answerable to that and where it speaks contrary he invents a way to make it comply and so wrests Scriptures forward backward to make them speak agreable to what he has already received and beleeved Thus every sort of persons papists and protestants bend the Scriptures to make them speak conformable to their opinions and practises not having the true learning which gives to read them in the true Originall where the knowledge of what they speak and meane is certaine and so they are also unstable and subject to be shaken by a wind of reason which is stronger then their own And this wresting of Scripture is to their own destruction for that part which is so much as desirous to bend a Scripture is to be destroyed and that part cannot receive the true knowledge but stumbles in its own wisdome and way of seeking at the wisdome of Cod and at the true way of finding But the foregoing councill faithfully hearkened unto will preserve out of this and also bring to the true means and to the true use of the means which all nations who have drunk of the whores cup have erred concerning and taken the false for the true The strength of this wine hath made all nations peoples tongues and languages to mistake who in the heat of their drinke have cryed up the means the means the ordinances the ordinances c. not perceiving how this heat came from the spirits of the whores wine and not from the sober meek calm gentle leadings of the Spirit of Christ and so in a fleshly zeale have set up the whores means instead of the lambs means and contend for them with the whores spirit and weapons Now it is impossible for any man so much as to know the true means till the whores wine be purged out of him for that will make him erre in judgment and take the false for the true And which way shall he ever come to the Kingdome which has lighted upon the wrong means or how shall he ever come to the true means who never yet saw the witchery of the whorish spirit from the life and how he himselfe has been bewitcht and cosened with the false instead of the true as for instance Prayer that is generally taken for a means Aske and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened to you If Parents which are evill know how to give good gifts to their children how much more shall the heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that aske him This therefore is an undoubted thing that prayer is a means Answ. True there is a prayer which is a means and there is a prayer which is not a means There is a prayer which is an ordinance and there is a prayer which is an invention There is a prayer which is the breath of the true child and there is a prayer which is the breath of the fleshly part a breath of the whorish spirit There is a prayer of the first birth and there is a prayer of the second birth both which cry and weep to God for the same-thing Now the one of these is the true means the other not one of them is Christs ordinance the other is antichrists ordinance Now the question is which of these thy prayer is whether it be thine own breath or Gods breath whether it come from the renewings of the Spirit of life or from thine own naturall part painted for accordingly it is either the true means or the false means If it be the true means it shall have the thing the Spirit the life the kingdome it prayes for if it be the false means it can never obtain it Papists they pray Protestants they pray some in forms some without forms some meditating before hand some not meditating are all these the true means or are any of them the true means The breath of the true child is the only true prayer and he prayes only in the moving and in the leading of that Spirit that begat him and this is a prayer according to the will in the life and from the power But all mens prayers according to times they set the themselves or according to formings of desires in their own minds which they offer up to God with the nature and heart that sinneth against him these are false means and may satisfie the drunken spirit erred from the liâ—e but are no means to the truth Canst thou pray how camest thou to learn to pray wast thou taught from above or didst thou gain the skill and abillity by the exercise and improvement of thine own naturall part Didst thou begin with sighs and groans staying there till the same spirit that taught thee to groan taught thee also to speak Wast thou ever able to distinguish the sighs and groans of the Spirits begetting from the sighs and groans of thy own naturall and affectionate part and hath that part with all its sighingâ— groaning desires endeavours c been thrust aside and the seed immortall raised by the Spirit of eternall life which teacheth to cry and mourn and at length to speak to the Father for the preservation and nourishment of its life If it hath been thus with thee then thou hast known that prayer which is the true means But if otherwise though thou pray never so long and with never so great affections and strong desires this is all but the fals means with its fals warmth from the fall fire this is but the means which the whorish Spirit which is not in union with the life and power but keeps the seed in bandage has set up instead of the true means And this can never lead to truth but keeps alive Gods enemy under this pleasant covering neither is this the worship of the living God but as it is from another spirit so it is to another spirit O learn to be sober come out of this drunken fury and consider things mildly and seriously Do not make a great outcry of ordinances ordinances the means the means This is the voyce of the clamorous woman who with her loud noise would fain keep you from listning after the still voyce of true wisdome which cannot be heard in the midst of this great noise and hurry in your spirits but consider which are the true ordinances which are the true means which are the likenesses man has framed and which is the true thing it self And if ye could once be mild gentle and calm turn from your own wisdome and fleshly knowledge of things it might please God to remove your stumbling blocks and to open that eye in you which can see the antichristian nature and discern between the coverings which it hath formed to hide its deceitfull spirit under and the true garment and cloathing of life But the seed of the Kingdome is little and ye are great how can ye enter into it the pearl lies hid in the field and ye are gazing up to Heaven how
hath not the Son hath not the true faith which immediately receives him and so is no Christian but hath stoln the name from the letter having never received the nature from the Spirit to which alone the name belongs X. He that hath Christ or the seed of eternall life which is Christ formed in him which seed the Spirit alwayes dwels in and utaer is absent from which is the same Spirit which gave forth the Scriptures he is a capacity of understanding those Scriptures which that Spirit gave forth as that spirit leads him into the understanding of them But he that hath not received that which is like the grain of mustard seed and so hath not Christ nor his Spirit what ever he may pretend to he by all his studies arts languages reading of expositors conferences nay experiences can never come to the true knowledge of the Scriptures for he wants the true key which alone can open He may have got a great many wrong keys none of which can open but wants the true key of the true knowledge and so is shut out of that and only let into such a kind of knowledge as the wrong key can open into And with this kind of knowledg the marchants of Babilon have long traded but their day is expiring apace and their night of lamentation and howling hasteneth XI Though he can understand the Scriptures as the Spirit leads him into the knowledge of them and can set his zeal to the truth of them yet he cannot call them his rule for having received the life for his rule and knowing it to be so he cannot call another thing it He that hath received the new covenant into his heart with the laws of the life thereof written there by the Spirit of life who doth write them there even in the least of all that beleeve as wel as in the greatest he knoweth that this living writing is his rule The Scriptures give relation where the covenant and law of life is writ and if I will read it thither must I go whither the Scriptures point me I must go to Christ the book of life and read there with that eye which Christ gives if I read the things of life And the Scriptures are willing to surrender up their glory to Christ who was before them and is above them and shall be after them but there is a false spirit which hath seated it selfe in a litterall knowledge of the Scriptures and hath formed images and likenesses of truth from it every one after the imaginations of his own heart and all these fall if Christ the life appear and so this Spirit cryes up the Scriptures now in a way of deceit just as the Jews cryed up Moses It was a good remove to withdraw the ear from the false Church and to listen to the true testimony which the Scriptures give of Christ but it is the seducing spirit which tempts to stick by the way and to rear up buildings and forms of knowledge from the letter of the Scriptures and not to come to feel after unity with and live in Christ the life And unlesse ye come to this your reading of the Scripture is vain and all your gathering rules of practise and comforts from promises will end in vanity for untill ye know and have received the thing it selfe ye are at a distance from that to which all belongs A lively and glorious testimony of truth hath God held forth in this age at which all that stick in the letter cannot but stumble and there is no possibillity of knowing or receiving it but by feeling the true touch of the inward life of it Wisdome is justified of her children but they that are not born of her cannot justifie her womb or birth To the Jews who were an outward people there was an outward rule given a law of commandements statutes judgements and ordinances proper to that state wherein they were and to that thing to which the ministry was But all this was to be done away and to end in that which all this represented So that to Christians Christ the substance being come which is the end of all these shadows the true Jew being raised in the immediate life now there is a necessity of the immediate life for the rule To them under the Gospel to them who are come to the substance to them who are begotten and born in the life there can be norule proportionable to their state but Christ the substance Christ the life here he alone is the light the way the truth the rule the Spirit is here the rule the new creature the rule the new covenant the rule all which are in unity together and he that hath one of them hath them all and he that hath not them all hath none of them So that directions taken out of the Scripture cannot be the rule to him who is the true Christian but the measure of grace the measure of light the measure of the Spirit the measure of the gift received into the living soule from the spring of life this is the alone rule of life But Christians in the degeneration have lost this and so have taken up words for a rule which were not given to that end and so with deductions by the earthly part they feed the earthly part What is fed by mens Scripture knowledge but the earthly understanding the earthly will heated the earthly affections warmed and of the fruits of this earth they bring sacrifices to God and they are angry that God hath raised up Abel their younger brother who offers up the Lamb of God to God and serves the living God in his own living spirit and with the faith that comes from him Abels religion stands not in that part wherein all other mens religion stands but in the death of that part and in the raising up of another part wherein life springs Can ye mildly receive these gentle leadings do not provoke the the tender heart of the Lamb against you who also hath the voice of a Lyon and can roar terribly out of his holy mountain against the enemies of his life and Spirit A Necessary warning and of very great importance to all that call themselves Christians and hope for a share in the book of life and the escaping the damnation of hell which is their portion whose names are written in the booke of death and blotted by God out of the book of life though they hope to find them written there Here and consider IT is recorded Rev. 22. 18 19. If any man shall adde unto these things God shall adde unto him the plagues that are written in this book And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy City and from the things which are written in this book Great are the plagues that are written in this book even the powring out of eternall
THE AXE LAID TO THE ROOT OF THE OLD CORRVPT-TREE AND The Spirit of deceit struck at in its nature from whence all the error from the life among both Papists and Protestants hath arisen and by which it is nourished and fed at this Day In a Distinction between the Faith which is of man and the Faith which is of GOD And in some Assertions concerning true Faith its nature rise c. It s receiving of Christ its abiding and growing in his living Vertue With a warning concerning adding and diminishing from the Scripture in generall and the Prophesies of the Revelation in particular Discovering what it is and the great danger of it with the only way of preservation from it where is added a Short touch about the Use of Means As also a brief History concerning the state of the Church since the dayes of the Apostles With an Exhortation to the present Age By the movings of the Life in a friend to the Living truth of the most High God but an utter enemy to the spirit of error and blasphemy where ever it is found as well in the strictest of the Protestants as among the grossest of the Papists Isaac Penington the younger LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Lodowick Lloyd at his shop next the Castle in Cornhill 1659. THE PREFACE THere was a glorious day and bright appearance of truth in the times of the Apostles They had the true Comforter who led them into all truth and kept them alive in truly and truth alive in them By this Spirit they as living stones were built up a spirituall house founded upon Sion the holy mount into Jerusalem the holy City which is the church of the living God the pillar and gâ—ound of truth And here they had their conversation in heaven with God the Judge of all with Christ the Mediatour and with the Spirits of â—ust men and the holy Angels which alwayes behold the face of God They lived in the Spirit they walked in the Spirit they prayed in the Spirit they sung in the Spirit they worshipped in the Spirit and in that understanding which the truth had made free and had God dwelling with them and Christ walking in the midst of them and by the presence and power of his life in them were truly dead unto sin and alive unto God they being not strivers against sin with mans legall spirit but by the power of grace which made them more then conquerours through him that loved them This was part of the glory of that state in that day of the Sunshine of the Gospel But behold a thick night of darknesse overspread the beauty of this Some false brethren went out from the true Church into the world getting the Sheeps cloathing making a great outward appearance and drew the world after them yea and some from the very Churches themselves how hard was the Apostle Paul fain to plead with the Corinthians about his own Apostleship and Doctrine that he might preserve that Church from the false Apostles And when they had gathered a sufficient party in the world they made head against the true sheep lambs of Christ fought with them and overcame them And when they had overcome them that had the living testimony of Jesus and the true power and presence of the Spirit among them they set up their own dead form making a cry all over the nations of the earth Revelation is ceased there is no looking now for such an infallible spirit and such immediate teachings as the christians had in the Apostles dayes who had the anointing to teach them all things but they point men to traditions to the church as they call it which title the whore hath engrossed since the dayes of the Apostles or to searchings of the Scriptures and reading expositions upon it and bodies of divinity formed by the understanding part in man to instruct the understading part Thus the whole course of religion and of the knowledge of God came to be out of that Spirit and life wherein it first came forth and wherein it first stood and consisted in doctrines of men and a form of worship and knowledge which the wisdome of man had framed in an imitation of that which formerly stood in the life And now men being gone from the life from the Spirit and his immediate teachings into an outward form of knowledge and worship of God in the wrong nature now Antichrist is got up and the Dragon sits in the Temple appearing there as if he were God giving out laws and ordinances of worship in publique and putting men upon duties and exercises of devotion in private and he is obeyed and bowed down to in the observation of these but the true living God is not known nor his secret still voyce which calls out of these heard because of the great noise which the Dragon makes in his Temple for so it is now he having gained it though it was once Gods about his laws and ordinances of worship which he would have all compelled to and none suffered to testifie against them that they are his and not the Lords Yet it pleased the Lord all the night of this darknesse to raise up some witnesses against the Dragon and all his invented forms of worship though they were still hunted persecuted knocked down and their testimony cryed out against as error heresie schism and blasphemy and the wayes worships and ordinances of the whore the beast and the dragon still cryed up as the truth Thus the Papists they cryed out against the Protestanus as heretiques and schismatiques who were witnesses against them and the Protestants they cryed out against the non-conformists seperatists and brownists who were witnesses against them and every sect cries out most against them who are led further from the apostacy and raised up by the Lord as witnesses against them against their setting down in their forme and not pursuing the guidance of that spirit which would lead them quite out of the darknesse and not have them sit down by the way Now the Lord God in these latter dayes hath not only raised up witnesses against the Whore the Dragon the Beast the false Prophets with all their inventions which they have set up instead of the truth but hath assayed and begun to deliver his people out of this Egyptian darknesse and to bring them back to the light of the land of Canaan And now great enemies have appeared the sons of the night exceedingly strengthening themselves to keep out the day light every one crying up his own form and all joyning hand in hand against the power yea that spirit which first tempted from God is exceeding busie to cause those whom the Spirit the Lord hath been drawing out of the land of darknesse to make a Captain to return to Egypt or at least to sit down in some form or some pleasant notion of things by the way not to follow the Lord through all his intricate
and blasphemed those that lye still under any of the beasts forms they go for good Christians for members of the visible Church â—o called by them Now mark He that calls any thing the Church but what this book calls the Church he adds he that doth not know the wildernesse and own the Church in the wildernesse he diminishes The Church of Rome is not the Church in the wildernesse the Church of Scotland is not the Church is the wildernesse the Church of England is not the Church in the wildernesse the severall gathered Churches are none of them the Church in the wilderness all these have sprung up since the Churches flight and have appeared in her abâ—ence usurping her name appropriating it to themselves but God who gave it to the Church hath not given it them and so they must loose it again when God brings back the Church out of the wildernesse So he that calls those which formerly wâ—re the institutions and ordinances of Christ which the woman left behinde her and which the harlot hath got and attired her self with which she now appears in and wherewith the Dragon is now worshipped he adds to this book which sayes the outward court was given to the Gentiles and the true Church had nothing left her but the inward temple wherein alone the true worshippers worshipped and they that worship elsewhere are the fals worshippers worshipping in false Temples in Temples of the whorish spirits building take it either outwardly or inwardly for it holds true in both He that makes the beasts names fewer then they are or his marks fewer then they are or his hornes fewer then they are or his image lesse then it is be diminishes And the danger hereof is not small For if any man worship the beast and his image and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand the same shall drinke of the wine of the wrath of God which is powred out without mixture into the cup of his indignation and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy Angels and in the presence of the Lamb and the smoak of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever And they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name Rev. 14. 9. c. Now this I affirm whosoever has not the name of Sion the mark of Sion which he received of her in the wildernesse where the living God is with her and where he is taught by God the laws of the wildernesse-worship and in some measure to testifie against all the corrupted ordinances and institutions which have the beasts marks and go now abroad in the world under the beasts name I say whoever has not the true mark of Sion it is impossible for him to avoid the mark of Babilon and he who avoids not the mark cannot escape the plagues But he that hath the mark of Sion he by a secret inward instinct of true life is led from the marks of Babilon and if he faithfully follow the guidance from out of all the names and from under all the horns It is nor enough to rent from Popery and sit down under the power and government of the same spirit in another form or to rent from Episcopacy and the same spirit sit down in Presbitery or to rent from Presbitery and the same spirit sit down in a form of Independency or Anabaptisme or to rent from these and the same spirit sit down in a way of seeking and waiting and reading of words of Scripture and gathering things from thence without the life but the true religion consists in knowing and following a true guide to the Church in the wildernesse and there to receive the marke the living marke which will preserve out of all inventions and further progresse of the dead spirit Now therefore look about you know the spirit of whoredom and see how ye have been begotten in the adultery and born of the whore and have served the Dragon and worshipped his dead idols and not the living God And be not satisfied with changing of forms dresses which are but the several deceitful appearances of the whore but put off that spirit least when ye have hated the whore and burnt her flesh as she appeared in one form ye give your selves up to her again when she appears in another forme for the plagues are not so much to the form wherein the whore appears as to the whorish spirit and whosoever is found under her dominion in any of her territories under any of her formes with that mark of hers upon them which belongs to that particular form though never so curiously painted he shall drink of the unmixt cup of wrath Therefore tremble all sorts of people pluck off your false coverings see the shame of your nakednesse while it may be for your advantage so to doe The Angel is gone forth the corn is reaping and gathering into the garner many Lambs are brought into the fold of everlasting rest Sion is redeeming the true life is rising the whorish spirit is judging the dore of life is yet open doe not lye secure in the whores wisdome Do not lye slumbering and reasoning and disputing from the letter of the Scripture till the gathering be finished till the doore be shut till the eternall flames seize upon you and ye find your selves in the bosome of hell unawares and see the children of the Kingdom in Abrahams bosom but your selves shut out and left to weep and waile and gnash your teeth Quest But how may I avoid adding to the things and dimishing from the words of this prophecy and of other Scriptures that I may not meet with the weight of this curse or misse of the blessing Answ. Dost thou ask this question from thy heart in the simplicity out of the fleshly wisdome then hearken with that ear and thou shalt set thy seal to mine answer 1. Wait for the key of knowledge which is Gods free gift Do not go with a false key to the Scriptures of truth for it will not open them Man is too hasty to know the meaning of the Scriptures and to enter into the things of God and so he climbs up over the doore with his own understanding but he has not patience to wait to know the door and to receive the key which opens and shuts the doore and by this means he gathers death out of words which came from life And this I dare positively affirme that all that have gone this way to work have but a dead knowledge and it is death in them that feeds upon this knowledg and the life is not raised Consider now the weight of this councill in the true ballance There is no opening of the Scriptures but by the true key nor is there any coming at the key till the Lord please to give it What then is to be done but only to wait in the silence of that
can ye see it Christ is descended into the lower parts of the earth and ye are using means to ascend upwards in the wrong nature how can ye meet with him the Gospel hath been hid the Sun hath not shined it hath been night and ye have got many fals candles which way can ye acknowledge the little glimmering of the day star who have such satisfaction in the warmth of your false fires ye are far from the true light who have not yet received so much of it as to discover the darknesse of the night Ye are too high too wise too knowing for Christ or for the sight and acknowledgment of the true means which lead to life And if ye could once come to see this there might be some hope but in that wisdome wherein your life and knowledge stands ye are shut out and ye are reasoning and stumbling at the stone while others who are broken in spirit and in meeknesse and humility led to try find it a sure foundation even a foundation of eternall life for the true seed of life and are built into the living City which is made without hands and without any of the tools of mans wisdome A Brief History of the state of the Church since the dayes of the Apostles with the living seal to it which he that hath eternall life abiding in him can read and witnes but that wisdom zeal and devotion which is in the death cannot AFter the universal degeneration and corruption of the Jewish state and the putting an end to the shadows thereof by the appearance and succession of the substance it pleased God to dissolve that people state and pollicy and by the power of his life without either the wisdome or strength of man to set upon the heathenish world which he subdued and brought under the power of his life By his Apostles and messengers who preached the everlasting Gospel the word of eternall life he gathered assemblies up and down the nations whom the nations by all their persecutions could not subject but they reigned over them in the power authority and dominion of God For they were Kings and Priests to God in the sight of all the Nations and they did reign upon the earth in somuch as the heathenish spirit of man observing their order in the Spirit and the wisdom and power of the Spirit among them who by his living light was able to search the hearts of those that came to observe them could not but acknowledge that God was in them of a truth Now the next thing to be expected is Satans opposition against this power of life his stratagems to undermine it He withstood the growth and settlement of the Church all that he could by open force making use both of the heathenish devout worshippers who fought for their Jupiter their Diana and other gods and goddesses and of the Jewish devout worshippers who fought for their Temple-worship with the Laws and ordinances of Moses which were now expired But neither of these would doe but the Church in the power of life gained ground upon him and did rather thrive and increase then diminish by this opposition Therefore now he falls to this stratagems he gets some false brethren out of the Church they went out from us these he cloaths as Angels of light puts the sheeps cloathing on their wolvish nature makes them appear as like the Apostles as may be endues them with an excellent taking knowledge of life and spirituallity in appearance forms in them an image of the truth and inspires this image with the spirit of his own life and with these he goes forth into the world and gathers the world about him Now the world was presently taken with this the world went after him for this is that the world would have an appearance of religion an image of truth but their own spirit in it The worldly spirit that flies off from the life from the power can readily close with this because it is its own Bring forth never so high notions of religion and spirituall wisdome the world will hug them the world will feed on them the world will cloath it selfe with them The world can swallow and digest any thing but life Any pleasant picture of things in heaven will down with the world but the nature the life the truth the Spirit Christ in his true arid living crosse this will not down with the world Now the Devil having thus set up his false image in the world and gathered a party after him then he sets upon the Church and the battel goeth very hard life striving to defend and death to overcome How hard did the Apostles strive in their day to keep their converts to the simplicity of truth to the way therof which even then began to be evill spoken of writing Epistles to the Churches warning them of the false Apostles and wishing them to stand their ground yea Christ himselfe writes severall Epistles from heaven to some of them cheking their backslidings and encouraging them to renew their zeal and strength putting them in mind of the Crown which attended the victory But at length the Divill with his stratagems prevails gets the possession of the Churches territories and the Church is faine to fly for her preservation and such of her seed as are left behind her the enemy makes war against slayes drinks their bloud Now here 's an end of all the glory of that state now the Divil hath gained the world again The same spirit that lost it under the heathenish power for there he was conquered recovers it under an Antichristian appearance setting up the same wickednes and the same course and current of death under forms of Antichristian religion as he had done before under forms of Heathenish devotion Thus the Devil being conquerour having gained the field he divides the spoils among his army he takâ—s whatever was the Churches and make his own and ranks them in his way of Antichristian religion and devotion so that now hence forward those things which were once Christs and the Churches they are noâ— all his and distributed by him among his followers He gives the name Church to the whore which he sets up he gives the name Christian to his Disciples he prescribes baptisme and the Supper which he calls Sacraments and praying and preaching and singing which he calls publique ordinances and be prescribes private duties and exercises of devotion and he gets the letter of the Scriptures and forms multitudes of meanings and expositions and has lying signs and wonders for such as need them that he might keep all the severall Brigades of his army quiet under his pay and might have some pleasing wares of traffick for every sort of his Merchants in his Babilon For this is the City of that King which he built after his conquest over the life and which he hath enriched with the spoils from the life And here all his subjects shall have content they