foundation which is not of my building to pluck up root and branch and all which is not of my planting I have said to my Messengers and servants go ye up upon her walls break down her battlements bull-works for they are not mine level all to the ground and let them not be built for ever and ever Amen saith my soul. And it is God's rich mercy love and compassion that he hath brought this day over you could ye but open your eyes to see it and some shall see that ye may suffer loss in these things which have been and are a loss and snare unto you The 10 th Month 1664. from the Tolbouth of Aberdein George Keith The word of commandement from the Lord which filled me with heavenly joy and comfort came unto me the 30. day of the 10 th Month called December saying Shew unto the people of Scotland my true and righteous judgement concerning the particulars above-mentioned And now however these be received by you I have peace in my God The blessed long looked for day of God broke up amongst us the Lords people called Quakers with a declaration of the Lords loving kindness to us and what he hath done for our Souls in causing the light of his countenance to shine on us And a brief description of our Church Ministry Word Worship order and Government And a Proclamation of the foresaid day of the Lord to the People of Scotland in judgment and mercy With a loving Exhortation unto them and dear and tender counsel concerning what the Lord requires of them in order to a perfect and thorow reformation which they have often assayed but never as yet come at Also a few words to such who expect the breaking up of the day of God and yet deny it broke up among us Written in the fear and will of the Lord and in bowels of love and compassion to the people of my native Country THe day of God is the Revelation of his living and eternal arm in and among the children of men to put an end to transgression and recover lost man to the blessed holy pure innocent state wherein he was created by God who breathed in him the breath of life and he became a living soul it 's the setting up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ the eternal King of righteousness in the hearts of the Sons and Daughters of Adam and the pulling down the Kingdom of Satan who hath ruled over the sons of men as God and swayed his Scepter as an absolute Monarch in the earth It 's the arising of the Son of righteousness with healing under his wings in the shinings forth of his pure Light for the dispelling the the thick Egiptian darkness that hath long covered the earth and brought upon the Inhabitants a sad sore and dismal night wherein the blessed sweet and amiable countenance of God hath been eclipsed and vailed from men whereby they could not live to God for that life is in the light which by the power and prevalency of darkness hath been much shut up so that it hath not shined forth in its glorious brightness upon mankind It 's the pouring forth of the Spirit of the Lord upon all flesh and the breathing of life upon the dead bones that they may stand up and live with flesh and sinews in strength beauty and comeliness of proportion It 's the manifestation and discovery of that great and glorious mystery hid from ages and generations Christ within the hope of glory Jesus Christ in his powerful spiritual glorious heavenly appearance in his Saints triumphing victoriously over death and hell and all the powers of darkness giving to his Saints to sit down with him upon his throne and making them partakers of that glory he had with the Father before the world began It 's the bringing of many from the East and from the West and from the North and from the South to sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of God and the gathering of his elect seed from the four winds of the earth which hath been long scattered and pended up in the holes and caves thereof lying in death bondage and captivity The day of God is the redemption of his beloved seed and raising it up out of the grave to live in the blessed and glorious presence of its God It 's the marriage day of the Spouse with the Lamb and the bringing of her into the Chamber of Presence and the Banquetting-house where she is entertained with the sweet fellowship and communion of the noble plant of renown the beloved of her souls and under his shadow she sitteth down with great delight and his fruit is pleasant to her taste where she gets access to him in the bed of love and sees his sweet comely soul-ravishing countenance and hears the sweet melodious voice which pierceth the heart with darts of love so that she is constrained to cry Stay me with apples comfort me with flagons for I am sick of love turn away thy face from me for it hath ravished me being filled with the glory of his Majesty that the sight of it is scarce tollerable in the house of clay which often trembles at the Revelation of the weight of glory The day of the Lord is the tabernacling and habitation of himself with men the Immanuel God in us bringing them up out of all visible and corruptible perishing things into fellowship with him and his Son through the eternal Spirit It 's the dispensation of the new Covenant taking place in the earth the tenour whereof is I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my People and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto che greatest saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more Jer. 31. And again I will sprinkle clean water upon you and yee shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your Idols will I cleanse you a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and yee shall keep my Iudgements and do them and yee shall dwell in the Land that I gave to your Fathers and yee shall be my People and I will be your God Ezek. 36. It 's the coming down of the new Ierusalem from above out of Heaven upon the Earth cloathed with the Garments of Salvation the Lambs Glory which is her Light so that She needeth not Sun nor Moon nor Candle and the pure white linnen which is the Righteousness of the Saints It 's the causing the old Heavens and the old Earth to pass away and the
open the Scripture for the edification of the people and it was appointed so to be afterwards as is evident by the Books of Policy and Discipline framed and presented to the Council Anno 1560. which thing by you is called disorder and confusion and it was an usual practice among them without distinction of Clergy-man or Layely when they met together to speak of the things of God and of his work on their hearts every one according to his gift and these who spake were not distinguished from these who heard by the name of Master and stepping up into a Pulpit and by getting the hands of so many laid upon them or by a black Gown or Canonical coat And Iohn Husse an eminent Instrument of the Reformation and Preacher in Germany did wear a gray coat which he gave to his friend some dayes before his death as Fox's Book of Martyrs relates And ye that are so much against Women-preachers some of you may remember upon a day when ye met together apart men and women and spoke of the operation of God on your hearts without the distinction of Sex and women allowed dearly to exhort pray or speak of God's dealings with their souls and now ye would bring Paul's words against womens speaking in the Church or rather against Christ the man his speaking in them being ignorant what women Paul meant when he wrote that he permitted not the women to speak in the Church now are not two or three or half a dozen of men and women fearing God gathered in his Name a true Church or are not two or three godly women met together a Church though a man be not among them and may they not exhort one another and pray and give thanks together and is not that speaking in the Church and the Scripture speaks of a Church in one family and if a woman or rather the man Christ speaking in the woman may speak in the audience of six or twelve why not in the audience of six or twelve hundred and the woman having experience of God's work on her heart and who hath felt the love of God shed abroad in her soul is she not fitter to speak of those things then a hundred men who are ignorant thereof So foolish are ye become in your reasonings and there are many living yet in the Nation who remember of women who have spoke so feelingly so lively and experimentally of the Lord's work upon their hearts that many eminent Preachers and Ministers so accounted have thought shame to open their mouth in their presence 8. Your Fathers the primitive Protestants and Reformers made not Latine Greek and Hebrew and Aristotle's Logick and Philosophy with other humane Learning and the passing of so many years course at the Colledge and that you call School-divinity the qualifications of a Minister of Christ many yea the most of them never was at Colledge nor had the opportunity of any to go unto unless to a Popish nor had they any of these Languages or curious Arts but were honest plain simple men such as ye now call Rusticks and Tradesmen many of them and yet they passed among your Fathers for Ministers but if these men were alive now ye would cry Away with them non-sensical fellows what can they say they are not learned should ignorant men preach should Wives Shoo-makers Plow-men Herds-men be Ministers of Christ should they incroach upon our sacred Function should not they hold them with their Callings So say ye against many of us who are not Book-learned and are Tradesmen and this same was the very plea of the Papists against your fore-fathers being Ministers See how ye have borrowed their weapons whereby they fought against them whose successors ye boast your selves to be but as these Popish arguments were too weak against them so are they against us for our answer to you is though we be not taught with humane Learning nor have the Languages many of us wherein the Scriptures were writ yet we are taught of God and that is better we have been with Jesus and have been made eye-witnesses of his Majesty and yee are worse then the Iews who crucified Christ for when they admired that Peter being an unlearned man did preach yet this caused their admiration to cease they took notice that he had been with Jesus as we have been and some of us can truly say whereof I am one we have learned more in one hours company with Jesus then we did in seven years from the Gamaliels and Rabbies among you at whose feet we have so long sitten and we are come to the Spirit of God that gave forth the Scriptures and gives us their meaning and sence though we have not the Languages and which all the Languages of the world cannot afford to us and though many of us know not to preach in the excellency of mans wisdom and some of us who could yet have renounced it and dare not use such a way lest the Cross of Christ should be of none effect yet we can speak and have spoken in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit the words which the holy Ghost teacheth us and he hath made us able Ministers of the new Testament not of the letter which kills but of the Spirit which gives life and God hath blessed our Ministry so that many unto whom we have ministred have been quickned and brought into the fellowship of the Gospel with us and such a Ministry had Paul which he learned not of man and yet had Book-learning enough and such a Ministry God hath raised up in this day which is the free gift of God to which I bear my testimony and a part of which I have received and now is that Promise fulfilled and fulfilling in many hundreds I will make a new Covenant with them and they shall be all taught of me from the least to the greatest and I will write my Law in their hearts in a Language which is neither Hebrew nor Greek but such as he that is born of the Spirit can only understand and I will put my fear in their inward parts And now our hearts are come to delight in the fear of God which teacheth us the hidden mysterious wisdom which none of the Princes or Rabbies of this world knows and by the Word and Law of God writ in our hearts we are made wiser then our Teachers and when this dispensation shall fill the earth as it is doing what shall then become of the Scribe what shall become of the Senator what shall become of the Doctor and Rabby and Disputer of this World who spoke to us in a Language that neither they themselves nor we could understand but now saith the Lord as Isa. 33.19 Thou shalt not see a fierce people a people of deep speech that thou cannot perceive of a stammering tongue that thou canst not understand Glory to God the pure Language is known which was before Babylon was wherein the many Languages
concernes you near consider of it in soberness and yee shall truly find it your very case at this day as then it was theirs that same spirit for the outward in opposition to the inward Ministration acting now as then and heightned in its actings now more then ever O who◠shall that be dead to you or yee to it wherein yee have been 〈◊〉 long held from beholding the Glory of the Lord as it comes forth in the work of this day And how contrary to and inconsistant with it that work was which by might and power yee were leading on though yee had attained what yee so proposed in the furthest and highest extent of that uniformity which yee so endeavoured to have imposed upon all are yee not yet sensible of your mistakes and snares in these matters so as to be made willing to glorifie God as some of you have it may be ingeniously gratified men with a humble confession of your over-reachings and other guiltiness brought upon your selves and the people of these Nations Truly Friends however this may relish with you yet yee will find yee are called to it even to own your shame for so setting up your posts and thresholds by his that so yee may come to have the true forme of the house and fashion thereof shewn unto you Are yee not sensible that as unwise Sons yee have stayed too too long in the place of the breaking forth of Children do yee not yet perceive how that the Bridegroom is really departed and the Children the Children of the Bridechamber called to mourning So will it be before the enjoyments of Christ as the Bridegroom or first Husband be parted with yet this must yee come to know and condescend unto that so yee may be marryed to another even to him raised from the dead Thy dead men shall live sayes the Prophet together with my dead body shall they arise the Dead and the Living body consider for there 's much in it and very much that concerns you nearly to look to for as their mistake who crucified him was their not discerning his living body for if they had but so known him they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory so a mistake in the other persisted in brings under no less hazard then being given up to crucifie him over again eating and drinking of the damnation spoken of 1 Cor. 11. is where this discerning of the Lords body is not rightly made the dead and crucified body from the living body the living soul as its first from the quickning Spirit which follows after the letter and out ward teachings so much cryed up with all the fruits and effects of the one though a very blessed and comfortable enjoyment in its place and kind yet being but that which made nothing perfect it s now no less necessary to be parted with then at that time it was else the comforter as the blessed effect of the other cannot come nor can he be supposed so to become where his immediate teachings are so slighted and cryed out against Many times hath it been in my heart thus to have spoken some few words unto you as these who I dearly love in the Lord and to whom I stand by many bonds obliged if in any service I could be useful but being somewhat sensible what I had to do in my own particular case and not altogether unacquainted with the deceipt of the busie enemy who in this day lies so near ready to draw out the mind to vent its own imaginations and to speak of the things of God without his warrant I have hitherto withholden in expectation of a more fit opportunity and a clearer warrant to go about it which upon the perusal of these ensuing Papers was very clearly given to me And indeed the subject spoken to and the truths asserted in them had been some years ago much on my heart and seriously enquired after and that this search and enquiry was of the Lord attended with a blessing to me I can very clearly testifie and finding the same things for the most part so sweetly and with such a spirit of meekness offered unto you I find it only my duty at present to be concuring in my Testimony as agreeing fully with what in them is said as most fit and necessary to be seriously minded by you Dear Friends it is high time for you to awake and consider what yee are doing there is another thing to be brought forth in this day then yee have yet conceived of And your guiltiness for opposing it is greater then yee are yet aware of nor will your apparent zeal for God and his ordinances which hath with some of you hitherto layen very near your hearts this I do think it hath been and that yet it may be in a measure with some of you where singleness of heart in any measure yet remains serve the turn if yee so persist in the way of provocation Consider if something of the same snare and tentation be not on you as was on them who so zealously contended for Moses and the Prophets the same was their plea and upon the same grounds did they go on to the rejecting and crucifying of Christ as yee some of you ignorantly and others more perversly are in the way to do at this day bear with my freedom for truly I can say it there is no bitterness nor passion at my heart while thus I use it but the deep sence of the dreadful hazard yee are runing hath drawn it from me that if so in the will of the Lord yee may return to your first love and so imbrace the guide of your youth again the missing and departing from whom hath alwayes been the cause of our Fathers the first Protestants their short comings and mistakes of the work of God as well as of ours that they were not in every thing come to own their true guide though in some things they did it and according to the simplicity that was in them they were sweetly ordered by him and accepted of him And thus was it with them and so hath it been with many who succeeded them and was it not so of late among us also yea eminently so it was both in Scotland England and Ireland mainly in this our great sin and guiltiness as the foundation of all our mistakes and failings it s aggravated exceedingly beyond and above what was theirs that the discovery of this duty of waiting to find the immediate direction of our guide in every thing as absolutely necessary and at the very time when more fully and universally then ever formerly it was bestowed being more clearly come and coming forth then to them in that day it was yet now more then ever which is dreadful to think of is it both disowned and persecuted even by them whom I well knew to have sometimes sweetly enjoyed the blessed effects of the spirits immediate teachings in themselves and so to have been instrumental to the
not in the least their persecuters And if as yet yee cannot receive what they offer yet beware to reject it or to judge of it because yee cannot as yet close with it the time may come when yee shall both see and receive it If the work they are about be of God as undoubtedly it is then it must prosper beware therefore to be found any more in opposing of it least yee also be found fighters against God As for me I am but a child and as one of yesterday yet through Grace I am what I am and as I own that state wherein I was when I walked with you for truly I can say there was a measure of singleness and sincerity within me in it and therefore I may not disown it nor any while they so continue there if they be not wilfully opposing further discovery yet this I verily know and can truly say I then was and now am called of the Lord to go further forgeting the things that are behind to press forward for the prise of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus and this is that I aim at and which thorough the help of my God in this way so much by you so slighted and despised as I keep faithful to what I know of it I have more hope of attaining then ever Now that I may come to a close I have but a few words more to say to such of those to whom these Papers are directed who are gone beyond Sea if at any time this shall come to their hands which is to desire them in the fear of the Lord to consider seriously what is therein said unto them in particular and if without prejudice in soberness they wait for it I am hopeful it shall be said unto them how came yee here and what do you here seeking to uphold that which I am pulling down and to bear down that which I am setting up this is not your work return from whence yee came and it shall be shewn unto you Dear Friends for so are yee to me whither yee will hear or forbear yet know of a truth I speak not unto you without a warrant Written in the 11 th Month in the year 1664. Alex. Iaffray A Lamentation over and an Expostulation with the People of Scotland for their so gain-standing and opposing the appearance of God among the Lord's People called in derision Quakers And for their foul Defection and Apostacy from what the primitive Protestants and Reformers were whose successors they boast themselves to be yea and from what they have been but of late dayes themselves OH oh people of Scotland great is my sorrow of heart for you and when I consider your state and condition many times my soul mourns and pangs take hold of me as of a woman in travel and I cannot cease but take up a lamentation over you if possibly any of you hereby may be reached and awakened out of the deep slumber of security whereinto ye have fallen to consider your wayes and turn unto the Lord from whom ye have deeply revolted and against whom ye are fighting in this day and his appearance ye are calluminating blaspheming opposing as witnesseth too manifestly your savage and cruel dealings with the Lord's people whom he hath framed for himself and who do and shall shew forth his praise to the ends of the earth Oh oh your cruel mockings your hard speeches your inhumane usage of them one way and another is noticed and marked before him yea it is writ as with a pen of iron and a point of a Diamond and the least grain weight of their sufferings by him is regarded and he will be avenged of their enemies and repay them double yea great is the indignation and wrath of the Lord against you verily I have felt it yea I have seen it and many others with me burning like a very Sea of fire and brimstone ready to break out upon you as certainly it will do and sweep you away to the bottomless pit if ye do not prevent it by speedy and unfeigned repentance Alas unthankful People do ye so requite the Lord is this the fruit ye bring forth to him after he gave you deliverance from your enemies and peace and rest round about remember and call to mind the rock from whence ye were hewed out of and the pit from whence ye were digged and consider your poor low and despicable condition and your fore-fathers estate in the day of your and their nativity when the Lord first visited you in Egypt the daâ—kness of Popery I mean and gave unto your fathers a little Goshen where they had light when the Egyptians such as remained Papists were choaked with the thick darkness and after when the Lord called them forth out of Egypt and they begun to remove having a red Sea before them Pharaoh Antichrist in the Pope and his complices behind and mountains on every side yet the Lord was with them and did fight on their behalf and they saw great wonders in Egypt and in the Wilderness but with many of them God was not well pleased for they tempted him exceedingly whereby the Lord was provoked to swear against them that such should not enter into his Rest and Oh how have ye their posterity lusted in your hearts to return into Egypt because of the onyons and garlick and flesh-pots thereof and others of you would not go forwards at the command of the Lord but ye would sit down in the Land which God never appointed for your rest for it was but the wilderness and ye made to your selves of it a resting and dwelling place where ye thought to have planted Orchards and Vineyards and to have eaten of the fruit thereof whereby it came to pass that ye loathed the Manna from Heaven and the Lord became wroth and ceased to rain of it any more down upon you and ye did eat of the fruit of your own doings and your Vineyards which ye planted brought ye forth abominable fruit whereby your souls were distasted and many of you became to be past feeling of God and the Manna from Heaven became such a mystery unto you as it is at this day that ye own such a thing delusion and blasphemy and the cloud by day and the firy-piller by night which the Lord gave to your fathers to lead them have you turned your backs upon and shut your eyes that ye might not see and the Lord was provoked to remove it from you and it ceased to appear and your foolish hearts were so darkened that ye denyed altogether such a thing and at this day ye call it a fancy viz. the Revelation of God's Spirit Oh oh how are ye degenerated into a strange Plant who were a noble Vine a right seed how have ye turned from that which was the rock that followed your fathers was their stay was their Manna was their Leader and Guid their Moses but have ye not said with them who
typically dâ—d represent your estate As for this Moses we know not what is become of him let us take our jewels and ear-rings of gold and make it into a god that may go up before us into the Land and now after your long and sore travel in the Wilderness wherein ye have abode many years going backward and forwards wandring up and down having lost the sight of the cloud which pointed you the way and forgotten that rock which followed and accompanied your fathers out of which living waters flowed to their refreshment which rock was Christ and after many of your carkasses have fallen because of unbelief and more are yet to fall It hath pleased the Lord to raise up to us among your selves that Prophet whereof Moses wrote and his Word we have heard sounded forth which is near even in our hearts saying to us by the powerful breath of his Spirit Arise arise this is not your rest it is polluted it will destroy you with a sore destruction and the voice was so powerful that it hath quickned us who were dead with you while we were living and the firy-piller hath appeared to us glory to God for his gift and shineth forth with beams of glory and the Lord hath opened the windows of Heaven and rained down on us the Manna from Heaven which is the food of Angels and not like the Manna which the Iews did eat and died but that which feedeth us unto life everlasting and the rock even the eternal rock and salvation of Gods people is revealed unto us out of which springeth pure living water from the fountain of life and Ioshua which is Jesus is given us for a head to lead us into the Land of Promise an entrance into which many witness at this day and others are in the way and have got a fore-taste of the Vine-grapes of the Land and hath sounded forth a good report concerning the same and many hath believed the report and tryed the truth thereof and found it to be true even some of your selves who were as you whose eyes the Lord out of his infinite mercy hath opened and they have found a place of repentance for all their hard speeches and enmity against the people of the Lord in the time of their ignorance and his work and appearance and have become ashamed and confounded therefore and I know assuredly it shall be so with others who for the present through the ignorance that is in them may be persecuting the Saints of God but alas alas how dangerous and deplorable is the condition of the most part of you for the time with whom our testimony can have no room nor find place in you and the good Land whereof we report has no more credit with you then if it were a cunningly devised Fable even the Kingdom of God and of his Christ in the Revelation of his eternal Light Life Power and Spirit in our hearts which fills us with joy unspeakable and full of glory and satisfies the desires of our souls so that we have true content in the injoyment of our God and have all and abound possessing him in whose favour is life and at whose right hand are pleasures for ever more the streams thereof your thick walled prisons and bolted gates within which ye shut us up cannot hinder from flowing into our souls and for the pretiousness and excellency of his dear and sweet love which he hath caused and does cause us to feel shed abroad in our hearts are we made willing patiently and contentedly to go thorow all the reproach and opposition we can meet with from you if possibly we be made instrumental to reach some of you that thereby ye may be saved with us and induced to walk in the Light of the Lord with us which has appeared and shined forth in its glory and as Solomon said Truly it is a sweet and a pleasant thing to behold the light O how sweet is it how pleasing how refreshing how healing how comforting how sure a Guide what assurance and satisfaction it gives to the soul none knows but such as are come to perceive it in their own hearts this this was it discovered unto your fathers the many gross abominations and superstitions of Popery so that they came to loath and abhor them this led them forth out of Egypt this discovered unto them Babylon the mother of fornications and the cup wherewith she had bewitched them so that they had no rest till they vomited up so much of the same as they perceived to be poysonous And oh had you their posterity kept chast to the leadings of the Lord by his Light which was near unto you as well as unto them even the light of Christ which enlightens every man that comes into the world and shineth in darkness though the darkness cannot comprehend it had you I say kept chast thereto and given it the preheminence above all how unspeakable had your happiness been at this day and now is your misery the greater that ye have adulterated there-from and become so impudent and shameless as to deny it for a leader or to give it the preheminence for have ye not set the letter of the Scriptures above it and made them unto your selves a golden Calf to be a Guide Leader and Rule unto you whereas if ye had given them the proper place setting them under the Light and Spirit of Jesus Christ from which they came and to which they point it being their own testimony that they are not that light but were given and sent forth to bear witness of the light that all in the light not in them might believe I say had you given to them their proper place they had been as jewels and ear-rings of gold unto you and useful in their room whereas through your abuse of them and setting their testimony above the inward and immediate testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of Prophecie Rev. 19.10 they are become your snare and a sealed book unto you that ye cannot read nor understand their interpretation because ye have gone from the key the Light and Spirit of Christ which would have opened them unto you and now they are parables unto you and dark sayings though you call them plain but plain indeed aâ—e they and easie to be understood by the children and Babes of Light and because ye have so gone a whoring from that which would have proved a soveraign remedy and antidote against the wayes and wiles of the Devil and Babilons cup of fornications therefore the light being a holy pure and chast thing hath been provoked much to withdraw and 〈◊〉 have cause to be afraid lest it eternally depart from you and you be shut up in blackness of darkness who hath so forsaken and undervalued your own mercy and misprized the gift of God unto you given you to profit withal and which only can open your eyes and give you the knowledge of the glory of God
getting many of the outward forms and words of the Saints the sheeps cloathing but inwardly adulterated from the life and Spirit of Jesus Christ the only foundation of the true Church and was not the ground of the Dragons Whores Beasts false Prophets quarrel against the Martyrs and witnesses of Christ principally this that they held the testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of Prophecie Rev. 19.10 and bear witness against the Whore who had the form retained without the power yea denyed the power of godliness denyed the teachings and leadings of the Spirit of Christ and the Revelation of him in the hearts of the children of men this is the Antichrist who denies Christ the Son come thus in the revelation of himself in the heart for that coming of Christ in his bodily appearance at Ierusalem Antichrist will not does not deny it being he knows it will never harm his Kingdom so to confess him come providing Christ his Kingdom be not set up in the heart now was there not such a dispensation in the earth were there not a people in the Apostles dayes who witnessed Christ come again in spirit according to his promise who said If any keep my commands I and my Father will come and dwell with him And again I go away but I will not leave you comfortless I will come again unto you Iohn 17. And after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ were they not indued with the Spirit from on high and filled with the holy Ghost did they not live in the Spirit walk after the Spirit did it not give the knowledge of the mysteries of God's Kingdom unto them did not the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation open the eyes of their understanding to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge and while they kept here did they not remain a pure chast Church unto Christ and while the eye was kept open and single by the revelation of the Spirit of Truth could the Dragon or Whore or Antichrist prevail over them could the many traditions or inventions get place as the Ordinances of Christ had they kept to the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit of God Now was not the principal Defection and Apostacy from this even the pure chast Light Life and Spirit of Christ revealing God and the things of this Kingdom unto them and when people wandred from this there the inventions took place and Babylons cup was drunk for the vail came over whereby the true discerning was lost and a wrong eye opened which could not but judge amiss of the things of God and of his People and wrest and abuse the Scriptures Now ye who say That there was indeed such a dispensation but now it hath ceased and is never any more to take footing in the eaâ—th do ye not hereby demonstrate your selves to be of the whorish Church for hath not this been her plea all along this dark night of Apostacy that the Revelation Teachings and leadings of the Spirit of Chirst is ceased therefore another Head was set up in the Church then Christ Jesus and the Pope and his Council was made Judge to determine all controversies of Religion and no man was to look at an infallible Judge the spirit of Truth within him and are ye not become as bad who openly affirm that ye are not led by the infallible Spirit and consequently not by the Spirit of God and your Church Confession of Faith saith The former way of God's revealing himself by Prophecy and immediate Revelation is ceased and God hath committed his counsel wholly into writing or to the Scriptures and nothing is to be added thereto by any new revelation of the Spirit And oh how faâ— are ye in this point degenerated and apostatized from the primitive Protestants and Reformers who not only affirmed that there was immediate Revelations from God and that the Spirit of Prophecie was not ceased but witnessed the same in themselves and foretold many things of consequence by the spirit of Prophecie which came to pass did not Iohn Knox and George Wishard prophecie exceeding clearly of whom it was said That from the day he entred upon his Ministry tâ— his death there never came a storm upon the Church but he foresaw the end of it as may be seen in the Book of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland and many others did prophecie as ye may read in Fox's Book of Martyrs and was not this the main and only pillar of the Protestant cause against the Papists who should be the Judge of Controversies and the interpreter of Scriptures The Pope and his Council with the Fathers said The Papists no said the Protestants but the Spirit of God And I read in the fore-cited Book of Martyrs how when some who were burnt for their testimony to the Truth in Queen Maries dayes were called before the Popish Clergy and Bishops who disputed with them and when the controversie arose concerning such points or Scriptures the Popish party alleadged the determination of the Church but the Martyrs pleaded for the determination of the Spirit of God and when it was queried if such had the Spirit of God and it was answered Yea and one brought that Scripture for his assertion who is Antichrist but he that denyeth that Christ is come in the flesh the people partly flouted thereat and laughed them to scorn as yee do us at this day because we affirm that we have the Spirit of God and that Christ is come and his life made manifest in our mortal flesh as saith the Apostle Paul And that which sounds very harsh in your ears at this day and is mocked at by you yea accounted delusion and blasphemy viz. Enthusiasm or the Inspiration of God and the motion of his Spirit was a thing usually known professed and possessed also by them as may be read at large in the aforesaid books and they said faith was the Inspiration of Gods Spirit and so it is and I deny that there is any true faith but that which comes as really and immediately from the inspiration of the Spirit as ever Paul or Peter or any of the Apostles and Prophets witnessed the same whom yee your selves acknowledge to have been inspired and were they now living yee would hiss at them as yee do at us calling them Inthusiasts and Oh what a time are we fallen in that the inspiration of the Spirit of God which is the very breath of life into the souls of the Lords people should be scorned and such as witness such a blessed and glorious dispensation nick-named Fanaticks and mad men even by them who have pretended so highly to be the reformed Church and at such a time wherein the day of God is broke up in such clearness in the midst of them yet they know it not 2. Your fore-fathers the primitive Protestants and Reformers who saw a little further into mysterie Babylon then others that went before them for the day brake up gradually and
there succeeded a people who saw over these who compiled or rather Englished the Service-book and they disowned it as they did also all other set forms of Prayer and cryed them down as dead lifeless things and they were for a worship in Spirit thus is was but even of very late dayes in Queen Elizabeth and King Iames the sixth and such were nick-named by their enemies Puritans and they affirmed that the Spirit of the Lord was only to teach them to pray and worship and not any Book or Man whatsoever and were not set forms of Prayer cryed down also in Scotland as lifeless barren things and the service-Book denyed and now have ye not again licked up that vomit and through your Cities men set up mostly also scandalous in their conversations at such hours of the day or night to read a set form of Prayer and is there any material difference betwixt this and the Service-book And have not your brethren in England taken it up again and when it 's offered to you to read will ye not also do the like there is no question of it but most of you will and worse also when ye are put to the tryal and oh what a mysterie is it to you praying and singing in the Spirit are ye not become so impudent as to mock this also as I have oft witnessed my self when your Church-members hath been so shameless as to cry in the very streets at us when passing by When came the Spirit last upon you give us a Prayer from the Spirit And do ye not flatly deny praying and worshipping in Spirit who deny Enthusiasm which is to say being interpreted for it 's a Greek word the inspiration of the Spirit of God which is the only flame that kindles up holy 〈◊〉 in the soul after God and you who can prate and talk unto God without a Book in your Pulpits and chief places of the Synagogues and elsewhere in your own wills and times and in the wills and times of others from a rhetorical strain as if ye were complementing some great Prince your prayers are as life ' ess and spiritless as those said of the Mass-book and were ye come truly to the spirit of prayer ye would know a bridle to your tongues without which your Religion is but vain and that the Spirit of God which bloweth as well when and where it listeth is also as far from being limitted to set times as to set forms and we read not in the whole Scripture that the Lord hath appointed any set times of prayer under the Gospel to his people at all whose great and most important work is to wait the movings of the Spirit of Life from God at all times whether to pray or give thanks or to any other spiritual exercise and blessed are they who come hither for they shall know that it is not in vain to wait upon the Lord for we have waited patiently upon him and have witnessed and do witness the pourings forth of the spirit of Prayer and praise supplications and thanksgivings filling our hearts and souls night and day to the God of our life and true prayer is the gift of God which cometh not at all in mans will or time and therefore the season is to be waited for which God hath kept in his own hand and hath the key of the heart to open it when he pleaseth and the key into the house of prayer where is the throne of grace without access to which in the drawings of the Spirit-of life man hath no acceptation with God nor his service or worship all is but idolatry and abomination only such who come to God through the Mediator and Intercessor Christ the Life feeling the living drawings thereof in the particular are accepted of him and made joyful in the house of prayer and hath it not been the regret of some among you and may be yet when ye are in a sober mood that the spirit of prayer is much lost and a dry complementing of God come in the room thereof 3. Were not your fore-fathers the primitive Protestants and Reformers a separated people did not they disown the Popish Assemblies and their preaching and worship as idolatry and forsake it and did not those called Puritans both in England and Scotland separate themselves from the other party who stuck to the Service-book and other superstitions and did not the sober people in Scotland in the former times of Prelacy separate from the Prelatical Assemblies and their Conformists did they not meet apart and talked together of the work of God on their own hearts and worshipped God in Spirit and his blessing and presence was among them while they kept chaâ—t to him and mixed not with Idolaters Now have ye not apostatized herein also and mixed your selves in with the profane rabble of the world as bad and worse then Papists Turks Pagans which hath provoked the Lord to withdraw from among you and ye can pray and sing and communicate with such Is not this Babylon indeed which is to say Confusion and is not our separation from you also as justifiable as the separation of your fathers from Papists being we have found you to be of the same spirit and mostly of the same principles and practices with them and generally as wicked loose scandalous prophane and covetous and abounding with all manner of iniquity as they and are not all such Idolaters is not thee vetous man an Idolater whereas covetousness is idolatry as saith the Scripture and are not all Idolaters to be denyed as to any fellowship with them in worship and your fathers did not plead such dirty stâ—ff as you the Professors have learned now to do to shun the Cross for keeping the Popish and Prelatical party their Assemblies Service-book worship alledging That they sit in Moses chair and therefore are to be heard and we may like their good and leave their evil Such reasons prevailed not with your fathers nor ought they for the Christians come not at all to the Scribes and Pharisees who sit in Moses chair but meet apart unless to bear a testimony against them and bad men with all their good words can never edifie a soul in faith or true knowledge which is life eternal all they can do is to edifie in the notion and feed the wrong part and spirit which delights in the notion of truth and is satisfied in the notional knowledge out of the life and the finest truest words out of a bad mans mouth can never reach the seed of God either to the raising of it up or refreshing it but on the contrary burdens and kills as said the Apostle of the false Apostles who had the letter and were Ministers of it out of the Spirit and Power and the letter sayes he kills and so we have found it in our experience but these above-mentioned arguments have prevailed with you so that ye are herein also apostatized from them 4. Your
came in and the tongues of the sons of men were confounded so that they could not know nor understand one another And now ye who talk of the tryal of the Ministry have ye not lost the touch-stone of tryal which was among the primitive Christians and was lost but is found again among us even the spirit of discerning whereby we feel the true Minister in the power and discern him from the false so that his fairest yea soundest words that he hath stoln from the Saints cannot deceive us and this was Paul's rule to try them who boasted to be the true Ministers and were not I will know said he not the words of them that are puffed up but the power here was a deeper search then into the best of words into the power what power they spoke from if from the Dragons power and the ravening Wolves power within them which may stand with the finest words which aâ—e the sheeps cloathing wherewith that power decks it self to deceive and so to devour the ignorant or if from the Lamb's power the power and Spirit of Christ and from grace in the heart Oh is not that a parable unto you we cannot judge the heart say ye nor know the spirit within man which manifests you to be strangers unto the anointing whereby spirits can be tryed and to the spiritual man which judgeth all things and though sometimes ye would give it forth to the people that ye are not against the teachings of God's Spirit to you the Teachers I speak yet ye plainly deny it both in word and practice and ye have no other means to uphold your selves whereby to purchase your Hires and your Dignities and Honour which comes from below but to keep poor people in ignorance from the teachings of God therefore ye cry out so much against the Light calling it delusion and bididng people beware of it for if any people were come to the Light in their particulars they would turn their back upon you and deny you your Hires and then your Kitchins would not smoak so as now nor would ye be so gorgious and sumptuous in your gaudy Apparel nor your Wives either which is a shame for to see and the grief of many sober people to think upon your pride and vanity the cry whereof hath come up before God to his throne and ye may read your doom Isa. 3.24 25 26. and were it not that ye deny the teachings of God's Spirit why pass ye so many years course at Schools to learn from men what ye may say to the People and why buy ye so many books and have your book-dayes and take no imployment but your books except when some few hours in the first day of the week ye talk to people what ye have gathered and collected together out of old Authors or then what some of you which are better Artists have moulded together by the forge of your own imaginations and natural understandings or when ye were and that very sparingly too some little time in that you call your Catechizing and Visitations of Families and the bad fruit of all this shews its much lost labour and ye could be better imployed in holding a Plow or digging in a field or any other honest occupation then to be deluding poor people whom ye are ever learning and yet ye are never able to bring them to the knowledge of the Truth and the gross palpable ignorance of your Parishioners all abroad the Nation with their wicked lives shews they are evil master-stead and that ye are not taught of God your selves else your teachings would have better effect and why will ye not suffer such who are not book-learned nor passed their course at your Colledges to learn the trade of it to preach the Gospel were ye for the teachings of God's Spirit would ye limit him to use only bookish Clergy-men for the Ministry when the Spirit of the Lord instructs a man though he could not read a letter is he not well learned is he not an able Minister who hath his ability given him of God though man hath not taught him and yet ye cannot away with this and why persecute ye such who are taught of God and ye dare not say but their practice answers their profession and that they are better taught then your disciples are though they come not at you to learn and what means the form and manner of your Sermons when ye will take a sentence of Scripture or common head as it is called and branch it out as Aristotle's or Ronius Logick hath taught you and it is one main piece of tryal to young-men coming forth to the Ministry to make a Logical Analysis as it is called upon such a piece of Scripture as is allotted unto him and he is counted a brave Preacher who can handle his Text in such a Scholastick method and an honest plain man who is not acquainted with your School-method nor topical places such as Aristotle an Heathen hath taught you out of which as so many 〈◊〉 ye gather together your points of Doctrine Observations Reasons Motives Means Uses Applications Amplifications I say an honest simple plain man who is not acquainted with such trifles but can speak feelingly of the work of God on his heart should he come and speak among people ye will laugh him to scorn and say of him he hath neither rhime nor reason he speaks confusedly and non-sense he hath no method he is not worth the hearing and yet by such foolishness of preaching many hundreds at this day are converted unto God for the power of God hath accompanied such poor foolish mens Ministry and the Lord hath made them true Pastors to feed the people with knowledge and understanding and they have been instrumental to bring people to Jesus Christ the great Bishop and Shepherd of their souls whereas ye have nothing to feed the people with but wind and airy notions and at best words of truth ye have stoln out of the Scripture which spoke out of a mans mouth not declaring in nor the power of God accompanying the words are but a killing letter and let any sober spiritual minded man in the least measure judge if such things above-mentioned which are made the qualifications of a Minister and usually practised by them smells of mans wisdom or of the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit or if any of the Apostles or Prophets used such things who were taught of God 9. Your fathers the primitive Protestants were against Tythes and that Ministers should have temporal possessions as an Hire for their preaching so said Iohn Wicklife and they had not their hundreds and thousands allorted to maintain them far less would they force people against their wills to give them maintenance and poynd them or put them to horn and imprison them as ye will do And your fathers did bear a notable testimony against the greediness and covetousness of the then Priests as we do against you for
charge you with and have been snares unto you and matter of provocation unto him against you for although a true and tender Zeal in a measure there was in many of your hearts in that day for the Lord and his Name and Truth yet much of a fiery headstrong furious false Zeal not according to knowledge and which was not begot of the Lords Spirit nor kindled at his Alter did company the same and much prevailled over that which was pure and tender and of his begetting and yet he regarded this and because of it he loved and pittyed you and suffered you long till he could bear no longer for ye were become as those yea and worse whom he spued out before you against whom his controversie was and you went forwards in the counsels of of your own hearts and advised with flesh and blood and not with the Lords spirit what yee should do and yee relyed upon the arme of flesh and thought to have reformed the Land with your carnal weapons and power and force and might not considering his determination which he spoke by the word of his mouth to his Prophet of old not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord. And yee dealt cruelly and roughly with such as had not freedom nor clearness to go on with you in the manner and way of your proceedings and so yee became guilty of the same iniquity yee cryed unto him against in those men who dealt cruelly and tyranically with your selves and yee constrained many hundreds of poor people in the Land to vow unto God and make a Covenant with you who knew not what they were doing no nor knew him at all and because yee mixed your selves in with a company of ignorant vile prophane and abominable persons without all fear of God and drew them along to concur with you thereby thinking to make your selves stronge and mighty by reason of number and unformity therefore was the Lord provoked against you for he regarded none of these things the vows of the wicked are an abomination to him with all their services and he accepteth no uniformity but that which is of his spirit which knits the members of the body together and admits nothing unto union with the body but that which is of his begeting and but two or three fearing the Lord joyning together in a perpetual Covenant to stand up witnesses for his name and truth are dearly regarded by him but many thousands associating together out of his fear he regards not at all And forasmuch as by your vowing and covenanting yee proceeded to put a stop and limit to the Lords spirit in any further discovery of his name and truth his wrath waxed exceeding hot against you and he loathed both you and your Covenant and suffered it as it is at this day to be trampled under foot and permitted your enemies which were buried in the very dust and their memory almost perished to rise up against you to wit the Prelats and bring you in greater slavery and subjection then ever and now they are doing their work and when it is done they most return to the place whence they came and the time is near and many other circumstances in your proceedings the Lord never own'd nor shall own in which as yee mind his witness in all your Consciences it shall instruct you and also show unto you the hypocritical treacherous deceitful ambitious forward spirit that moved in you and set you on work many times whereby his Spirit was grieved and that of his begetting over topped and oppressed And above all the great controversie of the Lord with and against you was and is that yee got up above the cross of Christ and turned from it the cross which is the power of God which would have kept your feet in a straight even stedy course so that yee should not have declined out of the right path either to the right or left hand and it would have proved a righteous ballance unto you whereby ye might have weighed every motion that arose in your hearts and thereby known what was of the Lords spirit and what was of your selves and of the suggestiâ—â— of the Devil which laid his snares before you and catched you in them and for that ye kept not chast to his Light in your Consciences nor to the leadings of his spirit this was it that which discovered to you the Popish and Prelatical abominations and begat a loathing in you against them so that yee could have no rest till yee came to forsake them and had yee kept chast to this it would have carried you on all along in his work and steered your course from first to last in the streight even righteous path of judgment Oh ye did run well who did hinder you but yeare become so foolish who began in the spirit to end in the flesh and now when yee got up upon the walls and bulwarks of your enemies building and leveled it to the ground when yee had rooted out Prelacy and the many corruptions and superstitions accompanying the same and digged down a good part of Babylons upsetting then yee betook your selves to build and yee thought it should have been a a house for God and it was but another Babylon for yee had gone from the true foundation the light life power and spirit of Christ in your particulars and yee gathered hay and stuble and cast upon it and suffered the earth in you to come over and ye hid the talent the Lord had given you therein even the noble and precious and blessed gift of his Light and the manifestation of his Spirit given to every man to profit withal as saith the Apostle which would have been a sure foundation unto you and would have taught you in the infallible wisdom how to have reared up the building and frame even to the setting of the least stone or pining thereof and it would have cemented and knit every part together and given it a comely proportion and all its due and proper dimensions in height bredth and length and made every stone living and it should have been a glorious building indeed a spiritual house to offer up a spiritual service and sacrifice to God continually and though the winds had blown and the rains descended and the floods had come and assaulted it yet it should have stood which it hath not but hath fallen and the fall of it is great and it hath filled you with amazement confusion and astonishment and darkness hath so overtaken you and the vail is grown so thick over your hearts that you see not as yet cannot see your own folly and that your building was but on the sand and the work of your own imagination out of the wisdom of God and this I am moved of the Lord to declare unto you that it hath been so and though your frame was somewhat more spacious and taking to the eye of man being somewhat in appearance
nearer the letter of the Scriptures then that other cast down by you yet it was as far from being the Temple or House of God being not of his Spirit for this ye had gone from in your own particulars and at length became so impudent as to deny such a thing could be expected to wit the leadings of the infallible Spirit of Christ to teach you and guide you infallibly in your proceedings and ye set the letter of the Scriptures above it and in it's room together with your own imaginations for ye being gone from the Spirit of Truth the eye which read the Scriptures aright came to be put out and the false eye opened which read them backward and the Scriptures were perverted by you to a wrong sence or meaning and ye drew them to the square and rule of your opinions which the erring mind through Satans suggestion had begot in you and now ye fathered your opinions upon the Scripture and they were but the brats of your own imagination And oh what were the materials of your building were they living stones polished and smoothed by the power of God or rather were they not the most rude profane rabble and multitude of the world the same whereof the Prelatical and popish frame was composed of and who were the builders were they men taught of God standing in his wisdom was your Ministry a spiritual Ministry were they able Ministers of the new Testament not of the letter but of the Spirit such as the Scriptures speak of were they called from heaven by the Revelation of Christ or rather was not your Ministry even such as the former of mens making which stood in man's wisdom and taught of men as among the very Papists yea it was even so Oh how little hath the teaching of God's Spirit been regarded were they not accounted able Ministers who could talk upon the letter and give many good and fine words to the people and speak the Saints experiences recorded in Scripture which generally they never knew themselves or if any knew somewhat of that nature as some did it was not principally regarded and men were let pass for Ministers who were gifted with humane learning and gifts under which the best induments of knowledge or utterance which come not immediately from the Revelation of the infallible Spirit of Truth may be comprehended and after ye had quit the Service-book and that way of worship in set forms and denyed them as dead life-less things your humane learning and abilities together with the customary way ye had inured your selves to prompted you to talk and utter many words before God which yet was as far from spiritual worship as the other and if at any time somewhat of the Lord's Spirit moved and breathed among you as it did for the Lord much pittied for his seeds sake yet it was much suffocated and choaked by your running forth after the imaginations of your own hearts ye not knowing the Cross which stayes the mind and gives a check to the forward proposterous spirit which is rejected of the Lord with all its services and because your minding more the words and form and visible things then the living power whereby the Lord was provoked more and more to withdraw from among you and leave your house desolate as at this day it is And your Presbyterian form of Church-discipline Order and Government it was nothing upon the matter better then the Episcopal there being no material difference in the sight of God to render it more acceptable to him beâ—wixt the one and the other neither of you knowing Christ the head in you teaching you by the Revelation of his Spirit to determine of things coming before you so that ye could not say with that Synod Act. 15.28 It seemed good to the holy Ghost and to us but ye went on in the same manner with them of determining of particulars in mans wisdom and by plurality of voices or consents which is but a very fallible way and hath done more evil then ever it did good and it is all one before the Lord whether one or a few should determine particulars as it is among the Bishops or whether many by an equality should do it as among the Presbyterians you being both out of God's wisdom and asking counsel and not out of his mouth and ye called Presbyterian Ministers did step into many things ye 〈…〉 the Bishops out of or things much what alike and of the same nature ye denyed their Lordships and took to your selves selves Masterships both being equally forbidden by Christ ye would not suffer them to Lord it over you but ye would Lord it over the People yea and did as tyrannically as ever the Bishops had done and ye were offended at the Surplices and the Canonical Coats and Belts of their Clergy and yet ye were equally superstitious and vain in your black cloaths and Gowns with Pasments and Ribbons upon them and other superfluity of naughtiness and ye were angry at their Revenues being so great and yet ye stept in also to many of them and some of you had as much by the year as some of them and into their pride covetousness lightness vanity ambition carelessness concerning the work of Jesus Christ and the salvation of poor people whereof ye took up the charge and many other iniquities they were found in for which the Lord was provoked against them ye have taken as it were a succession of and ye thought the Lord should have winked at you and indeed he boâ—e much with you and had respect unto that poor honest tender simple zealous thing that was once among you in a day but he could no longer forbear for the cry of your sins was great and his oppressed seed in your hearts as a Cart pressed with sheaves under your wickedness cryed likewise against you and he heard and brought desolation upon you also and laid all your stately building in the dust and now great is the lamentation and sorrow of your hearts because of the fall of your building and ye are crying in the anguish of your souls for a day again wherein ye may have an opportunity to repair the breaches and build up the old ruinous heaps and ye are saying in your hearts the tyles are fallen but we will build with hewn stones the Sycomers are cut down but we will build with Cedars and make the frame more able and firm then before to stand out the storm But I say unto you in the name and authority of the living God should ye attempt such a thing till ye come to his Light and the leadings of the infallible Spirit of Truth in your particulars it shall not prosper it shall be as with them who attempted the rebuilding the walls of Ierico and have no better success and ye shall but labour as in the very fire and weary your selves for very vanity I have determined saith the Lord God Almighty to race all to the
with another in the invisible heavenly life and though at a distance as to the bodily appearance yet nigh to and present one with another in Spirit and partakers together as members of one body in sufferings and afflictions in joy and consolations which as sufferings abound do abound also And now though the Scriptures declare of this word yet they are not that Word more then a Map or description of Rome or London is Rome or London or the image of Cesar is Cesar or bread and wine is the body and blood of Christ which rude draught shadow description and representation of such things and the like may and do borrow the names of the things by them signified or represented and thus the Scriptures may borrow the name of the Word of God and may sometimes be so called as the words or Prophecy of Isaiah is called by himself his Vision and the words of Iohn is called his Revelation whereas they but signified these things and it 's my testimony with thousands we have found another Word then the Scriptures which is not repugnant to them but teacheth the same things and bears a like testimony with them in a more excellent way so that they have a sweet harmony and concord together yet differing as much from them as bread wine corn oyle water light fire differing from a verbal description or likeness of those things And this is no dishonour to the Scriptures but a putting them in their proper place as a declaration of the eternal life which though pointed at by them yet is not to be found in them as the Jewish people foolishly thought and as Professors think at this day for which Christ checked them because they would not come to him to get life of whom the Scriptures testified That it was in him not in them Ioh. 5. And thus much concerning our Ministery and the object thereof or thing which is ministred and preached to wit Christ the living and eternal Word nigh and in the hear and our Worship and Sacrifice we offer up unto God in this Building House Temple City or Church of God is spiritual prayer and praise spiritual even from the pourings forth of the Spirit of Life from God praying and singing and making melody in our hearts and with our mouths and lips also as the Lord opens them with the spirit and understanding in all things making our requests known unto God and giving thanks alwayes for all things through Jesus Christ our life at whose Name our knees are bowed down and our head uncovered and the glory is over all and the Lord hath turned to us the pure language and the pure lip and given us to the throne of glory an abundant access and hath accepted our prayers and savoured a good savour in them and hath largely answered the desires of our souls blessed be his Name and we witness him a God who heareth prayer even to the least desire or breathing of the upright heart and he is worthy to be waited for who hath come to us in an acceptable time and prepared our hearts to seek and his ear to hear and given us strength and ability to wrestle and prevail with him to the break of day and we have not let him go till he hath blessed us and called our name Israel And as the Ministry and Worship of the Church or house of God among us is spiritual so is the Order Discipline and Government among us and we witness the Lord present with us in our Assemblies and the head Christ in us whether few or many passing sound righteous and infallible judgement concerning the particulars that come before us and we take not that blind fallible way of the many Sects and Professions in the world to determine controversies by viz. Plurality of Votes but we look up to the Lord and call upon him to decide the matter and pass righteous judgement and he doth it and each in the measure of the Word of Truth which they have received doth perceive the mind of the Lord therein and believeth it their faith standing in the wisdom and power of God revealing the thing in and to each particular and we are manifest in one anothers consciences and as Epistles written and read in one anothers hearts and we are of one mind and one spirit and life and here is sweet unity concord harmony and agreement not like Babylon and where the Lord goeth not before us and openeth not the particular or particulars unto us we stand still and forbear till we receive his mind who never is nor will be wanting to us in whatsoever exigence And now the power we have is from God alone and his Son Jesus Christ and he bears the government on his shoulders and takes us up into the Throne with himself according to his promise and maketh us a free people Kings and Priests to our God and our power is free and unlimited as to any mans determination upon the face of the whole earth and we own no head in our Church but Christ Jesus nor can we submit our consciences to any man or yield to the precepts and commandements of men out of the will and power of God in a jot though to the loss of our very lives and especially no man or men is to impose on us the least circumstance in the matter of the worship of the living God and the exercise of our consciences therein but what man or men set up in place of authority calls us to what is equitable and righteous betwixt us and our neighbour we are free and holds our selves bound to give all due obedience for conscience sake thereto and the Magistrate who hath his power and authority from God we dearly own and honour and the obedience he requires of us will be answered with the Witness and Word of God in our consciences which if we should disobey condemnation from the Lord should fall upon us And when that which is sinful and unrighteous is urged upon us then God's witness does arise in our conscience and forbids us to yield thereto but to suffer patiently what may be inflicted upon us for our not bowing under the same and not at all to resist with any carnal weapon or outward violence but to commit our cause to him who judgeth righteously and hath said Vengeance is mine and I will repay it and so we have sweet peace and content in our sufferings for our consciences are kept free and we are redeemed to God and bought with a price therefore we cannot be the servants of men and we seek not any worldly power or force to maintain our Church it needeth it not for the gates of hell cannot prevail against the same nor to propagate our Religion for it will never do it and we are to force no mans conscience nor to lay any punishment upon them or put any to sufferings because of their not concurring with us for we matter no uniformity but that