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
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
now faln 1. They had many of them a work upon their spirits and many gifts wherewith they were anointed 2. These works and gifts were but flesh but earthly but man after the image of the first Adam which is of the earth earthly and not the second Adam the Lord from Heaven Not the Lord nor from Heaven 3. As they were earthly and fleshly so they were private and personal servile and ministerial not the Lord no largeness to comprehend the whole nor authority to subject the whole nor wisdom to rule the whole either the whole Nation or their whole party 4. That they had Commission only to destroy subdue and punish the Church and Kingdom standing in darkness and corruption There never was in that party or people any union strength glory or success in any thing but in fighting and killing And therefore could never attain any Civil or Religious body either to be a Church or Kingdom but an Army to fight And for this work they were anointed and sanctified So was Cyrus and his Medes Isa 13.3 and 45.1 which is not only a Legal Ministry but a heathenish and bloody one 5. That when they had subdued and broken down they had nothing to build no new Law or Religion either from heaven or earth either for themselves only or for the whole Nation No man or sort of men did ever so much as pretend that they were Legislators nor did ever tender to the Nation a Law either from heaven or earth but after they had cursed and rejected the old state they dressed up the carkase of King Lords and Commons in a Protector another House and a Parliament and had more stability in it then in any of their inventions beside They never could produce any thing like unto the wisdom and reason of a Law but every bird would chatter its own note such broken stuff and absurd confusion never was 6. They never had a publick or healing spirit talk they did of the common good of all men But their spirit was not only narrow but stood in opposition to the spirit of the Nation They were alwayes bound up most firmly and strongly to a private and so to a selfish spirit and could never be perswaded to accept of any thing that was large Those miserable principles of Interest Self-preservation and Necessity began carried on and ended the War and Party 7. Their gifts and work being fleshly and earthly and having only figures and prophesies of the heavenly Kingdom of God â—nd not the nature and substance of that Kingdom with them they could not administer it but those prophesies and figures must cease and die before the truth of the Kingdom can come forth 8. Their gifts being only private and personal and their work only to subdue and â—ull down when they aspired beyond their â—bility and commission to reign and to make â—ew Common-wealths and new Churches â—hey corrupted into pride enmity opâ—ression covetousness self-seeking greedily â—evouring the wealth riches pleasures hoâ—ours and places which they had cursed and condemned and therein were more foul â—hen those that they cast out 9. And from corruption they fell into divisions jealousies persecuting others and â—ne another and so into destractions and confusions 10. And by that into their present reâ—ection from all power authority riches â—nd estates into contempt imprisonment poverty plunged into a deep Baptism of afflictions and disappointment 11. Into which if they can retire with meekness humility and repentance they will find rest safety and purifying A condition more sweet and clean and as to God and their souls more comfortable and profitable then their former greatness though it be to the flesh grievous 12. There the Book would leave them in quietness and cover them from the wrath of their enemies justifying them in the exercise of their private and personal gifts as honest men And promising them a resurrection in a more large pure spiritual and durable state Ministries and Dispensations of a far more excellent glory then this have perished and why there should be such unwillingness to bury this I know not It died to me and in me long since and hath been ever since corrupting rotting reeling and staggering till it fell in pieces It hath had its time done its work fulfilled its Ministry emptied and poured out all the wrath it had upon others and when it had executed others it was a torment and vexation to it self wanting other matter to work upon The Party it self was weary of it complained of the vanity corruption and filthyness of it were ashamed of it annoyed by it it stunk so in the nostrils of every ingenuous and enlightened spirit none pleased at it but for what they got and kept by it none easie under it but sick of it and it self sick and hated at last executed it self to fulfill that word He that taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword even by that sword they took up and by that force they fomed That Power that Army they raised against the King turns to the King and against them that raised it It was long dying and every Party watched to have had it themselves and were pulling and catching at it some had it one while and some another whilest quarreling amongst your selves it is faln into your Adversaries hands and that I suppose is the great trouble You would be content it should die and you would execute it but thought also it belonged to the Executor to have its riches honours power and success But it seems there was an elder Brother an heir alive that you did not dream of Though this work of yours with its power fall very contrary to your hopes designs purchases and carnal confidences yet not contrary to many hints of prophesies in their own spirits nor contrary to common justice and reason For first it hath been often said to you and in you Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit That an Army is a harsh cruel worldly brutish self-seeking power and that while it stood it was a burden to all but them that received pay in it or by it And secondly if it doth fall as you thought and desired what must necessarily follow The antient Government of the Nation was suppressed by force if it had been by Light and Reason that Light that removed one would have shewed us a better but that we could never see The old one being suppressed and only suppressed for all you could do could not root it out and no other prepared if that force that suppresseth it be weary sick forsaken and spent whether should it go but to its center to the standing foundation If the force ceales that suppressed what can be expected but that the old suppressed Government should rise When therefore either the purity or truth of your spirits or the power of your reason shall prevail over your passions and losses you will rest satisfied That you still arc chafing and rubbing this dead
body to keep or recover life in it or are so lamentably angry for the loss of it I would have that charity to hope that it is because you think that holiness and godliness will be suppressed and prophaness and wickedness will get up To satisfie you know this assuredly 1. Iniquity unrighteousness had got a Sanctuary in and amongst you and was lodged more secure in your professions and gifts then in any company or state of men in the earth and therefore 2. It is a most holy and righteous God that hath pulled down or is pulling down that strong hold that spiritual wickedness in high places And 3. As God will not suffer iniquity to harbour under his own name and cause so he will not suffer it to rest upon the earth for the earth is the Lords and the creation is his 4. Sin and ungodliness got ground of you in your greatness and riches you know it did And while you thought to reform the world you were deformed by it and that the spirit that engaged for righteousness against the world betrayed that cause and fell into the unrighteousness and filth that it opposed The Lord rejects this pretender in great jealousie know assuredly God in this act is gone forth with vengeance against unholiness and will manifest himself in such holiness as you will not bear if you were not plunged into suffering 5. Know God hath set his holy Son upon his holy hill of Zion The Lord reigns in righteousness and in righteousness hath brought you down for your unholiness and if you have any true love to holiness but a spark of the truth of what you profess you will rejoyce more in these fires while they consume you and your dross then ever you did in your success and greatness because God is now avenging himself of his wicked enemies that lurked in the prayers preachings gifts prophecying of his kingdom and for the world trouble not your self with that he hath laid you aside as unworthy of and false to the work of reformation which you professed he that refuses that spirit because it was unholy and base hath a more excellent spirit which he will manifest to the purging of all things and all men I cannot without some indignation pass this point that men so palpably corrupt and unclean when under rebuke and judgement and that for their impurity yet should think that they are the only Champions of holiness as if the cause of holiness did die or fall with them No it is iniquity and hypocrisie that falls There is an incorruptible holiness that is mighty and will throughly purge away yours and others dross and cleanse the whole earth As to the things that I write in my Book concerning his Majestie and those principles of rest and grace laid in Noah and in that Covenant which God made with him and his seed for perpetual generations which I affirm to be the firm foundations of all the Kingdoms of the world that tried stone tried first in all Nations and then laid in Zion and is now the root of his Majesties restoration after his long sufferings I confess the things are deep and remote from common understandings What I feared and writ concerning these principles I find true that they are little understood being yet low and under a vail and therefore might appear remote and strange both to his Majestie and the Nation which way prolong our trouble c. They are so indeed understood neither by one side nor other Let them lie and sleep a while foundations must do so when shaking and troubles make us need them they will be enquired after if any do there they are But my friends let us reason a little together and lay aside all allusions and all passions and soberly consider what evil was offered to you in that book After the case of the prisoners and so of the partie was represented I still think to their advantage more then ever I yet met with elsewhere the desire was to wave that tryal and procure another Court that should try principles that might at least supersede or succeed that What the issue of that Court and tryal is we now see and had reason to foresee Supposing his Majesty and the Law of the Nation to be offended and provoked against them that took away the life of the late King what probable or rational way was left to save the Prisoners but by moving that they and their principles and so the principles of the whole party should be tried in a higher and more spiritual Court A trial must be the common Law and ordinary way certainly destroyes both life liberty and estate To avoid that another must be proposed What rests to be tryed but opinions and principles And how can that be done humanely but by such a Court and by such a Law as is there propounded If those principles are good they may not only be justified but prevail to rule if they be not found so then their deceit will be discovered your judgements delivered from them and the prisoners and Party in a fair way to be pardoned by and reconciled to the present power Or else a third and middle state would have appeared A large righteous and merciful Law might have been produced that might have united comprehended and saved both Parties I confess freely I do believe and know it is to be had and will come forth whenever the righteous and good Law of God may obtain among men and right reason may be heard I confess to obtain this I did declare to his Majestie my sense and judgement of your principles which I have long had and do still retain upon a judgement made by many and great trials in my spirit and confirmed by constant experience much examination and deliberation And being many years fully convinced of humbled and sore afflicted for that prophane carnal cruel and selfish spirit in which this work was begun and carried on I did and do still offer them up to trial and was and am still willing that his Majestie and the Nation might see that they need not seek the lives of men seeing they might have the principles which is the best satisfaction can be given It is that which I have long desired even of this Party when they were up That we might have a Bar of Religion and Reason where the right of all parties in the Nation may be fairly argued and heard but could never obtain it I do judge it the true and only Christian and humane way to come to Peace and therfore I shall and do earnestly desire it There is nothing in the earth that I do seek more then this That my mind and judgement may be tried by the Reason and Religion of the Nation or the Reason and Religion of the Nation tryed by my Judgement Had it been a known enemy that had propounded such a thing to you why should you be angry at it or why not embrace and
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
heaven c. This was the Law of his whole Life and Death He that will be my Disciple must deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me Alas alas how can you look into this glass and not blush to see the deformities of your whole work how directly contrary yours is to this Instead of blessing you have cursed What he blessed you reject the meek the mourners the merciful the peace-makers the persecuted you begun this war because you would not endure persecution Instead of not resisting evil you have inflicted evil and would not be resisted in it Instead of loving enemies you have hated and destroyed them Instead of blessing them you curse as bitterly as you can Instead of bearing persecution you persecute Instead of denying self you sight for self Instead of taking up the Cross you flie to force to avoid it and load others with it make others bear it So hath the blessed God set things that they that are not with him are against him And they who refuse to bear the Cross must become Crucifiers of others All men that will not endure persecution they will persecute they that cannot or will not be killed will kill So have you done and therefore been enemies to the Cross of Christ and so enemies to Christ himself for he is crucified in all crucifying And they that hate the flesh of the whore and burn her with fire they make war with the Lamb also Rev. 16.14 So have you made war with the Lamb with his doctrine nature life and death 2. Christ our Lord humbled himself and became a servant to others you have exalted your selves as far as you could into all kinds of places of honour He became poor that he might make others rich you have made others poor that you may be rich He suffered the errors and contradictions of sinners but sinners those that you have judged sinners have suffered your contradictions in your several Oathes and Impositions He bore the infirmities and diseases of the whole Nation the whole Nation have born your infirmities and diseases your blindness haltings and staggerings He bore the sins and curse of the people The poor people have born yours both sin and curse He died that others might live You kill others that you may live your selves He suffered the just for the unjust but others have suffered from you because they resisted your unjust power and will I believe you have been misled by an evil spirit and therefore I pitty you Alas you have walked in darkness and not known whether you have gone You did not think your way and work had been so contrary to the way of Christ you found it weak and short but now you will see that it is in the whole from the rise of it to the end of it contrary to the nature and spirit of the Lamb and to his Law and Doctrine 3. Christ in the Gospel brought forth a new Creation a new and Spiritual Kingdom a new Law new Ordinances new Ministers new Worship And this not in opposition to nor to the destruction or disturbance of any authority either of the Jews or Gentiles but he taught and practised obedience to both But you have only disturbed and destroyed what you could of the Government of the Nation but have brought forth no better no new Kingdom or new Law for the people and what forms of worship you have made for your selves and several Parties are but some broken pieces of the letter of the old Apostolical frame set up in another spirit Let us compare your work and way with the Spirit and his holy and pure Ministrie He came from Heaven himself cloathed with an outward and visible appearance in great Majestie and Power openly manifesting himself to all Nations in mighty signs and wonders that were his own and not anothers He did truly glorifie Christ and set him up above his enemies making them know that Jesus was the Son of God and that the Kingdom of God was with men And this to the face and in the consciences of all the powers of the earth He formed and built a Church upon the rock from the heavenly pattern He came from heaven and carried the Saints into heaven and made them sit down together with Christ in the heavenly He led them into the holiest and brought them to Mount Zion indeed the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly c. Have you had the substance and truth of any of these things with you You have been able to talk of them to notion fancy or prophesie something of them which others could not But had you had this heavenly glory you needed not your earthly Armies nor worldly Polities nor the help of profane and loose people and practices to save you The Spirit had his own manifestation his union his own tongues interpretation of tongues his own signs and miracles his own power and glory pure holy and clear his own anointing was sufficient to lead into all truth But instead of manifesting you have by your wayes extreamly darkened others your selves and the name of Christ and Religion which you professed Instead of tongues and interpretation to others you were in such confusion that you could not your selves understand one another you pretended to signal mercies and successes but they are not spiritual but such as are common to others so is victory in battle Instead of being led into all truth alas you were led into all kinds of contradictions and into many erroneous wayes which proved to be lyes and delusions to you And therefore you must not any longer boast of the Spirit of God You cannot shew that he is descended upon you or that he hath led you as he did the Apostles into a heavenly state You are still in the world in the gross uncleanness of the world in the wrath malice destruction pride covetousness deceit of the world You are and have been under the Ministrie or Judgement of the Spirit In his giving you up to corruption that you may be manifest to be but men and not born from on high In blowing upon and infatuating your Counsels In scattering and dividing your spirits In rejecting your work and way as not his own as abominable to his purity goodness truth and righteousness In judging of you in the sight of all the world for abusing his name and in kindling a sire upon all your riches honours and works a fire of jealousie that burns like an Oven which will purifie you And therefore you are in this day nearer to the Spirit of God then you were from the first day you engaged Consider now what ground you stand upon in your present opposition to this Power and Providence You cannot stand up with Moses and Aaron in their Office for you have not led us out of Egypt into Canaan but have been intangled and fettered in Egyptian darkness Nor can
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
a thing is to try the good and the evil all judgement supposes a right and a wrong and an indifferency to both with an endeavour to find out both Now consider how you are affected to your Adversaries and you will find that you do absolutely hate them as persons and things to be cut off from the earth As the people of Gods wrath and of his curse as enemies to Jesus Christ doomed to destruction for ever So that judgement is past if this be your minds and you have nothing to do but to seek their ruine As you see you cannot judge till you cease to hate so you may here see the nature and kind of hatred When God hath judged a people to be scourged and spoiled for their sins and given them up to wrath and the curse he hath instruments prepared for the execution of them some fierce self-seeking hating persons To these he discovers the Sentence and represents the Party to be punished as cloathed with his Curse and then they fall on with all their zeal and might as glad of such employment But poor wretches they know not the counsel of God not the measure nor end of his displeasure And therefore form up other conceits in their heads as the King of Assyria did Howbeit he meaneth not so neither doth his heart think so but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off Nations not a few Isa 10.7 Success in such employments are certain and constant which the proud Executioner cannot bear but his hatred is enlarged as hell and presently thinks of destroying Nations not a few glorying in the success he is swelled with pride and thinks to conquer all the world This is only to shew you the true original and nature of hatred it is rooted in the Curse of God and in the Devil the great minister of the Curse who hath power of death he sets man on to execute the Curse and then inflames him into high thoughts of himself for his work What a mercy it will be for poor man to be redeemed from this vile service and the absurd and woful errors that do attend it To return to our purpose while you hate you cannot judge of them you hate and the judgement you make is no judgement or a false one For Secondly You did judge them Babylon Antichristian enemies and that therefore their judgement was for ever and ever Such you know is the destruction of Babylon as a Mill-stone cast into the Sea as the Angel said Rev. 18.21 and be found no more at all The voice of Harps and Musitians shall not be found in her nor the light of a candle nor the voice of the Bridegroom c. So you thought of these that they would never recover more And now you see the Musick and the Candles and the Mirth is risen again out of the Sea and hath escaped the mill-stone and the drowning too Now remember and consider You judged them Babylon and therefore to be destroyed for ever but now you find it otherwise your judgement therefore is false Had they been what you imagined them they had never rose Or had you or your judgement been true they had never recovered nor you faln if you erred as to the kind of the punishment you erred also as to their state I know you must think that this recovery of theirs is but in order to an utter and final destruction And the reason of it is because if you do think it otherwise you must condemn all your prayers praises and interpretations of Scriptures that you have made for your selves and against them a long time Therefore till you repent of them you must believe your enemies must perish be it never so irrational For they cannot be justified till your enemies do fall they being grounded upon their ruine But pray consider this is a present shift and but a shift It will not cover your shame It is far easier to confess ten errours ten years errours the errours of ten thousand persons then to justifie one errour Be you never so good great and many you are but men you may err you have erred and run out of one errour into another many years together He against whom you have exclaimed delusions delusion is able to say to you now You have been and are under strong delusions I have thought it and published it and now it is proved to be so If ever it come to pass as you expect an utter and final destruction of your enemies it must be by a spirit that is more holy true and righteous then that in which you have hitherto acted And such a spirit you cannot have till you repent of the former I shall help you what I can An utter and final destruction will come and now is begun upon all wicked and ungodly works although it be not seen and felt for all wicked works are in the wicked one and he in the wrath of God in which he and they shall lie for ever All his works will be destroyed in judgement for this fire will destroy his works and save the persons But your spirit or the spirit in which you acted would destroy persons and things but did encrease ungodliness for both your selves and enemies also are not better but worse by what you have administred Thirdly I hope you will now confess that you and your Party are worse then you thought you were If you are worse then you judged why should you not think that your enemies are better then you judged If you are not such holy blessed heavenly Saints as you thought you were then by the Law of contraries they are not such Devils or brats of Antichrist as you conceived them If you are weak men as it appears you are then your judgement of them is like your selves weak and fallible And as you fall from your Mountain of exaltation so must they rise and stand upon even ground with you and be like your selves weak sinful men as you are If you are not quite void of modesty and reason you cannot but admit that they have some good in them because there is so much evil in you that have opposed them If there was so much folly giddiness and drunkenness in your opposition you cannot but think that there is some good in these that you oppose As I do admit that there was some good in you that did oppose some evil in them so you must admit that evil in you and that evil opposition that you made must be against something good in them For evil where ever it is it fights against good Indeed if there were no good in them and no evil in you you need not you would not oppose them for that which is perfectly good is above all opposition And that which is perfectly evil is below it That lives in a heaven in it self this in hell and confusion that is salvation and rest in it self this is destruction and sinks under the weight of its
own shame and guilt Most of you that have had any light or sense of things have of late found a spiritual Antichrist which is within This conviction was but late upon you and but weak and therefore you have possibly now lost the sight of this enemy in you But there he is and will be found out This spiritual Antichrist was in you from the beginning of your work though he appeared but lately And being in you he did work with you pray with you fight with you protest and covenant with you was in all your zeal judgings fastings and engagements You never had any thing pure or clean without him If this be indeed Antichrist as certainly he is the Antichrist for spiritual Antichrist is greater then fleshly Antichrist more dangerous wicked and malicious The nature of this Antichrist is to oppose Christ he doth it constantly and cannot do otherwise Then if he hath been in you and acted in you in your wars and works he hath opposed Christ in those wars and works And then there must be something of Christ in them that you oppose I shall still help you what I can This spiritual Antichrist hath opposed Christ First in your own spirits and slain that Lamb meekness innocency and love in you and set up a proud cruel bloody spirit in the worship of God and in you his semple Secondly this spiritual Antichrist made you fierce and cruel to your Brethren that d ffered from you And thirdly it made you false cruel and unmerciful to your enemies not admitting them to the common favour and mercy which God shews to all men My intent is by levelling the lofty confidences of men to bring them nearer together and so to prepare them for peace and reconciliation All have sinned and come short of the glory of God God hath concluded and shut up together all men in one pit of darkness and enmity that he might have mercy upon all that none may glory or exalt themselves one over another None are righteous nor saved because they are righteous nor shall any be destroyed because they are sinners for therefore are all shut up in one pit that mercy may bring them all forth If any be worse then others it is they that have most knowledge and sinned against greatest favour And they may again receive most mercy for where sin hath abounded Grace shall much more abound They that are first humbled will first see and partake of this large excellent and eternal salvation Therefore my friends be not stout against the Lord but fall under his rebuke Of pride comes contention If you be truly humbled you will cease to strive You have been as Capernaum exalted to heaven in gifts success titles names expressions and are now brought down to hell not only to outward shame and lofs but to the filth lies pride and enmity of hell Who can deny the most high this prerogative to set up as high as heaven in the brightness and glory of a Ministry and bring down again to the blackness and foulness of hell Shall foolish man think that because God dresses him up and calls him forth to serve him he cannot again reject that man and his service also Or because he makes things honourable at least in mans esteem that he shall not again dishonour them Hath not the Potter power over the Clay to form it a vessel of honour or dishonour Hath he not power to fashion it for a service employ it in that service and then break it in pieces and make it new again He that knows not himself knows nothing truly for all wisdom begins at the knowledge of our selves We know nothing till we know our selves And we know nothing fully till we know it in our selves We know nothing rightly till we our selves rightly measured are the measure of others It is apparent you are mistaken in your selves and in your work and therefore those unexpected corruptions of division envy covetousness and self seeking are broken forth and discovered After those corruptions unexpected confusions After those confusions unexpected ruine and destruction is upon you Therefore you have over-valued your selves And they that over-value themselves must necessarily undervalue their enemies One cannot be without the other Most men their righteousness is of that nature they are good because others are worse Enemies can no longer think themselves good then they think their enemies wicked And therefore men are necessitated when they become enemies to any to aggravate their evils all that they can to feed and satisfie their own anger at them and not only to think them evil but to rejoyce when their evil appears either of sin or punishment which shews the vile nature of enmity it engages a mans soul to mischief it makes men study it long for it thirst after it and if it comes not his hatred stirs him and pricks him on both to think it to speak it to pray for it and to act it as much as he can Therefore consider your selves you have read Luke 16.15 That which is highly esteemed amongst men is an abomination in the sight of God You highly esteemed your work and state It is become abominable in the sight of men in part in your own sight It was first so in Gods sight For if he had not abominated it it had not faln into that vile state in which it now lies under guilt shame and loss Consider then if that which is highly esteemed by men may be abominable in the sight of God may not that also which men have abominated become highly esteemed of God Yea is it not alwayes so What men reject God chuses The base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen yea and things that are not that he might bring to naught things that are 1 Cor. 2.28 And for this reason v. 29. that no flesh might glory in his presence If one Party only should be accepted as sometimes it is for a season then doth that Party glory in his presence as you did in the time of your exaltation Now God rejects you and chuses them whom you scorned Yet they must not be happy alone for God will have mercy upon all It were no dishonour to you that forgiveness and reconciliation should begin in you To prepare you for it are you brought down from your confidence You laid all the evil upon your adversaries and now must be content to bear shame with them You are not the only Saints and Zion nor they the only Antichrist and Babylon You have found an Antichrist within and he is worse then one without A spiritual Antichrist is worse then a fleshly Antichrist Their Religion is corrupt and not pure Hath not yours also been corrupted with the worst kind of corruption malice and hypocrisie Theirs is clogged with outward pomp worldly honour Yours was so awhile But theirs was given by blind superstitious people And yours was taken by force of arms But their
Religion is not according to Scripture nor is any form of Religion now in the Nation All build something of their own and therefore they differ None are exactly according to the pattern of the Apostles neither in form nor power As all are sharers in the evil so in the good also You are not Angels of light nor they Devils you are all men Englishmen weak and sinful men You have personal gifts but an ill state They have personal defects they have a better state an outward at least They are upon the foundation of Law whether spiritually or no is the question It is not with you it may he found among them You have suffered they have suffered But they are not better by sufferings It is well this is an objection for by this there appears an expectation that they should mend Nor are you better by mercies And mercies are more Gospel and effectual means of Grace then judgements Israel was punished and was worse by it and yet not utterly rejected You suffered for conscience so did they But their sufferings are not for a pure conscidence neither are yours purely for conscience Not only for well-doing there is a mixture in both yours and theirs There is great reason why you should come to know one another for one Party succeeds another and is content to let the other be their rule and pattern You learned of your enemies lordlinses gentility wayes and forms of state of greatness they come after you and learn your wayes of finding plots disturbing meetings discountenancing disgracing imprisoning Adversaries They are and do now where you were and as you did not long since They ride upon you as you rode upon them They crush you as you crushed them You afflicted and vexed them they do the same things to you Must not the word of Christ be fulfilled Mat. 7. 1 2. Judge not that you be not judged For with what judgement you judge you shall be judged And with what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again This I declared to you when you began this judging and oppressing way that it would return upon you you would not bear then will you understand now Then know this and let all men learn by it First you began this hardness in them against your selves You reap what you sowed spoyling imprisonment hatred death Secondly God acts and rules in all mens spirits in these things and that justly and therefore be not wrathful against them but submit to God in it The Lord hath said Curse Thirdly And may we not say as Rom. 11.28 They are enemies for your sakes but as touching the election they are beloved for the Fathers sake It is for your sakes that they are acted thus against you to make you sensible of the work you have done What a goodly thing it is to ride upon men and to watch over them for evil When you come to a right sense and repentance of that work and spirit you yet glory in then will that spirit cease to afflict you because it is for your sakes For God delighteth not in afflicting If he doth send evil it is for good As it is the just fruit of your own doings so certainly will repentance remove it Be not therefore angry at the hand but feel the staff of Gods indignation in their hand And when you come to mourn over your selves that you have been so acted your will pitty them that succeed you in that kind of employment For it must be found on all sides to be but a sad service to be a tormentor of others And when you come to pitty them that they should be made enemies for your sakes that they should be made a rod because you want chastening and be that rod to you that you were to them You will then see that both you and they are beloved for the Fathers sake neither for your own sakes And may also see that they have a good root and will bring forth better fruit in its season When we are fit to partake of it SECT XII HAtred so blinds men that they know not themselves nor their enemies It makes men worse then otherwayes they would be and yet to think better of themselves then ever they were It makes men think their enemies worse then they are and it makes those enemies worse then they would be And therefore the third thing follows they that hate their Brethren darkness hath blinded their eyes and they know not whither they go Enmity is of the Devil and he is in darkness God hath with-held light from him he hath neither the light of Christ nor of Angels no nor of men All his wayes and all the wayes of men that are acted in his spirit are most irrational and absurd things All men so far as they are led by malice are hurried and driven by the wrath of God blowing up their passions unto unreasonable things without any judgement or understanding Let us look back upon our wars Did any of us know when we begun whither we should go or did we once dream or imagine the things we have since done and the strange paths we have trodden Have we not been driven beyond all our purposes Declarations and Vows into crooked and contrary wayes which our Reason and Religion did at first condemn and will again when we recover either the one or the other Was there ever such a heap of inconsistencies and independencies such a mass of confusion in Church and state And if we were blinded then we are so still if we persist For we are not better but worse now then at first we have multiplied notions and opinions but have decayed both in innocency and love We were then more simple more moderate and less guilty and bloody And are now more enraged more hardened and more polluted Therefore the further we go in this way the worse we are and the deeper shall we plunge our selves in misery The whole Party that stand out in opposition to the present Governors and Government of the Nation are divided in all things and in the kind or degree at least of their enmity Some are more gross and carnal and thirst for war and blood but many are taken off in part from hopes of any good by war but yet their spirits are still in enmity preaching against praying against or cursing reviling and condemning them as enemies to God and his people and denouncing and expecting judgements from heaven against them Both these are of the same nature are from the same root or fountain and will If there be occasion fall into the same Channel Indeed all strife and envy though it be but in the heart yet it is in the judgement of the holy Apostle James chap. 3.15 earthly sensual and devilish And therefore it doth darken pollute and defile the soul And by how much more inward or seeming spiritual it is it is by so much the more dangerous because more devilish And being so no man
that can be accursed for them It is his way it is his nature he dealt so with Christ and therefore must be justified and honoured for it And so I do with my soul And desire office and employment in his Church upon no other terms Blessed for ever be his holy name for it in my heart And blessed be his name in this Church and Nation And let all his people say Amen For he will establish only such ministers over them in his house as are of his and his Sons mind and spirit God may and doth for a time employ other spirits to do baser services to break afflict and punish so long as there is proud flesh to be subdued But none shall be admitted to minister healing life and salvation but such as are of this spirit The form or title is title and the question is not great who or which But this is the Nature and Spirit chosen of God to rule his people Lastly Let me assure you under the word and oath of Jesus Verily verily except you be born again you cannot see the Kingdom of God Joh. 3.3 Except you be born out of this earthly sensual darkness into heavenly light out of this heathenish or legal spirit into the largeness of heaven you cannot so much as see the Kingdom of God so long as you think that it consists in a multitude of prayers in the opening of Scriptures in fleshly striving for earthly liberty and earthly power you do not you cannot see the Kingdom of God Alas you admire your selves your zeal and intentions your gifts and notions But what are those to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ which is over all things in heaven in earth and under the earth Over all things first in heaven He employes innumerable Angels and all their holiness power and light in distinct ages and places And brings them forth successively to act their parts and to shew the utmost of their strength and wisdom in governing the world And when he hath done with them folds them up as a vesture layes them aside and changes them for others Possibly all that you have attained to may not amount tb one Angel Be it what it will you cannot but confess one Angel may do as much and more know as much and more speak as much and more then all you have done And that in greater holiness purity brightness and majesty And when he hath done it must bow down and be dismissed Why then should you be troubled at the fall of your works Secondly Christs Kingdom extends to all men in all Nations He hath power to spirit and anoint all men with what spirit he please to sanctifie them and gift them either as heathens so he did Cyrus and his Medes or as Jews so he did Saul or as Christians so he did the Saints of old And yet none of them must raign only minister and serve in those spirits He hath laid infinite variety of gifts in mans nature and knows how to use them all and will have a time for every purpose And as he will draw out the good of every man of what degree soever so the evil of every man All mens lusts and corruptions must be drawn out and judged In one state of things mens Religion and Gifts lie uppermost and cover their sins that Religion must have a time to work and have honour or reward for that work and when it is worn out it must as an old garment be laid aside And then that evil that is under that form of Godliness must be seen shewed forth and punished In another state the good may lie under the evil God hath a work and an object prepared for that evil when its work is done then the good will rise and have its time and place Thirdly As Christ rules all Angels and men so all Devils all infernal spirits and will bring them forth out of the bottomless pit into his own House and City and give them their time and place to shew forth all the evil that is in them And thereby judge them and then cast them into the Lake of fire for ever And there are various sorts and kinds of flesh or humane weakness for them to feed upon in the nature of man What is theirs they do challenge and must have first for words and actions and then for shame and punishment And if we do in the least see the Kingdom of Christ we shall be content to take our lot in any of these or in all of them as it pleases God to dispose of us If your minds were enlarged into the sight and view of the greatness of the Kingdom of God and the continuance of it in all ages everlastingly you would with submission and joy consider and behold the present works of God upon your selves and upon the Nation But so long as you are shut up in that narrow spirit and limit the Kingdom of Christ to such a poor inconsiderable temporary thing as your present dispensation and service you cannot understand any thing of it Therefore know that you are in darkness and know not whither you go you are quite out of the way to Christs Kingdom SECT XIII WE will suppose likewise that you do desire holiness and that your trouble is either that you or the Nation is no more holy And therefore in zeal for reformation you go forth against the present state of things as unholy denouncing wrath against it and seeking the destruction of it Herein likewise you are extreamly blinded by enmity For First That holiness which you profess and in which you live is not the holiness of Christ you are not holy as he is holy and therefore it cannot stand before him it neither is nor shall be accepted to raign with him It may do him service be a scourge in his hand it may stand before men before worse men in the field it may stand before mens worldly passions and lusts before the Laws of men and their punishments It may stand before prisons and chains yea before death it self And so will the holiness of moral men heathens or Jews and of all sorts of Christians But it cannot it shall not stand before God 1. It is impure 2. It is imperfect in its kind 3. It is fleshly and fading 4. It is not an holy nature 5. It is not holiness that can take away sin 6. It is not holiness that can take away the sins of the world And therefore not the holiness of God and Christ Secondly As it is short in its kind and insufficient to answer the perfect and good will of God either in your own souls or upon the Nation so it is corrupted openly defaced and for guilt rejected Because it is polluted it is not your rest To abide and persist in a way and state disowned and refused by God is not only sloth and ignorance but unbelief and disobedience God never pulls down one dispensation but he provides another If you were
and doth make these things uphold them and walk in them and in all the wayes and forms of men in the midst of all their vanity and iniquity and not be defiled with them And this Spirit when you are led by him will enable you to live either above them or besides them or in the secret of his Tabernacle which is within all there forms and that with purity peace and content And this Spirit that upholds and gives being to all forms and persons doth distinguish and perfectly judge between the good and the evil of all persons and things and doth eternally chuse and gather unto himself that which is holy in all and casts the chaff and dust to the Serpent and him and it into the Lake of fire If therefore you have this Spirit and will do that visibly which he doth eternally then you must by him first gather all these things and all the parts of the broken Church and Nation under his wings that he may do with our Chaos as he did when he made the world first sustain cherish and brood upon this desolate state and then form a new one For if you cannot receive all into your hearts and bowels of love you will never renew or reform any thing For love is the first moving cause of all good It is love only that hath in it that mercy that life that goodness that can heal and reform the poor diseased and decayed state of man and of the Church This excellent divine nature of God Love hath rejected with indignation your harsh and severe spirit of self-sasety and self-seeking into confusion and shame And hath taken the work out of your hands into his own after you have by violence and unskilfulness spoyled wasted and ruined he will himself save and restore And in order to it takes the whole frame of things in all its sin death curse and misery both persons parties forms and states into the bowels of his most tender compassions into himself and his own nature life and being who is Emanuel God with us In our flesh and so in and under our sins and curse bearing of them for us and from us He hath love to those persons that you would destroy finding his own image in them for they are his own creatures and children therefore he will save them and first pardon and then remove their iniquities In those offices that you would destroy he knows there is good in them and in the honour and riches belonging to them and therefore will take away the abuse and corruption of them And in that service that you so much vilifie there is heavenly excellency which must be preserved purified enlightened and all the death darkness and prophaneness separated from it The holy one of Israel will do this Therefore to conclude this point of holiness you may and must know That you were sanctified with a measure of gifts for a service for the execution of Gods displeasure Its work is finished the gifts corrupted and now as to publick work upon the Nation rejected and under a judicial blindness and confusion because of an evil spirit that did and doth still possess them It is the righteous judgement of the Spirit of God upon them who hath though your gifts and performances be many and solemn cast them as dung in your faces If you will retreat with them in humility and repentance to attend the purifying of your own souls and the purging away your own sins you will find mercy to your selves But if you think by them to exalt your selves again into dominion and power in the Nation you will but involve your selves in more misery and wrath and like a Bull in a net entangle your souls in greater errours and outward troubles The holy Spirit I know and have felt did bear you a long time as a heavy burden and at last eased himself of you as a clog and cumber to him And now I with joy feel that he is free to exercise his own power to effect and perfect what you have failed in It will be your only safety now to retire into deep silence and humility and leave the Church and Nation to him that is Lord of both who made both and I can assure you will perfectly reform both SECT XIV BEsides the two things mentioned of the Kingdom of God and of holiness there are some other things that you have sought in these late wars which are still in your minds As common liberty or the liberty of the people and liberty of conscience But it is most certainly true and by experience now manifested that these things are not in that spirit in which you have acted and still stand Nor is this way of strife and contention the way to obtain them but the contrary For as war and enmity is against the Kingdom of Christ which is a Kingdom of peace And as they harden pollute and vitiate the mind of man which is contrary to holiness So they do naturally exalt will and force rage and jealousie and so must necessarily eat up and devour all liberty and turn all into the worst kind of tyrannie if the Father of mercies and Spirits doth not enlarge mollifie and sweeten the nature of man which wrath and war doth imbitter and harden It is true common liberty is written in the common nature of man in some degree though it be very weak This liberty came forth in you in notion profession and affection beyond what it doth in other people and it hath been not only talked of but desired by you yet that spirit in which you rose and in which you seek it hath not any true liberty in it And if it hath not liberty in it it can neither attain it for you from others nor give it by you to others it never could do either Mind well what I write else you will not understand it For it is I know besides the common reason and apprehensions of men and therefore seems to be and is strange to the dark and private spirit of the world but you and all men must know that there is a divine reason in these things which ought to be and therefore shall be the rule of mans Reason Know then first That we began our wars upon this principle of delivering our selves from the yoak of the Law and Government of the Church and Kingdom being of another spirit and way from them And upon the same principle of self-safety and self-freedom was the war carried on and the whole business from step to step This seemed to us very just and righteous that we should have liberty to serve God according to what light and understanding he gave us And there is an undoubted right in it Yet we see to what infinite confusion and strange enmity and division this principle hath brought us And therefore there is some notable evil either in the principle or in the liberty or in both I think both will be found faulty I
shall only charge the principle that is our seeking self liberty or liberty for our selves Whatever good is in the thing it doth and will miscarry so long as it is upon this bottom self Such is the large and good nature of the God and Father of all that he will blast and wither every private and particular spirit It is contrary to him hath no root in him and therefore though he do sometimes feed it awhile and make use of it yet he will at last reject it and never suffer it to stand up with him in his Kingdom He may and doth admit it to work and act in some low remote and dark state But if he be true to his own Good nature or to the nature of his Son the Saviour of the world he must not admit it to raign with him nor will he Yea though it cloath it self with salvation either of our own of others souls which is a thing most agreeable to the mercy of God yet will he never save any in that spirit But resist and oppose that salvation and all the graces and gifts whereby men seek it till he kill that root of self For he hath given it as a Law to Christ and so by Christ to men he that will save his life shall lost it and he only that will lose his life shall save it It was the great lesson he taught his Son and the first that Christ teaches his Disciples Let him deny himself If Christ and his Disciples must deny so excellent and holy life and self that they may ascend unto the Father of all If that holy and blessed state must be abjured and renounced and so come to the curse What can you think of self-seeking of an out ward liberty and freedom from outward sufferings it is no wonder to see tins brought to shame and confusion God hath pursued this root of self-seeking even in spiritual things by many sore and severe tryals in my spirit By which I came to understand what an irreconcileable and desperate enemy it is to God and what deadly poyson there is in the nature of it and how dangerously it will corrupt the best things in men Where ever it is admitted it will and doth kill the life of Grace if God kill â—ot it And though at first it seem zealous and holy yet it will break out into gross self-seeking For he that prayes preaches believes studies and receives the promises of eternal life to himself or to a party which is but a large self will at last in all things mind himself and so will be cruel covetous ambitious and any thing that self suggests to him And this I find to be the root of all that narrowness that was in this Party and of that gross self-seeking that all men take notice of There is at the bottom of the whole business and at the root of all their Religion a spirit to seek their own salvation liberty exaltation and honour And being fixed and bound to this principle they could never enlarge themselves to the good of the whole nor were they ever capable of any larger principles nor can they be till this state be slain in them And though they shift from one thing to another they will find no rest till they subject this state to loss and thereby come to partake of the largeness of the love of God and Christ Who teaches us to seek not our own but the things of others not our own liberty or salvation but the liberty and salvation of others And therefore the Lord of all that he might discover judge and destroy this principle so contrary to his own love and life hath so ordered it That he that will not deny himself his life liberty and salvation for the good of others in conformity unto Christ and in obedience to his Gospel They will be found to be persecutors cruel destroyers of others lives and liberties and so be brought to shame and destruction They that will not suffer for and from others others must suffer from them And they that cannot give their life will take away others life It is and will be resolved into this that men must either live in the merciful and saving spirit of Christ or in the cruel spirit of the Devil And no shew or form of godliness nor pretence of right or religion can evade this judgement For strong is the Lord that thus judges It is therefore evident and God will make it good that there is not common salvation nor good will to man in any private spirit of any Party but in the Spirit of Christ the Saviour of the world And that this true publick spirit where ever it is it shews it self by this it will suffer for and from others and not make others suffer from it it will and doth give life and liberty and not take it away The first step into freedom is out of our selves and the beginning of all ingenuity is to be able to examine try and judge our selves If by experience and by what is here written you attain the least spark of true freedom and can but reflect upon your selves and remember the first rise of your work that it was to deliver your selves and that in the whole progress of it it was terminated and bounded in self either in a finer or a grosser way and could do nothing but prefer or exalt your selves and Party or them that would confirm and strengthen your selves by serving of you And that all the while you were busie in this work you could not but oppress others not only your enemies but the whole Nation And that none of you could ever produce any publick ease liberty or advantage to the people but on the contrary taxes and burdens If you have but so much ingenuity as to judge your selves state and spirit and justifie God and Christ we shall soon agree If you do so and come forth of that hole that pit of a narrow private Religion that self or party holiness and salvation which is really now a pit and snare whatever exaltation it hath had If you can now but look out of it and view things in the light of the universal goodness of God your reason will tell you That for you that are but a small part of the Nation it may be a tenth either for number or quality a tenth that is a more active vigilant more spirited part of the whole For you in times of trouble to get the sword into your hands and to overthrow the Government and Governors of the whole which the whole chuse and rest satisfied in and to seclude the nine parts of the representative of the whole and admit of none to rule but your own tithe To subdue the civil Government and exalt the sword To depose one natural chosen beloved and one in judgement and affection with the nine parts And to set up many in many various wayes and opinions all strange to the whole Nation if
boasting glorying and quarrelling and then where bread is they must bow for it and will and then the Bishop and Shepheard that can feed them will be honoured by them But if England be still a Church or there be a Church in England of old and late and all men professing faith in Christ are members and neither the worst nor best are dismembred but all continue one body though broken and under confusion Then as every particular member is apart so parties united by any bond of spirit perswasion or opinion must needs be a great part an integral part And if so there can be no peace nor building but of all these parties And it is easier for a workman to constitute a house of all then for another to make a shed or hovel of some parts But there will never be any harmony nor health in the body if every joint supply not its place It is love only can unite and heal and only an intire love or a love of the whole to the whole If any part be rejected there is want of love or love is not in that agreement that leaves out any part and if love be not there the agreement will not hold Love the more the divisions the wider and greater the distance the more able it is to unite and the more pleased to do it because it is infinite And the greater the variety is the more wisdom delights to shew its skill in ordering and composing of them into harmony and the more excellent will the musick be when composed It is not imaginable that any one Party can comprehend the whole nor can any one Party comprehend any other Party And therefore every person and Party will in their divided state think and conclude an union impossible But as it is impossible for any party or few parties to agree or to think how to agree so it is impossible but the whole must agree because she comprehends all the parts and they all do consist in her and she consists only by and in all Therefore as the reason of any or many parts be they eminent parts cannot unite the whole while they stand as parts divided from any of the whole So the reason of the whole cannot but comprehend and gather into it all the parts and consequently must unite all For all do already meet in that universall reason wherein and whereby both all the parts and the whole subsist This is the reason of the liberty of conscience that is in my mind I would that all may have liberty to come forth to come together and to agree and to agree first in this point of liberty For it is impossible that ever we should agree or consent by force No man will agree to be beaten If we give not liberty to men to profess enquire and bring forth their minds we deny them liberty to consent For there cannot be a free consent till there be all freedom to profess and to debate and of all means both of professing and trying all things What is restrained and imprisoned by jealousie and enmity is thereby shut up in division and denyed both the first step to and the right means of agreement And is thereby enforced to dwell in it self and to maintain its own private divided state being thrust out from all fellowship with the whole The admitting all to come abroad into open light and profession with liberty to try is the beginning of peace and agreement But as I would give this liberty of conscience so I expect and may justly challenge a liberty to deal with this conscience in the way of conscience For therefore would I that their consciences may come forth that they may be convinced and instructed Sure then you will not deny me liberty to reprove and rebuke and if I can to wound and afflict your consciences if they be guilty If they be not guilty I cannot hurt them if they be it must be known felt and discovered else they cannot be healed It is a freedom that God hath given me to reprove and reform I shall use it and I hope so use it as not to be denyed the exercise of it At this time I would examine this plea of liberty of conscience as it hath been urged all along in our late troubles I do very much suspect this title and claim of conscience to liberty or liberty for conscience as it hath been and still is promoted by many that there is some notable evil in it more then hath been yet discovered For First Where the whole is unsound the parts must needs be so also And therefore if there hath been deceit and hypocrisie in the whole state and spirit of this work this of liberty of conscience being a great part of the business must necessarily partake of the corruption of the whole Secondly I cannot derive it from any antient and honourable root The Jews while they were in their own land they needed not liberty for they were under a Law of necessity and duty I do not remember that ever they desired it when they were in captivity In Aegypt they would not sacrifice Lo shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Aegyptians before their eyes and will they not stone us Gen. 8.26 And in Babylon they said How shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land Psal 137.4 I am sure if you had been as sensible of your spiritual al captivity as they were of their outward you would not have made such haste to sacrifice and set up so many notes or songs When you feel the confusion that is in your spirits you will find you are still in Babylon and hang up your harps and mourn instead of singing I am most certain of this there hath been a whorish impudency in the great liberty taken to pray profess build Churches Ministries and Worship And for this spiritual whoredom is liberty pleaded as well as for conscience Neither did the Apostles or the Primitive Christians seek for liberty of conscience from the Princes of the world But having commission from Christ the supream Lord to preach the Gospel they executed it boldly and freely They were called both to preach and suffer and therefore did not seek liberty from the cross A true spiritual Ministry derives it self immediately from the person of Christ who is exalted far above all principalities and powers And being far above them they need not cannot rightly seek for a licence from them to obey the commands of a superiour Lord. If the powers of the world be only worldly and the life and religion of the Saints heavenly the heavenly is above the earthly and may justly bless preserve and instruct the earthly and the earthly is to submit to the spiritual and heavenly If the powers of the world are as they were then in the wicked one then it was not only in vain but a wicked thing for the servants of Christ to seek to his enemy the devil and his enemies wicked
become our advantage if we be made wise by our failings Let us first observe the process of things After his Majesties return there was by the sweetness and gentleness of his Government a great calmness and stilness in the Nation and in a degree in the most opposite The trying condemning and executing of the prisoners for the death of his late Majesty stirred a new passion in the spirits of many people And the execution together with the resolution of the sufferers revived a zeal confidence and boasting of their cause and an extraordinary earnestness in their minds which was expressed in incessant meetings discourses and prayers day and night These passions and religious exercises boyl up their minds into new heats which kindled this wild-fire and at last blowed it up into this open Insurrection That you may understand the reason of these things let it be considered what I have expressed in this and the former Treatise 1. That God had a controversie with this Church and Nation because of its sins and its sinful state and standing not with the things themselves only as they stood in darkness and weakenss 2. God must have some to plead this controversie with the Government and Governors of Church and State 3. Those that he called forth for that purpose he inspires and impowers with spirit for that work 4. The seat and subject of this spirit and ministry is the judgements and consciences of men For men by being inspired and led into opinions and judgements contrary to the received Law of the Church are thereby fitted to be instruments in Gods hand of his displeasure to the Church For the Church cannot be tried but by such spirits and judgements which differ from it and are contrary to it 5. They that are thus impowered for such a service so far as they do the will of the most high Lord in it are to be owned and justified Though the office be never so mean and never so contrary to â—he honours wills and wayes of States and Kingdoms yet it is the rod of God and must be kissed 6. These ministers of this displeasure have transgressed exceeded â—heâ—r Commission and exalted themselves in their service And so corrupted themselves and defiled their work This also is true Therefore there is in them that have executed this displeasure and in their consciences and work something that is just and something that is unjust and unrighteous Till these are distinguished there is no right judgement of them It must also be considered and it is granted by all Divines That the works of divine Providence and Government are executed by the administration of Angels Both the standing and changing of Governments is by the ministry of these principalities and powers Therefore in the great revolutions of this Kingdom both good and bad Angels have been employed They being spirits their proper sphere in which they move is the spirits and consciences of men Therefore it follows that as there hath been in these great Providences a righteous work of God and with it much unrighteousness so there are both Angels of light and of darkness inspiring the minds and consciences of men Now to administer justice upon men that have acted in these things without any judgement made of the principles and spirits that have moved in them cannot be thought to be perfect nor a right way to cure our distractions For outward punishments upon the body will not remove the evils that are planted by spirits in the consciences and judgements of men 1. For all men know First That if there be but a little truth and uprightness in any conscience it will bear up the person in the greatest outward suffering Neither death nor hell are able to over-power the least grain of honesty in the poorest wretch that ever lived That which is sincere is able to live and triumph under many sins and sufferings and will never yield till right be done to it 2. Mens spirits and consciences and the spirits that inspire and lead them are above the reach of the secular sword and only subject to the Scepter of Christ in his Church to the sword of the Spirit 3. Conscience though erroneous and seduced will enable men to suffer bodily punishment imprisonment and death with great chearfulness And if they are laid upon men without the means of conviction they do harden men in errour And therefore legal proceedings only to bodily punishments are not sufficient remedies to cure these distempers The case of the Nation under its present distempers is certainly extraordinary and far different from what it was an hundred or fifty years since Great variety of spirits are gone forth which have raised up the minds of men to a greater height of reason religion and resolution And old ordinary remedies will not cure new and extraordinary diseases If the Physick be not proper to cure and remove the disease it will by stirring the humours and enraging of them make dangerous commotions in the body For if men either from some measure of simplicity be it in the least degree and much mixed or from some spiritual operation be it of what kind it will or from an erroneous conscience If from any of these the sufferer be able to repell the Sentence of the Judge and to glory in his suffering and in a shew of righteousness to triumph over death he doth notably affront and wound that authority and judgement under which he suffers A man and his cause when he comes to judgement is brought out into the open view of all men and not only made publick but he and his cause is exalted to endure a conflict and tryal with the Law If the Law comes forth with that brightness and majesty that it ought the man is condemned in his own conscience and so justifies the Law and submits to his sentence and by this the Law and Authority is honoured But if the person judged stands clear in his own conscience upon any account and acquits himself in the face of dead when all men ordinarily yield such have a kind of conquest and do seem to overcome the sentence which must needs have an effect upon the people For people do naturally mind dying men death is King of terrours and it is a great thing to die it raises men on high And therefore in them that can die comfortably and confidently there is a great appearance of righteousness and worth which doth much affect the minds of people some are moved to pitty the sufferer and thereby his words and cause steals into their minds Others are convinced and drawn to the Party Others are hardened and strengthened by it For men think with themselves I cannot live comfortably bur here is that which will make me able to die comfortably and that is worth embracing That which makes the Magistrate to be feared and reverenced is his power of life and death That which makes men able to overcome death secretly overcomes the Magistrate
For every one that goes out of the world glorying in his righteousness makes a breath both in death and in the authority that inflicts it And when it comes to be easie and familiar as it will by a little practise Authority and Magistracy it self will be by such despised I shall commend to the Magistrate an Observation of mine own concerning the nature of man That he may consider what he governs and how he ought to govern him Man is a noble and stout creature There is so much of the majesty of the image of God in faln man that he retains much of the greatness though he have lost his goodness There lies raked up in this dust an invincible spirit that never will be subdued by force God could never break the rebellion of the Israelites by all his punishments upon them And therefore sayes Why should ye be stricken any more ye will revolt more and more Isa 1.5 All the terrours of the Law could never subject Paul but he sayes himself When the commandment came sin revived and I died Rom. 7.9 When the law came with terrour against him then fin roused up it self unto a desperate opposition There being such stoutness in mans heart that all the force of the Law could not subdue God sent his Son in love to this stout creature to take his flesh and so to soften and overcome it and in it to destroy both Law and sin This will shew us what is in man There is as much of this courage and greatness of spirit in the English as in any people under heaven which is very much awakened in these times both by the wars and by long liberty and a free exercise of their minds in Religion For first the people were inspired and impowered to execute the determined displeasure of God upon the Church and Nation which exalted them and subjected the Church and Nation under them Having as they think judged the former state of Religion they have opportunity and liberty to erect several new forms of Religion which is an act of spiritual principality and power and not without zeal for God and obedience to his Law By these things the genius of the Nation and the natural stoutness of the people is much lightened and encreased And therefore to reduce them into that state that they think they have judged and to destroy all their little principalities set up in their consciences only by outward force or by the meer letter of that Law which they have condemned without a superiour Law that judges them and their work to my reason seems not only impossible but dangerous Let the whole be considered and it will be found That meer legal and outward punishments upon such a people so spirited and principled so employed and exercised if their consciences and spirits be nor first fairly heard judged and convinced will inflame their minds into such a mad and desperate spirit as appeared in the late Insurrection into hardness and insensibility of death and danger which is the greatest enemy to Government that can be For it turns men into wild beasts not to be ruled by humane Laws And though they do attain nothing to themselves yet they may give disturbance and force the Magistrate from all humane and divine wayes of love and gentleness into violence and perpetual severity and fill the whole Nation with continual troubles and distractions It is true the Magistrate is bound by all bonds of Law of reason and nature to suppress and punish rebellion But when the seeds of rebellion lie in the mind and conscience the spiritual sword is as necessary as the secular and the one not effectual without the other What is written in this Treatise will I hope satisfie them that will read and consider that there is with us in the Church a spirit and understanding that will reach the root of rebellion in the mind and fully convince the conscience Which being joyned to the civil authority is sufficient to cure and heal the Church and Nation On the other side I must desire the present suffering Party that were so highly offended at my Book and at my proposition for the tryal of principles that they consider how much lower they are now faln There was certainly a loftiness and unsubjection of mind unsutable to their condition expressed in a glorying and boasting of their old cause and state which hath brought forth this contempt and suffering upon them I do believe that this late Insurrection was the work of a few rash and unreasonable men And do find that all sober men do express a great abhorrency of the act with resolution to wait patiently upon God for their deliverance Which truly I rejoyce in Yet the whole Party lying under the shame of these mens folly and madness they must seriously and deeply consider how far they yet stand unhumbled and unconvinced of those principles that carried these men into this practise Principles lie deep and when once they get rooting in the mind they are like ill weeds in a garden not presently destroyed Many times the judgement is enlightened against them yet they have a root in the heart which will spring up if not quite eradicated Their appearing in others and the evil fruit they bear is a good means to beget an utter detestation of them To make you sensible of the hand of God upon you and to help to clear your minds wholly of them I only propound these queries to you 1. First Whether those principles upon which they acted of the Cause and Kingdom of Christ and the honour and priviledge of the Saints above and against the world Have not been received into the minds and spirits of most men more or less that have erected new Churches and new Governments in the Nation Secondly Whether the same principles and the hopes of such things be not that which fills your heads and hearts with multitude of prayers and great confidences that you shall yet prevail and your enemies be destroyed And so though your understandings be more prudent then others yet whether the same things be not yet in your faith affections and duties Thirdly Whether these spirits and principles have not had a great influence upon the whole business a long time If so then if they be not rooted out by repentance and change of mind they lie not still in the heart though they seem not to act and appear Fourthly Whether men being upon an extraordinary bottom as the Saints of God distinct from others And exercising themselves in extraordinary duties with extraordinary hopes and confidences of extraordinary deliverances Are not thereby disposed and prepared to attempt extraordinary things to attain these extraordinary ends If so then you are drinking the same wine that intoxicated their heads that rose only they are weaker and you more able to bear it Remember Solomons counsel Who hath sorrow who hath contention who hath babling who hath wounds without cause They that tarry long