and worldly lusts and to live Godlikely and soberly in this present World He stands at the Door of every Heart and knocks if by any means he may be heard and have admittance whereby God's Promise may be fulfill'd That God will dwell with Men and my Testimony is That a Remnant have obey'd this Heavenly Voice and now walk in this pure Light in which God Almighty is known to tabernacle with them Therefore in the fear of God Eternal do I cry aloud unto you all who are wandering in the by-paths of mens Inventions Traditions and Precepts to empty your hearts and minds of those unprofitable Guests that better entertainment than a Manger may be had to receive this Lord of Glory The mighty Prophet all must hear or die who searcheth the Heart tryeth the Reins and is able to tell you all that ever you did This is the Quakers Christ and Son of the Living God whom we are not ashamed to confess before Men as that Glorious Light which since we have believed and walked in according to our distinct measures we have not onely received a perfect discovery of all the will-Worships Pollutions and vain Fashions or Customs that have been brought forth by and stands in the dark lustful and apostatiz'd nature but as we have continued in a holy watchfulness to observe and obey its Righteous Dictates Gods mighty Power we have and do experience to subdue and redeem therefrom yea that Spiritual Blood is sensibly felt to sprinkle and cleanse the Conscience from dead works And to you all must I declare That by no other way did I ever receive the knowledge of the least evil or ability to conquer it than in this universal Light who is given for a Captain and a Leader out of all the by-paths and petty perswasions of men through judgment that purifies and the Red Sea of Troubles Tryals and Afflictions unto the Rest which is pure and undefiled This is Gods beloved Son hear ye him For I proclaim another way there is not to eternal Life and Peace than this everlasting Gospel which now is preached for the time is come that the Angel of his Presence is flying through the midst of Heaven having this antient Gospel to preach to them that dwell upon the Earth and are in their Earthly Nature Wisdom and Worships Crying with a loud Voice Fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his Judgment is come Therefore away away with all your own wayes works and Worships that are grounded upon mens Command and fallible apprehensions whose breath is in their nostrils and no more do homage according to such prescriptions but fear and dread the living Lord God of Heaven and Earth For if the Righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and sinner appear But woe anguish tribulation and sorrow shall come upon every Soul that remains in sin Therefore be warned ye dark and Idolatrous Papists ye superstitious and loose Protestants yea zealous yet carnal Professors to come out of all your own Wayes Works Worships Nature Spirit and Practice In silence and fear to wait in this glorious Light which God Almighty has displayed and raised us contemned Quakers to walk in and testifie of in these last Ages that by believing therein and circumspectly adhering thereto you may come to experience the rising of that eternal Power which overcomes and removes transgression that hath so long separated between you and your God hereby shall you receive sound Judgment and Heavenly Wisdom This will not destroy but fulfil the Spriptures of Truth and so shall you know the Baptism that 's from above and eat the Heavenly Bread and drink the Spiritual Wine at Christs Table in his Kingdom which the Saints of old saw the coming of before they tasted of death For the Kingdom of God is within Here all old things Covevenant Signs Ordinances and whatever perisheth with the using shall be done away and the everlasting unchangeable Substance witnessed and no more shall you profess Religion or perform Worship from the imagining and transgressing nature but from a certain sence of Gods own Operation so shall your Faith stand in that Power the Gates of Hell can never prevail against For this I once more am necessitated to declare by viâ—â—ue of the sound knowledge given me of God that whilst you are fulfilling the lusts of the flesh and walking after your own will and imaginations you are altogether strangers to the yoak to the daily Cross and self-denying life but are yet the corrupt Ground and evil Tree which bring forth evil Fruits Thorns Briars and sowr Grapes Be ye undeceived God will not be mocked such as you sow such shall you reap Wherefore I intreat advise and warn you all before the day of your visitation be shut up in the eternal withdrawings of God's Love and revelation of his dreadful endless Vengeance O ye Idolatrous Superstitious Carnal Proud Wanton Unclean Mocking and Persecuting Princes Priests and People to repent Return return believe and obey this Light which manifests and reproves all your evil deeds that in it you may know your Redemption from the captivity of sin effectually wrought O tremble and quake with the Prophet Habakkuk you who scoff at Quakers that you may all rest in the day of trouble But if you shall still go on to rebel against the reproofs and instructions of this Holy Light and despise and persecute the Children of it be it known to you all that before the brightness of its Glory shall your shadows vanish your imitations fly away your beggerly Elements melt and you die in your sins Nor shall we be sollicitous what your intentions are concerning us well knowing him in whom we have believed to be much greater in us than he that is in the World who in love hath call'd us out of it and we doubt not will by his everlasting Arm of strength defend and preserve us over all opposition and by us exalt his Name Truth and Salvation unto the ends of the Earth Therefore let the Winds of Imagination blow the storms of Persecution beat and the Sea of raging malice foam Yea though the Fig-tree shall not blossom neither Fruit be in the Vine though the labour of the Olive fail and the Fields yeeld not their meat though the Flock be cut off from the Fold and there be no Herd in the Stalls though Nations should combine against us and multitudes assemble themselves to our overthrow Yet be it reported to the Nations and let it be told unto the people that we shall still confide and rejoyce in that everlasting Holy God Almighty Lord of Hosts and King of Saints who hath gathered us and therefore is by us over all Things in Heaven and things on Earth blest and renown'd for ever THE END Isa 1. 13 14 15 16 Mat. 15. 9 Rev. 17. 3 4 5. Chap. 18. 6 8. Acts 7. 52 59. Isa 29. 21 Amos 3. 10. Jer. 23. 17. Ezek. 13. 19 20. Isa 56. 10 11. Mic. 3. 5 6 11. Joh. 17. 3. 1 John 3. 5 6 7 8. Heb. 12. 14. Jer. 23. 32. Act. 19 2 3 4 5. Col. 3. 2. Isa 15. 11 22. Amos 6. 3 4 5 6. Mat. 7. 21. Isa 50. 11. Gen. 12. 3. Gal. 3. 8 Rom. 14 19. Mat. 11 23 24. Joh. 1. 9. Rev. 3. 9. Isa 9. 6 7. c. 49. 6. John 1. 7 8 9. c. 8. 12. 1 John 1. 7. 1 Cor. 15. 47. John 6. 51 52 53 Isa 42. 6. Jer. 31. 32 33 34. John 14. 6 1 Cor. 1. 20. Ezek. 34. 29. Gen. 3. 15 Tit. 2. 11 12. Rev. 21 3. Deut. 18 18 19 20. Jer. 17. 10. John 4. 29. Heb. 9. 14. ch 10. 22. Rev. 14 6 7. 1 Pet. 4 18. Luk 17 20 21. Job 4. 8 Gal. 6. 7 8. Hab. 3. 16. 2 Tim. 1 12. 1 John 4. 4. Hab. 3. 17 18.
lustful eye and gratifie the wanton mind Is not this your case and practice ye Gallants young and old Men and Women And by these courses have not Debts surprized your Estates Poverty Plenty Diseases Health Debauchery Chastity Whole Families ruin'd both in Soul and Body yea such a deluge of Intemperance has so overwhelmed the Nations that hard it is to light upon sobriety and virtue Well my Friends when I ruminate on these things my heart affects mine eye and grief overcomes my Soul for yor sakes Repent therefore O ye Protestants or else know that for all these things God Almighty will bring you to Judgment and in the day that his Indignation shall be kindled your Religion of words shall fly away and your Lord Lord cryings shall be rejected because you were strangers to the Spiritual Nature though bablers of the Name of true Christianity and therefore shall ye perish by the Sword Now as for you Separatists of divers Names although I shall not disallow the Zeal that once you had yet must I on God's behalf bear my Testimony concerning you Therefore be it known unto you all that you are teaching and receiving for Doctrines the Traditions of men running and striving in your own Spirits compassing your selves with the sparks of your own fire being not yet come to stand still and know that Will done on Earth which is done in Heaven You tell people Christ Jesus has suffered and satisfied for sins past present and to come and though never so corrupt vile and polluted in themselves yet reconciled to and justified in the sight of God by his Personal Righteousness imputed unto them and not from a Work of Grace or Regeneration in the Creature therefore no wonder at your vehement cries against a state of perfect separation from sin as being a dangerous Doctrine who preach acceptation with the Holy God whilst in an unholy state You generally scoff at Revelation as being ceast most of you also abetting God to have ordained a Remnant absolutely to Salvation consequently making sin as well as torment unavoidably necessary to the major part whereby the Glorious God of Mercy is represented more infamously unjust than the worst of men Doctrines of Devils indeed and grounds of all looseness and Ranterism and tho pleaders fighters for Liberty of Conscience when opprest the greatest Oppressors when in power not minding the end of Gods loving kindness but because of your wanton neglect is your day darkned and your Sun set and grovelling you are in beggarly Elements imitations and shadows of the Heavenly good things relating to the dispensation of the second Covenant hoping by your many duties to be heard and find acceptance whilst very strangers to the covering of Gods Spirit and ignorant of him whom to know is life Eternal from the Revelation of his Eternal Spirit and Operation of his Mighty Power but from the conceivings and apprehensions of other men and Books well reputed whereby Gods Grace and Light have lost their Office of leading and teaching and thus true Counsel becomes darkned the Fountain shut the Book sealed and you in this state strangers unto God so that you perish for want of sound knowledge for I declare and testifie on the behalf of Gods everlasting Way to Life and against you all that you are yet in the mans spirit which works not Gods Will and Righteousness being found helpers of the mighty against that pure and unchangeable Principle of Light Grace and Life in which God only did does and will reveal and manifest himself unto the Sons and Daughters of men for which cause you are yet in your ups and downs tossed to and from not knowing the Rock of Ages and Foundation of many Generations which is that only Holy Seed wherein the Duties and Performances of all Nations only can be blessed and from whence proceeds that Pure Righteous and Immortal Birth to whom is the promise of an everlasting Inheritance but are sticking in your own imaginations and patching out a peace unto your selves from your Duties Performances and the imitations of weak times and seasons in some perishing Observations that no way relate to the Nature of the Pure Spiritual and Internal Kingdom of Peace Righteousness and Joy in the Holy Ghost Therefore well may I say as once of old Wee unto thee Capernaum which art exalted unto Heaven for if the mighty works that have been done in thee had been done in Tyre Sidon or Sodom they would have repented in Dust and Ashes and would have remained unto this day Wherefore O ye zealous Professors who in the Spirit of a man are striving to comprehend the Mystery of God unless ye repent and believe in that Light wherewith Christ hath enlightned every man that you may obtain to the true discerning of the Spirit and Nature in which you live and worship that so you may come to witness the Work and Will of God It shall be more tollerable for them in the day that God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ God will make them of the Synagogue of Sathan who say they are Christians and are not Therefore unto you Princes Priests and People whether Papists or Protestants or any other separated way that are in your Idolatry Superstition Carnal Ordinances and will-Worship whose Faith in and fear towards God are grounded on other mens apprehensions perswasions and precepts and not from the teaching of God's Holy Spirit or Grace to you all am I constrained to sound forth proclaim That unto us the most despised afflicted and forsaken by all the Families of the Earth is a Child born unto us a Son is given We call him Wonderful Counsellor the Mighty God the Everlasting Father the Prince of Peace of the increase of whose Government there shall be no end this is he the Prophet stiles A Light unto the Gentiles and for Salvation unto the ends of the Earth unto whom John Baptist bore this certain record That he was the true Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the World who also gave this testimony of himself That whosoever followed him should not abide in darkness but have the Light of Life and the Blood of Jesus saith the Beloved Disciple shall cleanse you from all sin This is the second Adam the quickning Spirit the Lord from Heaven the New and Spiritual Man the Heavenly Bread the True Vine the Flesh and Blood that was given for the Life of the World the Second Covenant the Law writ in the Heart and Spirit put in the inward Parts the way in which the Fool cannot err the Truth before deceit was the Life that 's hid in God eternal in the Heavens glorified before the World began the Power the Wisdom the Righteousness of God the Plant of Renown the Royal Seed that bruiseth the Serpents Head in short That Grace which hath appeared unto all men teaching them to deny ungodliness
Truth Exalted IN A short but sure Testimony against all those Religions Faiths and VVorships that have been formed and followed in the darkness of Apostacy And for that Glorious Light which is now risen and shines forth in the Life and Doctrine of the despised Quakers as the alone good old way of Life and Salvation Presented to Princes Priests and People that they may repent believe and obey BY WILLIAM PENN the Younger whom Divine Love constrains in a holy contempt to trample on Egypts glory not fearing the Kings wrath having beheld the Magisty of him who is Invisible London Printed in the Year 1668. TO Princes Priests and People JEHOVAH the everlasting Power that spans out the Heavens with his span and measures the Waters in the hollow of his hand before whom all Nations Tongues and People are less than the drop to the Ocean or the Sand to the Sea shoar who said Let all things be and they were and by the same Word of his Might preserves them to this very day is Holy Merciful and Just and as the most excellent part of the whole Creation made he Man the Image of himself by investing him with that Righteous Principle and innocent Life which gave him Dominion and Authority over all his works allowing him to eat of every Tree saving that of Good and Evil of which if he did eat he should certainly die Happy had it been for Adam and his Posterity had he obeyed Gods Commands but transgression by disobedience getting entrance he soon died to his Innocent State in which God created him and became alive in the Dominion sin had over him being now as one without Law in whose fallen State all Nations have been and are let their Professions seem never so great and their Sacrifices never so many that live in the disobedient Nature and so strangers to that Immortality and life Eternal the first Adam became dead and darkened to by his transgression and which the second Adam raises to the knowledge and possession of by the power of his quickning Spirit yet where the Devil that subtile Serpent hath not totally extinguished the notion of a God and the necessity of his being worshipped it has been rather his interest than dis-service to put the selfish part of the Creature upon sacrificing wickedly insinuating that none can be freed from sin and that the performing of Rites Duties and Ceremonies is all God requires and what is necessary to procure acceptance with him Thus 't was that murthering Cain became a Sacrificer whose Sacrifice God rejected because offered in the fallen unrighteous and accursed Nature Such also were those Generations who drew near to God with their Lips and to whom he said of old What signifies the multitudes of your Sacrifices I am full of burnt Offerings bring no more vain Oblations Incense is an abomination unto me the new Moons and Sabbath the calling of the Assemblies I cannot away with it is iniquity even the solemn Meetings I am weary to bear them and when you spread forth your hands I will bide mine eyes yea when you make many prayers I will not heâ—â— them yoâ—r hands are full of blood wash you make you clean put away the evil of your doings c. Therefore O ye Princes Priests and People the sollid necessary and weighty Question I have to ask you all in the dread fear of the everlasting Holy Lord God Almighty by whose eternal Spirit the sence of your present State and Condition I perfectly have received is this What Nature what Heart what Spirit and what ground is it in which your Religions Faiths Works Words and Worships stand and grow Is it the Divine not the fallen Nature It is the broken not the stony Heart Is it the Contrite not the formal Spirit Is it the Gospel increasing good not old Adams corrupt thorney Ground For this know that no performances but by clean hands and a pure heart from whence evil doings are put away can give acceptance with the pure God Come answer me first you Papists whose Popes for many hundred years have sat exalted in the hearts of Nations God's Temple above all that is called God What Scripture ever made a Pope or gave authority to any one to lord it over the Consciences of others since Christ enjoyns that Christians should be Brethren And by what warrantable Tradition can be make dispose and depose Civil Empires Whence came your Creeds but from factious and corrupted Councils dyed in the blood of those who refus'd conformity What Scriptures of the Holy Prophets and Apostles or any Tradition for the first three hundred years mention a Mass-Book speak of Peter's Chair and a successive Infallibility or that say a Wafer is corporially the flesh blood and bones which suffer'd without Jerusalem And where did they adore Images consume many thousands and millions in building carving and painting outward Temples after Jerusalems the Type was destroyed whilst thousands of poor Families languished through extream poverty When did they enjoyn Baby-Baptism Churching of Women Marrying by Priests Holy Water to frighten the Devil hollowing of Bells to scare evil spirits making and worshipping of Crosses erecting of Altars And where did they command Bowings institute Musicks appoint Holy Dayes Canonize Saints chaffer and merchandize about Indulgences pray for the Dead preach or write for a Purgatory And what Book or Chapter in the Old or New Testament mentions the degrees of Popes Cardinals Arch-Bishops Deans Prebeuds Jesuites Franciscans Dominicans Urselines Capuchines Benedictines with other such like lazy Nuns and Fryars for the edification of Christs Church But above all when and where did they authorize or indulge your Cruel Persecuting Whipping Racking Inquisition Murdering Spirit Whose Popes Faith Church-Government and whole Religion were founded and are maintained by inhumane bloodshed as your own Histories plainly manifest Who gave life to these things but the Devil who was a murderer from the beginning Thus have you Papists through many Generations received for Doctrine the Precepts of Men who for much speaking and sacrificing of your own Inventions expect to be heard whilst in the lustful wanton ignorant and killing Nature which has been alwayes shedding the precious blood of those whom God in every Age raised to testifie against your Superstitions will-Worships Therefore WOES from God Almighty to that Romish Whore who has corrupted the Nations and sits upon a Scarlet coloured Beast full of names of Blasphemy drunk with the blood of Saints and Martyrs of Jesus the hour of her desolation is nigh and in the Cup which she hath filled shall it be fil'd unto her double for strong is the Lord God of Hosts who judgeth her Come now you that are called Protestants however denominated or distinguished who profess the Scriptures for the Rule of Life and Doctrine stand your Tryal by them and first those who are called Episcopalians who date your Religion from the Martyrs that those who first protested against