erroneous out of the fire with violence instead of feare malice hatred imprisonments bonds Endeavouring to pull others out of the fire and save others with a love respect affection to their fallible mutable garments spotted with the flesh But oh immutable unspotted undefiled God! thou who art able to present me faultless before the presence of thy glory with joy let me not be seperated from any or joyned to any when thou shalt seperate till thou seperatest and joynest that so seperation may be of thee uniting may be of thee and that I may hold forth the interior teachings the hidden unspeakeable mysterie of calling and enjoying Let me not walke according to the minde and will of the men of the world that are something and nothing that live and command according to the will of the flesh let me not walke according to the way of the wandring stars the wonders of the world of mountains of Thrones of Principalities and powers of the aire of the Gods of nations preistly Counsels and Magistrates of the earth chosen by men of the earth But oh Lord let my Exterior be what the Lord and not what the Lords will But methought I saw the preists of the nation in Pompe and glorie in kings Monarches and potentates Courts and methought I saw them instigating the Civill Magistrates of the world and I saw the persons and their waies to be the Preistly Lineage and the successours of the Lord Iesus his and his Apostles and Saints enemies who crucified the Lord Jesus did kill and slay the Apostles and Saints of the most high God and being convinced of the glorie power and truth of God manifested in those Apostles Saints did endeavour to extripate root them out from off the face of the earth made them to wander up down destitute afflicted and tormented And when they thought they had extinguished them and rooted them out of the world they stiled themselves the Apostles successours Ministers of the Lord Jesus and Priests of the high God like certain of the Jews Acts 19.13 yea Vagabond Jews Exorcists who tooke upon them to call over them that had evill spirits the name of the Lord Jesus whom Paul Preached But here I was cast into admiration why the world should ever the more admire the Preists of nations and their adherent that are the scourgers of Saints the incensers of Magistrates because they pretend to the Lord Jesus whom Paul did enjoy and whom Paul did preach But preists but Ministers of the Gospel as you call your selves though I can say in some measure Iesus Christ know somewhat by the power of that eternal spirit I know which Paul know But who are ye But though you are in my apprehension the great enemies of the Lord Jesus and though I shall be accounted an evill spirit by you a Devill or what not I would not insult over you though I had power over you But it 's I can onely say that many of you may be saved it 's the eternall absolute and onely wise can say you shall But yet I think you shall suffer the losse of your craft for many persecutors both before and in the Marian persecution became persecuted ones the Father called some of them from queenly fleshly carnall Antichristian glory to the fire I desire that you would not be offended with words for I profess seriously I speak not out of hatred but out of pitie to you that are in contrarietie to the Lord Jesus You often say you acknowledge a God therefore expect not that I should call you gods that have hands nor your works gods that are made with hands nor any or all your minds or understandings Gods even a whole Synod or Counsaile But the absolute supreame God shall be when you are not to be seen Time may be when your Craft as well as your predecessors craft may be set at nought and your gods and goddesses despised and all your magnificence destroyed though there were as many more eager and violent persecutors and worshippers are not you the cause whilst you have the power in your hands whilest you have the Kings Lords and Potentates of the earth to act for you that there is so great a stir about that way which you partiall fallible Judges call Heresie What though you cry out great is Diana of the Ephesians what though you are full of wrath and bitterness so that fire proceeds out of your mouth and as much malice envy and divellish contrariety to all except your selves as can be supposed to be in the most barbarous and cruell yet your Kingdom is not an everlasting Kingdom nor your Dominion an everlasting dominion but the supream infallible Judge will come gloriously will not tarry It is but a Marian Trick to persecute a poor man and to hale him or indeavour to bring him before you Commanders in chief your Magistracy and Counsels for Preaching as you call it I will acquaint you with one thing I providentially saw not long since in the Book of Martyrs of one Rawlins White a Fisher man of Cardiff who was burnt for an Heretick a little before the fire flasht up to his body many of his friends came to him and took him by the hand and one held held him till the flame arose and seperated friends but a Priest said it was not lawfull to take him by the hand for he was an Heretick and condemned by the Church I wonder Mr. Pryn doth not insert this as of divine Authority to prove the lawfulness of persecution and violence to be used to Hereticks But Nationall Ministers you are the Children or the Childrens Children of those that were so constituted and did Act according to an unjust papall way and as one sayth of them Cujus faetor usque ad nubes fumum teterrimum exhalabat whose filthy stinck did fume even to the Clouds of Heaven but indeed you did still indeavour to cloth your selves finer and finer to make the world wonder at you and think you were really for Reformation but be not deceived so as to think that God can be mocked and deluded though you finde men almost the whole world very facile and easie to be deluded with a lye with a fancy It was formerly wont to be said Agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi miserere nobis but must we take it in this acceptation Synodus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi miserere nobis Oh the intolerable pride of Lucifer O the Vanity of the high Priests who are made by the power of the great God to confess they are not infallible yet act as if they were But methinks I see and behold I thank my eternall life and only wise God my Lord to laugh at the Lords my God at the Gods the and my absolute immutable perfect infallible informer and Reformer to laugh at the mutable non-absolute imperfect fallible Informers and Reformers but it may be these men may be sealed up to
thou pleased to condescend to be my Companion and teach me the way of thy Commandments in the Spirit Though honour pleasure and preferment is presented to me if I submit to that way that I am or am not perswaded is the way of God as considered in distinction in thy production in Jesus Christ Let me hate O strength all objects that are presented with pleasantness to my eyes and with affection to my understanding though it be presented unto me to be desired and to make me wise If thou dost contradict all those exterior presentations in the Interiorest And let me not value the favour credit respect and reputation of men of the world but be thou my God and then I shall have rejoycing though I shall be cast out of the Paradice of men and kept out every way with a flaming sword But in this my affliction let me have communion and power with thy self or else I shall prove a Devil to my self and present the glories of the world to my understanding and shall be deceived Tenthly Admit that the Laws Ordinances of man or the interpretations of Scriptures by man were plain must not God the absolute and infallible and Supream power accomplish in the hearts and spirits of all men a beleeving of plain things as well as mysterious things that have more palpable necessity to have the truth and pure minde of them declared The Spirit was promised to shew the Saints plainly of the Father If the Father intended we should have Lords of the earth to shew us plainly of the Father and to make us beleeve the plainness of the Supereminent teachings surely he would have told us that the Fathers shall teach us The LORDS shall instruct us The variable mutable fallible windy spirits shall teach us But if we are subject to such teachings The fallible mutable spiritual men or spirits of the world may cast out Devils in the name of Jesus Christ and sweep and garnish the house that seven other Devils far worse then the former may enter in Eleaventh Admit magistrates and natural high Priests were the servants of the most high God the beloved of the Father those that knew the mysteries of the Lord Jesus were infallible in all knowledge or if they were true and reall Fasters and praying persons have they any other way prescribed to cast out Devils out of those that are in their eyes damnable Hereticks such as are really possessed with the spirit of blasphemy then by Fasting and Prayer Have they any such rule as this by scourgings by whippings by imprisonments by banishments Howbeit saith Christ this kinde cometh not out but by fasting and Prayer and no more There is no other way spoken of by Christ but by fasting from self from strife and from debate and from striking with the fist of wickedness living to and seeing the will of the Supereminent in fasting in willing in desiring according to the effluxes and descendings of it to capacity so that then fasting is good and praying is exceeding good when the wil of the Supereminent everlasting is become mans wil or mans will become the wil of the supereminent substantial eternal undefiled God which shal certainly be accomplished But if even their very Fasting and praying according to the true and real nature of Fasting and praying be questionable whither will they flie for their actions of Persecution and Tyrannie Twelfth Admit the generallity or major part of Civill magistracy were truly godly and heavenly-minded though I must confess I know no such matter it is well for themselves if they truly know themselves so and did walk in the Spirit would they not say as Paul did concerning his brethren after the flesh who was so taken up with love to them that he would be accursed from Christ Jesus for his brethren after the flesh who no doubt had errours yet not persecuted by him would they not say surely these are men as well as our selves and we cannot choose but confess our selves fallible we have not the Supereminent light and perfection of infallibility discovered to us as we confess the Apostles had we have not the infallible minde of God discovered to us without the Scriptures we have not the infallibility of interpretation of the minde of God in the Scriptures these men that we now Persecute though as now after the flesh to us may be in relation to God the seed of Abraham according to Faith unto these may belong the Promises the adoption the giving of the Law of the most high God and LORD in Tables of the heart as well within as without as well within in love as within in terrour We have had experience in this particular already that those that have been extream vitious are become Religious we our selves have been debauched most desperate swearers and blasphemers of that Eternall being and are so still and we saw or many of us that nothing did us good truly but the light and love of the absolute Divine Supereminent Truly all are dry-vines there is but one Supereminent power Why should any the Dry-vines of the world urge such a thing on us as to lift us up and instigate us to Persecute a company of poor may be afflicted tormented tempted creatures of God as well as our selves if they have received the Spirit of the Lord So said their fathers before them and yet Persecuted the members of Christ they may boast beyond their line as well as others have If they have the Spirit they have received it why should they boast Why should they insult domineer and Tyrannize over others Suppose Lords of the Earth that some of you should give a gift to some one man and not to another or a better gift to one man then to another as a badge of your mutable honour and love should another now that meets with one that hath not this badge rend him and tear him for it if that he did also meet one that had not so excellent a badge of honour as another should he also imprison him and wound him or strip him naked Surely I should think its because he is so covetous as to desire the garment The Priest and the Levite that came by the poor Samaritane might be the Theeves Apply it Potentates Besides admit you should give a man an excellent badge or cognizance of love in your families you should array him in glorious apparell and set a crown of gold on his head would you take it well that he should beat his fellow servants and wound them Reflect my Lords that he should kill all other poor creatures that came in his way because they had not the like garbe truly you would say this with your self I may give my own to whom I will so long as I have I may give what I have he hath abused my love and favour towards him It may be you may judge your selves for your liberality but Gods ways are past finding out and God may
many of your fore-fathers even you your selves varied from Apostolicall knowings and livings in the Spirit If I did think Antichrist would not lye or if you were competent Judges of your own hearts in this great time of your contention for Masteries for power and authority for the sitting in the uppermost Rooms of feasts for Judging according to your selves you would tell me that you have all gone out of the way and that you are altogether become abominable even in the eyes of the divine invisible presence as it is in the Son of the Fathers love and also in your own eyes Have not many of you endeavoured to finde out the profound unsearchable riches of the incomprehensible God who is every where in all the natures of things and yet can hide himself in relation to any thing beside himself so that they shall not perceive him May not God work upon the Left hand and upon the Right hand you see him not surely it 's recorded that Job was in such a condition Job 23.9 Have you not endeavoured to finde out that one indivisible mind that one unalterable God as if you contained him in the hollow of your hands in one associated assembled company Oh! then truly those that you are pleased to call Sectaries of all men are most miserable Have not you thought you might finde truth's glory by the knowledge of the Etymologie of words by your artificiall learning and parts by finding out the fallible derivations and nationall changings of Termes Have not your Sermons been cunningly and artificially composed like Menander his two Comoedies Andria and Perinthia which were very unlike in composition And hath not this deceived the hearts of the people though your subject matter as you will say differ little Do not you in your great contentions endeavour to make a Uniformity in worship which you are pleased to call circumstantials or to give some other slight name to it and also an Uniformity in your substantialls so that the Magistrates have been as the Priests or the Priests as the Magistrates and so Priests Magistrates and people have been almost all one But you must likewise go to the Sepulchre of your fathers to be intoombed or hidden mystically in the conteyning Bowels of the earth the grave of the eternall God for all Yesterday it was to a persecuting Papist afterwards to a persecuting Protestant power and to day is to a domineering Presbyter Hinc illae Lachrymae here is unstedfastness in all our wayes here is persecution under 3. adulterated formes though I mention only these formes I complicate other formes whatsoever they are in the world that are not of God even the Father as considered in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ Give me leave to reason with you and take all in good part for I freely give in a loving consideration but let me tell you in this little Tract that which I apprehend will in the time of the invisible omnipotent Father peirce you to the very heart even some of you in this Generation before it passeth away by that word which endures for ever Oh thou Papist hast thou Iesus Iesus so much in thy mouth Oh thou Protestant hast thou Christ as much in thine and thou Presbyter hast thou the Lord Jesus as much in thy mouth as either of the former to throw both down and others also that are in a form of contrariety to thee and to make thy self an absolute Lord an absolute lover of thy self an absolute pleaser of thy self an absolute liver to thy self I only give these names because you are capable of those names you own your selves by and distinguish your selves and indeed are distinguished in the world therefore be not offended at it You speak much of Christ and your own ordinary and frequent expressions to maintain your own Jus Divinum are frequently in your mouths nay I think in your hearts You say indeed Interrogemus Christum but you do take councell with your selves and if you or any of you shall be subject to the sweet teachings of God of the most holy true and absolute you will tell me hereafter or others if not me or your selves if not others or be told of God that you did proclaim a Fast but you intēded to cut of Naboaths head before hand to stone poor Naboath all because he will live in the inheritance of his Father You will say that you had self-contrivings and Law-makings to destroy those that would walk and live and speak as being the inheritance and in the inheritance of the Father of freeness love and excellencie You will say that you with the will of your selves and the minde of your selves though unseeingly to you the minde of the incomprehensible did make way for Stigmatizing and Stigmatizing Informers if you fasted from your selves if you did not ask councell of your selves in the forms of truth make interrogatories to your selves and answer your own questions it would be a great question whether you obeyed the voyce of God or walked after your own premeditated Ordinances Laws and Designes What though your Counsels as it is recorded of Herod in the peoples apprehensions do speak as the Oracles of God what though you make your selves strong by arguments drawn from your vast Humane Intellects according to the formall denomination of wisdom and understanding in the world it is all but your selves it is but the high glory of an exterior and mysticall Antichrist it is but ad res inanes studia convertere It is that that hath deceived all the Nations of the world and doth deceive the people multitudes of the earth and make them to wonder at you and indeed it hath not only drawn the earthly and beguiled the simple ignorant of God through deceipt but also the heavenly the Saints of the most high those that are in the fathers bosome glorious teachings even to make a Disciple for a season to deny his Master till the substance the invisible incomprehensible God hath given them to see himself more and also themselves and others and to see and live to themselves and others less and to see him inmost of all within every vail within whom nothing is and without whom nothing is or is not is it not evident in the world that Synods and Assemblies have more looked upon and judged truth to be according to mens various argumentative varieties according to the seeing of the eye and the hearing of the ear rather then the true and reall discendings of God in their own understandings by the absolute spirit witness Testimonie or manifestation of the sole supream How many thousands of adulterous voyces have the world heard and worshiped with even with the Supereminentest names of Glory how many false and uncertain sounds have the Plebeians so called by many in scorn affected from a Causidick or a Terrestriall Polititian or an affected self-affecting Priest when the sound have been given by those that have the power of
his due is a plain demonstration that somewhat might be due to the one that was not due to the other and if the Magistrate would demand Lordship over the body and conscience what would they leave for God the eternall infallible Ruler Or doth the soul the understanding alone belong to God and the body belong to man in relation to the commands of the Divine God 4 Externall contrariety to Magistracy is apparant by Jesus Christ and his Apostles in their Preachings of the truth and way of the most High God so that as the visible doth do what he is commanded by Caesar If that invisible God command another thing in the conscience or understanding for Christ was not contrary in the invisibility but also contrary in the visibility to the Magistracy Governours High-Priests Scribes and Pharisees Christ never inslaved himself nor the minde of his Apostles to the Magistrates and powers of the earth And there can be no more Conformity demanded from any to any Magistracy but only what he obeyed and taught others to obey even in the paying of Tribute to Caesar Or unless a man be taught by that Ministring spirit which was promised to direct into truth to be obedient to a Magistracy in some other things which Christ was not obedient in or was to be subject unto no power of conscience to Magistracy Again the children will not be free in the Magistrates jurisdiction from paying of Tribute so long as they have that benefit to live in the world amongst them in buying and selling God will not have his Saints to appear more glued to the world then other men to get by the world and not to let the world have a benefit from them as well as strangers or other Cohabiters and indeed it is good for the maintayning of love and Unity in the world and that which doth comprehend in it a possibility to live peaceably with all men And a Magistrate if he be one that walketh and judgeth according to the pure light of nature and right reason is to see that there be no injury offered to peaceable men amongst them and for this cause the Saints or those of contrary judgements pay Tribute also because they are or should be the Ministers of God attending upon this thing Rom. 13.6 And therefore very conscionable that they should have Tribute whether they are appointed of God in an immediate manner or of men in a mediate if they are as they are not appointed of God in an immediate in a more especiall if God shall send such or constitute such a Magistracy then reason to pay Tribute if appointed of men in a mediate good reason also because the people multitudes or Nations have made choice of some to do their business to be their servants and so long as the children of the Kingdom of God have their just lawfull and naturall liberties and freedomes to act in their severall trades and occupations in the world in godliness and honesty they will yield to Caesar in those things which a Law of nature or of conveniency obligeth them to if they were not commanded for if they live quietly under a Magistracy in godliness or according to the teaching and way of the most High God in a way of peculiarity then they also exercise themselves in honesty in relation to civils or to Magistracy No power of conscience given to Magistracy But if they are deprived of the supreme and absolute Glory of manifestation of themselves as to God even in godliness viz by imprisonment banishment or by confiscation of goods or their conversing with men because they will not receive the marke of the beast then the Magistracy weaken their owne and the Kingdomes strength But yet they fulfill their owne wills on them but indeed have no dominion ouer the Saints at all But if it be the Fathers pleasure the Saints may live under a Caesar a Caligula a Nero a Domitian or another successive civill Magistracy in these considerations peaceably and quietly in all godliness and honesty not affording a power of conscience at all though they are persecuted and afflicted despised scorned and oppressed and so not live quietly and peaceably yet they may live godlily and honestly amongst them or in the Nation under the power of a Magistracy and the Apostle might pray for it to the Father and yet magistracy have no power of conscience again though they are persecuted and afflicted under a Civill Magistracy and so not live quietly and peaceably as before yet they themselves may live quietly and peaceably in Godliness and honesty viz they may not be disturbers though they are disturbed afflictors and scourgers though scourged Tormentors though Tormented buffetters though buffetted in fine may not walke contrary to the pure light of nature and right reason though others doe so to them and so they may live quietly peaceably godlily and honestly in the midst of a perverse irrationall self-ish generation and so they may pray the Father to live though they give no power of conscience to magistracy And therefore a poore dispised Apostle being ready to be devoured by every one to be spitt on by every one in his abundant labours in his stripes above measure in prisons frequent being beaten with rods being stoned being in perills of waters in perills of robbers in perills by his owne country-men in perills by the heathen in perills by the City in perills in the wilderness in perills amongst false brethren might very well breake out and pray to the eternall God to alter and change the powers of the world if that eternall God would that he or the poore Saints might live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty shall an Apostle speake of the things of his Father and for it be ready to be devoured and shall a Magistrate countenance it shall he have stripes by authority and without authority be beaten with Rods be imprisoned be in perill of robbers in the City in the Wilderness What is a Magistrate for then The Apostle being under so great pressures in relation to the walking of Magistracy contrary to the pure light of nature and right reason might well become a suiter to the Father for a benefit of quietness and peace under Magistracy But yet Oh Lord absolute and undefiled though thou givest a crown to defiled Magistracy to take peace from the earth thy alone eternall will be accomplished and performed and let thy Saints live to thee the supream Magististrate power and authority if thou wilt not suffer them to live quietly and peaceably in the jurisdiction of the powers of the world 5. Though the Magistrates may command the body yet they are only to command as I said before that which a Saint would willingly do for peace and quietness sake if he were only intreated or neither commanded or intreated so that he will act being commanded and act being intreated and also though neither commanded nor intreated But when the body
give forth some way or other to discover the thoughts of all hearts Oh Lord Supereminent Thou hast made all men almost to differ one from another and thou hast set the world in their hearts to some thou didst give the gift of prophesie it may be in some measure to some Tongues to some discerning of spirits to some working of miracles to some wisdom to some knowledge to some Faith if thou givest me but the glimmerings of love in the least of these or in any one let me not despise him that hath more or judge him that hath more nor yet despise him that hath less or judge him that hath less if any have less then my self in relation to capacity or understanding for thou art the same let me not pretēd to know above what I really know though the powers of the world would have me do that I am not convinced of or leave undone that which I cannot because I am thine not their servant Oh then the absolute Lord over-rule the lords in me and let me see thee and walk before thee in the understanding yet if thou wilt have a Nero a Domitian a Caligula or any power of the visible world to scourge me Give my back to the smiters and let me know and see thou givest it and then let me take pleasure in it For oh Lord me thinks I see that a man may have a vision of God and may see a star to arise out of Jacob and may be convinced in his conscience that the earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof and that God is the alone Lawgiver Judge and absolute supream as many or most of the Nationall Priests and Lords confess yet at the request of a base sensitive lust and divilish desire will endeavour to have Altars built yea Altar upon Altar to see whether they can curse the Israel of God Let us proclaim a Fast that so God may hear our Prayers and grant our desires the longing of our souls But Lord how far is this from the true life of Saintship and love in the World But O Lord refine me and then let me walk as refined Thirteenth The mandates of the Scripture even the Scriptures from which the Potentates and powers of the earth have and do maintain persecution and violence to others do all of them extend to the Magistrate and if he were in a Christian constitution as he pretends he ought not in that relation to use carnall weapons neither will he unless he supposes himself wiser then ever Christ or an Apostle was or hath received the Spirit more then an Apostle had or hath received the Spirit to maintain and defend such a practise as the Apostle could not neither did 2 Cor. 10.4 Christ saith when they were persecuted should pray when cursed bless Christ could have had twelve Legions of Angels to defend him in this visible world but he would not take any invisible glory or visible excellency of God to defend him And if the Magistrates will tell us plainly that they have that power given them as considered in a constitution of holiness and truth which the Father would not give Jesus the Son or which he would not assume or exercise nor give his Apostles power to assume or exercise Let them prove that they or this or that particular Magistrate had or have that which neither of them had neither Jesus Christ nor Apostles And let those whom they are pleased to call Hereticks and to banish imprison and afflict see their Arguments that they have in themselves as in the presence though they think it not nor perceive it or know it or though knowing it will not acknowledge it of the Eternall incomprehensible Judge non-respecter of persons the interiorest discerner that can describe that which man describes with a fuller description and judge with a fuller judgement then man or any visible glory or rationall intellect in the world who is without the exteriorest and within the interiorest and indivisible in himself who judges with a more absolute judgement then all the Councels Potentates Lords Synods or Parliaments of the earth And when he enters into judgement the flesh of a Lord is no more then the flesh of another man nor shall more be justified by him or be able to justifie it self But I beleeve if things were demonstrated in the world according to the spirit of truth reallity and non-confusion the Lords Potentates and Counsels of the earth would appear to be the greatest Anti-scripturists though in words they would not have it so expressed or so express it themselves Fourteenth Is it not a case of conscience or is there not necessity that every particular man should be perswaded in his own minde for what he doth or for what he is commanded to do least he call good evil and evil good least he call oppressing persecuting Lords Magistrates Counsels Synods followers of the God of heaven in love light and truth Citizens of the New Ierusalem Saints of the most high God livers in the Spirit those that walk with God when indeed they are not so but grinders of the faces of the poor Idolaters carnall sensuall and divilish having not the spirit having mens persons in admiration because of advantage making a prey of the poor and needy having wisdom yet are not wise unto God but to themselves oppressours though not of their friends or themselves of the Saints of the most High or those that are not perswaded in their consciences by the Divine Supream God It is not strange to say know and think that magistrates and ministers so called have been so are and may be so The Scriptures of the most High God testifie it the saints have witnessed it and still do witness it with their blood and bodies Are there not men magistrates and ministers of such mindes as Caesar Caligula was of that wished that all the people of Rome had but one neck that he might destroy many at once Many can apply this But Hell must inlarge her self Gods design must be accomplished in Hell as well as in Heaven Saints give your backs to the smiters In this my last Demonstration and apprehension I was in the conclusion desiring in my own spirit of that eternall Jehovah and everlasting God that I might be so swallowed up into that eternall glory wisdom power will that I might not manifest my self with my self but that my self or rather himself might be manifested in me by me and from me then though the mutable Lords of the Aire oppose me yet my alone substantiall ever-remaining supereminent Lord remaines If I live he is if I die those that live after me shall not truly say he is not but he is the same I also desired that I might be so swallowed up to the life of the Lord that in seeing of that Lord in the things of that Lord I might not respect persons that it might be all one to me to be hated and to be loved to