TEmporarie Potentates, (that now are) you must go to the great Grave of your Fathers, even you Mutable, living, and dying Potentates, you must be inclosed in the Concave of the earth. You Principle Counsels the best of you not much better then your fathers: nay, if some of your fathers were extant in the Visible life, you would hardly counterpoise them in a ballance: if you would suffer your selves to be weighed, you would be found too light. Oh! you spirituall Sensitive Synods or other Assemblies in the whole World: VVhat though you break out without an absolute holy zeal of the eternall God, (but yet with zeal) with a zeal to set up your selves, or to honour eternity with the thoughts of your selves, with the directories of your own hearts. Interrogemus Prophetas, Interrogemus Apostolos, Interrogemus Scripturas, Interrogemus Christum: Have not many of your Nationall fathers erred, not knowing the true and reall minde of the minifestations of that incomprehensible God? Have not many of your fore-fathers, even you your selves varied from Apostolicall knowings and livings in the Spirit? If I did think Antichrist would not lye, or if you were competent Judges of your own hearts (in this great time of your contention for Masteries, for power and authority, for the sitting in the uppermost Rooms of feasts, for Judging according to your selves) you would tell me that you have all gone out of the way, and that you are altogether become abominable, even in the eyes of the divine invisible presence, as it is in the Son of the Fathers love; and also in your own eyes: Have not many of you endeavoured to finde out the profound, unsearchable riches of the incomprehensible God, who is every where, in all the natures of things; and yet can hide himself in relation to any thing beside himself, so that they shall not perceive [Page 2] him? May not God work upon the Left hand, and upon the Right hand, & you see him not? surely it's recorded that Job was in such a condition Job 23.9. Have you not endeavoured to finde out that one indivisible mind, that one unalterable God, as if you contained him in the hollow of your hands, in one associated, assembled company? Oh! then truly those that you are pleased to call Sectaries, of all men are most miserable. Have not you thought you might finde truth's glory by the knowledge of the Etymologie of words, by your artificiall learning and parts, by finding out the fallible derivations and nationall changings of Termes? Have not your Sermons been cunningly and artificially composed, like Menander his two Comoedies Andria and Perinthia, which were very unlike in composition? And hath not this deceived the hearts of the people, though your subject matter, (as you will say) differ little? Do not you in your great contentions endeavour to make a Uniformity in worship, (which you are pleased to call circumstantials, or to give some other slight name to it,) and also an Uniformity in your substantialls; so that the Magistrates have been as the Priests, or the Priests as the Magistrates; and so Priests, Magistrates, and people have been almost all one? But you must likewise go to the Sepulchre of your fathers, to be intoombed, or hidden mystically in the conteyning Bowels of the earth, the grave of the eternall God for all. Yesterday it was to a persecuting Papist, afterwards to a persecuting Protestant power, and to day is to a domineering Presbyter, Hinc illae Lachrymae, here is unstedfastness in all our wayes, here is persecution under 3. adulterated formes: though I mention only these formes, I complicate other formes whatsoever they are in the world, that are not of God even the Father, as considered in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Give me leave to reason with you, and take all in good part; for I freely give in a loving consideration: but let me tell you in this little Tract, that which I apprehend, will in the time of the invisible, omnipotent Father peirce you to the very heart; even some of you in this Generation before it passeth away, by that word which endures for ever. Oh thou Papist! hast thou Iesus, Iesus, so much in thy mouth? Oh thou Protestant! hast thou Christ as much in thine? and thou Presbyter hast thou the Lord Jesus as much in [Page 3] thy mouth as either of the former, to throw both down; and others also that are in a form of contrariety to thee, and to make thy self an absolute Lord, an absolute lover of thy self, an absolute pleaser of thy self, an absolute liver to thy self: I only give these names, because you are capable of those names you own your selves by, and distinguish your selves; and indeed are distinguished in the world; therefore be not offended at it.
You speak much of Christ, and your own ordinary and frequent expressions to maintain your own Jus Divinum are frequently in your mouths (nay, I think in your hearts.) You say indeed Interrogemus Christum, but you do take councell with your selves, and if you, or any of you, shall be subject to the sweet teachings of God, of the most holy, true, and absolute, you will tell me hereafter, or others, if not me, or your selves, if not others; or be told of God that you did proclaim a Fast, but you intēded to cut of Naboaths head before hand, to stone poor Naboath & all because he will live in the inheritance of his Father. You will say that you had self-contrivings, and Law-makings, to destroy those that would walk, and live, and speak, as being the inheritance, and in the inheritance of the Father, of freeness, love, and excellencie: You will say that you with the will of your selves, and the minde of your selves, (though unseeingly to you, the minde of the incomprehensible) did make way for Stigmatizing, and Stigmatizing Informers; if you fasted from your selves, if you did not ask councell of your selves in the forms of truth; make interrogatories to your selves, and answer your own questions; it would be a great question whether you obeyed the voyce of God, or walked after your own premeditated Ordinances, Laws, and Designes. What though your Counsels, (as it is recorded of Herod in the peoples apprehensions) do speak as the Oracles of God? what though you make your selves strong by arguments drawn from your vast Humane Intellects, (according to the formall denomination of wisdom and understanding in the world) it is all but your selves, it is but the high glory of an exterior and mysticall Antichrist; it is but ad res inanes studia convertere; It is that, that hath deceived all the Nations of the world, and doth deceive the people & multitudes of the earth, and make them to wonder at you: and indeed it hath not only [Page 4] drawn the earthly, and beguiled the simple, ignorant of God through deceipt, but also the heavenly, the Saints of the most high, those that are in the fathers bosome, & glorious teachings, even to make a Disciple for a season to deny his Master; till the substance, the invisible, incomprehensible God hath given them to see himself more, and also themselves and others, and to see and live to themselves and others less, and to see him inmost of all, within every vail, within whom nothing is, and without whom nothing is, or is not: is it not evident in the world, that Synods and Assemblies have more looked upon, and judged truth to be according to mens various argumentative varieties, according to the seeing of the eye, and the hearing of the ear, rather then the true and reall discendings of God in their own understandings, by the absolute spirit, witness, Testimonie, or manifestation of the sole supream?
How many thousands of adulterous voyces have the world heard and worshiped with, even with the Supereminentest names of Glory? how many false and uncertain sounds have the Plebeians (so called by many in scorn) affected from a Causidick, or a Terrestriall Polititian, or an affected & self-affecting Priest, when the sound have been given by those that have the power of the Aire, that are the princes, Lords, Counsellors, and Synods of the World, hath not errour been affected from them, if under glorious names, and curious expressions? let the Generation that is now, be Judge, Oh you Lords! you Consellors of the earth: Oh! you Cedars in the world your Kingdome, you have interwoven your selves into the language of the Almighty, and mixt your dross with the precious, and scarce-known truths in the VVorld; But your mixture destroys not the substance, but the substance in the fulness of time shall destroy your mixture: but how many, or whether all you shall be saved in that day, I determine not; he alone knows, before whom, all things are naked, and not vailed.
Truly Potentates I see (when I behold him, or when I am rather made to behold him, who is the cause of all, and of me, that am in particular, and of what I am, whom I desire to live unto) mans highness to be lowness; mans strength, to be weakness; mans promises to be perfideousness; mans liberty to be bondage; [Page 5] mans Communion to be far different from the Communion with the Father and the Son in the active, substantiall, immutable, eternall spirit: I see mans truths to be vanity and a lye; mans love to be wrath, mans goodness and constancie to be all to himself, and man with God in his heart, as by his understandings contraction, and man with God in his mouth to carry on the designe of his worldly Kingdome and glory.
Truly earthly scourgers and Tormentors in your own Kingdomes and glories, your intentions to scourge and afflict, do make me to looke to the interiorest, & to see if possible I can by that measure of glory ministred to me, how I am as to the great Iehovah; and how I must be to him, and for him and not to you, for you, nor to him for you, but that I might be all for him, and all from him if possibly to you, to him, that so I might see what I have been and am unto my selfe, But in the consummation of my thoughts I considered this with my selfe, I shall not be truely able to endure the brunt of violence, if my contrarietie be to you only with the flesh, it is but Sathans Kingdom divided against it self, whose Kingdom and glory must cease, and must be demonstrated to be vile and contemptible, for these two (which are but one) contraries in this seeming division, shall at length finde and feele the absolute contrary, the supream, and the supereminent, the head, the Judge. In my alone seriousness I considered that I had been a professor (of and out of the Church of England so called) but my profession made me no Saint: for it is the alone absolute and reall sanctification in the Spirit that must make me a Saint & a professor, I did finde according to the substance of examination & scrutiny, that my profession now must surely be more then formerly; that it must have an absolute life or else a fire would quench it, & the looks of Lords would abash it, a prison would imprison it when I should be in and out, if I shalbe out after I am in, it would cause a cessation, and honour and credit and preferment amongst men would ensnare me, and with it's smiles would intrap me: But Lord let not the Lords excellencies, mutabilities, glories, in fine Vanities, intrap me, let not my profession be meerly a profession of the eternall and everlasting beeing and name according to things without me in the similitude of the profession of the world, generally, cofusedly, and from an exterior extrajudiciall [Page 6] affection, that eternitie would comprehend me as knowingly to me (as well as knowingly to himselfe, who comprehends all things knowingly) in the true serious and reall nature of sanctification; and that my profession may be the true and reall effluxs of such a glorious comprehension.
But Princes, Nobles, and Counsels, not worthy to be named so, in relation to the absolute supreame; I desire to behold a distance; when I am truly acted in contemplation of the Prince, the absolute, the true, the infallible, unspeakable; though I speak of the false, though I speak of the fallible and mutable, I desire not to center there; I desire only to speake of the fading, and dying glories, as being United to him who comprehends the mutables, the exteriors, and the interiors, and speaks of them, and to them, and give them their names and places.
But Satan that Divell tempted me, and endeavoured to have Dominion over me and it presented it self to my exterior, and approached violently with curious attire, fine expressions, the language of the most High to have admittance; but the interior (I thank the Lord) had present recourse to the Interiorest, to the comprehending the mysticall God, the comprehending incomprehensible. Me thought I had these things presented me, if you will not walk according to the Law of Nobles, Lords, and Potentates, you will be crushed, they will binde you in chains, will not let you live in the world, Imprison your poor body, make you to be despised of all men, if thy profession or the things thou livest in, & knowest, were more generall; then thou mightest have honour, credit, and reputation in the profession thereof, thou wouldest have friends in the unrighteous Mammon; the High-Priests, the Scribes & Pharisees, & the Doctors of the Law are thy Antagonists; but then was the time for the absolute Lord to appear, and his appearance caused contrarietie to the Lords Agent or Agents: then I (despised, contemned, inconsiderable person) did desire that I might behold the absolute Lord, and might now contend in the spirit, and speak by the power of the highest, the cause of all causes, the God of all natures, the father of all spirits, and might now be made unwilling to stand before him, as being any thing; and that I might be what he will'd, and might not be what he nil'd, Absolute supream, one Absolute Counsellour, [Page 7] (yet more wise then Counsellours) let me be abased, so as in my abasement thou aboundest, in me, to me, though thou art incapable of abounding in thy self: thou who comprehendest the heavens & the earth the constellations, glories, and powers of both; let the particular, producted, visible form and shape; even me in particular, see thee who art alone praise-worthy If the world have a prison for me, tell me that the prison is thine, both before and when I am there; and let me know that nothing divides thee and me; for thou art indivisible, and mayest, when thou wilt, be seen in all the natures of things. Oh thou eternall triumphant God! let me live in the wondering and admiring of thy holy, unsported fulness: let me not look upon spots any more, upon emptinesses any more, but with the communication of thy fulness incommunicable, that is, let me not look upon things by the wisdome of self, by the sensuall wisdom, the wisdome of the flesh; let me not look upon a lye any more to be deceived by it, to live upon it, to live to it, to be delighted in it: thou that hast habitation and habitations, and yet hast no habitation at all to inclose thee, comprehend thee, inviron thee, & do good unto thee; if thou hast eternally will'd it, let me be the habitation of thy wisdome, though a prison shall be a habitation for me: Oh sweet God! how sweet will it be, that I should be a habitation for thy invisible, indivisible self, in the spirit of understanding: conquer that Divell for me whom thou hast made and given power to deceive, and yet hast power to conquer him; and if thou hast a minde that I shall speak of thee, and acknowledge thee, manifest it, and then let me not fear the face of a man whose breath is in his nostrils; but yet Lord let me have that courage that belongs to thy immutable life, and to those that live unto God, and not themselves.
When I shall, or if I shall be brought before Magistrates, Kings, Counsellours, or Judges of the earth, let not that move me; let me not be tossed to and fro by them, so as to give up or make recantation of those thngs thou manifestest by thy eternall impress, let me be before the Magistrate and judge as knowingly in the presence of the judge of Magistrates and Judges; and let me speak as in thy presence: Lord I have spoken in private of thee and to thee, and thou vouchsafest to reason with with me, [Page 8] and discourse with me, but man is vain, man is sensuall, man is proud, and the lofty ones would be more lofty, then the lofty one that inhabits eternity. Wilt thou invisible God draw me to speak to thee, and furnish me with arguments: and shall I be afraid to speak of thee, to thee, in the face and hearing of a dying man? But Lords of the earth, Lords in time, I may truly say as in the presence of the Lord of times and seasons; Oh Lord my God! other Lords besides thee have had Dominion over me, (have been in me the head of a designe) but by thee will I only make mention of thy name.
Temporarie Lords, Counsellours, Synods, if he that sees would make you see, that say you see; if he that apprehends, would make you apprehend, you would see your selves, neither Lords to your selves, nor Lords to others in things concerning the invisible life; you would be glad to have your selves dethroned, and the absolute supream in all your titular, momentary glories alone dignified, and exalted.
But Mutable Dominion, what will it avail in the day of the Triumph of the absolute perpetuall Triumphant; when sorrow and mourning shall flie away from your abjects, the off-scum, and off-scouring of your worldly glory: when fears, death and Hell, when worse then the Plagues of Egypt shall fall upon you, & possess you, even you that have had the pleasures of Egypt, & power given not only to your selves, but pleasure in your selves to scourge the Nations, especially the refining Jewels of the great God of heaven and earth.
Me thinks I see and hear, that the Lords of the earth, the Potentates of the world; the praying, the preaching, the fasting, the fleshly glories, and the spirits of Antichrist (but I must confess with some comfort, it is only during their time of dominion and whilst their place is to be found) endeavour to destroy the prayers of Saints by praying, the declarations of Saints by Preaching; to destroy the glory of true, reall, and absolute fasting, by fasting.
This Nationall Interrogatory may be indeed asked; What Religion do you profess? May there not be a generall cry by those that see? May there not be a Trumpet sounded in the Nations of the World (but more especially in the commonly called [Page 9] house of Jacob, or England,) that seemingly there is a daily delight to know the wayes of the most high; as if a Nation that did righteously, and did not forsake the ordinances of the great God; as if they walked according to the dictamen of the absolute sole supream, and lived according to the absolute spirit of the eternall God in the truth of understanding: do they not seem to ask of God he Ordinances of Justice, when their own praemeditated, praeordinated, fleshly, Antichristian Ordinances, Lawes, and Statutes, are maintained by their fleshly, carnall, accomplishing power? But these delight in their approaching to, and by the name of the eternall God.
Have we not the Monarchs, the powers of the world, of Nations, the spirits of darkness, death, hell, and the Grave that challenge the holy one of Israel to his face, that insultingly, and domineeringly, and as much as in them lie, blaspheme the absolute supream wisdome: and would be in the place of the supream Cause; or would have the supream Cause to be their servant? and they to be Master to that eternall, absolute, undefiled, immutable glory; as if they should say, we have fasted and thou seest not; have we observed dayes and moneths and years, and observest thou not? We love the Nation with our hearts, and we will preserve the Nation with our prayers: Shall we observe a day, and wilt thou not observe both the day and us? We have not only afflicted our bodies, but our very souls: if bodily whippings; scourgings, and lashings of our selves, (as many of us are perswaded in our understandings) will not move thee: yet our afflicting our soules, & piercing our selves through with many sorrows, or reducing our selves in body & soul into a super-superlative way of sadness and affliction, will, must move thee: Wilt thou take no knowledge of this excellent daies work of ours? We came with an intent to have thee know what we would have thee know, and do, what we would have thee do against Hereticks and Sectaries, disturbers of the Peace; we would have thee our servant, our slave, but we wil not say so, for that wil too much undeceive the world; if out of our own mouth we should judge our selves, we should no more binde the world in temporarie chains, and in fetters of our own devising. But Oh Lords! Oh you Monarchs in a Nation and Nations! you have here in this little Tract, but an earnest [Page 10] of your charge drawn up; but when the interiorest of all, when that knowing, seeing, and judging God, that lofty one shall come and judge you according to that you are within, (for you are not alwaies the same without that you are within) What are yee? What difference shall you see? Shall you not see a change, and a vast disproportion betweeen a Lord, and a Lazarus that was captivated to the light and knowledg of the absolute Lord: But Lords, or powers of the World, by what name or title soever distinguished, what though in the day of your fasting you found pleasure and delight yet it was but an exaction of your own labours; ye fasted for strife and prayed for debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness, as a Nation that did righteousness, justice and mercie; as if you lived to the highest formes of truth, in relation to humanity, and likewise to infallible and absolute Divinity; but in the 58 of Isa. you may see your Image even by your Nationall fathers before you, when the absolute alone supream judge shall enter into judgement, and give grinding to the grinders, in giving eternall burthens to those that have temporarily burthened, bound and oppressed. O then let the mountains and Rocks fall on us and the Hills cover us from the presence of the judge: Oh then! Ministers, Divines, Teachers, Instigators, Instructers (as you said of your selves) in righteousness, what hiding place shall we have? But you say or think, it may be, that there is no such thing to be expected, therefore you will take another mans word, I wish I could truly say (if it were the will of eternity) much good may it do ye.
When the absolute supream shall fasten this to your Consciences, which as yet passeth away as a tale that is told unto you, 59. Isai. Your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lyes, you conceive mischief, and you bring forth iniquity; you hatch Cockatrice eggs, and weave the Spiders webb: but your eggs, if they are eaten, they that eat them die; and if any with the power of life, manifestation, and understanding of the Absolute, crush your eggs, they break forth presently into a viper; but when eternity will enter into judgement; when the Islands shall flie away, and the Mountains not be found, when the hearing of this voyce shall be manifested, Rev. 6.10. &c.
Oh Lord, (not Lords) holy and true, doest thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth, shall the glorie of the heavens afford you any comfort? they shall be roll'd together like a scrowl: shall the Kings of the earth, and the great men, the richmen, & the chief Captains (your servants) the mighty men, the bond men, the freemen, the Dens, Rocks & Mountains afford you comfort and succour? Shall multitudes? shall kindreds, Nations, Tongues? shall power and authority? shall a Ladie? shall a Queen? shall a woman arrayed in purple, and scarlet colour, decked with Gold & precious stones, with a Golden cup in her hand? Rev. 17. Shall the Merchants of the earth, with their Merchandise of Gold, Silver, and Precious stones? shall the fruits that your soul lusted after? shall the Shipmasters? Rev. 18. shall the Parliaments? shall the Synods? shall the Committees? No surely Lords: Oh then! happy is he whose God is the Lord.
But Counsellors, but earthly Polititians, when you shall be arraigned in the interiour man by the interiorest, the all-seeing Jehovah, the infinite everlasting, the absolute Lord: VVhat are many Lords, and what are many idolized false Gods? when you shall be called Gods, and Lords, and come to be judged, arraigned, condemned by the absolute non-respecter of persons, as men in the inwardest cogitations, minde, & understanding with those aggravations that lie in the wisdome of eternity, to make and manifest, your Webs shall not become garments, neither shall yee cover your selves with your works; for your works are works of iniquity, and the Act of violence is in your hands.
But in the midst of all my thoughts I was sore oppressed in my own spirit, & I was willing to give up my self, even the exteriour & the interior life to the supream absolute. To live in the world I was unwilling, yet willing; for live I must, and in this consideration live I would, so long as the giver or the taker pleaseth; let him do with me what seemeth him good in his own eyes: But I saw man, or the temporary Lords in the world contending to amend; & me thought I saw that which was mended by man, was but amended with a fancy; and that which was amended with a fancy, was lacerated and torn with another: one mans amending another in the world, in relation to the supereminent divine changer, amender, translater, is like a simple Cobler his amending [Page 12] a paire of shooes, that may be for a fortnights or less (not much more) walking, will weare them out, so that it may be sayed, as you were, or rather worse then you were, for these amendings perish with the using; therefore I may say, Ne sutor ultra crepidam.
But that which I beheld in the world, I desired the supream to destroy in me, for I thought with my self, it may be I may contein all the innormities of the whole Orb, therefore I was in fine, made to reflect upon the supream, and the absolute Lord and Lawgiver; and when I by reflexion considered the foundation of all Generations, and I had no satisfaction in the apprehension of the life of the Generations past, or the life of the Generation that now is: I was reduced into the foundation, and that gave me some sweet solacing, and some pleasant refreshing.
But in seeing I beheld, and in my view I saw the Lords of the earth had inlarged, and were ever inlarging their beds of pleasure, to take pleasure in their excess, and their temporary glories: Methought I saw them resolved so far as mutable Lords could resolve, to keep to their own Lawes, Statutes, Ordinances, and to make them unto themselves, and demonstrate it unto others, as if it were the absolute, true and infallible Sabbath of rest, and commendable by the most high. And when I did upon the Lords casting me into serious consideration; behold the Lord by the glimmerings of the supereminent and everlasting glory opening the Seals: I saw beasts in the shape of men going forth conquering, and to conquer, with bows in their hands, Rev 6. And I saw and expected an Arrow to pierce all those who held the Testimony of Jesus, I saw the Lords and the Potentates of the Aire, those that had the power of Nations and Kingdomes (so long as they had the Crown) go forth conquering, and to conquer. But Lord if it be thy will, make me also to will to receive (if thou willest to give) an Arrow from that Bow. The life supereminent was no sooner held out, the Seals were no sooner opened by the eternall supereminent judging word; but presently another beast represented it self (so long as it had the Crown) to take peace from the earth, and to kill with the sword. But Oh Lord Absolute and Eternall! I cannot [Page 13] say that thou wilt not reveale thy self to any one, because thou doest: not reveal thy truth to many a one; but if thou wilt reveal what thou hast hid, and hide what thou hast revealed, thy will be done: the generations of the world, are servants to thy Mysticall glory, and to thy incomprehensible Majesty; draw me up unto that supereminent life in the truth of apprehension and understanding, that so I may live in that life though I am kill'd with the sword.
Also I see a further accomplishment, and in the accomplishing I behold even in the temporarie world, a horrible persecution and affliction upon the exteriour formes, and natures of things: methought I saw violence on every side, persecution and affliction under all formes, to stifle the Testimony: methought I saw the beast, the powers of the world, the Aire, the Kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, and the chief Captaines, and the mighty men, (that had the temporarie Crown given them) endeavour by all waies and means possibly to destroy the Testifyers, and the Testifyers Testimony. Methought I saw the temporany and yet infernall Nobles of the earth, that wear the momentany and yet perpetuall Crown of Hell and death in themselves according to the power that is committed unto them, acting persecution in one form upon the Neck of another, which is the manifestation of the varietie, and yet unity of that state, that body of Antichrist, Hell and death, sword, hunger, and beasts of the earth, even Ephesian beasts after the manner of men: and then I saw the doom of those that have the Testimony of the Lord Iesus: and I brake out into Admiration in my self, Oh eternity! how do the Nations of the world, the Nationall powers of the world, hear, and see, and read, and seem, and would be supposed to understand, yet they see not nor understand, and yet they suspect not themselves, but teach and declare of themselves, and say that they are christians & walk in the life supereminent. But Nobles of the earth take this only if you can lovingly, til I am more lovingly inflamed, or untill the father will manifest himself more unto you, or me, even in the interiorest in the dividing assūder, rending, and tearing in pieces of all your fleshly deceitfull glories, whereby you have for many hundred years past, deceived the people of the earth: I am no disputer of the world, I desire to be Tomteltra [Page 14] and not Oedipus. I desire not to insinuate with you but to live to my God: the God and Lord absolute, mercifull, holy, undefiled and eternall, I desire only of the father that I unworthiness & weakness, may live to him and with him in the interiorest, sublimest, and truest; and that thou worthiness, gloriousness, wouldest understandingly as to me, comprehend my particular, and do what thou wilt with me in my exterior, or in this visible world: if thou worthiness and truly eternall Lord, wilt surrender me up into the hands of the Lords and powers of the earth, that act in a constitution of persecution: Let me in the interior say Amen.
But yet Sathan that Divell tempts me; but yet me thinks I am surrounded and invironed in this my pilgrimage, and methinks the exteriors of the world operate, insinuate, dispute, and reason with me and tempts my exterior to conform me to its self, and confound me in its self: I heard a voyce in the world the other day saying, (very Schismatically, erroneously, and according to the witness of men) and denying the absolute witness of the great Jehovah, denying that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh denying that power is given to the Son, loving, to have the preheminence, the uppermost Rooms at feasts, and in Synagogues, setting themselves in the place of God: attributing that to their fallible, deceiptfull, devillish understandings, actings and contrivings, that is, to be attributed to the alone supream; not waiting when God the absolute changer will give repentance to those that beleeve not the truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness; earnestly contending (as they say) for the faith that was once delivered to the Saints, in such wayes of carnallity, by such carnall weapons which were not used in the times of that excellent, glorious, Apostolicall ministrations of God, and consequently denying the glorious and supream power of the spirit; giving themselves to fornication, and going after strange flesh to deceive the Nations, desiling the flesh by their filthy dreaming, by imposing such things for an exterior worship (as if Commanders) as are not consistent, with the life and glory of the Spirit in us. Whereas the flesh of Christ that visible manifestation of God at Jerusalem 1600 years ago, was lead according to teachings of the Divine God, despising the true and absolute Dominion and [Page 15] dignities of the most High, speaking evill of those things they know not, and what they do know, as brute beasts in those things corrupt themselves, running in the way of Cain, killing their brethren in the flesh, because they are not of the same judgement and understanding in the spirit, envying them in the offering of their sacrifices, because they offer not their sacrifices as they do: pulling and halling them before Magistrates, Counsells, Powers, and Authorities, Imprisoning them, Banishing them, confining them, depriving them of their liberties, accounting the world not worthy of them, acoūting them the off scouring of all things, running greedily after the errour of Baalam for reward, setting obstacles in the way of true, reall and unblameable liberty of Saints, in their true and glorious feastings of spirituall Charity and Love in the dispensation of the various gifts of the most High God, feeding themselves without fear, when others are living, walking, talking, lovingly conversing, eating and drinking in fear; Clouds without water, Clouds covering the clear Heavens and Firmaments as if they were full of water, and as if showres would presently fall, great Mountaines travelling in birth, Clouds carried about of winds: from Popery or Popish Episcopacy to Prelacy in another form, and from that to Presbyterie, and those that would have the same wind of Doctrine; the same teachings of fallible men to blow others, whethersoever it blows them, whose fruits have often already withered from one age to another, and more then twice dead, and plucked up by the Roots, raging waves of the sea, foming out their own shame, having not the spirit of meeknes, gentlenes, tender mercy & compassion though Stars, yet wandring Stars, to whom is reserved blacknes of darknes for ever; and therefore they would draw all men unto them, Murmerers, Complainers, Informers, Reformers according to their own lusts, speaking swelling words, having mens persons in admiration because of advantage (not knowing the glorious minde, infallible will of the eternall God, as the Apostles of Iesus Christ) Mockers walking after their own ungodly lusts, seperating themselves by the power, will, minde, fallibility of fallible sensuall men, having not the spirit, denying any one but themselves, (and those whom themselves approve of) to build up any in the holy faith or to Minister the gifts they have had of the supereminent [Page 16] God: Teaching by necessarie unavoidable consequences that their love, sensuall, carnall, mutable affections are to be looked after before the love of God; or as well as the love of God (though God the absolute satisfyer, informer, and reformer satisfies not.) having no compassion but on themselves & those that they thinke they can by flattery draw to themselves, making no difference but from themselves, making no difference according to the true nature of difference, but only making a difference according to their Carnall Lawes, ordinances, Statutes, decrees, not endeavouring to save others according to the true absolute, infallible, holy, just, warrantable way of salvation, Endeavouring to pull men that are (as they say erroneous) out of the fire with violence instead of feare, malice, hatred, imprisonments, bonds, Endeavouring to pull others out of the fire, and save others with a love, respect, affection to their fallible mutable garments spotted with the flesh. But oh, immutable, unspotted, undefiled God! thou who art able to present me faultless before the presence of thy glory with joy, let me not be seperated from any, or joyned to any when thou shalt seperate, till thou seperatest and joynest; that so seperation may be of thee, & uniting may be of thee, and that I may hold forth the interior teachings, the hidden unspeakeable mysterie of calling and enjoying. Let me not walke according to the minde and will, of the men of the world, that are something and nothing, that live and command according to the will of the flesh, let me not walke according to the way of the wandring stars, the wonders of the world, of mountains, of Thrones, of Principalities and powers of the aire, of the Gods of nations preistly Counsels, and Magistrates of the earth chosen by men of the earth. But oh Lord! let my Exterior be what the Lord, and not what the Lords will.
But methought I saw the preists of the nation in Pompe and glorie, in kings, Monarches and potentates Courts: and methought I saw them instigating the Civill Magistrates of the world, and I saw the persons, and their waies to be the Preistly Lineage and the successours of the Lord Iesus, his and his Apostles and Saints enemies, who crucified the Lord Jesus, did kill and slay the Apostles, and Saints of the most high God, and being [Page 17] convinced of the glorie, power, and truth of God, manifested in those Apostles & Saints, did endeavour to extripate & root them out from off the face of the earth, & made them to wander up & down destitute, afflicted, and tormented: And when they thought they had extinguished them, and rooted them out of the world, they stiled themselves the Apostles successours, Ministers of the Lord Jesus, and Priests of the high God, like certain of the Jews, Acts 19.13. yea Vagabond Jews, Exorcists, who tooke upon them to call over them that had evill spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus, whom Paul Preached. But here I was cast into admiration why the world should ever the more admire the Preists of nations and their adherent (that are the scourgers of Saints, the incensers of Magistrates) because they pretend to the Lord Jesus whom Paul did enjoy, and whom Paul did preach: But preists, but Ministers of the Gospel as you call your selves) though I can say in some measure Iesus Christ! know & somewhat by the power of that eternal spirit I know, which Paul know; But who are ye?
But though you are in my apprehension, the great enemies of the Lord Jesus, and though I shall be accounted an evill spirit by you, a Devill, or what not; I would not insult over you though I had power over you. But it's I can onely say, that many of you may be saved; it's the eternall, absolute, and onely wise can say, you shall. But yet I think you shall suffer the losse of your craft; for many persecutors, both before and in the Marian persecution became persecuted ones; the Father called some of them from queenly, fleshly carnall, Antichristian glory, to the fire: I desire, that you would not be offended with words; for I profess seriously I speak not out of hatred, but out of pitie to you that are in contrarietie to the Lord Jesus. You often say, you acknowledge a God, therefore expect not that I should call you gods that have hands, nor your works gods that are made with hands, nor any or all your minds or understandings Gods, even a whole Synod or Counsaile, But the absolute supreame God shall be, when you are not to be seen; Time may be when your Craft, as well as your predecessors craft may be set at nought, and your gods and goddesses despised and all your magnificence destroyed, though there were as many more, eager and violent persecutors and worshippers: are not you the cause, whilst you [Page 18] have the power in your hands, whilest you have the Kings, Lords, and Potentates of the earth to act for you, that there is so great a stir about that way which you partiall, fallible Judges call Heresie: What though you cry out great is Diana of the Ephesians? what though you are full of wrath and bitterness, so that fire proceeds out of your mouth, and as much malice, envy, and divellish contrariety to all (except your selves) as can be supposed to be in the most barbarous and cruell; yet your Kingdom is not an everlasting Kingdom, nor your Dominion an everlasting dominion, but the supream infallible Judge will come gloriously, & will not tarry: It is but a Marian Trick to persecute a poor man, and to hale him, or indeavour to bring him before you Commanders in chief; your Magistracy and Counsels for Preaching, (as you call it) I will acquaint you with one thing, I providentially saw not long since in the Book of Martyrs of one Rawlins White a Fisher man of Cardiff, who was burnt for an Heretick: a little before the fire flasht up to his body, many of his friends came to him and took him by the hand, and one held held him till the flame arose and seperated friends: but a Priest said it was not lawfull to take him by the hand, for he was an Heretick, and condemned by the Church; I wonder Mr. Pryn doth not insert this as of divine Authority, to prove the lawfulness of persecution and violence to be used to Hereticks.
But Nationall Ministers you are the Children, or the Childrens Children of those that were so constituted, and did Act according to an unjust papall way, and as one sayth of them, Cujus faetor us (que) ad nubes fumum teterrimum exhalabat, whose filthy stinck did fume even to the Clouds of Heaven, but indeed you did still indeavour to cloth your selves finer and finer to make the world wonder at you, and think you were really for Reformation, but be not deceived so as to think that God can be mocked and deluded, though you finde men (almost the whole world) very facile and easie to be deluded with a lye, with a fancy. It was formerly wont to be said, Agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi miserere nobis, but must we take it in this acceptation, Synodus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis? Oh the intolerable pride of Lucifer! O the Vanity of the high Priests! who are made by the power of the great God, to confess they are not infallible, yet act as if they were.
But methinks I see and behold (I thank my eternall life and only wise God) my Lord to laugh at the Lords, my God at the Gods, the and my absolute, immutable, perfect, infallible informer, and Reformer to laugh at the mutable, non-absolute, imperfect, fallible Informers, and Reformers; but it may be these men may be sealed up to the judgement of the great Day: but the alone absolute Judge knowes, and I am alone satisfied that he knows, and that he manifests, and mysteriously containes in his invisible self what he pleaseth.
In my Soliloquies, in my withdrawings in secret before my God (of whom I desire not to be ashamed, and unto whom all things are naked and bare) the contrarietie of the powers of the world, made me more now then ever in all my life to look up to God the incomprehensible glory, to see if possible I might attain, or had attained to it, as apprehended of him; how I was as to him, which would be the greatest comfort to me that could bee: if the Lord should lay some heavy affliction upon me, if I should be brought before the powers of the world, for I saw in the world, and methinks I see and hear the Crowned Beasts (as well as the Saints of the most High, the fellowship of the body of the son of God that are round about the Throne) cry Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is, and is to come, I saw the whole World in confusion, and yet walking in their place; the beasts in their place of adoration, acknowledge the most high God under the same forms of expression or Ministration of holiness and glory, that the Saints of the most High did. But I see & understand a variety of manifestation of the great God of Heaven and earth in distinction.
But I seeing and beholding the Beasts of the earth to have a Crown, power, and authority given them to kill with the sword, under the name of the worship, service, glory, and excellency of the most High God, and it made me that have lived (in the time of my ignorance of God, or life to God with God) after the flesh, deceit, formall man, teachings, and fallible apprehensions to look and see, if I could behold, or attain to see the eternal, absolute & infallible to comprehend me in the body of the Lord Iesus & to see if I lived to the life supereminēt, to the life sustaining, feeding, even to the absolute, true, and not fading principle of [Page 20] glory, and to see if I lived to the true beams, life and Communion of true understanding. But Lords, Counsels, Synods, or Honourable men, of good, & admired literature, you that desire to be reformers of men for the salvation of souls, you that conceive your selves to be the men absolutely infallible in your selves, & undeniable to others called of God more then the generation of preists, or Synods before you, you that so well conceive of your selves that you act not from Preistly Marian principles, as the Preists, your predecessors did, you also that hold foorth your doctrine, as they did theirs, from your owne or your Fathers interpretation of Scriptures, you that endeavour to limit and binde in Chaynes of darkenesse and selfe, you that would have none teach but your selves, or rather to minister what they apprehend of God, but your selves as your Fathers before you. I desire you and earnestly intreate you, as you tender the Scriptures of God which you (as if convincedly, truly, and knowingly maintaine and preach from) And because it may not be said if you, (if it be not true of you) according to that Rule of imperiousness earthliness, sensuality, and Devilishness, wisdom (and yet folly) Sic volo sic jubeo, stat pro ratione Voluntas; And furthermore because it is said in the 5 Iames 20. let him know that he which converteth a sinner from the errour of his way, shall save a soule from death, and shall hide a multitude of sinnes, (if you infallibly know, as many of you seeme constantly to averr, that this Scripture belongs unto you, to make use of) Consider you are men, and not God. You are many men, and you have many minds, See and behold (if you can) whether you may not be condemned by the Eternall God, though you condemne not your selves, or judge your selves; if you are now of one minde in your Assembly, you are not to be considered eternaly so; for yesterday you were of one mind, to day, you are of another, & before many daies or yeares come to be consummated by that eternall God, (who is uncapable of change) you may be of another minde, contrary to them both; you have hissed at the generations; that have been past, & at the generation that is, but the generations that are to come may hiss at you, and may be ashamed of their fathers pretended infallibilities; you or your fathers have Clipt the wings, whipt, scourged, imprisoned the bodies, in fine abused [Page 21] those that have been contrary to you; what did you do as you would be done by? Did not many of you that pretend to have a holy respect to the Sabbath, read (your selves, or countenance the reading in others) the book of sports. And will you now make it your sport to persecute? Did you not live farr below the heavenly glory of knowing, and understanding? How will it be with you, when God shall say to your Consciences, you that thought you knew so much of me, did not know your selves; you that were ready, and violently ready to scourge, had need be scourged, even at the same time, of God. It is true, I gave you understanding, power, and Crownes on your heads, and I will judge you according to what you are, and with what you have, as I have your fathers before you. Time was, when you would take notice of none crowned but your selves, none honoured of God but your selves, as if you comprehended all the incommunicable and communicable varieties of my selfe, as if you had the infallible discerning of spirits, but now I will shew thee those whom thou persecutedst, those whom thou esteemedst the off-scouring of all things, the filth of the whole world, to weare Crowns of gold, and white Rayment, though you had Crowns, though powers, kingdomes, & glories, though you are disputing, intellectuall persons, and have rationall capacities, though governours of multitudes, Nations, Kindreds, and tongues, yet you have not white Garments before the All-seeing, Supereminent, eternall Iehovah.
When you Lords of earth shall see one that you Lorded over, crowned with transparent gold, Crowned with the transparent power, life, wisdome, and love of the eternall, invisible God, and in the body of Jesus Christ, if you shall behold it in time, Oh then my Lords, Tempora mutantur; if when time shall be no more, what shall my Lords be, I shall expatiate my selfe according to the Scriptures of God. 10 Luke. Christ gave power to (and manifested the fathers glory in) a few poore disciples, a few tormented, hated, persecuted Saints; to cast out Devills, to tread upon Scorpions, and all the power of the Enemy; But surely they became not a Magistraticall power, to accomplish such a Victory; and though he gave them such power, he told them, there was no cause of triumph in this, or joy in this, that the spirits were subject unto them, but rather that their names were written in [Page 22] heaven, what though their are many spirits gone abroad in the world, Sectaries, the divills of the world, (as you call them) your rejoycing would be rather (if you had such a glorious Apostolicall Commission power & glory) that your names were writen in heaven, that you your selves are comprehended in the bosome of the Father: But yet if you did so your selves, and know your selves, it would be questionable whether you have this Apostolicall power and glory, if not the one, surely not the other. But you may have a Crown, power, and authority continued to you, to scourge and crucifie.
It it is said in the 21. and 22 verses, The eternall supereminent, the Lord of Heaven and earth, had hid wisdome from the wise and prudent, and revealed it to babes: Lords tell the people playnly and distinctly, whether you can say that it seemed good in the sight of the Lord to alter his visible dispensations, and to reveal his truth to Lords, Potentates, Counselours, wise men, prudent men, Sattin men, Purple and Diamond men (that is to say) those that go in gay cloathing, and would sway the whole world, those that have respect of persons, those that must sit here, and sit there, because they are thus, and thus: Christ told his disciples that many prophets & Kings, did desire to see the things that they saw and did not see them, and to hear the things that they had heard, and did not hear them. But admit there have been prophets, Kings, and Lords, since that, which have seene the things of God, you may not be such men, that are now in this Generation, Christ said all the glories of the Father were delivered unto him, and that no man did know who the Sonne is, but the father; and who the father is, but the son, and he to whom the sonne will reveale him, even that sonne who hath power over all flesh to give eternall life to as many as the father pleaseth. But Lords, Synods, Counsailes, can you say all things are delivered unto you of the father? though you have Crownes, though you have power, yet have a power of mutability your power is not that power of all: that power of love, of life, of perfection, of infalliblity: do you know the sonne as well as the Father, and the father as well as the sonne? Doe you know how many? and who, if how many, the father will give eternall life unto, by Iesus Christ? do you persecute (you being fallible according [Page 23] to your owne confession) because you would bring into the fold those that are not yet brought in, but must be, or would you be certain, infallible, powerfull assistants with Iesus Christ, the absolute Lord, or do you intend to persecute those that are not intended according to an eternall intendment, to be of the body of Jesus Christ? if so, are you as certain, as Christ is certain, that this is the Harvest? and are you as certain that you are the reapers? that you your selves are not the tares? are you the Thousands, yea the ten Thousands of Saints by which he will come to judge the world? Hath the Father altered his mind in relation to manifestation, and told you that you must pluck up the tares before the Harvest? Or was not that his minde, when he declared that the tares should grow together till the Harvest? Hath the Father or hath the Son revealed these things unto you in this generation? if so tell us; and when it was; and how: and it will be a greater glory unto you, then to sit a great while & bring out a few fallible contrivances, & Scholastick inventions. But it is far more glorious, and a greater matter of rejoycing to you to be lead (if leade) then to leade, for the all-sufficient immutable Lord to leade the lords, the people and Nations, then for blind lords and Priests to leade poor blind people.
How would the supereminent be exalted here? Admit that the Sectaries of the times, those that are called Divels incarnat (by you Potentates of the world) should in their journey to or from Jerusalem fall amongst theeves, and should be stripped of their rayment and be wounded; should yield to the temptations of that raging divell in the world, in and since the Apostacy, or since that Satans Minestery & Magistracy hath had and continued their power in the world. Is it commendable in the Priests and Levites to see them so, and to pass by on the other side? or is it commendable for these Priests to add, or cause others to add afflictions to their bonds: But these Priests and Levites God will not honour so much. The Samaritan must come and see also, and have compassion. Oh Good Samaritan! for the poor, wounded, stripped, and torn man; this is an excellent similitude, the supereminentness, and gloriousness consists in the subsistance.
But Oh! unmercifull High Priests and Levites, when God hath sent a messenger of Satan, to buffet a man and to have [Page 24] power over the bodie, & may be the understanding in temptation will you buffett and imprison much more: looke to your commission, may not God say to a Synod in this case as Christ said to Peter, in another Get thee behinde me Satan, Are you better then Peter was? if you are, or if you thinke you are, dare not Christ say so as well to a Synod as to a Peter? But this is your pity, if wee were wounded and naked, and if you were (as you are not) the true, loving, compassionate, judging, discerning persons, I think you had need to have the most glorious, infallible Commission for your security that may bee, so to persecute and prosecute, if it were lawfull so to doe. What cruelty is it in you who made not your selves, to destroy your selves? you that are not able to make a man to destroy a man, starve a man for that which is in the conscience, even for that which a man himselfe is not Lord of, when you nor he are truly able to add one Cubit to his stature, unlesse that you goe to a Shoomaker for a paire of Heeles. Indeed what ye make you may marre, but 11 Luke 40. Ye fooles, did not hee that made that which is without, make that which is within also, Profecto testificamini quod consentitis, operibus patrum Vestorum; For ought you know, God hath sent a few mechanicall illiterate fellowes (as you call them,) that the bloud and cruelty of all Generations may be set on the score of the continued successiue persecutors as wel as upon those who slew and dealt injuriously with the Prophets and Apostles. But this will not excuse you, to say you had power to binde heavy burthens on others shoulders, and not to touch them your selves with one of your fingers; This will not exuse you before the Supereminent life glory, Lord absolute, discerne judge to say; what tongue, or Lord shall controul us? Surely I think if Christ Iesus the head, the anoynted, of God in peculiarity, were in the world now, as he was, in so despicable manner to his enemies, you would scarce afford him to write, or seeme to write upon the ground, If he did we should have a gangraena made presently to condemn this Heretick, this Belzebub, this friend to publicans & sinners.
But Lords, But Counsailes but Synods, in fine but men, when the absolute Lord, and supereminent God shal tell you (though a poore man) it may be that is iudged and condemned before you may not neither doth that you who were, or are, called Lords in [Page 25] the sublunary, Visible Kingdome & glory did endeavour to cast a moate out of anothers eye, & you had a beame in your owne, and that you having a beam are no competent judges of a mote.
But it may be you will say that you are infallible in this, and also say, that that saying of Christ doth not appertain to you; Let him that is without sin cast the first stone, when God shall discover himself and manifest you what you are, even that you that judge other, are Cast-awaies your selves, are Hereticks your selves, you would not be very willing to finde a stone for another. When the Lord shall say though you cried Templum Domini, Templum Domini, yet the everlasting was not in your esteem, even he that can when he will both cast out Beam and Mote. But thus it is, when the Lord is not or will not be understandingly & supereminently in the Lords thoughts, though he be neer and sees, yet he will not be seen; but they say, how doth God know? can he judge through the dark Cloud, thick Clouds are a covering to him that he seeth not, and he walketh in the circuit of heaven, Job 22, 23, 24. But Oh Immortality! thy righteousness, thy seeing, and thy seeing to be seen, thy knowing to be known, and thy understanding to be understood shines not upon all. Thou hast O Lord set the world in my heart, so that no man can finde out the work that thou hast made from the beginning to the end. Ecclesiastes 3.11. Therefore Lord if thou wilt give a Crown, Power, and Authority to Temporarie Lords to excercise their Dominion and power even upon me, if thou shalt manifest me and make me a little flame of thy self, thy will be done. It is only in thy self to comprehend the works that thou hast made from the beginning to the end, if man indeavours to comprehend, endeavours to inthrone himself in a state of comprehending others, and persecuting others from an apprehension that he comprehends, when he doth not in deed and in truth: and though I shall (if thou comprehending incomprehensib e, willest) be afflicted, scorrned, & contemned by that generation; yet let me in particular lie down and be satisfied, that I am apprehended and comprehended of thee, and that I know, see, and speake, according to the true and reall nature of knowing, seeing, & speaking, & living, and injoying, as comprehended: let me see, before I say I see, know, before I say I know, and be spoken to, before I speak: [Page 26] Oh! thou immutable knower, see'r, and absolute speaker, as to the things that thou hast made capable of seeing, knowing, and speaking, let thy loving spirit of righteousness and wisdom uphold me; and though thou deliverest me to the ungodly, and turnest me over into the hands of the wicked, let me say truly, knowingly, and understandingly; my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high, in love, Job 26.19.
But Counsellours of the Earth, Weak Contenders of the Earth with the absolute Lord: I see and consider oppressions (though I see not all oppressions) under the Sun. But a comfort it is that the absolute Lord sees, Eccles 4.1, 2. But it may be Lords, you will say when you persecute, there is no remedy in the death of a man, it is sutable to conveniency, and the constitution of a Kingdom to destroy a man: so as it was indeed to crucifie the Son of God, who was known, & is known to some, not to be held of the grave: But you it may be, will say you have not known any man to returne; it may be you will say men are born at an adventure, and shall be hereafter as though they had never bin; & that the breath of your nostrils is as smoake, a little spark in the moving of your Breast; which being extinguished, your body shall be turned into ashes, and your spirit shall vanish as the soft Aire, therefore you will lie in waite for the righteous, because he is not for your turn, he is clean contrary to your doings, because he professeth to have the knowledge of God, and he calleth himself the child of the Lord, he is made to reprove your doings, therefore he is grievous to behold, because his life is not like other mens, his waies are of another fashion, because you are esteemed of him as counterfeits, and he abstaineth from your filthiness, and because he maketh his boast that God is his Father. And therefore you will examine him with despightfulness and torture, to know his meekness, and prove his Patience. But Potentates, I shall present a few things to your consideration, paradventure you may see with your eyes and heare with your ears, and when you are converted (if ever you shall) you may set to your seals that these things are true; to the praise and glory of the absolute,, infallible God, Judge, power, wisdome, and true glory.
1. God is the alone supream, King of kings, Lord of lords, [Page 27] and God may, as well as he hath already, give the Nations, (or those to whom he intends, to shew and manifest himself unto) a light and glorious understanding, to see that Lords (by speciall authority and power formerly constituted) are but types and shadowes of the absolute supream, immortall God and Judge: but this is true, though the Lords and Kings see it not themselves, for I know they will say, you Prophecie not good unto them in these things.
2. Christ the perfect pattern of the Fathers, manifested perfection to men; never gave any such power or kingly authority to any that then were in the world, either Magistrates or Apostles; he never gave the Apostles power to exercise themselves with scourgings, whippings, imprisonments, banishments, or oppositions of such a kind, therefore there is no such successive Magistracy, 2 Cor. 11.3, 4. verses If he that cometh, Preacheth another Jesus whom we have not Preached, and if ye receive another Spirit whom ye have not received, or another Gospel which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him. Likewise there was power given, or the manifestation of the most High in a way supereminent, that the Saints should do great things by the power of the Spirit, and in the name of the Lord Jesus, that supereminent name, that name above every name. In whose name the seventy returned with joy, and said, the Devils were subject unto them by it. Luke 10.17. I know no other authority, power, or glory given to any that should profess that name according to the spirit.
3. Christs commanding the Apostles to give Caesar his due, and God his due, is a plain demonstration, that somewhat might be due to the one that was not due to the other: and if the Magistrate would demand Lordship over the body and conscience, what would they leave for God, the eternall, infallible Ruler? Or doth the soul, the understanding alone belong to God, and the body belong to man, in relation to the commands of the Divine God?
4 Externall contrariety to Magistracy is apparant by Jesus Christ and his Apostles in their Preachings of the truth, and way of the most High God; so that as the visible doth do what he is commanded by Caesar, If that invisible God command another thing in the conscience or understanding; for Christ was [Page 28] not contrary in the invisibility, but also contrary in the visibility to the Magistracy, Governours, High-Priests, Scribes and Pharisees. Christ never inslaved himself, nor the minde of his Apostles to the Magistrates and powers of the earth. And there can be no more Conformity demanded from any, to any Magistracy, but only what he obeyed, and taught others to obey, even in the paying of Tribute to Caesar. Or unless a man be taught (by that Ministring spirit which was promised to direct into truth) to be obedient to a Magistracy in some other things which Christ was not obedient in; or was to be subject unto: no power of conscience to Magistracy. Again, the children will not be free in the Magistrates jurisdiction from paying of Tribute, so long as they have that benefit to live in the world amongst them, in buying and selling. God will not have his Saints to appear more glued to the world then other men; to get by the world, and not to let the world have a benefit from them as well as strangers or other Cohabiters: and indeed it is good for the maintayning of love and Unity in the world, and that which doth comprehend in it a possibility to live peaceably with all men. And a Magistrate (if he be one that walketh and judgeth according to the pure light of nature and right reason) is to see that there be no injury offered to peaceable men amongst them: and for this cause, the Saints or those of contrary judgements pay Tribute also, because they are or should be the Ministers of God attending upon this thing. Rom. 13.6. And therefore very conscionable that they should have Tribute, whether they are appointed of God in an immediate manner, or of men in a mediate; if they are (as they are not) appointed of God in an immediate, in a more especiall (if God shall send such, or constitute such a Magistracy) then reason to pay Tribute, if appointed of men in a mediate, good reason also because the people, multitudes or Nations, have made choice of some to do their business, to be their servants, and so long as the children of the Kingdom of God, have their just, lawfull, and naturall liberties, and freedomes, to act in their severall trades and occupations in the world, in godliness and honesty, they will yield to Caesar in those things which a Law of nature or of conveniency obligeth them to, if they were not commanded: for if they live quietly under a Magistracy in godliness, [Page 29] or according to the teaching and way of the most High God in a way of peculiarity; then they also exercise themselves in honesty, in relation to civils or to Magistracy. No power of conscience given to Magistracy.
But if they are deprived of the supreme and absolute Glory of manifestation of themselves, as to God, even in godliness (viz) by imprisonment, banishment, or by confiscation of goods, or their conversing with men because they will not receive the marke of the beast, then the Magistracy weaken their owne, and the Kingdomes strength. But yet they fulfill their owne wills on them, but indeed have no dominion ouer the Saints at all.
But if it be the Fathers pleasure, the Saints may live under a Caesar, a Caligula, a Nero, a Domitian, or another successive civill Magistracy in these considerations, peaceably and quietly in all godliness and honesty (not affording a power of conscience at all) though they are persecuted and afflicted, despised, scorned and oppressed, and so not live quietly, and peaceably, yet they may live godlily, and honestly amongst them, or in the Nation under the power of a Magistracy and the Apostle might pray for it to the Father, and yet magistracy have no power of conscience; again though they are persecuted and afflicted under a Civill Magistracy, and so not live quietly and peaceably as before, yet they themselves may live quietly, and peaceably in Godliness, and honesty (viz) they may not be disturbers, though they are disturbed; afflictors and scourgers, though scourged; Tormentors, though Tormented; buffetters, though buffetted: in fine, may not walke contrary to the pure light of nature, and right reason, though others doe so to them, and so they may live quietly, peaceably, godlily, and honestly in the midst of a perverse, irrationall, self-ish generation; and so they may pray the Father to live, though they give no power of conscience to magistracy. And therefore a poore dispised Apostle being ready to be devoured by every one, to be spitt on by every one, in his abundant labours, in his stripes above measure, in prisons frequent, being beaten with rods, being stoned, being in perills of waters, in perills of robbers, in perills by his owne country-men, in perills by the heathen, in perills by the City, in perills in the wilderness, in perills amongst false brethren, might [Page 30] very well breake out and pray to the eternall God to alter and change the powers of the world, if that eternall God would that he or the poore Saints might live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty: shall an Apostle speake of the things of his Father, and for it be ready to be devoured, and shall a Magistrate countenance it? shall he have stripes by authority, and without authority, be beaten with Rods, be imprisoned, be in perill of robbers, in the City, in the Wilderness? What is a Magistrate for then?
The Apostle being under so great pressures, in relation to the walking of Magistracy contrary to the pure light of nature and right reason, might well become a suiter to the Father, for a benefit of quietness and peace under Magistracy. But yet Oh Lord absolute and undefiled, though thou givest a crown to defiled Magistracy to take peace from the earth, thy alone eternall will be accomplished and performed, and let thy Saints live to thee, the supream Magististrate power, and authority, if thou wilt not suffer them to live quietly and peaceably in the jurisdiction of the powers of the world.
5. Though the Magistrates may command the body, yet they are only to command as I said before, that which a Saint would willingly do for peace and quietness sake, if he were only intreated, or neither commanded or intreated; so that he will act being commanded, and act being intreated, and also though neither commanded nor intreated. But when the body was to be with Jesus Christ, who was manifested in the flesh, or when the body is exercised according to the life, power, and will of the supreame Lord, in Communion with those that have the same spirit of the most high, in knowing and understanding, then the Saints must not feare them that can kill the body, (viz) magistracy, but they must walk as the divine, supereminent Saviour, Lord, King Judge wil have them. Suppose that a Magistrate commands my body to do one thing, but the invisible God in the understanding, he that is God of body and soule commands another thing; whether is it lawfull to obey God or man? Judge ye.
6. Suppose there is such a Magistrate in the world that does truely and really conceive that there is one eternall God, the judge, the absolute God, the Lawgiver in the conscience, and he [Page 31] according to rationality doth endeavour to demonstrate it, can he make another beleeve it? & if any conforme to what he saieth, not knowing it, is not he, an ignorant doer of what he would have him to do, or a dissembling person? But Aug. one of Gangraena's Fathers saith, Simulata sanctitas est duplex iniquitas. But the Magistrates, and Priests of the earth, have led the world in a string, and they are at the sensuall beck, and will of every base lust, and that rule is verified amongst them qui nescit dissimulare nescit vivere, But Oh! how excellent will it be when Saints shall more and more live to the supreame absolute God!
7. Whether a man may not have a word of God to deliver to a Magistrate, as well as a Magistrate to another man? Formerly I know God called some to speake to Kings, and Potentates of the earth. But we are better then our Fathers. Is not the spirit of forbearance as good in a Magistrate as it is in another man? if the Magistrate hath had experience that no man can make him beleeve the truths of God, & that he can not make any one; likewise why should he use violence, bitterness, and wrath? But we call it not wrath, we call it Justice.
But the absolute distinguisher sees what it is, and he will call that wrath and anger in you, which you call justice. But we will contrive a great many fine words to waue it. But there is nothing hath power, but what is given to it, nothing enjoyes it longer, then he that gave it, pleaseth; neither shall any thing be waved, but what he will wave, even that absolute, I am: But oh! Lord supereminent, if thou callest me, causest me to speak of thee, to manifest thee, though magistracy heape up words against me, & strengthen their mouthes, according to the judgement of Causidicks & Synods of the earth, though they hale me, & teare me in their ire, & sharpen their eys at me, yet let it be sufficient that thou lovest, & when soever I see man, let me be drawn to God, & let me say with Iob in the spirit of understanding without respect of persons. Iob 20.4, 5, 6, 7. Knowest thou not this of old since man was placed upon the earth, that the triumph of the wicked is short, and the joy of the wicked is but for a moment? Though his Excellencie mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds, yet he shall perish for ever like his owne dung, they which have seen him shall say where is he?
[Page 32]8. Those that the Magistrates endeavour to compell to the Laws, wills, Ordinances, interpretations of Scriptures (the Magistrates being and confessing themselves fallible) may, for ought the Magistrates know, have an obligation and an absolute understanding, ingagement upon their spirits as to God, to live to Gods owne interpretation, Law, will, and ordinance; which may be contrary to the Magistrate. For God is the absolute originall of all things that are, and that are to be interpreted.
9. The People shall not suffer for the Magistrates sins, but their owne, nor the Magistrates, for the peoples sins, but their owne. But the soule that sinneth shall die: But yet in a common calamity the one may suffer as well as the other, though not for the sins of another, 18 Eezekiel, 1, 2, 3, 4. &c. There is a declaration as from the Lord. And the word of the Lord came to me saying, What meane ye that ye Use this Proverb, concerning the Land of Israel, saying, the Fathers have eaten sower Grapes, and the childrens Teeth are set on edge? As I live saith the Lord, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this Proverb in Israel. Behold all souls are mine, as the soule of the Father, so also the soule of the sonne is mine; The soule that sinneth, it shall die: you may reade the whole Chapter. This was a glorious Prophesie, of the time that should be, when God should peculiarly manifest himselfe, when God would be no more vayled by a man, when God would manifest himselfe to be the absolute Lord, me thinks a Magistrate (confessing himselfe fallible) should feare to desire, much more to command another, to that which that other is not satisfied of God. For the soule of the person that the Magistrate commands, is Gods. It was no argument, for a poor soule, when the absolute supreame entred into judgement, to say that the Magistrate gave me and I did eate, nor an argument for the Magistrate to say, that a companie of people invested me with this, and that authority, (as I thought) or desired this, or that thing, and I did eate: I had received a Petition from the people, or from the Major part to release one Barabbas, & crucifie Jesus Christ, I received a Petition to deprive such and such People of their liberties, (being such as they, when they did petition, confessed God had honoured in doing them good) estates, priviledges, and benefits of living in the world, unlesse [Page 33] they indeed, were not perswaded of in their own consciences. If it was an Argument inexcusable that Adam and Eve used to God, this may also hardly be. They had an infallible Ministration, what should be death and life: But the Magistracy of the world, and Synods of the times (confess themselves fallible) It was an Argument in that most certain case for Satan to use, to suggest to poor weak Eve, as it was presented to deceive: God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, your eys shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. But oh Lord I let me seek unto thee, with thee, and from thee, though that Devil tempts me to unite, and manifest my self to that, and in that way of darkness, and man-sinning in the world, whatsoever specious, and fallacious pretences, I shall receive from the men of the world, and from my own soul, as considered in its way of operations contrary to the body of Jesus Christ: Let me, though I hear men in the world pretend to the glorious mysteries of the Eternall God, and the honour and glory of him, try things with thy self alone; and therefore, be thou pleased to condescend to be my Companion, and teach me the way of thy Commandments in the Spirit.
Though honour, pleasure, and preferment is presented to me, if I submit to that way that I am, or am not perswaded is the way of God, as considered in distinction in thy production in Jesus Christ: Let me hate (O strength) all objects that are presented with pleasantness to my eyes, and with affection to my understanding, though it be presented unto me, to be desired, and to make me wise: If thou dost contradict all those exterior presentations in the Interiorest, And let me not value the favour, credit, respect, and reputation of men of the world but be thou my God, and then I shall have rejoycing, though I shall be cast out of the Paradice of men, and kept out every way with a flaming sword: But in this my affliction let me have communion and power with thy self, or else I shall prove a Devil to my self, and present the glories of the world to my understanding, and shall be deceived.
Tenthly, Admit that the Laws, Ordinances of man, or the interpretations of Scriptures by man were plain; must not God, the absolute, and infallible, and Supream power, accomplish in [Page 34] the hearts and spirits of all men, a beleeving of plain things as well as mysterious things (that have more palpable necessity to have the truth, and pure minde of them declared.) The Spirit was promised to shew the Saints plainly of the Father: If the Father intended we should have Lords of the earth to shew us plainly of the Father, and to make us beleeve the plainness of the Supereminent teachings, surely he would have told us that the Fathers shall teach us; The LORDS shall instruct us: The variable, mutable, fallible, windy spirits shall teach us.
But if we are subject to such teachings: The fallible, mutable, spiritual men, or spirits of the world, may cast out Devils in the name of Jesus Christ, and sweep, and garnish the house, that seven other Devils far worse then the former may enter in.
Eleaventh, Admit magistrates, and natural high Priests were the servants of the most high God, the beloved of the Father, those that knew the mysteries of the Lord Jesus, were infallible in all knowledge, or if they were true and reall Fasters, and praying persons; have they any other way prescribed to cast out Devils out of those that are in their eyes damnable Hereticks, such as are really possessed with the spirit of blasphemy, then by Fasting and Prayer? Have they any such rule as this, by scourgings, by whippings, by imprisonments, by banishments? Howbeit, saith Christ, this kinde cometh not out but by fasting and Prayer, and no more. There is no other way spoken of by Christ, but by fasting from self, from strife, and from debate, and from striking with the fist of wickedness, living to, and seeing the will of the Supereminent in fasting, in willing, in desiring, according to the effluxes, and descendings of it to capacity: so that then fasting is good, and praying is exceeding good, when the wil of the Supereminent & everlasting is become mans wil, or mans will become the wil of the supereminent, substantial, eternal, undefiled God, which shal certainly be accomplished. But if even their very Fasting and praying (according to the true, and real nature of Fasting and praying) be questionable, whither will they flie for their actions of Persecution and Tyrannie?
Twelfth, Admit the generallity, or major part of Civill magistracy were truly godly, and heavenly-minded (though I must confess I know no such matter, it is well for themselves, if they [Page 35] truly know themselves so) and did walk in the Spirit; would they not say as Paul did, concerning his brethren after the flesh, who was so taken up with love to them, that he would be accursed from Christ Jesus for his brethren after the flesh (who no doubt had errours, yet not persecuted by him) would they not say, surely these are men as well as our selves, and we cannot choose but confess our selves fallible; we have not the Supereminent light, and perfection of infallibility discovered to us, as we confess the Apostles had; we have not the infallible minde of God discovered to us without the Scriptures; we have not the infallibility of interpretation of the minde of God in the Scriptures; these men that we now Persecute, though as now after the flesh to us, may be in relation to God the seed of Abraham, according to Faith; unto these may belong the Promises, the adoption, the giving of the Law of the most high God and LORD in Tables of the heart, as well within as without, as well within in love, as within in terrour. We have had experience in this particular already; that those that have been extream vitious, are become Religious; we our selves have been debauched, most desperate swearers and blasphemers of that Eternall being, (and are so still) and we saw (or many of us) that nothing did us good truly, but the light and love of the absolute, Divine, Supereminent: Truly all are dry-vines, there is but one Supereminent power: Why should any the Dry-vines of the world urge such a thing on us, as to lift us up, and instigate us to Persecute a company of poor, may be, afflicted, tormented, tempted creatures of God, as well as our selves, if they have received the Spirit of the Lord? So said their fathers before them, and yet Persecuted the members of Christ; they may boast beyond their line, as well as others have: If they have the Spirit, they have received it, why should they boast? Why should they insult, domineer, and Tyrannize over others?
Suppose Lords of the Earth, that some of you should give a gift to some one man, and not to another, or a better gift to one man then to another, as a badge of your mutable honour and love, should another now that meets with one that hath not this badge, rend him and tear him for it? if that he did also meet one that had not so excellent a badge of honour as another [Page 36] should he also imprison him, and wound him, or strip him naked? Surely I should think its because he is so covetous, as to desire the garment: The Priest and the Levite that came by the poor Samaritane, might be the Theeves: Apply it Potentates.
Besides, admit you should give a man an excellent badge, or cognizance of love in your families, you should array him in glorious apparell, and set a crown of gold on his head, would you take it well, that he should beat his fellow servants, and wound them? Reflect my Lords, that he should kill all other poor creatures, that came in his way, because they had not the like garbe; truly, you would say this with your self; I may give my own to whom I will; so long as I have, I may give what I have; he hath abused my love and favour towards him. It may be you may judge your selves for your liberality; but Gods ways are past finding out; and God may give forth some way or other to discover the thoughts of all hearts. Oh Lord Supereminent! Thou hast made all men almost to differ one from another, and thou hast set the world in their hearts: to some thou didst give the gift of prophesie (it may be) in some measure, to some Tongues, to some discerning of spirits, to some working of miracles, to some wisdom, to some knowledge, to some Faith; if thou givest me but the glimmerings of love in the least of these, or in any one, let me not despise him that hath more, or judge him that hath more, nor yet despise him that hath less, or judge him that hath less (if any have less then my self) in relation to capacity, or understanding, for thou art the same; let me not pretēd to know above what I really know, though the powers of the world would have me do that I am not convinced of; or leave undone, that which I cannot, because I am thine, not their servant: Oh then the absolute Lord, over-rule the lords in me, and let me see thee, and walk before thee in the understanding: yet if thou wilt have a Nero, a Domitian, a Caligula, or any power of the visible world to scourge me: Give my back to the smiters, and let me know and see thou givest it, and then let me take pleasure in it. For oh Lord, me thinks I see that a man may have a vision of God, and may see a star to arise out of Jacob, and may be convinced in his conscience, that the earth is the Lords, and the fulness thereof, and that God is the [Page 37] alone Lawgiver, Judge, and absolute supream (as many, or most of the Nationall Priests and Lords confess) yet at the request of a base sensitive lust, and divilish desire, will endeavour to have Altars built; yea, Altar, upon Altar, to see whether they can curse the Israel of God. Let us proclaim a Fast, that so God may hear our Prayers, and grant our desires, the longing of our souls. But Lord, how far is this from the true life of Saintship, and love in the World? But O Lord refine me, and then let me walk as refined.
Thirteenth, The mandates of the Scripture (even the Scriptures from which the Potentates, and powers of the earth have, and do maintain persecution and violence to others) do all of them extend to the Magistrate, and if he were in a Christian constitution (as he pretends) he ought not in that relation to use carnall weapons, neither will he, unless he supposes himself wiser then ever Christ, or an Apostle was, or hath received the Spirit more then an Apostle had, or hath received the Spirit to maintain and defend such a practise, as the Apostle could not, neither did, 2 Cor. 10.4. Christ saith, when they were persecuted, should pray, when cursed, bless; Christ could have had twelve Legions of Angels to defend him in this visible world, but he would not take any invisible glory, or visible excellency of God to defend him: And if the Magistrates will tell us plainly, that they have that power given them (as considered in a constitution of holiness and truth) which the Father would not give Jesus the Son, or which he would not assume or exercise, nor give his Apostles power to assume or exercise: Let them prove, that they, or this, or that particular Magistrate had, or have, that which neither of them had, neither Jesus Christ, nor Apostles: And let those whom they are pleased to call Hereticks, and to banish, imprison, and afflict; see their Arguments, that they have in themselves, as in the presence (though they think it not, nor perceive it, or know it, or though knowing it, will not acknowledge it) of the Eternall incomprehensible Judge, non-respecter of persons, the interiorest, discerner, that can describe that which man describes with a fuller description, and judge with a fuller judgement then man, or any visible glory, or rationall intellect in the world; who is without the exteriorest, and within the interiorest, and [Page 38] indivisible in himself, who judges with a more absolute judgement, then all the Councels, Potentates, Lords, Synods or Parliaments of the earth. And when he enters into judgement, the flesh of a Lord is no more then the flesh of another man, nor shall more be justified by him, or be able to justifie it self. But I beleeve, if things were demonstrated in the world, according to the spirit of truth, reallity, and non-confusion, the Lords, Potentates, and Counsels of the earth would appear to be the greatest Anti-scripturists, though in words they would not have it so expressed, or so express it themselves.
Fourteenth, Is it not a case of conscience, or is there not necessity, that every particular man should be perswaded in his own minde for what he doth or for what he is commanded to do, least he call good evil, and evil good, least he call oppressing, persecuting, Lords, Magistrates, Counsels, Synods, followers of the God of heaven in love, light and truth; Citizens of the New Ierusalem, Saints of the most high God, livers in the Spirit, those that walk with God? when indeed they are not so, but grinders of the faces of the poor; Idolaters, carnall, sensuall and divilish, having not the spirit, having mens persons in admiration because of advantage, making a prey of the poor and needy; having wisdom, yet are not wise unto God, but to themselves; oppressours (though not of their friends, or themselves) of the Saints of the most High, or those that are not perswaded in their consciences by the Divine Supream God: It is not strange to say, know, and think, that magistrates (and ministers so called) have been so, are, and may be so: The Scriptures of the most High God testifie it; the saints have witnessed it, and still do witness it with their blood and bodies: Are there not men, magistrates, and ministers of such mindes as Caesar Caligula was of, that wished that all the people of Rome had but one neck, that he might destroy many at once: Many can apply this: But Hell must inlarge her self; Gods design must be accomplished in Hell, as well as in Heaven; Saints give your backs to the smiters.
In this my last Demonstration and apprehension, I was in the conclusion, desiring in my own spirit of that eternall Jehovah and everlasting God, that I might be so swallowed up into that [Page 39] eternall glory, wisdom, power, will, that I might not manifest my self with my self; but that my self, or rather himself might be manifested in me, by me, and from me: then though the mutable Lords of the Aire oppose me, yet my alone substantiall, ever-remaining, supereminent Lord remaines: If I live he is, if I die, those that live after me shall not truly say he is not, but he is the same. I also desired that I might be so swallowed up to the life of the Lord, that in seeing of that Lord, in the things of that Lord, I might not respect persons & that it might be all one to me to be hated, and to be loved, to be honoured, and to be dishonoured, to have evill report, & to have good report to be buffetted, scorned, contemned, despised, and to be counted the offscouring of the world, & to be courteously entertained, affected, delighted in, to be out of prison when I am in, and to be in when I am out; to have all things when I have nothing, and to see only that all, that eternall wise God alone when I have any thing: if he shall call me to speak of himself, that I may not live to any thing under the Sun, for I see vanity in all things; I desired that I might see and live in the eternall life, in the life supereminent: and if I shall be called amongst the called Gods and Lords, that I might speak, as seeing truly but one eternall God and Lord: For all the Gods and Lords of the earth shall wax old lik a garment, and shall be folded up like a vesture: this I know and see by experience. Thou Lord makest the lords of the earth their name to rot, and their memory to perish, and what shall be to them in their severall particulars everlastingly, thou LORD knowest.
In companie I desire to see thee, and to look up to thee in the understanding, as if I had none, that so I might see and not see, behold and not behold, be thou my alone companion. Here in the world men love one another, because they are as to one another according to sence, but let me not be to any but to thee alone; let my life as the Apostle said, be in the flesh by the faith of the Son of God in the Spirit.
In this world none must speak of the God, but that those the gods will approve of; none must speak of the eternal, immutable, incondemnable, but those whom the mutable, condemnable, dying Lords please, none must declare the eternal God to the [Page 40] world, but those whom the Ministers, or Synods of Nations, or the Gods of the Nation pleaseth. But if thou absolute, infallible minister, ministrests to me, if thou committest a word unto me, inflame me, and let me be thy flame in the spirit, though the world indeavour to drown, to quench thy glory in me. But if I am not manifested by thee, let my hiding place be in thee, and of thee, so that let manifestation, and cessation; (to be, and not to be; and again to be) be all of thee, who hast times and seasons comprehended in thy self.
But Lord, if the lords of the earth imprison me, visit me in the understanding and lay not, if it be thy will, that sin to their charge; for I desire not to have pleasure in their horror, when hel and death seizes upon them, I desire not to be taken up with them, nor to live unto them, nor to rejoyce in their pains; for I desire not to live unto my own pleasure in me, nor any pleasure to me, but be affected with pain to me from them, if thou wilst it. But let me wholly live to thee but Lord thy will be done, for all things are of thee, all things are for thee, all things are to thee, though particulars see it not.
15. If it be supposed (as there is great probability to suppose) or if it hath been, and be known as by experience, that Magistrates, Lords, Potentates, Counsellours, Priests, yea high Priests, are swearers, drunkards, oppressors, walkers after their own lusts, blasphemous, fallible men, will-worshippers, (having none, as they say, to rule them) contemners, and despisers of that which is good (unless it be from a Priest) from a Carpenters son, from a fisherman; then Lords are you competent Judges? May not a man say to you when you would punish such a one as you call a Heretick (though a man doth not countenance Heresie no more then Christ did countenance adultery in the woman, when they would have had her stoned) Let him that is without sin cast the first stone at her; so you that are without Heresie, or without the same Heresie (for many times expressions of formality do make a difference) cast the first stone, imprison, destroy, banish, or take away the lives of those you call Hereticks whose life perhaps may be better then ten thousand of yours. But precious in the sight of the Lord, though not of the Lords, is the death of his Saints; but you may do such a thing in your dayes, [Page 41] that you may never blot out of your consciences, at such a time, when you shall not be able to redeem your selves or others with ten Thousands of Gold or Silver, or ten Thousand Rams, or ten Thousand Rivers of Oyl, or the first fruit of your body, for the sin of your soul. But the Will supereminent, indescribable, is, that there must be persecutors and persecuted, crucifiers and crucified. Lords and high Priests look to your selves if you can: God hath chosen the poor of the world rich in faith: not many mighty, not many rich, not many Noble, &c. I exclude not all: What eternity hath done, that it self knows.
16. A man for what he doth, especially in a business of high concernment, had need be infallible, be absolutely resolved it is the minde of God as in Jesus Christ, for if you live not to the supream Originall according to the of knowledg God, you judge the things so God with your own mindes, you judge the supream; so that it may be said as well that the lords Judge the Lord as that the Lord judges the lords: But ye will not say so, will ye? neither wil you say you think so: but whether you say, or think so, you do so.
17. If you are infallible, your infallibility must proceed from the most high, immediately, truly, and understandingly; if you will declare things without the Scriptures (as you say you will not) if you will be absolute Judges, if you will have Hereticks depart out of your coasts, if you will have them banished, (according to the minde of a Synodean Minister, who declared himself so to me) if you your selves are your own teachers, you will not say you are infallible; if the pretended Ministers of the Lord Jesus are your teachers, they will not alwaies be so audacious (thanks be to the most High) to say that they are infallible, so that you shall finde great cause to confess you are at a loss.
18. If your infallibility depends upon the understanding of the Scriptures, and so you (as you say) will walk according to the Scriptures, you must have the infallible Teacher to teach according to them, what is mysterious, and what not, to distinguish between the mysticall and the plain: if you acknowledge that there is a plain and a mysticall, and so to be more infallible distinguishers then others. Suppose a Noble man should send a Letter to one that hath been an intimate friend of his in the Kings Army, and they having had precedent intimacy, know the minde one of [Page 42] another by this Letter, but when this Letter is intercepted, and comes to the hands of others, every man interprets this Letter as he pleaseth; would you not esteem it an indignity: when the supream Judge shall come to judge the world, as the Apostle saith according to his Gospel, when the supream God shall averr in the interiorest, and say, that indeed he sent his Son, and anointed him with the Oyl of gladness above his fellows, and gave him the spirit not by measure, so that unmeasurableness, and mysticalness, was manifested in him, and by him, and he spake to a few Saints, and gathered by the power of the Spirit a few poor men to teach the mysteries of Christ: but there was one William Pryn Esquire, a Lawyer, (I will not say Saint Pryn) and the Lords of the earth, and the Synods of the world proved interpreters with their own lusts, according to their formall, artificiall terms of distinction, and so they said, this must be the meaning to day, & this must be the meaning to morrow, Procul dubio; Lords, is this not indignity? But Christ will not be for ever crucified in his body the Church, crucifying will be over may be in time; but surely will, when time shall be no more.
19. If the Scriptures were so plain, that he that runs may reade, & he that barely reads may understand, to what purpose is the spirit promised to lead into all truth since the Ascention? If I may absolutely, knowingly, understandingly, infallibly, Aopstolically, Christ like know and understand all that I see and heare concerning my self and others. But truly Lords and mutable Potentates, though you reade, & hear, & see (as you say you do) you may say as the Eunuch, how shall I understand without a guide? But remember this, the guides say and confess they are not infallible.
20. If you do confess the spirit was promised to be given after the Ascention, if it be given to ye, it is a greater glory for you to tell us of it, then laugh at it; to tell of it how it came to you, and when, then to tell us what you have done for us (if any thing) in relation to civils, Paul was not ashamed of it.
21. If you confess that the spirit was promised to be given after the Ascension, you had need to averr, justifie, and prove, that it was promised to be given to Magistrats, Lords, and Synods, not poore men, not Fisher-men, that the spirit went from the poore, to the rich, from those that the honourable count base, [Page 43] to the honourable. And though it were so, it is no good Argument to convince a man, even to strike him, to imprison him, and defame him, as the false prophet did the true, when he said, when went the spirit of the Lord, from me to thee.
22. If you prove that the spirit was to be given to Magistracy, Lords, Nationall preists, both you and the people had need know, whether you in this age, that now is more then any other, are the Magistrates, and the Preists. For it was not promised to Magistracy in all Ages, if it had, it would have been performed, for he promiseth nothing, but what he performeth. And that precedent Magistracy, have been enemies, and persecutors of the Saints of God under the notion of Heretiques or those that have been contrarie minded, it is playnly apparent, Historie declare it, and you your selves confess it, & are convinced of it in your own hearts, as you say; therefore let that Magistracy as well as other men, let that Synod that thinks he stands take heed least he falls, or is already fallen, or that he takes falling for standing in himselfe, and standing for falling in others, and so judges, condemnes and persecutes.
23. Me thinks I heare in my eares, a urge, saying, and a voyce to my understanding, declaring that there was a Nation or multitude of people met together (as Episcopalls, Presbyters, and Independents, so called) and did convene from remote parts, the East, West, North, and South, and these chose some to consult and debate what should be for the good of that Nation, and kingdome, and gave them power, and honour, and externall glory, (so much as they could, or was in their power) but the prevayling party tooke upon them the things of God, and the place of God, as much as in them lay, and beat and wounded those that were contrary minded in their minds, as to God, though they still continued loving and affectionate to them, Is this good? Oh! sad requitall, may not you say, woe to your owne soul, for you have rewarded evill to your selves? Isa. 3.12. Oh! my people, they which leade thee, cause thee to erre, and destroy the way of thy paths.
24. Suppose that a multitude of faire complexioned men, of straite deportment should choose and elect a companie, and place them in honour, and dignity, above themselves, but these [Page 44] poore creatures, or some of them (may be Iob in the paralell) should have an affliction upon them, their faces should be changed, their bodyes should grow crooked, and this should be inflicted by the God of all natures, mutable glories, and excellencies; or suppose God should send Sathan to tempt them, or some of them, that they may consent to the temptation, and whereas Iob had boyles, and sores, even from the Crowne of the head to the sole of the feet, would it not be sad now, that one should come and lay Iobs affliction more heavie on him, whipp the man, sting him with scorpions? But would it not be as sad also, to see two that were full of boyles, and sores, wounds of Sathan, temptations of the Devill, that contrarie, that roaring Lion, in the shape of man, to whip one another, and lash one another, for I have heard many of the nationall preists confess themselves publiquely, that they have been full of wounds, and sores, and putrifactions even from the crown of the head, to the sole of the foot: Oh! Preist, it is better for thee to tell who healed thee, then to wound another that is in thy former condition, if thou art out of it, and truly translated.
But would not this make a man to breake out after this manner, and say (O inhumanitie) had I knowne this, should I have been so inhumane to my selfe; I am scourged, because I am sore wounded, because I have boyles, because I am in temptation, because I am in errours, because Sathan that politique Devill, that contrarie, hath deceived me, and I am deceived, though I have boyles, and sores, from the sole of the foot to the crowne of the head, sent me of the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords, the Ruler of Princes, yet after the manner of men; I might have spared the rending, and tearing my owne bowells. I cannot comprehend the heavens, and the earth, much less him that is greater then both, I cannot change my selfe, nor make him change me, till he will.
But the will of eternitie be done, why should I contend with the God of all changes? when I did choose them, I was weakness it selfe: I was the weaker vessell, and I am despised for being so, yet I made not my selfe so, neither can I add one Cubit to my stature, reade 1. Isa. 29.30.31.
[Page 54]25. Admit that those that are generally called (and doe call themselves) Ministers of the Gospel, and prophets of the most high God, in an eminent, and a supereminent manner, have communion with God, and should be told of God, as the Prophet was, what they should do, 13 Kings reade the whole Chapter, must we goe forward, and backward, because the Prophets do so. But surely I hope there is the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah in the way: I who am weakness, desire of thee, O Immortall strength, that I may more and more walke as comprehended of thy divine will, that I may neither goe backward, and forward, and forward, and backward, to the right hand, and to the left hand, because the Nationall preists, and Prophets do so, but that I may walke as became a child to thee the Father of spirits, and the God of all consolation, and therefore let me live to the willing life, and living will of thee, O supersupereminent God.
26. Magistrates and ministers of God (so called) you are but men subject to like passions that other men are, as well as an Apostle was (as he confesseth) if not much more; and you were not long since under Episcopacy, and owned it as of God, many of you, if not all did: did you satisfie your selves, or were you satisfied of God? if you were, can you, or we that are contrary minded draw God to us to satisfie us when you or we will our selves, your selves?
27. You Magistrates and ministers (so called) are but at the most, or the most you can say of your selves in your own applause, is, that you are but wise and prudent men. But saith Christ, Father I thank thee, thou hast hid these things from the wise, and prudent, Scribes, Pharises, Lawyers, chief Priests, and revealed them to babes; but may be you will say now as Lloyden said, the case is altered; but many Scriptures will prove this.
28. Magistrates and ministers (so called) you shall die as well as other men: the King and the Beggar, the Fool, and the Achitophel, the master, and the servant, ye shall go to one Tomb that contains all generations mystically in it self: But I will not say you think you shall have a Pardon, or a Purgatory, or both.
29. Magistrates and minsters (so called) the Kings, the Priests, and the people; the beggar, and the rich; the wise, and [Page 46] the foolish; the abased, and the abounding person; the Lawyer, with his terms, fallacies, and term-pleadings; and the Divines, (so called) with their formall, Sophistical Criticisms shall appear (if there be any judgement, as indubitably there is, and shall) before the absolute perfect Tribunal, all the restitution of all things, when all things shall be brought forth, according to the will, powerfull Excellencie, and minde of the supream Cause, when the things that are mystically, unsearchably brought forth, and are again mystically hid in its proper center, in a way of mutability, shall be brought forth in everlastingness; but this is a mystery of eternity, at which time, and in which appearance, you Lords of the earth shall be judged in those things that ye judge; questioned in those things that ye question others, and be your selves examined, whether you are in the faith, in a supersuperlaive manner. And so farewell mutable, dying, vain, unholy, unnaturall, temporarie, judging, inconsiderable man.