back But Secondly To what must they be turned I answer The Conscript first-fruits shall as Elijah and John did in Types Turn the hearts of the Fathers to their Children the hearts of Children to their Fathers and the disobedient to the wisdom of the Just that is to do right and shew mercy in a four-fold conformity lest God come and smite the Earth with a curse Malach 4.6 Luke 1.16 17. And Thirdly What is that curse or what are the dangers if the hearts of Men and Saints are not turned back from those now more than ever swelling sins I answer The Old World hearkened not to Noahs Sackcloth-Prophesie but remained inanimadversive minded nothing and knew nothing till the Flood came saith the Text Therefore God smote the Earth with a curse destroyed the World Apostate Israel hearkened not to Elijah's and the Prophets Sackcloth-Prophesie for 1260 days and the restraint of Rain continued so long Had it continued longer it had cut off Man and Beast So the Antitype-Apostasie hearkened not to the Witnesses Prophesying in Sackcloth for 1260 years They yet repented not saith the Text Therefore The neglected and not regarded Witnesses smote the Earth with all plagues and with the plague of all plagues the restraint of the Rain of Spiritual Graces in the days of the 1260 years of their Sackcloth-Prophesie Wherefore Should not their hearts be turned back at last nothing could be expected but that the curse threatened should devour the Earth Therefore hath the curse devoured the Earth saith the Text Isa 24.6 The Earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it It shall fall and not rise again vers 9. Lastly Babylon the great came in remembrance before God to give unto her the Cup of the Wine of the fierceness of his wrath Ch. 16.19 The Old Apostate World was drowned with water But the Antitype-Apostasie shall be drunk with the Wine of the fierceness of the wrath of God Jerem. 25.15 27 c. The Wine of the fierceness of bis wrath This is an expression that a man would think could scarcely be exprest and the plague thereby threatned is the plague of all plagues From all the plagues wherewith the Sackcloth-Wituesses smote the Earth and principally from this Plague may all Men and Saints have great cause to say good Lord deliver us Thus we see the dangers are most dreadful and superabundant if the hearts of Men and Saints are not turned back from the sins aforesaid But they may say we see the dangers sufficiently and that the Plagues are like the curse laid upon Cain greater than we can possibly bear But where 's our safety wherein consists our remedy I answer Fourthly The safeties of Men and Saints consist in having their hearts turned back from those sins aforesaid in getting like those Harpers the Harps of God in learning their Song not in deceit but in deed and in flying from Sinai to Mount Sion as Lot to Zoar For those Harpers shall be the first-fruits redeemed from the Earth and from among men Ch. 14.3 4. to wit from those sius aforesaid and from those dreadful Plagues they produce For they shall not be defiled with Women vers 4. and therefore shall not worship Idols nor act Spiritual Fornications Their worship shall be according to the sincerity of the simplicity in Christ and the practice of it wrought in a fore-fold conformity of Truth contrary to the prevaricatory multiplicity of Antichrist in deceitful pretences delays and half-performances Such shall be the fruits of those first-fruits in Antitype Ston where safeties shall clothe the conscript-Church as dangers compassed her about before in the Spiritual-Wilderness There shall in no wise enter any thing that defileth neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lye Ch. 21.27 There shall be no faithless dealers nor false accusers Therefore there shall be no more curse Ch. 22.3 There a River of Water of Life shall refresh the City of God and the Tree of Life shall afford food for her Inhabitants And the leaves of that Tree shall be to heal the Nations That is To turn their hearts back that so they may be safe Ch. 22.1 2. Turn us again O God and we shall be saved Psal 80.3 Turn us again O God of Hosts and we shall be saved vers 7. Turn us again O Lord God of Hosts and we shall be saved vers 19. This petition we see is three times exprest in the same Psalm And this assertion we shall be saved is thrice annexed to that Prayer This Prayer is the Prayer of these times I wish with all my heart That all Ministers and Magistrates Men and Saints would make this seasonable Formula the Patern of their Prayers in this juncture of time and praying continually say Turn us again O God from halting betwixt halves in our Opinions and Practices and we shall be saved Turn us again O God from our disloyal revoltings from Faith and good Manners and from affecting a confident fruitless dead or dying Faith Turn us again O God from the constant Errors of our hearts and our contented ignorance of thy ways and we shall be saved Turn us again O God of Hosts from worshipping the works of our own hands Literal and Spiritual Idols of Gold c. and from our Spiritual and Literal Murders and Sorceries and Fornications and Thefts And we shall be saved For As there is no Name but the Name of Jesus under Heaven by which we can be saved So there is no other way or means on Earth by which Men Saints Sects and all Nations can be safe but by turning from Sinai to Sion from those sins to serve the living God and stand with the Lamb He is and shall be the Rock of safeties to all Ages and to follow his perfect Patern of true Christian practice in a four-fold conformity is as the Fruit only keeps the Tree from being cursed the only outward means thereunto But here I must partly by constraint conclude this first Part because many that promised to futher me are slack in persormance and not a few faln off like Demas through covetousness whereby I am betray'd into the hands of deceitful men drawn into some debt and thereby have suffered long imprisonment Haecreferunt tantos Secula Fabricios Paul was a day and a night in the deep But my dangers are most from the multiplicious dasnings of shallow waters Shallow Professors men of busie ignorance some literate some illiterate have most resisted me retarded this Treatise Such men that cannot read it or not understand what they read have done me as the Copper-Smith did to the Apostle the most harm by their ignorant defaming of Me and It Wherefore I humbly request the truly Learned and Judicious if they find we deserve it to suffer Me and It to Anchor in the safe Harbour of their Candid Favour and Protection Lastly A third cause compelling me is the confident opposition of
bear witness unto the truth John 18.37 38. This is the final cause and supreme end for which Christ was Incarnate Man created Saints regenerated That they should bear witness to the Truth in Words and Works Not in words only as the leaves of a fruitless Tree but in works also as the Fruits All hearing reading preaching praying are but subordinate duties to this supreme end That they should let their works wrought in a foursold conformity so shine before men that they seeing them may glorisie God must be every mans chief christian care But Pilate though much more careful than many strict and Orthodox Professors are was scarce so much as half-careful to make Christs Cause and this Truth in it self Complex or known to himself What is Truth said Pilate and when he had so said he staid not for an answer but went out again to the Jews and said unto them I find in him no fault at all John 18.38 What is Truth A cursory careless Question of regardless Pilate Si licet exemplis in parvo grandibus uti If we may by the Patern of one man manifest the practice of many If we may by the example of one Heathen express the Manners almost of all Modern Christians Then this is their manner of advancing Virtue and the way of their seeking the Truth Sic virtutis Alumni sumus sic Veritatem quaerimus Men and many Saints are now as Pilate was more cursory swister than Asahel in running Doth the cause of the Widow of the Fatherless of the stranger come before them They can run by it or glide over it and take no notice of it Is any thing spoken to them They can run over it by a rash answer before they hear it Is any work in writing requisite to refel errours to reform manners offered to them They can run by it or run over it by a cursory reading and never understand it Is any man faln amongst Thieves and wounded like the Wayfaring man They can run by him and never mind him Is any thing that is right in it self laid before them They can run by it and take no notice of it What may I say of such men of such Saints but this Their feet are swift too swift to shed blood These are not the works of the good Samaritan This is the practice of Pilate Pilate examined Christ once with some seeming meekness and sobriety Thrice did he justifie him as a man in whom he had found no fault Once he washed his hands in water before the multitude to signifie his guiltlessness of his innocent blood Five times did he refist the rash violence of that blind zealous Councel What Professor now or perhaps what Saint would take that care and pains that Pilate took for Christ for the most innocent man manifestly injured Pilate took care for the Pharisees did not not to credit Christ's false-accusers and found them Lyars but Professors now and I am affraid I may say many sealed Saints take little or no care how they credit false accusers according to Scripture-Rule Deut. 19.16 17 18 19. But they by believing their lyes they seeming to them devout and zealous justifie the wicked and condemn the most innocent wherefore eveu Pilate by whose wicked Sentence Christ was condemned and crucified shall rise up in judgment and condemn many careless Modern Professors and Saints But the good Samaritan was faithfully careful to do all good works in a fourfold-conformity He took care for him saith the Text and said to the Host Take care of him Go and do likewise said Christ to all Saints and Professors in all Ages and Nations Lastly Had the good Samaritan poured Wine Oyl into the wounds of the Way-fairing man had he bound up his Wounds had he also given him Money for his relief with a liberal hand and had so left him He had no doubt perished in the place and had been re-exposed to Robbers to kill him outright for that money for all times aftord many Theeves sew Samaritans Such careless care and helpless half-help had not exceeded the Righteousness and Mercy of Locusts Hypocrites And such pains and expences had but been the price the blackest Simony of exemption from performing good Works For Simon the Sorcerer sought to purchase the gifts of the Holy Ghost with money But double-minded men deceive themselves and deceive others with far more depraved Simony in seeking to purchase by careless half-performances not the gifts of the Holy Ghost but their exemption from them or from bringing forth the fruits of them The Man of Sin is a man of mistakes and deceits His coming and continuance was with all deceivableness But this is the Master-piece of deceit Saints scarce excepted in that son of perdition That his Members mistake the purchase of their exemption from good Manner by half-performances for true Christian-practice False sincerity the Parent of half-performances is the Fountain of Deceits in the Apostacy of Antichrist and is it self a deficiency in the knowledg of that Incomplex-truth of degree or quantity and in conforming the Will to the knowledg of it Lovest thou me said Christ to Peter more than these That is Than these Earthly or Wordly things Covetous Professors deceive themselves but can never be sincere nor their practice more than half-performances Peter lovest thou me said Christ Peter reply'd Lord thou knowest that I love thee Feed my sheep said Christ And so he said thrice Covetous professors can never be sincere nor fit to feed Christ's sheep For Covetousness is quite contrary to sincerity which is the Superlative degree in the quantity of love pains and expences to promote the Truth in Doctrine and Practice Had Peter loved the things of this life as much as the living God or as much as his Kingdom and the righteousness thereof he had not been sincere but an Hypocrite in his heart and his Religious actions had been but Hypocritical half-performances Half-performances or a constant falling short of the quantity of love care pains or expences to practice good works are the fruits and infallible Characters of Hypocrites and do denote in incult barren Wilderness-Saints that commonly perform such works great want of sincerity Sincerity is a sufficient care pains and expence to perform good works in a fourfold conformity and such practice is the express command of God Deut. 15.7 8. Thou shalt open thine hand wide to thy poor brother and shalt surely lend him sufficiēnt for his need Thou shalt surely give him and thine heart shall not be grieved vers 10. Shalt surely lend him sufficient Sufficient care pains and charge is the substance of sincerity and the due measure of Right and Mercy as we shewed in the foresaid examples of Elisha and the good Samaritan But Quantum deficit deficient care pains and charge is the false measure of Impostors in the Apostacy of Antichrist And the fruit of it the deceitful price of exemption from the practice of good Manners
covetous and his practices partial or but in part And such services to God joyned with covetousness Also all half performances and commixt worshippings of God and Baal Christ and Belial or of God and Mammon and all haltings betwixt two contrary Practices or Opinions are Spiritual Sorceries and are expresly compared to Witchcraft and Idolatry 1 Sam. 15.22 23. Because the best works of such Professors are mixt Heterogene or Lincy-Woolsy works of deceits and wicked exemptions from sincere practice and true obedience Fourthly Nor of their Fornications Literal Fornications in sensual Antichrist are many But the Fornications of the Mystery of Iniquity and these intended in the Text are the same are more Spiritual And what are they When few or many joyn in outward-worship or in any Church-Society to act Spiritual-filthiness That 's Spiritual fornication That is when such come together not for the better but for the worse Not to be more fruitful but more barren in good works when they meet together not to edifie but to increase strise and ignorance This and such like conjoynt-practices are Spiritual fornication It is an absurdity in the very name of a true Church That God should call any people out of the world to practise covetousness Or to become Vines bringing forth if any fruits for themselves for their Proselytes Co-associates nothing for others nor to further any thing that 's profitable or honest But the Conscript-Church shall not be defiled with Women for they are Virgins Ch. 14.4 That is Her sacred company shall abhor the pollutions of this Spiritual filthiness and be redeemed from the Earth and among men to God and the Lamb ver 3 4. But it 's contrary to the Nature of a true Church That she should be called or redeemed of God from the Earth to follow Earthly things Or that she should be redeemed from among men to mind nothing or to omit good manners and be ignorant of them Such co-adjoynings as produce these or such like ends are Spiritual fornications far from the ends of that conscript incontaminate Company But there is no Church till those first fruits appear can be free from gross pollutions of Spiritual fornication because they have not their hearts turned back they yet repented not saith the Text of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their fornications Nor Fifthly Of their Thefts And what are they To diminish or derogate from the due woâ—th or works of any man is Spiritual thievery Such are all half-performances like that of the unjust Steward's who set down but fifty measures of Oyl where an hunred were due And therefore All witnessing of the truth in words and works as Pilate did by halves seconded by recidivations or oppositions are Spiritual thievery and murderous thefts as that in Pilate was All careless or willful derogations from the true meaning of the Scriptures or from the truth in the Writings of those that rightly unfold them are spiritual thievery and such detractors have all plagues that can be possible denounced against them Revel 22.19 And therefore To affirm that no right collection can be made nor clear conclusion drawn from Prophetick-Scriptures is Sacrilegious and Blaspemous Theft as I shall further shew in the second pare in answer to that mistaken Assertion Scriptura symbolica non est argumentativa Blind Hypocrites will by no means believe that inanimadversive men that mind not hear not read not the incomplex Principles of right in itself and that 's the shame and folly of beastial Professors be they never so literate or seeming Religious must needs be wicked men But their practice is a continual derogation from the truth and their works at best but works of darkness and ignorance wrought without any Rule of Reason And therefore must be Spiritual theft of necessity For Thirdly Ut jugulent homines surgunt de nocte latrones Theft is the proper work of darkness And Spiritual Theft delights most therein It oft makes the Truth itself to be a mysterious means to practise Murder and promote Robberies So Doeg by speaking the truth when he should not and by not speaking the whole truth robbed David of his due repute with Saul and robbed the Priests of the Lord of their lives A theft like unto this but much worse is when Men and Saints as they commonly do raise slanders from shadows and say They hear such and such evil reports from the mouthes of other men That many affirm the same c. But never name who those speakers are conceal those slanderers or rather feign such to be whereas in deed there were never any such speakers nor such things spoken Or at least they make it not appear and De non apparentibus non existentibus eadem ratio Things that appear not to be are not in being in the Eye of Reason and Judgment of Equity This way of wounding men is a most wicked way of lying defamation Such fictitious slanders did Doeg never produce against David or the Priests of the Lord These Speluncarum mendacia Thefts least perceived whereby many are robbed of their Lives ruinated in their Estates come out of dark Dens But indeed those reporters themselves where the first pretended speakers are not produced are those Robbers and Thieves that slay others by the Sword of their slanderous tongues Ad fabulas credendas facilitas An easiness to believe lyes or a disposition apt to derogate rash censoriousness is a thievish disposition and denotes that such depravers are Spiritual Thieves Such surreptitious Professors where they prevail are the excision of Mercy and Equity and supplant all good Manners because they steal away the hearts of the Ministers of Justice as Absalom did the hearts of Israet and make them basely subservient to Sycophants and to receive and believe lyes It 's the most deplorable demonstration of base degenerosity in Men and chiefly in Magistrates to suffer themselves to be made miserable preys so they seem strict and religious to Depravers and Hypocrites Nor was there said Jerom so simple and mean a Scribe that conspired not c. But now we may rather say There is no such sordid Pickthank or ignorant depraver no such treacherous Ziba or slavish servant nor a Lad so silly or illiterate that is not sufficiently able to carry away an hundred Captives and to alienate through lying defamations their Judgments and Affections far from doing right or shewing mercy And therefore Thou shalt not run with a multitude to do evil For he that runneth with a multitude of evil men is a member of that multitude So Men and Ministers of Justice that suffer themselves to be in such sort basely stoln away by Spiritual Thieves make by that means themselves Thieves These now more than ever increasing worshippings of Idols and these Spiritual Murders and Sorceryes and Fornications and Thefts are the sins of which Men and Saints have not yet repented And from which their hearts and hands must be turned