thing that opposed you was one and the same enemy In that troubled state you conclude I was turned to the world and backslidden to the present rising power Great guilt and great suffering meeting together must needs much disturb the mind of poor man If you in the trouble of your souls mistake me and if my mind be clear and at peace I may well bear it and pitty you and so I do My business was to be dayes-man between adverse parties I know I did not intrude into the office but refused and excused as Moses Who am I they will not believe nor hearken to my voice I am a man of no power or esteem and so put it off till I was compelled to appear and now I find the common fate of them that interpose to part the fray both parties fall upon him You think I am turned Courtier the Court thinks I am still a Fanatick T is but just I should receive both your neglects into me standing between you I am content to feel the evil of both because I love both and have in my soul good for both But you do not only judge me to be an enemy but worse an apostate brother and more wicked then your open adversaries for they only afflict the outward man I fall upon your spirits and principles We shall have occasion to discourse of spirits and principles hereafter but here I shall only mind you of two or three things First It is I confess a very difficult thing to judge of principles and spirits because they are inward and therefore strangers and enemies cannot judge of them It must be some friend or brother that hath conversed with them They that are still under them are judged by them and therefore they cannot judge of them It must be some that have travelled through them and have had experience of them spirits and principles are Gods and who can judge the Gods If any they that have been amongst them and tryed them you may from this find some reason why I should be chosen to do this service for you you generally know me my way and work hath been trying of spirits many years Secondly as it is difficult to judge spirits and principles so it is hard to bear the judgement of them Men can easier die and lay down their natural lives then suffer their principles to be touched Men of any common honesty do freely expose their flesh to death to save their Gods although they be but Idols But thirdly There are false Gods false spirits you know it and have familiarly accused others of it you know I know it I confess I do as we say to my cost it may be to your profit you have of late been hammering at a spiritual Antichrist an Antichrist within and it is most true many such there are can you think that you should be acting so many years against Antâ—christ all the while be ignorant of an Antichrist within who doth but now begin to peep â—ut and be discovered in you and you not guilty of receiving false principles or spirits Can all this smoke of confusion darkness and enmity be amongst you and no fire of false spirits Can there be so much reeling and staggering giddiness and instability and no wine of fornication no sophisticated or adulterated wine No spiritual harlots or false lovers Must all the corruption rotteness and filth he laid upon the poor flesh Is there no evil spirit that came in under the name of God to joyn with her to beget these bastard brood of hypocrisie covetousness and self-seeking Must man only bear the blame and not the unclean spirits that are gone out Or must God and his name only stand accused that he led his people by his Spirit into no better wayes Is it not then both justice to his name and mercy to man that these evil spirits and principles should be discovered and detected As it is proper for a friend or brother that hath been partaker with you in them and hath suffered greatly for it to discover them so it will be found a friendly and brotherly office to reprove them The plucking up these principles that lie deep and secret is I know terrible I have felt it so It seems to threaten the rooting out of religion and godliness it self I have found the same thing in my tryals God comes against them and his people engaged with them in great jealousie enraged as an enemy in fiery indignation and vengeance because nothing but his vengeance can destroy them but I have found great love in these fires of jealousie yea love to our nature and persons with forgiveness to our iniquities even then when he takes vengeance of our inventions I know you can neither be inwardly cleansed nor outwardly saved but by a death in your spirits and loss of these principles which have deluded you and brought you into this grievous snare and therefore shall in love and good will to man to your souls lives and liberties prosecute my purpose of manifesting those unsound principles that have deceived and mis-led you and shall not spare for your crying or frowardness SECT V. ANother objection against the Book is it is written much in Allegories because the present state of things is there represented in and by ancient Scriptures I acknowledge this to be a fault and possibly it might arise from the first great error of delay by keeping it in too long it might be thus overgrown with hair and get this dress or at least the same distrust that made me unwilling to write might make me willing to shrowd my mind under those coverings of Scripture wanting confidence to appear more open or strength to go without that help I might affirm that the things written are not meer allegories if they be so they are to me hatefull Idols for I know nothing more abominable then meer similitudes and forms of truth I may affirm that the same eternal spirit that brought forth those works in Adam and Noah of which you there read doth for ever keep the living image of them in himself and many ages after brought them forth in Moses mind and by Moses into writing so that the works done and the words writ are one and of one mind and spirit The same eternal spirit having in himself the same eternal image doth by it preserve the image written or the words and history The same eternal spirit eternally works and brings forth his own likness in all times and in our age and the same spirit that did them and writ them then doth them now and reveals them in that Book He that is wise will understand these things But let them go for Allegories and let me bear the blame of it I am content it should go so because I know we shall gain by all our miscarriages grow wise by mistakes For sin hath something of Physick in it many times if not alwayes it hath its own cure with it because
it hath its own destruction in it yea not only it s own but of other evils also T is certainly true to the godly Dan. 11.35 And some of them of understanding shall fall to try them and to purge and to make them white And therefore I shall learn and get experience by this weakness I now see plainly the Scripture may be and is a vail in some it is made use of to cover filthiness others make use of it out of fear to hide the truth of their hearts It serves sometimes to reveal and sometimes to conceal the mind But withal I see there is no hiding place for me I am necessitated to forsake my coverts and come forth naked Many have hid their poyson of error and enmity under Scriptures by them conveyed their deceit lyes neatly wrapped up in similitudes allusions and that to destroy I would convey peace and truth by it and it will not be endâ—â—ed I am beaten from these bushes and necessitated to all kind of openess and plainness I was unwilling to come to it I confess but I see I must say aside the Velvet scabbard and draw the naked sword or else must be content with such shamefull usage as no man can bear As sin so shame hath its own cure because its curse with it He that obscures himself for shame or from it and for fear of it is driven into a hole must suffer double And there is reason for it because first he is weak and then a coward and so deserts himself his name his mind his cause and betrayes his life and righteousness if he have any in him If a man be upright he need not go into a corner if he do he cannot stand upright in that hole and corner holes are for Bats and Moles for dark creatures the light is for truth and the open heavens for uprightness I hope I shall find room and place abroad I cannot hodestly abide any longer at home sure the open heavens and earth are made for me as well as others why should not I enjoy them As I see a necessity and my duty to cast off all coverings so I now experimentally find how little you have of the Spirit of God or of true reason and that both these are exceeding low in the minds of men at this time If not quite slain yet very feeble weak and ready to die imprisoned also and shut up under false imaginations and fancies of things And therefore if we think to instruct men it must be not only by truth but with that evidence and demonstration that may heal and recover mens spirits arid understandings I profess this that the same eternal Spirit that wrought those things in Adam and Noah and writ them by Moses keeps that image in himself and by it contains and upholds the Scripture the outward image of his eternal mind and the same spirit working according to himself produces the same works now from the same foundation and from the same light gives forth a discovery of them yet because the works were wrought long since and in a remote part of the earth from England as in Paradise in another world and at Mount Ararat therefore they are to us strange and forraign things or at best but allusions Whereas to a spiritual man all times and places are present and all things in heaven and earth and under the earth are gathered into one even into Christ In whose spiritual person we at once see and measure all things and ages because they are all in him and made by him I am sensible that there is as much shortness of reason in men as want of the Spirit For we are the natural children of Adam and Noah and do as truly derive our natures from them as we do from our Fathers or Grandfathers yea we derive our selves more from them because they are heads roots and common or publick Fathers or Stocks of mankind our immediate parents are but means branches or conveyances of life from those roots to us And we are more certainly and infallibly the children of Adam and Noah then of our later Ancestors And do receive greater benefit from them Moral Natural and Personal blessings from Adam these renewed by Noah and conveyed to us by him with the addition of civil and politick blessings And these given by Covenant for ever establisbed with him and his seed for perpetual generations Gen. 9.11 Me thinks it shews great shortness if not sensuality and slavery in mens minds that will enquire after every foot of Land that was their Fathers and Grandfathers and boast of their descent if they have it from a Lordship in England or a Mountain in Wales and not enquire after their natural or moral properties civil and religious priviledges which they do derive and may challenge by descent from these Ancestors yea not only not enquire and search for this royal and noble pedigree but reject it when produced as if they were beasts not men and rose out of the earth and Sea as the beast in the Revelations and as if we were sons of the earth that came into the world in some by-way and were of another case then that which God made in Adam or saved and Covenanted with in Noah For truly if the same life be in us that God made in Adam and saved blessed and covenanted with in Noah it will as naturally lead us to its outward and visible head by a line of reason as our spititual life leads us to Christ by a line of faith For all ages times and states of things wrought in our nature are the proper objects of our understandings and reason and we if we were not captivated to foolish and brutish darkness and silly conceits might as freely converse with them as with present sensible things yea we cannot discern any present thing if we know not the reason and principles of it and they are only to be seen in the first founding and forming of them men are therefore drunk in fancies and are not yet come to the exercise of reason which fathoms and measures all the things of man from the beginning to the end indeed he is not truly a man that comprehends not in some measure his own nature in all ages For the whole history of the world and all the parts acted in it are but the things of a man and so pieces of our selves if we are men Every thing is beautiful in his time also he hath set the world in their heart Eccles 3.11 But saith he I know that whatsoever God doth it shall be for ever ver 14. There is under these things which you call Allegories real substantial Truth if you will not crack the shell to have the kernel accept of my help I will give forth that which is there writren concerning your selves at least in a few plain affirmations I have and do affirm concerning that party that acted against the life and power of the King and are
stand is this You presume and conclude First That you are the select and only people of God his Zion and Israel the true and only Gospel Saints And those that you oppose are Aegypt Babylon the World and Antichristian Secondly that your way in which you have and do walk and the works that you have done and would do again are according to the pure word and Law of God and that which you oppose is all Wickedness Superstition and Idolatry Thirdly That the war in which you have been engaged and upon which you stand is the way of God according to his will and word and therefore hath been and will be owned and justified by him Supposing all this that you are the people of God and Zion in Gods way and word engaged in his cause against Babylon and Antichrist there is then an unquestionable ground and assurance of a blessed success from the manifold promises of the Scripture But if this be not true and that you in this state and in this opposition are not that body that shall attain those promises And this be not the only way of God in which you walk and this war and engagement be not the means appointed by God to attain that glory you expect then be your intentions never so good and zealous your prayers never so fervent your gifts never so many your constancy never so great yet you will fail and the further you proceed in it the greater your loss will be If all this should be true that you should be the people yours the way war the means yet if you fail but in the circumstance of time if this be not the time determined for the fulfilling of what you expect there is righteous and mercifull reason for your retreating from such an opposition and engagement To have faith exercised about the promises of God to be fulfilled in these latter dayes to his people is an excellent thing whereby God will have glory his people deliverance and the whole earth peace But you may have a sight of this at a distance and know assuredly you shall have your share of it and be entertained with great joy concerning it have strong perswasions about it and yet may not attain it in that state of enmity and opposition in which you stand but in another more large holy and spiritual way Or the whole Church may enjoy it here and your souls for ever and yet your bodies may fall as carkasses in the wilderness for the impurity carnality uncharitableness frowardness and enmity of your way and spirits in your present state And therefore it is love and mercy to you to put you upon a thorough tryal and examination of your bottom spirit and way I consider not now your particular forms of Worship which are various and opposite one to another Nor your private and personal holiness fear of God conscience of his commands obedience to his word so far as you know which are not only to be admitted but approved and encouraged in a right way and in a right spirit but I would consider the way actions and work of the whole body in this publick engagement against the Government of the Nation and your private forms gifts and godliness as they have acted and still continue in the same opposition in order to turn your minds towards that which else is like to ruine your selves and families If this great affair and cause in which you have acted and do constantly persist in be the right and that you are the people yours the way this the means and time to attain the glorious things expressed in the Scripture then you must have these two things for your foundation strength and rule the Word and the Spirit of God If you are led by them and stand in them you will certainly prevail if not you will fall and must repent We may consider them either joyntly or severally for though they are two yet they are one also and never separated Let us consider the word of God the Scriptures There are three great works of God declared in it The deliverance of the children of Israel from Aeypt The redeeming of them out of Babylon And the grace and salvation revealed in the Gospel We have built our work upon all these and do think that our cause is the same with them all and therefore we have been fed continually with strength which we got as we could from them all But whether our work do justly evenly square to any of them is the question I am fully satisfied in my self that it doth not And that you if you will be ingenuous and in any measure of uprightness examine what you have done you will quickly find that you have not in your whole business come near your foundation and pattern I shall only hint some few things to you as they do occurr and leave you to consider the rest Only by the way be perswaded to think and feel that you are but men and may err many may err many good men may err actually you have erred though you be much better then others yet you may err and err greatly sometimes the best people err most Israel sinned beyond all the Heathen God will shame and humble all and make first last and the last first the best worst and worst best The Jews that seek shall not attain the Gentiles that sought not shall attain You differ one from another and so must err one against another you have all sinned and come short of the glory of God And therefore you may have erred as to this business fundamentally and either not know your bottom or be upon a false bottom And so through loss and missing come to attain a true right bottom If once you be but willing to be tried you will quickly see much SECT VII COnsider first Whether this great business you have and are engaged in do justly and evenly square to the first foundation Israels deliverance out of Aegypt It hath been so believed so prayed preached and praysed but not so done For 1. Israel was visited by God he came expresly to Moses spake to him in the bush when he had called him he sent him to Israel to lead them forth they stirred not till he had proved his commission But we can boast of no such visit the troubles of the Nation gave us opportunity to deliver our selves the necessities of the Parliament made us usefull whereby we got power and so by degrees broke the yoke that was upon us 2. Isratl had a King and High-Priest given of God to be their Leader and Guide he was also himself their Leader he went before them in the wilderness in a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night and never left them We had neither King nor Priest no Guide nor Leader but left to shift for our selves and wander from one thing to another as our own crooked and blind reason led us 3. They had Officers sent by
the intent of this Treatise to bring you off from that and to shew you a more excellent way Your former ministry is finished that state is perished you must have a new one Read diligently and you will find here is an entrance into that which will not fail I know the prejudices you have against me I know that there is weakness in what I write both may disadvantage my work I leave it to the Lord of all hearts and spirits The things I have written are I think just and it is just I should publish them The Law of love and truth in my mind led me to it and upheld me in it and therefore I am satisfied in my self And in the righteousness truth and faithfulness of God in whom I live and rest Yours W. S. The Contents SECT I. SHews the nature of the offences taken at the Inquisition and the Authors sense of them SECT II. Shews the justice due to them and the friendly way of dealing with them SECT III. Censures the Book and first for its unseasonableness with the cause of it and the Authors suffering for it SECT IV. Censures the multiplicity of things in the Inquisition and the sharpness of its reproofs Of several kinds of reproof SECT V. Opens the Allegories in the Inquisition and shews the thing intended in it A tryal of principles in order to peace SECT VI. Prosecutes the same thing of peace and shews the necessity and possibility of it And examines the ground upon which the opposition stands SECT VII Compares the Old Cause 1. With the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt 2. Out of Babylon 3. With the ministry of Christ and the Apostles SECT VIII Measures the same cause by the Propheticall Scriptures and compares it with Zion her self SECT IX Further examines the ground of the enmity and advances a standard of love SECT X. The original cause of the war it ceased SECT XI Hatred blinds the eyes else we may see that there is good in enemies with which we may agree There is good and evil in both Parties SECT XII Shews the root of enmity is the Devil How opposite it is to the Kingdom of Christ SECT XIII War and enmity are not for but against holiness SECT XIV Common liberty not to be in nor to be attained by war and opposition SECT XV. Liberty of Conscience animadverted Not to be obtained but by agreement with the Magistrate SECT XVI Animadverts the late sufferings and shews the nature and kind of them SECT XVII Considers the late Insurrection with respect to what hath been written and the use of it to both sides SECT XVIII Shews a rational and easie way for all opposite Parties to obtain a Treaty and by it an Agreement with his Majesty both for his security and their safety ANIMADVERSIONS Upon a Book entituled Inquisition for the Blood of our late Soveraign c. AND Upon the offence taken at it Sect. I. THat I did deny my name to go forth with that Book when it was first published was I think a foolish or weak niceness Possibly the want of that courage and confidence that was due both to my self and it may expose both to the greater contempt But I did resolve in my mind and promise that if ever it came to be questioned I would own it and either correct and amend it if it needed or else justifie and defend it if it deserved it What I promise is ordinarily required of me and if it be I am bound to perform it There is a justice due to things as well as to persons If to any thing then certainly to a mans own works which are his children and therefore he ought to Father them and either to call them home or maintain them abroad A mans Spirit Religion and Name are all tender things if I have any sense of any of them or of my self and what I have done I cannot but resent the grievous offence that is taken at that book and at me for writing of it The minds of many are exceedingly disturbed at it and the censures run as high against it and me as possibly they can It is judged the very Spirit of Antichrist and of the Devil the sin against the Holy-Ghost Apostacy Persecution Treachery Bloodiness and Cruelty And the condemnation is answerable the curse of horrour despair and self-destruction which are not only threatned and expected but reported to be already upon me These things are in their own nature weighty and they come thick upon me from all sects and sorts of people from friends and strangers and discharged at me from their very hearts with all the strength of their Religion with all their might in a bitter and angry Spirit sharp and fierce and in some with great seriousness and gravity yea in love to me And most of them solemnly in the name of God and for his cause as against an enemy to God to godliness and to his people This is the sense I have of them and I think the description is just and true These things being breathed forth from men friends Christians professing godliness and the Spirit of God besides the common rage that foames out Rogue Jesuite hang him c. They do requite and justly challenge from me that I should Animadvert and duly consider what these things are whence they come What they would have and what I am and have done to deserve them As these things drive me in to review both my self and book so they do peal and call me forth to shew in what Spirit and Light I live from what root this work came and upon what foundation that and my self stand so that I now count my self bound not only in honour and justice but in love freely to open and discover my self and my mind and spirit concerning my self my book and the great offence taken at it I confess I do feel that these censures are high and that men are hearty and serious in them and do lay them on with all their strength and with a sharp spirit angred and provoked And that they do sometimes sting and twinge a little and consequently stir some choler in me that I could be as heartily angry at others as others are at me But as yet I do not find that they go deep or abide long in me But on the contrary I have been well able to bear them yea to slight and neglect them as sick and sore passions which cannot live long and although they stumble at me and bruise me yet if I did but lie still I should quickly see them faln in their own dirt by their own darkness and weakness For that I find constantly to be the nature of Passion it is a blind thing that runs it self into ruin and needs no enemy to destroy it it is the Gunpowder of the mind while it is shot at another it doth crack stink and vanish As I must confess they do sometimes sting a little so I must
having written some part of it I offered it to the Press by the Book-seller that printed the Inquisition Upon consideration he told me that there was that rage kindled in mens minds against the other Book that his men durst not shew them in the shop and that nothing of mine would pass till that spirit was laid and therefore he durst not meddle with this to print it My mind being very weak and tender and apt to take check at such things this did not only put me to a stand but turned my mind quite about to hearken more attentively to this cry that did thus earnestly pursue me And to consider that sure this mouth that was thus opened against me did require something of me And that I could not fairly nor justly slight and neglect it any longer And that I could not proceed in my intended work till I had answered this plea against me SECT II. T IS a position in my mind that no persons or things that we converse with are absolutely evil but there is some good in every thing else it could not be and therefore nothing is to be reprobated or not till it be first sifted and tried By my own rule I am bound to think that though these angry speeches against me are my enemies yet sure there is some just reason in them such sounds at these are not without their significancy If so then I must not reject them because opposite and unpleasing but must admit them to the bar of my own reason and not only give them a fair hearing but all the advantage also that I can because the Court is my own mind where they are strangers and being weak distempered things I ought to humble my self to them though mine enemies and to descend from my own right to hear and satisfie them if I can or at least to do them justice For I consider though they be dark passions yet they are humane and every man is honourable and every affection in man though sick and distempered is of value besides they are zealous serious brethren friends Christians therefore I must query Have I not erred against them have I not done them wrong have I not detained something from them that is their due We have professed a Kingdom of Heaven within us if it be there indeed then we have in us a throne of judgement which must do right to all things that come before us In this Kingdom there is also sufficient to answer every plea and claim that is made to it or against it and therefore we need not fear to admit the greatest and strongest accusation to a full and fair hearing Where there is authority to judge and sufficiency to answer there is likewise wisdom to understand what there is in these clamours though they be of themselves very dark and confused things for the mind may taste and try all things throughly and every thing that comes into it must be opened and seen in that light that is in it because the mind is a supream light to which all things are subject that come before it Therefore setting my self to examine and consider these things I found first that although there was just reason in the book yet there was something that hindered men from the seeing of it and though there was love and good in it yet there was something also that denyed men the benefit of it and therefore t is righteous that it should be animadverted and endure a tryal And secondly I find that there is some thing in my self that is justly due both to my friends and brethren and to the Book it self that was not therein communicated which is my life and spirit the ground upon which I stand upon which I wrote and by which I am enabled to assert things so different from others As these high challenges of my spirit and peace do tell me that this is the thing wanting and now demanded of me so I am upon this review of things conscious to my self that I have not fully opened my self and my mind but have in a great measure concealed it as well as my name And therefore I must thus far justifie the plea against me That if a man bring forth a notion of things different from and contrary to the life of others they may justly refuse that notion if the Author do not bring forth his own life spirit and peace which only can maintain those notions and satisfie for that life that he would take away by those notions This is for you and therefore I hope you will well observe the justice of it I am content to condemn what I have done as guilty of this capital offence It may possibly stand as a Law to me and others hereafter That if any man write be it never so good reason and with good intention if he do not produce the head of the spring from whence it comes and his own heart soul and peace with it let it wither and be rejected truly I believe it will There is a further justice in the persons offended If any man utter his matters to his friends and conceal himself he deals injuriously with them in bringing forth the weaker and worse and hiding the better part which the royal Law of love will condemn as a great wrong for certainly if there be any thing worthy in a man t is his spiritual life and therefore I justifie your anger you do like friends and men not to take words notions and reason if there be a better thing in me your own life and peace being aimed at you may well challenge me to shew a better I have this relief against this charge that though I am guilty in not discovering the best yet the best is still with me and being my own as yet it will support and justifie me Neither can I complain justly of any injury done to me by these sharp censures for if any man will put on an appearance strange to his neighbours and withal cover his face t is no wonder if men beat him and the dogs bark at him if he be ill used he may thank himself and his covering There is this remedy also if hiding the life and face be the fault that enmity that is occasioned by it will rend that vayl and then the quarrel will be ended If I have a right sense of the offence that is against me it being at me and upon me it sure belongs to me to feel and understand it then I am called forth to give a judgement of my Book and to hold forth to the view of all the world my spirit and life from whence it came and to shew what righteousness and power is with me that can maintain me and others in the receiving and practising such things as I have writ I have been very inward and retired in my spirit a long time not without some motions to look out but I have suppressed them and till now declined all publick appearance
Being sensible that my mind is both weak and a great stranger to all the Forms and ways of Religion that are abroad and having found by experience that when I did look out I met with great trouble and opposition from all sorts of people I have been willing to enjoy my peace and comfort at home and alone I did the least think to come forth in opposition to any party having in my heart a general love to all men But I am by this Book unexpectedly engaged to come forth in some kind of opposition to many if not all sorts of spirits now stirring in the Nation The people that have severely censured this book and me for it are Independents Anabaptists Quakers Fifth monarchy men and such as profess themselves spiritual and are in no particular form I desire them all friendly to consider how high they have raised the controversie and what must necessarily be the issue if it be determined If any of them had taken the book and dealt with the reason of it and had answered it and convinced me I had been bound to have been their Scholler and to have subscribed to them as my Master And if my reason had been too good for theirs I might have expected the same from them and no more But they all leaving the reason and falling directly upon my person and the state of my soul my life and peace the â—ar is like to be of a higher nature and the question who is the Antichrist who the Apostate who hath sinned against the Holy Spirit and consequently who must go down into horror and trouble into Satan and the displeasure of God and so it is a war of souls and spirits about the most solemn things of life and peace with God And therefore the issue must be this if you subdue me and overthrow my state I must bow and seek for mercy and peace of you upon such conditions as you shall think good to give it This I know you do expect and as necessarily I must so I do believe I readily shall perform it on the other side if my state and peace be good and yours fail I may require the same of you that you should submit to me and accept of my peace and pardon according to that equal and just Law Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them I do earnestly desire that we may on both sides heartily engage in this quarrel if I find you do shrink from it I shall endeavour to compell you to stand to it till there be a compleat victory gained by one of us If you be men and true to any thing that you say or think you cannot avoid the tryal for I know and feel that you are come forth against me in your censures of me with all your hearts and with the strength of your God Religion and Life as against an enemy to God and his cause t is so evident it cannot be denyed And by it you have drawn forth my life and spirit which till now lay close and still to answer you and therefore you are bound to stand and abide the dispute This I write neither lightly boastingly nor threatning but soberly and seriously in love to you and to the good and peace of souls The combat may be sharp but it may be friendly also For I do constantly find this truth in my mind that as all good doth and will overcome evil because it is larger stronger truer and more durable then evil so doth love conquer swallow up enmity enmity is a mean inferiour base thing that is but a servant to the greatness and majesty of love And at this time I find a special love both of pitty and friendship provoked and stirred in my heart by these wounds that you have given me For I feel such a nature in me the more you pierce the more freely my love and life will flow forth to you so that there is a ring of love made for us in which we may safely try our strength and therefore though it be both a serious and sharp contest yet it must also be a friendly strife It may be love hath laid a train to catch us all and all the enmity of all men For observe our quarrel it is of a very high nature for no less then the life and peace of our souls yet if we fight it out the end will be this either I must return to you and receive mercy from you of you must come to me and receive it from me Either you must be my Pastors or Ministers and so heal and feed me as a brother or I your Bishop and Father The quarrell is Whether you shall serve me with your life or I serve you with mine Whether I shall forgive you or you forgive me Possibly after some anger spent in the conflict it may be comprimised and we may both have our ends both serve and be served forgive and be forgiven But let us resolve to try it out for if you draw back and refuse the combat you will go down into your dark holes of enmity but press forward and we shall certainly come to feel and understand one another though through some smart and at last after we have spent our heat end in love If we had dealt in opinions that concern the State you might have feared trouble but you shall have the state of my mind to deal with which you may do without danger of any suffering but in your spirits our war will be now purely in and about spiritual things If we should controvert National Church Episcopacy c. the power of the Nation might be with me but declining that as you do and dealing only with my spirit and life possibly the Bishops may be as different from me and from my spirit and life as you are yea and be more with you then they are with me and I am apt to think it may prove so How ever you may be confident you are free from outward danger in dealing with the spirit of a private person You have advantage enough you are many I am alone you are whole and sound I am I confess much broken and weak you stand firm I have been tossed about my infirmities and failings are many and visible to all the world and most of all to my self yet truly I do desire and shall endeavour a fair trial not doubting the issue which way soever it fall it must be good SECT III. FIrst for the Book I have had many complaints against it but only in general as a monstrous strange wicked and cursed thing I have invited many to shew me particularly what false or unrighteous propositions there are in it and to this day not one man hath said to me that this or that sentence is untrue or will give me any reason against any passage of it But when we come to the point either they have not read it or but part of it
or I do not understand it or What do you mean by this or that passage T is strange totally condemned but not examined in any parts of it I may say in my case as Job chap. 31. v. 35 36 37. That mine adversary had written a Book surely I would take it upon my shoulder and bind it as a crown to me I would declare to him the number of my steps c. Had his reproofs been heavy true or false I would have taken them upon my shoulder and born either my own or his infirmities I have done it and by the same grace of God I can do it again Or had his book been more true righteous or mercifull then mine I can boldly say I should have put it upon my head openly worn his understanding professed it and gloried in it as a crown I know I have in me that authority over my self and have been so conversant in self-judging and retracting what I have seen to be short and also such a love to truth that it would be a glory and crown to me to meet with a light that could convince mine of darkness yea I have this experience of my self I can prefer another before me and give honour time and place to my adversaries even when I know they are the weaker But I may and do think that men are not able to deal with the reason of the Book and therefore it is left to my self to Animadvert upon it and possibly I may deal as severely with it as another The first thing that I blame the book for is its untimeliness it came too late I have in my heart a love to manknid to all English men and to the opposite parties in the Nation my place and work is to heal unite and reconcile and so to prevent ruine and destruction if I might be heard none should execute it nor any suffer it Many things did offer themselves in my mind that did tend to a universal peace and a composing all differences to the great advantage of the whole and of every part They have been long conceived in my mind and did offer themselves to birth at the beginning of this great change but I delaid so long till another spirit had stepped in and engaged the minds of men both in doing and suffering so that what was proposed towards mother course could not be heard by either and for this I suffered a very sharp rebuke from the Lord before the Book came forth t was like that to Moses Exod. 4.24 God met him and sought to kill him A more dangerous assault I have not received a long time nor a deâ—per wound I have still a frequent sense of it which keeps me in an awe of God My evil was suppressing a that light of love and peace which did arise in my mind from the divine nature This we must know and I declare it from a living sense That God is in his nature most gracious tender and patient yet he knows how to take vengeance on all iniquity even in his dearest children Where there is the greatest love there is the greatest authority and majesty yea the greatest jealousie and severity I find it so in his constant dealings with me The supreme Law of God is himself Love and with it peace salvation forgiveness good-will to man The very nature and Law of this love is to do good and communicate none receives it for himself only but to give forth to others of all things it must not be confined nor imprisoned being in its own nature infinitely large You have freely received freely give If this be the highest Law it doth punish accordingly being offended or transgressed against it requires the sorest punishment which is to take away that love They that have felt love must needs have the sharpest sense of the want of it and its nature being large and communicating that evil servant that hides and buries this talent of love and peace and not communicate it it shall be taken from him This was my danger All men live under a Law the Law of love is the exactest and severest where it is in life and power or the Law of the spirit of life which is in Jesus it is there the quickest and sharpest and works most fully and strongly where it is engraven and written upon the heart and put in the inward parts Every stroke of a Law of eternal life in the most inward parts must needs be terrible threatning eternal death I write this not only that you may know that I live under a Law and exact discipline but that all may learn to fear the Lord and his goodness For know assuredly that God will be known and feared of all and that in great mercy and severity For his love and grace where it is in its truth and power will not be abused and turned into looseness and wantonness you may abuse and corrupt lesser favour but it will rise and be revenged and at last have that absoluteness in it that it will rule and give Law to us else it cannot save us My suppressing the movings of general and healing love was thus it often rose up in my mind and required to be written and published I did attempt and essay to do it but what I did one day I disliked the second or third day either from the weakness of my mind or from a growing spring of light or both but finding larger and deeper discoveries I refused and rejected the former and so in hope of doing better more strongly more certainly and completely I delayed to do what was present till the season was past There is in this a great evil for which I received a great rebuke and yet am I not wholly delivered from the snare for the further enlargement of my mind and the instruction of others I will examine the particulars of it In not giving forth truth light and love as it arises naturally in our minds but deferring till it be more accomplished and compleat or till we can give it a finer dress which may render it the more acceptable to others that so the fruit may be more certain and our selves more honoured and justified In this there is a great transgression against the Law of love and life First it is a fin against that truth or light an undervaluing of it as if it were not worthy to be seen and looked upon by men in its own natural form wherein there is the greatest beauty it is sufficiently if not most lovely in it self and in its own naked and native goodness All light hath a natural Majestie in it and is best when purest and unmixed it commands by its own brightness but above all the light of love is absolute and perfect It hath in it a sufficiency of glory to take away the spots and defects of other things and therefore it self needs no accomplishments All additions to light and love do darken and ecclipse them both for they give
God which did call them forth and then continue to judge them and God maintained his own and their authority over them We were called out at first not by Officers from God but by part of that we call Egypt or the world by the Parliament which we used as Egypt or Egyptians or worse we overthrew them and their authority 4. Israel had a Law given them from heaven and one Tabernacle built for all according to the pattern in the Mount of God We never had a Law from heaven to govern us but were left to the Laws and Customs of Egypt of the world No pattern for a Tabernacle but every one built according to his own mind which must needs make division and so bring confusion 5. God destroyed Egypt with his Plagues and armies of Frogs Lice Flies and Locusts but we our selves were these Armies that eat up this Egypt we were the Frogs Lice and Locusts that vexed the Egyptians 6. Israel were led out of Egypt into a Land that the Lord their God gave them We could never get out of Egypt nor had we any Land to go to They were driven out of Egypt by Pharaoh and the Egyptians we drove Pharaoh and the Egyptians out of Egypt and kept Egypt for our selves the goodly buildings the riches honours preferments and all the Laws Ordinances and Customs of Egypt and could do no other wayes for we had no Land of our own to go to 7. Pharaoh and Egypt first tasked and oppressed then persued Israel We had got the way of tasking and oppressing Egypt and then persued Pharaoh into the Sea and beyond the Sea Pharaoh and his Charets and Horse-men were drowned in the red Sea for his pursuing Israel And now our Charets and Horse-men are drowned in a kind of a Sea of confusion and it was for persuing with endless and implacable enmity Here is a wide difference betwixt us and our foundation and as wide an end There Israel overcame here Egypt overcomes And if that be our bottom and we build so very far from it we cannot expect a better end Let us consider the second ground the redeeming of Israel out of Babylon whether we have been truer to that Copy we have made great use of those Scriptures Prophesies and Promises how justly must be examined 1. First Israel did not destroy their enemies Babylon and the King of Babylon was destroyed by the hands of the Medes and Persians under the command of Cyrus a heathen Prince but anointed for that purpose But we have destroyed Babylon our selves and therefore have hitherto acted but the part of Cyrus the part of Israel is yet to come 2. In the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt God visited them by a King of their own Moses Who was King in Jesurun In this deliverance God visited them in the Emperour Cyrus and charged him to build his house And the Jews moved not but by Proclamation Command and Commission from the Prince When a succeeding King Artaxerxes forbade them to build the City they ceased until Darius made a new Decree enlarged their Commission and contributed to the work Afterwards another Artaxerxes was stirred up to give command for the carrying on the same work and supplying of all the wants of the builders We had no such authority for our work but on the contrary we went forth upon our own heads at our own pleasure according to our own minds without any authority and overthrew the Authority of the Nation because they would not joyn with us 3. Israel were the known people of God visibly distinct from the world owned to be so Even by those Princes in whose Dominions they were God gave them honour in the sight of the heathen where they were carried captive We have no such visible character no such justification but assume it to our selves and destroy others because they would not so honour us 4. Israel as they were outwardly and visibly the people of God so they were the known heirs of that Countrey to which they went they had an unquestioned Civil right to it although they had been for a time sequestred from it for their sins And when they returned home they recovered but what they lost enjoyed their own Temple Priests Tithes Offerings But we not content with our own inheritance usurp other mens rights Indeed the parallel fits the other side much better who have been for their sins driven out and now return to their inheritance to their Law Church Temple and Worship from which they were sequestred and driven away 5. When God brought Israel out of Babylon he instituted the same Officers Prince and Priest that he did when he brought them out of Egypt For Moses and Aaron then there was Zerubabel and Joshua now and to those was given a spirit that would scatter confusion a line and plumet the seven eyes the fulness of the Spirit to furnish them for the repairing the Temple and City of God The two anointed ones that stand before the Lord of the whole earth which through the golden pipes empty the golden oyl out of themselves And therefore it was then not by might nor by armies but by my Spirit saith the Lord But alas we have no King nor Priest no anointing to scatter confusion but confusion scattered us Our Motto may be contrary to theirs Not by Gods Spirit but by might and by Armies For we were successful in nothing else but in force and arms Therefore if the Scripture be a rule to measure your actions you must confess you have grosly erred and walked not only in crooked but in contrary pathes to it Consider fairly the third dispensation of God to his people the grace and salvation revealed by Christ and the Spirit in the Gospel Gospel-Ordinances Gospel-Saints Gospel Order and a Gospel-Spirit have been much spoke of I am grieved at my heart for you to think that any men should be so grosly deceived or deceive themselves as to perswade themselves that such works as you have done and such a way as you are engaged in should have any countenance or authority from the holy and pure Gospel of of the Lamb of God For though you have endeavoured to frame your outward forms of Worship according to the outward letter of the Gospel yet you have denyed and opposed both the Doctrine and Spirit of the Lamb and his Apostles and that not only in those things which you call miscarriages but in the main of your work and business 1. First Christ begins his Ministrie with blessing he blessed the poor in Spirit them that mourn the meek the merciful the peace-makers the persecuted so he taught so he practised he was himself a Lamb he sent his Disciples out as Sheep among Wolves and commanded resist not evil love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you that you may be the children of your Father which is in
you stand up with Joshua and Zerubbabel they scattered confusion and brought Israel out of Babel you have led us and your selves into a Babel of confusion Nor can you stand before the son of man and his Spirit alas you are faln before him judged and rejected by him for ever never to he restored in that vile and abominable way in which you stood and still are I desire you to remember what is my intent in this present discourse it is to undeceive you and to bring you off from those unsound principles in which you are engaged and in which you will ruine if you be not delivered out of them And to shew you good reason for inviting you as I did in my Book to offer up your Principles to a fair tryal in order to satisfie his Majestie and reconcile you to his Government And if you consider what I have said here it will be found no wicked design but righteous and merciful Counsel both to your selves and to the Nation SECT VII BEsides the three former great dispensations in Scripture which you have seemed to make the bottom of your Cause and Way There is one thing more which sometimes you have glanced at with your eye as a rule to you and that is the Prophetical Scriptures yet unfulfilled and especially the Revelations You have sometimes harped at them and catched hold of some broken pieces of them But you never could attain such a knowledge of them as to make them either a foundaâ—ion or rule I do believe and know that the Revelation is a line drawn from Christ his first appearing quite through that state unto his second appearing and leads the Church both into her suffering and captivity and out of it into glory And therefore doth discover the state of the Gospel-Church from the beginning to the end from Christ his Ministrie to the glorious and eternal Kingdom of God And so all the works of God in these times both in Churches and Nations come under the Law or Line of that Book And therefore those revelations rightly opened will extricate the Church from her Babylonish enemy confusion and enable her to build up her self again in glory peace light and love That line will also measure the late revolutions in this Nation For I am fully satisfied that so considerable a work as this hath been in and about both Church and Kingdom was certainly in the Council of God and also expressed in his word But this much I know that you have been as ignorant of that book as you have been of your own work and that you have not had nor yet have a reed to measure either the one or the other by neither can you rationally six your work upon any one part of that book Nor have you had light to make that or any part of it or of any Scripture a Law to you in your work but have been driven on by snatches without any rule or judgement or any dependence of one thing upon another Which is not the understanding of a Man or Christian but in plain terms it is the beast Being led and leading by impulses or by present sensible and occasional things and not by any certain rule If the beast and his mark image and name be not yet overcome in your spirits as certainly he is not then though you had power and a kingdom it was but with the beast and but one hour What that means read and you may understand Having faln upon the Prophesies and Revelations which are the only written rule of the dispensations of God to his Church and people in these dayes for your better instruction hereafter know these three things 1. It is not wise or saâ—e to appear in any publick business before you understand clearly by the unsealing of that book where you are what you are to do whether you are to go and what will be the end For if that be the only declaration of Gods mind concerning the government of his Church and Kingdom in these latter ages we are not to stir either upon guesses presumptions or broken hinâ—s nor to be moved by a crowd a noise a multitude which are uncertain and deceitful things and will fail any people that follow them but upon clear knowledge of that only rule 2. That ignorance of a rule to act by and forwardness to attempt without a rule in such great and weighty matters do declare that there is yet an enemy among you the Prince of darkness which hinders you from seeing your rule And also much fleshly unmortified worldly matter that dares move without the knowledge of that rule And where these two are an enemy that blinds and a bold impatient unmortified mind to follow him blindly no wonder if both fall into the ditch 3. You are and have been fulfilling some part of that book it is no question if you know not what part of it it is but reasonable that you should fear that it is an evil part you little think how bad it is Where there darkness there is also a lye Therefore seeing you know not nor can say what it is I may say it is far worse then you imagine you shall know more hereafter if God please We have tried your state work and spirit First by the Law of Moses and his Ministrie Secondly by the Prophets and the deliverance of Israel out of Babylon Thirdly by the Gospel and the Ministrie of Christ and the Apostles Fourthly by the Prophetical Scriptures to be fulfilled since Christ and the Apostles and do find that neither of all these are your foundation because you have not kept to them nor made them your rule Before we give a final judgement I shall shew you the thing it self that you have professed and pretended to that Zion and that Jerusalem which hath been so much talked of I will a little unvail her to you as she is with me and stands before me and at this time going out of Babylon 1. She is an holy Nation City or Kingdom Holy and righteous not by gifts notion purpose and prophecying but by nature and in the matter and substance of her being being one with the Lamb and so in her nature patient innocent meek She is from heaven Jerusalem that is from above comes from God out of heaven and is of the same nature with him and therefore hath his name written upon her which she could not justly wear if she have not his nature likewise 2. She is an holy City or Nation built and formed according to the eternal Law or mind of God in most excellent union beauty and order and not a confused heap of prophane and filthy matter She hath both Magistracy and Ministry in equal and proportionable parts all in order She is built both according to the Law and Gospel and hath the beauty of both and sings the song of Moses and the Lamb in excellent harmony 3. In this state she is joyned to the Lord her head in
the beast And in one hour would you be made as desolate as you have been You neither could nor can resist it For strong is the Lord that judgeth For he that hath sworn he will bring down them that exalt themselves be they never so mighty and raise up the lowly the meek the Lamb who only trusteth in him and shall be saved by him If you could not resist this Judgement when you were great and strong why should you not be wise now and cease from that state and those wayes which lead you upon sensible ruine For what more certain destruction can there be then for a naked people to dash themselves against a rock of power and authority that is rooted and grounded in the Laws and minds of the Nation and now after proof and trial rises up strongly against all its enemies You are as to your persons part of the Israel of God I do most freely grant it to you But as yet but Israel after the flesh and no more And God hath used you and the fire of your fleshly Zeal Rev. 17.16 17. to hate the whore make her desolate and naked and to eat her flesh The war hath been of fleshly knowledge fleshly forms and fleshly wisdom by fleshly power policy and arms against outward and fleshly corruptions which God hath put into your hearts until the words of God should be fulfilled And during this Ministry you pleaded the cause of Zion and had the name title and success for that work But those words are fulfilled And then there appeared in this fleshly Israel and fleshly work a spiritual Antichrist which your own mouthes have acknowledged and a spiritual Sodom Egypt and Babylon which your works have manifested Sodoms pride idleness and fulness of bread Egypts falshood cunning and cruelty Babylons loftiness glorying and self-exaltation Where our Lord also was crucified As well as the flesh of the whore desolated It is this spiritual Antichrist this adulterated wine or wine of fornication in and with your fleshly gifts and fleshly success that bewitches your minds abuses your understandings and enrages your spirits into a foolish confidence and presumptuous opposition to the power of the Nation to your apparent ruine My endeavour is to redeem your understandings from those vain and rejected confidences and to recover your minds and reasons into a sober consideration of your selves and of your condition that you may not desperately throw away your lives and liberties in a heady drunken and rash zeal Friends I do earnestly desire you seriously to consider if you can or if your high conceits of your selves your principles and cause will admit of reason and consideration Then consider what is there in your present state which now lies under so great conviction in your consciences and so great condemnation from men that should make you disdain either a reproof or a proposal of trying your principles at a bar of Religion and Reason before the wisest justest largest and soberest men in the Church and Nation For that was the intent of that Book that you so fiercely and bitterly condemn It was humbly desired that the persons to be tried together with their principles might not be judged at least not finally by the Common Law but might have a Chancery And why should you not now be reconciled to it and seek it what should hinder you from petitioning it as a singular mercy To the utmost of my understanding it might be not only a means of saving your selves but a blessing to the Nation I am very confident that you and all men after you have wearied and spent your selves your peace and comfort in these unnatural and brutish violences will be glad to hearken to a brotherly and friendly debate of things When that pride that makes men scorn all mens Reason and Religion but their own is brought down For he that knows any thing of the general and large love of God and of Jesus to all men must conclude that that pride will as certainly be ruined and ruine it self as he knows God is just or mercifull SECT IX I Intended not to prosecute this point of accommodating the present distance and opposition that is betwixt you and this Government of the Church and Nation But being unexpectedly faln upon it and engaged in it and it being the end of my first Book and the constant frame of my mind to seek peace by a right understanding And there being still great need of it in respect of the great numbers that do suffer and possibly a better opportunity for it satisfaction being taken to the Law of the Land justice of the Nation upon them that have suffered The same love to you that led me at first to propound it continues still in me and leads me now to prosecute it The enmity is strong and great confirmed by a long and cruel war heightened and inflamed by many wrongs and injuries It is a fire that hath and doth burn fiercely in the minds of men It is now upon you if it be not quenched it doth and will utterly destroy you and all that cannot yield to the present Government of the Church except a new war relieve you And both you and the whole Nation have found by woful experience that war is no friend but an enemy to all Civil and Religious blessings And that fighting may destroy both the good and the evil without Judgement but save nothing I hope it is and will be the mind of all sober Christians and Englishmen that consider the effects of our late wars rather to suffer in their own particulars then to raise a new war whereby the whole Nation must suffer thousands be slain and at last they that raised it will be far worse then they were when they begun That Law and Sentence that came out of Christs lips first and was afterward confirmed by the Spirit in the Revelations as a divine Law to all ages is He that taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword And therefore wo be to that Party or Person that makes war and division his hope that longs to see the Kingdom in a flame that he may warm himself at the fire Or would have the whole ruined and Shipwracked that he might have a share of the pillage You have had the sword and could not keep it it is turned now against you and the strength of the Nation also all highly provoked by your evil dealings with them And yet you are the sharpest enemies to the Propositions of Peace I know no good reason why you should be so A good friend of yours and mine hath said again and again One side must yield why should not we first lie down and submit We that profess most knowledge of the Gospel and are most conversant with Scriptures should be most inclined to meekness and peace there is sure some notable evil spirit gotten in that makes the most gifted the most quarrelsome I am bound to examine what
cry of the cause be not only a great sound or more sound then substance Empty vessels give the greatest sound Most noise least truth and substance is very common Or things when they go off make the greatest report This I have observed of this cause it floats like Wine in mens heads fills mens Prayers and Sermons flies about in Books and Discourses and so raises a smoak of talk zeal and affection But in all this time First It never attained or gathered a body into any consistency but mens minds are still blown about like dust one people talk this and another that but there never was any consent or agreement about it 2. As it never could gain a body so it never had any form it was never yet stated by any man or by any company of men only confused thoughts and talks there are about it Thirdly it never yet attained any power in the Nation it never was owned as the cause of God by either Parliament or Army Men in their private prayers and Sermons talk of the Kingdom of God of the fall of Babylon and building Zion but those powers owned nothing but necessity safety interest of the people and such like things And therefore you may well think what a bottom it is that you adventure your selves in or rather how bottomless it is Many words many affections many duties multitudes of sacrifices many Scriptures quoted preached on But what power and substance is there in these What heavenly glory is there in them or among you that is able to convince your enemies Or what earthly strength is there in them that can defend and support a poor naked people against a strong and mighty Prince against a standing Law and Authority My reason experience and knowledge tells me that as you are so you will be left in confusion in any engagement for such a cause that hath no more solid body state or power in it And therefore be perswaded to retire from the noise that you make in each others ears and affections and enquire within in your own reasons and memories And remember if you can where had you this Cause from whence came it where and when was it born in what year of these late changes in which of them was it brought forth Or from what Scripture do you derive it is there such a thing spoken or named there as the Cause of God God pleads the Cause of his people by outward Judgements and by his Spirit the Advocate and by Christ their Counsellor But his Cause is not now at the Bar no he hath set Christ upon the throne and he is exalted far above all principalities and powers He is now actually judging and ruling the world he pulleth down and setteth up whom he will You may feel his power and authority he judges you for your unrighteousness and sets up your enemies above you What is it that thus blinds your eyes that you should contend or that which is already done for Christs Kingdom doth not the enemy abuse your understandings and perswade you it is the Cause of God and his Kingdom when indeed it is your own honour dominion and greatness But hath there not been a cause of God in this Nation Yes there hath been that which we may call so and it was this The Church and Kingdom of England stood in a very dark fleshly and corrupt state and the Governors of it were also corrupt and had sinned against God For which God had a Controversie both with their persons and standing And therefore sanctified you with a fleshly holiness against their fleshly corruption and called you forth for the executing of his judgement upon them And therein you were justified being engaged to speak in your language in the cause of God or being employed to administer that judgement which he had given in the cause Thus much I can grant to you and it will be found the right of the case But if the Judgement decreed be executed and the measure of outward punishment be fulfilled then your cause ceases If this kind of wrath by war blood and spoil be finished why should not you be content to be discharged from this employment First it is a mean service to be the Executioners of an outward destruction It is O Assyrian the rod of my anger and the staff in their hand is my indignation I will send him against an hypocritical Nation and against the people of my wrath will I give him change to take the spoil and to take the prey and to tread down like the mire of the streets Isa 10.5 6. Secondly as it is a vile service so it hath been vilely polluted It is a filthy thing to destroy and the filthiness of it is manifested It is Babylonian and the confusion is sufficiently discovered The brightness and cleanness of it and all the honour and glory of it was the wrath and justice of God when that was finished then it presently shewed its vile nature covetousness self-seeking pride and cruelty Nothing but ignorance or a love of the prey and spoil can make men to doat upon it and desire to continue in it Thirdly being it self unclean it cannot purifie nor reform the Nation It reaches but to the out-side to the outward life honour and greatness It never touches the spirit and therefore may waste and spoil and so restrain for a time the fleshly part but the nature and spirit of the thing still remains yea confirmed and strengthened It may tread down in the mire but its unclean feet of wrath and pastion pollute more then purge and so make worse Fourthly to purifie is left to the fire of of his own Spirit which will thorowly purge with the spirit of judgement and burning You administred 1. without judgement you could not discern between the gold and the dross And 2. without burning for if the dross be not separated from the gold it cannot be consumed as yet we have had neither separation nor burning for want of both these their dross still remains after all the wrath administred But doubt not the holy purpose and power of God He will certainly purge both you and them by the breath of his mouth and the brightness of his appearing This pure heavenly fire is descended is kindled is set as a refiners fire and no iniquity shall escape the flame of it For it is holy mighty effectual and eternal it doth and will burn for ever You have heard the sound of it in your spirits ye are in the smoak of it and so is the whole Nation which is the reason of the present blackness darkness and confusion But when the evil is brought forth and discovered he will certainly destroy it yea it is actually destroying and in destruction in being brought forth Fifthly That outward wrath which you administred you could nor but execute it you could not cease from it till it was finished but you have since turned from that cause and made
not intangled in your self-righteousness and your minds not captivated by Satan the very principles of holiness that are in you would make you distaste your present state which hath been proved to be vain and false and full of opposition and contradiction There is in you a seed of truth love and purity which must make you loath that state that hath been and is found by constant experience unclean formal and full of enmity to one another and all men However you judge of me as unholy I must teâ—l you I have a long time not only witnessed against the corruption of it but have turned from it even from the best of what is abroad of every sect And that in the sincerity of my love and affection to the pure and holy nature of Jesus Christ And so far as I have in any small measure partaked of his holy Spirit I have born your iniquities and been pressed and burdened with them grieved for them and shamed of them I do not now blame you from a common or humane spirit though that also is able to find gross defects in you and in the best of your way It is by it men blame you And you by it blame one another But from that holiness wherewith I stand before God for you and in that love and pitty to you wherein I intercede for you and could lay down my life for you I may say more For I know and find that none comes unto the Father to intercede for sinners but by the Son both in the name and spirit of the Son None minister truly before God but in that love of Christ who can be accursed for Brethren From deep experience of God of my own soul and of your state and from a long and sore travel in all do I write this to you That whatever you account of your selves by comparing your selves with your selves or with one another or with them that are visibly worse then you Yet when you shall but strive to enter into the strait gate that you may indeed come into the Kingdom of God and his naked face and presence I say when you shall but seriously and in truth desire it and press after it you will abhor your selves and that kind of holiness in which you now live Yea I know in your approaches to God which are not spiritual naked and heavenly but earthly fleshly and in letter or image only yet in that presence of God which you enjoy you are full of self-condemnings and self-upbraidings But that being but an out ward Court into which your Religion brings you it may shew you the outward spots and blemishes of your Religion but cannot discover to you the root and bottom of the evil that is in you Thirdly You are now in a zeal for your forms of worship and for those gifts and graces that attend them opposing condemning and reviling in words and religious exercises to what that tends all men know the persons ministry and worship now set up in the Nation Against these you run headily and carnally for consider what you oppose not Satan in these persons offices and worship but the things themselves That which you oppose and sight against being outward and carnal such is that also by which you do oppose them So that the business is not to pull down sin and iniquity and set up holiness but to pull down the outward power means and ministry of the Bishop and set up the Pastor In truth it is to pull down them and set up your selves This being a carnal and fleshly contest though covered with the name of God 1. It is unclean 2. And being unclean that which comes from it must needs be unclean also and thereby you promote not holiness but the contrary sin For contention and war have done and still do wound and slay the holy life which is pure and peaceable and carnal strife wastes the meek and good spirit If you should attain what you aim at and destroy again the whole outward frame of Church and State and set up your selves except you had the holy and mighty Spirit of God to destroy the root and spirit as well as the form and to open hell and shut them up for ever as the Spirit did Christs enemies they would recover again as they have done But such a Spirit and such a Power you have not I suppose if you could damn them all to hell presently you would not do it you have more mercy in you as men to men your Brethren And I am sure when you have power to do it you will not do it because he that hath power to do it will not doth not do it And he will never give his power but he will give his goodness and mercy likewise Again if you could thrust out them and exalt your selves and way in their place how would holiness be advanced It would be but one thing removed and another of the same nature brought in for it is of the same kind with theirs humane earthly and living in the same region else it could not sight with theirs if it be but of the same earthly nature it must needs be worse not better because it rises by war and contention And therefore must needs be harder sharper and more cruel and thereby suppresses the softer and attains its place by force And yet when you have done this except you have a more holy Spirit to guide lead and unite you you will not be able to settle your selves It is a tryed and judged case that this spirit in which you act hath not that truth and power that can wholly destroy what is nor that love and light that can reform it nor yet that wisdom that can provide a better And therefore you did overturn this Government throw it in the dirt and leave the Nation void for more wickedness to enter and then suffer the old to recover maimed and broken into a fouler house then it was Or else you must go on to perpetuate and establish contention and confusion in the Nation This is both reason and experience and may convince you if any thing will If you have not a more holy more true and more excellent spirit you can never attain what you seek either an extirpation of this Power and Government or establish a better If you cannot effect this you will but sill your selves your Religion and the Nation with violence fury and enmity by all your opposition you make But raise a deal of dust to blind your own eyes and others But stir and provoke black and malignant spirits both in you and against you as you have done And if you had that holy Spirit which only can prosper you in such an undertaking Then I am sure you would forbear this kind of carnal and wrathful opposition For the spirit of Christ is of the nature of Christ most holy and most gentle gracious and merciful He is so holy pure and incorruptible that he can
and doth make these things uphold them and walk in them and in all the wayes and forms of men in the midst of all their vanity and iniquity and not be defiled with them And this Spirit when you are led by him will enable you to live either above them or besides them or in the secret of his Tabernacle which is within all there forms and that with purity peace and content And this Spirit that upholds and gives being to all forms and persons doth distinguish and perfectly judge between the good and the evil of all persons and things and doth eternally chuse and gather unto himself that which is holy in all and casts the chaff and dust to the Serpent and him and it into the Lake of fire If therefore you have this Spirit and will do that visibly which he doth eternally then you must by him first gather all these things and all the parts of the broken Church and Nation under his wings that he may do with our Chaos as he did when he made the world first sustain cherish and brood upon this desolate state and then form a new one For if you cannot receive all into your hearts and bowels of love you will never renew or reform any thing For love is the first moving cause of all good It is love only that hath in it that mercy that life that goodness that can heal and reform the poor diseased and decayed state of man and of the Church This excellent divine nature of God Love hath rejected with indignation your harsh and severe spirit of self-sasety and self-seeking into confusion and shame And hath taken the work out of your hands into his own after you have by violence and unskilfulness spoyled wasted and ruined he will himself save and restore And in order to it takes the whole frame of things in all its sin death curse and misery both persons parties forms and states into the bowels of his most tender compassions into himself and his own nature life and being who is Emanuel God with us In our flesh and so in and under our sins and curse bearing of them for us and from us He hath love to those persons that you would destroy finding his own image in them for they are his own creatures and children therefore he will save them and first pardon and then remove their iniquities In those offices that you would destroy he knows there is good in them and in the honour and riches belonging to them and therefore will take away the abuse and corruption of them And in that service that you so much vilifie there is heavenly excellency which must be preserved purified enlightened and all the death darkness and prophaneness separated from it The holy one of Israel will do this Therefore to conclude this point of holiness you may and must know That you were sanctified with a measure of gifts for a service for the execution of Gods displeasure Its work is finished the gifts corrupted and now as to publick work upon the Nation rejected and under a judicial blindness and confusion because of an evil spirit that did and doth still possess them It is the righteous judgement of the Spirit of God upon them who hath though your gifts and performances be many and solemn cast them as dung in your faces If you will retreat with them in humility and repentance to attend the purifying of your own souls and the purging away your own sins you will find mercy to your selves But if you think by them to exalt your selves again into dominion and power in the Nation you will but involve your selves in more misery and wrath and like a Bull in a net entangle your souls in greater errours and outward troubles The holy Spirit I know and have felt did bear you a long time as a heavy burden and at last eased himself of you as a clog and cumber to him And now I with joy feel that he is free to exercise his own power to effect and perfect what you have failed in It will be your only safety now to retire into deep silence and humility and leave the Church and Nation to him that is Lord of both who made both and I can assure you will perfectly reform both SECT XIV BEsides the two things mentioned of the Kingdom of God and of holiness there are some other things that you have sought in these late wars which are still in your minds As common liberty or the liberty of the people and liberty of conscience But it is most certainly true and by experience now manifested that these things are not in that spirit in which you have acted and still stand Nor is this way of strife and contention the way to obtain them but the contrary For as war and enmity is against the Kingdom of Christ which is a Kingdom of peace And as they harden pollute and vitiate the mind of man which is contrary to holiness So they do naturally exalt will and force rage and jealousie and so must necessarily eat up and devour all liberty and turn all into the worst kind of tyrannie if the Father of mercies and Spirits doth not enlarge mollifie and sweeten the nature of man which wrath and war doth imbitter and harden It is true common liberty is written in the common nature of man in some degree though it be very weak This liberty came forth in you in notion profession and affection beyond what it doth in other people and it hath been not only talked of but desired by you yet that spirit in which you rose and in which you seek it hath not any true liberty in it And if it hath not liberty in it it can neither attain it for you from others nor give it by you to others it never could do either Mind well what I write else you will not understand it For it is I know besides the common reason and apprehensions of men and therefore seems to be and is strange to the dark and private spirit of the world but you and all men must know that there is a divine reason in these things which ought to be and therefore shall be the rule of mans Reason Know then first That we began our wars upon this principle of delivering our selves from the yoak of the Law and Government of the Church and Kingdom being of another spirit and way from them And upon the same principle of self-safety and self-freedom was the war carried on and the whole business from step to step This seemed to us very just and righteous that we should have liberty to serve God according to what light and understanding he gave us And there is an undoubted right in it Yet we see to what infinite confusion and strange enmity and division this principle hath brought us And therefore there is some notable evil either in the principle or in the liberty or in both I think both will be found faulty I
unhappiness of them that are under a Law and necessity of so acting and them that are under a Law and necessity of so suffering If either my labour and pains or my knowledge and experience yea or my life if self may do any thing to cure this evil and quench this flame I should gladly expend them all And for you my friends to whom in love and mercy this is directed I know it will not only seem strange to you but be very grievous to bear to find so great a spiritual enemy in the midst of your spiritual gifts and enjoyments I know you little expected it and as little thought to find me the discoverer of it to you whom you have so much slighted But know this is the fruit of my long travels and dangerous encounters with this enemy With whom I have endured a long and tedious warfare with great expence of life and blood even in my soul and spirit and have received many desperate wounds in my inward man while you lived at case and in pleasure both outward and inward You now have that cheap which cost me dear For alas how much easier it is for you to receive this conviction from the hand of a weak broken man in love and compassion to you Then to receive it as I have done from an angry and jealous God How much easier is it for you to bear reproof from the experience of a friend then to conflict with this destroyer hand to hand and to graple with all his malice darkness and wrath in your own naked souls and spirits which God knows I have done again and again I know you have had strange thoughts of me I forgive you you might well think strangely of me when you beheld me encompassed with the darkness and smoak of this bottomless pit and sensibly lost and swallowed up by this enemy But I have by the mighty power and goodness of God escaped thorow many deaths and dangers and yet live to communicate to you the benefit of my conflicts sufferings and deliverance If you say you intend not war and destruction to them which you oppose but their repentance See that you be true to this I do believe many are wholly taken off from war by the great experience we have had of the beastly deceit the horrible cruelty and corruption that hath attended it And that the same honesty that led them out at first to engage in it leads them now to abhor it and to chuse rather to suffer then by war to seek a deliverance For the clearing and strengthening their spirits in that way of peace are these things writ And to inform and instruct others that are yet unconvinced We will then suppose that you intend not to get liberty of Conscience by violence and war which was our first branch but by a friendly agreement with the present Magistrates and Governours this is our second branch If we desire liberty first know That it must be from the Magistrate for all liberty Civil and Spiritual is in his power either to give or restrain Liberty is the fruit that grows only upon the tree of Government Law and Authority or is enjoyed only under the protection of them Take away Authority and Magistracy and all kind of liberty ceases we are presently exposed to the lusts of wilde and brutish men Therefore they that are truly conscientious are most faithful to Magistracy 1. Because they are bound to obey not only for wrath as others but for conscience sake in obedience to God who hath instituted Magistracy and ordained that power And they know and feel the Providence and goodness of God in the Magistrate as well as the weight of his Scepter 2. Because they may receive more benefit from him then others liberty not only for their outward man but for their spiritual man also which others need not 3. Because they being conscientious are more tender then others and so more subject to injury then those that are not bound by conscience The loose and prophane need the Magistrate to restrain and subdue their wills the conscientious is his own Law as to restraint and needs the Magistrate only for his protection So that indeed the sword of Authority if rightly understood the edge of it is against the loose and lawless life and the peace and favour of it is to the good and the godly The enemy of man and author of confusion hath brought forth much mischief amongst us both to the Magistrate and to the conscientious in dividing one from the other and setting of them against each other which have but one root For the Magistrate is the Minister of God for good Rom. 13.4 And conscience binds a man to subject to all the words and works of God and to all things that are administred from him or by him Upon a little sober consideration this mist of errour and mistake will be scattered But if the Magistrate give us this liberty of Conscience then in reason and conscience we are bound to defend the Magistrate that defends us in this liberty And if we desire liberty of him it is but equal and reasonable that we should profess that it is our judgements and consciences so to do For we cannot expect he should give liberty to a conscience that would destroy him and his Government Wherefore when men have professed conscience in destroying and changing of Governments there should be a Declaration and Profession against it answerable to the evil done by it or sufficient to wipe off that scandal Secondly If we desire liberty of Conscience from the Magistrate it must be either in a way of Reason or Religion or both if we seek it from him in a way of reason we must admit him a man a reasonable creature else it is in vain to seek reason of him If the Magistrate be man he hath the image of God as man and as Magistrate which is to be beloved honoured and defended by us not opposed hated and destroyed If there be man and reason it is possible and likely we may agree with and unite to man because we also are men of the same flesh and blood with him and he with us If we do not agree with our own nature though under many defects there is something unnatural in us which we may call Spiritual but if it be Spiritual it is not divine nor Christian for God loves man is reconciled to man Christ is a man and loves his Brethren If we confess them to be men then we are to deal humanely with them and to exercise reason to them openly clearly fairly If we think they err we are in reason to go to them and to inform them if we can or to receive information from them If we need anything of them we should reasonably propound our request to them If both parties be men and will exercise reason to each other there will be an understanding and agreement for there is but one reason in all