Cromwell Protector so calld of these three Nations of England Scotland and Ireland and also to all you who are chosen out of the several parts thereof to sit in Parliament this day to consider of such things as concern the Common-wealth thereof and likewise to the three Nations themselves even to the Towns Cities Countries and all the subordinate Powers and people thereof whose Rulers and Representatives ye are which word of the Lord as you do not deeme your selves too high or too great or too good to be spoken too from the Lord and as you will not fall under the guilt of that sin of saying to the Seers see not and to the Prophets prophesy not prophesy not unto us right things prophesy smooth things prophesy deceipts which iniquity will prove such a breach among you if you do as you will never be able to make up again with all your wisdoms I charge you all in the name of the living God that without interruption or opposition whether you like or like it not you stand still and hear it and when I have done you may do with me as the Lord shall give you leave or leave me under the power of your hands to do no Law of Equity condemning any Man before he be heard specially when he speaks on so high an account as from the God of Heaven himself though to such as are no less than Gods under him here on Earth Ye are a seed of evill doers saith the Lord an Hypocriticall Generation a people whose heart is not right and whose spirit is not stedfast with the Lord ye have made many shews of seeking my face but ye have not yet found it because ye have not sought it in sincerity ye have talked much of turning unto me but ye have never done it yet with all your hearts but faignedly saith the Lord ye have seemed much to enquire after me in your long prayers as if ye did delight to know my ways but my ways which are ways of purity peace and pleasantness though grievous to the wicked ye yet know not so well as ye might do did ye stand in my Counsell and so far forth as ye do know of them ye have no delight to walk in them so straight and rugged are they to that Nature which ye yet remain in ye call out to me after light as if ye were very desirous to be enlightned but ye are haters of my light of my life saith the Lord even the light in the conscience which I have placed in every one of you to be a witness for me against your selves when ye do evill which if a Man believe in he shall not abide in darkness but shall see the light of life and come forth in my Image and likeness saith the Lord this ye come not closely to lest you should be reproved by it but love darkness more than it because your deeds are evill ye have fasted often and hung down your heads like a bulrush for a day but you have never yet fasted unto me saith the Lord you find your own pleasure still the bands of wickedness are not loosed you are captivated still in the Cords of your own sins neither have you in the midst of all your abstinencies abstained ever yet from the fleshly lusts which war against your souls but are as proud as ever as pompous and vain as ever as luxurious and wanton as covetous and earthly minded as self-seeking as time-serving as Men-pleasing as oppressing and unrighteous as before ye have often fasted for but never fully from your iniquities to this day saith the Lord you would be counted professors yea promoters of Religion but are indeed persecuters of the very life and power and of that people that do live in the life and power of that same Religion which inform and words ye have long professed the Christian Religion contained in the Scripture is that which in the 35th Article of your present Government ye say shall be held forth and recommended as the publick profession of the Nation and indeed many severall outward forms fashions and professions of that Christian Religion ye have run out into saith the Lord but the substance it self living in the spirit walking after the spirit keeping a Mans self out of the lusts of the flesh unspotted of the world which is the onely pure and undefiled and true Christian Religion the Scripture calls for this is rather held under and discommended than held forth and recommended by you any further than in a sound of words so long as such as do solidly unfainedly in truth and not in talk make publick profession of that are by all empty formalists in all places injured accused falsely unjustly censured and abused ye judge not the meek in righteousness ye condemn the generation of the just ones ye love lyars hurt the peaceable and destroy the dwellings of such as bring forth fruits unto me as your selves never yet did and that do you no harme saith the Lord Witness the sad sufferings of so many of my Saints and Servants that tremble at my word saith the Lord and are therefore commonly but scornfully called Quakers many of whose pretious ones of whom the world is not worthy as unworthy as they are thought to live in quiet in it have for these two or three years last past in some parts of the other two Nations and in most parts of this undergone tryalls of cruell mockings and scoffings revilings and derisions dayly also of stockings and stonings cruell and bloudy whippings and scourgings shamefull and despitefull intreatings and handlings halings out of Synagogues risings of people in rude and tumultuous manners upon them and such cruell kinds of bonds and imprisonments as those that are Malefactors in deed for such are objects of your pity while they suffer and not your hatred saith the Lord do seldome or never meet with castings into narrow nasty holes and stinking Dungeons wherein yet access of friends to minister to them is oft denyed them heavy and cruell fines which they can sooner choose to perish in prison as some have done than ever pay they being meerly by the wills of Man imposed upon them which fines will be at last a talent of lead upon their consciences that have set them and as the Gall of Aspes in their bowells that exact the payment these and such like things have my servants suffered among you some for one small matter some another but not for ought at which I am displeased or offended with them saith the Lord as namely some meerly for travelling to and fro to fulfill the Ministry they receive of God and to testifie the Gospell of his grac in obedience to him who hath layed such necessity on them so to do that woe be unto them from him if they do it not even as the Apostles and true Ministers of old did by the power of the Spirit of the Lotd upon them who passed up and down preaching
rain down snares and stumbling blocks upon you and my word which you stumble at out of the mouths of Babes and stammerers shal be unto you precept upon precept line upon line here a little and there a little that ye may go fall backward and be broken and snared and taken and your whole way shal be as slâ—ppery places in the dark and ye shal be driven on and fall therein and you shall look to your Seers but behold darkness they shall not be able to guide you they shal be as blind as your selves and though they shall flatter you with the name of Sion so long as you feed and pay them and cry peace peace while you honour them with your thanks for their pains and with your praises and put into their wide mouthed purses and shall say we see yet the vision of that destruction that is coming upon you and them shal be as a Book sealed a thick cloud shall cover them the day shal be dark over them the Sun shall set upon them and it shal be night unto them so that they shall not divine yea the understanding of all your prudent ones shal be brought to nought and the sword of the Lord shal be upon the Arme of the Idol Sheepheard and upon his right Eye his Arme shal be clean dryed up and his right Eye utterly darkned and when it shal be thus with you all that your feet are stumbling upon the dark Mountains and you tumbling up and down like a wilde Bull in a Net not knowing which way to get out of your perplexities and shall have wrestled so long in chains of darkness till ye come to that utter darkness which is the portion of all them that suppress the Light and their judgement at the great day now dawning upon the world though it sleeps and sees it not then shall you awake and remember that you had warning in time but would not receive it yea this word now spoken to you shall stand as a witness over your heads for ever and ye shall know that I the Lord have sent my Servant to speak all these words in your ears at this time in this place and thereby to the three Nations whose chosen Servants and Representatives ye are saith the Lord Almighty whose Counsel shall stand in the midst of all mans thoughts and who will work and none shall let it What shall one then answer the Messengers of the Nations even this that the Lord hath founded Zion and the poor of his people have betaken themselves unto it but all luxurious wantons and covetous worldlings all formall professors and dissembling hypocrites painted Sepulchers and whited walls base back-sliders and filthy lyars hyreling Priests and fawning Prophets and all proud oppressors wicked opposers and persecutors of Christ in his people can have no share in it but are shut out into the lake and gone down for ever with the uncircumcised into the pit which hath shut her mouth upon them there world without end to be confounded Given under my hand as that Testimony of Jesus which was given me in charge from him to deliver by word of Mouth if I might be heard at the time and place forenamed and now to give forth to the view of men in writing the truth of which I am made willing by the power of God upon me to seal if called thereunto and give testimony to with my blood Samuel Fisher THE SCORNED QUAKERS Second Account of his second attempt to give testimony to the truth of Jesus wherein is shewed both why and what so far as the Lord should have assisted he should have spoken by Commission from God had he had permission so to do by men to the Parliament and Ministers and people met together at Margarets in Westminster on the 24 day of this 7. month 1656. being the day appointed by them for their first publick humiliation ON the 22. day of this 7. month 1656. I even I Samuel Fisher being then in the City and happening to take notice of the Parliaments ordaining two dayes the one being by the joynt agreement of the Protector with them the 29. of the 8. month 1656. for all these three Nations together with them the other being the 24. of this 7. month 1656. set apart more peculiarly both by and for themselves as dayes of publick fasting and prayer for the humiliation both of themselves and of these Nations That notice I took passed by me as a thing of nought not taking any impression then upon my Spirit neither wot I then of any other thing but of returning to my own outward home soon after even so soon as I should have finished a transcription of my first account which that night I did well nigh finish also Nevertheless the next morning when I awaked I was with the Lord and his command came upon me to go again unto the Parliament and what people should be met together with them on the morrow and to give forth among them what he would give in unto me which what it should be yet I distinctly knew not which word was more black and more bitter in my belly than the fâ—rmer that came unto me before and by how much I gathered by my first entertainment that in this second service I should be less welcome and more troublesome to my self and them by so much was I tempted by the evill one to say as his servants out of fleshly fears have done before me Lord send by the hand of whom thou wilt send for thy word is made such a derision and reproach that its in vain to make mention of it any more in thy name for they will neither hear nor receive it thus though the Spirit in me had a willing ness to go yet a Lyon being in the way the flesh was very weak and fearfull nevertheless waiting from thenceforth with fasting on the Lord till the day after this service and their fast was fully over not without some weeping and supplication the Spirit of the Lord who was greater in me than he that is in the world waxed stronger than either he or I and did prevail so that in the pure fear of the Lord wherein onely his secrets are seen if not without any further fear yet without any further fainting for fear of any fleshly foes and at the will of the Lord which whatever became of me and of my house I saw was worthy to take place against mine own I at last very quietly and freely gave up to go and so was with them at the time appointed where hearing two of their three Ministers and abiding with much patience till they had fully done in the pure heat of my Spirit in which the word of the Lord even like a fire was often kindled so that my heart waxed very hot within me at last having a fit standing behind the seat of the houses Speaker I began to speak as the Spirit mov'd and gave utterance to me
before they had been so far onward in passing our and am not out of hopes but that they will patiently read me herein how ever but by many of that multitude that was mingled then among them who much like them who fell with one accord upon Paul accusing him that contrary to the Law he taught the worship of God and took Sosthenes and beat him before the very judgement Seat of Gallio the Governour he caring for none of those things 18 Act 12. 17. took and tore me from my standing tumbling and haling me to and fro and how far hitting me I name not sith I had no hurt I cannot say before his face for his back was then turned to pass away but while the Protector was yet in presence howbeit not knowing happily what they did which incivility of theirs I now mention not to shame any of those men that shamed themselves if they be not such unjust ones as know no shame too much in the very acting it yet O Lord lay not that their sin unto their charge but to shew them how much more uncivill they were when they had done in laying their own sin to my charge for howbeit I was wholly innocent as to any breach of peace in coming thither in a peaceable manner to shew them the way to the true peace which they know not yet as it ever did upon the Lord himself and all his Prophets who when they were most disturbed were made disturbers whereupon I rejoyce and am contented disturbance arose upon me and not onely so but even by the Justice of Peace in whose custody I was a while as well as by the rest who made the ront I was accused as a wanderer that went about disturbing of the peace But the day is now dawning and that true light shining forth which will shew as the book of conscience comes on to be opened and it cannot now be much longer closed that such as are run out and gone astray from the light of the Lord and cry peace peace to themselves in their sins and in their wicked disturbings of his truth are the chief vagabonds and peace-breakers both in their own souls and in the Nations sith there begins to be from henceforth for ever and is to be from henceforth more than ever no peace saith my God unto the wicked Now as to all those that were then so rude and unreasonable as to say it was both unmannerly and unseasonable for me to offer to speak then and there though in the Name and power of the living God as if it were King Jeroboams Chapell or some place so priviledged by the Lord God himself from having any of his word dropped there that none of his Prophets may come near it I advise them to consider that the word of God as it is worthy to be tarryed for by Man and waited for by Man so it cannot as the words of trencher-Chaplains often if not ever do tarry for Man nor wait for Man it ever comes at his own will and not at the will of Man but in a Cross to it even his will who speaks and his who is spoken to the Spirit blows as well when as where it lists and the Man that is born after the flesh may hear the sound thereof but cannot tell whence it comes nor whether it goes nor what his being nor way nor time nor season is who is borne after the Spirit and therefore ever opposes and contradicts him fancying that which the other knows to be most in season to be most out of season and holding the word which is to be preached both in and out of season most unsutable and unseasonable at the time and place when and where if it be not spoken no other time or place to speak it in acceptably unto God can be found either sutable or seasonable and just so no otherwise as will appear by these presents to any but the blind was the case in that my speaking of it which is here spoken for and proved to be both just and warrantable in my faithfull tendring of my self to the speaking of which as I was commanded I am delivered from the terror of the Lord and the blood of these three Nations which would have been upon my head if for either fear or favour I had rebelled against his spirit and forborn to bear my Testimony against those transgressions of these times which makes them perilous and how hardly soever I am both judged and spoken of in the dark night of Mans day yet in the Lords own light I see my acceptance with him and abide in that peace which far passes all their understandings that for the truths sake shall ever trouble me and which I would not want for want of obeying for all that outward peace and prosperity of those I would have spoken to put together if they be at peace under the power of any sin and in the Generall day of the Lords judgement which is near upon them I shal be cleared to have done nothing amiss in that Matter and nothing but what was in true love not onely to the Lord but also to their souls who may probably hate me for my offering to tell them the truth nevertheless that in the mean time truth may not bear all the blame as it hitherto hath done in all ages and places of those hurryes and stirs that are about it in the world to which it s no way accessary as the cause thereof for that Mens lusts who hate it but as an occasion I was since then moved of the Lord sith I was not heard to write this one sillable of which neither was before nor else was to have been for ought I know committed to writing and at my return to my own home whether if he please I am now passing to leave a testimony behind me of my innocency in the case wherein most that hear of it may hold me guilty in order whereunto and in obedience to his Motion I have given forth not onely what goes before as a manifestation of what true right I had then and there to speak but also that which follows wherein excepting onely what is annexed in the Margent is the very sum thereof as a Manifestation of what true and right things might have been spoken as they were committed to me from God to speak by his own power assisting had I been permitted to speak by Men or had not Satan been permitted as at other times also he hath to enterpose his power and been found resisting by his Assistants The sum and substance of the Messuage it self and for the most part the very order and forme of words which could I have been heard I should have spoken in THe burden of the word of the Lord God of Heaven and of earth as it came unto me on the 22th day of the last Month and as it now lyeth upon me to declare it in his Name both unto thee even unto thee Oliver
Lord with fear and trembling ye serve him every one of you in your own persons and obey him by putting a way the filth of your own Spirits sweeping every one of you your own houses first even your own hearts that they may be fit Temples to receive the King of Glory that he may come into them and ye be made holy habitations for God through the Spirit and cast the beams out of your own eyes else thou hypocrite how wilt thou see to meddle to mend others that are blind thou being blind also if the blind lead the blind and the blind go about to order the blind they will all fall into the ditch be ye therefore personally reformed as Men from all your own vanities of heart and pride of Life else the counsel of all those that put press you on to the serving of him as Magistrates by making national reformations and Reformations in the Church as they call it who know not yet the true Church which is in God and needs none of that arme of flesh and magistraticall help which the false false Church calls for and in its Government Ministry and maintenance and by helping of Christ against his enemies and Hereticks whom yet I plead not for and such like will be turned as Achitophells into foolishness and the Reformations will be but Deformations at the best and both you and your Church and Ministry whose lips you mainly take Counsell at and not at the Lord himself and his Spirit shall be at your wits ends even you that they call to for help and they that call to you for help shall both fail together and none shall help either of you and those that have misguided you into by-wayes even blind and bloody ways of suppressing Saints as Hereticks by your Civil sword you shall at last be forc't to leave and look to your selves and run in holes of the earth to hide you from the face of the Lamb and from his wrath and they shall be even smitten with shame and madness to see all their ways turn'd as they have turned the ways of God upside down and esteemed as the Potters Clay therefore kiss the Son turn to him seek his face see him and submit to him in his own Light walk with him in his own way lest he be angry and you perish for ever from the way of your own eternall peace yea not as one reading it in the Letter onely and out of that amplyfying it to you or as one having it by hear-say onely from those that felt it and so wrote of it for so many a one can tell you much of the terribleness of Gods wrath and that talk may be a bug-bear too to terrify your hearts a while howbeit that terrour will wear out after a while but as one that hath witnessed it and been made in some measure to know the power of his wrath and feel the weight of his hand in my own conscience opening its black Jaws upon me of late to the affrightment of me for all my old sins and bringing me to judgement for them for judgement now begins though the wicked among whom it is to end see it not at the House of God therefore no marvail if there be so much trembling in the true Church as now there is and so much paleness on Jacobs face for it is the day of his trouble and travel out of which yet ere long he will be saved and Esau and his seed come into it in his stead yea as knowing by a sense thereof the terrour of the Lord I perswade you all people to take heed to your ways by the Light of the Lord least he tear you as a moth or as a Lion and lest his wrath be let forth in the full vials of it upon you which if it be kindled but a little blessed then indeed are all they and all they that do so well know it also even all they that trust in him moreover all ye people and you that are the Representatives of the people think not your fast is done when the Sun is down and your service done when your Sermon is done as many do who look for one day towards Heaven and then after live as if hell it self were broken loose again upon them but know that your business is now to begin after you have humbled your selves and are got up from the ground where you lay before the Lord now are you to live over all that good that hath been yet but talkt on many good and excellent things though some also that might not unjustly be excepted against have been spoken among you and prest upon you I acknowledge for far be it from me not to give every one his due by the men that have preached before you this day in my hearing yet much more in the words which mans wisdome teacheth than in the words which the holy Spirit teacheth who giveth utterance to them he sends yea both what and how to speake even in that hour they are to speake in nor are they so sollicitous if they be called before Kings and Governours to give testimony to the truth so as before hand to take thought for it much less by way of preparation to pen it down and so to preach it out of notes as is the usual course of your national men and a course used before you at this day I say many good things you have heard and good words and fair speeches which Paul saith they may use who serve not God but their own bellys whereby to deceive the hearts of the simple now see that they be turned by you into good works and let it not suffice that a sound of words hath passed from their mouths and pierced your ears as if there were an end of the matter or at least as if when as private men you are come home to your own houses or as Parliament men into your place of sitting and have according to the common custome and their expectation sent them the great thanks of the House for their great pains then you are quit of what is required be not deceived God is not so mocked nor will he be put off with such slender shews and complemental services which mens Religion mostly lyes in while they lye in the dead and fleshly night of mans day and till they come to be in the Spirit on the Lords Day in this hour wherein his own day is approaching but know that for all this if ye go on again to sow to the flesh when you are ripe in corruption you shall reape condemnation and if the ground of your hearts still brings forth Briars and Thorns it is nigh unto cursing and its end is to be burned and if this be all the fruits of your fastings to continue the same men you were or rather to waxe worse and worse as such ever do that grow not better by such services and oh how often is it so seen at this day in
THE SCORNED QUAKERS True and honest Account both why and What he should have spoken as to the sum and substance thereof by Commission from God but that he had not permission from Men in the Painted Chamber on the 17th day of the 7th month 1656. before the Protector and the Parliament then and there met together with many more of no mean account who were not of them yet were then crowded in among them ON the 22th day of the 6. Month 1656. it being two dayes after the Generall Election of Members of Parliament for the severall Counties of this Nation the word of the Lord came unto me even unto me Samuel Fisher at my own outward being at Lid in Kent saying go thou unto the Protector and the Parliament when they shall be met together in the Painted Chamber at Westminster on the day appointed for the first sitting of this Parliament and there speak among them what I shall bid thee even the words that I shall in the mean time put into thy minde and at that time into thy Mouth which Motion howbeit at that present I was still and quiet and not unwilling if the Lords will were to continue it upon me but sweetly satisfyed within me to obey it yet was afterwards at sundry times even so oft as flesh and blood drew me to consult with it attended with no small Commotion in my Minde and being often held under a sense of the tediousness and terribleness of so great and weighty a service which the Carnall part that ever opposeth and till it be subdued oppresseth the Pure did still represent of dangerous consequence to me as to the outward I was taken at times as Christs Ministers often were 1 Cor. 2. 3. who were approved to be his by the tumults they were in for the truths sake as well as by other things 2 Cor. 6. 5. with some weakenesses of mind and no small fears and tremblings Nevertheless being called of the Lord to seek his face yet further even seven or eight dayes together with fasting tears and supplications for the full clearing up of his Mind unto Me in that Matter and his strengthning of me to it in case he would not excuse me in it nor send his Message by the Mouth of any other beside my self than whom O Lord thow knowest I thought a more unworthy one could not be singled out among all thy Saints that are impolyed publickly about thy service besides the dayly supplyes of new evidences and refreshments to my spirits during all the time of that abstinence which was a fast not of mine but of the Lords own choosing which kind of fasts the formall fasters of this age are not acquainted with the Mistery of nor ever will be till they come out from the outward Court wherein they dwell trampling the holy City into the inward Temple and that inward acquaintance with the voice of God which in the holy of holys onely is to be had on the 9th day waiting upon God after the receiving of something for the sustenance of my outward I was also more then ordinarily sustained in my inward Man Yea the Lord not onely put it out of doubt and perfectly sealed it up to me that it was his mind that I must go which I had all along desired earnestly that I might never do at my own will if it were not his but also forbear to be a terror to me himself as he had been very often by fits not without speciall reference to my good for these many months together wherein his hand hath been very heavy on my Family making me moreover by his wrath in a renewed sense of all my old sins even those of my youth which he made me anew to possess sometimes a very terror to my self and lastly to take away all that terror that was wont to arise in me from the weightiness of the work under hand and removed all my fears of the frowns of mans face and counter-pleaded all my pleas to him that I should not speak for fear and that they would not hear me such like with the often iteration of what he supported his Messengers by of old viz. whether they will hear or whether they will forbear for its like they will be rebellious enough and make their necks as an iron sinew yet go thou and be not afraid nor dismayed at their faces lest I confound thee before them whereupon having received such a charge from the Lord without any more gainsaying or giving any heed to flesh and blood I from thenceforth concluded unalterably to be there and accordingly was there at the time appointed and began to speak so soon as possibly I could get conveniency of a standing after the Protector had done his speech but so it was that by the grievousness of the crowd that was there and the violence of five or six more barbarous than all the rest that stood about me who hearing me say with desires to them of room of whom I hoped to have had assistance in order to the audience of the rest that I had a word to speak from the Lord to the Protector the Parliament and the People set me at nought some saying the Protector had spoken long and was very hot and weary and I might be ashamed to occasion his stay now any longer some crying a Quaker a Quaker keep him down he shall not speak I was hindred a while and held under of them by the utmost force they could use till there was a rising to go away and the Protector was with the sword and Maces before him descended and departing from his Chair but the word of the Lord burning then as a fire in my bowells so that I could not but speak whether I should be heard yea or nay for I was weary with forbearing it forced me to crowd in and stand between two of them that stood before me on a form and so spoke whether they would or no and whether it were fit for me to obey God or these Men that had no power there to forbid me but the power of darkness judge ye but having spoken with much difficulty so much as is contained in about half a dozen lines of what is here under written in which the Protector and Parliament are onely named and before I came to that by which I was moved of the Lord in his Name to be speak and challenge their attendance I was forthwith unpeaceably prohibited not by the Protector himself whose Nobility in hearing what is said whether he heeded it yea or nay as it hath been experienced heretofore so I am as free to acknowledge it here as Paul was to take notice of the like in Festus whom he held most noble in that he would hear him though he thought him Mad nor yet by any one of the Parliament Men that I know of a of whom I am perswaded that together with the Protector they would have heard could I have spoken
and had no certain dwelling place and yet though counted the very scum of the world as these are now by you were neither rogues nor vagabonds saith the Lord some for onely entring into the Synagogues whose doors stand open for all Men and there either doing nothing or declaring sometimes in deed before but sometimes not till after all is ended even as the movings of the Lord are upon them against the false worships and hireling Priests thereof that Divine for money and the people that love to have it so which both Christ and the Prophets and Apostles of old did even there cry woe against and yet were neither disturbers nor Malefactâ—rs saith the Lord some for not having the faith of God with respect of persons which who so have are convinced of the Law as transgressors some for not giving flattering titles unto Men not honouring them in their own way of bowing before them not stooping to their wills beyond either sense or reason which the Law of God flatly forbiddeth some for not putting off the Hat to them or standing bare-headed before them which no Law at all of either God or Man commandeth but is onely one of those many customs of the Heathen which are vain and so vain is this especially as the complementall Cringers and foolish fashion-followers of this vain age use it that men may with as much civility put off and require the putting off of their Coats one to another and to as much good purpose saith the Lord some for using the plain English of Thee and Thou to Men though it be the most proper speech to a single person whether you speak to God or the greatest Men witness your own translation of the Scripture into your own English tongue in all which it can't be found from one end thereof to the other where the word you is made use of when no more but one person is spoken to besides what evidence is given in from other tongues to the truth of this save onely that meer pride and respect of persons doth both improperly and impudently plead to have severall sorts of speaking to severall sâ—rts of people in this brutish Nation and adulterous Generation saith the Lord some for telling lyars in plain terms onely of their lying which to do is held to be such reviling as deserves little less than half hanging among many though there is no more reall hurt but that falshood and foolish custome hath perverted the true being of many things and your true seeing almost of any things as they are in saying to him that lyeth Thou lyest than in saying to him that sweareth Thou swearest saith the Lord some for not paying of tythes even to them that they neither do nor can in Conscience ever own to be their Pastours though they hinder no Men from paying them that have a Mind to it and whose Consciences compell them even that way to maintain their own Ministers which as the Gospell is against the paying of by Christs flock to their own Shepheards that feed them much more to such Shepheards as whether they will or no do fleece but never feed them so no Law in this Land can compell any Man to pay at all in case he be minded whether out of Covetousness or Conscience to refuse it the Ecclesiastical Courts being clear taken away and there being an express Statute extant remaining yet unrepealed that it shall not be lawfull for any to sue for tythes in any Temporall or in any but in Ecclesiasticall Courts nor for any to be summoned before any secular Judge to give in any answer about that Matter and therefore what condition the Judges are in that now meddle with it who are sworn not to do against any Statute Law of the Land let the light in their own Consciences be judge for to that measure of my light in them by which I am coming to be a swift witness against the false swearer as well as every other evill doer do I now speak and appeal saith the Lord some for no more than bare going out of duty to God to visit their imprisoned and afflicted friends have been sent back without the sight of them and some with passes as Rogues Vagabonds and idle wanderers though they have been of sufficient worth as to the outward also and have never either begged or stole and others are taken up by the way to their friends and put by whole heaps together in prison and there kept till they can buckle so low to the wills of Men against all Law and Conscience as to say if the Lord will they will go back without effecting their intended lawfull business of visiting Christ in prison which woe to them that do not much more woe to them that do imprison him or not go on in that their honest undertaking witness that sinfull shamefull business at Exeter where are no less than between ten and twenty at once in prison meerly for going to see friends in prison at another place and there held unless they will find sureties for their good behaviour or pass their words if the Lord will to go which way they would have them as if the Land were not free for Men that are bound by the Law of God to a good behaviour to pass up and down in about none but lawfull occasions without binding themselves thereunto and so giving it for granted that they have misbehaved themselves when they have not upon every malicious Officers unruly will or Magistrates slender and meer groundless suspition b Thus is my people made a prey of saith the Lord for which in speciall as for all other of your evills have I had a controversy with you and my hand hath been against you saith the Lord so that you have not prospered in your undertakings ye have travelled much in your Councells but ye have brought forth little ye have wrought no deliverance in the earth to any perfection neither have your enemies fallen before you of late as in former dayes but ye have fallen even woderfully before them ye have sown iniquity and reaped meer vanity ye have sown wind and reaped a whirlewind even a grievous whirlewind of wrath from the Lord which falls with much pain upon your heads of distractions divisions jealousies one of another and suspitions fractions and factions confusion contention disappointment and vexation upon vexation ye have sown to the flesh and there is come up a crop of corruption that hath made you fit fuell for the fire of mine indignation which is kindled and except ye repent will ere long waxe burning hot against you till it have consumed you into nothing Wherefore now thus saith the Lord God unto you ye stiffe-necked and stout hearted ones who though ye talk of it yet are far from my righteousness yee high and sturdy Oakes of Bashan ye tall and haughty Cedars of Lebanon come down and sit in the dust and humble your selves under my mighty hand which is
but what patience the Rulers would have had with me had not the people been so unruly as to hinder me I know not the multitude gave me but little audience for no sooner did I cry aloud as I was bidden to do and lift up my voice like a trumpet to tell them of their sins and their transgressions which in the visions of the Lord I saw for all their fasts if not fasted from would be their ruin but I was handled after the old sort as at other times even hurled from my place and haled up and down by some and thulched on the breast by others that I might not speake and speaking notwithstanding in the power of the Lord all along as I went with my face inward toward the Auditory so much of the burden that was on me as will leave them without excuse and witness against them for ever yet whether they will hear or forbear they were warned by word of mouth from the Lord to repent born away by the people and at last thrust backwards out of doors such were then the fruits yea even the first fâ—uits of that dayes fast and yet not the first fruits of such like fasts as are ordained and observed at the will of man for such like and far worse fruits even more despitefull doings to the Lords servants for their obedience unto him and declaring the truth when he had sent them in love their very souls that do hate them have before this attended some other Parochiall fasts in some other places which rude doings of the people then I le not impute either to the Magistrates or to the Ministers that were there sith in that croud if they would they could not help it though in many places both Magistracy and Ministry may find cause in their own consciences to condemn themselves as accessary to the sufferings of the Lords servants by their discountenancing of them in the work of the Lord and their connivance at these that do abuse them nor do I relate these things as one at all disturbed at what disturbance then befell my self for verily I have my peace and am at rest in the Lord at rest in my bed with all those who are every one of them found walking in his uprightness however the tongue is drawn out and a wide mouth made against them by the sons of the Adulterer and the whore and however I am judged of by the naturall man that hath the vail still ore his face and lives yet but in the dimme Moon-shine of mans day of judgement who takes upon him to judge before his time and so speaks evill of what he knows not it matters not much sith among those spirituall men that judge all while themselves are truly judged of no men who see with open face as being in the Spirit and in the Sun-shine of the Lords day arising on them I am not unknown nor to the Lord and so could most sweetly sit down in silence nevertheless that the truth may be still kept clear from the clouds of false censures with which it is often overcast to the darkning of it so that men who might else embrace it thereby perish from the blessed sight of it and that for ever I am again moved and made willing by the Lord at my departure hence to my own outward being which as it had likely been ere this if this service had not been put upon me so if the Lord so please may be so soon as it is performed to unburden my self in writing of that heavy burden of the Lords word that lay upon me to have spoken at the time and place forementioned and to leave behind me that which is written hitherto to declare what true Right I had then and there to speake and that which now follows after to declare what true and right things might have been spoken so far as the Lord should have drawn me forth and enlarged me in the uttering of them as he hath since to writing of them here if I might have spoken without resistance Samuel Fisher THE BURDEN OF THE MESSAGE OF The Lord it self as it lay on me from the Lord to speak it or so much of it as he had I had mans leave to speak should have been pleased to assist me to utter and as it lay upon me from him and was given in unto me by him in this fiery flying Role to commit to writing THus saith the Lord Repent O all ye sinners that are here present both Ministers and people and ye powers of the Earth for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand the Kingdom of our God and of his Christ is at hand That Kingdom into which no unclean thing nor unclean person no Drunkard no Riotous one no Epicure nor Belly-God nor worldling nor wanton nor self-seeker nor time server nor men-pleaser nor backslider nor dissembler nor formall professour nor proud one nor any transgressour of any sort whatsoever shall ever enter unless he be justifyed washed and sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God And therefore I say unto you all again in the name and power and in the word of the living God yea thus saith the Lord God himself unto you all though by an earthen vessell Repent and that not of nor for onely as hitherto ye have often done but also from all your iniquitiâ—s Repentance not for but from dead works is the very first of those first principles of the Oracles of God which till ye come not to talk of barely for there is too much of that while so little of the other to witness ye have not yet for all the fair shews ye have made in the flesh by your forms and your frequent namings of the name of Christ so much as truly begun to be true Christians nor are your mournings of any worth at all till ye come to mourn with that Godly sorrow that worketh repentance to salvation the sorrowing after a Godly sort it worketh care and fear to offend and zeal and desire and indignation and taking a revenge upon your selves and such like so that at last ye overcome and return not again to those iniquities ye mourned for so that what pride and filthiness and wickedness of any kind ye see and are sensible of in your selves and are afflicted for you cease from and fall into no more for ever which to do is according to the true Proverb like the Dog to return to his vomit again and the Swine after washing to wallowing in the mire that repentance which brings to a salvation of you from those sins you profess to repent of is the onely true repentance that can stand you in any stead in the sight of God all other will come once to be repented of yea thus saith the Lord God repent ye this day not onely for your sins but for all your old repentances and for all your humiliations and all your fastings also in which services you