they could not know nor to this day can know how you do beguile them O that I and all Gods people who know the truth had heads full of water that our tears might run down day and night for the slain of our own flesh and blood and yet poor hearts their bodies liveth in the world and their hearts liveth in the Creature and their God liveth in their head and they worship him according to your blinde precepts and they love to have it so and yet is their poor spirits under the chains of sin death devil and hell and yet you nor they can be made beleeve that this is so And this is the effects and fruits of your wise preaching by way of Use and Doctrine which you have learned at the Holy Universitie you so much boast of But I tell you plainlie that since your wise preaching had its beginning the truth of God hath been hid by it and so the souls of men have been deprived of the sweet enjoyments thereof O wo be to you for your work yea wo and sorrow shall be your portion in a far greater measure then any of the sons of men yea you shall one day curse the time that your fathers put you to the Holy Universitie to make you Preachers nay you shall wish that they had put you to learn the trade of Tinklers when they put you to learn the trade of Preaching though at present you glory in your trade and think you are the Minister of the Gospel I know your pride is so great that when you see these lines you will be ready to burn them and make a scoff of me for writing them but that is no new thing for I know your spirits well enough neither do I care for your displeasure for I know in whom I have believed and who caused me to write these lines and him I desire to obey It s possible some of you may Petition to Authority to get me punished for my plainness with you as some of your Brethren have done in these daies against some poor people unto whom God hath more clearly manifested both his Justice and Mercy to their souls without your Ministry then ever he did to any soul under your Ministry And this maketh you all stark mad that God should do any thing in any soul but by you and so you both in Preaching and Petitions go about both to scandalize and persecute the truth of God and those souls in whom the truth is But this shall return upon you with shame and your own preaching and acting against the truth shall be your overthrow But friends I would not have you in the least to mistake me in what I write in general to you for no truth is so general but there may be some particular exception admitted in it so in this that I have written to you for though I express you all in general yet my charitie causeth me to admit of some particular exception of some amongst you in some respect for far be it from me to condemn the truth in any man or in any order if I can but perceive the least appearance thereof in any soul But that which I judge and condemn amongst you all is the illegal and unjust calling and coming into the Ministrie and your pride and covetousness in the Ministrie and the ignorance of the truth of God in the Ministrie and the great unknowing of God in the people as he ought to be known the which hath been the evil fruits and effects of your Ministrie I confess that many of you have wit and schollarship enough to maintain Argument with Papists and any other Formalists that differ in judgement with you and that many of you be able enough to take a sentence of Scripture and divide it into so many parts as the sence of speech will carry and so out of every part to raise out Doctrines and Uses Applications and Conclusions c. and so may beget a form of truth in some of your hearers and when this is done yet the power of truth is hid from you in your wise speaking and from them in their wise hearing For the power of the truth is one thing and the form of truth is another thing and the form of truth I know you hold out and may hold out by your wit and schollarship taught you in your Universities And this I know one man may teach another and as he is taught so may he speak yea and by the work of the brain may adde much to what hath been taught and yet for all this the heart is far enough from the enjoyment or partaking of the power of truth And where the power of truth is wanting in any of you though you have the form of truth yet are you none of those whom God calleth into the Ministrie but you shall one day be judged and condemned as theeves who came not in at the door but by some other way Though you put this off your selves and apply it to others whom the Lord hath raised of his own accord to speak what they know of God and have in some measure received the truth and can bear witness to the truth and by these your falshood becometh to be somewhat discovered And therefore great is your malice and envy against them but yet they shall increase and you shall decrease for the Lord will turn your skirts about your head and your nakedness and shame shall be discovered to all men I know that many amongst you who are envious fools and haters of the truth do jear and scoff at experienced men and speak evil of them behinde their back yet will fawn upon them to their face because they know these are too hard for them in matter of speaking of the truth as it is in Jesus and like beaten Cocks will hide their heads under the others wings and will assent to what they say because they cannot gain-say it but when their backs is turned then they will scandalize and speak evil of these persons and wrest their words to that which was never intended And when a pack of these fools is met together in their pots then do they strengthen the hands one of another and make their malicious scandals compleat and then goeth about to make the simple people beleeve that such and such men is perillous and erroneous persons and perswadeth them to take heed of them least they be seduced by them And thus do some of you seek to undermine the truth and the reason is because the truth will be their undoing But other amongst you I know is more witty and will not be so much against experienced men but perceiving that God owneth them they will not altogether speak against these as do the other but rather make use of their theevish art and steal some experiences from the mouth of others and can lay them up in their memories and make as much use of them as their own and speak of
also how many ways you will object against what I have written to you but I warrant you I have an answer for every one of your objections and I would have answered them all before I had left you but that I know if you will not lay this to heart it had but been follie in me to write any more for if I as I make no doubt but I very wel could have stopped all your mouths in what you could object yet I know your will is so bent in the way that when you had nothing to say you would stone me to death if you durst for you are of the same generation with whom Stephen had to do who was not able to resist his spirit he spake with yet they could stone him to death Acts 7.58 For the truth is that the God of your Fathers whom you worship viz. Self-pride self-praise self-profit self-wisdom self-power self-righteousness c. Self being the first person in the Trinity who by his spirit of wisdom doth so inspire you and in obedience to the same you become always resisters of the Holy Ghost Acts 7.51 But being past hopes of doing good to the generality of you because I know your blindness and hardness of heart at present I will adde no more to what I have said for to you who are sealed up for destruction here is too much but if happily there be some amongst you who are not sealed and setled in blindness having some want and emptiness in their souls and the same lying upon their spirits in making them to finde little but ease comfort or content in any thing they either act or speak and that can finde nothing but wo and sorrow in all they go about either in the world or their forms of Religion I say if there be any such souls amongst you I know they have that within them that will cause them to close with what I here have offered to them and confess that I have said nothing but that which is as true as truth it self And to such souls this I know will be useful for one reproof enters more into a wiseman then a hundred stripes doth into a fool Prov. 17.10 But for all other before-said they are but fools and will not believe and therefore I leave them to be destroyed by their own folly and will return to the poor deluded people under them and give them a friendly advice and shew them how they have been cheated and cousened by these foul Beasts whom the Devil hath most subtilly brought into the Ministery and have reigned by his means so many hundred years whereby the true knowledge of God is worn out from amongst the sons of men and all under a form of faith in Christ and a brain-knowledge of God and performing some duties which they tell you is holy and therein have they strangled your souls and made you believe you were in the ways of God when alas you were but in your own ways and the way of God as yet you never knew Then hearken O ye poor deluded souls who have a desire to know your own deceit and have a willingness in you to know what the way of God is and where this God is and where the way to meet with your God is and see and know that your ways you have lived in and rejoyced in how they are but poor weak beggerly things and so long as you live in them you live but in your self and as long as you live in them you are not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven neither to know the Mysteries of God nor the misery of the sin that is in you and without you know that you shall not know the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God As I have shewed you the original of the Ministers from whence they came so I will shew you your Religion and your duties and observations from whence they came and upon what grounds your forms are pitched and what is all that you can reap out of the very best of your forms and how far you may act in your forms and yet have your spirits deprived of the love of God which is the salvation of all souls that are saved and I will shew you from what principles your performances arise and by what power they are performed And first for your Religion I finde it to be nothing else but a feigned fantastick thing raised up by and through the vain conceits of your blinde Ministers who have no grounds for what they affirm but onely false conclusions which they draw from true principles in others and likewise the best grounds they have for any thing contained in the profession it is no more but examples from others who had command to observe such things and know the minde of him who commanded these things and observed these things according to the minde and intent of him who gave them command to observe such things but your Ministers being ignorant of the minde of the Commander observe the same by example not knowing the minde of the Commander and therefore they have given out these things to you and their own minde in them and from them have you observed these things in your Religion But now I will come to some particulars and I wish you to observe well what is delivered unto you by my Pen and the Lord give you hearts to understand the truth I shall deliver to you And first I come to that which is a principal point and part of your Religion viz. The observation of the Sabbath as you call it but that is not a proper name for it except you profess Circumcision and so become one with the Jews for to them was this delivered amongst the other Commandments but instituted at the beginning and when God had given out the rest of the Commandments to Moses he repeateth over this Commandment of keeping the Sabbath and telleth Moses for what end and purpose he had given that charge of keeping it viz. That it should be a sign between him and the people that they might know who sanctified them and whosoever did not refrain from all manner of work upon that day was to be put to death Exod. 31.13 14 c. And this was to be a sign between God and them in all their Generations Now if it were delivered to the Jews as a sign then was there something signified in it and appointed out by it to them I will tell you what it held out to them it held out three things in its signification As for the first it was the righteousness of God by which he sanctified them without any thing in them or by them whatsoever and as they were to cease from all labor whatsoever on pain of death so were they not to look at any thing within themselves whatsoever whereby they should look to be made holy for if they did it was the very death of their souls and God knew it well that they would be looking at something
all your Art and Schollarship is not worth a straw and that all your Uses and Doctrines from thence proceeding is but a meer foolish and fantastick invention whereby the form of truth hath been upholden by you and the power of truth kept down by that invention From whence it is That the hearts of the people hath been so glewed to sin and selfness and covereth themselves from the knowledge thereof by a fair seeming form taught them by your art through the help of your good thinking Friends fare you well I have no more to say at present and what you finde in these ensuing lines make good use of them for there is more in them then fools can know or beleeve but the wise shall reap the benefit thereof Yours as you love and know the truth as it is in Jesus Geo. Baitman THe rising of the Sun destroyes the darksome night The Foolmerts and the Owls therby is put to flight The ravening Wolves afraid their prey they shall not get The Fox with all his wiles is putten to his wit All Creatures who do use to raven in the night Begins to grieve full sore at splendor of this light For Nature teacheth them their working time is done When night is swallowed up by rising of the Sun Then do they hide themselves for fear they shall be found By him who seeks them out with his well-sented Hound Who wisely searcheth out each foot-step as they went For why they left behinde a very stinking sent Which doth direct unto the holes wherein they lurk And taken is also and plagued for their work When this is brought to pass then may the sucking Lamb Without being destroyed lie safely by its Dam. So may the old Sheep too feed safely without fear For why the Beasts are slain that off their Wool did tear The Epistle to the Reader CHristian Reader if thou have any desire to seek after the chiefe good for the everlasting well being of thy Spirit for thy better understanding and true information I have drawn these ensuing lines but I would not have thee to thinke that I expect any praise of thee if there be any thing in them praise worthy for I confesse these lines had never come to thy view with any consent of mine as I am a weake and worthlesse creature had it not been that he who hath the commanding power over all Creatures by the command he hath over me did over-master me and as it were forced this insuing Treatise to be written by me for I confesse I did as much resist the Word of the Lord in commanding me to write these lines as ever did any of his Prophets when hee sent them to pronounce any Judgement upon any people for their transgressions but while I gain-said the Lord in what he would have me to speake I had but little rest day or night untill I set on worke and put my Pen to paper to draw these insuing lines and as farre as I have declared to you the minde of these motions that wrought so strongly in me so farre I have found rest yet I know I have not here declared at large what I ought to have declared and therefore as yet my spirit is not at that peace the which it desires yet I have prevailed that what I have here written may be acceptable untill further opportunity But what is here presented to thy view I wish thee to weigh seriously and though it may seem to crosse thee in that which thou dost beleeve to be truth yet in questioning it I wish thee to question thy selfe also and if the same spirit be in thee which was in the Author when he wrote it thou shalt be made to see that there is a truth in it the which as yet hath been hid from thee especially if thou be one that hath had no other sight of truth but what thou receivest through the spectacles of the false Priests and hast knowne nothing of God but what thou hast been taught by their precepts and so hath blinded thee of the true knowledge both of God and of thy selfe and have closed thee up within the Prison walls of weake formes wherein thy poore soule hath been kept prisoner and fed with Pulse and Huskes and as for that which is the chiefe food of thy soule thou hast not as yet had a taste thereof But if thou have but any of the pure operations of the truth of God in thy soule by which thy desire is led out in seeking that which is the chiefe good I hope this will be of some use for thee for herein thou shalt in some measure see how thou hast been blindly led by the blinde Priests and their precepts and thou shalt see how they had their calling into the Ministery and from whence their originall beginning was and how they have continued to this day and wherein they have been the cause how the true knowledge of God is kept from appearing amongst the sons of men and likewise here thou shalt see discovered the emptinesse of all formes and the ground of formes and how the most part of things contained in formes is but only traditionall and therefore but superstitions and how the purest things in formes are but Idolatry when the minde of him that ordained them is unknown And here is set out before thine eyes that which is the mysterie and the minde of him who left the some in darke types and gave command for the observing of the same that so his minde might be found out in the mysterie of these types whereby the soule might be drawne out of that which is the type into that which is the mysterie of the type And if thou be either in the forme of the Presbyterian order or Independent Congregation or of the Brother-hood of the Anabaptists if thou be not setled on the lees in thy forme I know thou wilt be made to see that there is not that happinesse in thy form the which thou thoughtest there had been in it and then I hope this will partly shew thee what the substance of truth is and where it is to be found and how it ought to bee sought and as thy desire is upright in the seeking of that which is the life and substance of all things thou wilt be made to accept this weake discovery of truth but if thou be one who is setled on the lees in thy forme I know thou will but finde little herein to please thee for I know it will bee in appearance to thee as a thief who would take from thee thy treasure thou livest of and delightest in and wilt rather snarle and fight with it in thy wit then to yeeld thy selfe to be robbed by it But whatever thou art or in what forme soever thou livest I would have thee to understand my minde truly in what is here offered to thee for I would have thee to know that I am not such an enemy to formes as that I would
them before others insomuch that some may judge them to have received something of God but yet this is but the proper work of wit which hath power to metamorphise man into any shape which it conceiveth to be most in fashion and wherein most safety seems to be But others amongst you I know that their pride and malice is so great that they will beat down truth both with word and sword and their zeal is so great for the advancing of the glory of God that they will both preach pray and fight against the truth and by all means seek to devour and destroy all persons in whom the truth appears But it is no marvel for truth always found many enemies amongst men but especially among Priests in all ages and it will be so as long as the order of Priests is in date Yet I confess though your coming into the Ministry be absolutely against the minde and command of God as was the first order of Kings in Israel and that God hath winked at you above thirteen hundred years and suffered you to come into the Ministry by the ordinance of man yet as God owned some of the Kings in Israel so I make no doubt but that God hath owned some amongst you but yet I beleeve Solomons account may be their number and those amongst you whom God hath owned or to this day do own they are made to see and confess the emptiness of their wits and schollarship in the understanding of the minde and will of God and findeth their art learned in the Universities to be one of the greatest enemies against the truth of God the which they have to deal withal and they can speak by experience that Universitie learning is but a meer cheat and a foolish thing to make a right Minister of the word of truth and so is made to renounce all the curiositie of art and schollarship And as they have received the truth from the Fountain of truth so are they made to speak and these souls cannot envy any man in whom the truth is but rejoyceth to see them and hear them speak and accounteth them as the Ministers of God though they were never put to the Holy Universitie for the same spirit proceeding from the same Fountain maketh no difference and these men accounteth it their joy to be in the societie of people who be experienced and they seek no Lordship over the people nor are they so hungry hearted after Tithes and great Benefice but can rather condescend to work with their own hands for their Bread But I beleeve you have not many of these amongst you for the curse hath covered the faces of the most of you in your generation under which you are close sealed from the right knowledge of truth and can no more beleeve your deceit then the Apostle Paul before his Conversion But seldom doth God execute justice upon any people before he give them warning of their sin and after that a time to repent But who is it that dare bring such a Message from the Lord as shall declare the iniquitie of the Priests and give them warning to repent and forsake their sin and falshood and foretel them of their destruction if they repent not Who I say dare be so bold as proclaim such a thing seeing the Authority of Nations stands for them and accounteth them men worthy of honor and sit men for the promulgating of the Gospel and most of the people esteem them little less then gods yea and themselves account themselves the onely men fit to be forewarners and instructers of all others May not such a one as bringeth such a sad Message to them expect to be envied and evil spoken of yea and persecuted to death I know the man that shall be sent with this Message cannot escape no more shall I for when first the Lord put this into my heart the which my Pen hath put down in these lines I was very unwilling to yeeld obedience thereunto because my Reason set before mine eyes the great hazard I should run if I should meddle in any such thing but the Lord would not suffer me to be quiet until I undertook this Message and better had I abide your fury and the displeasure of all men then to be disobedient to the voice of the Lord And as the Lord liveth in me my malicious part hath not caused me to write these lines though you may so judge of me for I protest in the presence of God I unfainedly wish all your good and should very much rejoyce to know of your repentance and should no less be heartily sorry for your destruction if I should live to see it For that which I have received of God teacheth me to love all men and wish well to all men and I am glad at the welfare of all men and cannot but be sorry at the suffering of any though he be my greatest enemy and would lend him my help if I could do him any good if he came into distress either of body or minde Therefore my spirit being free I hope to bear all that any of you shall either inflict upon my name or person and though you shall hate me yet I cannot chuse but love you as you are my fellow Creatures and of the same flesh and blood with me And my advice to you is that you slight not these lines but search your own hearts and if the light of God go along with you you shall finde that I have not wronged you at all for what I here declare unto you shall be found true either to convince you or to be a witness against you But my Friends I would have you to know that I have not said the tenth part of what I have committed to me to speak concerning you for I have been as much sparing as possible I could be in what I had to declare to you and if this my first Message be slighted by you and return upon my self it is very possible it will draw out a fivefold heavier message with it but I will not be too tedious at present If I may pray for you I wish that God would open your eyes and make sensible your hearts that you might be acquainted with the great Mystery of sin and selfness in you and out of the true knowledge and right sence thereof that you may be made fit to discover the mysterie of sin and selfness in all other And that you may be rightly made partakers of the mystery of the Divine Nature that from the enjoyment thereof you may be made able to know and comprehend with all Saints what is the height and depth c. And to know the fellowship of the love of God which passeth knowledge that so you may be able to hold out to others the mysterie therein contained and then shall you be acquainted with the Will and Minde of God and what you know that shall you speak and then you should see that
other I am not the man But shall I tell you Friends if you fall to reason as Christs Disciples did I wish there were no more of you the men I mean of then one of every twelve but I rather fear that the men I mean of be in number twelve for one and I will put all men out of the number but onely those who profess Religion for those are the men I cheifly aim at in this my ensuing Discourse for I see them mishapen and deformed in their Forms and fashion of Religion and so are become Monsters in the same Forms and so are like to degenerated Plants who bring out fruit fit for no use at all but onely to beguile the fight of the Passengers but when they come to be tasted they dazzle the head with madness and fill the stomach full of rhume that it cannot digest the heavenly food but in what is said do not think that I am the enemy of Religion no I am not but approve of it so far as God is in it and as far as thy self is out of it But when I finde thou hast chosen thy Religion and yet left God out of it and hast thy self in thy Religion there I let flie at thee this my Arrow what ever thou art or whatsoever thy Religion Form or Profession be But this I am sure of that I may hit thy head oft enough before I hurt thee for thou hast armor of proof upon it which thou hast forged out of such Scriptures as thou thoughtst most meet for thy use beside thou hast hatched and brought out some acting in thy chosen Form and these hast thou covered thy self withal so thou maist think thy self sure enough yet though thou be thus well harnished all about yet I know where thou art naked and empty and that is within thee even thy heart and that would I aim at for though thou be never so well armed on thy outside yet happily there may be an Arrow drawn at a venture which may peirce between the coupling of the same but all my fear is that if a shot chance to pierce thorow that there is something in thee that will not let it pierce thy heart But I will speak no more in parables but show my meaning openly to thee viz. Thou art about a work in thy Religion which thou shalt never bring to pass with all the wit or knowledge reading praying acting in any performance without thee which all of them are but things within the compass of thine own power to act or do as thou art a reasonable Creature But wouldst thou know what this work is thou art about in this thy Religion I will tell thee what it is but I question thou wilt not believe me when thou hearest it though it be truth It is that thou art about to make God and the World dwell together in thy heart or to say God and thy self to love and live together within thee and thou hast so ordered the business that thou canst serve them both but thou art deceived in the matter for Christ himself said thou couldst not do it and I know thou knowest that Christ said so But yet thou knowest not that thou art of that company that is contained within the compass of Christs words but thou puttest it off thy self and judgest some other to be guilty herein for amongst you all who are different and one against another in your formality every one of you judgeth and condemneth them who be not of the same minde and judgement with you in your chosen tenet And who so worship not God in your own way you judge him to be inferior to you for every one of you judge your own opinion chief and according to what you have chosen so you worship God and by and through the same you can judge and condemn all others Are these things of God or man be judge your selves do you think that God can be divided or his worship parted into peeces or can Christ and his way be severed no in no case But the thing is not strange though some in our days do marvel to see so many several and different judgements in and about Religion for those in the Primitive time was carried about in and by such foolish Chimeraes which did not a little trouble the Apostle Paul as you may see 1 Cor. 1.13 1.34 But the Apostle knew from whence this sprang and tells them plainly they were carnal and herein he judged rightly for it is nothing but carnality and earthly-mindedness that causeth differences amongst those who profess Religion and yet all pretend the true worship of God in the same O fools and unwise when will you learn to be wise and know what is the worship of God you all have heard what Christ said to the woman of Samaria John 4. and can rehearse the same but to this day you have been ignorant of the mystery in these words And from hence it is that you have parted the way of God into so many several kindes of formal worships and are so set in Argument one against another and hereby your speech and language is become changed whereby you cannot understand one another neither can you help one another but much hinder one another and the reason is because you are all of you in ignorance in the work you be a doing viz. No other thing but building Babels Tower whereby you think to save your selves from the flood of justice the which shall undoubtedly run ove rall flesh Nah. 1.8 By this your worship every one of you think in your hearts to climb into Heaven and to get a name one above another and who can make you believe That all your seemly buildings is nothing else but that Babel which one day shall fall and come thundering down about your ears But though you will not believe me at present yet hereafter I am sure you shall know the same to be true when you either come to be delivered from the danger you are in or else when the danger hath destroyed you but if you chance to be delivered from the danger as some have been then shall you have the promise fulfilled in you viz. I will return to the people a pure language that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with one consent Zeph. 3.9 But I make no doubt but every one of you in your own chosen Form will quickly conceit that this promise is fulfilled on you and among you because every one of the same self-chosen Form agree in the same and all bear witness with one voice That the same is the onely truth you hold out and in the same Form you have found God and in the same you will own God and in the same you call upon his Name I know you will all in your several Forms conclude the same fulfilled O friends stay a little and let it be known if your conclusions be true yea or
Creature that help to put on the Garment viz. Conscience and he was pleased and delighted to be sucking and drawing at that Pipe for there issued from the vertue of that Garment a certain sweetness which distilled through that Pipe and with that was he well pleased and by it his frighting looks was changed in smiles and by this he was satisfyed and sat in great silence and quietness Now the name of this Pipe was called Vnregarding of the heart and the oyl or vertue that passed there-through was called Secret reflecting upon outward actings and when Conscience was well satisfied by the vertue he sucketh through that Pipe then doth he rest and to salute him in his peace I saw the three former Beasts viz. Self-wisdom self-power and self-righteousness And I saw an unclean spirit attend them and he was like a Lamp and shined like a lightning and they all were compassed about with that light and this spirit was called The Angel of darkness transformed into an Angel of light and amongst them there was great triumph and mirth and this was called Seeming joy in the Holy Ghost And I saw them make a certain Law or Act amongst themselves to which they all subscribed and they sealed it with the promises and they delivered it to the Conscience to be kept and they grounded this act upon antiquity viz. Predestination and Eternal decree And this act was like the Laws of the Medes and Persians for it was concluded by them it should never be broken And this Law was named Full assurance of Salvation So when I had seen and heard all this it was said unto me Behold and understand for this is no other then the Great Mystery of Iniquity hid under outward Formality and to this day it hath been undiscovered amongst most of those who profess the name of Religion Therefore bend thy Bow and let those Arrows committed to thee flie abroad if thou hit or miss do not thou care for I will be thy warrant fear not what may be done or spoken against thee be not backward in delivering what is committed to thee Now my Bow being ready bent and the Arrow committed to me I let flie at thee thou false-hearted Presbytery thou which couzenest them that adhere to thee Come and let me expostulate the business with thee for it seemeth thou must be called in question before the face of the most High and before thou be called thither let me give thee warning to repent of thy folly and learn in time to see how thou art befooled in and with thy own conceit Thou wilt hardly believe that this foresaid Mystery is in thy heart for thou hast never found it there for thou hast covered thy self from it with thy outward Formality and if thou have but half an eye open I will let thee see thy forms is nothing but things of and within thy own power to act and that they be all or most of them but grounded upon rotten foundations of thy own wisdoms invention and that thou art carried on in them by thine own good thinking whereby thou art become the enemy of God whatever thou pretend And first I will draw my Bow at thy Priests but this name they will not own because say they it doth not belong to them for it is a ceremonial eptithite yet I say thou needst not dislike them for it were well if thou wert a Priest indeed for then shouldst thou be that spiritually which the Priests in the time of the Law were ceremonially and thou shouldst do that office and offer these gifts spiritually which they did ceremonially And this then shouldst thou be which I fear thou art not one redeemed from the earth and thy sins would be washed from thee by the blood of Jesus Christ Revel 1.5 But this name thou wilt not own and indeed thou dost well in not owning it for it doth not belong to thee But yet I know what name thou wilt own viz. a Minister of the Gospel but this name thou dost but assume to thy self for thou knowest not what the Gospel is neither was or is it committed to thee to deliver therefore thou canst not give to others that which thou wantest thy self but I will tell thee what thy right name is if thou wilt but own it and that name is a taker from men that which thou hast no right to have And if this should be rightly understood thy proper name would prove none other then the name theft And I am sure if I or any other should out take an hundred shillings from any man which I or they had no right to take and yet as good right to take it as thou hast to take an hundred pound per annum I know by the Law of the Land I or he should be hanged for so doing yea and we deserved it too then be thine own judge what thou deservest for taking so much unjustly every year But I know how thou wilt avoide this and clear thy self of being this great theif for thou wilt say thou hast nothing but what belongeth to thee of right and thou wilt prove it by Scripture too having the word of the Apostle to back thine Argument where he saith by way of comparison Who goeth a warfare at any time c. 1 Cor. 9.7 And likewise he useth other metaphors As he that plougheth and thresheth should be partaker of his hope and I kewise he bringeth in the comparison of sowing spiritual things And further he saith The Lord hath so ordained that they that Preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel c. Here is as much as thou canst properly alleage for thy self in thy doing to keep thee from being guilty of being a theif and thou thinkest this will be thy warrant for what thou dost for I know thy interpretation of these words well enough and thou understandest them as well as thou dost the Mysteries of the Gospel and both alike but I pray thee hearken and I will expound the same unto thee truly But it may be thou wilt not believe the truth when thou hearest it spoken for if it please thee not thou wilt question that I have not been at the University to get my spirit inspired thereby to understand Scripture rightly But let my inspiration come from what Fountain it is come from at present I will not give thee account from whence I had it but minde thou what I here hold out to thee and let me give thee out the truth of the thing in hand In the first place I would have thee to consider who the Apostle meaneth on when he spake these words Was it those that preached Christ by hear-say and by Schollership and their own brain-knowledge gathered from the works and words of other men and that chused out one sentence of Scripture as thou dost and falleth to thy wit studying the minde of God in it and so divideth one sentence into so many several fractions and out of
partly shewed before and as shall be made more manifest afterward and so taking from others that which is not yours herein are you not theeves be judge your own selves And likewise you keep the people from entering into the Kingdom of Heaven for you neither will enter your selves and those that would enter you will not suffer Luke 11.52 For while you binde up the people under your forms and are not able to bring them out and beyond these forms you keep the people in thick darkness and so shut the gates of the Kingdom against them and they cannot enter in for you And in this you rob God of the souls of the people so that he loseth his honor and praise in them And thus are you become robbers both the people of the Kingdom of Heaven and God of the glory and honor of his people And thirdly you are cheaters for you make the people believe it is the Word of God you Preach unto them when it is but the froth of your own brain and the fruit of your studies and an historical relation of the Scriptures and speakings of other men And herein you deceive the people for the Word of God is his Son Jesus Christ John 1.1 2. and him you have not known and therefore the Word is hid from you And likewise you shape out a Faith to the people by your own fancy and you frame them a love of God according to your own fashion and you teach them the fear of God by your own precepts and make them believe that all is right you deliver to them and herein you mightily cheat the people But I know your blindness is so great and your ears so dull of hearing and your hearts so gross you will neither see nor hear nor understand the truth though one tell it you for like the deaf Adder you stop your ears so that you will not hear the voice of the charmer charm he never so wisely Psal 51.5 For I know you think your selves the onely called Men and sent Ministers of God and all that cometh to declare the Way and Word of God and cometh not in by your door these will you count theeves and robbers and that they take upon them that which doth not belong to them but let such as these come in at what door they will I pray you hearken to me and I will tell you in at what door you have entred and to this day do enter But I will not reckon your pedigree or predecessory too far for fear I draw your line to reach to the Devil himself who is the onely or chief opposer of the truth as it is in Jesus for thou wouldst think this too harsh a censure upon you though I could prove the same to be true and yet because you would question that I could not prove the truth of what I have intimated I will give you a general touch of the truth of the same but wil not meddle too far in particulars herein for fear I shame you too much and far be it from me to seek your shame further then to let you see your folly if so be you might be made to see it and forsake it For I profess in the presence of God I love you so far as I see ought of God in you and pity you where I see you carried from him by your own blindness and do heartily wish your welfare and do not count me your enemy because I tell you the truth Gal. 4.16 I know full well from whence your selves derive or pretend to have your ground for what you do and what you speak and for your institutions I know you wil say from the Primitive order and example It is true you have some grounds from thence for your choosing of Elders if you were the men fit for such a work but as you are not the men fit for that work those that are made Elders by you are but such as your selves all of you blindly taking that upon you which doth not belong to you and so you onely have stoln that Form but yet the power is wanting in you and no marvel For if the Fountain be corrupt the streams cannot be pure Likewise you gather from thence your warrant for laying on of hands upon those you think meet to be Ministers as you call them It is true there was such a thing in those days but to whom did it belong not to them who would have had it either by stealth or purchase for none had this committed to them but that received it of God by the gift of the Holy Ghost and those that had that gift had power to communicate the same to those upon whom they lay their hand but this you have not neither can you give it to others on whom you lay your hand for you have not your calling from him that calls them and yet as in other things you in your fool-hardinesse assume this thing to your selves and as you want the power the forme is but weake and not worth a straw nay the very forme of these doe not belong to you for you have but stolne it for looke into the Primitive time and see the last institutions of the Apostle Paul and you shall see he left these institutions in the power and hands of the order of Bishops Timothy and Titus being ordained such and to them was both these and other orders committed and in those dayes the head of Presbytery was a Bishop and he was first in matter of Ordination but you have broken off from the Bishops and have taken that to your selves that which was commited to them But let me shew you in a few words the originall from whence your calling into the Ministry cometh the Apostle saith When the world by wisdome knew not God it pleased God by the foolishnesse of preaching to save them that beleeve 1 Cor. 1.21 and this preaching in those dayes was the holding out the wisdome and power and righteousnesse sanctification and redemption in his Sonne Jesus Christ and those who were to be the Preachers or promulgaters of these were none but those who had received the same thing which they held out to others and could beare witnesse to the truth of what they did deliver and this seemed to be nothing to the wise of the world for they savoured nothing in it nor heard any thing in it to please their curious eares for it wanted method and eloquency and curiosity of Art and therefore Paul himselfe was called a babler Act. 17.18 but to those who was called it was the power of God and wisdome of God 1 Cor. 1.1.24 and so long as the Primitive Church remained in purity those who were the Ministers and declarers of the Word of God had the same word abiding in them working and opperating in them by which they were made able to demonstrate unto others what they themselves was made partakers of And as ancient Records beare witnesse the Romans
kept longest in that purity and in the institutions but in time the beast Selfenesse begun to stirre being moved by the Devill and so the power of God began to with-draw it selfe and then the purity censed and only the forme of the Primitive Ordinations was left amongst and so in time as Selfe got head and grew strong the selfe wisdome began to creep in and added abundance more of new institutions which remaine amongst them to this day In which time when the power and purity had drawn themselves the wisdome of the flesh got up and invented a new way of preaching Christ for the foolish way viz. the living powerfull experimentall speaking was with-drawn and then the wisdome of the flesh invented another way and that was the wise way of preaching Christ viz. by learning and study and those that was to be the Ministers was to be trained up in their greatest Schooles untill such time as they were able to speake and understand Languages and able to make Speeches and Orations out of small grounds and able to derive words and divide words and sentences into so many severall parts and to raise a large speech out of every part and to confirme the truth of each severall speech by Authors whom they had and have still for that very purpose and when any was become thus learned and wise then might he be admitted to preach Christ to the people but not else and when they were thus fitted and admitted into the Ministery they were assigned to some place to officiate in their Function and established in good Benefices and thus became Christ to bee taught in the wise way and the Preachers well paid for their labour And though you at this day degenerate so farre from the Church of Rome yet your Ancestors sprung from amongst them being somewhat refined from the grosse superstition about which you and they make so much difference but if you knew your selves you need not to differ so much with them for you are both one in your hearts and you differ not but in your heads and thus when you were a little refined in some of your formes yet did your fore-fathers chuse to themselves that which might make them great in the world viz. power praise and profit and the wise way of preaching Christ for that was and is the thing that brought both praise and profit in amongst you and though your fathers differed with the Church of Rome about those things which cause these jarres yet your Fathers could follow their example in things that made for their power praise and profit and to these dayes in which we live you follow the steps of your fore-fathers And thus have you preached Christ by Schollership and Art and so God is unknowne amongst his people because the foolish preaching of Christ hath been kept downe by the wise preaching of the Flesh and thus are you become the blinders of the people and lead them from the knowledge of both God and themselves and all under a pretence of preaching Christ unto them and poore soules all this while you have but made them beleeve lyes and have filled their mouthes with gravell stones instead of bread and you have so inchanted them with your Charmes that they are pleased with what you offer to them and are content to be fed and live upon those husks you provide them and you have so brought their pallats out of taste that they cannot well taste any other food but it is but now as it was some times before for the Prophet Jeremiah lived in such a time as his owne words testifie where he saith The Prophets prophecy falsly and the Priests beare rule by their meanes and my people love to have it so Jerem. 3.31 but I will not expound these words but leave them to your selves and if you please you may carry them to your Universities to expound if you cannot expound them your selves but I am sure neither you nor your Universities will say that the Prophet meant of either of you or the people in your dayes that love your Doctrine so well but though I will not expound these words of the Prophet yet I will give an answer to the question he asketh After these words were spoken he asking what the end of these things would be to which I say destruction shall surely come upon People Priest and Prophet c. But I desire you to heare a little more of your calling into your Office for now I will speake to your owne experience and you cannot deny that yea and I will prove good what I say by witnesses who knoweth that what I say is no lye and my witnesses shall not be any that you will take to bee your enemies for they shall be your owne naturall Parents if they be alive and will but speake truth but what must they witnesse nothing else but what they intended when first they put you to the holy University to learne how you should become preachers of Christ and to understand the minde of God that thereby you might teach others Gods wayes I know if they wil but speake and beare true witnesse upon this examination they will say they knew it was the best trade in the Land to put their Sons to for after you had learned your trade they knew you might have good trading for the Art for they knew there was good wages for the worke for they saw good fat Benefices enow in the Land and they made no doubt but some of them would fall to your share beside you should be honoured of the people too and be called Rabby so if your Fathers would but speake truth they would witnesse it was their pride and covetous intent that first moved them to put you to the University and this I thinke you will beleeve and so your Fathers having eaten soure Grapes your teeth also is set on edge and your actings shew what was in your Fathers hearts when they first put you to the trade and I assure you that you are good thriving children and be loath that your Fathers should misse of what they intended for you will not let it fall on your side for if you have not a Benefice that is great enough when you have opportunity and see way for a better you will leave the lesse for the greater for if at present you have a place that yeeldeth fifty or threescore pound per annum in case one fall in your way worth an hundred or six score pound per annum then will you leave the lesse and take the greater and so a hundred you will change for a hundred and fifty and the hundred and fifty you will change for two hundred and in so doing you will pretend you are called of God from one place to another and herein you lye not for that God that called you to the Office calleth you from one place to another and that is the god Mammon who first with his inspirations inspired your
is no Astrology for that you will not believe though never so true But this that I tell you shall undoubtedly come to pass and sooner perhaps then you look for it I will not tell you at present what I believe of you least when it cometh to pass you say I was a witch for I know you will not allow a true speaker the name of Prophet But me thinks I hear some of you object and say In what thou hast said thou hast not spoken truth for there hath many been converted by our Preaching and many godly people have we begotten and the Lord hath given a blessing to our Labors and by this we know we are the Lords Messengers to his people and the true Laborers in his Vineyard O my Friends do not think in what I have said that I have any minde to detract from you what is your due or to wrong any of you in the least For I confess Like may beget like for that is oft a truth in nature and so in you For I do not deny but many of you have a form of godliness and as you are in that form you may beget others also into the same form and so make them like your selves and yet all of you without the power of God and love of God and wisdom of God For if the love of God were shed abroad in your hearts it would turn your hearts into its own image but as yet you have not that love and therefore you have hatred in your hearts both against God and man And from hence it is That you can freely persecute and destroy all that worship not God in your way and this you have no order for nor example either from Christ or any of his followers but you and all your Converts go not a jot further then the Scribes and Pharisees but in that you believe Christ is come in the flesh and have an Historical or Notional Faith of him in your head but the world and selfness lyeth in your hearts and you are as hide-bound to the Gospel-forms as the Scribes and Pharisees were to circumcision and the formes under the Law and as they being hide-bound or heart-bound to these forms so became they to be the enemies of Christ when he appeared in the flesh And the very same are you and all your Converts fast tied in your heart to the Gospel-forms and hereby you are become the enemies of Christ appearing in the spirits of men and so are you become the persecutors of Christ in the Saints and yet in this you think you do God good service and the greatest perfection in your Converts is when they are made exceeding zealous for the honor and glory of God as they say so that whosoever worships God in any other way then theirs then are they sure of persecution by you or them if it be within the compass of your power and this you have in your generation and that faith and love and full assurance of your salvation alwaies is accompanied with pretended zeal for the honor and glory of God and from hence you count all other the enemies of God who have not the same garb that you have And all this great conversion you brag of is nothing else but a conversion from evil to far worse for you have turned some of your Hearers from some outward grosse offences and have brought them into a conformity to duty as you call it and by the refraining the outward grossnesse and closing to and with the outward duties your Conscience beginneth to cease biting so long as you walk obsequiously therein and from hence the foule Feind transformes himselfe into the Angel of Light and secretly wraps himselfe in your actings and by his power when once gotten rightly joyned to Selfe Righteousnesse then hath he power to worke Wonders and can worke like God and give consolation to the Soule and bring it into raptures and ravishments and can bring the Promises to remembrance which is suitable to confirme his workings and from such working he can make the Soule beleeve its regeneration and its calling and election to be made sure and that with a witnesse too in which assurance the Soule will oft rejoyce and shall have many false flashes of Love which the Soule can no way know but it is the feeling of the love of God and if you have brought any Soule thus far as to this full assurance and to be partakers of such feeling you thinke you have brought them farre on in grace and thus farre I know you may bring a Soule by your Ministery and yet this Soule is but two-fold the Childe of Satan more then it was before I will make this plaine unto you for when the Soule before was in the grosse actings then was that person in a more hopefull way for God to bring it to himselfe by his owne way then it is now for then when God would have brought these persons from their sinne in his bringing them either by himselfe or by those whom he would use for that worke then I say there was hope these Soules might have been led in a way whereby they should have escaped the snare of Satan But being that these soules are in the snare they are more in captivity to him then they were before and the reason is because then God had some power in the Consciences of them and oft times condemned them for their outward grossnesse but now they being brought out of these outward sinnes into the obedience of outward formes their Conscience loseth that priviledge and now instead thereof the Feind hath power to feed the Soule as is aforesaid the which he had no power to doe before and in this condition the Soule is well pleased to be and can stand for it selfe stoutly that it is sealed to God and made sure of Salvation and so is become exceeding fool-hardy rejoycing in its fooles paradise and being fed by false consolation and herein that person is once more the childe of Satan then before And secondly whereas before these soules were converted by you they would not persecute or bring any to death for not walking in their waies but now your Converts must seeke the honour of God and so in zeale for his glory they must become persecutors and destroyers of their fellow Creatures because they will not honour God in their way and thus are they become Murderers and yet they doe not know it but the same spirit that ruleth in them must they of necessity bee obedient to and it is proved before that that spirit in them that ruleth is Satan and he it is that setteth them on work For as our Saviour saith He was a murtherer from the beginning and his works will you do Joh. 8.44 And herein are your Converts twofold the children of Satan more then they were before It was not the Publicans and sinners that put Christ to death no no it was the religious zealots under the Law
confirmed and strengthened thus you have wrested the command of Christ herein to the end he never aymed it for for in this your doing you differ not from the Papists themselves in the substance of this thing only you differ in the circumstances and that is all for they pretend they eate the Body and Bloud of Christ substantially and by so doing they say they live in Christ and he liveth in them thereby and you say in this you eate him Spiritually and by so doing you live in him and he in you and that you have your faith much confirmed to you in this your act O poore blinded fooles you are herein misled by your blinde Priests for this is but one of their owne precepts by which they have undone you for they have played the Mountebankes with you herein and have made you beleeve lyes for truth for this your act doth not at all confirme your faith in case you have faith but I will tell you true what you have confirmed viz. conceit or fancy and no more I shall prove it true whether you will beleeve me or no for there is nothing that doth confirme faith but that same that giveth faith but no act of the Creature giveth or createth faith or maketh faith to grow in the heart of any man and the giving and receiving of Bread and Wine is but an act of the Creature which is within the compasse of its owne power to doe or not to doe this I thinke you will confesse and if this act had that vertue in it to give faith who would want faith but I thinke you are not yet so farre blinde as to say plainly that faith is given to any by vertue of this act but yet you may as well say that faith is given thereby as say that faith is confirmed thereby for the giving faith and confirming of faith is both from one and the same fountaine and God himselfe is the Giver of faith as you may see Eph. 2.8 then if God be the Giver of faith he is also the confirmer of it without the acts of the Creature and this truth the Apostle affirmeth to the Corinthians and thanketh God on their behalfe for the graces given them of him whereby the testimony of Jesus Christ was confirmed in them and that they waited for a further manifestation of Christ who should confirme them to the end that they might be kept blamelesse 1 Cor. 1.5 6 7 8 9. and as God in and by his Son Jesus is both the giver and confirmer of faith so by him he alwayes upholdeth the soule in faith whensoever it hath need of the operation of the same for he is both the beginning and the ending of faith yea the author and finisher of faith Heb. 12.2 And this the Disciples knew when they said Lord increase our faith Luke 17.5 And it was Christ himself that strengthned Peters faith Luke 22.32 By all which you may see plainly that the receiving of Bread and Wine is not faith confirmed strengthned or compleated for you are but in blindness in this your affirmation But I would have you to know wherein you are blinded if perhaps you might hereafter grope after the truth For though this your act be a command of Christ himself yet I would have you to know the minde of the Commander in the putting out of the command for he put not out this command thereby to detract from him what did belong to himself and in this you affirm you detract from him and give that to the acting in the command and herein you transgress But to tell you the minde of Christ in this command I would have you to take notice of his own words and let them not be wrested by your wit and you shall know that he gave out this command for no other thing but for a help of the weak memory of men who are very subject to forget the love of their dearest friends in a little time after they be departed from them yea your own experience will tell you the truth of this that after the death and departure of your dearest friends how that a very short time will wear the thoughts of them out of your memory And so some dear loving friend at his death will leave a Ring or some other token of love to his beloved friend or friends and bid him remember him when he looketh upon the same the which beholding doth raise or renew fresh thoughts of his deceased friend and so becometh the weak forgetful memory to be strengthned Even for this very end did Christ leave his Disciples that command that in the observing of the same they should keep him their dear loving Master still in their memory and think of him when his bodily presence was taken from them and that they in the remembring of him should think of his example of life and walk accordingly in all his other commands the which he had enjoyned them and in the keeping of these his commands they should be known to be his Disciples and should live in him and he in them and that they should have communion with him and the Father and likewise he tells them how the world would hate and persecute them and kill them with many other exhortations to them and commands given them before his departure after he had left them this love-token of remembrance as you may see in Luke 22.19 For Jesus knew after he was gone from them that they should have many temptations and tryals whereby they should be much troubled and therefore he would have them to keep him still in memory for if such things were done to the green Tree what would be done to the dry Trees Luke 23.31 But yet I know you may object and say that there is something more included in this command because of the act and the other words spoken by Christ when he gave out this command It is true for as in the time of the Law there was in their sacrifices things killed and offered which was Types of the first appearance of Christ in the Humane nature and the life of Christ in the Humane nature and the death of Christ in the Humane nature and the Resurrection of Christ c. So in this act of Christ there is a Type also in which there is something typified In which Type there is these things to be observed First The time Secondly The matter Thirdly The manner And fourthly The end First for the time It was at the very same time of the Jews Passoever which was to be kept in their generation until the death of Christ which Passoever was instituted before the death of the first-born in Egypt and this was the preservation of the children of Israel from that death so that where the blood of the Pascal Lamb was on the posts of the door there the destroyer had no power and by the slaying of the first-born in Egypt Pharaoh and his people was constrained to let
Physick and to them Christ becometh a Physician Luke 5.31 by the shedding of his blood or love out of the Divine nature into these Soules by vertue of which they come to be restored to health Secondly His blood issuing out of the Divine Nature becometh purifying and purgeth the soul from that which is the cause of all its diseases and pain viz. sin and selfness for that is the cause of all sorrow and where this love of God or blood of the Divine Nature is shed in the hearts there sin becometh purged out by the power of faith which worketh by love And this faith God useth as an instrument in the purging by love which made the Apostle say that God put no difference between the Gentile and the Jew purifying their hearts by faith Acts 15.9 Now this faith is always accompanied with suffering as in nature purging is some cause of pain but this faith which is grounded in love overcometh the World with all the glory thereof 1 Joh. 5.4 And it beareth up the heart in all afflictions and tribulations making one vertue to arise out of another as tribulation begetteth patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in your hearts Rom. 5.4 5. So as the soul is purged from sin both in affection and action so is the conscience purged from its blindness by which it kept the soul in bondage to outward actings and the captivity of weak ordinances which cause the soul to look at Christ in a fleshly way and in its blindness tormented the soul when it would not know Christ so and the truth of this purging the Apostle witnesseth as you may see in Heb 9.14 And whosoever hath this love of God or blood of the Divine Nature shed in their hearts the vertue thereof doth ingraft that soul into Christ in his Divine Nature by the way of pure loving and pure beleeving as the Branch into the Vine and every branch so ingrafted into him and bearing fruit in him he purgeth and maketh it bring out more fruit Joh. 15.2 Thirdly The property of this blood of the Divine Nature is to comfort and revive the soul for whom and in whom it is shed for when the soul hath undergone the bitterness of purging out of sin by way of affliction and have passed through all the sorrows and sufferings of death devil and hell whereby the powers of the soul became much weakned and the heart broken to peeces c. then by the vertual property of this blood the spirit is revived and comforted as may be seen Isai 61.1 2 3 c. And this was that water that Christ spake of to the woman of Samaria John 4.10 And thus his blood becometh drink indeed John 6.55 And who so eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood in this manner live in the Divine Nature of Christ and Christ by the Divine Nature dwelleth in that soul and such a soul shall not see death Iohn 8.51 But whoso eateth or drinketh the Body and Blood of Jesus any other way the same becometh a stumbling block to them and as the effect of Wine is to hurt and breed ill humor and dazel the brain when it is not taken in moderation with wisdom in its vertual properties but when mens lust causeth them to drink the same then do they befool themselves in it for want of wisdom and so thereby they oft become to be made weak and sickly yea and many are brought to death thereby Even so the Blood of Christ being drunk in a wrong sence viz. by way of the Historical faith which looketh upon Christ in the flesh and making applications of what he suffered in the flesh and so taketh the efficacy from the Divine Nature and giveth the same to the humane or corporal nature This Faith or looking upon or eating or drinking of his flesh and blood becometh to work no other work in these souls but onely keepeth lust sin or selfness alive and so by this false faith Christ is made the cloak of sin and the Minister thereof Gal. 2.14 And because the sons of men have neither wills nor wisdom to examine themselves in this very thing therefore much weakness is in their understanding that they cannot know the truth as it is in Jesus and much weakness is in their wills in fighting against sin and therefore that sin being unpurged out it becometh cause of much sickness viz. the soul having an issue of blood because the veins thereof is loosened and so it is carried out to love seek and live in created or things acted and by this means such sickness if not cured bringeth death And this was the very thing that the Apostle Paul would have the people to take heed of when they were to observe this Type 1 Cor. 9.28 c. But for the matters in this Type I will let them pass with these small hints and will proceed and speak a word of the manner of this Type or the Form Christ used therein viz. He took bread and blessed it and brake it c. By which blessing is to be understood sanctifying which holds out the power and vertue of the God-head in it self which vertue and power was in himself and by the same he sanctified himself Ioh. 19.17 by which he blesseth and sanctifieth all who live in him and he in them and in this case he is our sanctification 1 Cor. And likewise he brake the bread breaking being the parting of a thing into peeces whereby many may be partakers of the same which holdeth out the fulness and wholeness of the Divine Nature which doth freely and liberally disperse it self into several particulars that many may be made partakers thereof not that the Divine Nature is or can be parted or divided in itself no more then the Sun in the Firmament which remaineth whole in it self yet all are partakers of the light and heat thereof So the Divine Nature is whole and undividable in it self but by its fulness doth fill so many particular Creatures and herein standeth the division in respect of the corporallity of the Creature and the fulness of the Divine Nature is whole in it self and by its fulness and freeness doth fill all particular souls And this truth Iohn Baptist verifieth where he saith Of his fulness have we all received c. Iohn 1.16 And the fulness of the Divine Nature issuing out of it self into any soul doth draw the same into its own nature whereby the same is made fit to live in the same nature and by the living in it that soul becometh rooted and grounded in the same whereby it is made able to comprehend with all Saints what is the bredth and length height and depth c. And so becometh to be filled with all the fulness of God Eph. 3.17 18 c. And when he had shewed the Disciples the freeness of the fulness of the Divine Nature breaking
out or darting it self into each several soul typified to them by that form of breaking the bread Then he gave the same to them that they might eat it and told them in a mystical sence that it was his body that was broken for them as is partly shewed before And this form in the Type instituted had a sympathizing with and to that Type of his corporal body ready to be sacrificed and rent in peeces upon the cross till its coporal life was taken from it which holdeth out the renting to peeces the body of sin in us and the death of the same upon the cross of self-denial which is holden out by the form and manner of eating eating signifieth brusing or suffering being typified by the bitter herbs in eating the Paschal Lamb For as eating bruiseth and maketh the thing eaten to be fit for digestion whereby the same is turned into the same substance of flesh So afflictions and sufferings maketh us partakers with Christ and of Christ and to drink of the same Cup and to be baptized with him into his death and by the vertue thereof the body of sin becometh destroyed Rom. 6.2 3 4. And this Christ would have them to know when he commanded them to eat that bread that as in eating it they bruised it in peeces so it was that body of sin in them that was the cause why the justice of his Father bruised and brake his corporal Body and to be avenged of that body of sin in them he would make them partakers of the Divine Nature and that was by way of suffering whereby that body of sin should be destroyed And that in these afflictions the pure believing might be raised in the soul that thereby the Divine Nature might be made suitable for digestion and so turned into the nature of the soul and the soul into its nature by vertue of the blood or love of the same nature that so he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified may be one Heb. 2.11 Likewise the manner or form in this Type was further viz. in taking the Cup and giving of thanks and bidding them drink it c. As for giving thanks it is a well-pleasingness in the soul with what God doth or will do with it and a free submitting to the Fathers will wherein his goodness is made manifested whereat and wherein the soul rejoyceth under any affliction and so it was that Christ rejoyced in what was the will of his Father and in obedience to his will he was willing to lay down his life and by this he shewed to his Disciples what he would have them to do when like afflictions should betide them and those who were his followers in whom the Divine Nature was livingly felt and by its vertue had dashed in peeces the body of sin and by the blood of that nature viz Love these souls was incorporated into the same nature these followed the same example and in suffering could be well pleased witness hereof is the Apostle Paul where he saith Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress c. Now in all these things we are more then conquerors c. Rom. 8.34 35 36 c. And further Christ told his Disciples that that Cup was the Blood of the New Testament which was shed for many c. in which typical saying was signified the establishing of the second Covenant promised before of his Father by the Prophet Jeremiah where he saith Behold the day cometh saith the Lord that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Jacob c. And I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people c. Iere. 31.31 32 33 c. Which promise our Saviour came to fulfil and at this time instituted this Type giving out the truth thereof in this his mystical saying and the compleat fulfilling hereof is in the souls of those who be incorporated into the Divine Nature whereby they become to have that law of God viz. The righteousness of God which righteousness is Christ or the Divine Nature stamped upon their hearts by which they know the truth of God in that Covenant and doth set to their seal that God is true Ioh. 3.33 And by the power and vertue of the same they are taught to know the truth and needeth not that any teach them because the same anointing in them teacheth them all things 1 Ioh. 2.27 And thus are these souls made to own God for their God and live in the love and life of him united to him by the vertue of this Covenant and so becoming his people owned by him and wholly set apart for himself in and through the sanctification of himself by his own Spirit But what might be said more upon this particular in the manner of this Type I let pass because somewhat that might be said is somewhat touched before in speaking of the material things in this Type and I would not too much over-load weak understandings with too much speaking of things that be too hard and heavy for them So I proceed to speak a word of the end in this Type for which Christ instituted it which was for this very purpose viz. That now when the time of his departure was at hand and that his bodily presence was to be taken away from the world therefore he would not leave the sons of men without some rememberance of himself and what he had said unto them the which he would have them to take notice of when he was gone and that his suffering should be kept still in minde and though the Type of his own Body should not abide amongst them yet he would leave them another Type instead of that whereby they should still be put in minde of him And this was to be to them as a glimpse of light shining in a dark place until the Sun it self arose and became as a light that shineth more and more until the perfect day and that while the sons of men were in their weakness before they were brought into the pure and perfect knowledge and full enjoyment of himself in the Divine Nature this was left to be as a mark in the way least by forgetfulness men might happily step out of their way in following him to the death of the Crosse and that was the chiesest thing which hee commanded and would have them to remember and Christ left not this Type only but he made to them who were his followers a promise of sending the Spirit to them who when he came should bring all that he had said into their remembrance Jo. 14.26 and this death of Christ in the corporall Flesh was still set before the eyes of those who were his dearest friends and truest followers and it was the thing they still pressed after to see how neare they could come to follow Christ
upon the heart and thus your prayers is turned into sinne and this you have by asking and receiving counsell of your blinde Priest and hereby you make a cover for your selves that you may adde sin to sin this you may plainly see in Isa 30.1 but those who knew or doe know the true ground of Prayer were never tied to set times but to occasions and the occasions being so many made our Saviour give out this caveat so oft Watch and pray Mar. 13.33 and the Apostle who knew the ground of prayer and the many occasions to pray made him bid the Thessalonians pray without ceasing 1 Thes 5.17 and those who know the evill of themselves shall not need to have one to teach them when to pray or how to pray neither can they be tyed to set times for they shall finde that sin in themselves that cannot bee limited to times and therefore they cannot limit themselves to pray against it at times for to those both sin and prayer is unlimitable and this made the Apostle utter his desire in the well-wishing of those whom hee taught in the truth and right knowledge of God and themselves and willed them to pray every where 1 Tim. 2.8 Secondly for the forme you use in your prayer it is but your owne human invention which causeth you to straine your braine drawing out from thence so many words and multiplication of speech and to fill up your houre is oft put to use the same words over and over and so contrary to the command of our Saviour you use vaine repetitions Mat. 6.7 And herein you differ not from the Heathens for they think to be heard for their much speaking and this your beat-braine Duty is but the sacrifice of fooles and yet you know not that you doe evill but this your doing pleaseth your selfe and pacifieth your blinde Conscience and from hence you draw conclusions that God is pleased also making him such a one as your selves Psa 50.21 but those who know the right ground of prayer they are not tyed to times neither are they tyed to a forme in prayer for the true ground of prayer turneeth set times into occasions and it turneth selfe formes and repetitions into short and feeling expressions yea oft times such expressions as you could not heare if you were besides the Persons who uttereth these expressions and those are the cryes that ring and eccho in the eares of the Lord of Hosts and these are the prayers that prevaileth with the Lord in answering and filling the desires of such soules and these prayers and cryes are the very vigorous out-pourings of the Spirit which maketh intercession for the Saints and he who is a Spirit knoweth the minde of the Spirit Rom. 8.26 and in this manner Moses who knew the right ground of prayer called upon the Lord in his greatest distresse not so much as speaking one word that any of the people heard and yet his spirit cryed out so vehemently to the Lord that the Lord said unto him Wherefore cryest thou unto me and all that while his spirit was calling upon the Lord with his tongue he was admonishing the people to beleeve in the Lord as you may see Exod. 14.13 14 15 c. And in this manner Hannah poured out her prayer to God and prevailed with him in the thing she desired though Eli before he knew the truth accounted her a drunkard 1 Sam. 1.13 14. but the truth is that you know not the right ground of prayer and therefore you cannot depart from your set times and set formes and therefore you aske and receive not because you aske amisse Jam. 4.3 And the reason why you have not the right ground of prayer is because you know not God but as a Person and not as he is a Spirit and you know not the wisdome righteousnesse and power of God viz. his Christ but according to the flesh and therefore all your worship and holy duties as you call them is framed according to the knowledge that you have of God and Christ and this knowledge you have is no more but by relation of others as you have heard and seen in the Scriptures and the speaking thereof by your relative Priests and from hence it is that you have formed in your heads an Historicall faith and fantastick beleeving for as yet you have not been in the City of God and what you have heard and seen therein you cannot speake of and no further then you have knowledge of God you can beleeve God and no further then you can beleeve God can you call upon him and what God is in his Spirituall being you have not yet beleeved then how can you call on him in whom you have not beleeved Rom. 10.12 and why is it that you have not rightly beleeved even because you have not rightly heard of God and why is it that you have not rightly heard of God even because you have not had him rightly preached to you by your Priests and the reason why they could not rightly declare and preach God as he is a Spirit and Christ as he was and is in the Divine nature is because they were never sent Rom. 10.14 15. But I know that you may object against me and say that you you have some examples in Scripture both for your set times and set forms of prayer for you will say that David praised at even morning and at noon c. and that our Saviour himself prayed at sundry times and the Apostles themselves used prayer in this manner very oft with others c. It is true I do not deny vocal prayer and times for vocal prayer in case the right ground of prayer be in the person or persons praying for I would have you to understand what I have formerly said for I do not deny but confess occasional praying but that which I deny is the set-times and set-forms of prayer which is but good thinkings rules and blinde Priests precepts without any command or example in Scripture but vocal prayer occasionally the persons rightly grounded this is all that you or any can gather out of any example in Scripture And in this wise David oftentimes both prayed and praised and occasionally Christ in the flesh both prayed and praised and occasionally did the Apostles and the believing people in the primitive time both prayer and praise And according to this same rule the Apostle bad those that were afflicted pray and those that were merry he would have them to praise in singing of Psalms Jam. 5.13 And so I would have all men while they be in the body and the body of sin in them to use vocal prayer occasionally and that their expressions may arise from the very sence of the occasion and such prayers or expressions of desires accompanied with the right ground God will hear and answer the desires of such and will deliver them from fear and trouble and then shall such have cause to praise and glorifie
seat viz. to read the Law to the people and to offer the gifts and sacrifices and had the worke of ministring in the Temple they were all of the Tribe of Levi and were they good men or bad men that were of that Line they were to have that office by succession and none other as you may see Numb 8.14 And so long as the Law of Ordinances was in force Christ would have them observed because they all were shadowes of and pointed at himselfe and the reading of the Law could not be heard but by the Scribes who were of the Tribe of Levi and as Christ was in the flesh the Law was not ended neither the succession of the Ministers and as the ceremoniall Law did hold out Christ mystically so Christ bare witnesse to the truth of the Law ceremonially and what was an Ordinance of God and that Ordinance being in force that would Christ have observed and in this case he bad the Lepers goe and shew themselves to the Priests and offer to them what the Law required for their being clensed Luke 17.14 and in this case he caused Peter to pay tribute to Caesar and he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it Mat. 5.7 and as yet he had not fulfilled the ceremoniall for that was fulfilled by his death but the Ordinance of Circumcision he had fulfilled in being circumcised himselfe and the Law of the Commandement he had fulfilled in that he had not sinned and all those things contained in the Ordinances he would have all the people to observe to the utmost untill the time that all should be fulfilled by his Death and Resurrection and the Priests of the Law was still to be heard in reading and giving out admonitions according to its requiring as Moses oft times did unto the people in his dayes But now the Ministers of the Gospel hath not the same calling into the Ministery as we may see by Christ himselfe for he chused not any of the Tribe of Levi to be promulgaters of the Gospel neither any great learned men but a few weake silly unlettered men and from that time forward those who were to be Ministers of the Gospel had not their calling either by succession or by greatnesse of Schollership but those was to be the Ministers who was called of God and who had received the gift of the Holy Ghost and who had partaken of the Divine nature by which they had fellowship with the Father and the Sonne and had the Mysteries of God made knowne to them and manifested in them And what they had heard and seene that they declared to others 1 Jo. 1.1 2. and these have learned the voyce of Christ and these can speake with the voyce of Christ and none other knoweth his voyce and whosoever cometh to the Ministery otherwise they are but Theeves and there is no ingagement upon any to heare them but rather to refraine from them For as for the Scribes it is evident in Scripture they had their calling into the Priesthood by Gods owne appointment and so by his appointment they were to have it by succession whether they were upright men or not as is aforesaid but for your Priests they cannot plead succession neither can they shew any calling they have at all but what was ordained by men and so they are no more but Ministers made and sent out by men and therefore as they are but the Ministers of men you have no command to heare them And as they want the calling of and by God the which the Scribes and Pharisees had that saying of Christs doth nothing belong to you either by command or example whereby you are at all ingaged to heare those your unsent Priests But if any of them can prove it that God commanded to make Universities and that those whom hee would chuse to speake in his name and declare his will and minde unto others should be put so many yeares to that University and then to be confirmed by a Bishop or a Presbytery and then should they be fit men for his worke I say if any of them can prove this though they be never so wicked I would have you to heare them if they speake any thing that were but like truth but this I know they cannot prove and therefore as they have no calling of God you ought not to heare them for in hearing them you countenance them and uphold them contrary to the minde and will of God and for your rebelling against God in this very thing God bringeth the curses of these your Priests upon your selves viz. the erring from the truth of God and hereby you are in danger to fall into the ditch with them and this is like to be all that you shall receive of God for this your pretended zeale and Ignorant performing of this your holy duty of hearing Gods Ministers as you call them I could have run thorow all your holy duties and performances which you observe upon which you have stated your religion and could have proved them of like nature as these I have already touched but I let them passe at present and wish you to judge the rest by those that have been spoken of and I make no doubt but you shall finde them all but Priests precepts and you may assure your selves if the fountaine be corrupt all the streames will prove uncleane And this my Message received from the Lord I here declare and deliver unto you and whether you will heare it or not it is nothing to me since I have done what I ought to doe and in case they have had the persecuting hand but you for want of that case that any amongst you doe beleeve what here is said and so desireth further knowledge of the way of God I know you shall not want what you desire but if any amongst you shall slight or neglect what here is presented to you I know the same will be as a witnesse against you and that you shall have nothing to plead against God for matter of ignorance seeing you had a warning from him of your folly and blindnesse A word to those who are called Independents I Know if any of you who are of the Church-fellowship of the Independant order shall happen to see these former lines presented to the order of the Presbyterians you will conclude that I have not spoken amisse in what I have declared to them both in speaking to their Priests and to the People for I know many of you have the same both in your thoughts and oft times in your words and knowing how they are blinded in some of their formes that hath caused you to differ and dissent from them in some things and so in those things you differ from them you judge them in feriour to you and so ariseth so many jarres betwixt them and you about your formes and yet if you knew but the truth as it is in Jesus and from the knowledge of the truth
height of his Kingdome will be but I could wish those poore blinded fooles amongst you to turne their eyes inward and looke for the reigning of Christ in them and then I beleeve they shall finde something that will hold them doing that they shall looke no more for Christ without them for the reason why they are so carried out in their fancy is because they found life in the liberty of their forme and so was carried out from the medling with the evill that is in their owne hearts and therefore not knowing the Mysterie of selfnesse in them the Devill hath power to worke in their fancy and make them looke for such things to be fulfilled outwardly as shall in their time and order be fulfilled inwardly and all this happeneth because of the forme of godlinesse without the power of God and as yet they have not received the truth as it is in Jesus neither doe they love the truth nor can love it because they doe not know it and for this cause God sends such very strong delusions 2 Thess 2.8 9. But to let these passe with their fantastick conceits I will speake a word in generall to you as I finde you stated in a form to which you keep as close in your order as doe the Presbyterians yea and as hide-bound to your forme as is the Papists and though your forme be somewhat more regulated then the Presbyterians yet doe you not dissent from their very forme in most things you observe but you shake hands with them with the one of your hands and the other hand you reach out to those of the Anabaptists order and so from the Anabaptists to you and from you to the Presbyterians and so from the Presbyterians to the Prelatians and so from the Prelatians to the Popes the collaterall line is kept whole and you are all tied together with one chaine consisting of so many linkes and all of you stand in one center with your feet and your backs one towards another but as you dance the round you keep the compasse and not step out of it and you all dance after one Pipe and can agree to heare its Musick for that melody pleaseth you all and this Musicioner is the Devill and his Pipe is the World with its various notes of profit pleasure and praises and when this Pipe is sounded you all dance after it as though you were all gone mad and though you all agree in this harmonious dance yet are you all opposite one to another in your manners and breeding and bringing up in the courteous conges you make in the saluting of him you call your God and because of this difference you cannot owne one another though you otherwise center all in one Yet you who are of the order of Independency I must confesse have something amongst you in your formes which I honour and approve of you for it as you are Formalists and that is because you have not as yet tied or constrained any to observe the same way of worship with you but as yet leaveth every one to his owne freedome in way of worship in case hee or they be not open blasphemers so farre all is well And further you are not altogether so hide-bound to the unsent Priests as the Presbyterians be though I know you cannot as yet clearly see what they are and therefore you cannot altogether forsake them and therefore are so far in bondage to them I know likewise you have some amongst you called Ministers who is of somewhat more moderate spirited men then those of the Presbyterian order and that is somewhat more inlightned in the knowledge of the truth according to Christ in the flesh but yet very few I finde amongst them who rightly know the truth as it is in Christ according to the Divine nature yet I must confesse some of them have got a darke notion of the truth in the Divine nature and yet all endeth but in a better regulated forme for as for the proper operation of the truth as it is in Christ I have not as yet seen any great effects either amongst you or your Ministers for the naturall operation of the truth turneth the heart out of centering in formes though never so well regulated neither will the power of the truth suffer the heart to be carried out to the world or any created thing whatsoever but all the feares cares loves and desires of any thing below God is subdued in that soule where the truth hath taken possession in the heart and little comfort or content can that soule have in any thing created or acted where the truth as it is in Jesus is rightly knowne and untill the truth in Jesus viz. in the Divine nature be received and from the receiving thereof the knowledge thereof is attained the heart of men is in bondage either to the creatures viz. the world with the things contained in it or else the works and acting of the creature viz. formes of Religion of some fashion or other and all things created or acted tendeth to bondage and men may be in captivity to either of these or to both and yet know it not but thinke themselves free and the reason is because they never found bondage in their captivity but rather freedome and indeed while man liveth in a forme he knoweth not the bondage of that forme but findeth freedome in the forme yea more freedome then before he tooke the forme upon him for before he tooke the forme upon him his Conscience had power to condemne but now in the forme blinde Conscience is satisfied and so the heart hath more liberty to center in the created things and yet can please conscience with acted things and thus the worship of God is roundly carried on in formes and the world and the worship thereof goes on as roundly in the heart and no bondage at all felt in any of these things no more then the Jewes who boasted of being Abrahams seed and never were in bondage Jo. 8. but the reason why bondage is not felt in things acted and things created is because the truth of God was never truly known amongst you but I confesse you have a zeale but not according to knowledge and you have a knowledge but not according to the truth for that knowledge you have is but according to Christ in the flesh and that is but either relative or artificiall out of which ariseth an Historicall faith and this pointeth at and closeth with Christ as he was in the corporall or humane nature and this you may have and indeed none other can you have while you live in formes and this is not a knowledge in the heart or a faith in the heart but this is altogether in the head and the power of this saith will not close with Christ nor can close with Christ in the Divine nature for that faith in the head according to Christ in the flesh is alwayes an enemy to Christ as he
he willing to part with consolation and chose to beare Christ company in the way of suffering and tooke pleasure in so doing 2 Cor. 12.10 But my friends know you what I meane by what is already said doe you know what is the Crosse of Christ and what must dye upon that Crosse I hope you may strongly guesse at both but friends whether are you enemies to this Crosse yea or nay if you be friends of the crosse then are you the friends of Christ and then are you in fellowship with him either in suffering with him or in reigning with him if in suffering with him then doe you obey his commands in taking upon you the Crosse and following him to the death of the Crosse and if it be so that you have communion with him in this way then I know your mindes is rent from or in renting from all created things whatsoever no profit or gaine in the world is desired nay the very thoughts of it is terrible to you and in case it sometimes dare approach to tempt yet are you as quick in resisting and beating downe these thoughts and then the windy praise of men is loathsome to you and little doe you care for any approbation of any whatsoever and then pleasures of the sences and the affections with or in any thing created or acted is not at all regarded losse of friends and increasing of foes is all one thing yea love of friends and hatred of foes is all one rich and poore are all one losse or gaine all one good report and bad report all one duty performed our unperformed all one congregated or uncongregated all one and whatsoever in their name and nature may differ is all one for why God is but one and all and as man is in God by earnest of desire viz. by being oned with Christ by way of suffering the will of man becometh transplanted out of varieties and differing of things into the one and only wil of the Father and this was that which Christ himselfe in the flesh aymed at and was compleated in him even onednesse of will and well-pleasednesse with suffering and if you know the Crosse of Christ and have taken it up then are you his Disciples and then he teacheth you to forsake your selves in all things But I somewhat feare that you follow not Christ in this way no not so much as in an outward conformity for I doubt that superfluities of the outward man is not as yet forsaken of you much lesse the body of sinne in the inward man in crucifying for I can beleeve you have learned Christ in another way then in following him by suffering by which the body of sin is to be destroyed for that way you have learned is to beleeve in Christ and apply his suffering and not to follow his suffering yea that is a very cunning easie way for by that way you can close with Christ in what he suffered himselfe and by an Historicall faith can beleeve that what he suffered was for you and by that false faith can apply Christ in the way of propitiation and yet forsake him in the way of imitation and I promise you this is a handsome way if it were a sure way for hereby God and the world Christ and the body of sinne might stand all in one soule and I wish you were not cousened in this very point and I assure you that if you have not followed Christ in the way of the crosse in the daily denying of your selves both inwardly and outwardly by that faith you have gotten whereby you apply Christ in his sufferings you will be beguiled one day for that faith is but that which draweth you into duty and Kirk-fellowship and not into the fellowship of Christ and herein you may prove the enemies both of Christ and his Crosse but let me call to your remembrance another old saying out of date or at leastwise out of request and so but little heeded and yet it shall be one of his who was a follower of Christ in the way of the Crosse and this was Pauls and let us see and judge by it who are the enemies of the Crosse and when he gave out the saying he gave it out with weeping teares for though hee had preached Christ crucified so much and himselfe walked by the same example pressing forward to the price of the high calling viz. by bearing the crosse of Self-deniall and so bearing Christ company having fellowship with him in his suffering by which he was to have the body of sinne and selfnesse destroyed that thereby he might live in the lovely fellowship of the Father and the Son and this he aimed at and wished those who were of the same spirit with him that they should all minde the same thing and walke by the same rule and follow him as hee followed Christ and then in pitty and tender-heartednesse and weeping he tels them of those who were the enemies of the crosse and painteth them out in their right colour and giveth them their portions in the first place setting the effect before the cause vid. destruction and then setteth a three-fold character upon them as the cause of their destruction viz. Whose belly is their god who glory in their shame who minde earthly things Phil. 3.18 19. This is an old saying little heeded but mark it well for here I call it to a new remembrance I hope God is what he was then Christ is now what he was then the Crosse is now what it was then the enemies of the Crosse is such now as was then the effect is such now as was then therefore my friends of the congregated order judge your selves by these three characters whether you be enemies or friends of the crosse yea or nay but it may be you hardly know how to judge your selves by them therefore for your sakes I will explaine them a little that thereby you may the better judge your selves by them but I will be short and not tedious in explaining that you may be the more capable to understand then mark the first character viz. Whose belly is their god c. This may seeme an abrupt saying and they were sore besotted and foolish who made a god of their belly and it seemes such a foolish thing to doe so that few can conceive that they themselves doe any such thing but in case there be any such who doe that foolish act yet every one can excuse himselfe and think it may belong to some other but marke well what shall be said and see which of you can excuse himselfe when the truth of the saying is opened Well what is God he is the chiefe delight and chiefe treasure and those that knoweth him doth chuse him so and he is their chiefe delight and chiefe treasure and so their hearts is with him and all its affections in seeking loving fearing and desiring c. and to witnesse this truth our Saviour said Where your
ought But who is it that will believe the truth hereof for the sons of men is blinded of the right sight and knowledge of the truth and by reason of the love they have to lust sin and selfness they are become enemies of the Cross of Christ and if any have attained to the first dispensation beforesaid they think themselves to have attained all that is necessary and that they need no more and so becometh to settle upon the lees of their own performances and so becometh the resisters of the Holy Ghost Acts 7.51 And if any be brought out of the first Baptism under the first dispensation which containeth in it the Covenant of works and so be made partakers of the second Baptism by which they are brought into and prepared to meet Christ in his first appearance and when they have known the Son of God or God in his distinct property of the Son manifesting himself to their soul by which the soul hath comfort and content and refreshment and deliverance from its former troubles and now it finding the effects of the propitiation of the Son in covering and hiding its sin and in justifying the soul and taking of the power of condemnation from it then doth that soul conclude That all is done and can be pleased with that present condition supposing they have that which never will fail and say in their heart They shall not be removed because the Lord of his goodness hath made their mountain so strong Psal 30. And from these false conclusions many a soul becometh to lose it self and turn back again into the world and into the captivity of the Creature from which it was delivered and so man foolishly concluding That being in the Land of Canaan he shall see the bondage of Egypt no more but while man is but in the enjoyment of the first manifestation of God in the first appearance of his Son he is but a babe and but ignorant of what the minde of God is in that present condition and therefore they are very subject to be content with that present station because it pleaseth them so well supposing that there is none that have attained any further then what they have already attained too when as alas they know not as yet what it is to die with Christ on the Cross nor what the fellowship of his sufferings is nor what the vertual power of his resurrection meaneth And so it is that from the idolizing of that present enjoyment they in a very short time become to be cast out of that enjoyment and yet do they not know that they are so cast out because of the false fiend who hath got again into the house from whence he was gone out and counterfeiteth God through the help of the imagination and so maketh these souls believe That God is their present portion and that they have such a fast hank of him that nothing can be able to separate them when at that very instant of time the heart is in captivity with the Creature I fear that this is the very condition of many now adays who having known God after this manner beforesaid and yet have forsaken him again and turned to the Creature and yet do but little know that they be so far carried away from God as they are But when God in his orderly proceeding goeth on in bringing the soule through all the dangers and difficulties of the creature and Selfe then doth he not suffer the soule to have what it would have nor injoy what it would injoy in that first manifestation of himself in the name of his Son but as the bodily presence of Jesus was to be taken away in his appearing in the second dispensation in the flesh that so he might come againe in the Spirit or ghostly Baptisme by which they should still be led on till they were in the nearest and safest union of the Father and the Son that could be attained to in the body so it is that the ghostly presence in the first manifestation in the Spirit must be taken away that so the spirit may come to a further and more sure partaking of the Divine nature then it could in the first manifestation For as Christs followers could have been pleased to have still injoyed the bodily presence of Christ in the first appearing in the flesh so would a soul be pleased with the first manifestation of Gods appearing in the name of his Son to the spirit But as Christs bodily presence must be taken away that thereby the life of Selfe which lived in the sence and reason of his Disciples under that present injoyment might become destroyed and over-throwne by the coming againe in the power of the Spirit or ghostly Baptism So it is that the first appearance of God in Christ in the first appearance of the soule must be hidden and taken away because of so much life of selfe in the sence and reason and that by a further and more cleare and safe way to manifest himselfe in the soule and that is by the pouring out of the Holy Ghost into it by the vertue of which the soule becometh Baptised into the suffering and death of Christ whereby the life of sence and reason becometh to dye and the spirit brought out of the clawes of Sinne Death Devill and Hell and the power of the Resurrection of Christ becometh to be known and the body of Sin becometh to bee destroyed by the powerfull working and burning of this ghostly Baptisme and this was the very Baptisme the Apostle Paul spake of when he said Know you not so many of us as were Baptised into Christ were Baptised into his death therefore we are buried with him by Baptisme into his death c. For if we have been planted together into the likenesse of his death we shall also be in the likenesse of his resurrection knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin may be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin c. Rom. 6.2 3 4 5 c. And those soules who know God in this worke can witnesse to the truth of the three-fold name of Father Son and Holy Ghost because they know the power and working of God in these three Baptismes under these three names and none else can speak rightly of them because they have but the knowledg thereof by relation though God let out himselfe in this three-fold manner as is before said yet God is but one and the same God and though there bee these three Baptismes yet they all make up but one perfect Baptisme by which the soule is perfectly compleated in one faith Ephes 4.5 whereby the soule becometh led out of all things acted or created and all sufferings or injoyments in any condition below the injoyment of the fellowship of Christ in his Suffering Death and Resurrection and this is the very end and effect of all former out-lettings of God in any of the
foresaid dispensations and for this very end it was that Christ gave out his command to teach and discipline all Nations and Baptize them in the name of the Father Sonne and Holy Ghost Friends I have but given you a dark glimps of these things for the clearer illustrating of them requireth more time then I have allotted to me at present and would containe a greater volume then at present I meane to put out but this which here I have intimated may give you some sight in the whole and I wish that every one of you were so wise as to finde out in your owne heart the whole mysterie hereof and this I have holden out to you that thereby you may partly see what is contained in the type of Baptisme and that it is not the forme or type that bringeth any happinesse to the soule But in case you say you live not in the outward forme of Baptisme but in the power of the Mysterie from whence is it that so little fruits thereof appear amongst you who are of the order of the Brotherhood in outward form of re-baptizing for though you may think you obey the command of Christ in this your act yet being ignorant of the minde of Christ in this command you doe obey him no more then Saul did the command of Samuel 1 Sam. 15.14 for I can as justly say to you as Samuel said to Saul What meaneth the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of these oxen in mine eares For though some amongst you in your Brother-hood can speake of some experiences and say something what God hath done for their soules yet I see the world in the heart of such yea and the love of praise and honour and the livelinesse of affection to created things looke to your owne hearts and you shall finde what I say is true and if it be so take it for granted you know not the minde of Christ in the mystery of Baptism but you content your selves with the forme and if you knew but the mysterie the forme would not be of so great value with you but as all other formes are but empty things so is your forme also and they shall all perish in time and all soules shall be deceived who live in them For nothing shall stand but what is the substance and mysterie of all forms and what soule is not brought out of formes into that which is the mysterie shall perish as doth the formes for in all dispensations and all ordinances in dispensations formerly there hath been a change and the reason why former things instituted was changed was because of sin amongst men who made Idols of those ordinances for the minde and intent of God in all ordinances was to draw the heart of men to himselfe out of the creature and so when God owned these his ordinances and answered men in them then was the hearts of men in too great love with these ordinances and when the heart beginneth to cleave to any ordinance then the heart getteth liberty to run out into the creature and yet man can blesse himselfe and quiet his blinde Conscience with observing the ordinances and so the ordinances becometh Idolized and so abominable in the eyes of God and so it is that these things God ordained to bring man to himselfe by reason of the body of sinne in man they have drawne man further from his God and there is not any formalist in England of what forme soever that contendeth for his forme can excuse himselfe in what is here expressed But here I leave you in your forms and wish that God may so owne you in your formes that you may see a cleare way to depart out of your formes and to come to close with that which is the substance and then you will not fall out with any who are not of the same forme with you neither will you so much contend for your formes for then you shall see how all formes are but empty things and not worth so much dispute and contention which hath been the occasion of the spilling of so much bloud as hath been spilt but let me tell you one thing that no hand shall be guiltlesse of bloud who hath shed any mans bloud for maintaining the uprightnesse of his forme for it will bee found that that hand that hath shed the bloud of any man for opposing his form he slew but his brother that he might sacrifice his bloud to an Idol and this one day will lye heavie upon the heart of those that have done it But what is this I have said who will beleeve it for every one in his forme can bless himselfe in what he hath done and quiet his blinde Conscience by kissing of his Idol but the time is in coming and shall shortly be that all Idols shall cease and all formall worship shall be destroyed for we who are alive are in the last dispensation and under the last types that ever shall be upon the earth and when these types under which we live shall come to be worshipped to the height then changed shall they be and I leave it to you to guesse what thing shal then be established the time shall shortly be even so come Lord Jesus Amen A word to the Free-Gracians FRiends you who pretend the Free-grace of God without the Creatures actings I need not write to you of your idolizing of Forms for I know you are not tied to any Form But my Friends I ask you the question How came you to part with your Forms was it the Free-grace of God indeed that called you out of Forms or was it your subtil-self that cast you out of Forms I much fear the devil hath played the cheater with you and you have not seen wherein he hath deceived you and so you are bereaved both of the Form and Power I know you much pretend all to be of God and that he giveth his grace freely without the act or desert of the Creature I know there is a truth in what you say but yet did ever any of you receive grace But first you were active Creatures and sought grace more then ever you sought any earthly thing If you say you have grace and yet sought not grace it is no less then a marvel to me But in case you say that you sought grace before you received grace why do you so much cry down the Creatures actings do you think to bring any a nearer way to grace then your selves have gone if you do you peradventure shall be deceived and while you by that way go about to draw men to grace it is six to one you keep them from grace I know your preaching and speaking of that subject will beget you many a one to be of the same minde with you for your doctrine soundeth well to the fleshly part of man and soon is it believed and as soon practised for I know not what will hinder the success of it for I know the devil
will not oppose it neither will the flesh oppose it and I am sure the world is a friend to it and then it is possible there is nothing that is evil that will oppose it And no marvel though the multitude dance so madly after your pipe I know you see no greater evil then that which is the idolizing of Forms but that is because you know not the evil of your own hearts and how the great mystery of evil lyeth there and because you know it not you are carried out to see the evil of others who is not of the same faith with you and some of you yea those who be of your cheif Teachers are so exceedingly carried out by the power of Free-grace as they pretend that they go about to do marvels viz. to pluck up where never any thing hath been planted and to take away acting from these people who never troubled themselves with acting any thing for God or for any kinde of formal worship to God But if such were but half wise they might spare their speaking for such people have a teacher within them that will teach them to forsake acting any thing for God or the worship of God And therefore they need not any of your outward teaching to help them But do you not think you do a great peece of Gods service herein be judge your selves I would know of you whether acting or believing be the first brought out in any man if you say Faith I would know what Faith it is for the justifying Faith it cannot be for that is manifest after works and never doth any man know it truly until he have acted and found the emptiness of his actings and these things which he thought should have brought out life bringeth out death Rom. 7.10 And yet when this faith is brought out yet doth not that Faith make acting voide For faith without works is dead Jam. 2.17 But if you say a man may have justifying faith without works that I deny for where-ever faith is that justifieth the same cannot be without works I know man may have an historical faith without works but the justifying faith no man can have without works but it is one thing to have works and it is another thing to be justified by works and here is the Mystery finde it out if you can but for the want of the right knowledge of the Mystery you become to make a division and jarring between faith and works which in themselves do not differ but agreeth in a sweet harmony in those souls who have found out the mystery in them both And never shall you bring any soul to be a true believer before you have brought him into an active way before except you can command God to work miracles in his immediate way But my Friends I know full well where you erre and what is the ground of your opinion even you who are the purest in this your Free-grace tenet For even you who have some experience of the grace of God I know you knew it was the goodnesse of God that freed your souls from what they were captived with and that all your actings could not do it till God himself bestowed his Free-grace upon you This I confesse is truth but did every any of you finde the Free-grace of God made known to you before you had acted to your utmost endeavor and was made to see the emptiness of your actings I know as many of you as have known true freedom will confess this and can you tell me truly That if you had not acted and thereby seen the emptiness of your actings whether you should have known the freenesse of grace yea or nay but because that you were not freed by your actings is therefore actings of none effect God forbid for though the Apostle were not justified by the Law yet did he not make voide the Law but counted it of necessary use for thereby cometh the knowledge of sin Rom. 7.13 So actings though they do not justifie yet by them man becometh to know the emptiness that is in them for before any action be brought out the goodnesse or badnesse of it cannot be known and it is as natural to man to depend upon his actings as the skin cleaveth to his flesh and man cannot be freed from depending thereon until he truly see the evil in them and he cannot see the evil in them until they be brought out and until he see the evil in them he cannot be justified by Free-grace And for this very purpose God hath given man power to act and given out commands that he should act that thereby man might be brought to see what was in his actings and how far he could recover out of his faln condition by his actings that so where he came short he might know the goodness of God in his Restauration and therefore while you pretend and preach Faith so much you bring but the souls of the people into a snare and they are in as great danger to perish by your doctrine as is the souls of those people who are taught to merit Heaven by their actings for you run as far in your extream as they do in their extream But I would have you to take notice of one thing viz. In case you have been freed by grace whether hath your spirit or your flesh got better hold of the freedom if your spirit have gotten the freedom then is your flesh in bondage and then be sure it will be striving for freedom and I believe you shall have no great quiet so long as it hath any power to move For though your spirit may be freed from the condemning of your conscience yet I beleeve your spirits is not freed from the strivings of the flesh but in case the flesh have stoln your freedom from the spirit then its possible all will be quiet within and then no marvel if you cry up Free-grace so fast But let me tell you one thing He that knoweth most of Free-grace knoweth most of bondage with it This may seem a paradox to you but if you know not what I mean you may take it for granted That your flesh hath got the greater part of your Free-grace and then while you tell other people of freedom by grace you your selves become the servants of sin 2 Pet. 2.19 LOok into your own hearts and try whether this be true or not for if you finde your hearts and affections carried out to any thing below God and that you have any complacence in either pleasure praise or profit or what else is below the center of Spirits you may believe That all is not as it should be but yet I know you will not greatly care for it is God must do all and the Creature can do nothing and therefore you need but onely beleeve and all will be well enough but the time will come that every one must be rewarded according to his works and he that saith Lord Lord shall not enter into Heaven but he that doth the will of the Father must enter Behold I come quickly and my reward is with with me and will give to every man according as his works shall be FINIS