I might have said much more in return to thine but that I see and know that Words and Declarations tho never so true unless the Life it self speak them and go along with them have but little strength And I could also tell thee that to forsake your Form yea and to speak against it too were not to forsake Truth as thou chargest And is it not strange that you should so complain of my disturbing your Meetings in a Song or few words of Truth when as your selves have gone to others assembled even with railing Accusations calling them Dumb Dogs Liars Hirelings Baal's Priests c. yet cannot bear with such as come to admonish you O that the time were come that those who desired Liberty of Conscience would give it to others I know you cannot believe the Truth when told you nor cease from reproaching judging and condemning it neither will you let the Innocent go free to serve the Lord according as their Light shall lead them till the Judgments you have pronounced against the Innocent fall upon your own Heads For I know that the Lord hath poured out upon you a deep Spirit of Slumber which hath so blinded your Eyes and hardened your Hearts that in seeing you should not see neither perceive the Truth in things that differ And there is yet a Treasure a Dispensation of Grace where you have as yet by reason of your Self-exaltation and bitter Spirit seen but little into the which some have seen felt and handled To this you must all stoop and bow tho never so high before you find Peace and Rest to your Souls or be free from vain Contention and Strife R. R. to M. B. and other Quakers THis I have to say unto thee or rather to G. F. who hath begot many of you into his Image That you no longer tempt any of the innocent Lambs of Christ to withdraw from the leading and teaching of the Unction of God which is Christ to follow the Letter or your Teachings or Traditions wherein you must and shall perish in the dark Wilderness of your own Imaginations for the Lord hath sworn in his Wrath that you who call your selves Good old Friends and the Israel of God who have so falsly accused condemned and bitterly persecuted your innocent Brethren for those things the Lord hath and doth justify shall never inhabit the good Land I know G. F. is raised of God for this very end to try refine and purify many as Pharaoh was and tho many fall in the Trial under his Power yet many will be delivered into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God I likewise see that daily more and more will fall off from that Body and that some that separate from them will with Daniel stand in their Lot and follow the Lord in the Spirit of the Lamb more fully than they have done whilst they that oppose shall stand with Lot's Wife turned into a Pillar of Salt continuing their preaching up Truth in Words without Power whilst others baptize with the Holy-Ghost and with Fire Thou writest of my going to the Steeple-house To which I answer Blessed are those that have Rest Peace and Satisfaction in themselves for they that look forth are like to find but little in this the day of God's searching Jerusalem with Candles wherein he will stain the Pride and Glory of all Flesh R. R. in Answer to some Friends not Quakers YOu judg me to be a Ranter and to hold their Principles I can truly say I have been but little acquainted with that People or with their Principles I would not be thought to be an Advocate for the loose and licentious Practices of any sort of People much less for Them who from the itching ☜ Notions of Liberty have run without their Guide into the excess of all Riot and Prophaneness who while they greedily catch at the Bait are caught with the Hook till a Dart strike through their Liver and they are led with the Fool to the Correction of the Stocks and there plagued with their own Iniquities I desire this may be shewn to Mr. Bacon as to all others who seem to stumble at my Love to this dark Beelzebub this mad ranting Crew THe time is coming and now is that we shall not know and own each other as we are of one Sect or outward way but as the Grace and Principle of God appears in each other the Love of God shed abroad in our Hearts and where this is witnessed thither will the Upright resort and gather If you see any dividing among the Religious Parties take you notice of that I know every one must divide till all unite in the Word in the Heart My Love flows to all that in uprightness of Heart serve the Lord in any Form For as all Forms are alike to me so is the Substance the Power of Godliness also and altho Uprightness God accepted in all Forms and suffered all Sects to walk in them yet now calleth all Men to reject the evil in each Form and to wait on Him to be their Teacher from henceforth and for ever J. N. and J. P. tho dead yet speak who declared they were to cease from words even of Truth spoken from the comprehending part of Man's Understanding and from thus speaking in set Meetings and so to give way for a greater Glory viz. the Spirit 's teaching leading and speaking in the Saints Also they declared that they had received greater Wounds from the House of their Friends than from the House of their Enemies And I can assure you they who meddle with the Quakers had need be fenced within and without with the whole Armor of God Truth and love to Righteousness David â—s Sling and Stone and enabled to use both hands the left as well as the right the Wisdom of the Serpent as the Innocency of the Dove And truly till the Spirit of Love and Reconciliation be brought forth wherewith every Christian shall willingly leave each other to the guidance of God's holy Spirit of Grace in that Form or Way they are persuaded to walk in the Strife which is occasioned by outward Traditional Observations will never cease And I have this further to declare to all the World to Jew Gontile Barbarian and Christian tho I know it will be an Offence and Stone of stumbling to G. F. and all Masters of Assemblies in every Sect who prescribe impose and would have Dominion over the Faith of others that the Eternal God who wills not the death of any Sinner hath sent his dear Son Emanuel his Light and Spirit of Grace into the World his everlasting Covenant a Divine Law writ in every Man's Heart that whosoever believeth in Him and followeth Him shall have Eternal Life And this Divine Law and Word in the Heart is the Ensign to gather together all things into Himself and to present every Man perfect in God being thereby sanctified justified and saved from their Sins To which Word
the Saints my love to that Testimony made me willing to stand by him in his Sufferings and to bear his Cross for which Testimony the World the Powers of darkness then ruling my Kindred and my Brethren the Quakers sold me into Aegypt by their many false reports yet there the Lord my God appeared to me and finding me in my Innocency wherewith he had clothed me hath ever fince become my exceeding great Reward Nov. 30. 1678. BY what I have formerly and now sent for England you may see how I have bin acted for many years Lately I have heard a Voice from Heaven saying Turn thy Sword into Plowshares and into Pruning Hooks stay at home Dress and keep clean the Garden of Eden thine own Heart that no root of bitterness spring up there I also now begin to feel an inclination to write out fair that which long since I have prepared and to present each of the seven Churches of Christendom with an Epistle I formerly intended them Then will many come to see beyond the Letter of that * Viz. the Gift of 210l. to the 7 Churches An. 1666. Action and not the sound of Words only nor from Mount Sinai but from Sion where it is written In the Mount of the Lord it shall be seen and heard by all that have an Ear to hear what the Spirit saith at whose Voice of Love our Friend Lazarus will awake and rise out of his sleep In truth I thought the Epistles promised would soon have followed my Gift but in short time after I came to see that the day was not for Unity and Amity but for biting and devouring one another so that instead of raising our Brother Lazarus we had our hands every one against his Brother two against three and three against two which work tended to the Crucifying of the Lord of Life afresh but I hope the day is dawning that after Ages or next Dispensation will speak more reverently of Unity and Amity I have bin made contrary to my Nature a Man of Contention and strife to all the World one that at the command of the Lord hath sold my Coat made of Love and Good-will to all and bought a Sword with which I have fought a long and tedious Battel of about ten years standing against all Professors of Moses and of Christ which War I believe will go on throughout the whole World to the destruction of all Idols in all Religions and to the setting up of Christ Jesus God's Word in the Heart his Priest and Prophet King over all the Earth His Fan is in his hand and he will throughly purge his Floor even all the Children of Light that they may offer to the Lord in a clean Vessel of His own an Offering in Righteousness Wherefore be ye clean pure Virgins that bring forth the Birth of God and bear the Vessels of the Lord. Thus all that are baptized into this one Spirit of Love to Truth and Righteousness stand as Saviours on Mount Zion with the Trump of God in their Hearts to judg and save the Mount of Esau not in a wrathful bitter Spirit but in the same loving-kindness wherewith God hath judged and saved us for so will the Kingdoms of this World become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall and must reign for ever and ever I confess formerly for a long time I have had Conscience of an Idol and contended only for one sort of People but now an Idol to me is nothing and my present state is to own that which is of God in any sort of Men and to become all things to that of God in all Men that is not of Sin that so I may reach save and unite in the Love of God all Men to each other in all Religions which Love shed abroad in our Hearts is God's Salvation to all Men even to the ends of the Earth I have here sent my Epistle to the Roman Catholicks that by this you may see the Patern of the rest which Patern I received some years since from the Mountain of God's Love not from Mount Sinai but from Mount Sion the Habitation of the Blessed the New Jerusalem who is Father and Mother Brother and Sister of all God's Children who are regenerate and born again of the Seed and Spirit of Grace God's Sons and Daughters At the revelation of which when I saw and considered the end of the Lord in that my saluting of the seven Churches my Heart did leap and skip within me like to a Roe or young Hart upon the Mountain of Spices I say in this Mountain of God's Love the sanctified Heart stands the Saviour Christ our Lord the Spirit of the Father who saves his People from their Sins the which sanctifies and redeems them from all Iniquity Who is who was and who is to come one and the same through all Generations from everlasting to everlasting An. 1677. And now I shall settle to write out fair what I have prepared for the remaining seven Churches That already sent I think hath no contention or strife in it if you see any thing of that Nature I pray take it out of the way My Mind is directed in this Testimony of the universal Love of God to the World to receive and treasure up as in Joseph's Store-houses all that which is of God in every Religion and to hand it forth in this time of Famine of Love to God and our Neighbour which is seen to break in as an overflowing Scourge over all Christendom not only in Egypt amongst the Prophane but amongst Professors of all sorts who account themselves the Sons of Jacob And what I see to be false and reprobate Silver the Inventions Traditions and Impositions of Men to return that back again as their own Money in their own Sacks And in so doing I hope none will be offended thereat You need not be careful or sollicitous in publishing what I send only when you feel your Mind in frame whether as in a Cloud or Pillar of Fire fitting and preparing to such an end gently follow after it as it leadeth for they that are come into the Faith of God's Elect the second Covenant do not make haste but are entred into their Rest even into God's everlasting Sabbath of Rest where in the new Covenant of Grace in Matters Spiritual they cease from their own Works from labouring and toiling in the first Covenant of Works as He did from His. The Days approaching are evil to all Worshippers in the outward Court Lo here and Lo there where the Potsherds of the Earth will dash one against another and bring all into Confusion This is the portion of the Ungodly that have not the Birth of God in them In this time of Trouble will God build his Church and Temple the New Jerusalem in the sanctified Hearts of his People wherein he will place his Name for ever And as for those that worship God in the Spirit
ABSTRACTS OF SOME LETTERS WRITTEN BY Mr. ROBERT RICH Treating mostly of Spiritual Matters Are here transmitted to Posterity and recommended to the sober and serious Enquirer FOR Promoting of Universal Love amongst all sorts of People without respect of Persons Parties or Sects Together with a friendly Letter of Dr. Jer. Taylor to the said R. R. in Answer to one of his Published by a Lover of RIGHTEOUSNES But an utter Enemy to Deceit and Wickedness in whomsoever J. P. LONDON Printed for Benjamin Billingsley at the Printing-Press near the â—â—â—al-Exchange in Cornhill 1680. The PREFACE I Having had the perusal of divers of Mr. R. Rich's Letters by reason of his late Decease found several things scattered up and down amongst them of a sublime and Divine Nature some of which I picked and culled out and now expose to publick view chiefly for the sake of those whose Hearts and Minds are set Sion-wards to be kept upon Record for their Posterity even the Generations of all the just and righteous Ones of what Nation Kindred Tongue or People soever they be For the sincere single and upright-hearted in whom there is no Guile who seek not the Praise of Men but the Glory of the Lord only were are and for ever will be acted and guided by one and the same Spirit of Purity Holiness and Self-denial throughout all Ages and Generations He that can receive the Testimony of this Truth as did the Apostle Peter of old and as do the Servants of the Lord now let him but withal let him know unless his Life and Conversation be harmless and blameless amongst Men all his Notion of Truth in words will but add to his greater Condemnation For he that talks of his Master's Will and is not a doer of the same must expect to be beaten with many stripes Wherefore my Advice is before any talk of or intermeddle with the Secrets or Mysteries of the Great GOD they first see Justice Righteousness and Love to Equity set up in their own Souls for till that be resolvedly and fixedly established within all Knowledg and Profession without will avail little For what doth the Lord require of thee O Man but to do justly to love Mercy and to walk humbly before Him Therefore let these things in which the Kingdom of God consists and not in Meats or Drinks Habits Times or Places which at best were but shadows of good things to come be first sought after and all other things needful will be added as hath been fully and truly experienced by one who hath learned not only to forgive Enemies but can with delight reward Evil with Good Which Lesson that the Reader may learn press after and attain unto is the desire of him who seeks the Good and Weal of all Mankind J. P. Mr. Rich's Letter to Doctor Taylor of the 9th of Feb. 1657. Together with the Doctor 's Answer SIR BEing in my Heart persuaded that there are many of late years which have suffered much in their Persons Estates and good Names of those People called Malignants especially some that were in the Ministry that were not only put out of their Livings but by an Act made uncapable of that Emploiment their Education best fitted them for viz. the keeping of Schools And altho perhaps some might suffer justly for their Offences yet I do believe many of them did suffer for the Testimony of a good Conscience not daring to make shipwrack of it nor to act against that Light or Knowledg which to them was made manifest from the Lord to be just and right Towards such have I great Love notwithstanding the different Dispensations Manifestations Operations and Administrations wherein we are cast knowing the Root and Ground to be from the one Spirit and that in my Father's House there are many Mansions in which as every one abides to act and do the things that are just and right they are accepted with him of what Nation Kindred or People soever whether Jew or Gentile they are all one in Christ Jesus God's Talent and Gift to the World who doth enlighten every one freely by his Grace both to will and to do of his good pleasure And therefore as a Testimony of that Love the Lord hath begot in my Heart to all Men especially to them that improve my Lord's Talent and who are of his Houshold and abide in the Faith that keeps clean the Heart which is held in a pure Conscience have I by this Bearer sent unto you Ten Pounds to bestow amongst them you know to be in want under that Form called Episcopal And this I feel to be well-pleasing to God and hath a Reward from him altho it should be condemned by Man So desiring you in this thing to act as Truth in the inward parts shall direct I commit you to the Grace and Love of God where I rest Your Friend and Servant R. R. The Doctor 's Answer SIR I Received from you by the hands of your Nephew a Letter and Ten Pounds to be given to such godly Ministers of the Episcopal Persuasion who are in want and suffer for the Testimony of their Consciences Sir I do in their behalf return my humble thanks to God who hath put it into your Heart to do so good so charitable an Action for the relief of his afflicted Servants And I return hearty thanks to You also and do very much rejoice in that Piety and godly Sincerity of your Spirit by which you endeavour by your Love unto the Brethren to testify your Love and Duty to our dearest Lord. I see you are no respecter of Persons nor Opinions but that you enquire after the Power of Godliness and I am very much delighted to consider that you make a charitable Judgment of your Brethren who are under another Dispensation As long as the Understandings of Men differ there will be variety of Judgments but the Work of God and of Religion goes forward while we have but one Heart and one Spirit Sir I hope you will have great cause to rejoice when you shall hear that God is glorified on your behalf and that you by your liberal Alms cause humble Thanksgivings to be made to God For my own particular I shall by God's assistance do the Office of a faithful Steward in the ministring of your Liberality and I pray God to accept it at your hands and to reward it sevenfold into your Bosom Sir I humbly take my leave and rest Your very affectionate Friend and Servant in the Lord Jesus JER TAYLOR Feb. 13. 1657. This following is a Preamble of a Letter R. R. writ to the Earl of Windsor Jan. 10. 1662. My Lord FOr some time I scrupled and durst call no Man Lord or Master which proceeded from Tradition received from Elders from the Letter of the Scripture which saith Call no Man Master But having since that in my self felt a more sure Word viz. the Image or Talent of God to wit Truth in the inward
helpeth the Lord in his VVork for it doth not beget to love And is it not most just that that Name or Form should be left for a Curse that despiseth the Innocent for these outward things but I trust and am assured that the Lord will in his due time free the Earth from this Curse Thou askest me How I could compare or liken thy Friends Actions to the Pope or to them in New-England calling them your Forefathers seeing as thou sayest thy Friends bear their Testimony against the Pope's Idolatry and Persecution and also have suffered Deach for a Testimony against the New-England Oppression To all which I answer and say That the Spirit of Persecution is but one throughout all Generations and Forms tho never so refined for he that murders in New-England is the same that imprisons at Rome yet each bear a Testimony against one anothers Forms The same Spirit of Persecution have I seen and observed amongst those which thou callest Friends who for a Song of Zion or a Shout of inward Gladness or any other thing that suites not with their Traditions or Forms can with the same Spirit of Persecution cast out of their Synagogues smite with the Fist of VVickedness and wound with the venomed Arrow of their Reproaches those who cannot submit or join with them in their way And this is not falsly to accuse the Brethren as thou chargest me withal for any to tell you what they have heard and seen amongst you but rather a just return of your own Money into your own Sacks that you may measure your dealings with the Innocent by your own Practices and when the Witness of God ariseth amongst you and sheweth you your Transgressions and wherein you have offended those that have been otherwise acted than our selves then will you know that these things are Truth and the Desolation that shall be in your House at that day shall testify to your Faces that a Prophet hath been amongst you When mark what I say it shall so come to pass that the same Wrath and Vengeance shall break out upon you from others which you have heaped upon the Backs of those who were justified in their Hearts and Ways before the Lord then know and you shall assuredly that I have not spoken Lies unto you or forged a false Divination amongst you What I have here charged upon some I would not be understood to lay it upon all that have been called and are known by the Name of Quakers I know the Lord hath his People amongst them as in all Forms both of Jews and Gentiles such as love and fear the Lord doing the thing which is just and right and such are accepted with me as Bone of my Bone and as my Brother Benjamin that came of the Free-Woman and are in that Freedom fitted to act in all Forms as the Lord their Light shall lead them that they may replenish the Earth And those who are come to this Freedom viz. to give the Light its Liberty of leading according as it enlightens every Man that comes into the World in all Forms and Appearances the Curse is taken away the Enmity is departed and the Earth become the Lord's and his Christ's Let him that can receive it as doth R. R. And when your Work is done and come to an end then shall the Stone from Sion you stumbled at be set up with shouting crying Grace Grace unto it Zech. 4.7 THere are divers Operations and Dispensations yet all good as having their beginning and End in God And why therefore may not God enjoin that as an Ordinance to day and give his power to it also which to morrow he will lay aside as useless and by his withdrawing his Power from it leave it no better than an Idol Such was the Brazen Serpent such was the Temple and Tabernacle such were the Legal Offerings the Jewish Ceremonies and Sacrifice and such also are many things at this day both amongst the Quakers and other Sects which have been Forms and Figures of good things to come which were beautiful in their season whilst the Presence of God filled them but that being withdrawn are become dead and cold as Idols of no use Wherefore my advice is that all Men walk as they see and have received from the Lord and none to look out at others or to call any Man Master or Father of their Spirits save God only And if the Lord commands any to forsake Father or Mother the Forms and Traditions they were brought up in ought not all rather to obey God than Man Consider this G. F. and whether to forsake our own Guide and to follow thee or any Number of People that call themselves a Church who take upon them to impose upon their Brethrens Consciences be not Apostacy And whether this Usurpation did not at first lead the Church of Rome into the Apostacy And whether it will not the second time lead the Quakers to apostatize from the true Faith once delivered to them let the wise in Heart judg J. C. THou accusest me of being fallen and deeply revolted from the Truth and of being brutish and uncivil at your Meetings c. What thou hast here laid to my Charge is not so much by far as thy Generation at sundry times hath also cast on the Innocent and upright-hearted even all manner of Evil for bearing record to the Truth as made manifest in the Light viz. by witnessing to small and great that the Lord is my Shepherd and Teacher alone and that I needed no Man to teach me save him only and that to those who had received the Anointing it was sufficient to bring to Peace and Rest with God and Man and to preserve Union and Communion with Him in all his Creation And for this and my rejoycing which daily I have in Christ Jesus my Lord have I suffered all these things at your hands and been set at nought by Herod and his Men of War even by those amongst you that would be accounted Some-body who desire preheminence and to have Dominion over the Faith of others and that glory in making Proselytes and to have a Multitude to follow them calling you Masters or Teachers For by such and in this manner have I long and oft received your Arrows even bitter Words and Writings which sometimes as I saw cause I have returned back again into your own Bosoms and this you call a wrangling and unruly Spirit At present I have little more to say than that I am resolved to be faithful to what is committed unto me and to declare the same to day and to morrow and also the third day even till the Body be perfected and Him set upon the Throne even that Light that is in true Love whose right it is to reign which thing tell Herod that Fox your King so that all may have Peace and Rest in Him who is only worthy of Praise Honour and Glory alone even so saith my Spirit Amen