men and their good works were seen and God was glorified and is your works wrought in the Light to shine and be seen to God's Glory or are they not wrought in darkness by which God is dishonoured and if you say your works are wrought in charity as being most agreeable to the Nature of God and that the compliance of your bodies to customs and fashions is only sutable to what is observed amongst people of the Nation I answer that if your works were wrought in that charity which is agreeable to the nature of God then you could not yield your bodies to comply with such things as are contrary to God and though your customs and fashions may be sutable to the People of the Nation yet they are no way sutable to the Truth or to the People that live in it and so your charity customs and fashions are only to please your selves which displeaseth God and if you will search your inwards with the Light you may find Darkness and Death reigning and the true Seed oppressed and mourning and if you were in true charity you would regard the groans of the oppressed and the afflictions of the afflicted and not exalt your selves in your fleshly liberty to encrease the burthen but Phoraoh is hard-hearted and hath neither love nor pity and in hardness he ruleth and will not obey the Lord and that which you serve and worship is an Idol which darkness hath formed in you and being affected with it you rejoyce in your outward liberty as if it were allowed from a true inward ground and you will not have the Ark of God set up lest your Idol should fall before it and so your hearts are after your Idol and not after the Lord and you will not admit of reproof to come near you but in a strong confidence of the inwards resists that dispensation as not belonging to you when indeed both your liberty and confidence are reproveable as the off-spring of a corrupted stock and with that you keep the good Seed in bondage and bringeth forth fruit of another nature and what then is the inwards which you answer but the spirit of darkness from which you have your liberty in common customs fashions and vanities for the true Light redeems out of such things as it is obeyed and followed and whilst you live in such things you walk in Darkness and not in the Light and in Darkness you crucifie the Lord of Life and put him to open shame for your outward conversation doth not answer Christ as an inward principle but you bring forth open deeds that putteth Christ to open shame and that is the false birth in its false liberty and this is truth unto your conditions though some of you may still say as you have done that things come too lightly but it is in the airy spirit in your selves that is light and would be eased of the weighty power for that spirit doth not like the Power should deal with it because the power dealeth truly and plainly and cannot dissemble and flatter and what have you done since you turned against the testimony of the power have you gathered the Scattered or have you not been scattering and so have neither done good to your selves nor others for the love which you pretend to all doth not really extend to any but such as can esteem you and preferr you and in your liberty have familiarity with you for if any faithfully reprove you in your liberty then your spirit soon lusteth to envy and though you please your selves with your pretended general love as if it were so near the Nature of God yet your love is not of him nor from him nor to him but is of and from and to your selves and so your love is to Esau and not to Jacob and that love is contrary to the nature of God and both your love and envy are from one ground for you have a secret way to strengthen your hands against the Son and Heir and if you can stop or hinder or draw any from the Truth you put forth your strength to do it but how do you stop or hinder or draw any from vanity you can let that alone and have pleasure amongst such a people and is that the love and tenderness which ye have to God and his Truth or is it not plainly manifest to be the contrary it is plainly seen in the Light though in darkness you may not see it and notwithstanding your secret working against the Truth you cannot hinder Truth from prospering you may possibly stop or hinder some for joyning to it and also may draw some unstable minds from the profession of it but Truth springs and prospers and spreads and is honorable and many tender desires that joyns unto it comes to be satisfied in it and if you had eyes to see you might behold the mighty work of God by his Power and your work profits nothing but the natural man perceiveth not the things of God and whilst you look with that eye the things of God are not perceived by you and not perceiving the things of God you prefer your natural work as the highest attainment and indeed it is high and as a high thing must fall and then you will know that it is not the highest attainment of Truth but high conceitedness in your fleshly liberty and confidence and that will be the end of your Idol Now if the grain that is sown do not die it abideth alone but if it put off its first body through death it quickens again and so taketh root downwards and then riseth and springeth upwards by which the nature of the Seed is again manifest in its own body and so according to the will of the Creator there is a harmony in the Creation to further production and in that course are all things revived to manifest the nature of their seed And you that look so lightly at what hath or may be mentioned concerning you as not worth the mentioning as in one of your Papers is expressed and so would not be counted such as joyns and hath fellowship with the world and what would you be counted in your customs fashions and vanities would you be counted such as are redeemed out of the world if you would be counted such then you would be counted better then you are and that is deceit but time will make all things â—anifest and if you would be counted Christians and Saints then you must walk in the Light that sanctifieth and not walk in darkness that defileth and where you say in one of your Papers That you do not find in the Scriptures that any were called the Church of Christ but such as received his doctrine then you are to prove by plain Scripture that your faith doctrine and practise are the same with such as received Christ Doctrine and were his Church First That your Faith concerning the nature and manifestation of Christ is the same Secondly That the
A Few VVords unto a PARTICULAR PEOPLE THe People unto whom this following matter relateth are such as holdeth an Inward Principle but in practice do not answer the true Light and many of them formerly met together at Nottingham Castle and were generally known by the name of the Castle Company and I have lately had to do with some of them in a private way of writing and the Papers that I received were subscribed by Rice Joanes Anthony Hutchinson Fortune Burroughs Isaac Baker Elizabeth Parsons and John Lauson and in my last I did enjoyn them to publish what had passed between us by causing it to be printed with what more they had to say but since I have not heard any thing of it and though these people are found opposite to the principle and practice of the People called Quakers yet they have never manifest wherein they err or fall short of Truth in the general and some of these people that once had a sence of Truth as in the Light it was manifest but they did not abide in the fear and Counsel of God and so lost the right way in the beginning and then turned against the Testimony of the Power and fled the Cross and many were simply betrayed by giving up their belief to the Doctrine then propounded but the Lord hath gathered some from amongst them who in the Truth are a good savor to the honour of it Now these people have taken up a belief that they may keep their inward unto God and yield their bodies to comply with outward things and in that belief they take liberty in common Customs and Fashions as if such things were of no concernment in matters of Faith and Conscience and that doth clearly evidence that their inward Principle is not of God for where the Spirit of God is the inward Principle it disposes the body by its own Power and thereby the Conversation comes to be holy and without blame and body soul and spirit glorifieth God as being his mark the body soul and spirit are all to be disposed in a right order to Gods glory and if the body comply with outward things and the mind otherwise reserved it is a mental reservation or if the mind comply with the body in such things as are manifestly contrary to the true inward principle then the true principle is transgressed and it is altogether against the outward sufferings of the Prophets Christ and the Apostles who suffereâ— for the Testimony of Truth and a good Conscience and their bodies suffered for being faithfull to their inward principle and they did not seek a way to escape sufferings by reserving their inward principle and yielding their bodies to comply with outward things but they testified to the truth of their inward principle and against such things as were contrary to it and so they exercised a Conscience void of offence towards God and man and if the inward principle of these people was that Spirit which testified in the Prophets Christ and the Apostles then they could not live in such things as the Prophets Christ and the Apostles reproved and as they live in such things it is manifest that they dispose themselves in their liberty for their own pleasure and security and the spirit which they are under perswades them to be reserved in their inwards and then giveth a seeming satisfaction and peace in what is done and the generallity of these people are much to be pittied who have given up themselves to believe such an error with confidence for neither their foundation nor building are of God but they have layed a foundation in the earthly wisdom and builds upon it with their own reasoning and so are not in Paradise where man was placed in his innocency but possesseth Cain's City in the Land of Nod. Now in the beginning the wise Creator made all things good and he formed man of the Dust of the Ground and into his nostrils he breathed the breath of life and man became a living Soul and the form was his Body which as a vessel was prepared to contain the excellency of that pure living breath and as man stood in communion with the Light Power and Wisdom of his Creator his outward Form Vessel or Body was equally qualified with the Virtues and Graces of the same Nature and so he was the Image of God by creation and his outward Body was ordered by his inward Principle but when he transgressed his inward Principle his outward Body lost the qualifications of the Vertues and Graces that were in it and there he died and then the outward Body became tainted with qualifications of darkness and in the Loyn of the fallen Posterity darkness ruleth the Body and so the Body is ordered by another spirit then what ordered in the beginning and in that spirit is the fleshly liberty of the Body and that is a degeneration from the Spirit by which the Body was ordered before transgression And you that are concerned in this matter may do well to consider your own bodies for however it was in times past as to outward bodies yet you cannot deny your own and do you not understand generation and by what generation is maintained and seeing you have outward bodies it concerns you to mind what spirit governs them and what you yield your bodies to comply withal for it is certain that the body which complies with common customs fashions and vanities is not governed by the true Spirit and that your bodies do so comply is evident by your practice and will you deny the body to be the workmanship of God and if it be his workmanship then is it not concerned to serve and honour him and doth it not serve and honour him when by his Spirit it is governed and doth it not the contrary when it complies with such things as are contrary to his Spirit and so the body is concerned in matters of Faith and Conscience as by the true Spirit it is ordered and governed because in that state it standeth in unity with the Light Power Life and Wisdom which is the Heavenly Treasure and so the Apostle testified of the Treasure in the earthen vessel and what was the earthen vessel in which they had the Treasure and did they hide the Treasure in the earthen vessel that it should not be known or did they not preach it that others might believe in it and have benefit by it and did they not thank God who manifested the savor of his knowledge by them in every place and so they did not walk in craftiness or handle the Word of God deceitfully but by manifestation of the Truth commended themselves to every mans Conscience in the sight of God for they were not ashamed of the Gospel because they preached not themselves but Christ Jesus the Lord and so they were in the universal Spirit and communicated their Treasure according to the Wisdom they received it in and in that their Light did shine before
Doctrine which by you is held forth and maintained is the same Thirdly That your practise in Burrying Marrying Swearing You to a single person observing Dayes and Times paying Tythes honouring Persons distinction by Titles naming Dayes and Moneths Feasting and needless things about Apparel are the same Now if you cannot prove by plain Scripture that in these things you are the same with such as received Christ's doctrine then it must needs follow that ye live after the flesh and not in the Spirit so if you can make these things good by plain Scripture then you may be further tried and if you cannot then it will plainly appear that you differ from such as received Christ's Doctrine and were his Church and you cannot in honesty deny your error and as for the Papers your publication is still expected as being your proper place to do it and when things are publickly brought forth by your own hands then your matter may either be fully answered or confessed and in the mean time consider patiently whether these things be not worth the mentioning and your diligent observing for if such of you as have any simplicity will be mindfull you may come to know a more excellent Treasure then ye have treasured up and a more comely Garment then ye have put on for your treasure is cankered and your garment moth-eaten and so you dwell with the consumer and not with the preserver Friends If you will own the Scriptures you cannot deny but the Light with which Christ lighteth every man that comes into the world is true and as you are come into the world so a measure of that Light which is true is in you and if you obey another thing you obey that which is false and so are guided by a false Principle and that is your error wherein you resist the Truth for if you were guided with the true Light then all your words and works would be according to the Truth and there you would feel the Cross to your outward liberty and Judgment to take hold upon the Transgressor and so come to be redeemed up to God by the work of his Power for your own wisdom and reasoning strengthneth the Body of sin and death but the power maketh free in the glorious liberty and there is the cross to all fleshly motions and by that the Son comes to be known and life in him and they that have the Son have life and they that have not the Son have not life and such are dead in trespasses and sins and this is unto you that are simple-minded for in true tenderness you are pitied as a people ensnared for in a snare you are taken and held and the King and Queen of Babylon triumph over you Oh that such of you as have been carried away with a strong voice might now hearken to his voice who calls behind you that the Light may become your Leader and Teacher for subtilty hath deceived you and by deceiving hath power to rule over you and if you will not hear when the Lord calleth then when you call he will not answer Friends it is the bread that comes done from Heaven that satisfieth the hungry and that bread you want and satisfies your selves with Earthly vapors and so you lie smothered and seeth not the Son of God and that is certainly your conditions in Captivity and by the Rivers of that Land the true birth sitteth weeping and cannot sing the Lords Songs Nottingham the 3d Moneth 1669. Your Friend in that Love which seeks your Eternal good William Smith THE END