends and conceal himself he deals injuriously with them in bringing forth the weaker and worse and hiding the better part which the royal Law of love will condemn as a great wrong for certainly if there be any thing worthy in a man t is his spiritual life and therefore I justifie your anger you do like friends and men not to take words notions and reason if there be a better thing in me your own life and peace being aimed at you may well challenge me to shew a better I have this relief against this charge that though I am guilty in not discovering the best yet the best is still with me and being my own as yet it will support and justifie me Neither can I complain justly of any injury done to me by these sharp censures for if any man will put on an appearance strange to his neighbours and withal cover his face t is no wonder if men beat him and the dogs bark at him if he be ill used he may thank himself and his covering There is this remedy also if hiding the life and face be the fault that enmity that is occasioned by it will rend that vayl and then the quarrel will be ended If I have a right sense of the offence that is against me it being at me and upon me it sure belongs to me to feel and understand it then I am called forth to give a judgement of my Book and to hold forth to the view of all the world my spirit and life from whence it came and to shew what righteousness and power is with me that can maintain me and others in the receiving and practising such things as I have writ I have been very inward and retired in my spirit a long time not without some motions to look out but I have suppressed them and till now declined all publick appearance
and set them at a greater distance one from another I do think he may have another view of them The matters contained in the book are very weighty concerning the great change and turn in the Nation by which the lives and liberties of thousands are in danger The things written and manner of writing them are not vulgar most people say they do not understand them They that have read it often say it hath in every new reading a new face When I review it my self I find more in it then I apprehended when I writ it I profess when I consider it I cannot think of mens slighting of it without an indignation I must deal freely with you when I hear of your unworthy and irrational scorn of it my soul doth upbraid and wonder at that shallowness and froward headiness that makes you so uncapable of the justice reason and mercy that is in it I do know and am able to write it upon mature deliberation and consultation That there is in it that love and righteousness that must and shall be considered and understood And that very fury that makes you impatient of the reason and rebuke of it will run you upon a foolish and desperate opposing the present Providence and Power and so bring you into misery And then you will repent of your too late considering as I have of my too late writing I could return scorn for scorn and auger for anger it is in me to do it you know you are liable to it and may know I am able to do it But such is my love to you that I cannot but earnestly desire you to mind and study the things I dare promise you you shall not lose your labour if that which is there written do not answer your time and pains do but complain of it to me and you shall have satisfaction It is but just you should and I have such opinion of my honesty and ability as to assure you if it doth not perform to you I will Another fault is found in the Book that it is too sharp and cutting in the reproofs of it It is a sensible complaint in some I have the more reason to Animadvert upon it because it is so If they be afflicted at it there is great reason it should afflict me also Of all repentings I find the easiest and sweetest is to repent of anger God hath made it easie and honourable by his own example who hath often repented of his just rebukes upon his people It is easie in it self for anger is no pleasant thing If it were not necessary no man could chuse it Indeed it is so mean a thing that few men enter into it in judgement Most men are thrust upon it without understanding I think I may say all It is so unruly and troublesom a guest that none but fools will entertain it Solomon sayes Eccles 7.9 Anger rests in the bosom of fools If it be just and good it is mean and poor but if it be malicious wicked and false then it is devilish Be it what it will I alwayes find it as yet an offence to my weak nature it alwayes wounds and stings me therefore I am inclined to be jealous of it and of my self for it If there be a sowr and severe spirit in it it may possibly arise from the first ill root deferring or delaying to give it forth in its season when t was tender the keeping it so long within made it more fierce But if the nails be too long we may pare them I will be better then scratching and clawing Angry and vehement reproofs do abound in this Age You reprove and condemn your adversaries to utter destruction and they condemn you I have rebuked you and you rebuke me as a man irrecoverably lost The Nation is so full of judgement that men can administer little else wrath is so strong that most men are quite drunk with it love and peace is so weak that they that incline to it find great difficulty in exercising any of it It may be for the good of all to understand the nature and kinds of rebuke There are four sorts of it subject to my observation The first and worst is devilish A malicious searching into and aggravating the sins of them we hate and accusing of them to make them odious that we may appear just or a finding but iniquity in them that are opposite to us that we may destroy them There is a great deal of this it is meet you and I should consider how far we have been in this spirit it is a very gross and common evil yet no discerned because them that we prosecute with such enmity we first paint them in our fancies as devils enemies to God and then think we do well to destroy them believing they are appointed to it But I hope this darkness will not last long For no parties now stand in opposition one to another at so great a distance as the children of God and the children of the Devil Because if any were indeed the children of God they would be like their Father Mat. 5.44 45. Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven c. How contrary is mens ordinary practice to this We say we are the children of God and therefore ought to destroy our and Gods enemies to do good to sinners and to them that hate us is Divine to hate accuse and destroy is certainly Diabolical The second kind of rebuke is Legal or Angelical To reprove and punish men as Gods children and creatures in a holy zeal for God and righteousness with intention to humble subject and reform and that from a holy and pure Law and from a just and godly nature and life This is no Christian or divine dispensation but a legal one yet who is there of you that can justifie himself by this Law Consider it seriously Do you reprove and punish men as men as brethren as Gods creatures and children though enemies Do you do it with intent to humble and reform or to ruine and destroy Do you do it from a holy pure Law or from your own conceptions of the Law which are broken uncertain and changeable Do you do it from a just and godly nature and life or is there not also envy covetousness self-seeking partiality and unrighteousness you may ponder these things in your hearts and measure your selves by this rule The third kind of rebuke or reproof is Evangelical that which was administred by Christ when he was in the flesh he was a Minister of the circumcision and did oncumcise in his Ministery he Ministerd sharply cuttingly but when he had done that he was lead by his Father to lay down his life for them that he had so reproved and after he had discovered sin in a holy
thing that opposed you was one and the same enemy In that troubled state you conclude I was turned to the world and backslidden to the present rising power Great guilt and great suffering meeting together must needs much disturb the mind of poor man If you in the trouble of your souls mistake me and if my mind be clear and at peace I may well bear it and pitty you and so I do My business was to be dayes-man between adverse parties I know I did not intrude into the office but refused and excused as Moses Who am I they will not believe nor hearken to my voice I am a man of no power or esteem and so put it off till I was compelled to appear and now I find the common fate of them that interpose to part the fray both parties fall upon him You think I am turned Courtier the Court thinks I am still a Fanatick T is but just I should receive both your neglects into me standing between you I am content to feel the evil of both because I love both and have in my soul good for both But you do not only judge me to be an enemy but worse an apostate brother and more wicked then your open adversaries for they only afflict the outward man I fall upon your spirits and principles We shall have occasion to discourse of spirits and principles hereafter but here I shall only mind you of two or three things First It is I confess a very difficult thing to judge of principles and spirits because they are inward and therefore strangers and enemies cannot judge of them It must be some friend or brother that hath conversed with them They that are still under them are judged by them and therefore they cannot judge of them It must be some that have travelled through them and have had experience of them spirits and principles are Gods and who can judge the Gods If any they that have been amongst them and tryed them you may from this find some reason why I should be chosen to do this service for you you generally know me my way and work hath been trying of spirits many years Secondly as it is difficult to judge spirits and principles so it is hard to bear the judgement of them Men can easier die and lay down their natural lives then suffer their principles to be touched Men of any common honesty do freely expose their flesh to death to save their Gods although they be but Idols But thirdly There are false Gods false spirits you know it and have familiarly accused others of it you know I know it I confess I do as we say to my cost it may be to your profit you have of late been hammering at a spiritual Antichrist an Antichrist within and it is most true many such there are can you think that you should be acting so many years against Antâ—christ all the while be ignorant of an Antichrist within who doth but now begin to peep â—ut and be discovered in you and you not guilty of receiving false principles or spirits Can all this smoke of confusion darkness and enmity be amongst you and no fire of false spirits Can there be so much reeling and staggering giddiness and instability and no wine of fornication no sophisticated or adulterated wine No spiritual harlots or false lovers Must all the corruption rotteness and filth he laid upon the poor flesh Is there no evil spirit that came in under the name of God to joyn with her to beget these bastard brood of hypocrisie covetousness and self-seeking Must man only bear the blame and not the unclean spirits that are gone out Or must God and his name only stand accused that he led his people by his Spirit into no better wayes Is it not then both justice to his name and mercy to man that these evil spirits and principles should be discovered and detected As it is proper for a friend or brother that hath been partaker with you in them and hath suffered greatly for it to discover them so it will be found a friendly and brotherly office to reprove them The plucking up these principles that lie deep and secret is I know terrible I have felt it so It seems to threaten the rooting out of religion and godliness it self I have found the same thing in my tryals God comes against them and his people engaged with them in great jealousie enraged as an enemy in fiery indignation and vengeance because nothing but his vengeance can destroy them but I have found great love in these fires of jealousie yea love to our nature and persons with forgiveness to our iniquities even then when he takes vengeance of our inventions I know you can neither be inwardly cleansed nor outwardly saved but by a death in your spirits and loss of these principles which have deluded you and brought you into this grievous snare and therefore shall in love and good will to man to your souls lives and liberties prosecute my purpose of manifesting those unsound principles that have deceived and mis-led you and shall not spare for your crying or frowardness SECT V. ANother objection against the Book is it is written much in Allegories because the present state of things is there represented in and by ancient Scriptures I acknowledge this to be a fault and possibly it might arise from the first great error of delay by keeping it in too long it might be thus overgrown with hair and get this dress or at least the same distrust that made me unwilling to write might make me willing to shrowd my mind under those coverings of Scripture wanting confidence to appear more open or strength to go without that help I might affirm that the things written are not meer allegories if they be so they are to me hatefull Idols for I know nothing more abominable then meer similitudes and forms of truth I may affirm that the same eternal spirit that brought forth those works in Adam and Noah of which you there read doth for ever keep the living image of them in himself and many ages after brought them forth in Moses mind and by Moses into writing so that the works done and the words writ are one and of one mind and spirit The same eternal spirit having in himself the same eternal image doth by it preserve the image written or the words and history The same eternal spirit eternally works and brings forth his own likness in all times and in our age and the same spirit that did them and writ them then doth them now and reveals them in that Book He that is wise will understand these things But let them go for Allegories and let me bear the blame of it I am content it should go so because I know we shall gain by all our miscarriages grow wise by mistakes For sin hath something of Physick in it many times if not alwayes it hath its own cure with it because
it hath its own destruction in it yea not only it s own but of other evils also T is certainly true to the godly Dan. 11.35 And some of them of understanding shall fall to try them and to purge and to make them white And therefore I shall learn and get experience by this weakness I now see plainly the Scripture may be and is a vail in some it is made use of to cover filthiness others make use of it out of fear to hide the truth of their hearts It serves sometimes to reveal and sometimes to conceal the mind But withal I see there is no hiding place for me I am necessitated to forsake my coverts and come forth naked Many have hid their poyson of error and enmity under Scriptures by them conveyed their deceit lyes neatly wrapped up in similitudes allusions and that to destroy I would convey peace and truth by it and it will not be endâ—â—ed I am beaten from these bushes and necessitated to all kind of openess and plainness I was unwilling to come to it I confess but I see I must say aside the Velvet scabbard and draw the naked sword or else must be content with such shamefull usage as no man can bear As sin so shame hath its own cure because its curse with it He that obscures himself for shame or from it and for fear of it is driven into a hole must suffer double And there is reason for it because first he is weak and then a coward and so deserts himself his name his mind his cause and betrayes his life and righteousness if he have any in him If a man be upright he need not go into a corner if he do he cannot stand upright in that hole and corner holes are for Bats and Moles for dark creatures the light is for truth and the open heavens for uprightness I hope I shall find room and place abroad I cannot hodestly abide any longer at home sure the open heavens and earth are made for me as well as others why should not I enjoy them As I see a necessity and my duty to cast off all coverings so I now experimentally find how little you have of the Spirit of God or of true reason and that both these are exceeding low in the minds of men at this time If not quite slain yet very feeble weak and ready to die imprisoned also and shut up under false imaginations and fancies of things And therefore if we think to instruct men it must be not only by truth but with that evidence and demonstration that may heal and recover mens spirits arid understandings I profess this that the same eternal Spirit that wrought those things in Adam and Noah and writ them by Moses keeps that image in himself and by it contains and upholds the Scripture the outward image of his eternal mind and the same spirit working according to himself produces the same works now from the same foundation and from the same light gives forth a discovery of them yet because the works were wrought long since and in a remote part of the earth from England as in Paradise in another world and at Mount Ararat therefore they are to us strange and forraign things or at best but allusions Whereas to a spiritual man all times and places are present and all things in heaven and earth and under the earth are gathered into one even into Christ In whose spiritual person we at once see and measure all things and ages because they are all in him and made by him I am sensible that there is as much shortness of reason in men as want of the Spirit For we are the natural children of Adam and Noah and do as truly derive our natures from them as we do from our Fathers or Grandfathers yea we derive our selves more from them because they are heads roots and common or publick Fathers or Stocks of mankind our immediate parents are but means branches or conveyances of life from those roots to us And we are more certainly and infallibly the children of Adam and Noah then of our later Ancestors And do receive greater benefit from them Moral Natural and Personal blessings from Adam these renewed by Noah and conveyed to us by him with the addition of civil and politick blessings And these given by Covenant for ever establisbed with him and his seed for perpetual generations Gen. 9.11 Me thinks it shews great shortness if not sensuality and slavery in mens minds that will enquire after every foot of Land that was their Fathers and Grandfathers and boast of their descent if they have it from a Lordship in England or a Mountain in Wales and not enquire after their natural or moral properties civil and religious priviledges which they do derive and may challenge by descent from these Ancestors yea not only not enquire and search for this royal and noble pedigree but reject it when produced as if they were beasts not men and rose out of the earth and Sea as the beast in the Revelations and as if we were sons of the earth that came into the world in some by-way and were of another case then that which God made in Adam or saved and Covenanted with in Noah For truly if the same life be in us that God made in Adam and saved blessed and covenanted with in Noah it will as naturally lead us to its outward and visible head by a line of reason as our spititual life leads us to Christ by a line of faith For all ages times and states of things wrought in our nature are the proper objects of our understandings and reason and we if we were not captivated to foolish and brutish darkness and silly conceits might as freely converse with them as with present sensible things yea we cannot discern any present thing if we know not the reason and principles of it and they are only to be seen in the first founding and forming of them men are therefore drunk in fancies and are not yet come to the exercise of reason which fathoms and measures all the things of man from the beginning to the end indeed he is not truly a man that comprehends not in some measure his own nature in all ages For the whole history of the world and all the parts acted in it are but the things of a man and so pieces of our selves if we are men Every thing is beautiful in his time also he hath set the world in their heart Eccles 3.11 But saith he I know that whatsoever God doth it shall be for ever ver 14. There is under these things which you call Allegories real substantial Truth if you will not crack the shell to have the kernel accept of my help I will give forth that which is there writren concerning your selves at least in a few plain affirmations I have and do affirm concerning that party that acted against the life and power of the King and are
seek it For a people that profess themselves Spiritual and Saints to engage in a war to the expence of so much blood for their Religion and at last wave an argument for it it is strange you will sure in time examine the reason why it should be so And consider whether that cause be truly Christian that avoids a Christian trial that shrinks from reason and will not appear against its enemy but in arms with a rude and tumultuous rable Truth and integrity cannot but rejoyce in a combate of Reason and it is gross guilt and carnality either in the cause or persons that declines argument and flyes to brutish force If you fear treachery that your principles might have been drawn out and so your persons exposed to danger That wisdom that makes you suspect would enable to prevent such danger freedom of discourse is commonly granted in time of arbitration with security against taking advantage by such discourses But alas neither you nor any other no not your enemies can possibly bring forth your principles so ill-favoured as they have appeared in action I dare say there is no man in this Nation but his Reason or Religion will teach him a better state of things then hath been acted in the Nation since these wars begun that no mans mind or reason is so crooked and absurd as the series of actions have been It will be found that poor men have been hurried and thrust into many things either by company incogitancy the influences of the stars or rather the predominancie of evil spirits by the irresistible fate of times or some superiour over-ruling determinations of Providence Few men have exercised judgement in these wars either humane or Christian but have been tossed about by the earth-quakes and violent commotions of greater powers And if we could come but to look into mens minds when passions and furies are over we shall see that men are better things then they have appeared in this Scene of War And that at bottom there is but one man one nature one religion and that a good one Therefore I know I am a friend to you and to mankind in seeking to draw forth the reason of men to sift and trie principles and opinions But there is so much jealousie and accusation in the world that men are not only jealous of all others but of themselves also If men misjudge mankind they must needs misjudge themselves the first they do it is too manifest and therefore cannot be wholly free from the second It is sure your too hard thoughts of your selves and suspition of your principles that makes you afraid to appear in them I know there is a strong passion of fear upon you a great dread of sufferings in your minds And all your thoughts are how to bear the evil of this day so drowned in a sense of it that you can hardly think a thought of any thing else nor admit of a proposition of peace and safety to your selves It is true and evident that the way and course of your actions have been directly against the antient power authority and Law of the Nation And you are unhappily set in an opposite and contrary spirit to them and have done as much against them as you could You thought you had laid them all low enough and had buried them so deep that they could never rise again And that you had gotten into a heaven into the Kingdom of Christ or so near it that all danger of suffering had been quite past But now you see that all the weight and strength of your Prayers Gifts and Knowledge together with your Armies cannot keep down the things that you opposed nor uphold you against them But contrary to all your thoughts when you were strongest they rose up against you A state law and power of a Nation is a mighty thing and to rise up from death and the curse whether you had sent it provoked against you by so many and great injuries must needs be very terrible to you It would scare a man to see his enemy alive that he thought he had slain were it but a single person But to find the whole Magistracie and Ministry of the Nation the King Nobility and Gentrie with many thousands of oppressed people rise up against you in all the power and strength of the Nation Civil and Military all which have suffered from you I know it must needs astonish and amaze you coming upon you so much contrary to the assurance you had as you thought from God of a better state I do not wonder when I consider it that you are overwhelmed with fears and despair of receiving any good from them that rise from that pit of destruction into which you had doomed them for ever looking upon them as you do as Antichristian enemies to God and for in rejected you cannot expect good from them You are so oppressed with the evil that is upon you that you sink into resolutions of suffering and judge your selves lost for the present and your thoughts are only to bear the indignation that is upon you You could not forgive your selves nor your enemies neither could your enemies forgive you I do forgive them and you and so shall do the worst you can For my love is absolute without condition and therefore without repentance In love to you I proposed a sacrifice and an atonement Which is not your honesty or godliness but these things which we call principles I care not to call them so any longer I mean opinions or tenents which I say are delusions deceits or at best broken imperfect and short apprehensions or mis-apprehensions of things that have misled you in all your business into such crooked pathes that perverted your Counsels corrupted your spirits and made you a vexation to your selves and friends a burden and scourge to the Nation These would I have found out and sacrificed that not only your honesty and uprightness may be discovered which is certainly another thing from them but that your lives and liberties may be preserved also But neither side would regard what was offered You would not part with your opinions called principles no nor offer them to tryal Neither would the Law and authority of the Nation accept of any such sacrifice but being of a more outward and earthly nature hath required outward and bodily satisfaction What could not be resisted we must be content patiently to endure SECT VI. WE may now hope that this scene of blood is over and that the Law and Authority of the Nation is satisfied if it be not again provoked by new attempts upon the peace My soul is a friend to peace and an enemy to destruction And therefore I shall I hope perpetually seek Peace and endeavour to prevent mischief May I now obtain so much favour of you in your low and afflicted state as calmly and rationally to consider what I have and do propose weigh it well I do affirm that there is
heaven c. This was the Law of his whole Life and Death He that will be my Disciple must deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me Alas alas how can you look into this glass and not blush to see the deformities of your whole work how directly contrary yours is to this Instead of blessing you have cursed What he blessed you reject the meek the mourners the merciful the peace-makers the persecuted you begun this war because you would not endure persecution Instead of not resisting evil you have inflicted evil and would not be resisted in it Instead of loving enemies you have hated and destroyed them Instead of blessing them you curse as bitterly as you can Instead of bearing persecution you persecute Instead of denying self you sight for self Instead of taking up the Cross you flie to force to avoid it and load others with it make others bear it So hath the blessed God set things that they that are not with him are against him And they who refuse to bear the Cross must become Crucifiers of others All men that will not endure persecution they will persecute they that cannot or will not be killed will kill So have you done and therefore been enemies to the Cross of Christ and so enemies to Christ himself for he is crucified in all crucifying And they that hate the flesh of the whore and burn her with fire they make war with the Lamb also Rev. 16.14 So have you made war with the Lamb with his doctrine nature life and death 2. Christ our Lord humbled himself and became a servant to others you have exalted your selves as far as you could into all kinds of places of honour He became poor that he might make others rich you have made others poor that you may be rich He suffered the errors and contradictions of sinners but sinners those that you have judged sinners have suffered your contradictions in your several Oathes and Impositions He bore the infirmities and diseases of the whole Nation the whole Nation have born your infirmities and diseases your blindness haltings and staggerings He bore the sins and curse of the people The poor people have born yours both sin and curse He died that others might live You kill others that you may live your selves He suffered the just for the unjust but others have suffered from you because they resisted your unjust power and will I believe you have been misled by an evil spirit and therefore I pitty you Alas you have walked in darkness and not known whether you have gone You did not think your way and work had been so contrary to the way of Christ you found it weak and short but now you will see that it is in the whole from the rise of it to the end of it contrary to the nature and spirit of the Lamb and to his Law and Doctrine 3. Christ in the Gospel brought forth a new Creation a new and Spiritual Kingdom a new Law new Ordinances new Ministers new Worship And this not in opposition to nor to the destruction or disturbance of any authority either of the Jews or Gentiles but he taught and practised obedience to both But you have only disturbed and destroyed what you could of the Government of the Nation but have brought forth no better no new Kingdom or new Law for the people and what forms of worship you have made for your selves and several Parties are but some broken pieces of the letter of the old Apostolical frame set up in another spirit Let us compare your work and way with the Spirit and his holy and pure Ministrie He came from Heaven himself cloathed with an outward and visible appearance in great Majestie and Power openly manifesting himself to all Nations in mighty signs and wonders that were his own and not anothers He did truly glorifie Christ and set him up above his enemies making them know that Jesus was the Son of God and that the Kingdom of God was with men And this to the face and in the consciences of all the powers of the earth He formed and built a Church upon the rock from the heavenly pattern He came from heaven and carried the Saints into heaven and made them sit down together with Christ in the heavenly He led them into the holiest and brought them to Mount Zion indeed the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly c. Have you had the substance and truth of any of these things with you You have been able to talk of them to notion fancy or prophesie something of them which others could not But had you had this heavenly glory you needed not your earthly Armies nor worldly Polities nor the help of profane and loose people and practices to save you The Spirit had his own manifestation his union his own tongues interpretation of tongues his own signs and miracles his own power and glory pure holy and clear his own anointing was sufficient to lead into all truth But instead of manifesting you have by your wayes extreamly darkened others your selves and the name of Christ and Religion which you professed Instead of tongues and interpretation to others you were in such confusion that you could not your selves understand one another you pretended to signal mercies and successes but they are not spiritual but such as are common to others so is victory in battle Instead of being led into all truth alas you were led into all kinds of contradictions and into many erroneous wayes which proved to be lyes and delusions to you And therefore you must not any longer boast of the Spirit of God You cannot shew that he is descended upon you or that he hath led you as he did the Apostles into a heavenly state You are still in the world in the gross uncleanness of the world in the wrath malice destruction pride covetousness deceit of the world You are and have been under the Ministrie or Judgement of the Spirit In his giving you up to corruption that you may be manifest to be but men and not born from on high In blowing upon and infatuating your Counsels In scattering and dividing your spirits In rejecting your work and way as not his own as abominable to his purity goodness truth and righteousness In judging of you in the sight of all the world for abusing his name and in kindling a sire upon all your riches honours and works a fire of jealousie that burns like an Oven which will purifie you And therefore you are in this day nearer to the Spirit of God then you were from the first day you engaged Consider now what ground you stand upon in your present opposition to this Power and Providence You cannot stand up with Moses and Aaron in their Office for you have not led us out of Egypt into Canaan but have been intangled and fettered in Egyptian darkness Nor can
can command it it will master every mind in which it is and lead him at last to carnal wayes if it be not outwardly restrained ' For he that will curse will also destroy And he that doth the greater what should hinder him to do the less They that condemn men to Satan and to hell they will hardly forbear killing of them if they have power and opportunity or doing such mischief as their hatred directs them to The root of all this is the Serpent Out of the Serpents root comes forth a Cockatrice and his fruit a fiery flying Serpent from this root the Serpent shoots forth this hissing Adder or Cockatrice of cursing And the fruit is a fiery flying Serpent the former soon gets wings and flames out in open hostility I aim at no less then the root of this hatred â—n all men the Devil And finding that he hath at last taken Sanctuary in Religion and the profession thereof and hath therein acted with so much vigor and security I must pursue him into your heart and spirits It is his main fort Zeal for God and his Cause if we can heat him hence we shall hope to drive him out of the earth For if this hold be taken from him he will have very little strength to make resistance any where else That this enemy is amongst you we have sufficient proof We follow him by a train of blood and by the track of all the beasts his companions pride covetousness falshood self-seeking And we see the smoak of his confusion and hear the noise of his violence among you Therefore you must endure to be assaulted and searched I know it will cost you dear it will shake the whole frame and foundation of your Religion to have him quite destroyed in you it did so in me his root lies deep But if you can bear the tryal and become free from this soul enemy your persons and gifts will shine in the true and everlasting glory of the Lamb of God Possibly you may have the honour of yielding up and slaying the last and greatest strength of this enemy of mankind I am satisfied that the horns of his beastly power are both sawn off and scattered And that the Lamb of God is conqueror and doth begin already to bud and spring forth in many persons who do abhor the filth and deceit of war blood and wrath And do see that nothing springs from thence but mischief and confusion To help forward the birth of this spirit of love and to guide your feet in a way of peace have I engaged in this discourse It will be an honourable and lasting conquest to overcome him He hath betrayed and spoyled all other your conquests Now we shall be revenged on him and destroy him who hath destroyed by you and then destroyed you also I suppose there is a rich treasure of life righteousness and holiness hid in the nature of man Yea I know it and am one with it Even the very Kingdom of God is amongst us and in us This rich treasure hath come forth in profession name and prophesie in your spirits But it hath miscarried and faln short This is certainly from this evil one it is he that hath done you this michief And it is he amongst your selves For an open enemy could not hurt you could not stand before you It is he that hath betrayed you His great strength lies in enmity whereby he brings darkness confusion and every evil work You know confusion and enmity divided distracted and ruined you What need we any plainer evidence Therefore it must be enmity and hatred that hath destroyed you And it must be victory against him and it that must save you We have already shewed you that hatred though it begin against those that are further off yet it will not stay there If it be admitted it will reign He that will hate any man because he differs from him or because he is sinful will hate his nearest friend because he may and doth differ and is sinful He that to preserve himself and his own way of Religion will destroy a Cavaleer will upon the same ground destroy a Presbyterian Independant or Quaker and consequently all that oppose him Indeed he that will not suffer for sinners for enemies must resolve to kill all sinners and enemies or all that will not conform to him Therefore it is the same enmity wherewith you prosecuted your first enemies and your brethren the very same violence and self-love that enraged you against them kept you from agreeing one with another And the same conceits that you were the people of God and that yours was the only way of God that made you abjure and renounce the King and Church the very same opinion and confidence made you oppose one another Each man being confident his own way was the only way made you unyielding one to another For that which will not submit to any thing but what is Gods mind and what he knows to be Gods mind must necessarily oppose every man that differs from him You know whereunto this tends And therefore there can be no peace but in that love which can bear with that which to him doth not appear to be Gods mind or can submit to them that do not in all things the holy and perfect will of God And if we have so much love and pitty as to bear them that do err in a little if we have more love we may bear them that err much The truth is we must either quarrel with all or bear the weakness of all in love to all It is therefore this enemy that hath abused you and misled you into those dark wayes in which you now he Hitherto you have not known whither you have gone he perswaded now by light reason and experience not to follow him who draws you into a snare and there spoils you of your peace and safety We suppose you are travelling towards the Kingdom of Christ I believe you would see him upon the throne The enemy tells you These men that you oppose hinder him and his Kingdom and that by their destruction Christ shall be exalted You are herein quite out of the way to his Kingdom First While you seek to gain a Kingdom for him you deny to acknowledge that Kingdom which his Father hath already given him He is set down upon his Fathers Throne And that throne is everlasting You may therefore seek a Kingdom for your selves but not for him And in doing so you do both deny and resist his Kingdom And fight with him because he doth not set you up with him Secondly His Kingdom is first in patience The Kingdom and patience of Jesus And a blessed Kingdom it is to rest in suffering They that are truly Kings with him have the Kingdom in themselves and first enjoy it on the Cross triumphing there They who by the riches of their natures or by God in them can enrich poverty make bonds free
not intangled in your self-righteousness and your minds not captivated by Satan the very principles of holiness that are in you would make you distaste your present state which hath been proved to be vain and false and full of opposition and contradiction There is in you a seed of truth love and purity which must make you loath that state that hath been and is found by constant experience unclean formal and full of enmity to one another and all men However you judge of me as unholy I must teâ—l you I have a long time not only witnessed against the corruption of it but have turned from it even from the best of what is abroad of every sect And that in the sincerity of my love and affection to the pure and holy nature of Jesus Christ And so far as I have in any small measure partaked of his holy Spirit I have born your iniquities and been pressed and burdened with them grieved for them and shamed of them I do not now blame you from a common or humane spirit though that also is able to find gross defects in you and in the best of your way It is by it men blame you And you by it blame one another But from that holiness wherewith I stand before God for you and in that love and pitty to you wherein I intercede for you and could lay down my life for you I may say more For I know and find that none comes unto the Father to intercede for sinners but by the Son both in the name and spirit of the Son None minister truly before God but in that love of Christ who can be accursed for Brethren From deep experience of God of my own soul and of your state and from a long and sore travel in all do I write this to you That whatever you account of your selves by comparing your selves with your selves or with one another or with them that are visibly worse then you Yet when you shall but strive to enter into the strait gate that you may indeed come into the Kingdom of God and his naked face and presence I say when you shall but seriously and in truth desire it and press after it you will abhor your selves and that kind of holiness in which you now live Yea I know in your approaches to God which are not spiritual naked and heavenly but earthly fleshly and in letter or image only yet in that presence of God which you enjoy you are full of self-condemnings and self-upbraidings But that being but an out ward Court into which your Religion brings you it may shew you the outward spots and blemishes of your Religion but cannot discover to you the root and bottom of the evil that is in you Thirdly You are now in a zeal for your forms of worship and for those gifts and graces that attend them opposing condemning and reviling in words and religious exercises to what that tends all men know the persons ministry and worship now set up in the Nation Against these you run headily and carnally for consider what you oppose not Satan in these persons offices and worship but the things themselves That which you oppose and sight against being outward and carnal such is that also by which you do oppose them So that the business is not to pull down sin and iniquity and set up holiness but to pull down the outward power means and ministry of the Bishop and set up the Pastor In truth it is to pull down them and set up your selves This being a carnal and fleshly contest though covered with the name of God 1. It is unclean 2. And being unclean that which comes from it must needs be unclean also and thereby you promote not holiness but the contrary sin For contention and war have done and still do wound and slay the holy life which is pure and peaceable and carnal strife wastes the meek and good spirit If you should attain what you aim at and destroy again the whole outward frame of Church and State and set up your selves except you had the holy and mighty Spirit of God to destroy the root and spirit as well as the form and to open hell and shut them up for ever as the Spirit did Christs enemies they would recover again as they have done But such a Spirit and such a Power you have not I suppose if you could damn them all to hell presently you would not do it you have more mercy in you as men to men your Brethren And I am sure when you have power to do it you will not do it because he that hath power to do it will not doth not do it And he will never give his power but he will give his goodness and mercy likewise Again if you could thrust out them and exalt your selves and way in their place how would holiness be advanced It would be but one thing removed and another of the same nature brought in for it is of the same kind with theirs humane earthly and living in the same region else it could not sight with theirs if it be but of the same earthly nature it must needs be worse not better because it rises by war and contention And therefore must needs be harder sharper and more cruel and thereby suppresses the softer and attains its place by force And yet when you have done this except you have a more holy Spirit to guide lead and unite you you will not be able to settle your selves It is a tryed and judged case that this spirit in which you act hath not that truth and power that can wholly destroy what is nor that love and light that can reform it nor yet that wisdom that can provide a better And therefore you did overturn this Government throw it in the dirt and leave the Nation void for more wickedness to enter and then suffer the old to recover maimed and broken into a fouler house then it was Or else you must go on to perpetuate and establish contention and confusion in the Nation This is both reason and experience and may convince you if any thing will If you have not a more holy more true and more excellent spirit you can never attain what you seek either an extirpation of this Power and Government or establish a better If you cannot effect this you will but sill your selves your Religion and the Nation with violence fury and enmity by all your opposition you make But raise a deal of dust to blind your own eyes and others But stir and provoke black and malignant spirits both in you and against you as you have done And if you had that holy Spirit which only can prosper you in such an undertaking Then I am sure you would forbear this kind of carnal and wrathful opposition For the spirit of Christ is of the nature of Christ most holy and most gentle gracious and merciful He is so holy pure and incorruptible that he can
and doth make these things uphold them and walk in them and in all the wayes and forms of men in the midst of all their vanity and iniquity and not be defiled with them And this Spirit when you are led by him will enable you to live either above them or besides them or in the secret of his Tabernacle which is within all there forms and that with purity peace and content And this Spirit that upholds and gives being to all forms and persons doth distinguish and perfectly judge between the good and the evil of all persons and things and doth eternally chuse and gather unto himself that which is holy in all and casts the chaff and dust to the Serpent and him and it into the Lake of fire If therefore you have this Spirit and will do that visibly which he doth eternally then you must by him first gather all these things and all the parts of the broken Church and Nation under his wings that he may do with our Chaos as he did when he made the world first sustain cherish and brood upon this desolate state and then form a new one For if you cannot receive all into your hearts and bowels of love you will never renew or reform any thing For love is the first moving cause of all good It is love only that hath in it that mercy that life that goodness that can heal and reform the poor diseased and decayed state of man and of the Church This excellent divine nature of God Love hath rejected with indignation your harsh and severe spirit of self-sasety and self-seeking into confusion and shame And hath taken the work out of your hands into his own after you have by violence and unskilfulness spoyled wasted and ruined he will himself save and restore And in order to it takes the whole frame of things in all its sin death curse and misery both persons parties forms and states into the bowels of his most tender compassions into himself and his own nature life and being who is Emanuel God with us In our flesh and so in and under our sins and curse bearing of them for us and from us He hath love to those persons that you would destroy finding his own image in them for they are his own creatures and children therefore he will save them and first pardon and then remove their iniquities In those offices that you would destroy he knows there is good in them and in the honour and riches belonging to them and therefore will take away the abuse and corruption of them And in that service that you so much vilifie there is heavenly excellency which must be preserved purified enlightened and all the death darkness and prophaneness separated from it The holy one of Israel will do this Therefore to conclude this point of holiness you may and must know That you were sanctified with a measure of gifts for a service for the execution of Gods displeasure Its work is finished the gifts corrupted and now as to publick work upon the Nation rejected and under a judicial blindness and confusion because of an evil spirit that did and doth still possess them It is the righteous judgement of the Spirit of God upon them who hath though your gifts and performances be many and solemn cast them as dung in your faces If you will retreat with them in humility and repentance to attend the purifying of your own souls and the purging away your own sins you will find mercy to your selves But if you think by them to exalt your selves again into dominion and power in the Nation you will but involve your selves in more misery and wrath and like a Bull in a net entangle your souls in greater errours and outward troubles The holy Spirit I know and have felt did bear you a long time as a heavy burden and at last eased himself of you as a clog and cumber to him And now I with joy feel that he is free to exercise his own power to effect and perfect what you have failed in It will be your only safety now to retire into deep silence and humility and leave the Church and Nation to him that is Lord of both who made both and I can assure you will perfectly reform both SECT XIV BEsides the two things mentioned of the Kingdom of God and of holiness there are some other things that you have sought in these late wars which are still in your minds As common liberty or the liberty of the people and liberty of conscience But it is most certainly true and by experience now manifested that these things are not in that spirit in which you have acted and still stand Nor is this way of strife and contention the way to obtain them but the contrary For as war and enmity is against the Kingdom of Christ which is a Kingdom of peace And as they harden pollute and vitiate the mind of man which is contrary to holiness So they do naturally exalt will and force rage and jealousie and so must necessarily eat up and devour all liberty and turn all into the worst kind of tyrannie if the Father of mercies and Spirits doth not enlarge mollifie and sweeten the nature of man which wrath and war doth imbitter and harden It is true common liberty is written in the common nature of man in some degree though it be very weak This liberty came forth in you in notion profession and affection beyond what it doth in other people and it hath been not only talked of but desired by you yet that spirit in which you rose and in which you seek it hath not any true liberty in it And if it hath not liberty in it it can neither attain it for you from others nor give it by you to others it never could do either Mind well what I write else you will not understand it For it is I know besides the common reason and apprehensions of men and therefore seems to be and is strange to the dark and private spirit of the world but you and all men must know that there is a divine reason in these things which ought to be and therefore shall be the rule of mans Reason Know then first That we began our wars upon this principle of delivering our selves from the yoak of the Law and Government of the Church and Kingdom being of another spirit and way from them And upon the same principle of self-safety and self-freedom was the war carried on and the whole business from step to step This seemed to us very just and righteous that we should have liberty to serve God according to what light and understanding he gave us And there is an undoubted right in it Yet we see to what infinite confusion and strange enmity and division this principle hath brought us And therefore there is some notable evil either in the principle or in the liberty or in both I think both will be found faulty I
shall only charge the principle that is our seeking self liberty or liberty for our selves Whatever good is in the thing it doth and will miscarry so long as it is upon this bottom self Such is the large and good nature of the God and Father of all that he will blast and wither every private and particular spirit It is contrary to him hath no root in him and therefore though he do sometimes feed it awhile and make use of it yet he will at last reject it and never suffer it to stand up with him in his Kingdom He may and doth admit it to work and act in some low remote and dark state But if he be true to his own Good nature or to the nature of his Son the Saviour of the world he must not admit it to raign with him nor will he Yea though it cloath it self with salvation either of our own of others souls which is a thing most agreeable to the mercy of God yet will he never save any in that spirit But resist and oppose that salvation and all the graces and gifts whereby men seek it till he kill that root of self For he hath given it as a Law to Christ and so by Christ to men he that will save his life shall lost it and he only that will lose his life shall save it It was the great lesson he taught his Son and the first that Christ teaches his Disciples Let him deny himself If Christ and his Disciples must deny so excellent and holy life and self that they may ascend unto the Father of all If that holy and blessed state must be abjured and renounced and so come to the curse What can you think of self-seeking of an out ward liberty and freedom from outward sufferings it is no wonder to see tins brought to shame and confusion God hath pursued this root of self-seeking even in spiritual things by many sore and severe tryals in my spirit By which I came to understand what an irreconcileable and desperate enemy it is to God and what deadly poyson there is in the nature of it and how dangerously it will corrupt the best things in men Where ever it is admitted it will and doth kill the life of Grace if God kill â—ot it And though at first it seem zealous and holy yet it will break out into gross self-seeking For he that prayes preaches believes studies and receives the promises of eternal life to himself or to a party which is but a large self will at last in all things mind himself and so will be cruel covetous ambitious and any thing that self suggests to him And this I find to be the root of all that narrowness that was in this Party and of that gross self-seeking that all men take notice of There is at the bottom of the whole business and at the root of all their Religion a spirit to seek their own salvation liberty exaltation and honour And being fixed and bound to this principle they could never enlarge themselves to the good of the whole nor were they ever capable of any larger principles nor can they be till this state be slain in them And though they shift from one thing to another they will find no rest till they subject this state to loss and thereby come to partake of the largeness of the love of God and Christ Who teaches us to seek not our own but the things of others not our own liberty or salvation but the liberty and salvation of others And therefore the Lord of all that he might discover judge and destroy this principle so contrary to his own love and life hath so ordered it That he that will not deny himself his life liberty and salvation for the good of others in conformity unto Christ and in obedience to his Gospel They will be found to be persecutors cruel destroyers of others lives and liberties and so be brought to shame and destruction They that will not suffer for and from others others must suffer from them And they that cannot give their life will take away others life It is and will be resolved into this that men must either live in the merciful and saving spirit of Christ or in the cruel spirit of the Devil And no shew or form of godliness nor pretence of right or religion can evade this judgement For strong is the Lord that thus judges It is therefore evident and God will make it good that there is not common salvation nor good will to man in any private spirit of any Party but in the Spirit of Christ the Saviour of the world And that this true publick spirit where ever it is it shews it self by this it will suffer for and from others and not make others suffer from it it will and doth give life and liberty and not take it away The first step into freedom is out of our selves and the beginning of all ingenuity is to be able to examine try and judge our selves If by experience and by what is here written you attain the least spark of true freedom and can but reflect upon your selves and remember the first rise of your work that it was to deliver your selves and that in the whole progress of it it was terminated and bounded in self either in a finer or a grosser way and could do nothing but prefer or exalt your selves and Party or them that would confirm and strengthen your selves by serving of you And that all the while you were busie in this work you could not but oppress others not only your enemies but the whole Nation And that none of you could ever produce any publick ease liberty or advantage to the people but on the contrary taxes and burdens If you have but so much ingenuity as to judge your selves state and spirit and justifie God and Christ we shall soon agree If you do so and come forth of that hole that pit of a narrow private Religion that self or party holiness and salvation which is really now a pit and snare whatever exaltation it hath had If you can now but look out of it and view things in the light of the universal goodness of God your reason will tell you That for you that are but a small part of the Nation it may be a tenth either for number or quality a tenth that is a more active vigilant more spirited part of the whole For you in times of trouble to get the sword into your hands and to overthrow the Government and Governors of the whole which the whole chuse and rest satisfied in and to seclude the nine parts of the representative of the whole and admit of none to rule but your own tithe To subdue the civil Government and exalt the sword To depose one natural chosen beloved and one in judgement and affection with the nine parts And to set up many in many various wayes and opinions all strange to the whole Nation if
unhappiness of them that are under a Law and necessity of so acting and them that are under a Law and necessity of so suffering If either my labour and pains or my knowledge and experience yea or my life if self may do any thing to cure this evil and quench this flame I should gladly expend them all And for you my friends to whom in love and mercy this is directed I know it will not only seem strange to you but be very grievous to bear to find so great a spiritual enemy in the midst of your spiritual gifts and enjoyments I know you little expected it and as little thought to find me the discoverer of it to you whom you have so much slighted But know this is the fruit of my long travels and dangerous encounters with this enemy With whom I have endured a long and tedious warfare with great expence of life and blood even in my soul and spirit and have received many desperate wounds in my inward man while you lived at case and in pleasure both outward and inward You now have that cheap which cost me dear For alas how much easier it is for you to receive this conviction from the hand of a weak broken man in love and compassion to you Then to receive it as I have done from an angry and jealous God How much easier is it for you to bear reproof from the experience of a friend then to conflict with this destroyer hand to hand and to graple with all his malice darkness and wrath in your own naked souls and spirits which God knows I have done again and again I know you have had strange thoughts of me I forgive you you might well think strangely of me when you beheld me encompassed with the darkness and smoak of this bottomless pit and sensibly lost and swallowed up by this enemy But I have by the mighty power and goodness of God escaped thorow many deaths and dangers and yet live to communicate to you the benefit of my conflicts sufferings and deliverance If you say you intend not war and destruction to them which you oppose but their repentance See that you be true to this I do believe many are wholly taken off from war by the great experience we have had of the beastly deceit the horrible cruelty and corruption that hath attended it And that the same honesty that led them out at first to engage in it leads them now to abhor it and to chuse rather to suffer then by war to seek a deliverance For the clearing and strengthening their spirits in that way of peace are these things writ And to inform and instruct others that are yet unconvinced We will then suppose that you intend not to get liberty of Conscience by violence and war which was our first branch but by a friendly agreement with the present Magistrates and Governours this is our second branch If we desire liberty first know That it must be from the Magistrate for all liberty Civil and Spiritual is in his power either to give or restrain Liberty is the fruit that grows only upon the tree of Government Law and Authority or is enjoyed only under the protection of them Take away Authority and Magistracy and all kind of liberty ceases we are presently exposed to the lusts of wilde and brutish men Therefore they that are truly conscientious are most faithful to Magistracy 1. Because they are bound to obey not only for wrath as others but for conscience sake in obedience to God who hath instituted Magistracy and ordained that power And they know and feel the Providence and goodness of God in the Magistrate as well as the weight of his Scepter 2. Because they may receive more benefit from him then others liberty not only for their outward man but for their spiritual man also which others need not 3. Because they being conscientious are more tender then others and so more subject to injury then those that are not bound by conscience The loose and prophane need the Magistrate to restrain and subdue their wills the conscientious is his own Law as to restraint and needs the Magistrate only for his protection So that indeed the sword of Authority if rightly understood the edge of it is against the loose and lawless life and the peace and favour of it is to the good and the godly The enemy of man and author of confusion hath brought forth much mischief amongst us both to the Magistrate and to the conscientious in dividing one from the other and setting of them against each other which have but one root For the Magistrate is the Minister of God for good Rom. 13.4 And conscience binds a man to subject to all the words and works of God and to all things that are administred from him or by him Upon a little sober consideration this mist of errour and mistake will be scattered But if the Magistrate give us this liberty of Conscience then in reason and conscience we are bound to defend the Magistrate that defends us in this liberty And if we desire liberty of him it is but equal and reasonable that we should profess that it is our judgements and consciences so to do For we cannot expect he should give liberty to a conscience that would destroy him and his Government Wherefore when men have professed conscience in destroying and changing of Governments there should be a Declaration and Profession against it answerable to the evil done by it or sufficient to wipe off that scandal Secondly If we desire liberty of Conscience from the Magistrate it must be either in a way of Reason or Religion or both if we seek it from him in a way of reason we must admit him a man a reasonable creature else it is in vain to seek reason of him If the Magistrate be man he hath the image of God as man and as Magistrate which is to be beloved honoured and defended by us not opposed hated and destroyed If there be man and reason it is possible and likely we may agree with and unite to man because we also are men of the same flesh and blood with him and he with us If we do not agree with our own nature though under many defects there is something unnatural in us which we may call Spiritual but if it be Spiritual it is not divine nor Christian for God loves man is reconciled to man Christ is a man and loves his Brethren If we confess them to be men then we are to deal humanely with them and to exercise reason to them openly clearly fairly If we think they err we are in reason to go to them and to inform them if we can or to receive information from them If we need anything of them we should reasonably propound our request to them If both parties be men and will exercise reason to each other there will be an understanding and agreement for there is but one reason in all
For every one that goes out of the world glorying in his righteousness makes a breath both in death and in the authority that inflicts it And when it comes to be easie and familiar as it will by a little practise Authority and Magistracy it self will be by such despised I shall commend to the Magistrate an Observation of mine own concerning the nature of man That he may consider what he governs and how he ought to govern him Man is a noble and stout creature There is so much of the majesty of the image of God in faln man that he retains much of the greatness though he have lost his goodness There lies raked up in this dust an invincible spirit that never will be subdued by force God could never break the rebellion of the Israelites by all his punishments upon them And therefore sayes Why should ye be stricken any more ye will revolt more and more Isa 1.5 All the terrours of the Law could never subject Paul but he sayes himself When the commandment came sin revived and I died Rom. 7.9 When the law came with terrour against him then fin roused up it self unto a desperate opposition There being such stoutness in mans heart that all the force of the Law could not subdue God sent his Son in love to this stout creature to take his flesh and so to soften and overcome it and in it to destroy both Law and sin This will shew us what is in man There is as much of this courage and greatness of spirit in the English as in any people under heaven which is very much awakened in these times both by the wars and by long liberty and a free exercise of their minds in Religion For first the people were inspired and impowered to execute the determined displeasure of God upon the Church and Nation which exalted them and subjected the Church and Nation under them Having as they think judged the former state of Religion they have opportunity and liberty to erect several new forms of Religion which is an act of spiritual principality and power and not without zeal for God and obedience to his Law By these things the genius of the Nation and the natural stoutness of the people is much lightened and encreased And therefore to reduce them into that state that they think they have judged and to destroy all their little principalities set up in their consciences only by outward force or by the meer letter of that Law which they have condemned without a superiour Law that judges them and their work to my reason seems not only impossible but dangerous Let the whole be considered and it will be found That meer legal and outward punishments upon such a people so spirited and principled so employed and exercised if their consciences and spirits be nor first fairly heard judged and convinced will inflame their minds into such a mad and desperate spirit as appeared in the late Insurrection into hardness and insensibility of death and danger which is the greatest enemy to Government that can be For it turns men into wild beasts not to be ruled by humane Laws And though they do attain nothing to themselves yet they may give disturbance and force the Magistrate from all humane and divine wayes of love and gentleness into violence and perpetual severity and fill the whole Nation with continual troubles and distractions It is true the Magistrate is bound by all bonds of Law of reason and nature to suppress and punish rebellion But when the seeds of rebellion lie in the mind and conscience the spiritual sword is as necessary as the secular and the one not effectual without the other What is written in this Treatise will I hope satisfie them that will read and consider that there is with us in the Church a spirit and understanding that will reach the root of rebellion in the mind and fully convince the conscience Which being joyned to the civil authority is sufficient to cure and heal the Church and Nation On the other side I must desire the present suffering Party that were so highly offended at my Book and at my proposition for the tryal of principles that they consider how much lower they are now faln There was certainly a loftiness and unsubjection of mind unsutable to their condition expressed in a glorying and boasting of their old cause and state which hath brought forth this contempt and suffering upon them I do believe that this late Insurrection was the work of a few rash and unreasonable men And do find that all sober men do express a great abhorrency of the act with resolution to wait patiently upon God for their deliverance Which truly I rejoyce in Yet the whole Party lying under the shame of these mens folly and madness they must seriously and deeply consider how far they yet stand unhumbled and unconvinced of those principles that carried these men into this practise Principles lie deep and when once they get rooting in the mind they are like ill weeds in a garden not presently destroyed Many times the judgement is enlightened against them yet they have a root in the heart which will spring up if not quite eradicated Their appearing in others and the evil fruit they bear is a good means to beget an utter detestation of them To make you sensible of the hand of God upon you and to help to clear your minds wholly of them I only propound these queries to you 1. First Whether those principles upon which they acted of the Cause and Kingdom of Christ and the honour and priviledge of the Saints above and against the world Have not been received into the minds and spirits of most men more or less that have erected new Churches and new Governments in the Nation Secondly Whether the same principles and the hopes of such things be not that which fills your heads and hearts with multitude of prayers and great confidences that you shall yet prevail and your enemies be destroyed And so though your understandings be more prudent then others yet whether the same things be not yet in your faith affections and duties Thirdly Whether these spirits and principles have not had a great influence upon the whole business a long time If so then if they be not rooted out by repentance and change of mind they lie not still in the heart though they seem not to act and appear Fourthly Whether men being upon an extraordinary bottom as the Saints of God distinct from others And exercising themselves in extraordinary duties with extraordinary hopes and confidences of extraordinary deliverances Are not thereby disposed and prepared to attempt extraordinary things to attain these extraordinary ends If so then you are drinking the same wine that intoxicated their heads that rose only they are weaker and you more able to bear it Remember Solomons counsel Who hath sorrow who hath contention who hath babling who hath wounds without cause They that tarry long
at the wine they that go to seck mixed wine Fifthly Whether these high and great thoughts upon future things do not 1. Lift up the mind into an unsubjection unto this Providence of God that layes you low and exalts others 2ly Alienate your minds from the present Government 3ly Unsettle your spirits to an unwillingness to peace 4ly Deny you the use of your reason for your present safety 5ly And draw your minds from the present duties of love forgiveness subjection to authority and to such plain honest things â—â—at the Law of God and the moral reason of man leads him to I have found much evil in this false Prophet who carrying out the mind by false representations of future things and filling the head with them leave no room for the exercise of our Reason or Religion upon present things I do hope you do by experience see how these high strains swelling the mind with spiritual pride leads it into irrational and destructive wayes It hath done so from the beginning and doth so still My only end in this is to improve this experience to humble your minds to take you off from these deluding spirits And to bring you to a sober sense of your selves and of the present state of things And to prepare you for a rational and Christian proposition of peace which I shall now commend to you and to all the Nation Sect. XVIII THe Church and Nation is miserably broken and divided Division is at first into two parts and where it begins it ends I shall therefore consider but two great parts of the Nation First such as are for the present Government and Governors of Church and State as now it stands by Law Secondly Such as differ from either be it more or less Presbyterians Independants Anabaptists Fifth-monarchy men Quakers or any others I would refuse none to treat with them Peace is comprehensive and in a plaister as large as our sores are or can be I have already shewed some reason why peace if it be true must comprehend all If there be a peace it must be an agreement There cannot be an agreement but by understanding of one another There can never be an understanding one of another without a treaty and a fair or friendly debate My Proposal in my former Book was to his Majesty this I direct immediately to you that are by your disaffection to the Government in affliction possibly the sense of your troubles may make you willing to seek to his Majesty for peace and in order to it for a heâ—ring and treaty which is the thing I move â—or First give me leave to suppose that you are men reasonable men and therefore able to give a reason of your way and to receive and understand reason if it be offered to you And being so you are fit to treate and sit to be treated with And you having reason ought to exercise it in treaty and it is as due to you that you should be reasonably treated and used as men and not as beasts As I suppose you reasonable so give me leave to suppose your adversaries reasonable And so able both to give a reason of what they do and to hear reason against it It is a very small charity that I beg of both sides that you would think your adversaries reasonable creatures and to be treated accordingly Yet if I could obtain this that you would so speak think and do we should have one stone laid of peace And a good ground to begin upon Both Parties being admitted to be reasonble which cannot be denyed without great breach of that common charity that is due betwixt men and men This will bring men to exercise this reason one towards another and to lay aside brutish rage and womanish passions Consider in the next place that the matters of difference and to be agreed are things subject to reason I intend to propound for the present only civil peace and agreement laying aside matters of Religion till this be attained Matters of Civil peâ—ce in order to mutual safety are things within the compass of all mens reasons and natures All Nations have and use this reason and by it attain peace both amongst themselves and with other Nations Nations that are at the greatest distance in their natures tempers and religions do agree and that meerly by the use of that common reason that all men partake of And why English-men should not have so much reason as to understand one another and agree together I know not Let us therefore take as clear a view of the divided Parties as we can and let both sides be reasonably considered For it is the mist and cloud about us that confounds and disturbs us On the one side there is his Majesty Nobility Clergy and the people of the Nation And with them Authority Government and Magistracy both of Church and Common-wealth which are great Ordinances of God And these standing upon a firm stable foundation of Law deeply rooted in time custom and in the minds of people And all now restored and exalted by a mighty Providence and guarded by the same hand that restored them And therefore in reason First it is as impossible to remove them as to extirpate the English Nation Reason and experience confirm it And secondly it is an irrational and unsafe thing to attempt it If it be irrational and unsafe to attempt it it is not rational to think or imagine it Nay it is not honesty or truth of mind to fancy or think what is in it self unreasonable and impracticable practicable If now mens minds depart from reason into perswasions or conceits of things upon a divine account for which they have no certain humane or spiritual ground they will be deceived But this state of the Government is not represented only to deter from attempting upon it but to gather your minds toward it The rest safety and comfort of all mankind is in Law Authority and Government This Government was of old and is now restored in the Nation In it is your safety peace and protection It is there and no where else for you and all others If you reasonably and justly challenge it you cannot be denyed it If there should be found an evil spirit of revenge that should refuse to give it to you being justly sought That evil spirit shall be discovered and manifested to be the spirit not of the Government nor Governors but of some dark envious peevish minds And it shall appear to be as contrary and destructive to the Government and Governors as it is to your safety Therefore the reason why you have not this peace and safety is because you fly from the Government and so from your shelter and harbour either ignorant of it or jealous and fearful of it This I think is a reasonable account of one Party I would now represent the other Party as justly and rationally as I can The many sects that stand out against the present Government