some queries concerning the work of god in the world which is to be expected in the latter ages thereof with a few plain words to the nation of england, tending towards stopping the future breakings forth of gods wrath, both upon the people and powers thereof : with an advertisement relating to the present state of things. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) some queries concerning the work of god in the world which is to be expected in the latter ages thereof with a few plain words to the nation of england, tending towards stopping the future breakings forth of gods wrath, both upon the people and powers thereof : with an advertisement relating to the present state of things. penington, isaac, - . p. printed and are to be sold by r. wilson ..., [london : ] caption title. imprint from colophon. heading of p. in two lines rather than one. signed at end: isaac penington, the younger. reproduction of original in duke university library. eng kingdom of god. a r (wing p ). civilwar no some queries concerning the work of god in the world, which is to be expected in the latter ages thereof; with a few plain words to the nati penington, isaac c the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the c category of texts with between and defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images - judith siefring sampled and proofread - judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion some queries concerning the work of god in the world , which is to be expected in the latter ages thereof ; with a few plain words to the nation of england , tending towards stopping the future breakings forth of gods wrath , both upon the people and powers thereof ; with an advertisement relating to the present state of things . query i. vvhether the kingdoms of the earth shall not one day become the kingdoms of the lord and of his christ , wherein the lord god omnipotent shall reign , and mans glory and greatness fall , that god alone may be exalted in that day ? rev. . , . isa. . , , , . quer. ii. when shall this be ? whether this is not to be expected upon the recovery out of the antichristian apostacy ? whether the man-child is not then to be expected to be so born and brought forth as to rule all nations with a rod of iron ? rev. . . and chap. . . quer iii. when the son of man comes to take the government to himself , to give forth the law out of zion , and the word of the lord from jerusalem , ( isa. . . ) whether he shall find faith on the earth ? whether he shall find the kings and powers of the earth ready to receive him , and the professors willing to submit themselves unto him ? or whether they shall generally combine against him , and he be fain to overcome them , before he can reign over them ? luke . . rev. . , , . psal. . , . quer. iv. why these things may not be expected in this our day , and be already begun in this our nation , seeing so many strange things have happened among us , as have not in many foregoing ages , god having so strangely raised up a generation to do service for him , and so strangely again brought them down , when they had so long , and so often shewed themselves unworthy of , and unfit for so great a service , by still seeking themselves and forgetting the lord that raised them ? quer. v. how the kingdoms of the earth are to become the kingdoms of the lord and of his christ ? whether it be not by taking his yoak upon them , by submitting to his laws , his cords and bands ? by giving up whatsoever is unjust , unrighteous , harsh and oppressive , and coming under the bands of righteousness , meekness , and equity ? psal. . , . mat. . . quer. vi . whether the lord be arisen to shake terribly the earth or no ( as was long ago prophesied he should ? isa. . . ) for the lord will once more shake both heaven and earth , heb. . . there hath been a sore shaking in this nation , the foundations of government , yea the very foundations of religion have been shaken , that that which cannot stand might be removed out of the way , and give place to that which cannot be shaken , vers. . consider therefore whether these be the beginnings of the great and terrible day of the lord god almighty , or only some such ordinary shakings as use to happen according to the course of kingdoms and states , which are subject to changes , alterations and dissettlements ? quer. vii . when god beginneth to shake the heaven and earth in nations ( according to that great shaking which is to be after the antichristan apostasie , rev. . and chap. . ) whether there ever can be any firm settlement again upon the old foundations ? there may appear some hopes and probability of a settlement again , which man may be tempted to fasten upon ; but this will but provoke god to shake more effectually : for when god once ariseth to shake , he will not give over till he hath made that fall , which he began to shake , revel. . . o england take heed . quer. viii . how the kings , powers , and nations of the earth may secure their standing in that day , whether there be any way for them so to do , and what is that way ? whether there be any other way but kissing the son , submitting to his bands , being willing to be bound with the chains of righteousness , love and meekness , from all unrighteousness and oppression , both relating to their fellow creatures and to his people ? psal. . . and . . come o nation of england , be bound : o powers of this nation , take the lords yoak upon you , seek righteousness , seek meekness , seek the good of all , not in words and pretences , but in truth and uprightness . seek out that which is of god in every one of your hearts , and let that govern for god . do not smile any for obedience to the living god , but come ye also under his yoak , that what is not of god in your selves , but an enemy to your souls , may be yoaked down : and let all laws be formed , directed , and managed , to reach the unrighteous , that the rod of the wicked may not alwayes lie upon the lot of the righteous ( psalm . . ) nor oppression and self-wil sit in the seat of judgment , and pass ( because of its power and authority ) for righteousness , eccles. . . and . . o ye powers of england , save your selves and this nation from the terrible stroak of god , which is very near . and let not this following advice be disdained by you , but consider seriously of it . take heed how you call any to account for what they have done against you . there was an extraordinary hand of god in these things : and in falling fowl upon instruments , ye may clash against him before ye are aware . for their iniquity the lord hath laid them aside , and raised you up again , giving you another day of tryal : let that suffice , and look now to your own standing , that ye also do not fall , by following their example of iniquity and unrighteousness . but if you will call them to account for any thing , let it be for being unfaithful to god and the people of this nation , to whom they made large promises , but performed little . and that which god required of them ( and the nation had reason to expect from them ) do ye now perform : give all men the liberty of their consciences towards god , let them follow him out of the fashions , customs , and worship of the world without interruption : and let there also be narrow search after what is unjust , unrighteous and oppressive in any kind ; and as fast as it is discovered let it be removed , that the nation may grow out of vanity , out of unrighteousness , into solidity and righteousness , and that the fear of offending man may not affright any from fearing , obeying , and worshipping of god in spirit and truth , as he requireth , and then god will bless the nation and the powers of it . for the lord god taketh not pleasure in overturning of nations , or breaking in pieces the powers thereof : yet if they will by no means hearken , but harden their hearts and stand in the way of his counsel and design , he cannot spare them , isa. . . therefore stand not in battel against him , but bow before him , o ye great ones of the earth , become low and little that his wrath may pass by you ; let go your own strength and greatness , and take hold of his strength , that ye may make peace with him , ver. . and do not go about to limit the spirit of god in his people , that will most certainly ruin you . the lord god hath begun to bestow his spirit upon his sons and daughters , as in dayes of old , even as before the great apostacy and erring from it , and he requireth their obedience to it , and who may safely forbid or punish them therefore . much lies upon this land in this respect , o do not add more , lest ye sink the nation and your selves . now a little to help the nation and powers thereof the better to digest the work of god , that they may not run on headily against him to their own ruin and destruction , let these two things following be considered . . whether the people of god in the dayes of the apostles were not a separated people , a people gathered out of nations , kindreds , tongues and languages ( gathered out of the jewish worship , gathered out of the heathenish worship ) and separated to god . . whether after the antichristian apostacy , there are not a people to be gathered again , and separated again , from all antichristian wayes of worship , even after the manner as they were before the apostacy from the heathenish and jewish worship ? and so the same gospel which gathered at first , is after the apostacy to be preached to gather men again , rev. . , . consider well of these things , that ye may not set your selves against the lord to cross him in his work in this nation . ye cannot hinder him from gathering his people now out of this apostatized state , no more then the jews or heathen could hinder him from gathering his elect then out of their corrupt states . the reformation out of popery was very weak and imperfect , the lord waited long for the perfecting of it ; but instead thereof , there was rather a running backward towards it again . the lord hath now at length begun the work himself , letting forth his spirit upon his people , and gathering many into it , and is preparing the stones of his temple for his building , and he will assuredly build up his church again , ye cannot possibly stop him herein , ye may break your selves by attempting to remove this burthensome stone out of your way ( for indeed it doth lie somewhat offensively in the way of all settlements and governments according to the fleshly wisdom ) but it will fall upon and break all that burthen themselves with it , though not by outward might or power , yet by that spirit of life and righteousness which is in it , which the lord is with to prosper . consider these things in meekness , righteousness , and in the fear of the lord , even in that spirit which is fit to act for god and not against him . an advertisement to the powers and people of this nation . because of my dear love to my native country , and because of the dregs of that cup which the lord hath already caused it to drink of , which cannot be spared unless the lords will be effected without it , which dregs are so bitter , terrible and dreadful , as will make the stoutest heart to faint , and the confidentest countenance wax pale : i say for this cause , in love am i constrained to add these few lines more , that if it be possible this nation may apply it self , in the fear and dread of the eternal majesty and power , to make its peace with him against whom it hath long warred ( not onely by much outward wickedness , loosness , vanity , and prophaneness , but more especially by setting up an invented form of godliness , and persecuting the power ) and to whom it is not yet reconciled in this matter , nor found so much as willing to be reconciled . the lord god of heaven and earth , of glory , of majesty , of everlasting power , victory , and dominion over all , who made both heaven and earth , and hath the command of all things therein , he disposeth of nations , of governments , of earthly powers according to his pleasure , and who may say unto him what dost thou ? who may implead him for making a rich nation poor , a strong nation weak , or for bringing down the high and mighty , the strong , sto ut , honourable and noble in a nation , and exalting the poor , the mean , the persecuted ? and if he turn his hand again , and lay them flat whom he had lifted up , and exalt the other even unlookt for , who can withstand him , or who may contradict him ? now what is in the lords heart ( who is thus mighty and absolute ) he will certainly bring to pass , how unlikely , how contrary , how impossible soever it seem to the eye of man . if he will exalt his despised truth ( which always was so to the eye of the great & wise ones of this world ) or give his people liberty to fear , worship and obey him ; if he will have truth and righteousness have the dominion in mens hearts , and in the nations , and not the wills and lusts of men , how great and powerf●l soever : i say , if this be his intent , though generation should arise up after generation to oppose him herein , yet will he be too hard for them all , and they will all fall before him , and his truth , his people , his holy eternal counsel will he raise up , and cause to triumph over them all . it is mans way to settle himself by outward strength against outward strength , and then he thinks he is safe , not eyeing the invisible hand which turns the wheels , and delights to overturn that which is outwardly strong ( and seemeth unremovable ) when it forgetteth him , and opposeth it self against him . the lord god loves to take his enemies at the strongest , when they are most wise , most mighty , even when nothing seems able to deal with them but himself . this was it overthrew the foregoing powers one after another , they were courting worldly interest , and strengthening themselves that way , but overlooking god who raised them , and the work which he had raised them to accomplish . this turned the hand against them which had been for them , and how then could they maintain their standing ? o that the present generation could see the ticklishness of their standing , and consider that this is their day of tryal , and that the lord's eye is upon them to observe their wayes , to see whether they will now mind righteousness and the liberty of his people better than formerly they did , and that his truth may in its life and power ( and not in such a form or way of worship as they may think good to prescribe ) have its scope in the nation . the lords eye and heart is upon his truth ( and upon his people : ) and as nations or powers deal with that , so will he deal with them . o therefore be not deceived , for though the lord hath oftentimes long suffered his people to lie under reproach and persecution ( as he did israel in egypt for divers ages ) yet at length he hath still heard their groans , and hath arisen to deliver them : and though pharaoh afterwards with all his strength went after them , and made no question but to bring them back again under his subjection ( and there was nothing in appearance able to deliver them from him ) yet he could not , but overthew himself and his strength utterly . ye know not what strong cries and tears were put up to the lord , before these late changes , that righteousness might be established in the nation , and that his people might have liberty to worship him in his fear , and according to the leadings of his spirit , without being yoaked under any form of worship , which their hearts could not own to be of god . and when the long parliament was unexpectedly raised up , that was looked upon by many to have been the means god would have used towards the effecting of this : and we cannot yet deny but that god did make use of them in some things for good , for which his name was honoured . but though that instrument did warp , becoming unfaithful to the lord , diverting from his work and service , towards the seeking and establishing of themselves and their own interests , and so are at length themselves justly therefore fallen : yet the work of the lord is not fallen as relating to himself , though because of the unfaithfulness and self-seeking of the instruments which he began to use , at present it lieth under much reproach ( and that justly as relating to them ) yet for all this the lord himself can bring it about again , and carry it on with better advantage to his name , truth and people , then if it had gone on in their hand : and the more men set themselves to oppose it , the more glory will god get to himself in effecting it . let not therefore my true love to the nation , and to the present powers thereof , be despised by them : but let them fear before the mighty god of heaven and earth , and in their hearts bow to him that they may be humbled , and made fit instruments in his hand for his service , and not be found enemies against him . if they will be sit instruments for god to work by , they must be meek , lowly , poor in spirit , waiting in gods fear for his counsel , and not hearken to the fleshly wisdome of man , which is his utter enemy , and will perswade , advise , and instruct them to settle the nation and church ( as they call it ) in a way contrary to him . and remember this word , be sure you smite none for obedience to god . limit not his holy spirit in his people , but limit the unclean and evil spirit in those who manifest themselves not to be his people . this is the true intent of government . how can he which governs aright under god , hurt that which is of god and for god ? or how can he spare that which his sword is given him to cut down ? o how happy were it for the nation if they would let truth have its scope , and let righteousness overcome them , and not contend for shadows against the substance , but let the substance overcome all those shadows which have held it in bondage , and upheld its enemy . the great enemy of god , all this night of the apostacy , hath been antichrist : who hath not been an open enemy only , but hath appeared as if he had been for christ , commanding the worshipping and honouring of christ , yea and with a great zeal taking upon him to cause people to worship , according to what he determined to be right : and thus he getteth into the temple , erecting an usurping authority over the conscience , setting up and compelling to an invented worship . against this kind of worship god hath still been raising witnesses ( but he having the powers of the earth on his side , as was prophecyed he should , revel . . ) hath often prev●●●ed over them , r●vel . . . and so the truth hath been suppressed , and false worships set up by the powers of the earth , according to that proportion they have drunk of the golden cup of fornication , which doth not only deceive in one way of manifest and gross false worship , but hath many mixtures and mysteries of deceit in it , revel. . . &c. now god hath a time to call for an account of the sufferings and blood of his saints , revel. . , . he hath a time to judge the great whore , revel . . and when the time of gods judgment comes upon the earth , god begins with his own house first , & so with that which hath taken upon it to separate from babylon , to see what he can find of babylon therein ; and he will judge that before he fall upon the great body of the mystery of iniquity , pet. . . heb. . . now therefore it behoves this nation to consider what of babylon may be found in it , and to part with it , that it may escape the plagues of babylon , revel. . . which are very bitter , as vers. , , &c. these are the two main things whereof babylon is guilty . . an invented form of worship , a likeness of the true worship , but not the true worship it self . . a persecuting and endeavouring to suppress the power of the truth , even of the purity of the godly religion and worship by means of this form , because for conscience sake men who are taught otherwayes by the spirit of god , cannot submit and subject thereto . this god is coming down to plead with in that great city babylon , and this god will first plead with in thee , o england . consider what of this is yet remaining in thee ( or what of this thy heart hankers after ) and part with it as thou lovest thy peace . the lord is the witness of the integrity and fidelity of my heart to thee in these lines . it will be hard for thee to escape the lords hand , yet it is not impossible . if thou bow before the mighty god , and ●e abased in spirit at his feet , he can open that eye in thee which can let thee see thy danger , and also the way how to escape it . isaac penington , the younger . the end . london , printed , and are to be sold by robert wilson , at the sign of the black-spread-eagle and wind-mill , 〈…〉 le grand . . a collection of the several books and vvritings, given forth by that faithful servant of god and his people, george fox, the younger selections. fox, george, d. . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing f estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) a collection of the several books and vvritings, given forth by that faithful servant of god and his people, george fox, the younger selections. fox, george, d. . penington, isaac, - . [ ], - p. printed for robert wilson ..., london : . "compassion to the captives" has special t.p. the epistle to the reader signed: j.p. [i.e. isaac penington?]. cf. nuc pre- . some pages are stained; pages , , , and are faded with loss of printed in filmed copy. pages - and - photographed from union theological seminary library copy and inserted at the end. reproduction of original in bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng society of friends. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - jonathan blaney sampled and proofread - jonathan blaney text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a collection of the several books and writings , given forth by that faithful servant of god and his people , george fox , the younger . london , printed for robert wilson , at the sign of the black-spread eagle and windmil , in martins le grand , . the epistle to all true friendly readers . let the works and words of the lord , wrought in , and spoken by and through his holy servants , be of everlasting memory to all ages and generations to come , that the lord god which formed all mankind , may have glory in all the works of his hands , even for ever and ever . surely friends , for sundry righteous causes , my spirit could desire a recordance of the ensuing writings . one , in that they are the fruits of the labours of a valiant souldier , yet meek follower of the lamb of god ; who through travels , trials , and exercises , in divers manners , in faithfulness , boldness , courage , and undantedness , persevered in the power of god , kept the faith to the end , and finished his course in that which the lord almighty accepts of , and now rests in glory with the lamb and his troops of angels , which i signifie unto you as is sealed unto me by the spirit of life and immortality . another is , in that the work it self ( to euery true understanding heart ) may plainly appear to be of god. in one respect by his prophesies , certain of which became fulfilled , whilst yet he bore the body about him ; in another respect , by his plain , pure , clear , candid , and righteous dealing with all sorts , without respect of persons , to whom he directed his sayings , viz. thunders to the rocks and mountains , and streams of sweet milk , wine and honey , to the blessed living babes of the blessed living god. yet not by this do i appear before any clear eye , as a person promoting a person in the seat of the hearts of people ; for alas the dust is already returned to earth again , and the spirit to god who gave it : but though the creature is fallen , flatted and converted to its proper center , i cannot but in remembrance of that spirit which once bore it as its tabernacle , in that vessel , to walk and wade through many trials , afflictions and sorrows , for the seeds sake of its own father , since it s now entred into the bosom of the father , as a life lept out of a lump of clay . i say , i cannot but in a recordance of it , and in a concordance with it , even in the self same substance say , though the name of the wicked shall rot , yet let the memory of the righteous live , let his day be as a blessedness in every eye , and the testimony of his life a rejoycing in the hearts of the upright . surely i need not study a motto , nor dive into invention to fetch up an inscription to be engraven on the tombe , since the names of the faithful are in the book of god , and their glory is in him for ever . but this i may say to the livers , and ( as yet ) remainers in the power of the same testimony , which he with others have held as a pattern and example ( to those which follow after ) to the end . he that hath finished his course in faithfulness , hath this advantage of him that yet remaineth and hath his testimony to finish , viz. in that he is redeemed from all causualties which might happen by temptation or otherwise , yea and from all possibilities of losing the crown of immortal life , and reward of the kingdom of everlasting glory and joy , being already possessed of the unchangable inheritance , even where causualties and temptations reach not ; the which causualties and temptations are incident in some respect or other , to the pure , upright and faithful , whilst yet in the body of flesh or tabernacle of clay , where it can be felt and senced . and therefore to all such i say , fear and dread the living god , to the end of your days , that in the same life you may all finish a testimony for god , as he that is gone before you . yea again i say , fear the same god whilst yet you bear a testimony for him , lest by any means you should fall from the life of the testimony , and the last of your day become the least glorious unto you . and i in the fear of my father , do live in the love to you , which often breatheth forth my heart in the spirit of supplication and prayer , constraining me to put up requests to the throne for you , the which ( as the spirit breaths ) is desired may also by you be done in the behalf of your brother in the innocency of the lamb , j. p. a table of the principles heads contained in this book . . compassions to the captives ; wherein is shewed that the way of god is but one . pag. . . something in plainness to the officers and souldiers . p. . . a strong and terrible alarm to the inhabitants of the earth . pag. . . a visitation of love unto all people . p. . . an exhortation to all families . p. . . the words of the everlasting true light. p. . . a word to the people of the world , who hate the light ; with a few queries to such professors as stumble at the light. p. . . honest , upright , faithful and plain dealing with thee o army of the common-wealth of england , ( so called ) p. . . a few plain words to the army and others , about the choice of a parliament by the voyces of the people . p. . . his message predicting the down-fall of the parliament , directed to the parliament and their army ( so called ) p. . . a noble salutation and faithful greeting unto thee charles stuart , &c. wherein is contained ; first , several wholsome sound exhortations ( and weighty things opened ) unto thee o king. p. . . concerning the overturning of thy father , &c. pag. . . concerning thy coming so far into power again , &c. p. . . concerning the great danger thou art in . p. . . concerning religion and the spirit of persecution . p. . . concerning what government and governours , the people of the lord ( called quakers ) stand for , and what they stand against . p. . . how we resolve in the strength of the lord to stand for that which is righteous , and against that which is unrighteous . p. . . concerning a government and governours , wherein there may be something seen to be good , and something bad . p. . . concerning plotting , or using a carnal weapon , and from whom we expect deliverance . p. . . concerning revenge . p. . . honest plain down-right dealing with the people called episcopal men and presbyterians . p. . . a few queries to the teachers of the espiscopal society . p. . . the testimony of god , to those rulers , teachers and people of this present age , where the headship of the church is given to man. p. . . the dread of god's power uttering its voyce through man unto the heads of the nation . p. . . a message of tender love unto such professors as have retained any true sincerity , simplicity , and zeal for god in their professions . p. . . a true relation of the cause of his imprisonment by the magistrates at harwich . p. . . his faith touching . particulars demonstrated . . concerning jesus christ the saviour of the world. . concerning justification . . concerning the resurrection . . concerning everlasting glory and eternal misery . p. . . englands sad estate and condition lamented . p. . several epistles to friends , who are gathered into the light of life . . a general epistle and tender greeting sent unto the flock of christ . pag. . . an epistle to all who love the lord jesus christ in sincerity . p. . . to the called of god , who believe in the light of the lamb. p. . . the breathings of true love from the immortal seed , in the prisoner for the lord , unto his people . p. . . to the tribulated fock of christ in bonds , or elsewhere ; salutation . p. . . touching compelling of engagements . p. . . that none can hinder the determined will of god. p. . . concerning his laying down the body . p. . . for the common-wealths men , both in the parliament and army . p. . compassion to the captives : wherein is shewn unto them , the way of god , which is but one , which is not known in the many sects and opinions that are in the dark world , but in the light , which comes from christ , which condemns the world , with its deeds : so they that live in the many sects and opinions , their wayes are seen and denied by the children of light , who dwell in him , who is the way , the truth , and the life . with something in plainness to the officers and souldiers of the armies ( in general ) in england , scotland , and ireland . also a strong and terrible alarm , sounded out of the holy mountain , against the inhabitants of the earth . given forth for the innocent seeds sake , which is scattered abroad in the dark world. by me who suffers for the testimony of jesus , and keeps the word of his patience , ( in the common goal of edmonds bury , in the county of suffolk ) where i have suffered above forty nine weeks , through the envy and cruelty of sions oppressors . i am known to the world by the name , george fox , the younger . london , printed for robert vvilson , at the black-spread-eagle and vvind-mill , in martins le grand , . compassion to the captives . wherein is shewn unto them the way of god , which is but one , which is not known in the many sects and opinions which are in the dark world : but in the light which comes from christ , &c. therefore this is unto you , in whom there is any desires to know the way of the pure god , who are scattered abroad in the dark world , and are yet groping in the dark , in the many sects and opinions . jam. . . you ask and receive not , because you ask amisse , you have been wandring from mountain to mountain and from hill to hill , but yet you have found no resting place ; for you have sought in your own wills , and have run in your own imaginations , and have not at all considered what it was that guided you , but in darkness ye have walked , and ye know not whither , john . . and ye have joyned , some with one sect , and some with another , and in your own wills have contended each of you for your opinions ; and yet ye have not been satisfied in your minds ( many of you ) whither that was the truth that ye contended for , or not ; for doubtings have oftentimes arose in your minds , and you have been many times struck with fear , and then you have sometimes in tenderness desired that you might know the way of god aright ; and ye have been some of you brought somewhat down , and then you have been afraid to run into those evil practises which formerly you have acted and delighted in : yet this hath been but for a time ; for ye knew not what that was that struck you , but in your imaginations you have consulted , and then in your own wills you have sate down and said within your selves , that you would never act such wickedness again ; but this being in your wills , you have not found power to resist the temptations of the wicked one : neither have you found any power over your lusts , for by them you have been drawn away , jam. . . and so have run into the same wickedness again , and then some of you have been ready to despair ; and other times you have accounted god an hard master , as the slothful servant did , mat. . , , . for you are yet in the same nature and practice that he was in ; for your talent also is hid in the earth , and your earthly minds are above , and rule , and you are subiected by the powers of the earth ; so that those weak desires that yet remain in you towards ●he l●●ing god , are greatly oppressed by the earth , and kept in bondage and captivity by the powers thereof , and leanness and barrenness is in your souls : now while you continue thus , striving in your own wills or imaginations , profess what you will , you cannot have any true peace , nor rest in your minds , neither can you receive any satisfaction to those desires which are real after god ( i say while you thus act ) therefore consider your wayes speedily , and hate not the covenant of god , nor contemn his promise any longer . now this is the promise of the lord , speaking of his servant whom he hath chosen , even the son of his love , saying , i will give him for a covenant to the people , and for a light to the gentiles , that he may be my salvation to the ends of the earth ; isa . . . & . . and christ jesus the son of god saith , i am the light of the world : john . . and john , who was a true minister of christ ( and bore witness of him ) saith , he lighteth every man that cometh into the world , john . chap. . v . so you have all received a light from christ , and this light shineth in darkness , but the darkness cannot comprehend it : and this is the condemnation of the world , that light is come into the world , and men loved darkness rather than light , because their deeds were evil : and he that doth evil hateth the light ; neither will he bring his deeds to the light , lest it should reprove them : john . . therefore you that desire to know the way of the pure god , be not high-minded , but repent , and come down to the light of christ in your consciences ; that is the light which shews you sin and evil , and this the way , christ jesus the light , he is the way to the father , and no man cometh to the father but by him , joh. . . therefore as the light appears in you , to shew you the evil of your doings , take heed to the light , and wait in it , that you may see condemnation pass upon that which hath led you into the evil of the world , and that you may come to be sensible of a guide to your minds , to guide you out of the evil ; that so the cross of christ may be known and submitted unto by you ; and that through the cross , righteousness may be learned and obedience brought forth unto the living god ; for as you wait in the light , ye will see what that is , that hath oppressed your souls ; and as you come to own that which appears in you to cross your own wills , and wait in it , you will come to see death , pass upon that which hath kept your souls in death , and your souls will be refreshed , and your desires which are real and simple after god , will be strengthened ; but you must wait in the light , which makes all things manifest , eph. . . and it will let you see , that your way to peace is through the war , and through the judgment ; and christ's words you will witness to be true , who said , i come not to send send peace on the earth ; for as you come to wait in the light , ye will see the earth disturbed , and the thunders of the lord ye will come to know , and the earthquakes , and the famine , and the war , and the pestilence , and these are the beginnings of sorrow , mat. . , . but all these things must come to pass , and blessed are they that are not offended in him ; mat. . . for the fire and the sword you must all know , and come through , before you come to know the peace which is in the lamb of god ; for by fire and sword will the lord plead with all flesh , and what cannot stand there , must be consumed : but at these things be not troubled , but wait in the light , which makes them manifest , and in it believe , and the power of the lord you shall find present with you ( as in patience you wait upon him ) to carry you through whatsoever he calls you unto . and this i declare unto you all , the way is strait that leadeth to life , and few there be that find it : mat. . . for except you stand in that power which god hath given you , and in it deny your selves , and take up the cross , ye cannot be christs disciples : now your power is in the light which comes from christ , who hath enlightned you ; & waiting in the light , with it you will come to see the emptiness of all the profession that is in the world : and you that have followed the priests , as you come to own the light , and wait in it , with it you will see them to be the deceivers ; and to be in the steps of those that the true prophets , christ jesus , and the apostles cryed against ; and you will see them to be such as commit the horrible and filthy thing in the land , and so in the steps of those which the lord sent jeremiah to cry against ; jer. . , . and they are such as preach for hire , and devine for money , mic. . . and feed with the fat , and cloath with the wool , and make a prey upon the people , ezek. . , . and they seek for their gain from their quarters , isa . . . and while you put into their mouths , they cry peace unto you ; but put not into their mouths , & they will prepare war against you , mic. . . ( for if you give them not tythes , they will sue you at the law ) & such as were in these practices , micah , ezekiel , and isaiah cryed against ; & such stand praying in the synagogues , & have the chiefest places in the assembles , and greetings in the markets , and are called of men master , and such christ cryed wo against , mat. . , . and they are such as go in cain's way ( in envy ) and run greedily after the way of balaam , and such peter and jude cryed wo against , pet. . , . jude . they having hearts exercised with covetous practices , being proud , boasters , heady , high-minded , lovers of pleasures more than lovers of god , having eyes full of adultery , which cannot cease to sin ; and for doctrin they teach , that their hearers cannot be free from sin in this life , and so plead to uphold the devil's kingdom , and through their subtilty beguile unstable souls , leading silly women captive , laden with sins , and carried away with divers lusts , ever learning , but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth , tim. . , , , , . and through covetousness and feigned words , they make merchandize of the people , having a form of godliness , but denying the power thereof , pet. . . and of such the apostle bad beware , and from them turn away : and you that have left the priests , and are got in your own wills and carnal imaginations somewhat nearer the saints practice , ( imitating what they did , who were in the life of what they professed ) as you come to own the light , and wait in it , with it you will see that which you have acted , that it was but the self-separation , and that you took it from the letter , and never received a command from god for it , but what ye did , it was as ye imagined , to imitate those who had a command once from god for what they practised ; but they knew when those things which stood in the figure were to have an end , and to pass away ; and they knew the end of all things to be at hand , and they grew into him who is the fulness of all things , eph. . . but these things you never knew ( who have been acting in your own wills and imaginations ) for you never yet came to know the life of truth ; and so that joy and delight which you had at any time in the hight of your profession , it withered ; and your practises in your profession ( which stood in the beggarly elements , and carnal washings and observations , wherein some of you have been exercised ) they have waxen-old and wearisom unto you : these things , as you come to believe , and wait in the light , you will see to be true , and that yet you are ignorant of him , who hath established the law of commandements , contained in ordinances ; and you will see that you have been the theeves and robbers , who have been climbing up another way than by the door christ jesus , and you will see in his light , as you wait in it , that you must come to loose what you have gathered in your own wisdom and imaginations ; and that your building must fall , because it was not builded upon the rock ; and you will see how you have been daubed with untempered morter ; and that your labour hath been in vain , because ye were not builded by the lord ; and that your wisdom must be turned into foolishness ; and so to the beginning you must all come , to the light of christ in all your consciences , and to learn to wait in it , that a true and a sure entrance into the way of god you may find , thaye henceforth be no more tossed to and fro , and carried about with every wind of doctrin , by the slight of men and cunning craftiness , whereby they lye in wait to deceive you ; but that you may now come to know the teachings of god , and to be subject to his teachings , and to obey his voice , and to know it from the voice of strangers , and no more to follow strangers , but to return unto the lord with all your hearts , and to submit your selves unto him in all humbleness and lowliness , as the light teacheth ; and that you may all come to know your own measures and abilities which god hath given you ; for he giveth to every one according to their abilities ; and that you may all keep down to your own measures , and none of you to be exalted above his measure , but all there to wait , to see the wisdom of god revealed in you , that so you may grow in wisdom , and power , and strength , and might , in the knowledge of god , who reneweth their strength that wait upon him . so here is your power and strength to resist temptations ; all to wait in the light which comes from christ , unto whom all power is given ; for in the light you will see temptations as they arise , and waiting in the light , ye will receive power from him , from whom the light comes , to withstand the temptations , and to overcome the tempter , as he overcame who is gone before , even christ jesus the word of god , who was before the world was , who overcame the world ; he is the same that ever he was , he changeth not ; and they that believe in him , and wait in his light , they receive power to overcome the world , and them he redeems out of the world ; and they are not conformable to the fashions , and customs , and wayes of the world ; but they are transformed by the renewing of their minds , and their minds and affections are set upon heavenly things , so as you wait in the light , you will see the worlds words , and fashions , and vvayes , all to be burdensom to the seed of god ; and if you love the light you will know and find that power present , by which you will be made able and willing to cast off every weight and burden as they are seen with the light ; and giving up in obedience to the light , keeping in the cross , you will find peace in your measures ; and you will see the lord present to water and refresh that of himself in you , and to cut off and purge out what●oever oppresseth and hinders the growth of his own plant in you ; and so you will become fruitful in your places and measures unto the lord , and he will take delight in you , and feed you with food convenient according to your growth and necessities ; and he will be your god , and you shall be his people and sheep of his pasture ; and you shall grow into the covenant ; and he will take away you stony hearts and give you new hearts , and write his law therein , and you shall know his teachings , heb. . , , . and he will be merciful unto you , and forgive all your iniquities , and you shall know the blood of the covenant which shall cleanse you from all sin , joh. . . and you shall know the son , and he shall make you free , joh. . , . and he will reveal the father unto you , and you shall be no more barren nor unfruitful , but the vvilderness shall become a fruitful place , and the barren land a fruitful field , and the parched ground shall become a place of pleasant springs , isa . . and the lord god and the lamb will take delight in your feasts , and make their abode with you : these things will the lord in his time accomplish , and ye shall know them , and be witnesses of them , if you will indeed hearken unto his voice and obey it , and keep his covenant , and return unto him with all your hearts , and submit your selves to the light of his son in all your consciences , and then you shall be hid in the day of the fierce vvrath of the almighty , which he is bringing upon the heads of the ungodly ; for although he hath long forborn them , yet the cry of his elect is not forgotten , luke . . for now his long sufferings towards them , shall be turned unto their everlasting contempt ; for even now is he arising to take vengeance upon the oppressors of his righteous seed ; and wo unto all those that are found in the army of the dragon ; for he shall be taken with the false prophet , and all those that have received the mark of the beast , and they all shall be cast into the lake that burneth for ever ; this is the second death , rev. . , . and this is the portion and reward of all those that are found fighting against the lamb ; therefore you that are warned of the destruction , which is speedily to come upon those that have cast the law of god behind their backs , and crucified the son of god ( and are yet fighting against his kingdom ) the light in their consciences condemns them eternally : stay not , but come out from among them , lest partaking of their sins , ye also partake of their plagues , rev. . . which are their due , and now to be brought upon them ; take heed that you delay not , for the judgement hasteth greatly ; but if you refuse to hearken unto the counsel of the lord , and resolve to go on in your own wills and imaginations , and reject the light of his son in your consciences , which he hath given you to lead you out of your own wills and imaginations , and so give your strength unto strangers ; then will those desires which are yet in you towards the living god soon dye ; and you will grow more dark , and wax stronger , in your imaginations , and you will become enemies even to the very appearance of truth ; and your hearts will become hard , and you will be found guilty of the blood of the son of god ; and you will wax worse and worse , tim. . . and so you will grow fit for the plagues and judgements of the righteous god ; and the blood of his son will cry for vengeance against you ( as abels did against cain , gen. . . ) and the lord will hear the cry thereof , and will pour forth his judgements upon you ; and then shall the light in all your consciences arise and witness to the judgements of god that they are just ; and it shall let you see that you were warned of your destruction often times by it , and that ●ou had a time given you to repent in , rev. . . and then you shall be made to confess that your destruction is of your selves . so in love to your souls i have written this , in which your present condition ( which is miserable ) is plainly declared unto you , and the way to come out of it by christ jesus the light ; and the priests ( who have long deceived many of you ) are here laid open in plainness ; and such as act in their own imaginations ( by imitating those who dwelt in the life of what they professed ) also , what you have gathered and gained all this time ; you have been making a profession of god ( is here declared ) and the end thereof , and what you shall attain unto if you will diligently hearken unto the voice of god , and obey the light of his son in all your consciences ; and where your power is to obey , is here shewed unto you : so here is life and death set before you , deut. . . now if you yet refuse to hear , you shall not be able to plead ignorance in the day when god calls you to an account , for i have cleared my conscience unto you in the sight of god , and am clear of your blood , ezek. . . and am witnessed by the light of christ in all your consciences , which light is your teacher if you love it , but your condemnation eternally if you hate and reject it . therefore whilst you have time prize it , and despise not the day of your visitation ; but to day if you will hear the voice of the son of god , come down to the light in all your consciences ( which reproves you for sin , and shews you the loss that ye are yet in ) and wait in it , and harden not your hearts , nor despise the long sufferings of god , neither linger through sloathfulness any longer , lest he give you up wholly to your own wills and vile affections and lusts , psal . . , . which lead you into wickedness and perverseness , and so god overtake you there , and bring his judgements upon you , and you perish with the wicked in your stubbornness and rebellion . so hear , fear , and do no more presumptuously . from me , who am a sufferer for the innocent seeds sake , who labours and waits in the power of the living god , for its deliverance out of bondage and captivity . g. f. unto you the officers and soldiers of the armies , in england , scotland , and ireland . remember , how at the beginning of the late wars in these nations , that many of you were of the lowest of the people , according to the account of men : and you were poor and contemptible in the eyes of your enemies , who disdained and scorned you , and thought soon to have made a prey upon you : but i bear you record , that then many of you had a zeal for god , and against his enemies ; and according to your knowledge some of you acted faithfully for a time ; and then some of you had a desire to grow in the knowledge of god , and to act for him ; and some of you were come so far as to see the priests to be enemies to the truth , and such as deceived the people ; and your zeal waxed hot against them and their idolatry , so that you robbed them of their abominable attire which they had caused the deceived people to provide them ( to wear in the time of their idolatrous worship ) and some of you did help to break down their images and altars which were in the high places where they worshipped : and thus far ●ou did that which was right in the sight of god ; and you saw that the priests laid heavy burdens upon the people , mat. . , . and oppressed them greatly , in forcing them by an unjust law to give them the tenth of their labours , and you saw several laws which were made and upheld by the wills of ( tyrants in these nations ) to be contrary to the law of god : and then you promised and vowed unto god , if he would deliver your enemies ( which then were many and great ) into your hands , that then you would take off that great oppression , which by unjust laws were laid and continued upon the people ; and that those laws concerning oppression and constraining men to worship contrary to their consciences , should be regulated or disannulled , and made of none effect ; and that all men should have their liberty to worship according to what they knew ; and that none should tyrannize over the consciences of their brethren , to compel them otherwise ; but that all should have their freedom and liberty therein : these things you promised and engaged to do ; and you caused many people to engage to be true unto you , and to stand firm with you , that so you might recover their liberties and outward rights , and bring them out of bondage in which they were ( then ) held captives by their enemies ; and upon this account the people furnished you with money and vveapons , to war against their oppressors ; and you cryed then unto the lord in your distresses , and he was pleased to hear you , and he smote your enemies with terror and fear , and overthrew all their wicked devices , and frustrated all their designs , and brought to naught all their mischievous plottings against you ; neither suffered he them to stand in the day of battel before you ( because they trusted in their own strength ) but he gave them into your hands for a prey , and whom ye would ye slew , and whom ye would ye preserved alive ; and you spoiled them , and they became servants and bond-men unto you , and you ruled over them as it is at this day : thus god by his own power delivered them into your hands , and preserved you in the day of battel , and was seen mightily amongst you , and wonderfully delivered you out of their hands , and gave you outward rest and ease from your outward enemies ; and your name became a terror and an astonishment unto the nations about , when they heard of those acts , which god had wrought by you . but now the love of the lord unto you , and the day of your distress by you is forgotten ; and your vows and promises which you then made unto god and man , are neglected and slighted by you ; for as great or greater oppression and burdens yet remain upon the people , as were then , and now many of you are possessed of your enemies houses , and lands , and goods , and some of you are waxen rich through the spoil of your enemies , and the greatness of your pay , and some by doing violence ; and so through your riches and abundance , many of you are grown high-minded and proud ; and many of you through idleness and fulness of the creature are grown exceeding wanton and lustful , and now run on in the common pollutions of the world , and some of you are grown exceeding covetous , and are become grinders of the faces of the poor , isa . . . and defrauders one of another ; and many of you now are seeking and contriving ( in your own wisdom ) how to grow greater , and to excel others in earthly riches and honour ; and to establish your selves there by the strength of the arm of flesh ; and some of you are boasting of you strength , and valour , and stoutness , jer. . , . and are oftentimes telling how you killed , and wounded , and took , and destroyed your enemies ; and this is oft done by you , when you are devouring the creation upon your ungodly lusts , and when you are gaming and spending away your precious time in vanity ; and here you remember not how god by his own power delivered them into your hands , neither give you him the glory ; but ascribe it to your own strength and wisdom , and boast in the creature , and so forget the creator ; and so that simplicity and tenderness that was once in some of you , is destroyed and murdered by the lusts of the flesh , which are highly exalted in you ; and that zeal ( that was once in some of you for god , and against his enemies , and those unjust laws which by them were made and upheld ) is now lost , and your ears are not open unto the cry of the oppressed , whom once you promised to set free from their oppressions ; but now some of you are become upholders of , and pleaders for those laws and customs which formerly you cryed against , and strengthners and upholders of such as oppress tender consciences , though once you pretended that you fought for the liberty of conscience , and now by those unjust laws ( which you saw to be contrary to the law of god ) do many suffer in these nations , some imprisonment , and some the spoyling of their goods , some because they cannot pay the priests tythes , for if they should , they must deny the unchangeable priest , which took not tythes , but abolished the first priesthood , and disannulled the commandement that gave tythes unto them that were of the first priesthood , which was a figure of him that was to come ; but now is he come who is the substance and sum of all types and figures , even the everlasting high-priest which changeth not ; so the first priesthood is changed , and the law is changed also : heb. . . therefore they that witness the unchangeable priest , they deny the changeable priests , and for conscience sake cannot uphold them ; and some suffer imprisonment for declaring and publishing the everlasting truth ( as they are moved of the lord ) in the markets , & assemblies , and congregations of the people , and some of late time have been stock'd and whipp'd , and some wounded and despitefully used for the same ; and some , when they have been peaceably met together ( in the fear of the lord to wait upon him ) in their own houses , or upon their own ground , or some of their brethrens , not being troublesome outwardly to any man , they have been then and there abused , & some have been violently haled away to the magistrates , who without shewing them any law which they had transgressed , hath forth with sent them to prison , and some have been stoned , and kicked , and buffeted , and spitted upon , and mocked ; and some have had their doors and windows broken , and they scarce permitted to abide in their own houses : and these things have been acted , some of them by the priests , and some by the rulers and souldiers , and rude multtude , who are strengthned in such actions , and suffered so to act by the other ; and some of the servants and chosen ones of the lord have lately been cast some into prisons , & holes , and dungeons , and there have lain until the outward man hath perished ; and many of the children of the most high god , are yet in prisons in this nation , for witnessing forth the pure truth of god , and not for the breach of any just law : neither could our persecutors , when we have been brought before them , shew any law which we had transgressed ; ( when some of us have demanded this of them , that if they had any law against what we had acted , that they should read it to us ) not withstanding this they have sent us to prison again , and there caused us to be kept and some of late time , as they have been going peaceably to visit and relieve the servants of the lord who are imprisoned in this nation , they have not been permitted , but have been stopped by the way ; and some of them have had their money taken from them , and then forthwith they have been sent to prison , and there are kept ; and some have been fined and imprisoned , for entertaining or lodging of the servants and children of the lord , who have come peaceably and for peace to their houses ; and some lately hath been presented , and money hath been demanded of them , because for conscience sake they could not go to the steeple-houses , to hear the hireling priests and deceivers on the first dayes of the weeks . now consider these practices , how contrary they are to the vows and engagements which you have made and taken , and contrary to the liberty which once you pretended unto : i have not written these things unto you because i am a sufferer ; for i neither look for help or expect deliverance from you ; neither are my sufferings wearisome or grievous unto me ( because i know i suffer in innocency ) neither do i look for any help ; or have i any helps in the earth ; but these things was i moved to write unto you that you may consider how you have neglected and slighted that which you promised to do , when you were in your distresse and trouble , if god delivered you out of them ( who now hath delivered you ) and that you may see how you have rewarded evil for the good that the lord hath done for you ; and how you have not onely lyed unto man , but unto god. so come down to the light of christ in all your consciences ( unto which light all the powers of the earth must bow ) and with it search your hearts , and try your wayes , and it will shew you your back-slidings and the evil of your doings ; and repent speedily , and do your first works , and return to your first integrity , and do violence to no man , neither accuse any falsly ; and be content with your wages , and submit your selves unto the true light , which lighteth every man that cometh into the world , that with the light you may see the violent and false accuser judged and cast out of you ; that so with the light which makes manifest your present estate , you may be brought out of the fall , and out of the losse which you are yet in : but if you refuse to return unto the lord ( who hath so marvelously delivered you out of the hands of your enemies ) & to pay your vows to him : verily the living god will arise and set free the oppressed , and destroy their oppressors , by his own power and outstretched arm , and not by you , neither shall you have the honour of it ; and he will cast you off , and by his own power will he bring you down , and destroy you , and root you out . remember how he lately by his mighty power brought down and destroyed those that rebelled against him ; and even as he cast out them because they oppressed his righteous seed , so also will he cast out you ( if you repent not speedily ) because you have not wholly followed his counsel , to destroy , and break down , and root out whatsoever did oppresse his people ; but now he hath given you deliverance , and ease from your enemies , you have forgotten the day of your calamity ( wherein you cryed unto the lord for help ) in which day you were oppressed by your enemies also ; and now ye are set down in ease and fulness , and regard not the cry of the oppressed , but you your selves are become oppressors also ; so what you did act for god in the time of your trouble shall not be once named or mentioned unto you , because you continued not faithful unto the end ; but in your back-slidings and unrighteousness ( wherein you have delighted ) you shall perish , and you shall receive your reward with the unrighteous . and so remember you are warned of the destruction that is to come upon back-sliders and ungodly men ; if you perish your blood be upon your heads , i am clear of it , having cleared my conscience unto you ; and verily my desire is ( god is my witness ) that you might return unto the lord with your hearts , and break off from your iniquities by true repen●ance , that so he might heal your back-slidings , and that you might come to know the salvation of your souls ; now your power to act righteously is in the light which comes from christ ( who is the wisdom , and power , and righteousness of god ) unto whom all power is given , and he hath given unto every one of you a measure of his light , which if you love , and believe , and wait in it , as it arises in you , that is your teacher to teach you the truth , and to guide you to god , who is light , and if you walk in the light , then shall you have fellowship with the children of light ; but if you hate and reject the light which shews you sin and evil , that is your condemnation from god , john . . and from the saints in light eternally . this from the motion of the lord in me , who for several years was amongst you and had a great zeal ( as some of you once had ) against tyrants and unjust laws , by which the people were & are greatly oppressed ; and in that time i suffered much hardship ( as to the outward man ) and was oft in jeopardy of my life , as many of you have been : which i was willing then to endure and to pass through , for the suppressing of tyrants and unjust laws , which by them were made and upheld : but the lord , hath called me out from among you , & hath made me a souldier in the army of the lamb , who shall overcome all his enemies ; although for a time he suffer like a lamb , yet he will arise like a lyon upon his enemies at unawares , and he will tear , & tread down , and consume , and destroy them , and none shall be able to deliver out of his hand . i am now a sufferer also for the everlasting truth , and not for the breach of any known law ; and thus the rulers in this nation ( who persecute the innocent ) reward me evil for good : but in the power of the living god , i stand a witness against all persecutors and tyrants , who seek to make a prey upon the lives of the righteous , by which power i am preserved out of their hands , and kept above all sufferings ( and time , and place ) which they are permitted to inflict upon me for a time for the tryal of my faith ; but my cause is the lords , and he will plead and revenge it . remember from whence you are fallen . g. f. a strong and terrible alarm sounded out of the holy mountain against the inhabitants of the earth , &c. woe , wo , unto you rulers , priests and people , who live without the fear of god , and do hide your abominations in hypocrisie and dissimulations ; you are got into several sects and opinions , and there some of you have long made a profession of god with your tongues and lips , but your hearts are removed far from him , so that your profession stinks in the nostrils of the almighty ; and he loaths and abhors your preaching and praying ; for you are weighed , and you are found too light , your coverings are too narrow , they will no longer hide you ; for now you are searched with the true light , which makes you manifest , and rips off your coverings , so that your nakedness appears , the day hath made you manifest ; and now is the light risen , and with it you are seen to be out of the life of truth ; yea , you are found to be the greatest enemies to the life that be upon the earth ; for you murther it in the particular , and you hate and persecute it wheresoever it is brought forth ; yea , and in all its appearances you seek to suppress and murther it . remember your fore-fathers cryed , not this man but barrabbas , and your cry and practice is seen to be the same in nature now ; for the robber and murderer is set free , and hath his liberty in and among you ; and in you and by you , is the son of god cryed against and murdered ; yea , ye are the betrayers and murderers of him , and his blood you are guilty of , and it cryeth for vengeance against you unto the lord , who hath long forborn you ; and because his judgements were not speedily executed upon you , you have strengthned youe selves in your wickedness and imaginations , and have provoked the almighty to wrath , and have not considered that his long-suffering towards you was to have drawn you to repentance ; but the day of your visitation you have despised , and have hated the light of his son in your consciences , which hath often shewed you your evil deeds , and so have trampled , the blood of the covenant under your feet , and have done despight unto the spirit of grace , and hath chosen to follow the vain imaginations of your own hearts , and have contemned the counsel of the lord , and would not that he should reign over you ; for which cause his iudgements linger not against you , but are ready to be poured forth upon your heads , even upon you , who have sold your selves to work abomination in the sight of the lord , and are worshipping in the house of your imagery , and have joyned , and are become one with the great whore of babylon , who hath made her self drunken with the blood of the saints and martyrs of jesus ; but now is she come in remembrance before the dreadful and terrible god , and now shall both she and her lovers be plagued and tormented together . therefore you nobles and rulers , captains and mighty men , priests and people , high and low , rich and poor , bond and free , who hath committed fornication with her , awake to the iudgement and behold , your king , the old dragon , which is the divel and satan ; for he is come forth and deceives you , and he is come to gather you to the battel of the great day , which is at hand ; for the harvest is ripe , and the wine-press is full , and your fat 's overflow , and the measure of your iniquities is great , and now will god be avenged on you , who will bring you all down unto the valley of discision , even there shall the day of the lord be upon you , which will be a day of pain and anguish , a day of blackness and gloominess , and of thick darkness unto you that have slain the witness of god , and have made merry over him ; your mirth is almost at an end , and instead thereof shall be mourning and bitter lamentation , which shall come upon you in one day ; and now is the day of vengeance proclaimed , now is the trumpet sounded forth , behold the lyon roareth : therefore , oh! all ye inhabitants of the earth , fear and tremble before the living dreadful god , and dread ye his name , for now is he arising in his glory and majesty , to shake terribly the earth ; the noise of a trumpet goeth before him , which soundeth an alarm : strong and mighty is he ; there goeth a sword out of his mouth , and a threshing instrument is in his hand , wherewith he will cut down the tall cedars and thresh the , mountains to dust : a fire proceedeth out of his mouth also , which shall devour and burn before him , and none shall be able to quench it : and the breath that cometh forth of his nostrils shall scatter the earth , as the vvhirl-wind scattereth the dust ; yea , terrible and dreadful will he be unto you wicked , who live in the earth , you shall not be able to behold nor stand in his presence : therefore weep , and howl , and lament for the misery that is coming upon you ; for a total destruction is at hand ; yea , the lord hath decreed an utter overthrow of the earth , and the inhabitants thereof ; for now shall his overflowing scourge pass through the earth , and the besom of his destruction shall sweep you away , for your vvhoredoms , and murders , and idolatry , and drunkenness , and swearing , and lying , and vvantonness , and prophaneness , is come in remembrance before the dreadful and terrible god , who will be avenged on you at once . rejoice ye saints who are clad with zeal , and shout for joy you sons of the most high god , and sing ye heavens , and you that dwell therein ; for the lord is risen , ye are witnesses thereof ; behold he cometh with ten thousands of his saints to iudge the earth in righteousness , and to execute his judgements upon his and our enemies : the vials of his vvrath are made ready to be poured out upon them , and his indignation is waxen hot against them , which shall burn , and slay , and consume them unto the end ; glory , glory , honour and dominion , and praise be given unto our king , who liveth for ever ; for he is worthy to reign over all , who was dead , but now is he alive , and liveth for evermore : and he hath redeemed us from the earth , and hath brought us above the earth , to reign with him up - the earth : eternal praises to our king for evermore , who is above all , and over all ; who was before the vvorld was , and hath brought us to be before the vvorld , to reign with him eternally above the vvorld , and our enemies are to be plagued and tormented in our presence , and we shall rejoyce over the smoak of their torment , which ascendeth for ever : now here is the joy and cause of our rejoycing , who have followed the lamb through great tribulation , and are brought above the tribulations , to dwell in the presence of the living god ; this is joy unspeakable , and full of glory , which shall never have an end : hallelujah to our king for evermore . edmonds-bury common goal , the . day of the th . month , . by me george fox , whose natural birth , and outward being was at charsfield , in the said county of suffolk . a visitation of love unto all people , ( in whose hearts there are any true honest tender desires , begotten towards god and his righteousness ) in what sect , or opinion , or profession soever they be , who are not in the light ; especially unto such who have felt something of the workings of the life and power of god in them , and yet notwithstanding have been led by the subtilty of the serpent , from the life and power of god , into many sects , and opinions , and forms , which are without the life and power of god ; and herein the subtil workings and devices of the serpent , whereby he deceives the hearts of the simple , is clearly made manifest . friends , god , the higher power , unto whom the soul is to be subject , he only hath immortality , and dwelleth in the light ; and he is light : and he hath freely given his son into the world , ( by whom the world was made ) for a covenant of light ; and he is the true light , which lighteth every one that cometh into the world , that all men through him might believe ; who is the vvord of god , in whom is life , and that life ( mark ) is the light of men ; and the pure grace of god , which bringeth salvation ( by which the saints are freely justified ) hath appeared unto all men ; yea , the the eternal god of truth hath appeared unto you in his son jesus christ , the true light , and with this light hath god made manifest unto you your sin and evil deeds , and with the measure of the light of his son ( in you ) sometimes hath he appeared in his mighty power , whereby he hath smitten you for your sins and evil deeds , and he by his power hath broken you into tenderness , and brought you down into lowliness for a time , and then by his unresistible power thus working ( in you ) did beget a holy seed , from whence pure desires and breathings after god hath often arose ( in you ) which seed could not , nor cannot be satisfied without gods living presence ; now ye , not standing in the power which convinced you , and smote you , and broke you into tenderness , and brought you down , and then begot a holy seed in you ; from whence a pure unfeigned love to god hath oft sprung ( mark ) you not minding the workings and movings of this power in you , nor waiting in it for to receive counsel , you entered into reasonings and thoughts , which the subtilty ( which is the devil ) presented in you ; and so ye hearkned not to gods voice ( the power which had wrought so in you ) but you entred into reasonings with the subtilty ( which abode not in the power ) and this begot a questioning in you what that should be , which had so appeared in you , and broken you into such a tenderness , and had wrought such a sudden change in you , which you were not able to resist ; and ye going into the reasonings in your minds ; thus you turned from the pure power of god , and then sin ( which separateth from gods presence , which he by his power worketh in you , had in measure smitten and brought down in you ) arose again , and got the dominion in you , and so you going thus from the power wherein ye should have waited to have been preserved in the tenderness , ye soon lost the tenderness and fear , which the power had wrought in you ; and then hardness of heart soon grew in you again , and then the seed which god had begotten in you ( which cannot be satisfied without his presence ) that began to be sorely oppressed in you , by the sin ( which separates from gods presence ) which got up more and more in you , through your turning from the power which ye once felt manifested and working in you against sin : and then a grievous weight or burden came upon the righteous seed in you ; and then it began to groan and cry to god from under the burden and weight of iniquity that was upon it , and then the light appeared more brighter in you again , ( for the seeds sake which suffered in you ) and shewed you that you were wrong ; then the light judged you for the wrong , and then trouble came upon you , and encreased in your minds ; and then the serpent , the subtilty , the devil ( which abode not in the truth ) he appeared likewise in you , and begot a hurrying and a confused noise in your minds , and then presented many things unto you , and stirred you up to do them , that so he might draw ye from hearkening unto the light ( wherein you should have waited to have heard and known god's voice and counsel , and to have seen and heard what god had required at your hands ) and thus the subtilty , which is the devil , who was a murderer from the beginning , and abode not in the truth , sought to draw you from the light ( which is the truth ) that so he might murder the righteous seed , which god had begotten in you , ( unto which seed the promises are ) now your minds being drawn from the light , which convinced you of sin , you entred further into sin , and then you could not find any power for to resist sin , because you went from the light which shewed you your sin , wherein ye should have waited to have received power against sin , and then the seed suffered in you , by the sin which ye were entred into exceedingly ; and trouble increased more and more in your minds , ( this hath been the condition of some of you ) and then the subtilty drew you into reasonings and consultings what to do , that so the burden which you felt , and the trouble in your minds might be removed : so ye hearkning unto the subtilty , he then presented several things unto you to be done , some of which once were commanded by god to be done by them unto whom the command came ; and so the subtilty perswaded you , that you must do those things likewise , before ye could have peace , and witness the burden and trouble removed , which ye felt ; so he haing drawn you out of the sensibleness and feeling of the light and power of god , your understandings became wholly darkned , as unto the counsel of god , and then these things which the subtil enemy presented , exceedingly pleased the affectionate part in you , and some of you he perswaded to act such things as god never commanded any to act ; and so ye going from the light ( which never changeth ) and hearkning unto the subtilty ( which leads into changeableness ) here ye began to run into sects and opinions , and heaps , and parties , and divisions ; yea , here is the ground and rise , and beginning of all sects and opinions in the world , peoples going from the light and power of god , which leads into the substance , and into oneness of mind , and hearkning unto the subtilty , which leads but into the likewise of truth , and into self-separation and divisions , and changeableness of mind ; and when the serpent had drawn you into several opinions and practices in your vvorship , then he fed you with knowledge , that so each of you might be able to plead and contend for your opinions and practices ; and then he begot a strong , hot , hasty will in you ( which hath been called zeal for god , whereby he drew you into hot contentions one with another , and so by little and little he raised up a secret envy and prejudice in you , one against each other , till at length some of you brake forth into rage , and scorn , giving one another scornful names . and thus the mysterie of iniquity wrought in many of you , until the seed grew weak in you , ( as to your feeling ) and became as a dead thing unto you , being thus strangled in you , by your going from the power , into those things that the power of god never moved , or drew you to act , ( but the serpent , which abode not in the power ) so then you were not sensible of such a burden indeed , as ye were once sensible of , when the seed which god had begotten in you , was more quick and lively , and then the subtilty perswaded you , that now you were right , because you felt not such a burden and trouble in your minds as you once did ; and then a joy sprung in you for a time , and then the subtilty perswaded you , that you were now entred into the vvork , and service , and vvorship of god ; and that he had given you some reward , because you were not sensible of such a burden , & trouble in your minds as ye were before you acted those things in your vvorship ; and thus the subtility beguiled some of you : but this condition continued not long with you , for god's eternal vvitness ( which ye had as it were slain , and made merry over it ) that arose and appeared in you again , for the seeds sake , and disturbed and broke that false peace , and joy , and perswasion , that you were got into , ( through transgressing [ and going from ] that which is pure of god in you , and acting those things in the transgression , which god never required at your hands ) and then with god's witness , the light , you saw your selves wrong again , and the light judged you for your forwardness , and then you begun to loath those practices in your worship , which before you delighted in , and then something you came to feel stirring in you again , which was not satisfied , but breathed , and groaned , and cryed unto the lord ; and then you were in a fine tender condition again ; but then the subtilty soon appeared in you again , and presented some other new things unto you , and called those which he had formerly led you into , old , empty , weak and beggerly things , and thus he wrought in the subtilty , to draw you from hearkning unto that which made manifest your condition unto you ; and thus he hath drawn some of you into most of the sects and opinions that be in the world , and through them , and thus in the subtilty hath he wrought in you to save his head , ( or life ) for he knew that if you had hearkned unto the truth of god as it appeared in you , and had obeyed it , that then god's power would mightily have been made manifest in you , whereas the seed immortal would have been raised up in you , which would have bruised his head . so take notice how the lord's love , the light , hath followed you , and checked , and reproved you for your hastiness and forwardness , and hath shewed unto you the emptiness and deadness of all the profession and worship that ever you have run into . and sometimes when you have been brought into lowliness and tenderness ; by the power of the lord which hath smitten you , then the lord hath opened mighty things in you unto his seed , which breathed and thirsted after his righteousness , and could not be satisfied without it , and then the serpent hath wrought in you again in the subtilty , to lead you from that which opened , and from the pure , and so lead you up in the boasting nature , to hold forth those things in the fleshly principle which the lord opened unto his own seed ; and thus he hath kept you out of the life and power of truth , and he hath filled some of you with strange imagimations , and expectations concerning god and christ , and his appearance without you ; and so all along he hath strove to keep you from minding gods appearance within you , by drawing your minds into the visible changeable things , and yet the lord in love to his own seed hath spared you ; so mind the lords long patience , and forbearance which hath been great towards you , for his seeds sake in you , which breathes and thirsts after his righteousness , and cannot be satisfied without his life and presence . and truly friends my love is exceeding tender and large towards you in whom there is such a pure tender seed stirring , and my desire is ( who have seen the emptiness of all profession without the life ) that you might come to witness the seed satisfied in you ( with the pure power , and life , and virtue of the living god ) which hath suffered long in you , and hath not been satisfied by reason of your disobedience unto the light. therefore in tender bowels of love and compassion unto you , i do freely declare unto you all , the new and living way which hath been from the beginning , which is christ jesus , the true light which lighteth every one which cometh into the world , whereby every one of you believing in the light , may come to receive a particular satisfaction from christ , from whence the light doth come . friends , the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit withall , but you have transgressed and gone from the manifestation of gods spirit in your own particulars , and so it is impossible for you ever to profit in the things of god , or come to receive a particular satisfaction , until you come to own that , and believe in that , which you have transgressed and gone from , which was given you to profit withall , and to lead you into the substance , which giveth satisfaction . now the manifestation of the spirit doth shew unto you your runings , and willings , and actings , and strivings that ye have been in , whereby ye could never obtain satisfaction unto that in you which breathes to do the will of god ; now you must mind that which makes manifest these things unto you , and as you take notice of that ( which is the light ) and wait in it , you will come to feel it drawing you into stilness , and coolness , and quietness of spirit ; and then with the light you will come to discern the subtilty , and the motions thereof , which have oft beguiled you , by drawing you from quietness and stilness , into the airy imaginations , whereby he hath tossed and unsetled your minds ; and as you waite in that which doth make manifest , ( which is the light ) and believe in it , you will come to feel something arising in you , in power to judge and condemn the subtilty , as that stirs in you to draw you from waiting upon god , and then you will come to know and feel , the spirit of judgement and burning , placed in you to purge you , and as you wait in the judgement in patience and stilness , you will come to hear the still voice that is spoken of in the scriptures , saying , this is the way ( and shewing it unto you ) and when you see the way , as you wait in that which shewes it unto you , then you will come to hear the command in power , saying unto you , walk in it , and then you will come to know your teacher which cannot be removed into a corner ; and so here the path of the just ye will all come to know and witness in your selves , which is the shining light which shineth more and more , until the perfect day ; for as you all wait in that which calls for stilness and silence to the flesh and the motions thereof , ye will come then to see more light , and so ye will come to witness what david spoke to be true , who said to god , in thy light shall we see light , and then the just ( which hath been long oppressed and burthened in you ) will begin to spring , and as you believe and wait in the light , your minds being staid in it , you will come to feel god's living power working and opperating in you , condemning and removing that in you , which hath oppressed and burthened the just , and so by god's pure power , ( as you wait and continue in it , ) you will come to feel and witness the just holy seed raised up in you , from under that which did oppress and burthen it ; and here you will feel the captive come out of captivity by the gospel , which is the power of god , and the prison door set open , and the prisoners set at liberty ; and then as you wait in the light you will come to feel god's pure powerful presence , and life and virtue runing through you , which will refresh the seed , which is tender , and give satisfaction unto it ; and so as you all wait low in the fear of god , watching in the light , that nothing may get up in you to boast and glory which is not of god , you will then feel your love exceedingly encreased towards the pure living truth of god , and your whole delight will be to walk in the truth , in righteousness and holiness , ( without which no man shall see the living god ) and as you all walk in the light obeying it , you will come into the pure fellowship , and communion and unity of the saints , and then you will feel the life , which is the blood of jesus christ cleansing you , purging and purifying you from all sin : and so as every one of you abide in the faith , feeling it , and standing in the power of god that will purifie your hearts , and give you victory over the world , and then you will come to receive a particular satisfaction from christ the power , which is the author and ground of the saints faith , and you will feel god's spirit , and power , and life as you dwell in it , drawing and leading you into whatsoever he requireth you to do ; and as you all wait and are still in that which doth discern the thoughts and the intents of your hearts , and makes them manifest unto you , you will clearly come to discern the subtilty and the motions thereof , which would draw you to act such things as the lord doth not require you to act . so all take heed to that which discerns the thoughts and intents of your hearts ; for this is a measure of the word of life , which is quick and powerful , and as you all wait in it , you will feel it to be so : for you will feel it dividing the precious in you from the vile ; and this is the ingrafted word which is able to save your souls . so this is not written to feed the carnal mind in any ; but it is written for your sakes , who are truely breathing and thirsting after god's righteousness , and cannot be satisfied without it ; that so you may all come into the true light wherewith you are enlightned , and that you with it may come to see how you have been tossed and tumbled up and down by the subtilty of the serpent , in those things which could never give you true peace nor satisfaction ; and that now through believing in the truth and obedience of the spirit , you may all come to witness a particular satisfaction , and that you may come to feel the pure image of the holy god restored in you , even his everlasting righteousness , his power , his wisdom , his life and glory raised up in you , to have dominion , and to rule over all the earth , and to subdue it ; that so the pure god of life and virtue might be glorified in your mortal bodies , and that you might all come to feel and witness an everlasting habitation of rest , and peace in him ; who is worthy of all honour , and praise , and thanksgiving , and dominion for evermore , amen . now some of you who have been antient professors , will say to us , if we should joyn to you , we must lay down all then that ever we have professed ; and what , have we been professors so many years , and yet have to begin all a-again ? have we known nothing of god all this time ? this is hard . to this i answer , friends , if you come to joyn to the truth , you must then lay down , and leave , and forsake all that , which you have held up and practised in your own wills , which you were never led or required to hold up or practice by the spirit of truth ; but i do know and own , that there was a pure living principle of god , oft stirring in you , in your professions ; by which principle of god , you oft saw that you were wrong , and that you did that which was not well-pleasing the sight of god in your profession ; for that principle of god in you , the light , judged and condemned you for many of your actions which you acted ; and sometimes the lord's witness brought you into a tender low condition ; and then opened things unto the seed in you , but you not taking heed to the light , to be the guide and stay of your minds , you continued not long in that condition , but you consulted with the subtilty ( which drew you from god's witness ) what you should do , and so waited not in that , which brought you into tenderness to receive god's counsel in that ; but you took counsel of the serpent , and your own hearts , and so ran into things which god never required at your hands , and therefore god had no regard unto your worship , because it was not in the spirit , and in the truth , you not being guided therein by the spirit of truth ; so unto that which was in the beginning you must all come , which is christ the true light , who hath enlightned you ; and you must learn of him , who is the light of life , the vvord , and the power , by which all things were made , and are upheld , and you must be subject unto the measure of him in you ; and this his measure , if you submit to it , that will bring you to cease from your own wills and works , and to wait in silence and patience , to see and feel christ the power of god , to work all your works in you , and for you ; and if you own the light , that will plainly shew unto you how god formerly appeared unto you , and how you went from his appearance ; so the light will own that which god opened unto you at any time , but it will deny and condemn your own imaginations , which you mixed with that which god opened unto you ; and so unto this witness of the lord you must all come , and believe , and wait in that , which will separate the precious from the vile , before that can be satisfied in you which breaths after god. so my tender love and compassion is unto that in you which is not yet satisfied , but doth truly hunger and thirst after the life and power of truth ; and my soul doth travel for freedom and satisfaction of that seed , and i suffer with it , and bear many things for its sake , for i have true unity and fellowship with that in you , and i know it , and am known of it ; but i cannot have unity with many of your practices , which ye have been in , because they have caused the seed in you , ( with which i have unity ) exceedingly to suffer ; you not being guided and led into them by the spirit of truth ; and so against all such practices i do bear witness in the spirit of meekness , and i labour in the spirit of love , to turn peoples minds unto the manifestation of the spirit of truth , which is given to every man wherewith to profit . so all people , feel that , and mind that , and hearken unto that which oft riseth in your hearts , against lust , against covetousness , against pride , against vain and needless words and thoughts , and against all evil in its appearance ; and as you all mind this principle which moves and stirs in you , against all evil , you will feel it divide your good words from your bad words , and good thoughts from bad thoughts , and good deeds from bad deeds ; and that which divides betwixt these , and shews you the difference of them , this is the word which moses and paul wrote of , which is nigh in the mouth , and in the heart ; yea , this is the word of reconciliation , which reconciles to god ; this is the ingrafted word , which is able to save the soul. now you being turned to this word , even to that which discerns the thoughts and intents of your hearts , as ye wait in this , let the subtilty appear never so subtilly to draw your hearts after any thing , or into any practice , which the lord requireth not of you , then this word , which is the power , it will make it manifest unto you , and it will stop you from entring into any such practices , if you wilfully resist it not ; and believing and waiting in this word , it will not suffer you to speak any hasty unsavoury words , or word , and then ye will come to be truly sensible of a bridle to the tongue , without which all religion is vain ; and this word , ye taking it to be your guide , it will bring you into savoury sound words , seasoned with the grace of god ; and so as your words , and actions , and lives , come to be ordered by this word ( christ the power of god ) they will reach unto the witness of god in every one where ye come ; and if ye will hear this word , and regard it , and not resist it , it will work true faith in you , by which you will feel your hearts purified from sin , and ye will feel it giving you victory over the world , within and without ; and if ye keep in this faith , ye will not make haste , for ye will feel the eternal light ( which is the life of the word ) calling and drawing you out of the hasty nature , into soberness , stilness , and quietness , and meekness of spirit , and so ye will feel your strength renewed in the lord , as ye all wait upon him in his light ; and all believing in the light , ye will not come into condemnation ; and as ye all wait in that which discerns and reveals the thoughts and the intents of your hearts ( which is the word of power ) this also will divide between your good thoughts and your bad thoughts , and the good motions and the bad motions , which you will see stirring in your minds ; and if you hold fast the word of truth , it will preserve and keep you out of the bad thoughts and motions , and it will joyn you unto the good , and ye will come to feel the operation of the spirit , and life , and power of god in you , to shake , and overturn , and work out that ground ( which hath been in you ) from whence the bad words , and bad thoughts , and bad motions have arose , which have burdened the oppressed and tender seed in you , which you never could witness satisfied with all that ever you have performed ; but as ye all believe , and wait in this unchangable measure of god , you will come to feel the burden taken off the seed ; and ye will come to feel and witness more true durable peace and satisfaction in one hours waiting upon god , than ever you felt and witnessed in all the words that ever you have heard from any man or woman in all your lives , or in all your practices , that ever you have practised ( before you were brought to wait upon god in his gifts , which he hath given you to profit withal ) although in those things which we have practised , i know ye have had a great joy appearing in you for a time , but it was not durable nor lasting ; for when god's true and faithful witness , ( the light ) appeared and shewed you how that god never required those things at your hands , which you had practised , then your joy and peace withered and came to an end , which you appeared sometime to have in those practices ; and if at any time ye came to feel some little peace , and joy , and refreshment , through what god opened to the seed in you , when by his power ye were brought into some tenderness , ye soon lost this also , by going from that which brought you into the tenderness ; but as you all come into the obedience of the spirit , and abide in it , this will bring you into the seasoned life , and then ye will come to feel and witness pure peace , and joy , and refreshment , and satisfaction , which will last and abide for ever with you , if ye abide in the spirit ; and then ye will be made willing to lay down and deny all that which ye have been acting , which ye never were led and guided to act by god's pure holy spirit ; and to deny all such also , as would draw you to act that which god requireth not at your hands . so take heed of such as daub with untempered morter , and heal deceitfully , who will speak peace , when there is no true peace , ( but the pure witness of god condemns ) for such , with good words and fair speeches , deceive the hearts of the simple , keeping them ever learning , but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth ; and these through covetousness and feigned words , make merchandize of poor people , for they have a form of godliness , but they deny and resist the power , and therefore from such turn away . and all mind that , and feel that , and be subject unto that , which for sin condemns sin in the flesh , and then you will feel the spirit of judgement , and burning , and righteousness , through which the seed is redeemed , which seed is heir of the kingdom of god ; so all wait in the meek , lowly , quiet spirit , that ye may come to witness this holy seed , which delights to do the will of god , ( by the power and life of god ) raised up in you , satisfied , and brought forth out of captivity . and look not out , nor strive after great and high things beyond your measures ( for that puffs up , and leads into confusion and dark imaginations ) but all wait and be still in the measure of god's light manifested in you , that so you may come to feel him revealing his secrets and mysteries unto the babes , which cannot live or be satisfied without him . god is making known that , and stirring that in the hearts of people ( throughout the world ) which doth and shall confound and overturn all the wisdom of this world , and the subtilty of the serpent ( from whence all the worlds wisdom arose ) and therefore the hand of the lord will be terrible and heavy upon the disobedient , who disobey and transgress that which he hath put into their hearts , ( whereby he is opening a mighty understanding in the people ) but the everlasting blessing , and peace , and joy , and glory of the lord over all shall arise , and rest upon all those that joyn to , and believe in , and obey that word which is nigh , in the mouth , and in the heart . by a labourer in the power of truth ( which doth make free ) for the deliverance and freedom of the righteous seed . george fox , the younger . an exhortation to families , who have desires to serve the lord god in their several places , that they may all learn in the light of christ jesus , the wisdom and power of god , who is the true teacher . o ye fathers and mothers , stand in the pure fear of the lord , and wait in his light , that ye may receive his living wisdom , and live in it , that so ye may be ordered by it , and with it order all things to god's glory , and bring up your children in the fear of the lord , watching over them in the seasoned savoury life of god , not suffering them to live in wildness , nor idleness , nor vain talking ( unreproved ; ) but in the sober , meek spirit , and in the authority of god's lamb , reprove them , and that will reach the witness of god in them , and correct them in the fear , and wisdom , and freedom of god , in the patience ; and follow not their foolish wills , neither correct them in your own wills , nor in hastiness , rashness , or passion ; for if ye do , then that will use the rod , which is to be beaten with the rod of god , and that will make your children more stubborn and wicked , and this will offend god ; but stand ye in god's counsel , and discourage nothing in your children , but evil , and let them have that which is meet , just , and reasonable , and no more , that none of god's creatures be wasted ; and be ye patterns and good examples ( in all holiness , gravity and uprightness ) unto them , and let them have sufficient liberty to go to godly meetings , and rather stir them up and encourage them to go to such , than hinder or discourage them ; and keep your minds out of them unto the lord , and let your love to them be in the lord , that so ye may feel his blessing coming upon you and them . and all ye children , who have parents , honour ( and be obedient unto ) them , in the lord , and mind the light of christ ( in you ) and that will not suffer ye to be wild , nor wilful , stubborn , nor vain , but it will check and reprove ye for all evil , and if ye will own its reproof , and believe and wait in it , it will lead ye out of all evil , and it will bring ye into soberness and meekness , tenderness and innocency , and preserve ye in it , and it will bring ye to know and remember your creator in the dayes of your youth , and it will reveal god's power and wisdom in ye , whereby ye will be kept in true order : so suffer not your minds to follow vanity , neither walk in stubbornness towards your parents , ( nor others ; ) i warn ye in god's fear , lest he shorten your dayes , and cut ye off by his righteous judgements ; but mind his fear , and wait therein , that ye may feel his grace , and be taught by it , and be obedient unto it , and then ye will feel the mercy and blessing of the lord. and all ye that are masters and dames , wait in the true light , that ye may feel christ the power and wisdom of god , to be your master , that so ye may rule in your places , in his fear and wisdom ; and lay no more upon your servants , than ye would be willing should be laid upon you , if ye were in their places and conditions : ( mark that ) and forbear threatning them , and be not hasty to turn them away , if they be willing to abide with you ; but in patience and meekness shew them their place and service , and therein teach them , if they know it not , and let them have for their service , that which is convenient , just and reasonable , that they may have no just cause to murmur or complain ; and keep out of covetousness , lest that hinder you from giving them sufficient liberty ( who desire it ) for going to the meetings of the people of the lord ; and if in the wisdom of god ye see freedom to turn any away , give them sufficient warning , that they may provide themselves other wayes , for this is just and reasonable ; and be not hasty nor rash with them , nor run into jangling with them , but if ye have cause to reprove them , let it be in the fear and wisdom of god , in the freedom and authority of the truth , and that will reach unto the witness of god in them ; so be not high-minded , but fear , and be patterns unto them in the lowly , meek and quiet spirit and bear with the weak , and forgive them that trespass against you , and render not evil for evil to any , but overcome evil with that which is good , and live in that which overcomes evil , that so the truth of god may be exalted over all . and all ye that are servants , live in the fear of the lord , and wait in his light , and be obedient thereunto , and also be obedient ( in your places ) unto those that are your masters and dames ( according to the flesh ) not onely to the good and gentle , but also to the froward , serving them in faithfulness and uprightness of heart , doing what ye do for them , as diligently , faithfully and willingly , as ye should do any thing to the lord , for this right in the sight of god ; and take heed that none of god's creatures be lost , or wasted under your hands , through your neglecting them , or slothfulness in your places ; & do not falsly accuse any , or speak evil behind any one's back , thereby thinking to get the favour or love of any , or upon any other account , for that is evil ; and be as diligent in your places , when your masters or dames are absent , as when they are present , for this is just and right ; and be not stubborn nor wilful , neither use many words to your masters or dames , and if you know not well how to perform your service aright , then in true humility be willing to learn , and take heed of high-mindedness and pride , or of being wise in your own eyes ; and when you have any spare time allowed ye , ( being free from outward imployment ) see that ye spend it in the fear of the lord , in waiting upon him in his light , that so all vain talking ; corrupt communication , foolish jeasting , and all vanity may be kept out of ; and give ye not way to that mind which is unstable , which would be oft shifting , and going from place to place , for this is not right in the sight of god ; but wait in the light , that ye may be staid , and setled in your minds ; and if ye see freedom in the fear of god ( mark that ) to go to another place , then give your masters or dames sufficient notice of it ; and if any of you , who know the truth , come to be moved of the lord to go to any place in his service , be faithful to the lord , and when your service which he required of you is done , then return to your places again ( except it be otherwayes ordered in the fear and wisdom of god ) and be diligent in your places , doing the same that ye would others should do unto you in the like condition ; and mind the lord in all things , and above all things , and be faithful unto him , and he will be your reward . and all ye fathers , and mothers , and children , and masters , and dames , and servants , who have the creatures of god to buy or sell , or to exchange , live in the fear of the lord , that ye may feel his wisdom to guide you in your trading , and do not speak better or worse of the creatures then you know them to be , thereby to get the greater gain , for that is idolatry , it arising from covetousness ; but wait to feel god's spirit to bridle your tongues , and use but few words in your trading ; and if ye ask a question therein , do it in simplicity , and keep in the light which is equal , that when ye offer or ask a price for the creatures , it may be in equality ; and let that be your rule , and not the price of the market , except that be equal , that so ye may reach the equal principle one in another ; and then stand to your word , and here your yea will be yea , and your nay will be nay , and so you will be kept in the doctrine of christ , with his light , out of all evil ; and ye abiding in the light , it will bring ye to do to every one , as ye would be done unto ; and take heed that ye stir not up the impatient , crooked , disorderly nature , one in another , with your words or actions ; but bear one with another , and forgive one another , and when ye tell each other of a fault , do it in the fear and wisdom , and meek spirit of god's lamb , that so ye may restore each other therein ; and when ye have any convenient time , assemble your selves together in the name and fear of the lord , and wait every particular in the measure and gift of god in you , which is given ye to profit withal ; and all wait together in the light , and believe in it , that ye may be children of the light , and therein watch unto prayer , and one over another , and this will beget ye into unfeigned love ; and walking in the light ye will have true unity , and fellowship one with another , and the blood ( which is the life ) of jesus christ you will feel cleansing you from all sin , and so ye will come into the unity with god. also , to feel his word , his power , and wisdom ( in you ) by which all things were created and made , and are upheld , that therein ye may be ordered in the particular , and that therein ye may use and order all god's creatures , to his glory ; and then all false weights , and measures , and wayes , and worships will be destroyed , and then shall truth , equity , righteousness , and true order and mercy prosper , and run down as a river : so let your faith stand in christ jesus the light , and wisdom , and power of god , and then true worship , true weight , true measure shall be set up and established , and then shall the lord be exalted over all the works of his hands , and so ye will feel his blessing ; unto him belongeth the dominion and honour , for he is worthy of it for evermore , amen . by george fox , the younger the words of the everlasting and true light , who is the eternal living god , and the king of saints , which he gave unto me his servant , to declare unto the inhabitants of the earth , and unto all such as have any true tender desires in them after righteousness , and truth . hearken , o ye nations ! and give ear ye inhabitants of the earth : thus saith the lord god of heaven and earth , whose name is the light , i am the lord , and there is no other that can save ; i the light created all things , and formed and made you all of the dust , and i breathed into you my light , my life , that ye with it should have been guided , and led in my wisdom , to have ordered all things which i have created , and to have ruled over them all , that i in you might have been honoured and exalted over all the works of my hands , which i the light created ; but from me the light ye have departed , and ye have hearkned unto the subtil serpent , which is the devil , ( who abode not in me the light , the life , the truth , which created all things ) whom i have cursed above all the beasts of the earth , who is the seed of enmity ; and ye hearkening unto him , he hath begotten you into enmity against me the light ; and so hath begotten and led you into the curse , and so he is become your father and leader , whom i have cursed , and all that ye bring forth and act in him . i have cursed , because it stands in the enmity against me the light ; yet i the light have looked upon you , and pittied you , because of the loss that ye are come into , and the darkness that is come upon you all , through your departing from me the light. and i the eternal god have sent him , who was glorified with me before the world was , by whom i made the world , who is not without me , nor i without him , but he is in me , and i in him , and he and i , and the spirit that proceed's from us , are one being and substance . ( mark ) i the eternal god have sent him into the world , who was glorified with me before the world began , and he is called my son , because he is the express image of my glory , and bears my name , the light , the life , the truth , which is but one , and he is my love unto you the world ; and that is he that lets you see the enmity and darkness that ye are in , and how years departed and gone from me the life ; and for this end i have sent him a light , that ye all through him the light might believe , that so he who shews you your sins , your enmity , your darkness , ye believing in him , might receive power to come out of it , and that he might save you from the curse which ye went into , when ye hearkned to the serpent , whom i have cursed , who is become your leader . but i have sent you the light to be your leader , to lead you from the serpent , and out of all that which he hath led you into . ( mark ) out of enmity against me , out of darkness , and so out of all unrighteous words , and deeds , and thoughts : and i the eternal god have given my son , the light , power to plague , and to judge , to condem , and to destroy all those that will not hear him ( the light ) who makes manifest unto you your unrighteous words , deeds , and thoughts , which the serpent hath led you into ; and because ye live in these , i cannot have fellowship with you , nor reveal my secrets unto you , but my anger is kindled against you ; but if ye would hearken unto my love , the light , which lets you see all that ever you have done , and own him to be your leader , and receive him , and give up your selves to be guided by him , then you shall feel his power in you , ( which i have given him ) to lead you out of enmity , and darkness , and the curse , and out of all sin , which was the cause of the curse , and so to destroy that nature in you , which the serpent hath begotten ye into , and to beget you again into the nature of himself ; the light , in whom i am well pleased , and then my anger would be turned away from you , and i should have fellowship with you again , as i had in the beginning , and the serpent's head ye should come to witness bruised ( who drew and led you out of me the life ) & the tree of life , which i shut you from ( because of your disobedience , ye should come to know it ) and to feel it , and to feed upon it again , and i should delight to do you good . but ( o ye disobedient ) ye are from this , because ye despise me , my son , my spirit , who are one , who are light and life , which is not far from you ; for i the light give unto every one of you life , and breath , and you and all things are upheld by me , the light , whose presence filleth heaven and earth ; and i have long spared you , and my patience and long-suffering towards you hath been exceeding large ; but you in your imaginations have put me a far off , and ye will not own me , the light , the life in you , because my appearance in you hath been , and yet is to make manifest sin and evil in you , and to check and reprove you for it , and to call you out of it ; and therefore you are offended at me ; and you whom the serpent , the prince of the power of the air hath led out of me , into airy imaginations , you scorn me , the light in you , and count me a low , poor , weak thing , not worth the taking notice of , because i have been patient towards you , and have tenderly , meekly , and lovingly made manifest unto you sin , and evil , in its appearance , and hath reproved you for evil gently ; therefore you have disobeyed me , and dishonoured me , and called me a natural light ; and ye have said , i the light am not able to save those that believe in me ; and many of you have got my words , which i the light spoke in my servants of old , and ye in the enmity , give other meanings to my words , and so with my words mixed with your own meanings and imaginations , ye fight against me the light and life within you , and so against my children , which bear testimony of me , the light , who lighteth every one that cometh into the world ; and these your iniquities i have long born , and you have grieved my spirit , which haah long strove with you , and i the life have been oppressed in you , and by you : but verily , my spirit shall not alwayes strive with you , neither will i the light , alwayes bear your iniquities ; for verily , i the lord god almighty , ( who am the light , which have made manifest your iniquities unto you , which some of you call natural , and say , that those who are led and guided by me the light within , which makes manifest sin , that they are guided by a spirit of error and delusion . ) [ mark ] i will make you know your blasphemy , and you shall know and feel to your everlasting destruction , ( if you speedily repent not ) that i the light [ which le ts you see sin , and reproves you for it ] am spiritual , and am the spirit of truth , who leads all those that receive me out of all error and delusion , into all truth : and i 'le make you know , that i the light am a consuming fire , which none can quench ; for now will i the light and life arise , who have so gently reproved you for sin , and called you out of it , and have so long suffered in you , and by you , as a lamb , yea , i will arise , and ease my self of my adversaries ; i will not spare any that will not own me , the light , but i will overturn you all , without respect of persons , and i will give to every one according to the fruits of their doings . i matter not what name ye are called by , whether it be king , protector , prince , duke , lord , iudge , iustice , parliament , priest , lawyer , gathered churches , army , gentry , mean men , or beggars , ( mark ) i the light made you all of one blood , i formed you all of the dust , i breathed into you the breath of life , i gave you the light to lead you , & to order you , and that ye in it should have walked and ordered all things to my glory ; but many of you have slighted me , the light in you , & would not take counsel of me , nor be ordered by me , but have chosen to follow your own hearts lusts , and have taken counsel of the serpent , & have chosen him to be your leader , & in his wisdom ye have walked , and by him ye have been ordered , and by him ye have ordered things to the dishonour of me , the light , whom many of ye call natural . mark , i the true light will arise , and will plague and torment all you that disobey me , and will not turn at my reproof ; i will bring such heavy judgements upon you , as have not been felt ; i will be a swift witness against all the wicked ; i the light will stop the mouths of vain talkers , i will confound the wisdom of wise men , i will make diviners mad , i will bring down the high lofty spirits of men , i will make ye bow unto my name , the light ; you shall feel it is not natural nor weak ( as some of you have said of it ) for it shall break you to pieces , and all your profession and wisdom , which is out of the light , i the light ( in you ) will confound it all , i 'le break all sects and opinions , and gathered churches ( so called ) which are not in me ; i the light in you , will take away all peace from the earth , yea , i 'le bring you to your wits ends , i 'le burn your heavens , all your joy , your peace , your righteousness , which stand in the power of darkness ; i the light in you will consume it all ; i 'le burn heaven and earth , i 'le burn within in and without , i 'le strike with astonishment , with fear and amazement , with madness and destruction ; i 'le bring plagues within , and plagues without , until i have consumed all you mine enemies , who will not own me , the light within : i the light will overturn kingdoms and nations , and rulers of all sorts , and armies , and gathered churches , which will not own me , the light in them , to guide and lead them . wo unto the murtherers , whoremongers , thieves , cheaters , swearers , lyars , hunters , gamesters , vain-talkers , and all workers of iniquity , who hate me , the light , who have made manifest your abominations , and reproved you for them : i have been pressed with your iniquities , but i the light will arise upon you , and if ye will not hear and return speedily , i 'le fall upon you , and grind you to powder ; and all , both high and low , rich and poor , professors , or not professors , and all time-servers , who will not own me , the light in you , and return to me the light , i will make no difference of you , because of your names or places , but i will break you to pieces like a potters vessel , i 'le tread you like mire and clay in the streets , and i 'le make you know , that i the light ( which lighteth every man which cometh into the world , that all through me should believe ) am the true eternal god , which created all things , and that by me , the light , all things are upheld , and that there is not another beside me that can save ; for i will famish all the gods of the heathen , and destroy them , and those that worship them , and will not repent and turn unto me the true light , i 'le make a short work , i will cut it short in righteousness , and i the light will be exalted over all the earth , and i 'le prove my self to be stronger than all in this generation . and all you who are scoffers and scorners , who scoff and scorn at my children , who in this the day of my power , have trembled at my word : mark , i 'le make you assuredly to tremble and quake ; yea , you who have despised me , the light , and have scoffed at my workings in my people , i the light in you will make you to drink the cup of trembling , and ye shall not be able to resist it , and then ye shall know that i the light am he that will work , and none shall be able to stop me , yea , i the everlasting light will wound , & none be able to heal ; i will kill , and none shall be able to make alive : therefore consider what i say , before the day of your visitation be wholly past , and return unto me , the light in you , and repent , lest my long patience come to an end , and so i destroy you utterly . now all people , in whom there are any true tender desires after truth and righteousness , i the true light in you did beget them , and if ye will hearken unto me , the light in you , i will let you see all that which doth oppress those desires in you ; and i will not onely shew you that which doth oppress those desires in you , but i the light ( if ye will receive me , and learn of me ) will teach you to deny , and to resist all that which is contrary unto me , which doth oppresse that which i have begotten in you ; and if ye will believe , and wait in me , the light , i will give you power to resist all that which is contrary unto me , and i will destroy all the works of the serpent in you , and bruise his head , and i will purge out all your iniquities , and forgive all your trespasses , & i will change your nature , and i will make you new creatures , if ye will hearken unto me , and obey me the light in you ; and i will make you partakers of my divine nature ; and i will judge , and condemn , and consume all that in you , which is contrary to my nature , if ye will abide in the light ; and i will take away all darkness , and earthly-mindedness ; and i will reveal my secrets and mysteries unto my seed in you , and i will cause you to delight alone in me the light of life , and i will feed you with the bread of life , and ye shall drink of my life , and ye shall be satisfied ; and i will manifest my power more and more in you ; and if ye will be faithful unto me , and obey my voice , and wait upon me , the light , then i will make the crooked wayes strait before you , and the rough wayes smooth , and i will destroy the power of darkness within and without you ; and if ye will follow me , i will lead you out of the world , and worldly cares , into patience , into meekness , and into stilness and quietness of spirit , and whatsoever you suffer for my names sake , i will be your exceeding great reward , and i will be your dread , and ye shall be the dread of nations , & i will be your glory , and ye shall be the glory of nations , and i will reign over you , and ye shall reign over all the world , in my light , and life , and power ; and if ye continue in me the light , i will give you dominion over all your enemies , within and without you , and i will make them all bow before you ; and i the lord god of light and life , will be your redeemer and saviour , your rock , your shield , and your defence ; and if ye will wait in my life , it shall be your life , and i the life will destroy the destroyer , within and without you , and i will bring you out of all trouble , and restlesness , and dissatisfaction , and i will be your peace , and your rest , and your satisfaction , and ye shall lie down in me the light of life , and none shall make you afraid . these things shall you come to witness in the work of your regeneration , and much more than is here expressed , if ye be faithful unto me , the true light in you , who have no fellowship with any thing that is evil ; and then i wil purge all evil out of you , and even as i am , so shall ye be also ; yea , i will work this work , and perfect it in you , if ye continue and abide in me , the light. now if any should say , that here is nothing spoken of christ , in what i have here written ; i answer , what i have here written , is the words which the father , who is one with christ the son , gave unto me to write , in which words the true christ is owned , and a testimony given of him , and no other . but further , in the fear and wisdom of god , for the satisfaction of the simple , i do declare in plain words ; that i do believe in the true christ , the lord of life , who was glorified with the father before the world began ; and i do believe that he was in due time made manifest in that body of flesh , who was called jesus , and that in him the fulness of the godhead dwelt bodily , who was supposed to be the carpenter's son , whom the jews crucified without the gates of jerusalem ; and i have remission of sins through his blood , who is the lord of life , and he was buried , but he is risen , and ascended , and sits on the right hand of the majesty on high : this is the christ i own , who also was , and is crucified in sodom and aegypt by the rebellious ; yea , he is crucified afresh , and put to open shame now , by those that trample the blood of the covenant , the light of life under their feet , and count it an unholy or a natural thing , and such act despightfully against the spirit of grace ; and such murther the seed which keeps the commands of god ; and such will god the light overthrow and burn to ashes , as he did sodom and gomorrah ; but all that love and obey the true light ( which is the fire ) shall be saved and preserved by it , and shall remain unhurt ; but all that hate and disobey the light in them , that is their condemnation , the light. these are faithful and true sayings , and things also that must shortly come to pass , and he witnessed . postscript . reader , who ever thou art , be moderate , and take heed of disobeying , and despising the true light ; for if thou dost , thou disobeyest and dispisest the true and eternal god , who is light , and that is his name , whereby he is and will be known in this age and generation . therefore stumble not at the light which lighteneth every one which cometh into the world ; for if thou doest , thou stumblest at god , his name , at christ the word , ( by which all things were made , and are upheld ) at the door , the way , the truth , and the life , at the rock , at the elect stone , and these all are but one , and if thou stumble at these , what ever thou art , thou shalt be broken . but they that obey and believe the true light , they shall be made children of the light , and shall be taught of god and shall walk in his light. g. f. a word to the people of the world , who hate the light , to be witnessed by the light in them all ; vvherein is shewed unto them , what the light is , which is the condemnation of the vvorld with its deeds ; and what the spirit of truth is , and what it leads them into , who are led by it ; and what the spirit of error is , and what it leads them into , who are led by it : and also they are here exhorted to repent whilst they have the light , to believe and walk in the light , lest darkness come upon them , and they into it be cast , where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth . also a few queries to such professors as stumble at the light , the word , the kingdom , and spirit of god within , and tell people that none can be free from sin in this life , and yet say , that they own the scriptures . light is come into the vvorld , and the vvorld hates it , joh. . . and the whole world lyeth in wickedness , joh. . . and this is the condemnation of the vvorld , that light is come into the vvorld , and men loved the darkness rather than the light , because their deeds were evil ( saith christ ) joh. . , . and every one that doth evil , hateth the light , neither cometh to the light , lest his deeds should be reproved ; but all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light ; for whatsoever doth make manifest is light , eph. . . and christ jesus he is the true light , which lighteth every man that cometh into the vvorld , joh. . . drunkard , thou hast a light given thee which comes from christ ; and that is the light which lets thee see that thou shouldst not be drunk ; so here thou hast learned thy condemnation ( which is the light ) swearer , and lyar , and fighter , and quarreler , thou hast a light given thee which comes from christ ( who saith , swear not at all ) and with this light , thou seest thou shouldst not swear , nor lye , nor fight , nor quarrel , for the light in thee witnesseth against these things ; so here thou hast learned thy condemnation ( the light ) scoffer , scorner , mocker , railer , cursed speaker , foolish iester , vain talker , couzener and cheater , the light that shines in thy conscience , though thou canst not comprehend it ( joh. . . ) because thou art darkness , it is pure and eternal , and never consented unto evil , but stood and stands a vvitness for god , against all evil ; ( mark ) this light , this pure vvitness oftentimes hath appeared and doth appear unto thee , and in thee , and lets thee plainly see that thou shouldst not act any of these evils before mentioned , and it often checks and reproves in secret , when thou dost so act ; so here thou hast learned what condemns thee , ( which is the the light ) eph. . , . proud one , wanton one , lustful one , covetous one ( who art an idolater ) backbiter , whoremonger , gamster , sporter , and prophane one , who walkest on in laciviousness and excess of the creatures , in revellings , banquetings , and abominable idolatries , and whoever thou art that acts any manner of unrighteousness whatsoever , it is sin , and it is of the devil ; but the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the vvorld , that is the son of god , who is made manifest for this very end , that he might destroy the works of the devil , joh. . . and he ( mark ) the son of god , hath given thee a measure of his light , and that is the measure of his light in thee , which lets thee see that thou should not act any of these abominations before-mentioned , but it oft appears in thee to convince thee of thy evil deeds , and reproves thee , and judgeth thee for thy wickedness ; so here thou hast learned thy condemnation , which is the light , which makes manifest unto thee thy abominations . and thou who makest a profession of the saints words , but art found to be out of their life , and in thy dark carnal mind and imaginations run'st into their words ( the scriptures ) and calls them the vvord of god , and thy rule , and the way to know god ( and yet thou livest contrary to the scriptures , and art out of the knowledge of god , whom to know , is life eternal ) mark , the light wherewith thou art enlightned withal , it comes from christ ( who lighteth every man that cometh into the vvorld , and his name is called the vvord of god , rev. . . and he is the way to god , and no man knoweth the father save the son , and he to whomsoever the son will reveal him ) mat. . . and this light which comes from the son of god , oftentimes appears in thee , and shews thee that thou art out of the saints life ( though thou profess their vvords ) and the light lets thee see that thou art a thief and a robber , and art climbing up another way ( in thy imaginations ) than by the door , ( joh. . . ) which is christ ( from whence the light doth come ) and this light in thee , which makes manifest to thee thy condition , it oftentimes confounds thee and thy imaginations ( which thou hast raised out of thy dark mind , concerning the scriptures , which were given forth in the true light ) and the light oftentimes convinceth , reproveth , and judgeth thee , of and for thy hypocrisie , and dissimulation , and feigned love , and humility , and will-worship ; and lets thee see that thy worship is not that worship which the lord requireth ; for that is in the spirit , and in the truth which god requireth , joh. . , , . and thou being out of the light ( not being guided by it ) art out of the spirit , for the spirit is light , and the light is the truth , and so out of the true worship in the false , worshipping thou knowst not what ; so here with the true light thou art condemned , and so hast learned but thy condemnation . therefore all people , both young and old , high and low , rich and poor , bond and free , who yet live in any of these evil deeds before-mentioned ; mind that which makes manifest your evil deeds unto you , which is the measure of the pure god , which he hath given you to profit withal , and this measure in you convinceth you of sin , and reproves you for it ; now mind to stand in that which doth convince ; for that is the power : and as you stand and believe in that which doth convince you , it will lead you into true repentance never to be repented of ; for it will bring you to repent of , and to forsake all your evil deeds and hard speeches ( jud. . ) which you will see in the light ( which never consented unto sin ) that you have acted and spoken against the living god ; so believe in the light , which shews you sin and evil , and wait in the light as it ariseth and appears in you , to shew you your estates and conditions ; now if you believe in the light , and wait in it , you will come to receive power from christ ( from whence the light doth come ) to overcome evil , and to withstand the tempter , when he appears to tempt you to evil ; and the light ( believing in it ) will preserve you out of the evil , and lead you out of the death and loss that ye are in , unto christ the life and saviour of the soul. but if you hate the light ( which shews you sin and evil ) you hate christ ; for i am the light , saith christ , john . . and if you hate the light , you hate the way to the father , for i am the way to the father , saith christ , who is the light , joh. . . and if you hate the light , you hate the truth , and you hate the life , for i am the truth and the life , saith christ , the true light , who lighteth every man that cometh into the world , joh. . . and . . and if you hate the light , you hate the covenant of god ; for i will give him for a covenant to the people , and for a light to the gentiles , saith god , isa . . . and . . and if you hate the light , you hate the power , for all power is given unto me both in heaven and in earth , saith christ the light , mat. . . and if you hate the light , you hate the word of god , and so you hate god and christ ( who are one , john . . ) mark , for in the beginning was the word , and the word was with god , and the word was god ; all things were made by it , and without it nothing was made that was made , in it was life : ( mark , in the word was life ) and the life ( of the word ) was the light of men ; and john , a man sent of god , bare witness of the light , that all men through him might believe ( mark ) through him , who lighteth every man that cometh into the world , john . , , , , , , , , . and god is light , joh. . . and god and christ are one , joh. . . joh. . . so you that be turned from the light ( which shews you sin and evil , mark what you are turned from ) you are turned from the way , and from the truth , and from the life , and from the covenant of god , and from the power of god , and from the word of god , and so from god and christ , from whence the light doth come , and into the darkness you are turned and gone , and the prince of darkness ruleth in you ( eph. . . ) that so you cannot find any power over your own perverse wills , nor over your lusts , nor over any sin there , being gone from the light in your own particulars ; in which light , if you believed and waited in it , you would receive power to overcome sin ; but you not believing in the light , you believe in him who leads you from the power of god into sin , and there he perswades you that you must live ( in sin ) so long as you live upon the earth ; and you have believed and received this doctrin of him , and you teach it to others , and so are become the devils ministers , and so you deny the end for which the son of god was made manifest , which was to destroy the works of the devil , and to take away sin , joh. . . mat. . . and yet many of you feed your selves with hopes of life and salvation , but your hopes are vain and will perish ; be not deceived , god will not be mocked , for such as you sow , such shall you reap , gal. . , . ye that live after the flesh , fulfilling the lusts thereof , you shall surely dye ( if ye repent not speedily ) rom. . . and you that sow to the flesh , shall of the flesh reap corruption ; the day of the lord hasteth greatly , wherein you must give an account unto him , who will judge you righteously , and reward you according to your deeds done in the body ; and all you who have been slothful , and have hid that in the earth which the lord gave you to profit withal , you will be turned into utter darkness , mat. . . john . . therefore while you have the light , believe and walk in it , lest thick darkness come upon you , even such darkness as may be felt ; the day of your visitation prize , lest the things that belong to your peace , be wholly hid from your eyes : consider there is a time when the candle is lighted , and when you may see ( if you search with it ) what is in the house ; but mark , this time will not alwayes continue with the wicked , for the candle of the wicked shall be put out , prov. . . yea , the spirit of the lord shall not alwayes strive with man , gen. . . therefore cease from your dark imaginations , which several of you have got into ; for whosoever followeth the imaginations and thoughts of his own heart ( which all who believe not in the light do ) they run on in darkness , and know not whether they go ; and such are under the wo , putting darkness for light , & light for darkness , calling the spirit of truth , the spirit of error , and the spirit of error , the spirit of truth , isa . . . as all the world do , who lye in wickedness , and hate the true light , which lighteth every man that cometh into the word ; which light reproveth you for your wickednes ; and this light you call a spirit of delusion and error ; and you say , that those who are guided by it , are deluded and led into error : oh! take heed of blasphemy against the pure god , who is light ; mark , the spirit of error , what it is , and what it leads into ; it is that which abode not in the truth , and it is a murderer , and was so from the beginning ; and they who walk not in the true light , they walk and are guided by this spirit , and some by it are led to murder , some to steal , some to be drunk , to swear , to lye , to cheat and cozen one another , to fight , to game , and some it leads into vain laughter , foolish jesting , corrupt communication , cursed speaking , wantonness , lust , whoredom , fornication , and into covetousness , [ which is idolatry ] into pride , variance , strife , railing , back-biting , envy , wrath and malice , false accusing the innocent , and into all manner of ungodliness , into feigned love , self-seeking , dissimulation , hypocrisie and feigned flattery , and to hate the very appearance of truth , eph. . . and . gal. . , . now examine with that which reproves you for sin in secret , and it will let you see that you bring forth many of these cursed fruits before-mentioned , and so are deluded and guided by the spirit of error ; now the true light [ which lighteth every man that cometh into the world ] comes from the spirit of truth , and that is the truth , and it witnesseth against all these evil deeds before-mentioned , [ which are out of the truth ] and they who believe in the light [ which makes manifest sin and evil ] and wait in it , they receive power from him from whence the light came , john . . to abstain from evil , and to overcome sin and evil , [ and this i witness ] and that spirit which tempts the creature to evil , is the spirit of error : so we who believe in the true light , which is the manifestation of the spirit of truth , which is given to every man to profit withal , cor. . . we by it are led out of error and delusion , into the perfect truth of god , and to act those things which are well-pleasing in his sight , mat. . . they being learned and wrought in the light which comes from the son , in whom the father is well pleased , joh. . . and this true light in us is our guide and teacher , and this brings us who wait in it , to understand the scriptures of truth ; which was given forth from the spirit of truth , and it brings us into that which the scriptures speaks of , into the life and power of god and to witness that which the world talks of ; for they will talk of faith in christ jesus , though they witness not what they speak : but we who believe in the light , are made ( by the power of god ) children of the light ; and we witness faith in christ , which faith purifies our hearts , and gives us victory over the world , act. . . joh. . . and the light leads us into meekness , into soberness and love unfeigned , into holiness and uprightness , into sound and pure judgement , into mercy , into patience , when we are reviled and persecuted ( and at all times ) into long-suffering and truth in the inward parts , to do unto all men , as we would they should do unto us ; yea , it leads us who abide in it , into all truth , joh. . . and this is not of our selves , for it is the free gift of god , who freely gave his son for a covenant of light , which ligheth every man that cometh into the world ; and we who have received the gift of god ( the light ) by the gift we are brought to bring forth these fruits , which are contrary to those which the spirit of error leads the children of disobedience to bring forth , gal. . , . for although we the children of light , are accounted to be in delusion and errour , gal. . . . yet it is but by you who bring forth the cursed fruits , which the spirit of errour leads you to bring forth ; so in the light , life and power of god we stand over all false accusations and reproaches , and persecutions , and in the patience of gods lamb we bear them all , and our love goes forth to your souls , who wilfully oppose your selves , and we declare unto you that the long-sufferings of the lord towards you , is to draw you to repentance , rom. . . and i have directed you to that which will shew you , what you ought to repent of . therefore consider your wayes speedily , all you that forget god , lest he tear you in pieces , and there be none to deliver you , psal . . . for verily , this i declare unto you in the presence of the lord , that if you go on and continue in stubbornness and rebellion against the pure god , and despise his love , and reject his counsel , and still refuse to hearken to the light of his son in your consciences ( which reproves you for sin , and is freely given to you , to lead you out of sin unto god , if you wilfully do not resist it ) mark , when the measure of your iniquity is filled up , then will he arise upon you at unawares in his fury , & wrath , & indignation , mat. . . . and his eye shall not at all pitty you , but he will bring his plagues and righteous judgements upon you , which shall consume you both root and branch , if you will not be gathered in the day of his long patience and forbearance , which is the day of your visitation , wherein you may come to know the things belonging to your peace , if you do not wilfully resist the power that is offered and committed unto you ; but if you resist the power , then the lords righteous judgements will assuredly come upon you , and you will receive to your selves condemnation ; and if you continue in your wickedness until the day of your visitation be past , then shall the light in all your consciences ( which hath oftentimes shewed unto you your evil deeds ) arise and witness to the judgements of god that they are just , zek. . . so whether you will hear or forbear , remember you are warned in your life time . by a friend to your souls , and a lover of the creation of god , george fox , the younger . a few queries to such professors as stumble at the light , the word , the kingdom and spirit of god within , and tell people that none can be free from sin in this life , and yet say that they own the scriptures . . qu. are not all by nature darkness , and doth not the light shine in darkness , yea or nay ? . qu. can any come to see themselves to be darkness , but with the light which shineth in the darkness , yea or nay . . qu. is there any way to come out of darkness and death , and to receive life , and to be made children of the light , but by believing in and following of jesus christ the true light ( which lighteth every man that cometh into the world ) yea or nay ? . qu. must not all be turned from darkness to light , and from satan's power to the power of god , before they can receive remission of sins , and an inheritance among them that are sanctified , yea or nay ? . qu. can any come into the true faith ( which purifies the heart , and gives victory over the world , without which none can please god ) but by hearing the word of god , yea or nay ? . qu. and is not christ the light , the word of god ; and is not christ the light , the author and finisher of the true faith ( which saves and justifies ) yea or nay ? . qu. and is not the word nigh in the mouth and in the heart , that men may obey it and do it , and is not christ the light , the word , that prophet , which all that hear him not are to be cut off , yea or nay ? . qu. and is it not christ the word , which discerns and reveals the thoughts and intents of the heart ; and is not he the ingrafted word which is able to save the soul ; and is not he the grace of god which bringeth salvation , and is sufficient ( which hath appeared unto all men ) and is not he the word of god's grace ( which is able to build up and keep from falling ) which people are to be commended unto , yea or nay ? . qu. and is not god light , and is not the shining of him in the hearts of people , which gives them the knowledge of himself in the face of jesus christ , yea or nay ? . qu. and is not christ the light , the hope which purifies as god is pure ( which anchors and stayes the soul ) to be known within ; & are not people tossed like a ship ( in a tempest ) without an anchor , till christ the hope be felt within , to stay and anchor them ; and is not christ within the hope , a mystery which hath been hid from ages and generations , and are not all they in the reprobate state , who know not christ within them , yea or nay ? . qu. and is not god's kingdom light ; and is it not like a little leaven that is hid in meal , and as a grain of mustard-seed that is sown in the earth , and like a pearl hid in the field , or like good seed sown in the field , both on stony , thorny , high-way , and good ground ; and is not the world the field , where the seed of the kingdom is sown ; and is not the world in mans heart ; so , is not gods kingdom within men , yea or nay ? . qu. and is not the manifestation of the spirit given to every man to profit withal ; and do any worship the father of truth aright , but those that worship him in the spirit and in the truth , and is not the light the truth , yea or nay ? . qu. and is not christ the light , that word which reconciles to god ; and is it not he that must open the understandings of men , before they can understand the scriptures , and are not people in errour , and in jangling and strife about the scriptures , till christ the light , the spirit of truth , the power of god ( from whence scriptures were spoken ) be known and owned to guide and lead them , yea or nay ? . qu. and is not this the cause of so many sects and opinions , and divisions as are , and of such strivings as are about scriptures and religions , because people know not , or own not the spirit of truth , ( from whence scriputures were spoken forth ) to lead and guide them ; and is it not like that people should run into sects and opinions , and divisions and strife , if they know not , or own not the spirit of truth to guide and lead them ; and if the spirit of truth were known and owned to guide and lead them , would it not lead and guide them out of sects and opinions , and divisions , and strife , and would it not bring people to be of one heart , and of one mind , and into unity with god , and one with another , and with the scriptures , yea or nay ? . qu. and doth not christ the light , the spirit of truth , for sin , condemn sin in the flesh ; and must not that be owned which makes manifest , reproves and condemns sin in the flesh , before the ministration of life and peace can be witnessed , yea or nay ? . qu. is not the unity of the spirit the bond of peace ; and must not people come into unity with the spirit , before they can come into true peace ; and doth not the spirit of truth reprove men for sin who live in it ; so must not people come out of sin , before they can come into unity with the spirit , and so into true peace ; or hath the spirit any unity with sin , or is there any true peace to the wicked , who live in sin , yea or nay . . qu. and is not christ the light , the word , the rock of offence , and the stone of stumbling unto the disobedient , in whom the prince of the power of the air ruleth ; but is he not elect and precious to them that believe and obey him ; and is it not he that ruleth in them , and leads and guides them in the way of peace , yea or nay ? . qu. do not as many as believe in the light receive power to become the sons of god ; and are not those the sons of god who are led by the spirit of truth , and are not those that do not believe in christ the light , nor are guided by the spirit , bastards and not sons ; and are they not condemned already , who do not believe , and is not the light their condemnation , yea or nay ? . qu. and shall not darkness ( yea , great darkness ) come upon them , who do not believe and walk in the light , and shall not they stumble and fall , and be broken , yea or nay ? . qu. and shall not they who believe and walk in the light , be made children of the light , and be kept from stumbling and falling , and shall not they have fellowship with the father and the son ( from whence the light comes ) and one with another ; and doth not the blood of christ cleanse them from all sin , yea or nay ? . qu. can any have fellowship with the father and the son , and the saints in light , but those that walk in ( and are guided and led by ) the light of christ jesus , which he hath enlightned them withal , yea or nay ? . qu. can any deny themselves before they see themselves ; and can any man see himself but with the light which christ hath enlightned him withal , which makes manifest self ; and can any be christ's disciple , but he that denies himself , and takes up the crosse , and comes after christ the true light ; and are not all they thieves and robbers which come before christ the light , and are not such enemies to the crosse of christ ; and is not the crosse of christ the power of god ; and is not the crosse ( and the preaching of it ) foolishness to the wise of this world ; and is it not a stumbling block to such as in words professe they know god , but in works deny him yea or nay ? . qu. and they that commit sin , and cannot cease from sin , are not they of the devil , and are not they the servants of sin , and so free from righteousness , and have they not eyes full of adultery who cannot cease from sin , are they not adulterated and whored from the life of god , and though they promise liberty to themselves and others , yet are not they servants to corruption , and do not they live in the flesh , and are they not dead while they live , and so out of the true faith , and can such please god , yea or nay ? . qu. and they that believe in , and obey christ jesus the true light , doth not their faith stand in the power of god , and doth it not purifie their hearts , and give them victory over the world , and do not they who witness ( in the life ) the manifestation of the son of god , also witness that he destroyes the works of the devil , and takes away their sin , and makes an end of transgression , and changes their nature which was subject to sin , and makes them partakers of his divine nature , and throughly purges and sanctifies them with his living truth , and doth not that make them free from sin , and so make them servants of righteousness , and doth not that make vessels of honour fitted for the masters use , and are not such dead unto sin and alive unto god , and can such live any longer in sin , and having mortified the deeds of the body through the spirit , shall not they live ( but not to themselves , but to god ) and are not these christ's ; and have they not crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof , yea or nay ? . qu. shall any man see the lord without holiness ; and ought any to name the name of christ , but those that depart from iniquity ; and is that the faith of god's elect which doth not purifie the heart , nor give victory over the world ( but is without the works ) or is not this dead faith , and but the faith of devils , and shall any be saved or justified by this faith , yea or nay ? consider of these things ye professors , who stumble at the light , and tell people , that none shall be free from sin in this life . . qu. and when is the time , and where is the place , and what is the name of it ( if not in this life ) that men shall be made free from sin ? ( answer plainly , that i may see how much ye differ from the papists in this particular ) or do ye believe that corruption ( and that which is imperfect ) shall enter into heaven , and inherit in corruption , yea or nay ? answer , these queries in plainness , according to the scriptures ( if ye be able ) if not , then submit unto the true light , which will let you see your thoughts , your darkness , your unstableness and ignorance of the scriptures , and repent and believe , and wait in the true light , that you may come out of your thoughts and darkness , and unstableness and ignorance , into that which the scriptures declare of , to feel christ the saviour ( from whence the light doth come ) to redeem and save ye from sin , and to keep ye out of your own thoughts , inventions and imaginations ; that so your minds may come to be stayed and settled in the power of the lord , which moves against sin . by one who witnesseth god , christ , the light , the word , the spirit of truth ( and these are one ) and the kingdom of god within me ; and so am come to the thing that the scriptures testifie of , which was before scripture was , in whom the scriptures ends , and the tabernacle of god is witnessed with men , and his presence is felt , which filleth heaven and earth , and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him ; glory to him in the highest . george fox , the younger . honest , upright , faithful , and plain dealing with thee , o army of the common-wealth of england ( so called ) without flattery , in true unfeigned love to thee ; with something more particularly unto the officers of the army , and those that joyn with them in the outward government of this nation : wherein truth , uprightness , and equity is declared for ; and deceit , wickedness , oppression , and tyranny , is declared against . at your first going forth , there was a true honest principle , which stirred in the hearts of many of you , which convinced you of sin in the particular ; and it also shewed you the desperate wickedness , cruelty , tyranny , and oppression , which was upheld by unjust and unrighteous laws and rulers , whereby the honest people were much oppressed ; and in several of you there arose a true zeal against this abomination , and then i know your lives , and what you had , were not dear to some of you , but were freely given up to do your nation service , in breaking down that oppression and tyranny which was brought upon it by the enemies of god , and it ; and then a mighty courage and boldness arose in many of you , against oppression and oppressors , and the lord appeared with you against them , because they were his enemies , and sought to destroy the very appearance of truth ; and then many of you were low and tender , and the hearts of such people as had honest desires in them , and breathed for liberty , they were much affected with you , and the cause you declared for , and vowed and engaged to be true and faithful unto ; and then the lord appeared with you in the field , giving you mighty victories over your enemies , that so he might make way for his living truth to be spread , which was then stirring in his people ; and the lord weakned his enemies before you , and ye saw his mighty hand therein , and his mighty work ( in overturning those his enemies ) prospered in your hands ( for he made you instruments therein ) until he had scattered his enemies , and then he gave you power and opportunity to accomplish that you had vowed and engaged to do , and which his light in your hearts had shewed you , that you ought to have done . but you not keeping to that which first appeared in you , and made you sensible of the oppression that was upheld by the unrighteous laws , lawyers , and rulers ; an earthly selfish spirit , got up in many of you , which exceedingly encreased covetousness and pride in you ; and then the greatness of your pay , and the spoyl of your enemies , and idleness , and the fulness of the creatures , began to be more delightful to many of you , than the liberty you once declared for ; and then some among you began to see how deceit and hypocrisie crept in amongst you , and appeared against it ; but you whose hearts went after your covetousness and self-seeking , soon stopt them , either by threatning them , or by advancing them into greater places , or by turning them out of the army ; and thus you began to back-slide , and then deceit began to wax strong among you , and several of you began to settle your selves in the earth , and in your enemies estates , and then you little regarded the oppression that others suffered under , you being at ease your selves ; and thus the enemy beguiled you , and deceit wrought in you , even as it did amongst some of the sects and opinions ; for in many of them there was a true principle of god stirring once , which convinced them of their own sins , and also shewed the cruelty , wickedness , and deceit of the bishops and prelates , and others , and caused them to witness against such ; but they not keeping to the measure of god in them , a worldly , carnal , deceitful spirit encreased in them , and then they soon began to settle themselves in another form , ( without the life and power of god ) which was as bad in the nature and ground of it , as that they had witnessed against , only it had another name . and in the same manner have ye acted ; for ye going from the measure of god in you , which shewed you the cruelty of the oppressors , which ye had fought against ; ye soon began to settle the same thing in the nature and ground of it , among your selves , which you had sought against in others , only ( in deceit and hypocrisie ) you gave it another name . and then truly great wickedness encreased among you , ( which made the hearts of the righteous sad ) even the same as abounded among your enemies ( whom god overthrew for their wickedness ) yea , for then many of you ran into hunting , hawking , bowling , horse-racing , drinking , and other vain games , and sports , and lusts , and excess , and pride , both in your diet and apparel ; and your behaviour was grown so lofty , ( many of you ) that you became a burden to all honest-hearted people , who once had an honest love going forth towards you ; but this your wickedness caused their love to wax cold towards you , and many who were true friends , became ashamed of you , because of your back-slidings . and you raised up the spirit of enmity and bitterness in your enemies more and more against you , by these things which you ran into ; yea , you gave them great advantage by your back-slidings , and some of you saw these things many times with god's witness ; but ye not keeping to god's witness in you , deceitful fears arose in you , which stopt the mouth of truth in you , when you should have witnessed against the wickedness that was amongst you ; and your fears were , lest you should have been turned out of your places , and upon this account , deceit was grown so strong among you , and treachery , that ye durst not speak your minds one to another , for fear ye should be betrayed one by another , and so turned out of your places : and thus deceit and a slavish spirit possest ye , even until you had lost your dominion and authority over your enemies ; and then many of you became afraid to do that which was just ( many times ) lest your enemies should be more displeased with you ; and in deceit ye bowed , ( many of you ) even to your enemies , and sought more to please them , than to do that you had engaged to do ; and then you turned out many of your friends , and took in many of your enemies , and mixed your selves with them ; yea , you turned out many of your faithful friends , only for coming into the life and obedience of that which many of you professed in words , and pretended once that you fought for the liberty of . o army ! this is plain truth to thee , without flattery ; and thus falshood overspread you , until the honest principle that once stirred in you , was almost destroyed , and then ye little regarded the sufferings of the innocent , nor the oppression that was in the land , but ye rather sought to establish your selves in the honour and fulness of this world ; but ( poor creatures ! ) ye could not settle your selves in a peace there , for your enemies dayly plotted against you ; and had it not been just with the lord to have suffered your enemies to have destroyed you , because of your grievous back-slidings and wickedness ? o consider it , consider it while ye have time , and prize the lord's loving kindness , that he should yet spare you , and yet give you time to repent . and seeing the lord hath shewed you your back-slidings , with his eternal witness in you , and hath begun to frustrate the designs of those that would have cut you off in your back-slidings ; and ye confess ( some of you ) that you are willing to take shame also to your selves wherein you have back-slidden ; therefore seeing it is thus , all mind that of god in you , which sheweth you your back-slidings , and believe , and wait in that , to feel that nature judged and destroyed in you , wherein all this wickedness and deceit hath lodged ; and keep in the fear and dread of the lord god , that so ye may receive his pure wisdom , whereby ye may be ordered in the particular , and that ye in god's wisdom and fear may come to rule ( in your places ) for god , to be a terror to evil-doers , and an encouragement to them that do well . and take heed of a selfish , earthly spirit in the particular , and of the honour , and glory , and gain of the world , ( for that the lord is against ; ) oh! there is a strong , deep root of it in many of you , which the spirit of judgement and burning , and the ax of god is to destroy ; therefore wait to feel its work in you . o army ! in thee was i several years together , in which time i saw the mighty appearance of god with thee , even in the time of the outward war ; and when the war was ended , i left thee , in obedience to the appearance of the living god unto me ; who called me out of thee by his powerful word in my heart , through which he hath sanctified me , and hath brought me into the life of that truth , which i , and many of you in the army professed in words . and i can truly say in the fear of the lord , that my love hath been , and yet is tender towards you , for the good of your souls ; and i have seen your conditions , and have considered them in the spirit of the lord , and i cannot flatter any of you , but must deal plainly and truly with you and all people . truly in many of you there is an exceeding lofty , proud , covetous , deceitful nature ; and in others of you , there is a lofty , proud , lustful , devouring , wanton , vain nature ; though many of you i know have felt a measure of the power of god ; yet verily ye have so back-slidden , that iniquity hath gotten a strong hold and root in most of you ; therefore ye must keep down to the witness of god in you , which searcheth your hearts , and will let you see what is there , that so the lord 's righteous judgement ye may all feel , and own it upon that nature in you , which is contrary to the living god ; for if ye keep not to the spirit of judgement , i know whatever you have declared in words , that a selfish spirit will get up more and more to act in you : and verily friends , if you keep not your minds to the measure of the pure god in you , a secret boasting will be ready to get up in you , of what you have done , and then you will soon forget where you are , and your minds will run further and further into your commissions , and into your great houses and lands , which many of you have got ; and others minds will run into your souldiers places , and ease , and idleness , and these things will beguile you if take not heed , and you will soon forget the oppressions then , that others suffer under ; and if ye should do thus , verily the lord god would soon overturn you , and break you to pieces . therefore all wait in the light which shews you sin and evil , that so by it ye may be brought to deny your selves , and to come out of the loftiness that ye have been in , into the true humility , ( which goes before the true honour ) and come into moderation , both in your diet and apparel , and in all things , and this would answer the witness of god in all people ; and that being answered , it would beget again a love in them towards you , which you lost when you went into the excess . therefore be sober , and watch in the light of the lord jesus christ , which he hath enlightned you withal , and believe in it , that so ye may be preserved by it , out of the deceitfulness of this world , and that ye may be kept faithful in your places , for the preserving of the outward peace and liberty of the nation , while ye feel a freedom in that which convinceth you of evil , for the bearing a carnal weapon ; and know the manifestation of god's spirit in you , and wait to feel the motions of it , and be obedient thereto , and this will bring you to do violence to no man , nor to accuse any falsly ; but it will bring you out of all such things , if you keep to it , and it will make you to be content with such wages as may find you food and raiment , and things necessary and convenient for your places ; and this you would then be worthy of . so know the lord hath a mighty work to do , therefore wait in his light , that ye may be kept truly sensible of your places , and go not beyond them , but keep in the fear of the lord , and wait to know what god requireth of you in your places , lest the lord cast you out . so remember you are warned , and it is in tender love to your souls . this following , more particularly concerneth the officers of the army , and rulers of this nation , than the army in general . take heed of raising or continuing war with other nations ( in your own wills ) for to get your selves a name , and to get their earthly treasures , as some of you have been instruments to do ; for the lord's hand hath been , and yet is against that , and he will not prosper you therein ; therefore be you warned , and know that this is a warning unto you from the lord god ; and seek peace , and eschew evil , and learn to do well , that the blessing of the lord ye may come to feel , and that this destroying of creatures about religion , and the honour and gain of this world may cease . and take heed how ye meddle with religion , for that hath split and broken many rulers before you ; therefore set not up one s●ct , and throw not down another by an outward law and force , for that is wrong , and the lord is against that ; but wait in his light to receive his counsel , that so ye may be kept in god's wisdom , and that therein ye may be instruments in the hand of the lord , for the keeping of the outward peace of these nations which are under your command . and take heed of hearkning unto such , who in the king's time cryed him up , and ran to him to give them a law to settle them in their worship ; and then again in the parliaments time ran to them , and cryed them up , begging a law to settle church-government , ( as they call'd it ) and then in the late protector 's time cryed them up , and petitioned unto them with many feigned flattering words , and begged a law of them to settle them in their worship ; now these are the deceitful workers , who teach for filthy lucre , and are time observers , who through covetousness and feigned words , makes merchandize of the people ; and these quench the spirit , and despise prophecying , and change with the times and governments , let them be never so contrary ; and these are neither true to god nor man , but are men-pleasers , and such serve not the lord jesus , but their own bellies ; and these wanting the power of god , run to the rulers for an outward power to uphold them ; these are whored from the life of god in their own particulars , and these seek to stop the life of god where ever it appears ; therefore take heed of upholding or setting them up by an outward law , lest you become the beast [ mark that ] which carrieth the whore , which is to be taken with the false prophet and the old dragon , ( the father of all unrighteousness ) and cast alive into the lake . now the true worship and religion which stands in the spirit , and in the truth , must be set up , and established , and upheld by the power immortal , and not by an outward law. but let your law stop that in ( all whereever it appears ) which wrestles with flesh and blood , and fights with the creature about religion ; for this spirit could never make manifest the true worship and religion , neither would it suffer others to do it , who had the spirit of god , if it could stop them by an outward law or force ; so that which fights , wrestles , and strives with the creatures about religion , is not for christ , but is ante against christ and the apostles , who wrestled not with flesh and blood , but with the power of darkness , and with the spiritual wickedness in high places ; that so wickedness and deceit might be destroyed in the creatures , and that the creatures might be preserved ; and their weapons were not carnal , but spiritual . but they that cry out to the rulers for an outward law to uphold their worship and religion , they war not with the spiritual weapons , but with the carnal , and these destroy the creatures , but cannot destroy the wickedness ; and these have quenched the spirit in their own particulars , and these would quench it in others , and will not suffer him that hath something revealed unto him , to speak , but cry to the magistrates , or to the rude multitude , for help , and so flee to their carnal weapons ; and those being stirred up by their teacher , some of them oft-times beat those that have the truth to declare in their synagogues , and hale them out , and rail on them , and spit upon them , and sometimes buffet , stock , whip , imprison , and mangle the creatures , and so mar and deface the workmanship of god ; and this hath been the work of antichrist in all ages when truth hath appeared against deceit ; and such cannot truly say , truth hath prevailed on their parts , when they have thus beaten , and haled , and stocked , and whipped , , and imprisoned the creatures ; but violence there at that time hath prevailed , by which they that have had the truth to declare , oft-times have been stopped from speaking it . so let none do violence to one anothers persons or estates , but let your law take hold on them that would do so ; but let th●m alone in their profession , and then it will soon appear who is in the truth , and who are ministers of christ , and of the spirit ; for those that are in tht spirit of truth , will assuredly prevail over them that be in the spirit of deceit ; and this will be manifested soon , if there be no violence done to them who be in the spirit of truth , thereby to stop them from speaking the truth , and then the truth will reach unto the witness of god in peoples consciences ; and then many who could nor discern the truth while there were such strivings and fightings with the creatures , will come to see and feel it ; and then truth shall prevail , and deceit shall fall whereever it be , and what covering soever it hath got , it shall be ript off ; and he that is in the spirit of truth , and abides in it , shall overcome all false spirits . now i know ye are not altogether ignorant , how that the lives and goods of several in this nation have been made a prey upon by the priests , who have robbed and spoiled both the fatherless , widows , and others ; and have ●mprisoned several unto death , by a law made by the popish kings , and since strengthened by those that are called protestants , concerning tythes , and these before mentioned have suffered thus for not paying tythes . now tythes in the law given by the command of god unto levi , the changeable priesthood , ( who was to have no inheritance among his brethren ) was for the maintenance of that tribe , and also for rhe fatherless , the widows , and the strangers : but christ being come after the order of melchisedech , he is the everlasting unchangeable high-priest , ( not made by a carnal commandment , but by the power of an endless life ; he offering himself up once for all , put an end to the changeable priest-hood , which was made by a law which gave them tythes ; so this priesthood and this law was changeable , this priesthood could not continue by reason of death ; so this priesthood being changed and ended by christ the unchangeable priest , made by the power of an endless life , there was a necessity also of a change and end of that law , by which the changeable priests ( who could not continue by reason of death ) were made , which gave them tythes ; then christ the everlasting high-priest , made by the power of an endless life , by the same power he made ministers , and freely gave them gifts for the work of the ministry , which was for the perfecting of the saints ; and in the power of an endless life sent he them forth , saying , freely ye have received , freely give ; and into what house soever ye enter , and they receive you , ye may eat such things as are set before you , for the work-man is worthy of his meat . these were work-men , and they first planted a vineyard , and then ate of the fruit thereof ; first gathered a flock , and then did eat of the milk thereof ; sowed spirituall things , and reaped of their carnal things , unto whom they had sown spirituals ; preached the gospel , and lived of the gospel ; these were not made ministers by the will of man , nor by an outward law , neither received they their maintenance by an outward law , nor compelled or forced any to pay them ; neither robbed , or spoiled , or imprisoned they any that would not give them maintenance ; but they had a necessity laid on them to preach the gospel , and they did so , and coveted no mans gold , or silver , or apparel ; and these sought not peoples goods , but them ; and their diligence and care was not to make the gospel chargeable , for having food and rayment , they were therewith all content ; and they received it of such also ( mark that ) as did receive them and their testimony , and so oppressed no man. but paul foresaw that after his departure grievous and ravenous wolves should enter , that would not spare flock ; and christ prophesied of them also ; and these entred before john's departure ; and he warned the little children ( who had the anointing abiding in them ) to take heed of them , for they were the antichrists , and and went from the annointing in the particular , and so from those that were in it ; and then the murthering spirit got up in these , and the world went after these who spared not the flock , but killed those that had the testimony of jesus , which is the spirit of prophesie ; and these antichrists having lost the spirit , being ravened from it in their own particulars , and having killed those that were made ministers by the spirit , who had freely received , and freely gave ; then they set up their schools and colledges , there to make ministers by the will of man , and then made a carnal law , whereby they had tythes given them ; for these had not freely received , neither would they freely give ; so tythes among the gentiles were set up by the devouring , murthering spirit by a law , by which law they are yet upheld , ( and not by god ) and they that yet receive the tythes , are found in the devouring , murthering spirit , ( many of them ) who have devoured many peoples goods in this nation , who could not for conscience sake pay tythes , and have caused several others to be kept in prison until death for the same . and this hath been the work of antichrist , who hath the sheeps clothing , the good words , but inwardly is the ravening wolf. and in this work many of the priests of england have been found of late , as is manifest by their fruits ; and they have the same unjust law to oppress and destroy the innocent still ; notwithstanding some of you have pretended and declared much to the contrary long . now many of the priests , when we tell them of this their cruelty and oppression , they will say , they are ministers of the gospel , and he that preacheth the gospel , god hath ordained that he should live of the gospel . well , we say so too , that we are ministers of the gospel , and he that preacheth the gospel , ought to live of the gospel ( which is the power of god ) and ought not to have any outward law to compel any to give him whereon to live . so this is that which we ( who have learned to do unto all men , as we would they should do unto us ) would have , that he that preacheth the gospel should live of the gospel , and not on that which comes by the force of an outward law ; but the priests maintenance is contrary to the maintenance of the ministers of the law or gospel . therefore , first let there be no outward law to hinder or restrain any people from hearing any whom they believe is a minister of the gospel ; nor yer to compell any to hear any one whom they believe is not a minister of the gospel ; for an outward law can but restain or compel the outward man , but the heart none can restrain from evil , nor compel to the good , but the law and power of god onely in the heart ; therefore let there be a free liberty for all people to meet concerning their worship , provided that under pretence of meeting to worship , they meet not to plot for the overthrowing of the outward governours by an outward power ; for if that can be proved and made manifest , truly , then let such suffer by an outward law. and likewise , let there be no law to compel any one to maintain any teacher , neither let there be any law to restrain any one from giving any thing to their teacher , ( for this is but equal ) so let the people have liberty herein , that so this oppression about the maintenance of teachers may cease ; and then it will soon appear whether these priests be ministers of the gospel , and whether their gospel will maintain them ; yea , or nay . but many of the rulers have said , if we should not provide maintenance for our ministers , then preaching would soon fall , and then many people would become heathens . i answer , he that is a minister of christ , the power of god , which is the everlasting gospel , a necessity is laid upon him to preach the gospel , and wo be unto him if he preach not the gospel : and he that is sent forth by christ , is not to take thought what he shall eat , or what he shall drink , or wherewithal he shall be cloathed ; for his heavenly father knoweth that he hath need of all these things , and provides them for those that he sends forth , ( without an outward law to compel it ) that so they lack not any thing . now that ministry which the forcing an outward maintenance for it , will cause it to cease , [ mark ] this ministry never did any good or service for god , nor ever can ( that is god's truth unto you ) at the furthest ; this ministry hath but brought people to draw near unto god with their mouths , and to appear to honour him with their lips , when their hearts have been afar off , but this ministry could never bring any into the true knowledge of god , and christ , whom god hath sent and freely given for a covenant of light ; and without this knowledge , all people upon the earth are without the life eternal , and so are heathens , whatever they profess in words , though they may make long prayers , and think to be heard in their much speaking , as the pharisees and hypocrites did , whom christ call'd heathens ; therefore consider what a ministry you have upheld , and do uphold . so let that ministry fall which cannot stand without an outward law for to compel an outward maintenance for it ; for the lord regards it not , but his hand is against it , and against that which would uphold it , and both must fall together . so what is here declared concerning religion , and the maintenance of teachers , and the like , it is in the equal royal law of liberty , which is , to love thy neighbour as thy self , and to do unto all as we would be done unto . and so if the spirit which we are led and guided by ( who are called in scorn quakers ) be not able to prevail over that which we oppose in others as error , then let us be manifested to be in the error , and let us fall ; onely let there be a fair tryal , and let there not be such beating , and haling , and tearing , and mangling , and stocking , and imprisoning of the creatures as hath been ; for where such things have been acted , many have been stopped at that time for speaking the truth , yet notwithstanding the truth hath prevailed over all , and shall prevail . and if that can be proved against us truly , that we plot at our meetings , or at any other time against the outward governours , to overturn them by an outward power or force ; then let us also suffer ( as i said before ) by a just law. and if he that sends us forth , will not provide food and raiment for us , then let us want ; and if we cannot live of our gospel which we preach , without an outward law to compel us an outward maintenance ; and if our ministry will not stand without it , then let us want whereon to live , and let our ministry fall . and let none be compelled to uphold another's meeting-place ( concerning their worship ) for that is oppression ; but let every one uphold their own ; and that sort of professors that will not uphold the place where they meet to worship , let their house fall , and then it will appear where the earthly spirit lodgeth ; for they that compel others to uphold another's place of worship , do but cover and strengthen the earthly spirit ; therefore let there not be such havock made of peoples goods , as hath been of late upon many , who could not give to the upholding another's meeting-house ; for that is out of the equality , in the oppression and tyranny . so come into that which is equal , and keep in that , and that will bring you to act that which is equal and just unto all , and to break all outward laws that are not equal and just , but tend to tyranny and oppression ; and truly there are many laws and customs in this nation , whereby the innocent are opprest ; so wait to feel the power of god , that ye may rule and govern in that , ( for the lord ; ) and feeling the power of god , and keeping to that , it will bring you out of all deceit and transgression in the particular , and so to stand over all deceit and transgression in the general , and it will also bring you to judge righteously , without respect to persons ; and this will reach to the witness of god in all consciences . so wait to feel the higher power to rule over the evil doer in the particular , and to know and feel the authority of god there , and then ye will come to rule over all evil doers in the higher power , even in the authority of god , and then that of god in all consciences where ye come to rule , shall answer to your government . but if ye give way to the evil doer in the particular , and let him have the liberty there , [ mark that ] then that will cause the just to suffer in the particular , and then the same will give way and liberty to evil doers without , whereby the just without will come to suffer also . therefore keep to the power of the lord in your particulars , ( you who have felt it ) and that will bring ye to do justice unto all , without partiality ; and this will make you honourable in the hearts of the people , and then shall righteousness , truth , equity , mercy and justice , prosper over all , and be exalted ; and all deceit , unrighteousness , and unrighteous wayes shall be confounded . so remember , he that ruleth over men , must be just , ruling in the fear of god. something after . and all ye that are officers and rulers now , who have tasted of the pure power of the lord god , and have felt it stirring in you , against all oppression and tyranny , whereby also ye were made to witness against the back-sliding of others , even to the losing of your places , ( some of you ) some being turned out , and others that could not stay for conscience sake . well , keep to the power of the lord which ye have felt , and do not abuse it ; but wait in it , that ye may be kept low in his fear , that so those who are come to see their back-slidings , and do repent them , may come to have unity with you , and you with them , in that , which kept you in any measure out of the back-slidings , and which hath also brought them to see theirs , and to repent of it ; for that is but one in you both ; it is even the measure of the pure god which is given you to profit withal ; therefore in that all wait to receive the wisdom which is from above , that in it ye may all be preserved and kept in unity together , and that therein ye may be instruments for the settling and preserving the outward peace and just liberties of the people of these nations , which are under your charge . but verily , much of the wars which have lately been entred into , have not been for the peace , safety , and well-being of these nations , ( for the power being lost , pride and lust was the ground of them ; ) therefore all mind the lord's wisdom and counsel , that peradventure ye may find , and see a way how to stop them , lest ye bring enemies upon heaps , both upon your selves and these nations ; for yet verily , breaking , breaking , overturning , and yet overturning will be among all those that will not submit to the counsel of the lord , and wait in his light , to be led and guided in his wisdom ; for he will be known to rule in the kingdoms of men , and he will exalt his own name over all . many are your enemies within and without , therefore be not high-minded , but fear , lest they prevail over you . the lord is near unto all those that fear him , and trust in his name , to deliver them ; but those that go out of his fear , and trust in the wisdom or arm of flesh , they shall be broken ; the mouth of the lord hath spoken it . given forth in the former part of the d. month , . by one who loves the prosperity of the truth , and the good and well-being of all creatures , george fox , the younger . a few plain words to be considered by those of the army , or others , who would have a parliament that is chosen by the voices of the people , to govern the three nations : wherein is shewed unto them , according to the scriptures of truth , that a parliament so chosen , are not like to govern for god , and the good of his people . also something to the other part of the army , and the new committee , who turned out , or own the turning out of the late parliament . great are the cryings out of some of you of the army , and the people of these nations , concerning the dissolving of the late parliament , and it appears with a pretence of a very great zeal , that you have for liberty , equity , and justice , and the general good of the three nations ; and you appear in a great fear , that if the people lose the enjoying of parliaments , that then they shall lose their birth-right and their liberty , both as men , and as christians ; and that equity shall be laid aside , and that the people must be ruled over by a tyrannical power of rebellious men , whose wills must be the laws that the people must obey . but you say , if the parliaments be chosen by the people , then in effect , the people make their own laws to be governed by , because they chose their law-makers themselves ; and this is england's birth-right you say , and it is just and equal that the people should en●oy it ; and if they do not , then the preservation of the people of god you say is lost , and all good government will cease , and the people will be made a prey upon , and so the three nations will be ruined at once ; and therefore seeing such things are like to come to pass , if a parliament chosen by the people be not upheld , some of you have said , you will assert their cause to the last drop of your blood . answ . friends , it 's good to be zealously affected in a good cause ; and it 's good that the zeal be according to knowledge ; and it 's precious to have the zeal moderated with the wisdom of god ; therefore i exhort you in that life and wisdom which is of christ , my master , ( who came not to destroy mens lives , but to save them ) that you would mind the dread and fear of the lord god , which is the beginning of wisdom ; therefore be moderate , and in coolness consider these things which i shall declare unto you , which in waiting upon the lord , he by his spirit of wisdom and understanding opened in me , concerning the chusing of parliaments by the voices of the people , and i know that you who truly desire the good of god's people , and that mercy and justice might be established by righteous laws , ( whereby equity and justice might b● done unto all , without respect of persons ) may clearly see with god's witness in you ( which will answer to my words ) that you are not like to see your desires fulfilled , by a parliament that 's chosen by the voices of the people ; mark the reasons ; because the greater part of the people that are admitted to chuse parliament men , are such as do not truly desire the good of god's people , whatever they may profess in words ; therefore it being in their power to chuse whom they will among themselves ( as it is ) because most voices carry it ; they will chuse such men , as are like minded with themselves ; that 's plain , and according to the scriptures , for the world love their own , as saith john ; and now for proof , that the greater part are not such as desire the good of the lord's people , i would have you consider , how that the scripture saith , that the flock of christ is a little flock ; and christ saith , strait is the gate , and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life , and few there be that find it ; but broad is the way that leadeth unto destruction , and many there be that walk therein ; and though israel be as the sand of the sea , yet but a remnant shall be saved : now if ye believe these scriptures , then may you see that a parliament that is chosen by most voices , are not like to act for god , and the good of his people ; and it hath been the complaint of the soberest and honestest men in several counties , when they should have chosen parliament men , that they could not chuse such a man as they judged would act singly for the good of the people of god and the country , because they were over-voted by the wild disaffected people , who sometimes have been stirred up by their priests , to vote for such a man as the priests knew would act for their covetous , oppressing self-interest ; and in some places some great proud men , who desired to be in authority , have feasted the people , and sent gifts to them with flatteries , thereby striving to get the people to vote for them , promising them to stand for their liberties , when it hath been but to serve their own self-ends , and thus the people have been deceived ; and if at any time in some counties and places , the honest sober people have chosen some honest-men to serve in parliament , yet there being so many in the parliament that have sought their own honour and gain , that such men as were honest , and would have made just laws , and have acted for equity and liberty , they have been hindred ; because what is done in parliament , is done by most voices also , and the honest party in the parliament having been the lesser party , have been over-voted also : the light in your consciences will witness that these things are true . and whereas it is said , that it is england's birth-right , that the people should chuse their own law-makers . i answer , then many thousands of men in england have been wronged of , and kept long from their birth-right ; for such as are not free-men of some corporations , or have not free-land of their own , are not permitted to chuse parliament men , ( mark that ) though they be far more honest and understanding men than many that are free of such corporations , and have such land ; so that it 's but a part of the people that must chuse law-makers : and further , he that hath free-land worth forty shillings by the year in several counties , he may give his voice in several counties where his land lyeth , for several parliament men , when as he that hath land but in one county , cannot have the same priviledge , though he be a far more honest man ; and he that 's a free-man of that corporation , that finds a parliament man , or men , and hath free-lands in the country also , he may chuse both in the one , and other ; but he that is not free of such a place , he may not have the like priviledge , though he be more honester than the other : and this arose from the same ground , that negative voices arose from ; and it hath been the manner and custom of england , to call and chuse many wise men , after the flesh , and many mighty and noble men ( so called ) to be parliament men , that so we see the calling and chusing of parliaments in england , hath been exactly contrary to god's calling and chusing : read cor. . . ( and therefore such parliaments are not like to act for god , and the good of his people , but against them ) but that which god hath called and chosen , shall confound and bring to naught the wise , and the mighty , and the noble things ( so called of the world ) ( and this the lord will bring to pass ) that so no flesh may glory in his presence : read cor. . , , . and likewise the chusing of parliament men , according to the custom of england ( which is called its birth-right ) stands in respect of persons , and not in equality ; for the rich , covetous , oppressing men , who oppress the poor , they have the only power to chuse law-makers , and they will chuse to be sure , such as will uphold them in their oppression ; and the poor man that is oppressed , though he have no power allowed him to chuse , yet he must be subject to the laws which they make who are his oppressors , or else he is accounted a rebel ; so what right think ye is the oppressed like to have , when his oppressors chuse the men that are to be judges of his cause : and thus the rich men oppress the poor , and draw them before their judgement seats , as they did in jam●s his dayes , jam. . . these things being considered , ye may see the unequalness and partiality that hath been in chusing of parliaments , according to england's custom , and how unlike it is that a parliament so chosen should make england a free nation , seeing the great oppressors of the land ( viz. ) priests and lawyers , and the great wicked , covetous , persecuting men , are so much concerned in the chusing them ; so that if parliaments so chosen should continue , the people of the lord are not like to be set free from their oppression , ( though parliaments and rulers have been made to do many good things by a power which many of them scarce knew ) but the lord hath a further thing yet to do in the nations , than either protectors or parliaments would submit unto ; therefore the lord hath thrown them by , but they had first a day of tryal given them , and now is the lord trying others : and if they will not do his work , in breaking every yoke , and letting the oppressed go free , god will assuredly break them with a greater destruction than came upon those before them . therefore let your moderation be known unto all men , for the lord is at hand ; and thirst not after blood , lest the lord give ye blood to drink ; and we know that kings , and protectors , and parliaments have made fair pretences , and have given themselves fine titles , and have pleaded that they had a just right to , and a necessity for their authority , and sought to get into the affections of the people by smooth words and large promises , to carry on their own design , but their hearts were not right before the lord ; and therefore he broke them , and their titles ; and know that the people that fear god , they matter not titles and high names , but they look for righteous actions to be brought forth ; and many see that a parliament that was chose by the most voices of the outwardly rich people , were not like to act righteously ; and therefore they are willing to wait to see what the lord will do by others ; and we see that people have been in great blindness , in contending for parliaments so chosen ; so let this wisdom be learned and lived in , which is better than the strength of fools , who oft perish in their passion and folly . and now friends in the army and committee , that have turned out the parliament , dread ye the lord god , and mind the equal , just , noble principle of god in you , which hath stirred against tyranny and oppression , and make it not your business to declare only for freedom , as some before you did , and did not the thing they declared for ; but in the fear and wisdom of the lord , go ye on to act for the good of all his creatures ; and seek not your own honours , but singly do the same , both for your friends and enemies , that you would have them do for you , if they were in authority as ye are ; and until ye come to this , ye are not like to prosper ; the lord abhorreth the lying , flattering , double , deceitful tongue and heart ; and the people also have been wearied with fair words , because the actions have been wanting that should have accompanied the said words . remember how you have cryed out against the oppression of a forced maintenance for teachers , and now ye are tryed , and have power given you to break that oppression down , which some of you i say have desired others to do ; therefore abuse not your power , but leave the people free to maintain their own teachers ; ( mark ) the ministers that christ sends forth , they have no need of you in this particular , as to provide food and raiment for them , for their heavenly father knows that they have need of those things , and provides it for them without an outward law to compel it , that so they lack not any thing ; and that teacher that will not consent to this , he serveth not the lord jesus , but his own belly , and that is his god ; and such a one can never profit the people , and ( mark ) if ye should take away tythes , and command by a law any other maintenance from us for teachers , that would be the same tyranny and oppression in the nature and ground of it , that tythes were , and we must bear our testimony against it also , and our lives , or estates , or both , must yet suffer ; therefore if ye do thus , you leave us in the same bondage as before : and let laws be provided , that are righteous , just , and equal , according to that of god in the conscience ; and let such be impowered to execute them that will hear and determine causes freely , according to righteousness ; and let causes of difference between man and man be heard in every county , and when by plain proof of two or three witnesses ( without transgressing christ's doctrine ) it come to be manifested who have done the wrong , then let the executioners of the law be impowered to cause the party or parties , to restore for the wrong that is done according to equity , that so this abominable oppression about the law and lawyers may be broken down ; and thunder down all ungodly gaming 's , and shews , whereby the foolish wild people are cheated of their moneys , and spend away their precious time to the dishonour of the pure god. and let the people of the lord have their liberty , to speak his word freely , where and when his spirit leads them and gives them utterance ; and let the law take hold on such as would wrong any man's person or estate . and let the dread of the lord be upon your spirits ; and wait in his light , to receive his wisdom , that therein you may be ordered in the particular , and in it order all things to his glory , that ye may remove all that which is standing , which is contrary to the will of god. and meddle not to establish religion and teachers by an outward law , for verily if ye do , ye will be broken ; let that alone to christ , whose work it is : consider all that went before you of late years , that would be medling with such things , the lord broke them to pieces , and they were warned in their day , as ye are now . and let not your many victories which ye have obtained , nor your being preserved in so many overturnings ( wherein ye have been made instrumental ) nor your strength , courage , nor wisdom , puff ye up ; for thus saith the lord god , even as earthen vessels are in the hands of a potter , ( who hath power to dash them one against another , until they be broken , or to break them in pieces with another thing , that appears more weak than they ) even so are you in my hand , saith the lord , and i can confound your wisdom , and take away your courage , and smite you with faintness , and dauntedness of spirit , in the twinkling of an eye ; therefore seek not your selves , for if you do , your day shall be but short . remember you of the army had power once before to have acted for the good of your nation ; but the subtilty in some who sought themselves ( whom god hath since blasted ) beguiled you , and ( mark ) some of you sold your power for commissions , and others for nothing but flattering words , & so betrayed your own integrity , and the cause of your country ; & now you have power again , do not abuse it ; serve not the lusts nor the self-interest of any man or men whatsoever , but serve the lord and your generation faithfully : mark , if you consent to deceit , and make an agreement with death , through fear or any self-end whatsoever , god will break that agreement , and bring shame upon you for it . and friends , there is a lofty , proud , self-seeking spirit yet amongst many of you , which if you cease not from , it will be the cause of your destruction ; and truly , if you provoke the lord to break you , it will be more heavy and terrible , than the breaking of those that were before you ; therefore let the lord be minded , and linger not about things , but be valiant , and act faithfully for the just liberty of all , without respect of persons ; and let revenge be forgotten , and this will overcome your enemies , and make you truly honourable in the hearts of all people . this is your day , prize it , and let your deeds make it manifest to the people , that you have not sought your selves , ( in this which you have done ) but the general good of all , and then you will need the fewer words to prove your enemies lyars , who have accused you to be self-seekers . and now wo is coming , both upon teachers , rulers and people that are in the good words , but out of the good deeds and life ; and the eternal god , who is the light , will break , shatter , confound and overturn , untill the good life come up and be set on the top of all ; and now the name of truth only , will be too narrow a covering , for it is the nature of truth it self that will be able to cover , and to be a sure hiding-place in this the day of the wrath of the lamb. from a lover of the truth of god , and all his creatures , george fox , the younger . for the parliament of england and their army ( so called . ) your day into darkness is turned ; the sun is gone down over you ; you have had a large day , and power given unto you , to have done the will of god ; but you have abused the power , and slighted your day ; and you have refused to do the lord's work , and have sought to serve your selves , and not the lord ; therefore in justice and righteousness , is the day wherein you might have wrought for god taken from you ; and the thick dark night of confusion is come upon you , wherein you are groping and stumbling , and cannot work ; the decree is gone out , and sealed against you , and it cannot be recalled ; you are not the men ( as ye stand ) in whom god will appear to work deliverance for his people , and creatures ; ( and yet deliverance shall come , but nor according to mans expectation ) but as for you , ye have rejected the counsel of the lord , and grieved his spirit , and he hath long born you ; yea , you are departed from the lord , and his presence is departed from you ; indeed he hath hewed with you ( and if you had been faithful to the end , he would have honoured and prospered you , and would have been your sufficient reward ) ye were his ax , but you have boasted your selves against him ; therefore as you have beaten and hewed , and broken others , even so must you be beaten , hewed , and broken ; for you have grievously provoked the lord ; and if he should now suffer that tree , which ye have cut to fall upon you , and to break part of you it were just . o ye treacherous , wilful , proud , self-seeking people , who have despised the counsel of the lord , and would not take warning though he hath sent his prophets and servants early and late among you , some of whom you have imprisoned and despitefully used ; what will ye do now ? whom will ye now flee unto for help ? seeing ye are departed from the lord , & are now rending and tearing , biting and devouring one another , for proud ambitious self ends ; ( mark ) if ye would now build again , the thing that you once destroyed , that shall not be able to hide , or shelter you from the wrath of the lamb ; that way whereby you think to strengthen your selves , thereby shall you make your selves much weaker , and help forward your own destruction ; you are now , but a rod , remember your end , which hastens greatly ; now breach upon breach , insurrection upon insurrection , overturning upon overturning , heaps upon heaps , division upon division shall there be , until he come to reign , whose right it is ; and all nations must bow before him , else he will break them with his iron rod. they that trust in , or lean upon you for help , it is as if they leaned upon a broken reed which is not able to help it self , nor others ; indeed you have been made to do many good things , but you would not go through with the work which god will have accomplished ; and therefore are these things come upon you ; therefore tremble and dread before the lord , ye who have been as strong oakes , and tall cedars ; for now shall your strength fail you and you shall be weak , even as the weakest of men ; but if you would yet believe in the light , and truely submit to god's righteous judgements , many of you might come to witness your souls saved , in the day of the lord ; though many of your bodies are to be thrown by ( because of your grievous backslidings ) as not counted worthy to be the lord's workmen . there is a small remnant yet among you ( for whom my soul breaths ) who may be winnowed out ; and if they will own the judgements of the lord , and truly and throughly deny themselves , and follow his leadings , he will heal their back-slidings , and purge them ; that so they may be instruments in his hand : but they that will continue with you , in your sins , shall partake with you , of your judgements . the rod of the wicked , shall not alwayes rest upon the back of the righteous ; yet even as gold is tryed , so shall they be , that they may be white and without spot , before the lamb : but god will avenge their cause , and wo then will be to their oppressors , and then shall the majesty , and glory of the lord fill his people ( who have long been troden under ) and they shall be the dread of all nations , the zeal of the lord of hosts shall perform this . a copy of this in print was given to each parliament man , before general monck came into london , with his army from scotland : and it is now reprinted that people may see that the lord hath fulfilled already , many of the words which he gave unto his servant and prophet , to declare unto them , and that they may see , that there hath been a true prophet's message among them , and that people may take heed that they slight not the lord's prophets as they did , whom he hath now broken . th month ( ) from one , who am made willing both to suffer , and to reign with christ ; even to follow him whithersoever he goeth , george fox the younger . a noble salutation , and a faithful greeting unto thee charles stuart , who art now proclaimed king of england , scotland , france , and ireland . i. several wholesom , sound exhortations , &c. let thy moderation be known unto all men , for the lord is at hand , whose presence filleth heaven and earth ; and let such a nobility appear in thee , as to try all things , and to hold fast that which is good ; and either to read , or to hear with patience before thou judgest ; for wisdom becometh a king , and true reason , solidness , and patience , him that is a ruler of the people . [ mark ] the god of heaven hath put into my heart to write unto thee , and in tender love both to thy soul and body , to lay before thee several things , whereby thou mayest come to see and consider , how the mighty hand and justice of the invisible god hath been in these overturnings and changes , which have happened in these nations of late years , therefore consider these things ; the mighty god , the everlasting father , he is the king of kings , and the lord of lords , and the whole earth is his , and the fulness thereof , and he ruleth over the kingdoms of men , and giveth them unto whomsoever he pleaseth : yea , he pulleth down one , and setteth up another , and there is no overturning or changing the kingdoms , but it is either by his commission or permission ; and the lord doth not do any thing , neither suffereth he any thing to be done , unto persons or kingdoms without a cause ( though he may do whatsoever he pleaseth ) and who shall call him to an account ? yet all his doings are righteous , and his wayes are just and equal altogether : and it is for the unrighteousness sometimes of a king or kings , and sometimes of a people , and other times of both , that the lord doth break , or suffer a nation or nations to be broken ; and when he determines to break a people , or to change governments ( or to suffer such to be done ) in vain do men strive to preserve or uphold them ? and the lord may , and doth make whomsoever he pleaseth his instruments , for to do his determined work ; and when they have done his work , then he may do whatsoever he pleaseth with them ; and many times his instruments , when they begin his determined work , appear very contemptible unto many : yet such speak foolishly , and without understanding , who say , that such instruments are too weak and cannot prevail , seeing all power is in the hand of god , who can give wisdom , and strength , and courage , unto whomsoever he pleaseth ; yea , so much as may accomplish his work ; and he very oft-times , by that which appeareth foolish , weak , and contemptible , confoundeth and bringeth to naught that which appeareth to be mighty and wise , that no flesh should glory in his presence . and when his instruments have done his work ( and he determines to break , or suffer them to be broken again ) let them appear never so wise , bold and mighty , yet vainly do they speak , who say , such a wise , bold and mighty people cannot be broken , seeing the lord can do whatsoever he pleaseth ; who suddenly can turn man's wisdom into folly , his strength into weakness , and his boldness into dauntedness of spirit . now such things as these o king , come oft to pass , and none of them without a cause ; and they that are truly wise , learn further , and get understanding through all these things : therefore is true wisdom better than strength , and a right understanding is better than an earthly crown : therefore o king , wait to feel the noble principle of wisdom , which god hath inspired thee withal ; for there is a measure of it in thee , though it hath been hid , and that measure is the light , which christ the wisdom of god hath enlightned thee withal , which light in thee is that which never had fellowship with darkness in thee , or its deeds , nor concord with the devil or his works ; but makes manifest and reproves all such things ; which light , being received in the love of it , and believed and waited in , man becomes a child of it , and so it gives him a good understanding , and opens an eye in him , whereby he comes to see the hand , and workings , and appearances of the invisible god ; and this light is the free gift of god , which is come upon all men ; which being rejected , and a man not liking to retain it in his knowledge , he profesing himself then to be wise , becomes a fool , and brings condemnation upon himself for rejecting that , which should minister all things unto him pertaining unto life and godliness . therefore o king , give all diligence to receive the gift which god hath placed in thy heart , that so thou mayest be acquainted with wisdom , and that thou mayest be filled with moderation , gravity , and patience , and come to a right understanding and discerning , that so thou mayest rightly look upon things past , present , and to come , and see them as they were , are , and shall be . ii. concerning the overturning of thy father , &c. concerning thy father , and those that took his part , there was an eminent hand of god in breaking them down , and bringing them under ; and god did it not without a cause ; for the iniquity in them provoked the holy god to anger , and the hight and pride of their spirits grieved and pressed the spirit of the just god ; and after he had a long time born with them , and warned them with his eternal light in their consciences , yet they repented not , but still grieved his good spirit by many provocations , and waxed higher and higher against him in disobedience ; his anger then was kindled against them , and his indignation waxed hot ; and he arose in the fiery spirit of his jealousie , to ease himself of his adversaries , and avenge himself of his enemies ; and because the living , wise , eternal god ( who made all the nations of the earth of one blood , and is no respecter of persons ) saw that those that took part with thy father , were generally ( according to outward appearance ) accounted the wisest , richest , noblest , and stoutest men ( mark ) and that they did glory in their wisdom , riches , nobility , stoutness , and strength , and vaunted themselves over those that were made of the same blood ; he ( the living god ) did then appear in contemptible instruments , ( as to outward appearance ) as in trades-men , plough-men , servants , and the like , with some others , whom i know thy father's party made a mock at , and even scorned them as it were , and thought it too low and too base a thing , to engage war with such a contemptible people ; yet in such , i say , did the lord appear to carry on that work which he had determined , even to bring down the loftiness of man , and to stain the pride and glory of flesh , and that thy father's party might have come to see that they were but men , made of the same earth and blood that others were : and the lord god appeared mightily in those his instruments , giving them wisdom , courage , and strength to mannage a war against a far more mighty and wise people ( as to outward appearance ) than themselves , and they prevailed daily against their enemies : and the affections of the people run forth and inclined towards them : and god struck thy father's party with dauntedness of spirit , and turned their wisdom backwards , and prospered them not in the field ; but sometimes caused them to flee before their enemies , and other times gave them into their hands ; and yet they repented not , neither did they humble themselves before the lord ; and some fretted and strove , and some blasphemed and cursed , even for madness , to see how they were defeated ; yet they strove in vain , for god was against them , and they grew weaker and weaker , until they were even wholly subdued , and brought under their enemies , and given into their hands for a prey ; that so they durst not scarce act , or speak any thing against their enemies : and god suffered thy father to be delivered into their hands : and thus the lord stained the glory and pride of that people , which took part with thy father and thee , by a low and contemptible means , as to outward appearance ; though i do verily believe , that those in whom god did appear against thy father , thy self , and those that took that part , did act several things against you , beyond their commission they had from god , yet he did permit them : and in several of them , who did engage against thy father and his party , there was once a tender , honest , good principle , in the day wherein they were low ; and there were true desires in some of them , after a just liberty , both as appeartaining to conscience , and in things betwixt man and man ; and they were truly sensible of many oppressions that were in the nations , both in matters of religion , and in the laws and customs of the land ; and they cryed unto god when they were low , and vowed unto him ( and engaged unto man ) that if he would deliver their enemies into their hands , that then they would remove all oppressions , and make the people of these nations a free people , and that they should have their just rights and liberties , both as men , and as christians . now after thou hadst also stroven against them ( with a perfidious people , to wit , the scots ) and ye were defeated ; the lord gave their enemies so into their hands , that they had as much outward power in these three nations , as they could desire ; and they also became a dread and a terror to some nations about them : and they had power and opportunity to have removed all oppressions out of the land ; but alas , covetousness and self-seeking lusts sprang up in most of them , and leavened them ; and when they had rest and fulness ; they forgot the lord , who had raised them from a low degree ; and they forgot the oppression of their brethren also , and regarded not to pay their vows to god and man : but after a time the chief of them got into thy father's houses and lands , and into thine , and into some of those that took your parts , and others they sold , and so thereby became great in the earth : and then their lusts encreased , and they grew wanton against the lord also , and boasted themselves over those whom they had conquered ; and some of them began to creep into those places and things themselves , which they had cryed out against in others ; and so built and set up the same thing in , and among themselves , which they had thrown down , and destroyed in another ; only in deceit and hypocrisie , they got other names for them . then several of the army that were amongst them , when they saw their deceit and wickedness ; and that they did not intend the thing which they did pretend , durst not for conscience sake continue any longer amongst them ; but left them several years ago , and declared against them : and others since , that feared the lord , were turned out by them ; so that in a short time many of them became greater oppressors and persecutors , than those whom they conquered , and so provoked the lord to anger . then the lord raised up many prophets and servants , and sent them amongst those who had acted thus treacherously ; and some also wrote unto them , and laid their abominations plainly before them , and shewed them wherein they had erred , and exhorted them to repentance ; and plainly shewed unto them what the lord required at their hands : and sometimes were made to reprove them sharply and plainly , and prophesied unto them , that the lord would confound and break them to pieces one against another , and suffer them to be destroyed , if they repented not speedily : but they would not hearken , but grew stiff-necked against the lord and his people , and suffered many of them to be oppressed , and their goods spoyled , and some of them to be imprisoned unto death in their names : and thus they rebelled against the lord more and more , and boasted of their strength , and wisdom , and valour , and so forgot how that it was the lord that raised them up from a low degree , and gave them power over their enemies : and thus they wrought grievous provocations in his sight , so that then the anger of the lord was kindled against them ; and as they forsook him , so he forsook them ; and at length he gave them up to the counsels of their own hearts , because they had rejected his counsel : and then they began to divide and split amongst themselves , and to betray one another for self-ends ; and their courage began to fail , and faintness and deadness of spirit seized upon them ; and having plunged themselves so far in covetousness and lusts , the cloud of error grew so thick upon them , that they could not see the cause that they once were so zealous for : and when confusion fell upon them , and they groped like blind men , and knew not at what they stumbled ; neither knew they for whom , nor for what to stand ; but sometimes cryed up , and engaged for one thing , and shortly after cryed against it , and threw it down again ; and some of them cryed for one thing , and others brought forth another thing ; and so like babel's builders ( whom god determined to scatter ) they acted ; and their eye being blinded , they wrought their own destruction ; and few of them saw it until it was come upon them ; and them that did , were as men amazed , and knew not how to help themselves . and thus the just hand of the lord came upon an hypocritical , deceitful , professing people , who in words have made a great professing that they knew god , but in works they have denied him ; and therefore hath the lord taken away their strength for the present , and turned their wisdom backwards , and stained their glory , that they also might come to see what they were , and what the lord did for them , and what they are fallen from , that so haply some of them may come to find repentance , and to be humbled under the mighty hand of god , and the lord may heal their backslidings , and may raise up his own eternal witness in them ( the tabernacle of david ) which hath been fallen down . iii. concerning thy coming so far into power again , &c. now observe the hand of the lord in thy coming so far into power again , and those who took part with thy father & thee . first , consider the cause of it ( in the fear of the lord ) and thou wilt find that it is because they unto whom god gave such power over you , were not faithful unto god , as hath been said before , but grieved the spirit of the lord with their hypocrisie from day to day , talking for liberty , but behold they brought forth oppression , and so became worser than you that went before them , who did not profess so much for liberty in words : and this i know , that if they had been faithful unto the lord , thou and those called thy friends , could not have come over them thus as ye have done ; therefore let no man deceive thee , by perswading thee that these things are thus brought to pass , because the kingdom was thy own proper right , and because it was with-held from thee contrary to all right ; or , because that those called royallists are much more righteous than those who are now fallen under thee ; for i plainly declare unto thee , that this kingdom , and all the kingdoms of the earth , are properly the lords , and that he may and doth give them unto whomsoever he pleaseth ; and whensoever he please , he may take them away again , and give them unto others ; and when he doth thus , it is not contrary to right : and this know , that it was the just hand of god in taking away the kingdom from thy father and thee , and giving it unto others ; and that also , it is now the just hand of the lord to take it again from them , and bring them under thee ; though i shall not say , but that some of them went beyond their commission against thy father , when they were brought as a rod over you , and well will it be for thee , if thou becom'st not guilty of the same transgression now thou art brought over them ; and this consider , that those who are call'd thy friends , who were conquer'd , have humbled themselves but little under the hand of the lord , but are still found to be in great transgressions ; and also consider the manner how this thing hath been wrought , and carryed on , concerning the bringing in of thee again , that so there may be no fleshly boasting ; for the thing is plainly discerned by them whose eye is single , and i shall declare it unto thee : mark ; the army having acted so deceitfully , the lusts and gain of the world blinded their eye , and they having so far provoked the lord , untill his decree was sealed against them , and he had determined that they should be broken ; after they had split among themselves , and turned from one thing to another , and knew not where to rest , and the lord suffered some of them to rise up from among themselves to deceive the rest , and so they through dissimulation ( in professing to stand for those who had so eminently stood against thy father and thee ) got power to weaken and turn out those that were really against thee , ( as disturbers of the good old cause , as they termed it ) and so by little and little strengthened those that stood for thee ; and thus the deceived blind men provided a rod for themselves , and so by little & little wrought themselves under it , and it is just upon them ; for the rod is for the fools back . so let this be considered , that this was not carryed on by the stoutness of those that stood for thee , nor yet by a visible plain down-right dealing , but rather through the hidden mystery of deceit , which was suffered to work against those whom god had determined should be broken , that so by the same way whereby they had deceived others , which was by pretending to stand for that which they did not intend : i say , even by the same way , they in the end should be deceived themselves : so let none glory in what is done concerning this thing , as if it were done by their valour or wisdom , though i can truly say , the hand of the lord hath permitteed these things , and that for the cause before mentioned , and he will be glorified in all these overturnings . iv. concerning the great danger thou art in , in thy coming in , &c. and also , consider the danger that thou art in , in thy coming in as king of these nations , for it is exceeding great as things stand ; and this hath been much upon me to lay before thee , and it is in tender love both to thy soul and body ; for i plainly see that if thou shouldst come in upon the account of the people called presbyterians , if thou shouldst refuse to bow to what they would set up , or if thou shouldst not satisfie the ungodly covetousness of their priests , there is several of them would be ready to serve thee as they did thy father , if they were permitted . and if thou do come in upon the account of those people called old royallists , ( mark ) truly , though i do believe they would abhor such a thing as to sell thee , yet the iniquity of many of them is so great , and there is so much swearing , lusts and vanity amongst them , that except they repent , they are not like long to prosper , but the hand of the lord will assuredly break them also . and furthermore consider , there are a deceitful people in these nations , for there are many thousands that now appear highly for thee in words , that if they could see a likelihood of a change , they would appear as much or more against thee : therefore consider thy standing , and be not high-minded , but fear , and take heed lest thou fall ; and never go about to engage the people unto thee by oaths , lest thou cause many to forswear themselves ; for truly this people , a great part of them are a perfidious people , as they have manifested themselves , who one while have sworn for a king and parliament , and shortly after , they have sworn against a king , single person , or house of lords ; and shortly after they have sworn or engaged for a single person again , and called one another lords ; and a little after they have turned against that government , and cryed up a parliament again ; and now the same people are generally crying up a king again ; and truly those rulers who have imposed so many several engagements upon the people , they have done exceeding evilly therein : and how abominably have these dirty , deceitful , covetous priests acted in all these changes ? o it is hard to utter their deceit ! who one while they have prayed for a king & parliament , and when they saw the king was likely to fall , and that he was no wayes likely to maintain them , then they turn'd against him , and prayed only for the parliament , and asserted their authority , and cursed them that would not go out to help against the mighty . and shortly after when oliver cromwel had turn'd out the parliament , and set up himself , then they cryed up ( and prayed for ) him , and many of them began to assert his authority to be just ; and when he died , many of these priests began to address themselves to his son , & fawned upon him , that he might provide for their god , which is their belly , and they appeared to be sorrowful for his fathers death , and blasphemously termed him the light of their eyes , and the breath of their nostrils ; and they told richard that god had left him to carry on that glorious work which his father had begun ; and some of these priests compared oliver to be like unto moses , and richard to be like unto joshua , who shall carry them into the promised land ; but surely these blind priests are yet in aegypt , the land of darkness , and there are like to die except they repent . and surely those that made oliver , chancellor of one of their vniversities , they hoped he should have continued longer in his place than he did ; but it is manifest that they are such as the prophet said , night should come upon them , and they should have no vision . and how soon did some of them turn for a parliament again , when the army turned out richard ? and when george booth made a rising , and they thought there would be a turn , then some of them cryed out against the parliament , and began to curse such as would not go out against them ; and when george booth was taken , then many of them began to petition to the parliament , and to excuse themselves , that they had no hand in that rising ; and now they are generally crying up , and praying for thee , and all this is for their bellies ; therefore if thou wilt believe them , and trust to their prayers , thou art worthy to be deceived by them ; and all that will uphold them in that state they are in , and compel others to maintain them , they are not like to prosper , for the hand of the lord is against them , and that scripture is fulfilled upon a great part of these nations , like priests like people , who are given to covetousness and deceit , and will turn and appear for any thing that is for their gain ; yet this i testifie in the lord , that such ministers as the scriptures of truth own , i own ; and such a maintenance as christ allowed his ministers to take , i have unity with ; and i know , that such as are his ministers , will be there-withal content , but such ministers as will not , they serve not the lord jesus christ , but their own bellies , and such i cannot but declare against . therefore now o king be wise , and cleave unto the lord with thy whole heart , and he will teach thee to love thy enemies , and to do unto all men as thou wouldst they should do unto thee , if they were in thy condition , and thou in theirs ; and this is the way for to prosper ; and this will engage the lord for to stand for thee ; and also it will reach the witness of god in all people , and thou wouldst become honourable in their hearts ; and hereby they would be engaged and drawn unto thee more than by oaths or force of arms ; but if thou wilt not hear , and do the thing that is just and right in the sight of the lord , then will the lord appear against thee ; and when thou hast filled up thy measure , thou shalt be assuredly broken ; and then shalt thou know that god hath spoken unto me . * and if thou dost not speedily seek to stop this abounding ungodliness which flows in this nation ( and which hath much increased since there was a likelihood of thy being brought in ) verily an evident hand of god shall come upon thee , which thou shalt not in any wayes be able to escape . therefore consider it speedily , for verily , the mighty god is greatly displeased by reason of the great wasting and spoil that is made of his creatures , in a way of rejoycing and triumphing concerning thee ; o how is the devil , the destroyer , let loose in this nation ! and the streets thereof become like unto sodom ; and peoples mouths are filled with oaths , and bitter cursings ; and they go stammering and staggering because of drunkenness , and sober people that fear the lord can scarce pass in the streets without being scoffed at , threatned , or having violence done unto them , by those that appear for thee , who bitterly will curse , and wish that which they call the pox and plague upon us , and the next words cry out and say , god save king charles : oh consider these things , and seek to stop them , least they become thy burthen ! and also when we have been peaceably met together to wait on the lord , and to hear and declare the everlasting truth , we have been abused , and part of our houses and windows broken , and some of us knockt down and torn , as though they would have pulled us limb from limb , and our blood drawn , knocking us down without respect had to age or sex , & this they say thou wilt bear them out in , and they expect an order , they say shortly from thee , either to banish or hang us all ; and in thy name was i commanded and fetcht out of a meeting at harwich , upon the first day of this week , and haled to prison without being examin'd , and without a mittimus ; and this was , because i was made in the dread and power of the living god , to cry aloud against the cursing and rudeness , which i then heard and beheld amongst the people in the streets ; and i was made to utter these words and say , wo , wo unto the rulers and teachers of this nation , who suffer such ungodliness as this , and do not seek to suppress it : and for this was i put in prison , o king , for these things will the lord god visit , and if thou seekest not to stop them , thou wilt feel god's hand for it ; verily i declare unto thee in the fear of the lord , i never heard of , nor beheld so great prophaneness , as i have done within these few weeks past : oh! it is hard to utter how much wine and strong drink hath been devoured in waste , by peoples drinking of healths unto thee ! some upon their knees , and some otherwise , even until some have been so drunk , they could neither speak or go right ; and what abundance of wood hath been wasted and devoured in making of great bon-fires ( as they call them ) which they have done as they say to rejoyce because of thy coming ; yea even such great fires have been made upon this account , that they have been dangerous both unto cities and towns ; and such noises have been heard of late in cities and towns , as scarce ever have been the like , by shooting of guns both great and small , and by ringing of bells , and by people singing and laughing , and shouting like riotous mad men , and the streets in several places strown with flowers , and the like ; and this is done in rejoycing concerning thee : and what abundance hath been devoured in feasting , and banqueting , and abominable rejoycings ? and also , consider in what great need poor people are of such creatures as have been thus devoured , and consider what can be the end of all these things ; now the lord is my witness , when i have seen and felt this ungodliness , a tender pity hath arose in me towards thee , because i have beheld the danger that thou art in , which is exceeding great : let no man deceive thee by perswading thee , that thou art in a safe condition , because the outward strength of the nation appears to be at thy command ; for consider this , oliver cromwell , and his party had as much of that strength , ( or more once ) as thou hast now , and those called thy party , were faln as much under them , as they are now under thine ; and yet consider how their strength was taken from them , and how it vanished away like smoak : yea , the lord is righteous and powerful , and if he speaks but the word , it must be fulfilled , and there is no people too strong for him ; for all nations in comparison of him , are but as the drop of a bucket , and as the small dust , which his breath scattereth as he pleaseth ; and truly , god is highly provoked , therefore take heed what thou dost . v. concerning religion , and the spirit of persecution . and as concerning religion , i exhort and warn thee , in the name and fear of the lord , to take heed that thou bind not the consciences of any , and that thou suffer no other means to be used about religion , but what the apostles used ; for all this killing , and imprisoning , and persecuting about religion , the lord abhors it ; yea , the papists killing , and imprisoning , and persecuting of the protestants , and the protestants killing , and imprisoning , and persecuting of the papists , and others about a form of religion , these things are of the devil , the destroyer , in them both , and not of christ , who came not to destroy mens lives , but to save them : and consider , cain was the first murderer about religion , who slew righteous abel , and cain was for it a vagabond : and the vagabond jews persecuted christ and the saints ; and the saints , since christ suffered without the gate by him and for sinners , used no persecution about religion , but christ said , that inwardly ravening wolves should come : and paul prophesied , that after his departure , grievous and ravening wolves should come , who would not spare the flock ; and before john dyed he saw them come , and said to the saints , little children , ye have heard in the last times , that antichrist shall come , ( mark ) even now ( said he ) are there many antichrists already come , whereby we know that it is the last time : so mark , these antichrists killed those that held the testimony of jesus , which is the spirit of prophesie : and here the whore adulterated from god , got up , and she drank the blood of the saints and martyrs of jesus , and the kings of the earth committed fornication with her , and drank her cup ; and she sate upon nations , kindreds , tongues , and people ; so all this imprisoning , and killing , and whipping , and stocking , and stoning , and mangling of the creatures about religion , is practised among the heathens , and the antichrists , the apostatized christians , who are gone out from christ , and the apostles spirit and doctrine ; for they wrestle not with flesh and blood , but with principalities and powers , and spiritual wickednesses in high places : so they fought against spiritual wickedness , and not against creatures , and the weapons of their warfare were not carnal but spiritual , ( mark ) they used no imprisoning , stocking , whipping , stoning , hanging , burning , banishing , or mangling of the creatures , to perswade or turn them to their religion ; neither did they use any other force ( to turn people to the pure religion ) than that which proceeded from the invisible power of god's eternal spirit in them , which struck at the spiritual wickednesses , and the evil thoughts and imaginations which were exalted in people above the knowledge of christ ; and so they sought to bring the wickedness into captivity , and not the creatures ; but to bring them into liberty , by turning them from darkness to light , and from satan's power , into the power of god ; and them that had known the truth , and turned from it , and became hereticks , after the first and second admonition ( if they would not hear ) they rejected , knowing that such were condemned in themselves . but they did not give order to kill such , for that had been the way to have sent them head-long ( as one might say ) unto hell : and as for such as withstood the apostles , and would not receive the gospel , but opposed the truth and themselves , after they had gently and patiently dealt with some , and taught and instructed them concerning the kingdom of god ; and reproved and warned others , and they would not receive them and their testimony , they turned from them unto others , and left them unto the righteous judgement of the lord , which was to be revealed in flames of fire upon those that would not obey the gospel ; but they did not persecute any , nor use any outward force with any about religion ; neither did they give any command for such a thing ; and to preserve in the truth such as were come to it , they used patience , meekness , long-suffering , and sound doctrine ; and kept them , and commended them unto the ingrafted word ( which was nigh in their hearts and in their mouths ) the which was able to save their souls ; and did not threaten to persecute them if they did not turn out of the truth : therefore , they that persecute about religion , are not for christ , but antichrists , that is , against christ . so take heed , that thou dost not set up persecution about religion , upon any pretence whatsoever , nor tolerate it ; for the lord god hath brought forth a people in these nations , and will bring forth more , that cannot , nor may not bow unto any other thing in their worship , than unto the name of jesus , whose name is called the word of god : and if thou oppressest this people , the lord wil assuredly take away thy power , & avenge their cause ; ( mark that ) for he careth for them ; and verily , we have not another to trust in , than the name of the lord , and we know that to be a strong tower , which is able to preserve us ; and we know , that he will not suffer any thing to come upon us , but what shall work for his glory and our good . but these things are spoken unto thee , that thou mightest fear the lord , and mightest not pull judgement upon thy own head. vi. concerning what government and governours the people of the lord ( called quakers ) stand for , and what they stand against , &c. this i declare in the truth and presence of the lord , and i know , there are many thousands in these nations , that are of the same mind with me , that it is not for the name , that may be put upon a government , that we either stand for , or against ; but it is a righteous government ( according to the higher power , which is according to that of god in every man's conscience ) which we stand for , and earnestly desire after , both in things appertaining to god and man ; and we , for our selves desire no greater liberty , either in things religious , or in things civil betwixt man and man , than we desire all others might enjoy : and if such a government as this be set up , then if he that is chief , in taking care and seeing that justice may be done to all without respect of persons , if he be called a king , a judge , a protector , or a general , we shall not be against either or any of the names ; or if the care and trust be laid upon more , if they be called by the name of a parliament , or a council , or a committee , or king and parliament , or any , we are content , and shall willingly submit unto righteousness from them , or any of them as our duty . and it is that which is unrighteous ( which is called a government , wherein oppression , partiality , and cruelty is exercised , either in things relating unto conscience in matter of worship , or in things civil betwixt man and man ) that we stand against ; and if such a thing be set up and called a government , and if the chief in it be called a king , or a judge , or a protector , or a general , or a parliament , or a council , or a committee , or king and parliament , we cannot stand for any of the names , nor submit unto the unjust things commanded by them , any other wayes , than through a patient suffering under it ; and this according to the strength of the lord , we shall be willing to do . vii . how we resolve in the strength of the lord , to stand for that which is righteous , and against that which is unrighteous , &c. the way how we shall stand for the righteous government and governours , is , by yielding all due lawful obedience unto them and their commands ; and by labouring in the power of the lord , to bring down , and to keep under the evil lust in people , which is the cause of all wars , and rebellions , and transgression : and , as much as in us lies , we shall endeavour to live peaceably with all men , and perswade others unto the same ; and so , by a godly conversation , we shall be patterns unto others : and this will be an adorning of good government , and governors , and a help unto them ; and this we resolve in the strength of the lord to do . also , the manner how we shall stand through the power of the lord against that which is unrighteous ( though it be called a government , and against unrighteous governours ) is , by bearing our testimony against them in the power of the lord ; and by yielding no other obedience to them , than in submitting patiently to suffer and endure , whatsoever punishment the lord shall suffer them to lay upon us : and this shall turn against them daily , and weaken them , and bring shame upon them ; for persecution , is to them that persecute us , a token of perdition ; but unto us of salvation , and that from the lord. viii . concerning a government and governours , wherein there may be something seen to be good , and something bad , &c. and as concerning a government or governours , wherein there may be something good , and something bad ; this i say in such a case , whatsoever is good in either , we shall be ready through the lord's strength to submit unto , and own , and we shall labour to preserve and cherish that : and as the lord shall move us , we shall be willing to shew the governours in plainness what is wrong in them , and in the government ; and if they refuse to hear us , and afflict us , we shall in patience yield our bodies to suffer under that which is bad in either ; however , we shall discountenance it , and labour through the power of the lord in a spiritual warfare to destroy it , that so it may further appear , that we are not against magistracy , but for it , ( it being god's ordinance ) and that we are only against that in magistrates and people , which would , and which doth defile and pollute the place of magistracy . ix . concerning plotting , or using a carnal weapon , and from whom we expect deliverance , &c. and i further testifie in the lord , that i do not intend , neither have i any such thought in my heart , either to plot for , or against thee , or any other upon the earth ; for i do not expect deliverance by a carnal sword ; and yet i know , deliverance shall come with , or without the help of man ; and in vain have been , and shall be , all the strivings , compellings and murderings about religion , church and worship ; for man may as well say to the sun in the firmament , stand thou still ; or to the sea , be thou dryed up , as hinder one jot of the lord 's mighty workings in this his day ; for , his work , yea , his strange work shall be brought to pass , and mine eye sees it , and not any mortal shall be able to hinder it . and into the belief of this , i know that the lord hath gathered several thousands into the same mind with me , that are called by the name of quakers ; and we could desire , ( if it were the will of god ) even that all men were of the same mind : and those that are otherwise minded , we shall leave them unto the lord , to do what he pleaseth with them : and we are freely given up unto the will of god , and we have committed our cause unto him , and he shall bring it to pass , that so it may plainly be made manifest , that we are a people saved by our god , from whom we expect deliverance : and he hath made us willing to wait , until he bring it to pass : and this we are confident of , that the everlasting gospel ; which is the power of god , shall again be preached unto all nations , kindreds , tongues , and people ; and that the whore of babylon , the beast and his horns , and his names , which have prevailed against the bodies of the holy people in the night of apostacy , shall cease to prevail against the saints ; and that babylon and her merchants shall be thrown down and confounded ; and then shall the saints of the most high possess the kingdom . and we do believe , that god will overturn , and overturn , until he hath brought to pass the thing that he hath decreed , which is , to establish righteousness in the earth , and then shall there be judges as at the first , and counsellors as at the beginning ; and kings shall become nursing-fathers , and queens shall become nursing-mothers , and the kingdoms of this vvorld shall become the kingdoms of the lord and of his christ ; and hereof we have an assurance in the spirit of truth , and yet we never expect to know christ after the flesh to reign , but he shall reign over all the earth , whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom , and all powers shall serve and obey him , who is king of saints . x. concerning revenge , and what may follow if it be sought , and what if not , &c. take heed of seeking revenge ; o let not the enemy of thy soul , within or without , get thee into blood : vengeance is the lords , and he will repay it : therefore wherein thy enemies went beyond their commission against thy father , or any that took his part , leave that unto the lord , who will reward every one in righteousness , according to their deeds done in their bodies ; and consider how far christ was from seeking or desiring revenge , when they murdered him as concerning the flesh , who said , father forgive them , for they know not what they do . oh mind that spirit , and consider he was greater than thy father , and he was free from all transgression ; and wherein thy enemies did evil in any thing against thy father or thee , and those that took your part , freely forgive them , and render not evil for evil unto any man , but overcome evil with that which is good . o king , this were the way for thee to be established in peace , and so to end thy dayes : oh that thy heart were thus inclined ! that mercy , and righteousness , and peace might be found to reign in thee , and that mercy might triumph over severity ; then might'st thou prosper , and many of thy enemies , and also of those that are called thy friends , might be converted unto god , and so ye might be united in true love one unto another , and this were better than conquering by force . and consider this , there are many that acted against thy father and thee , whom the lord intends good towards , though i know , that several of them through covetousness and envy , have done exceedingly wrong in many things : yet consider , how christ taught his to pray , forgive us our trespasses , as we forgive them that trespass against us ; and i do verily believe , that if they turn unto the lord , and truly humble themselves under his hand , and believe in the light of his son , and obey him , that he will freely forgive them all their transgressions . but if thou resolvest to avenge thy self , and those called thy friends which have suffered , and to keep under those which are now fallen under thee , by a heavy yoke , either in matters of worship , or otherwise , i know it will exasperate the spirits of many against thee , and it will raise up the desperate aggravating part in man , and so the thing may kindle again in the murdering spirit ; and the lord may suffer it to break forth into blood , which if it should , it may be the sadest time that ever thou yet sawest ; for this i know , and do stedfastly believe , that after god hath tryed his people , he will assuredly bring an overflowing scourge upon this nation , and many shall fall and perish by an eminent hand and judgement of the lord , except they repent speedily : and verily , there is but a little space given to prevent this great judgement and destruction ; because the lord hath already born long , and his patience hath been exceeding great , and he hath sent many of his servants and prophets to warn this nation and others , and many thousands have believed us , and are gathered into peace with us , notwithstanding they see a great judgement to come upon the earth ; and though many have believed us , yet alas , the far greater part hath either beaten , or imprisoned , or scoffed at , or slighted and rejected us , or the testimony which we hold ; and some have spoyled our goods , and imprisoned some of us to death , and some of us have been killed for the testimony of jesus , and the word of god ; and so , many in the nations are waxed worse and worse ; and when the lord hath smitten some , they have revolted more and more ; and when he hath raised up others , and given them prosperity , they have then fed themselves without fear , and forgot the lord , and waxed wanton against him . therefore seeing people will neither hear the prophets of the lord , nor regard the light of his son in their consciences , which checks and reproves for sin and evil in secret , nor turn to the lord when he smites them , nor regard his truth when they have prosperity , the lord will leave striving with such a people , and bring sudden destruction upon them , and deliver his chosen as he did just lot. so , we are given up to the will of the lord , and do patiently wait for his mighty appearance to deliver us , who have long been a suffering people , who have suffered both by parliaments , army , protectors , and by those called thy friends also ; yea , we have suffered , and been most cruelly entreated , even by rulers , priests , and people , professors and prophane , because we could not joyn unto the evil in either , but we have been made to reprove them for it , and to exhort them unto that which is good ; and so we must yet do , so long as we find the lord requiring it at our hands , though for it we be hated and persecuted unto death ; yet knowing that it is without cause on our part when we suffer , we have peace with god , through our lord jesus christ , in all our sufferings ; and our lives are not dear unto us , that we may finish our course with joy , and our testimony for the lord , which he hath given to bear , though it be sealed with our blood ; for we certainly know , that the lord is our reward in whatsoever we do or suffer for his names sake . and now o king , as thou expects the blessing and presence of the lord with thee in thy government , fear and dread his presence , by standing in awe of his living witness , the light , which he hath placed in thy conscience to guide and direct thee in all thy wayes , that his wrath may be turned away from thee , that so this scripture might not be fulfilled upon the people of this nation , god gave them a king in his anger , and he took him away in his sore displeasure . but if it should prove so , i shall have peace , for i am clear of thy blood , in as much as in plainness i have let thee see how things have been , and how they may or shall be , and wherein thy danger stands , and how that righteousness only establisheth the throne . and my desire is , if it be the will of god , that thou mightest consider them in the principle of life and wisdom , and thereby come to be preserved and saved from that destruction , which in god's eternal light i see thee in great danger of . thus in innocency and truth , and in uprightness and sincerity of heart , i have freely declared unto thee what was laid upon me , and it is in true , tender , and unfeigned love , both to thy soul and body : and that this is true , god is my witness , and the witness of himself in thy conscience shall answer unto it ; unto which i leave and commend thee , from which thou canst not hide thy thoughts : so to the lord god of life be glory , and dominion , and everlasting praises over all , to whom it doth belong , amen . given forth in harwich goal in essex , the . day of the d. month , called may , . where i suffer for the testimony of jesus , through the envy of the devil , who is the false accuser of the brethren . postscript . though this treatise was more especially laid upon me , to write it unto the king , and therefore to him was it directed ; yet i could not but publish it , because its service reacheth so far in several particulars , unto those also , that have been engaged in the late wars on both sides ; as in declaring the mighty hand , and working of the invisible god therein , and for what cause these things have been suffered , and how they have been effected ; which being truly considered , may cause many to bow before the lord , and henceforward cease rejoycing , in the destroying one of another , and rather admire the lord's mighty and strange workings , whereby he hath taken away the cause of boasting ( in the arm and wisdom of flesh ) on both sides ; that so , none might glory , but in the lord : and many other things are declared in this book , as a testimony , both against hypocrisie and prophaneness ; and what god will do , if repentance be not come unto speedily ; and also , the innocency , and just , and equalness of the way , and order of the truth , and such as live in the life of it , both in many things appertaining to religion , and in things civil , is here demonstrated ; with many wholesom exhortations tending to righteousness and peace , and the safety both of king and nation ; and the contrary witnessed against , which may be of great service to many , if they in the fear of god will read it , and receive his witness in them , the light of christ , which will answer to the truth ; and for no other ause do i publish it , but that ( if it be the will of the lord ) truth and peace may be encreased ( which this directs unto ) and that violence , and wars ( which this bears witness against ) might cease , and that so god may have the honour of all , unto whom it doth belong . from the counsel and nobility of the royal seed , the lyon of the tribe of judah , the everlasting king of righteousness , who reigneth in george fox , the younger . a coppy of this was delivered in writing by richard hubberthorn , into the kings hand at white-hall , the th . day of the th . month , . and this may be of service to any of those called royallists ( or others ) if they in moderation will read it , and for that cause it is upon me to send it abroad in print . honest , plain , down-right-dealing with the people called episcopal-men , and presbyterians . in this seasonable advice given unto them , and their teachers . friends , you both pretend in words to be friends to the king , now let your actions shew forth the same , lest ye ( in this cause concerning the king ) be found like those who in words professed to know or love another king , but in works denyed him , tit. . . therefore , labour not to perswade the king to set up either of your forms of worship in this manner , ( mark ) as to compel by outward force all others to conform thereunto , or else to persecute them ; for if you do thus , and if the king should hearken unto either of you , and fulfill either of your wills in this particular , ( mark ) you to whom he so consents unto , would shortly be made manifest to be the greatest enemies to the king in the nations : and not only the kings enemies , but enemies to your selves also , even to the endangering of the destruction both of the king and your selves ; for if the king shall set up either of your forms , and compel all others thereunto , or else persecute them ; ( mark ) you two are so inverate one against another , and have acted already so cruelly one against another , that thus it will be with you , ( mark ) you that the king so sets up , will seek to avenge your selves , and to lord it over the other , mat. . , . and neither of you are able to suffer in patience , ( and to forgive your enemies ) as the ministers of christ were to do , mat. . . that so which-soever of you were put under the other , you will be watching to plot both against the king and them that are set over you ; and if you that are put under , can but get an advantage against the other , which-soever of you it be , ( mark ) even the mercies of you would be cruelty towards those that kept you under . and if either of your forms should be set up , as before mentioned , you who be set up in that manner will be in great danger of being destroyed , and that for these reasons . first , because it is not owned by the lord , that any should set up a worship , and compel others to it by outward force or persecution ; and this is the way in which either of you would proceed , if ye had power , and thereby you would engage the lord against you and your worship ; for the worship which he owns , is in the spirit and in the truth , john . , . and nothing but the power of his spirit can compel thereunto ; and they that rebel against this power in matter of worship , are for it to be punished thereby . secondly , because the lord hath decreed to remove oppression and persecution , and to judge and blast that spirit which hath exercised cruelty against the saints , and to set up righteousness , and to give his people their just liberty to worship him according to the leadings , and requirings of his eternal spirit in them ; ( mark ) and if either of your forms should be set up ( as before mentioned ) it would strongly oppose this decree of god which cannnt be broken , and therefore it would engage the lord to destroy you . thirdly , if one of you be set up , and ye be impower'd by the king to compel by outward force all others to your worship , or else to persecute them ; ( mark ) this will exasperate the spirits of most of the other sects against the king , and you that shall be so set up ; and it will engage all them of the sects that are in the fighting nature , and can use a carnal weapon for their own defence , to joyn together as one man against the king , and either of you that he should so set up . therefore if you would be true friends either to the king , or your selves and your nation , labour not with the king to establish either of your forms ( or any other ) as before-mentioned ; but if ye own charles stuart to be king ; be content that he may rule over all as one , keeping the outward peace among you all , by providing just laws to punish any that would hurt any mans person or estate upon any unjust account whatsoever , or any that shall run into open prophaneness , mat , . . and be content that others may have as much liberty to worship their god in that way they are perswaded to be right , as ye desire to have in that ye think is right ; and lay by all these carnal weapons , as prisons , fires , gallows , stocks , whips , and all outward violence , and use none of them ( mark ) about compelling to a worship , : cor. . . but you that are teachers , come forth with your spiritual weapons ( if you have them ) and smite at the spiritual wickedness that is exalted in the creatures , if ye be able , wrestle with that , and not with the creatures ; and if without using outward force and compulsion , ye can plant a vineyard ( as the apostle did ) then eat of the fruit thereof , eph. . . and if ye can thus gather a flock and keep them , then eat of the milk thereof ; and if ye can sow spirituals then reap of their carnals that receive you and your testimony ; and if you be sent forth by christ , then you will not lack any thing , luk. . . but if you dare not come to this tryal , then it will plainly appear that you are such as serve not the lord jesus christ , but your own bellies ; and that you are not sent of god , but run , and he hath not sent you ; and speak , but he hath not spoken unto you , and therefore you cannot profit the people , jer. . . ( mark ) and if the outward peace be kept by the kings law , that so none may do violence to any man's person or estate , then you need not fear if you be in the spirit of truth , joh. . . but that ye shall overcome them that are in the spirit of error , and make them manifest when they do oppose you , acts . . . but if you dare not come to this tryal , then it will plainly appear that you are in the spirit of error , and such as cannot stand except they be upheld by the powers of the earth . again , and if god should suffer this , that either of you could prevail thus far with the king , as that he should set up either of your forms , and give you a law to compel or persecute outwardly , ( mark ) thereby you might make many hypocrites , who might pretend to joyn unto you , ( to save ●heir 〈◊〉 or estates ) until they could find an opportunity to destroy you ; but by all your outward force , you can never convert any unto god ; for it is christ , the immortal , ingrafted word , which is onely able to convert unto god ; and it is the work of the true ministers to turn people from darkness to light , and from satan's power unto the power of god , acts . . and to direct them to the word which is nigh , in the mouth , and in the heart , rom. . . and to commend and keep them to that ; and to exhort them in meekness to receive the ingrafted word , which is able to save their souls , acts. . . jam. . . cor. . . and they must not use any carnal weapons to do their work withal , but spiritual : therefore if you would be counted christ's ministers , lay by your carnal weapons , and use them no longer about religion ; neither press the king to set up or uphold either of your forms of worship by outward force ( as before mentioned ) lest thereby you become instruments to destroy the king , your selves , or the nation . so though king charles be accounted and suffered to be head in things between man and man , yet let christ jesus the everlasting king , be accounted and suffered to be head of his church , that so he may have that which is due unto him , eph. . . & . . col. . . and this were the way for the true church and the king , and these nations to prosper ; and the way for the false church , the false prophets , and all plotting , usurping self-interested men to be confounded . and this is the desire of me , who am a sufferer for righteousness sake , contrary to any law of god , or known law of the nation . george fox , the younger . from my chamber ( the place of my confinement ) in lambeth-house , ( the th . of the th . moneth , ) where i have perfect peace with god through jesus christ , in whom i have true liberty as a son , according to the appointment of the father . i cannot flatter any , but must speak the naked truth unto all ; and i seek the peace of my nation , and the good of all men ; and i cannot fight with any creature , but i can fight with the spiritual wickedness , though it be in the high places . a few queries to the teachers of the episcopal society , ( so called . ) qu. . who was the first institutor , ( of a man to be supream head of the church next and immediate under christ , and ) of arth-bishops , and lord bishops , and from whence had they their original ? did not these things arise since the apostacy ? and have they not been practised by the apostatised christians , since the antichrists went out from the true apostles ? or were these things practised by the true apostles ? or did they confesse any more than one head of the church ? or that to them there was any more than one lord ? and was not that head and lord jesus christ ? col. . . and whether they that make , or confesse other lords , or another head of the church than christ , do not walk according to the course of the gentiles , which know not god , and contrary to the command of christ , and the practise of the true apostles ? cor. , , . seeing christ said to his disciples , the gentiles exercise lordship one over another , but it shall not be so with you ( mark that ) for he that will be greatest amongst you , let him be servant unto all , mat. ▪ , , . and where was any of the true apostles or ministers of christ , called lord-bishops or arch-bishops ? or where was there any king in their time , called the supream head of the church next unto christ ? or where did they prophesie that it should afterwards be so among the saints ? or is not this rather a part of the cup of fornication , which the whore of babylon , hath caused the kings of the earth to drink in the night of apostacy , yea or nay ? qu. . and who was the first inventer of surplices and tippits ( as they are called ) did the true apostles and ministers of christ use any of them in their worship ? or had they organs and singing boys dressed in white , going , and singing in their worship ? from whom had all things their original ? and are any of these things required of the true worshippers , which the father seeks , who worship him in the spirit and in the truth , john . . . ( if they be , prove it by scripture ) or are they not come up since the apostacy ? and are they not practised amongst the will-worshippers , yea or nay ? qu. . and who first invented this for a baptisme , ( viz. ) that a teacher should sprinkle a little water on a childs face , and make a cross on its forehead , with his finger ; and that there should be god-fathers , and god-mothers ( as they are called ) to name the child ; from whom had all these things their original ? did the true apostles practise these things ? or are they not come up in the night of apostacy ? and why do you call those that name the children , god-fathers , and god-mothers ? hath god any fathers or mothers ? answer to every particular in plain english according to the scriptures , that poor people may see your ground , and foundation , and rule for all these things ; and do you believe that any can be free from sin in this life , and keep gods's holy will and commandments ? if not , then how dare you enjoyn those that you call god-fathers , and god-mothers , to promise and vow these things in the childs name , ( mark ) that it shall forsake the devil and all his works , ( mark that ) the pomps and vanities of this world , and all the sinful lusts of the flesh , and that it should keep god's holy will and commandments ? now if you say , they may forsake all these things , and keep god's holy will and commandments ; then will it not overthrow what you teach your selves at other times ? and if people do not or cannot forsake the devil and all his works , the pomps , and vanities of this wicked world , and the sinful lusts of the flesh , and keep god's holy will and commandments ; then do you not cause them you call god-fathers , and god-mothers , to promise and vow lies and impossibilities in childrens names ? now answer these things in plainness and moderation , without fleeing to your carnal weapons ; and be not like those , that instead of answering , have raged , and persecuted those that have queried them . there are many things more appertaining to your worship which i cannot own to be right ; but i would see , how you will get through these things , and what satisfaction you are able to give concerning these few , and then as the lord moves , you may hear of many things more which are to be queried . the d. of the th . month , . from a faithful souldier of the army of the lamb ( which must get the victory , ) for whose testimony i suffer in lambeth-house . george fox , the younger . the testimony of god to those rulers , teachers , and people of this present age , where the headship of the church is given to man , and to such as strive to have it so , and to those that set themselves in the seat of god , by taking upon them , that which properly belongs to god and christ , who are one . wherein god's controversie with them is plainly demonstrated , opened , and given by the spirit of truth , which is made manifest in that earthen vessel , which is called george fox , the younger . hearken o ye kings , and give ear ye rulers , teachers , and people of all sorts ( who are striving against the spirit of god in its workings : ) the lord's controversie is great this day , and few there be that rightly understand it ; therefore are ye confounded , broken , and breaking one of another , and cannot be healed , until you return to , and receive and obey that which will shew you with what god's controversie is : therefore consider this , the inspiration of the almighty giveth understanding , job . . yea , the life of the immortal word , which is the light of men , john . . giveth to understand the mind of the eternal god ; therefore to the light which the word hath enlightned you withal ; take heed , john . . for that is the faithful witness of god , and to that in you all ( who shall hear the testimony which god hath given me to bear ) shall i be made manifest ; for that shall answer to the words of the most high , which i have to utter ; therefore let all flesh be silent , that truth may take place , and that the words of the holy one may be heard and received . thus saith the lord god , my controversie hath not been , nor is not with man , any further than as he is departed from me , and joyned to , and become one with the man of sin , that wicked one , the son of perdition , who is exalted in man , above me the eternal god , and opposeth me , and sitteth in my temple , shewing himself to be god , in taking upon him that which properly belongeth unto me , for he commands and leads them with whom my controversie is , into whatsoever and whithersoever he pleaseth , and they are become subjects unto his kingdom , so that they will not that i should reign over them : but they have taken counsel of my adversary , who hath taught them also to take ( as it were ) my honour ( which i will not give to another ) unto themselves ; and so they are become one with my adversary : and by his power they also ( in many things ) have set themselves in my stead , in taking upon them to do things which did properly belong unto me , and they in thus doing , have slighted and rejected the thing that i have done ; and thus the abomination which maketh desolate , standeth in the place where it ought not ; for which cause i will visit , saith the lord god. and now you with whom god's controversie is , ( who have given the headship of the church to man ) that you may further see your error . ( mark ) and consider these things , it did properly belong to the mighty eternal god , to ordain a head for his church , and he unalterably ordained one head thereof , which is christ , the second adam , the lord from heaven , the quickening spirit : yea , he gave him to be head of the body , which is the church , the fulness of him that filleth all in all , that he in all things might have the preheminence , in whom all fulness dwells , col , . , . ephes . . . and . , . and by the appointment of the father , he giveth forth all the laws and ordinances which his church ( that is the congregation of the righteous ) are now to observe ; and whosoever will not hear him in all things , and follow his leadings , and obey his voice , are to be cut off ; for all judgement is committed unto him , john . , . but many of you who ( in several nations ) are called christians ( with whom the lord's controversie is great , unto the dishonour of god ) you have taken upon you to ordain other heads of the church then christ , and they shall give forth laws and ordinances for the church to observe , and they that will not hear your heads , and observe their laws and ordinances , you will cut them off , or persecute them ; and in thus doing you have slighted and rejected the thing that god hath done , and ye have set your selves in his stead ; and this is a great cause of god's controversie with this age , and until this abomination be removed and broken down , god will remove and break down all in whomsoever it doth reside , and all such as would uphold it , whatsoever their names be called ; for whosoever will strive to uphold that authority in themselves or others , which properly belongs to god and christ ( who are one ) shall not be able to stand in this the day of god's controversie ; neither can the nations be setled in true peace , until that be given up to christ , which properly unto him belongs , and is his right ; for though the lord hath long born with great patience , yet now the time hasteth , that the heir must be possest of that which the father hath given unto him , and they that will not freely give up to him his due , must be broken . and now , o england , to thee i speak ( mark ) this did not serve to end the controversie of god with thee , when thou didst take the headship of the church from the pope , and gave it to the ( outward ) king ; neither did that end god's controversie with thee , when thou didst take it from thy king again , and gave the nature or power of the headship ( though not the name ) unto an assembly of priests called the synod , whom thou authorizedst to give forth directions and ordinances for the church to observe ; and if after thy long changing of it thus , one from another , thou now give it to thy ( outward ) king again , ( as many in thee strive to do ) this will not end god's controversie with thee neither ; for these things do not at all answer the intent of god ; for the lord will not own , that a king should be called the supream head of a church , no more then he will own that a pope should be so called ; neither will he own any to exercise the office of headship in his church , but christ onely , whom he hath given unalterably to be the head thereof ; therefore whether it be pope , king , priests , or any others , that will not submit to christ , and own him alone to be the head of the church , must be slain by the sword of his justice ; therefore o england , take heed what thou dost , and provoke not the lord yet further against thee in this particular ; for , until the headship be wholly given up to christ , god's controversie cannot cease . and furthermore , it doth properly belong unto god and christ ( who are one ) to make and ordain whomsoever they please to be ministers ; and those ministers are to follow those orders and directions , and to declare those words unto the people ( and not what they will themselves ) which the most high gives unto them ; and they are to go to such places as he sends them unto , to declare his will ; and they are to receive that for their labour which he alloweth them , and they are to abide in those places , observing those orders and directions which he gives unto them ; and they are not to remove , but at his pleasure , and as he gives them freedom , or by his order , which they must observe . but in these things also , man hath set himself in the stead of god ; for men in these nations have made , and some yet do make and ordain whomsoever they please to be ministers , and those minsters are to follow those orders and directions , and to speak those words to the people which man giveth unto them , ( and also they may in some things speak more if they will ) and they are to go to such places as man sends them unto , and there to declare that which man in his will hath prescribed and set down ; and they are to receive for this their labour that which man alloweth them ( with what more they can get to satisfie their greedy minds ) and they are to abide in those places , observing those orders and directions which man gives unto them , and they are not to remove but at man's pleasure , by his order , or as he gives them freedom . and thus hath man , even the man of sin , set himself in the stead of god , and would force all to bow unto him ; and so man in this state hath rejected the will of god , and his work ; for such a one whom god makes a minister , and sends unto places to declare his will ( unto the people , as he hath received it from god ) such a one is counted a vagabond and a disturber of the peace , and persecuted by such as are exalted in their fleshly minds , above the witness of god ; and for this cause also is god's con●roversie with nations , and they cannot be established in true peace , until they give unto god and christ , that which to them belongs , ( which they have held from god by usurpation ) therefore whether it be popes , or kings , or parliaments , or any other men that will assume this to themselves which alone belongs to god and christ , they must and shall be broken , let their strength be never so great : for the lord ( who is mighty ) will take to himself this his proper right in making ministers which shall observe his will , and he will provide for them , and such as are made by man he will confound ; therefore o nations , take heed what you do , and run not your selves any more into these things , lest you further increase god's anger against you . and as christ is the au●hor of the true faith and not man , so he is the defender of it , and not man ; therefore that title must be given unto him , and not unto man , or else god's controversie cannot cease . again , it is god's proper right to give laws unto man , isa . . . for there is one law-giver , who is able to save and to destroy , jam. . . and the law is not made for the righteous , but for the unrighteous , tim. . . and the law is to go forth of zion , mica . . . isa . . . now in this particular also , man hath set himself in the seat of god , and so hath dishonoured the one law-giver , by setting up many law-givers , who not being guided by the pure spirit of the lord , have made laws contrary to the will of god , whereby the righteous have been punished and oppressed . now in this particular , man hath exceedingly corrupted his wayes ; for which cause god's controversie is exceeding great ; and until man submit to the one law-giver in this particular also , ( who is able , both to save and to destroy ) god's controversie cannot cease ; for the law which god gives , is not against the righteous , but against the unrighteous . but how are the laws of these nations like to be such , ( let the witness of god in all you answer ) seeing by man it is given into the hands of man in such a manner as it is to make laws ? ( mark ) have you not read in the scriptures of truth , that the flock of christ is a little flock , luke . . and that , though israel be as the sand of the sea , yet but a remnant shall be saved , isa . . . rom. . . and again , strait is the way , and narrow is the gate that leadeth unto life , and few there be that find it ; ( mark that ) because broad is the way and wide is the gate that leadeth to destruction , and many there be that go in thereat , mat. . , . now mark and consider these things , seeing that the righteous are fewer in number then the unrighteous , and that the law-makers are chosen by the most voyces ; ( and that of the richest people outwardly ) how are the righteous like to be preserved in outward freedom by the laws that are so made ? doth not the world love his own , john . . and will it not provide for its own life and liberty ? and is the life and liberty of the righteous one with the world , ( read wisdom , the . chap. ) will not that which is for the freedom of the one , be for the bondage of the other ? oh! the lord hath beheld this abomination , and his soul abhors it , and his controversie is with the nations , because of the grievous oppression , oaths , & violence , which fills the earth partly by this means ; oh! how do the rich oppress the poor , and draw them before the judgement seats ? jam. . . and how do the haughty vaunt themselves over the meek ? and how is judgement turned backward ? for he that departeth from iniquity maketh himself a prey to this generation , isa . . , . and though several overturnings have been , yet is iniquity still at a great height , and increaseth exceedingly ; and what will it advantage a child to flee from a bear and joyn to a lyon ? verily the day is come , wherein there is no hiding place of safety for the righteous , but purely in the name of the lord , and blessed are they that alone trust therein . for the help of the meek standeth in the name of the lord , ( psal . . . hos . . . ) and happy are they that abide in it , for the day will be terrible and dreadful unto all that have not a habitation in the name of the lord the king of saints ; for violence and oppression shall come to the full , and then shall the lord roar out of his habitation , and he shall strike the inhabitants of the earth with astonishment , and faintness , and deadness of spirit , shall seize upon the mighty men , and weakness and fear upon th● strong and bold of the earth ; for the lord will appear in his mighty power to take the kingdom , and to relieve the oppressed , and to help the needy , and they shall be strong in him . be wise therefore o ye kings , and learn wisdom ye iudges and rulers of the earth , return unto the lord and serve him with fear , tremble before the glory of his presence , and kisse the son , lest he be angry and you perish by the way ; for his wroth shall suddenly burn , & then , blessed are all they that trust in him , ( read psal . . ) therefore strive not with the lord any longer , by withholding his right from him , but give unto him his due , and resign up to him and his anointed the things that he doth require , for the lamb must get the victory , and he must have the preheminence in all things , yea , he must be the supream head in all spiritual things , and the only law-giver to his people ; yea , he with the higher power must ordain and send forth ministers and labourers into his church , vineyard , and harvest , for he only can fit them for the work , and not man ; and he will take care that they shall not lack any thing , ( luke . . ) for the earth is the lord's , and the fulness thereof , ( psal . . . ) and he will constrain people with his love ( which is better than outward force ) to give his ministers food and raiment when they have need thereof , and they will be contented there-withal , tim. . . therefore meddle not with these things any more , i warn and exhort you in the love of god : for it belongs not unto you , but unto god and christ , who are one , and let christ only be acknowledged to be the defender of the faith , who is able to perform that office to the full , which man is not . and let the one law-giver be minded and owned in man , to give forth laws to punish transgressors , that so the judgement may be the lord's and not man's , for so it ought to be ; and he that ruleth over men , must be just , ruling in the fear of god , ( sam. . . ) and they that fear the lord and hate covetousness , ought to be judges and rulers ( exod. . . ) to see and take care that the law of god be put in due execution , judging righteously , without respect to persons , ( prov. . . ) doing to all men , as they would they should do unto them , keeping out of bribes and gifts , that the eye may not be blinded , ( exod. . , , . and such rulers as these , will the lord set up and honour , unto whom he will plainly shew his righteous just law , which he wil have executed upon transgressors , and men shall be subject unto them for conscience sake , and they only shall be a terror to evil doers , and encouragers of them that do well , and they shall be guarded with righteousness , and the lord shall bless them with the dew of heaven , and they shall send forth a good savour into the earth , and then shall the inhabitants of the earth learn righteousness ; for judgement shall run down as water , and righteousness as a mighty stream ; for the judgments of the lord shall be rightly executed , and self-ends shall be denyed ; and then shall praises , dominion , honour , and obedience , and all that is the lord's , be yielded unto him the king of saints ; and until this come to pass , god's controversie shall not cease : but there will be breaking , and overturning , oppressing , and spoyling , and insnaring one of another , and they that come uppermost , and will not give unto the lord his due , but set themselves in his seat , whatsoever words they profess , or let them appear never so strong in the arm of flesh , yet they shall be broken down with dishonour ; and plagues and torments shall be the portion of the hypocrite that bows to deceit ; and babylon must fall and perish ; for strong is the lord which judgeth her , ( rev. . . ) and in vain do men seek to establish themselves in that which the lord is against , and wo will be unto them that are found in the state of capernaum and edom , ( read obediah . . mat. . . ) and now ye rulers , teachers , and people , remember you are warned , and it is in true love to your souls and bodies , therefore repent whilst you have time left you , that you may be saved , though it be so as by fire ; and speedily resign up to the lord , that which properly belongeth unto him ; for verily , the day dawneth apace , which shall reveal that man of sin more and more , who hath set himself in the seat and stead of god , whom the lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth , and abolish and destroy with the brightness of his coming , ( thes . . , , , , , . ) and the day of the lord shall even so come as a thief in the night ; and when the wicked shall say peace and safety , then shall come upon them sudden destruction , even as the travel of a woman with child , which by no means can be escaped , ( thes . . , . ) be still o ye saints of the most high god , keep clear of babylon , take heed of being ensnared dy her , cleave not to her flatteries in any wise , but follow the lamb whithersoever he leadeth you ; and hold fast the word of his patience in the true integrity of your hearts , that so ye may stand and endure the tryal to the end ; and whatsoever you suffer for the testimony of god , you shall have a full reward for it , if you faint not : this in the word of the lord , is unto you . lambeth-house , the th . of the th . month , . postscript . and if i could write no more , yet this is the testimony of truth , to the rulers , teachers , and people of this present age ( in what nation soever this may come ) mark , you must all come to the light of the lord jesus christ ( the lamb of god ) who hath enlightned you , that with the light you may come to see what is contrary to the mind and will of god , both in your laws , and governments , and in the constitutions thereof , and in your ministry , and worship , and in the constitutions thereof , and in all your conversations ; and that which you see with the light , to be contrary to the mind and will of god , ( in any of these things before-mention ) you must deny , and give it up to be consumed by the spirit of judgement and burning ; and you must give your full consent that the lamb of god ( the light of the world , the second adam , the lord from heaven , the quickning spirit , who is one with the eternal father ) may have the preheminence in all things ; and that he may rule in you all , over you all , and lead and guide you all , in all things , before you can witness that god's controversie with you is fully come to an end ; and all them of the nations that are saved , must walk in the light of the lamb : therefore let every particular in their several stations , come to a true honest search speedily , and cast off , and deny that which the light will let you see that god is against , that so haply god may stay the mighty judgement ( which otherwise must come ) which is nigh at the door , which will sweep away the ungodly . these are faithful and true sayings , and things which must shortly be fulfilled ; therefore , blessed will every one be , that will hear and obey the counsel of the most high ; for the day of the lord draweth nigh . and now ye rulers , if ye resolve to build up that which god hath thrown down by an out-stretched arm ; and if you strive to establish your selves in that which god's controversie hath been , and yet is against , you will undo your selves for ever ; for you will engage the lord against you , who assuredly will be too strong for you , and break and confound you , as opposers of his mighty work ; therefore take heed what you do , the lords decree shall stand . george fox , the younger . the dread of gods power , uttering its voice thorow man , unto the heads of the nation . oh ! ye mighty men , who sit upon the throne , that are exalted into power , and brought into great authority . do you indeed know the hand that brought you up thither ? and do you rightly understand the end of your coming into power again ? and do you certainly know the work which god requires at your hands ? and do you indeed see the true leader , which is to lead in the way and work of the lord ? and do you feel and witness that your hearts are truly enclined and prepared towards the work of the lord ? or are you not ignorant of these things ? and do you not rather feel your hearts enclined towards revenge , and to make your selves great , and to get your selves a name , and to follow that which is pleasing to your own eyes , and to condemn that which god hath justified , and to justifie that which god hath condemned , and doth condemn ? let there be an honest search made with the witness of god in your own hearts , which will shew you the thoughts , and the intents thereof ; and think not to flatter your selves , as others have done before you , by conceiving that you are safe enough , because the arm of flesh is with you , and at your command : for verily , verily , thus saith the lord god , i will yet make the powers of the earth to know , that i am god , and there is no other ; and that i can do whatsoever i please , and my purpose and decree shall stand unalterable ; and i will bring to pass the thing that is in my heart , and none shall let it ; for in its season it shall be accomplished . oh! hear ye rebellious and live ; be not so stiff-necked and wilful , like those that went before you ( who would not hear reproof ) lest i make you a hissing , and scatter you with more dishonour that any that went before you ; for my anger is kindled , and my jealousie is waxed hot against the man of sin. my decree is to dis-throne him , and to take the kingdom my self , and to slay his subjects that will not turn at my reproof , and be subject to my government ; therefore seek not your selves , neither follow the devices and iniquity of your own hearts any longer ; for i the lord am coming to plead with all flesh , and i will make mine enemies know , that i have power to accomplish my own work , though i should find all the armed men , and the men in authority , against me . now this is my decree ; i will set up righteousness in the earth , and i will establish equity and mercy amongst the people ; i will remove oppression from off the earth , and i will search out , and overthrow the ground and foundation thereof , in whomsoever , or in whatsoever it stands ; even , as i overthrew sodom in the dayes of old ; and they that will not haste out of it , shall certainly be destroyed , saith the holy one ; who will break the potsherds of the earth that withstand him , and consume the stubble , the thorns , and the bryars , that set themselves in ba●tel against him , who is a consuming fire . therefore , oh ye heads of the people ! consider your wayes , and weigh your actions in that equal ballance ( the word of god ) which will shew you the thoughts and the intents of your hearts : for verily , the lord god is highly displeased , and your hearts are seen not to be right before him ; therefore consider your foundation upon which you build , lest your building fall with great dishonour and loss , when the storm comes , which shall come to try it . mark , were you , or your fathers and friends , able to keep your selves in power , when the lord formerly appeared against you , to cast you out before your enemies , because of your rebellion against him ? or were your enemies able to keep you out of power , and themselves in , when the lord appeared against them , to split and confound them , and to turn their day into darkness , and to bring you in as a flood over them , because of their treacherous dealing with the lord , and because they perverted the cause and power that was put into their hands , serving themselves and their lusts , and not the lord ? verily , as they were not able to stand , no more will you be able to stand and keep your places ( except you repent ) and own , that your enemies had a a just cause put into their hands against you : and so , put a difference betwixt the cause , and that which perverted it , and not judge and condemn both together ; for if you do , verily i say unto you , when you have filled up your measures , you will assuredly fall without recovery , though you were ten thousand times stronger than you are , and although not one man appeared against you with a carnal weapon . consider , was it a carnal weapon that brought you in ? were you not brought in without a stroke outward ? and is not the lord the same ? is his hand shortned ? hath not he the hearts of all flesh in his power ? and can he not turn them as he pleaseth ? can he not root out , and overthrow whomsoever he will ? and if he will do it without outward means ▪ can any resist his will ? or if he will do it by outward means , cannot he provide it himself , contrary to man's expectation ? therefore , dread ye the maiesty and power of the lord , and fear before his dreadful name . friends , i must deal plainly with you in the sight of god , who hath made me a prophet to the nation , i may not flatter any of you : my life is in the hand of my maker , and not one hair of my head can fall to the ground without his providence . he hath redeemed my soul from hell , and my mind from the earth ; and he hath given me his good spirit to lead me : i am henceforth no more my own , but i am the lord 's , who hath formed me for his praise , and hath brought me forth , that i may sound forth his powerful truth amongst the people . therefore must i not fear man , neither must i be afraid of the sons of men. verily , your spirits are seen to be too high for the work , which god will have to be wrought in the earth ; and you are found in that your selves , which the lord will work against . and he is loaded with the pride and excess that ye ( and many in the nation ) are in ; and his soul abhors the vanity , musick , and pleasures which ye delight in . oh how hath iniquity abounded since ye came into place ! and how is oppression and cruelty encreased and continued , upon them that seek the good of all ! now consider this , that which the lord was wroth with you for , and threw you and your friends out for before , he will not own that now , nor that you should revive and establish that again : for the lord's controversie is yet against those things , ( though he hath thrown out a treacherous people , who perverted his cause ) therefore , try your foundation , before you build and settle ; for verily , whatsoever is not founded upon christ jesus , the rock of ages , ( whether it be in things religious , or in things civil ) the higher it is built , the greater will its fall be ; and every ones work must be tryed by fire , what foundation soever they build upon ; and great will be the destruction and consumation ; for nothing but what can abide the fire shall remain : and verily , there is exceeding much , both in governours and governments , laws , ministry , profession , trades , and in the constitution of them , as they now stand ( and in the conversations of the people ) which is to be utterly destroyed by the fire of the lord's jealousie , and the day hastens which will try every man's work of what sort it is ; and that which is for the fire , neither high words , nor outward strength shall be able to save it . oh! the spirit of the lord is grieved , and pressed , with the iniquities and whoredoms of this generation . oh! the waste and the spoyl , that is made of the lord's creatures , excess in apparel , excess in diet , and deceitful feastings , and banquetings ; and each strive to exceed one another , not scarce knowing what to invent , to eat and to drink , or to put on ; or what musick , or images and vanities to invent to please the carnal eye and ear ; and in the mean time , your own flesh , or them of the same blood , lye , go , sit , or stand in your streets , crying for a piece of bread ; and many of your lame , and blind , and sick , and others , both in prisons and other places are ready to famish . oh! consider these things speedily , and mock not at the lord's menssengers ( as some before you have done , when they have been warned , as you now are ) lest your bonds be made strong also , and lest the lord smite you with a curse , and send you famine or want , in the room of your abundance and superfluity ; and rags instead of ribbons , feathers , gold , and silver lace , and gorgious attire ; and howling and mourning instead of your musick ; songs , and oaths . oh! it 's hard to utter the abomination that flows and swells in this nation ; it is a shame to the rulers , to suffer these stage-playes , mount-banks , and vain sports and shows , whereby the lord is greatly dishonoured , and foolish people are cheated of their money , and the creation is devoured and wasted , and mens lives sometimes endangered . oh! how have men invented mischief and vanity , to stir up lightness and vanity one in another . oh ye rulers ! is not this a horrible wickedness , that a man who hath his right natural senses , should be suffered to feign himself to be a natural fool ? and that he should be suffered to speak any light vain words he pleaseth , even what he can invent , to stir up lightness and vain laughter among you ? have you not manifested your selves to be slighters of the apostles doctrine ? ( read eph. . . & . . ) † and is this an honour for the chief of you , to have a company of men and boys , drest up with ribbons and bells about their legs , and one acting like a fool with a ladle in in his hand , dancing before you , even like a company of mad distracted men , making a noise like a company of carriers horses ? oh! the life of god is grieved with these things , and all that fear his name loath them , and it is a shame that ever such things should be suffered in a land. therefore , o ye rulers , let all this ungodliness , and superfluity of naughtiness be laid aside , and receive with meekness the ingrafted word , which is able to save your souls , jam. . . and that will teach you to love even your enemies , and to forgive them ; and to put a difference between the pretious and the vile : and it will keep your hands from blood , and your hearts from desiring after it , if you will obey it ; and it will shew you with what god's controversie is , both in your government , and worship , and conversations ; and it will teach you to deny it ; yea , if you will own its teachings , it will teach you to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts , and to live godly , righteously , and soberly in this present world , tit. . , . but if you will not return to the word , which is nigh in your mouths , and in your hearts , that you may obey it , and do it , ( deut. . . rom. . . ) verily this know , that neither your strength nor wisdom , shall be able to deliver you , from the just hand of the lord , which shall find out all his enemies . therefore , if you would escape the overturning hand of the lord , repent speedily , and humble your selves before the lord , and forgive your enemies ; love mercy , compel none to your worship , nor to uphold your teachers ; and be willing that the lord alone should send forth labourers into his harvest , and that he may lead them by his own spirit , that they may speak as that gives them utterance , and limit or quench it not , but let all have their freedom to worship god in the spirit ( who know it ) according to the manifestation of it , which is given to every man to profit withal , ( joh. . , . cor . . ) for such a worship the lord owns . and take away that grievous oppression of tythes , and forced maintenance , which hath cost some their lives , and many a great part of their estates , who for conscience sake have been made to witness against it . undo every heavy burden , and break every yoak , and let the oppressed go free ; and let christ iesus , the everlasting king , have the preheminence in all things , col. . . for these things the lord will have to be accomplished and brought to pass ; and if you will not submit to him in this his work , he must and will remove you . and this further consider , oh! take heed that none of you , upon your beds or elsewhere , devise cruelty and oppression , and how to avenge your selves upon your enemies ; and then , when you are assembled together , confirm it by a law , because you have power so to do ; for the lord abhors that , who is appearing to give to all men according to the fruits of their doing , and he will not respect any man's person . now if by your strength you can hinder the sun from rising and setting in its season , and if you be able to stop the thunder and lightning from having its operation , or to hinder the wind from blowing , and the rain from descending , then may you hinder the decree of the lord , and by your strength you may stand in power and peace , and flourish for a long season , though you serve and avenge your selves to the full , and though you rebel against the lord , and oppress his heritage . lambeth-house , the th . of the th month . written ( as moved and given by that eternal power , which only can preserve and deliver the righteous ) by a prisoner for the lord , who am given up to his will in all things . g. f. the younger . a message of tender love unto such professors as have attained any true sincerity , simplicity , and zeal for god in their professions ; or who ( after their backslidings and apostacy from the former appearances of god unto them ) are now in this the day of tryal ( which is begun ) brought to feel any fresh desires , and living breathings , and thirstings renewed in them towards the lord. oh ye professors ! who have tasted of the word of god's grace , ( in any measure ) and who have formerly had any true tenderness in you , and zeal for god ; oh friends ! in bowels of much tenderness and love , am i drawn forth to write unto you ; yea my soul breaths mightily to the lord for you , who have now any true hungrings and thirstings renewed in you after his righteousness , and in whose hearts there are any true simple desires retained , to know the will of god , and to do it . friends , the eternal being , which giveth being to all his creatures , hath largely manifested his love unto the world , in giving his onely begotten to be the light of the world , ( who doth enlighten every one that cometh into the world , that all through him might believe ) and inasmuch as he in the fulness of time sent forth his onely begotten ( full of grace and truth ) into the world , in a body which he had prepared him , therein to do his will , which body the onely begotten of the father freely gave , and offered up for a sacrifice for sin , and so according to his grace he tasted death for every man , and by his offering himself once for all , he hath put an end to all the sacrifices and offerings mentioned in the law , which could not make the comets thereunto perfect , ( nor those that offered them ) as appertaining to the conscience : so christ the one offering is become the propitiation for the sins of the whole world , * who wrought eternal salvation for all them that obey him : and here is the one offering which perfects for ever them that are sanctified . and he having accomplished the will of the father , in that body which was prepared him of the father ( in which he came into the world ) he again left the world ( he not being of the world ) and ascended unto the father ( from whence he proceeded ) and sate down on the right hand of the majesty on high , and is now glorified with the same glory that he had with the father before the world began ; yea the same that descended into the lower parts of the earth , is also the same that ascended far above all heavens , that he might fill all things ; and being one with the father , and in the father , and the father in him , his presence filleth heaven and earth ; and being the son in the father , he hath power as the father , to quicken whomsoever he will , that all men might honour the son as the father , by whom all things were made , that were made , in whom we live , move , and have a being ; and he hath a name given him above every name ( to which all things must bow ) which is called the word of god , or jesus , because he is a saviour , and saveth his people from their sins . this is he that is given to be the head of the body , which is the congregation of the righteous , the fulness of him that filleth all in all ; that he in all things ( in whom all fulness dwells ) might have the preheminence , being the express substance of the father's glory , & the very vertue of his being , one with him in nature , and one in name ; for as the father is divine , so the son is also divine ; and as the father is called the light , so the son is also called the light ; the father is called the mighty god , so is the son also : yea the son's name is called ( wonderful ) the mighty god , the everlasting father ( mark that ) the prince of peace , of whose government there shall be no end. now in the father there is life , and in the word the son , there is life , and this is one ; and this life proceeding from the father and the son , is that one eternal spirit , which is not to be limitted : yea god is a spirit , and christ is the lord that spirit ; yea he is the second adam , the lord from heaven , the quickning spirit , by whom the free gift is come upon all men , to justifie them that believe in the life , and he that believeth not , he is condemned by the life , which is the light that doth enlighten every one that cometh into the world ; so the gift that is come upon the unbeliever , that condemns him , because he believeth not in the light , but loves the darkness better . now friends , this is he ( the light ) who giveth you a being , and upholdeth all things by the word of his power , and hath been near unto you ever since ye have had a being , and he hath beheld all your actions ; yea he hath discerned all your thoughts , none of them could be hid from him , for he knew them long before . this is he that telleth unto man what his thought is , and the lord of hosts is his name . this is he who hath reproved you , and set your sins in order before your eyes . oh! how oft hath he brought you into a sensibleness of your conditions ? how oft hath he smitten you for sin , and broken you into tenderness by his power , when you have seen your loathsom state ? oh! how oft hath he begotten true tender desires , and breathings in you , after the knowledge of his will ? and how hath he appeared unto you , and shewed you the darkness , ignorance , and idolatry that many of you were formerly in ? and how oft hath he begotten loathings in you against those things that you saw ( with his light ) to be evil ? and how oft hath he kindled a zeal in many of you against the works of the devil ? and how have you felt his tender love sometimes opening your understandings , and drawing you into that which is good ? oh! how hath he sometimes brought some of you into lowliness of mind , and given you to see the vanity of this world ? and how hath he opened a door of hope unto you , & given you a measure of faith ( sometimes ) concerning your eternal salvation ? and how have some of you then felt a willingness begotten in you to deny your selves , and the glory and vanity of this world , and to take up that , and to bear that , which appeared to cross your carnal minds , and to do unto others as ye would they should do unto you ? and how did the pride , and glory , and vanity of this world become a burden to many of you in that day ? oh! how have some of you cryed out and said , you had rather cease to live , than not cease to sin ? oh friends ! this was a good beginning , and some of you came further than others in the way that was good ; yea surely a good sweet presence of god was among many of you in the day when you were low and tender , and several of you were sensible of his love in that day , while sincerity and simplicity abode in your hearts . oh! how did the lord hear your cryes in that day , when many of you cryed unto him for deliverance ? oh! how did he overturn your enemies before you which oppressed your consciences ? and how did he give you outward rest , and peace , and liberty to worship him , according as he had made himself manifest unto you . but oh friends ! there hath been a sad day of apostacy among many of you , and many of your teachers have caused you to err ; for as they went from the simplicity and tender life in themselves , that once had stirred in some of them against the worship of the beast , they then ran into many words , out of the power and life that had stirred in them , and so lost the simplicity and true zeal they once had for god. and then they also drew you from that tender life and power that had visited you , into many words of other men's conditions , and so the true simplicity that had been in you soon decayed . and as you were drawn from the life and power , and spirit of god in your selves , the subtilty within and without drew your minds after the tree of knowledge , and as you reached forth to that , and received and fed of that , you dyed as to god , and became more and more alive unto sin , and grew rich in knowledge , and that puffed many of you up , and so poorness in spirit , and the hungerings and thirstings after the life of god , which sometimes in you had been felt , you lost . and such of you were oft sent empty away from your worships ; mark , empty of the vertue , and refreshments , and sweetness which the lord fills such with , as are poor in spirit , and lowly in mind , and hunger and thirst after his righteousness . but others among you , i know , went oft from your worship full , though it were but of the declaration of others conditions , and their own conceivings , and a false joy . and several of you who had seen the lords mighty hand , and had been witnesses of his power , both within and without , when you got into outward ease , and peace , you soon forgot his goodness ; and some of you growing great in the earth , were lifted up in your minds , you then turned back , and licked up that which you had formerly vomited out , and then hardness and dryness came upon many of you ; and then that which the lord had wounded in many of you , ( to wit , the lustful nature which should have been crucified by the immortal power ) revived and became healed again : and then a false liberty you run into , and so into excess , and then several of you become oppressors and despisers , even of such as the lord by his mighty power had gathered from your dead forms and wayes : and many of you provoked the lord unto anger several wayes , for which cause he hath now sent a rod to scourge the back-sliders ; and them that were more faithful , must also be proved by the same . oh friends ! much might truly be said unto many of you , concerning your great apostacy , and your bringing of this day of tryal , or causing it to be brought upon you : but although i may hint something unto you concerning those things , yet that is not the thing which is chiefly upon me at this time : but this is that which lay much upon me ; to wit , to bring to your remembrance something of the former loving kindness of the lord unto you , and to exhort you who have back-slided , to return to the first love that was begotten in you towards the lord , and to keep to that principle of life , which did begin a good work in you , & to strengthen and encourage you to go on in the work of the lord. for as concerning your apostacy , i hope many of you are convinced of that in a great measure , by the witness of god in your own consciences ; and it is not my desire to upbraid you with that , which i hope in some measure is already become loathsom unto your selves ; neither would i add to your sufferings ( in whom there is now a true tenderness towards the lord ) in this the day of tryal ; for i believe many of you have , or will have , as much of them as you can well bear ; but my tender desire is , that you may be brought to feel so much of the power of god in your selves as may support you , ( and keep you in patience ) in all your tryals , until such time as the lord shall make you fit for deliverance . now i do believe , that some of you have retained a greater integrity and simplicity in your profession than others , and have not so deeply apostatized from that which god made known unto you of himself , as others have done ; and some of you i know have long been burdened with the apostacy that others among you have fallen into . and i know several of you also , have long gone under a burden , even concerning your own deadness , barrenness , and unprofitableness , you being made sensible thereof by the vvitness of god in your own consciences . and when ye have heard others rejoycing , and telling forth their experiences , as they called them , ( which was much of it the saints experiences of old , which these had not attained unto , any otherwise but by gathering their words out of the letter , or from man ) then hath sorrow , doubtings , and fears filled your hearts . now as there are several conditions among you , so also here are several things spoken unto each condition ; therefore you must mind the vvitness of god in your selves , which makes manifest unto you your several conditions , and that will let you see what of these things that are here written , properly belongeth to each of you , which is my desire that you may receive ; for my tender love in the lord jesus christ is unto all your souls , who truly breath after the lord , desiring your eternal good ; and that you may be brought into the enjoyment of that life , and power , and presence , which only can give satisfaction unto your immortal souls . therefore as you tender the good of your own souls , & eternal peace , cease hunting abroad ( in your imaginations ) and leave off wandring from mountain to hill , and from hill to mountain , ( where several of you have even wearied your selves for very vanity , & have not found a resting place ) and return home . retire your minds inward unto that which oft springeth in you , giving you the sensible knowledge and feeling of your particular conditions , and putting you in remembrance of the dealings of god with you in times past ; for that which thus springeth in you , is the gift of god , which is given you to profit withal . oh friends ! turn not from this gift in your selves , as you have done ; for by your turning from this pure life , when it hath visited you ( by its oft putting you in remembrance wherein you went wrong ) you have come to loose the sensibleness of your condition , and the enemy of your souls thereby hath gotten great advantage against you , and then you have been drawn and led by him into that which could not profit you : therefore all mind that gift of god in your selves , which maketh you sensible of your present conditions , and which oft begetteth true desires in you , to do the will of god , and which hath brought some of you into lowliness of mind , and to walk humbly with the lord , in his pure fear , for some time . for if ever you come to witness the true desires of your souls satisfied , and you established in true peace , you must receive the living principle of god in your own particular vessels ; which principle , i call the light , it being a proper name for it ; because it maketh manifest all things that are justly reproved , and whatsoever doth make manifest , the same is light. but i shall not desire to tye up any of you to give this principle of truth only the name of light ; for if you come to believe in it , and receive it in the love of it , and walk in obedience to its drawings , leadings , and requirings , i shall not matter if you call it the truth , or the gift of god , or the manifestation of the spirit of god , or the grace of god , or the ingrafted word , or the manifestation of god , or christ , or a measure of the eternal being , or fulness , or divine nature , or any other name which may truly be given unto it . but this is that which i desire , that you all may receive the thing it self , which hath so oft made manifest your conditions unto you , and sometimes brought you into brokenness of spirit . object . but some may say , when we have had our conditions made manifest unto us , and when we have been brought into brokenness of spirit , and have had tender desires begotten in us towards god , to do his vvill , it hath oft been , either when we have been reading the scriptures , or hearing them preached , or read by others ; and therefore we believe the scriptures have done these things to us , rather than any thing within us . answ . friends , i shall not deny but that your conditions have been made manifest unto you , and that you have been brought into brokenness of spirit , and have had true desires begotten in you , to do the will of god , sometimes when you have read , or heard the scriptures read , or preached unto you : but this i say unto you , it was not the scriptures that did these things , but it was the gift of god in your own hearts at that time ; as i shall plainly declare unto you . ( mark ) thus it was ; when you have read , or heard others read or speak such words of the scriptures of truth , as were suitable to that condition you were then in , or which did declare against such things as you were guilty of , ( mark ) then hath the witness of god arose in you ( sometimes ) and plainly spoke to your understanding part , and convinced you that you were guilty of such things as were spoken against , in such a scripture as you read or heard ; yea , it was the measure of god's truth in your own vessels , that hath so made manifest your particular conditions unto you , and hath perswaded and overpowered you , and made you believe , and sometimes confess particularly , that thou wert the man , or woman , or child , that was guilty of that , or hadst need of that which thou then didst read or hear , that the scripture declared against , or of . and when the power of god hath thus wrought in you at that time , when you have heard or read the scriptures , you have sometimes indeed been brought into brokenness of spirit , and render desires have been begotten in you towards the lord : and the lord hath also appeared unto some of you , sometimes in the night season , or as you have been about your labour , or otherwise ; and some of you have felt his pure power working in you , whereby your understandings in some measure have been opened , and your conditions plainly made manifest unto you , and much tenderness hath been begotten in you , even when you have neither heard nor read any thing outwardly , but the pure operation of the spirit and power of truth in some of you hath done these things , and wrought your minds into lowliness , meekness , and quietness . and then hath the pure love of god been felt ( in some measure ) whereby your souls have been refreshed . so friends , the holy one is neither by you to be limited to the scriptures , nor yet from the scriptures , in any wise , as to his appearance to his creatures ; but you are to learn to wait in the measure of his grace , which hath appeared unto you , and you are to watch in the light for his further appearance unto you : and as you come to wait upon the lord in his pure fear and dread , you will feel your minds wrought into stilness , and so you will come to hear the pure voice of god and christ ( who are one ) and become acquainted therewithal ; and his love you will feel arising in you , whereby you will be constrained to obey it , when or where-ever you come to hear it ; and then you will see the lord is not to be limited , either to time , or place , or means outward ; but you will see that he manifesteth himself to his creatures , even when , and where , and howsoever he pleaseth . and truly friends , as concerning these things which the lord hath suffered to come to pass of late , it is exceeding righteous and just with him to suffer those things to be effected ; for truly ( as you know ) he was much provoked thereunto , and his patience towards many of you was very great ; yea , he spared you long , and yet many of you ( whom i now hope are brought to see your brck-slidings ) regarded not his goodness , but walked very carelesly , and some of you wantonly before him ; yea , many of your minds ran into the earth , and its pomps and vanities again ( after a tenderness had been begotten in you towards the lord , and a loathing of such things ) and covetousness and pride encreased among you , and so lusts , and fulness , and ease was then delighted in , and the honour of this world sought , and received one of another ( and not that which cometh of god onely ) and those that could not give you that honour that perisheth , such by some of you were hated and mocked at , and yet you professed much of religion in words . but alas ! the hearts of many of you were removed far from the life of truth , in which the lord is worshipped , and so the sincerity and zeal which once appeared in some of you for god , and the love which had sprung in you to him , and one to another ( in the day when you were low and tender ) grew cold and died in you , as you departed from the measure of the life of god. and thus the lord became grieved , and pressed with your back-slidings , and his soul loathed your sacrifices ; and he then saw that a day of tryal would be better for you than a day of prosperity . so in righteousness as from the lord , is this day brought upon you , and also in love to your souls , and so it shall prove unto you , if ye will now turn unto the lord with all your hearts , and humble your selves under his mighty hand . yea some of you who lately have had the enjoyment of great estates , and outward liberty , and honour , and companions , and have now lost them , or part of them , i do believe that you will be made to confesse ( to the glory of god ) that it is his love to you in suffering them to be taken from you ; yea some of you will come to see that the lord is just and merciful unto you in suffering your idols to be stript off , & taken away . for you will see how some of you have idolized men , the world , and its honour and glory , and forms without the power of an endless life . oh friends ! i have a secret hope for a remnant of you , that the lord by this kind of dealing with you , will bring you near unto himself , and that a day shall come wherein you shall be made to say , that it was good for us that we were afflicted . but friends , you that come this to witness , you must mind the free grace of god that bringeth salvation , which to all men hath appeared ; yea , ye must own and receive it in its pure teachings , and wait in the virtue of it , to receive power to deny and forsake the ungodliness and worldly lusts , ( which it will make manifest unto you ) that you have been addicted unto ; and must wait to feel it drawing you into godliness , righteousness , and soberness , and into patience and contentedness with the will of god , which is a precious thing . truly they they that do not wait to come into , and to be kept in patience in this day of tryal , their sufferings will be great . and if the fretting impatient , murmuring nature be given way and leaned unto , that will aggravate the sufferings exceedingly , and beget torment in the mind . therefore you who desire to come into , and to be kept in true obedience unto the lord , in this the day of tryal , be watchful in the light , and abide in the pure fear of the lord , which is the beginning of wisdom ; and take heed of the subtilry of the serpent , who will seek more and more to beguile you , and to lead you aside from the way of god. verily friends , if you do not retire your minds inwards , unto the life of jesus , ( which is the light of men ) you will be deceived , yea if you do not receive the spirit of truth to be your guide , and leader , and obey the same , you will still run into those things which cannot profit you , and the renewed desires in you towards the lord will be strangled . now i know some of you have formerly found the lord's leadings and teachings , in some measure , in the day when he drew you out of episcopacy ( so called ) and raised up a zeal in you against the lording spirits in the bishops , and against the dark way of their imaginary worship , and if you had kept low in the pure fear of the lord , i know he would have further appeared unto you . but here was the loss of many of those that the lord , had appeared unto , ( mark ) they did not abide in his tender fear , neither did they continue waiting upon him ( for teaching ) in the measure of life , in which he had appeared unto them ; but many of them going from his witness in themselves , they soon began to imagin another form of worship which is called presbitery , and many sate down and setled in that , and did not mind the leadings of the life which had appeared , and in some measure quickened them ; and so much deadness and barrenness came upon such as would not be subject to the drawings of the pure life of god. but those that kept their integrity in any measure , and waited upon the lord , the pure life opened things further unto them , as they were able to bear ; and they were drawn a little further , and a fine freshness and tenderness and love appeared in them for a time : but so soon as they had settled themselves in another form , which is called independency , then many of them not willing to follow the leadings of the life , any further then the articles which they had drawn up , and agreed upon , would admit of , whereby the freshness that had appeared in some of them , began to wither . yet some who still desired to go on , according to the leadings of the life , the life opened things further unto them , and they left the other ; but they not continuing in the true waiting upon the lord to be led by him , several of them also ran into another form , called anabaptism , wherein many began to settle . but some of them i do believe took up that , far more simply than others ; for they being pressed outwardly to it by their teachers , and also finding in the scriptures , that the saints of old practised such things , they letting in reasonings , and not waiting in the pure life that had stirred in them , to be led by that in all things , their eye became vailed , whereby they could see no further , but looked upon that to be their duty , to wit , to go in the water , and so durst not omit it . but the pure life which had visited them sprang up afresh , and wrought mightily in some of them , and shewed them the emptiness of the water outward ; and let them see , that it is the baptism inward ( with the holy spirit and with fire ) which saves , and brings to the answer of a good conscience ; and that no form is to be minded any further then the power is felt to lead into it , or then the presence of the lord is witnessed in it . and thus the lord by his pure life hath gathered thousands out of the forms before mentioned ; and i do believe that he will yet dayly gather more and more into the power which is endless . therefore all you who are yet left in any of those forms before mentioned , or any other , or out of forms , who have retained any thing of the former tenderness and smiplicity which was begotten in you by the appearance of the lord ; and all you who are brought to see your backslidings , and are now brought to feel any true desires , and thirsting after god renewed in you , my tender love reacheth forth unto you all , in the life , power and love of god , wherewith i am loved , and in which i am preserved . oh! that i could feel you bound up and established with me in the unchangable truth of god , where satisfaction and peace is received , and where nothing can make afraid . oh! that ye would freely yield your selves obedient servants unto the righteousness of god , which is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men , ( mark ) that is the thing which you must become obedient unto , god's righteousness which appeareth in you against all unrighteousness . and all wait in that which moves against sin , for that is the power of god , which you must be turned unto , and receive , before you can receive the remission of sins , and an inheritance among them that are sanctified , by the faith which christ jesus , the righteousness of god is the author and finisher of . and friends , you must all mind the present manifestation of the power of god , and what it now draweth and leadeth unto ; for if you should now run into those things wherein you have formerly enjoyed something of the presence and life of god , yet if you feel not the pure power of the lord god , now drawing you into them , deadness will come upon you more and more , and the tender desires that are renewed in you towards the lord will be destroyed . oh! consider this , the day of the lord is far broke forth in light and knowledge , and he is yet making it brighter and brighter , unto them that truly wait upon him : yea he is leading them by the hand of his love from one degree of grace , and faith , and knowledge , unto another , and changing them from glory to glory . and he is powring from vessel to vessel , that the dregs may be left by themselves . yea he is sifting , and winowing , that the chaff , and the dross may be taken away , and so the seed which standeth approved may be made manifest . and he is bringing thorow the fire , and thorow the fire , because the day hasteneth , and draweth nigh , in which he will make up his jewels , and consume the chaff and the dross . therefore look not back , neither be afraid of the rage of man ; seek not to save your selves by bowing to his will , but look to the lord who declareth unto you what your thoughts are , and gird up the loins of your minds , and watch and be sober , and hope to the end , all you who through patience , and experience , are come to know any thing of the true hope , which maketh not ashamed . and friends , concerning faith and the promises of god , there hath been much profession and talk of those things amongst you : but now the day is appearing which will try all professions , and every one's work must come to tryal . therefore consider your faith , and the ground , author , and effects of it : for there is a dead faith , and a living faith , and a ground for both ; now the living faith hath jesus for its author , and the power of god for its ground ; and its effects declare it to be the living faith , for it works in them that have it by love , unto the purifying of their hearts , and it is their victory over the world . these were the effects of the living faith in the saints of old , and it hath the same now , as they can witness who have received it . now there is a faith which stands but in words , not in the power , and this is a dead faith , it cannot work , it purifies not the heart , it gives not victory over the world , nor access to god , as the living faith doth . oh friends ! labour not to content your selves with a dead faith , but wait that you may hear the leaving word by which the living faith comes . now a man may declare of the word of life , as the scriptures do , and many may believe the words to be true , and profess the same ; and yet if they receive not the living word , or vvitness in their own hearts , their faith will prove but a dead faith , and they will have but words for its ground ; but they that hear the vvords of truth declared , or read them , and then feel the living vvord arising in themselves , witnessing to the words that they have read or heard , that they are true , over-powering them to believe the same ; or if the vvord of life speaketh to any ones understanding , when words outwardly are not spoken , and they be over-powered by the word to believe the same , such come indeed to feel and know how the living faith cometh , and is wrought . and they come also to see that this faith stands in the power of god , and not in words , and that jesus ( who saveth from sin ) is the author of it . and all that come into this state , if they wilfully turn not from the power , they will feel their faith increased in and by the power , and the effects of it will daily come to be manifest , which will be an evidence unto them to prove that it is the living faith , for they will feel it giving them access to god. oh ye professors ! i speak what i know and witness , and without this faith you cannot please god. and concerning the promises of god , this know : the promises are unto the seed , not unto seeds as of many , but unto the seed , which is one , which is christ . so all that come to have right unto the promises of god , they must come to be of the seed unto which the promises are . now it is the word of life which begetteth unto god , and brings to be of the seed which is the heir of the promises of god. therefore wait in the appearance of the word of life , that by it you may be begotten into the nature of the incorruptible seed , and become born of it , that so you may be made meet to be partakers of the precious promises . oh that ye would hearken diligently and obey , and your souls should live . the lord's hand of tender love and pitty is stretched forth towards you . oh! be not rebellious any longer , lest he cease striving with you . truly many of you have mightily provoked the lord unto anger , and grieved his spirit in this particular , ( mark ) in your applying promises , as you have termed it ; for many of you have stollen the words which declare of the promises which are to the seed of life , and you have applyed them unto the wrong seed or birth ; yea , you have gathered the good words ( out of the scriptures ) that were written unto them who were born again of the incorruptible seed , and you have applyed them unto your selves , in the corruptible unregenerate state ; and when you have done thus , the witness of god in your own consciences hath oft arose and condemned you , and broke the false peace & joy which you had created to your selves , by stealing the saints conditions and experiences , and applying them to your selves , calling them yours , and saying , it was so with you , when it was not ; yea , many of you have said , your sins were washed away in the blood of christ , and that you were freely justified in the sight of god by his grace , and your teachers also have told you it was so ; yea , they have preached peace unto you ( because you put into their mouths ) even while you lived in your sins : but the pure grace of god hath appeared in your hearts and condemned you . and when you have been thus judged by the witness of god , your false peace hath been broken , and then some of you have run to your teachers ( who had cryed peace unto you , and daubed you up with untempered morter ) and told them your conditions , how you were condemned in your selves , and how you had lost the peace and joy that you formerly had , and how judgement was felt in the room of it . then some of your blind guides have told you , that that was the devil that condemned you , and brake your peace , ( and thus they have brought themselves under the wo , putting darkness for light , and light for darkness ) and then they have told you , you must apply the promises , and act faith ( as they call it ) upon the promises in the scriptures , and keep unto them . and thus they have sought to daub you up again , and to draw you from the pure spirit of judgement ; and some of you who have received their words , have then strove against the pure witness ( which condemned you ) and counted it the tempter , and have laboured in your wills to get from under its pure judgement , and to force your selves into a belief and perswasion again , that those things , to wit , the promises belonged unto you . and thus have you fought against the witness of god , and denied its testimony , and strangled it , and so got into a false peace again ; but others of you have been kept more sensible of its judgement , and have not dared to deny it , because you have seen that ye were not fit for the promises ; for you have seen with the light , that you were out of the condition which is required of such as come to be partakers of the promises . now it hath been a great saying among many of you , that you must act faith upon a bare promise in the scriptures , as your teachers have taught you ; and they have told you , that abraham believed god upon a bare promise , and so must you . oh consider this well ! the word of the lord came unto abraham , saying unto him , fear not abraham , i am thy shield , and thy exceeding great reward . and again the lord spake unto him , saying , i will bless thee , and make thy name great , and thou shalt be a blessing ; and abraham believed god in these promises , and others , and he obeyed him : so abraham's faith was reckoned unto him for righteousness , and he was called the friend of god , because he believed and obeyed him . now if you were come to hear the lord speak unto you as abraham did , then you ought to believe whatever the lord promised unto you , that he would perform the same ; but if you only get these promises or others , out of the scriptures , and then apply them unto your selves , and say you believe it is , or shall be so with you , as it is expressed in those promises , and yet you never heard the lord say any such thing unto you , ( mark ) you do but deceive your selves ; for such a belief ( or acting of faith upon the promises as you call it ) will never be accounted unto you for righteousness ; neither will you come to find such promises so gotten fulfilled unto you by the lord. and you are also to consider this , that many of the promises in the scriptures were given forth upon conditions , and except you come to witness the conditions fulfilled in you by the power , you are not like to witness such promises made good unto you . and also there are some promises spoken of in the scriptures , which naturally belong to the immortal seed , that were by the lord given forth unto it , without expressing any conditions , because the seed is free , and doth the will of god naturally : now all that come to have right to such promises , and to witness them fulfilled unto them by the lord , they first must be converted into the nature of the seed , by the working of the immortal word in them . therefore you that have true desires after the lord , wait to feel the work of the word of life in your own hearts , that so by it you may be made meet ( as i said before ) to be partakers of the promises . verily friends ! many of you have much to pass through , before you can come to feel and witness the lord ministring his precious promises of life and peace freely unto you . oh! he waiteth to be gracious unto you ; yea , he hath long waited . oh! that you would now turn unto him in the drawings of his power and life , and cease willing , and running , and striving in your own wills and wayes , and wait to be guided and led by his spirit , into those things which he requireth at your hands . oh friends ! it is the inside , it is the inside that must be cleansed ; for whilst that is polluted and unclean , the lord regardeth not the worship : it is he that searcheth the heart , and tryeth the inward parts ; you cannot hide any thing from him ; for he beholdeth all your goings , and actings , and thoughts . now i know many of you will oft make large confessions of your sins ; but friends , there is a further thing to be minded , ( mark ) you must also come to forsake them , or else you cannot find the mercy . therefore hearken diligently unto the call of the lord , and believe and wait in that which makes manifest sin , and calleth you out of the same , for this is holy , and consenteth not unto sin , it hath no fellowship with darkness , nor concord with the devil . now this is the living truth ; by this you may know it , ( mark ) it is contrary to whatsoever is not of the truth , and it opposeth evil in the very appearance thereof . oh that you would hearken unto this ! and receive this in the love of it , when it appeareth in you , that so by the life , and power , and vertue of it , you might be saved and cleansed from your sins . oh friends ! if you ever come truly to be made free , it must be by the truth ; if ever you come to be sanctified , it must be with the truth : now the word is the truth , and the word is very nigh you , even in your mouths , to shew you your evil words , and also in your hearts , to shew you the deceit and thoughts thereof ; yea , its vertue goeth through all things , and its power upholdeth all things , in it is life , and that life is the light of men . oh that you would believe in it ! that you might be made the children of it : this word is immortal , and it is able to destroy the devil and his works , and to save your immortal souls . oh friends ! though its appearance in you be in judgement , yet resist it not , neither turn from it in any wise ; but when it convinceth you of any evil , and begetteth any love in you towards its judgement . oh then abide in that love , and then you will see how christ comes for judgement into the world to judge the prince of the world , and to cast him out , and to make blind that eye which hath been open , and hath seen in the worldly carnal spirit , and to open that eye which hath been kept blind by the god or prince of the world. yea , as you wait in the righteous judgements of christ , you will feel him opening the eye of the understanding part , with his invisible light , whereby you will come to see into the invisible things of god. oh friends ! you must own christ the word of god , in the way and ministration of his judgements ; yea , you must own him in the spirit of judgement and burning , before you can truly witness that you are reconciled unto god. oh! wait to hear the voice of christ in your inward man , and be content to bear his yoak , and wait in stilness , that patience in you may have its perfect work ; and if any of you see with the life of the word , that your hearts are hard and rocky , keep but in patience , and wait in that life which maketh you sensible of your condition , and you will feel the pure operation of the word , smiting as a hammer , which will break your hard hearts into tenderness ; yea , you will feel them dissolved , melted , and changed , by the power of the word , as ye believe and wait in the same ; and then you will know experimentally , that the word of the lord is as a hammer , and as a sword , and as a fire , and as fuller's sope ; for you will feel it breaking and cutting down , burning up , and washing out all the hard , fruitless , defiling nature ; and then you will come to know christ's fan in his hand , for you will feel him purging the floor , by separating the chaffy dirty nature from the tender seed , which delighteth to do the will of god : now as you come to feel this within , you come to witness his baptism , with the holy spirit , and with fire ; yea , here the washing in the regeneration , and the renewing in the holy spirit , comes to be witnessed : and here christ's work comes truly to be felt and known , which is to destroy the devil and his works , to blot out transgression , to take away sin , to cause the old things to pass away , and to make all things new . oh friends ! wait to feel and witness this work , and think not that your saying , christ hath done all for you will profit you , while you live in the old fleshly birth ; for verily , verily , i say unto you , that except you be born again , you can in no wise enter into the kingdom of god. therefore wait to feel this inward work , that so you may know christ formed in you , his mind , his spirit , his disposition , his nature , and then you will come to the new creature , and to witness the election which avails and obtains . and here the circumcision without hands you will come to know , which is the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh , by the circumcision of christ ; and this brings to be the jew inward , whose praise is not of man , but of god ; and here 's the true israel of god , upon which the mercy comes ; and here 's the true elect seed , unto which the promise is ; and they that come to this , are born from above , and are members of christ's body , of his flesh , and of his bones ; and they are come to the riches of the mystery which hath been hid from ages and generations , which is christ in them the hope of glory . oh friends ! these things are not written unto you , that you should feed upon the words , and seek to get a rest there ; but these things are written in tender bowels of love , unto such of you as truly hunger and thirst after the new life ; that so as the lord's witness ariseth in any of you to witness unto the truth of them , and to give you any understanding in the same , you may joyn to his witness , and believe and wait in the same , to feel these things fulfilled in you . so as you wait in the invisible measure of god , you will come to be sensible how far you are changed , in which birth you live , in which birth your minds are centered , and so of which birth you are ; for as it is written , even so will you see it to be that , that which is born of the flesh is flesh , and that which is born of the spirit is spirit ; and they that are after ( or of ) the flesh do mind the things of the flesh ; but they that are after the spirit do mind the things of the spirit ; and that they that live in the flesh cannot please god. and as you mind that life which oft-times ariseth in you , and makes you sensible of your conditions , you will plainly come to know it in your selves , that to be carnally minded , it is death , but to be spiritually minded it is life and peace ; for you will see if the enemy of your souls can get your minds into carnal things at any time , that then deadness and death cometh over you , and you become dead as unto god ; until his witness ariseth in you to quicken you again ; but as your minds are kept in obedience to the spirit of god , & you minding the things of it , which it openeth unto you , ye will feel life and peace springing in your souls , and that from the presence of the lord. therefore be diligent in this the day of your visitation , ( which yet in mercy is continued unto you ) & as the lord maketh manifest unto you , that any of the forms , that you have been , or are yet in , are empty and dead , and then appear in spirit to draw and lead you out of them ; o be not like stubborn , rebellious , wilful children , that will not follow their father any further then may please their own wills , but hang back & murmure ; i say take heed of giving way to such a spirit , least the lord leave striving with you , and give you up wholly to follow the deceit of your own hearts , for the lord will not alwayes strive with man ; but the day shall come , wherein the lord will withdraw himself from the rebellious , and he that is filthy let him be filthy still . oh friends ! i see a day which will be terrible unto the disobedient ; for when the lord hath tryed his people , and gathered the sincere hearted out of all forms unto himself , he will then sweep away the refuge ( that will not be gathered in the day of their visitation ) with a mighty destruction ; and the day hastens in which this shall be accomplisht by the mighty arm and power of the lord , which is now working in secret . therefore wait to be led and taught of him , and heed not the rage and cruelty of man , neither bow to his perverse will , but know that the lord hath given bounds to the sea , that although it roar , rage and swell , and cast up mire and dirt , yet it cannot go beyond its bounds . therefore be patient and commit your cause unto the lord , and seek not to avenge your selves , but leave it unto him , who will avenge the cause of his people . and wait in the feeling of the truth in your selves , that so you may feel the pure life of christ to be a stay to your minds , in all your tryals and temptations . oh poor hearts ! this is a precious thing to come to be sensible of the true stay and guide to the mind . o keep to that which maketh your temptations and thoughts manifest , and believe and wait in that , and then you will feel that to be a stay to your minds , and you will feel the lord's secret strength revealed in you , enabling you to stand in whatsoever tryal or temptation he shall suffer to come upon you , or to be presented unto you ; yea , as you are faithful to the power that he commits unto you , you shall not be tryed beyond your strength , but you shall feel the lord supporting you ; and by his power he will work your minds into contentedness with his will in all things ; and if you will follow the power of the lamb , which is that which moves against sin , and taketh it away , you will come to feel your hearts and minds drawn , and redeemed out of the earth thereby ; and you will be made willing to give up , and to part with all , and to follow the lamb whithersoever he goeth . now if your spirits come to be brought into this frame , then whatsoever man can do unto you , it will not be able to move you . oh! that you would wholly give up your selves to wait upon the lord , in the pure manifestation of his spirit , and cease contending and pleading for those things which the spirit of the lord requireth not at your hands . oh! that you would now mind to obey the pure requirings of the life of jesus in your selves , and that would bring you into lowliness of mind and meekness of spirit , & into true love to god , and one towards another ; and not only to love your friends , but even to love your enemies also , and to forgive and pray for them that despightfuly use you ; and then you would indeed bear the image of the lamb , and witness his kingdom set up in you ; and this would bring you in patience to wait , until he arise to plead the cause of his people , and to avenge himself on his and their enemies , and to make the kingdoms of this world his , and the people subject to his government ; which shall certainly be aceomplished in its season , and the day draweth nigh . so the lord god almighty manifest himself more and more unto you all , in whose hearts there are any true , sincere , honest desires to know and do his will ; and who are willing to follow him as he appears to lead and draw you , and the lord of life manifest his strength unto you , and gather you by the power of his christ into the everlasting covenant of life , rest , and peace . this is the sincere desire of my soul , whose bowels yearn towards you , whose souls are breathing and thirsting after the endless life of righteousness . and this is message of true love unto you , in which it is sent forth among you according to the instructions of the almighty ; yea for your sakes is this written , whose souls are panting after the lord , in what form or society soever you be in , who are willing to follow the leadings of his life , and to submit to his will , as it comes to be made manifest unto you ; and many of you , in whom there be such honest desires , i see are now in a bewildred condition , in this cloudy and dark day which seems to approach , not knowing well what to do , or which way to take , or where to find rest or safety , by reason of the want of the knowledge of a true guide to your minds ; i say , for the informing of your understandings , and for the strengthening of those desires in you , which are sincere towards the lord , was i drawn forth in much tenderness and bowels of unfained love to write unto you , that you might be brought to be sensible of the gift of god in your selves , and to know what that is , that is to guide your minds , and in what you are to wait to receive the true teachings , that so your minds may come to be stayed upon the lord , and that may be gathered into his name , wherein the true help and safety is ; and that you may avoid whatsoever would be a hinderance unto your growth in the simplicity of the truth . therefore i exhort and warn you to take heed of following your own thoughts and imaginations any longer , but freely give up to be led by that principle of life , which cannot consent to sin , but appears to call , and draw you out of the same ; you need not fear that that will deceive you , but whatsoever would draw you from that life , that is the deceiver . and hearken not any longer to such teachers , as are greedy of filthy lucre ; for such make a prey of you , and cannot profit you at all . and take heed of hearkening , or joyning to such teachers or people as will turn to , and comply with any worship or thing , that may be for their advantage , as they account ; and that they may save themselves from sufferings ; for such are luke-warm , and the lord will spue them out , and their shame and filthiness shall appear , and they shall become loathsom both in the sight of god and man ; therefore avoid them . and as there are few teachers amongst the professors , whom i believe for conscience sake dare not turn back and lick up that , which they formerly were made to vomit out and deny ; so also there are many that would willingly turn to any thing for their bellies , if they might be received , that will not now be accepted of ; and these that see they cannot keep their places by their turning , they will appear zealous ( especially in secret ) against those things that they find some tender-hearted ones cannot bow unto ; and so with good words and fair speeches , they will thus seek to deceive the hearts of the simple , and all this is but for their bellies ; therefore take heed of such . and take heed of joyning any longer to such as are settled upon their lees , who as one might say , are even glued to a form which is void of the power ; for seeing they were to be turned from who had the form of godliness , because they denyed the power ; much more are they to be turned from , who stick in a form , which cannot he truly called a form of godliness , and therein contend , and fight , and strive against the light , which is the power ; and of this sort there are many in several of the sects , whose searedness , dryness & hardness is exceeding great , though they profess much of godliness in words , yet in much perversness , wilfulness , and crookedness they oppose the life and power of the same , and will neither enter the kingdom themselves , nor suffer those that gladly would , but in a ridgid austere manner , seek to keep the people subject to them , that they may be lords over their consciences . oh friends ! you that are tender-hearted come out from among such , for the lord's hand will be stretched out against them in a terrible manner ; and all wait in the tender principle of the fathers love and life which hath visited you , and begotten sincere desires in you after himself , and the knowledge of his wayes , that so you may be strengthned in the inner man ; and feel your faith , hope , and patience increased , that so you may be able to stand in the tryal without fainting , feeling the lord to be your strength , and continual preserver . this is the sincere and hearty desire of him who is a sufferer with the true seed where ever it suffers , and yet i am gathered in the spirit , into the everlasting kingdom and covenant of peace , rest and quietness , where nothing can make me afraid . by a prisoner for the testimony of jesus , who am freely given up to his will , and in patience do wait to see his kingdom set up over all the kingdoms of the earth , that he over all may reign , whose right it is . george fox , the younger . a true relation of the unlawful and unreasonable proceedings of the magistrates of harwich in essex , against the people of the lord ( called quakers ) also the manner of their imprisoning of george fox the younger , whom they with robert grassingham accused to the parliament ; and also the manner of the parliaments proceedings against them . in the year , it was so ordered of the lord , that there came unto the town of harwich some of the people called quakers , and one of them spoke a few words to the people as they were coming from the steeple-house , and so they passed into an inn ; but the then mayor hearing thereof sent unto them , commanding that they should depart the town , which they had not freedom in the lord presently to do , but after a short space they went out ; and it being upon them to return again , they did so and lodged at that inn all night , and the next day they peaceably passed away ; so not long after , the woman that kept the inn , was commanded to come before the magistrates of the town , who appeared to be offended with her for lodging of those people , and made her to promise them , that she would lodge no more such persons , by threatning to take away her license , if she did ; so great was their envy at the appearance of the truth in that town : but it pleased the lord , that shortly after , some of the inhabitants thereof were convinced of the truth ; and so a way was made for meetings there , and several received the truth in the love of it , in and about that town ; so that they could not for conscience sake pay to the repairing of the steeple-house any longer ; and therefore had not freedom to bury their dead in the ground belonging thereunto ; but they joyned together , and bought a parcel of ground to bury their dead in ( as did abraham , the father of the faithful . ) so in the year , . it was so ordered of the lord , that one who lived a little out of that town died , and several people were accompanying the dead body to bury it in the place purchased for that end ; but one of the magistrates hearing of it , sent the constables with a guard , commanding them not to suffer the dead body to be laid in that place ( though the grave was made ) and by the command of that magistrate , the dead body was taken away by force , and buried in the steeple-house yard . also in the eleventh month of the same year , there dyed another friend near the same town , and several friends came along with the dead body , to have buried it in the place afore-mentioned ; a grave also being made , but miles hubburd , the now mayor , and the other rulers , would not suffer the dead body to be laid therein , but caused it to be taken away by force , and so they carried it and set it by the sea-side , where it lay above ground , part of two dayes and one night , and then it was covered over with small stones ; but by whom i know not : of these things a record is kept , by friends in harwich . also in the d. month , in the year , . i being in essex , in the work and service of the lord , whereunto he hath called me by his mighty power , and therein sent me forth , to publish his everlasting truth , which he is spreading abroad in this the day of his power , by which he is gathering those that breath and thirst after his rightcousness , out of the dark wayes and worships of this world , into the true and living way and worship , which christ jesus , the true light , in the dayes of his flesh spoke of ; which is in the spirit and in the truth : i say , as i was labouring in the work of the gospel in that county , i had much drawings in the spirit of truth , to appoint a meeting in the town of harwich ; and that such thereabout who had desires to hear the truth of god declared , might have notice given them , that in the will of the lord i purposed to be there on the th day of the month aforesaid , it being the first day of the week ; so notice was given of the meeting some dayes before ; and upon the first day in the morning , there were about forty peaceable people , ( as men , women , and children ) coming in a boat over a river which runs by the town unto the meeting ; but the magistrates of the town hearing thereof , sent some officers to the water-side to hinder them from coming on shore ( who were peaceably come to wait on the lord , and to hear the truth declared ) so these officers , with a great number of rude people , did hinder those peaceable people from coming on shore , and forced them back again ; also the same morning robert grassingham sent two of his servants with a boat , to have fetched over some of our friends to the meeting , but the officers would not suffer them to go over , but charged them in the king's name to come back , and carried them before the magistrates ; who commanded that they should forthwith be set in the stocks , and they were so ; and there were kept for some hours . and thus the magistrates of that town encouraged the rude people against us , by their unjust proceedings : now it is usual with the magistrates of that town , to suffer such as come to their steeple-house-worship , to come or go over the water upon the first day of the week . and about a month before , on the first day of the week , the mayor being informed that some of our friends were coming over , he with some other officers of the town , went down to the water-side , being bent against the innocent ; but when the boat came on shore , it appeared that they were other people , who were going about their occasions ; and when they saw the mayor , they said unto him , we made bold to come over ; he answered them , — it was well enough , i thought ( said he ) you had been quakers ; — and thus did he manifest his partiality in the sight of many in that town ; so notwithstanding the rulers cruelty , in causing about forty of our friends to be forced back , and setting two in the stocks , as afore-mentioned ; we that were in the town peaceably assembled our selves together in the fear of the lord , to wait upon him ; and for near about the space of two hours i had liberty to preach the gospel to the people , being filled with the power of the lord ; but within a short time after the space afore-mentioned , there came a great company of rude sea-men , with others of the town , and the house being filled before with peaceable people , these rude ones could not easily get in ; but when they saw that they could not get well to me , because of the press of people , some of them then cursed me bitterly , biding that they call the pox and plague upon me ; others crying out — hang him rogue , hang him ; — and another conspiringly said , — let us get a halter ( which is a long rope ) and therewith pull down the house upon the rogues ; — others cryed out , — the king is coming now , who will hang or banish you all , — ( it being a little before his coming . ) now when i heard and saw this great ungodliness , the spirit of the lord came mightily upon me , and i was filled with his unresistable power , in which i was made to utter these words , saying , wo , wo , unto the rulers and teachers of this nation , who suffer such ungodliness as this , and do not seek to suppress it ; then went some of the multitude and accused me to the magistrates , who presently came and commanded the chief constable ( and some others ) to fetch me out , who forthwith pressed in , and in the king's name commanded me to go with him ; and so he brought me out of the house into the street , where the rulers stood amongst the rude multitude , then he that was mayor said hastily , — which is he , which is he ? — some answered , — this is he , — ( pointing towards me ) then said the mayor to the constables , — take him and put him into prison ; — then said i to him , if i have done any thing worthy of death or bonds , i shall not refuse either , but i desire thee to shew me what law i have transgressed ( if thou be able ) which thou oughtest to do before thou sendest me to prison , that i may know for what thou sendest me thither ; he said , i should know that afterward ; but he would neither let me know my accusers , nor could he shew me any law i had broken ; neither would he tell me for what cause he sent me to prison , nor did he at all examine me , but commanded the constables to take me away ; so i was forthwith haled to prison , without a mittimus . and robert grassingham , whose outward being was at harwich , being at the meeting out of which i was haled , he innocently in tender love went along with me to prison ; and as he went in the street , he seeing the rude multitude thronging me , said to the constables , you ought to see the peace kept , and not to suffer the rude people to abuse the prisoner ( or words to this effect . ) so some time after i was imprisoned , there was a mittimus sent to the goalor , signed by miles hubburd mayor , anthony woolward , and daniel smith ; wherein i was falsly charged , with causing a tumult in that burrough , and disturbing the peace thereof ; and thus they sought to cover their persecution , by false accusing of the innocent , whom the lord acquits ; but the rude , cursing , tumultuous , peace-breaking people ( whom they had let up and strengthned by their unlawful proceedings ) had nothing done unto them , but were let go free ; yet all this did not satisfie their persecuting spirit , but they further proceeded in their cruelty , and accused both me and robert grassingham to the parliament ; now as for r. g. i know nothing that they could pretend against him , except they were displeased with his going with me to the prison , as afore-mentioned ; nor did they in the least charge him to his face with any thing ; but the mayor some time before that , did say unto him , in the hearing of several friends ; — if i could but get you out of the town , then could i deal well enough with the rest of the quakers ; — but the lord hath a seed in that town , which fears not the rage of man , though one of their brethren , ( through the cruelty and unlawful proceedings of those rulers ) be taken . from them at present : so the parliament upon the receiving of their false information , issued forth an order for the bringing up of r.g. and me : a true copy thereof , is as followeth . munday , may the th , . the house being informed , that two quakers , that is to say , george fox , and robert grassingham , have lately made a disturbance at harwich , and that the said george fox , who pretends to be a preacher , did lately in his preaching there , speak words , much reflecting on the government and ministry , to the near causing of a a mutiny * , and is now committed by the mayor and magistrates there . ordered , that the said george fox , and robert grassingham , be forthwith brought up in custody , and that the sheriff of the county of essex do receive them , and give his assistance for the conveying of them up accordingly , and delivering them into the charge of the sergeant at arms attending this house . ordered , that the thanks of this house be given to the mayor and magistrates of harwich , for their care in this business . william jessop , clerk of the commons house of parliament . so after they had kept me ten nights in harwich prison , the sheriff of essex , with several armed men , came for me with the order afore-mentioned ; so a great company of men with halbards fetched me out of the hole wherein i was put ( which was not four yards long , nor so broad as long ) and these men would not suffer me to speak with the mayor ( though i much desired it ) but they guarded me through the streets , and delivered me to the sheriff and his men , who were to bring me up to london ; so as we were coming upon the road , we met with robert grassingham , who was coming from london towards harwich , in pursuance of an order which he had received from the commissioners for the admiralty and navy , for the refitting of one of the king's frigots , which then lay in that port , whereof he was then ship-wright ; but notwithstanding r. g. shewed his order to the sheriff , yet he brought him back to london with me , and delivered us into the custody of the sergeant at arms attending the house , who the same night committed us to lambeth-house , and gave order ( as the goalor said ) that but few of our friends should be suffered to come at us ; and when any were suffered , that then some should stand by and hear what was said ; and if any letter went from us , or came to us , that the goalor or some of his family should hear them , which was observed for some time : also we were confined to our chamber , for the space of six weeks and upward , and had not that liberty allowed us to walk in the yard , which all the other prisoners had ; and another time the goalor said , that the sergeant had given him an order , — that no person should come at me , no not so much as to bring me food ; but indeed the goalor suffered my food to be brought in ; but as for others which came to visit me , they were kept back for some time : so near about three weeks after we were committed to lambeth , we wrote to the parliament , and sent the writing enclosed in a few lines to the speaker ; but he doing nothing in the thing , we caused it to be printed , and several hundreds of the papers were given to the parliament men : a true copy is as followeth . for the house of commons , assembled in parliament , at westminster . friends , by your order touching us , dated the st . of the third month , called may , we understand you have been falsely informed concerning us , by some who have falsely accused us ; therefore this is our just and reasonable request ; that we , together with our accusers , may face to face be brought before you ; and if any thing can be justly proved against us worthy of death , or bonds , we shall not refuse either ; but if there can be nothing justly proved against us , then ought our accusers to be ashamed , and we to be acquitted . now we do believe it to be unjust and unreasonable , that a man should be halled out of a peaceable meeting , as one of us was at harwich in essex , and sent to prison without being examined , or a mittimus ( onely for declaring against the cursing and the wickedness of the rude people , and against such as suffer such ungodliness , and do not seek to suppress it ) and there to be kept ten nights , and from thence to be transported unto this place ; and that we both should be here confined to our chambers , as we have been , for about three weeks last past , seeing nothing is proved against us , nor we yet brought to examination ; neither did your order express any such confinement : so these things are laid before you in plainness , that justice herein may be done by you . by us who are sufferers for righteousness sake , and we have and shall have peace in our suffering , and in writing our selves thus , except we were convinced by the law of god , or any just law of our nation to the contrary . geo. fox , the younger . robert grassingham . lambeth house , the th . of the th . month , called june , . a copy hereof was delivered to the speaker of the house , of commons , inclosed in a letter to himself , in these words following ; for the speaker of the house of commons , friend , we desire thee to communicate this inclosed to the house of commons , it being a few innocent , just and reasonable words to them , though not in the eloquent language of man's wisdom , yet it is in the truth which is honourable . we are friends to righteousness and truth , and to all that are found therein . r. g. g. f. and being informed that as yet nothing is done in answer to those reasonable and just desires , which are above mentioned ; it is therefore thought meet to have it printed , that so each member of parliament , as well as others in outward authority , may be acquainted with our innocency , who ( with many others ) unjustly suffer bonds and other cruelties . this in tender love , is a warning and visitation to you all , that in this your day of tryal , you continue not oppression upon the righteous , nor afflict the meek , whom the lord regards , lest you fall as those whom god cast out before you . yet notwithstanding all this , the parliament would do nothing in our business ; then some who desired that we together with our accusers might be brought to a hearing , went to some of the members , and desired that it might be moved in the house ; but they would not ; then a reason was desired , why not ? their answer was , because our paper was not a petition , nor directed with this title ( to the right honourable the house of commons , &c. ) and except we would petition and give them that title aforementioned , we might lie where we did if we would ; and yet they confessed , that there was little of fact charged against us , and that our paper was rational , and our request therein reasonable . so because we have learned to speak truth in plainness to every man , and could not for conscience sake give flattering titles to any , least our maker should take us away ; nor petition any but him ; therefore were we denyed justice , and are made a prey upon by those who seek honour one of another , and not that , which cometh from god onely . so after we had lain about fournteen weeks in lambeth gate-house , without being examined ; then one of the members of parliament moved our business in the house , whereupon an order was made ; a true copy whereof followeth ; thursday the th of august , . ordered , that george fox and robert grassingham , who by vertue of a former order of this house , were taken into custody by the sergeant at armes attending this house , for some disturbance at harwich , be forthwith released , and set at liberty , upon bail first given to render themselues , when they shall be in that behalf required . william jessop clerk of the commons house of parliament . then shortly after this order was issued forth , the sergeant at armes sent his clerk , to demand fees , and chamber rent of us ; then i asked him before several witnesses , if we were detained onely for that ? he then said , he knew not but that we were freed , and that we might go , if we would pay his master , who had sent him to demand fifty pounds of us for fees , besides chamber rent ; for which the chamberlain of the prison told us , that the sergeant demanded ten shillings a week ; so we denyed to uphold such wicked oppression , and could not for conscience sake satisfie his covetous and unrighteous desire , but chose rather to suffer , than to come forth by yielding to such a horrid oppression ; yet were we willing to have given him to the full value of all the things we made use of in the chamber , and it being the highest room in a lofty tower , and all the windowes open , it was not fit for men to lodge in , by reason of the wind and rain beating in , until we had gotten them glassed , without any charge to the sergeant ; and we had so little of his in our chamber , that we offered this ( to wit ) that if two reasonable men would prise the things , we would pay him for them , and give him the things also ; or if he would not stand to that , then we would give him two shillings and six pence a week , for the time we had been there ; we also told our keepers , that if we denyed to give them any thing , that they could recover by law , the law was open , but they ought not according to their own law to keep us upon that account , but to tutn us out , and then take their course at law ; and so we demanded our liberty several times ; but notwithstanding all this , the sergeant detained us still . and the day before the parliament adjourned , our names in a list with other prisoners in his custody , was given in to the parliament , who notwithstanding their act of indempnity and oblivion , and their former order , for our being forthwith released and set at liberty ; they made another order , that it should be referred to the kings privy counsel , to consider of us , and to give such order touching us , as to our liberty , or to continue under constraint , as they should find consistent with the publick peace , and the mean time we are to remain in the sergeants custody ; so by this order we are still detained , and nothing is yet done by the privy council touching us . now let the reader consider , how unreasonably and contrary to law we have been used , who have been kept seventeen weeks in this prison , and never brought to any examination , besides the time that i was kept in harwich . now if the parliament had rightly weighed and considered the matter , when they ordered the thanks of the house to be given to the mayor and magistrate of harwich , for their care in that business touching us ; truly , they might have found more cause to have reproved them for their folly , than to have given them thanks . for if it had been true , that we had made some disturbance at harwich ( as it is said in the order for our release ) yet if the magistrates of harwich had rightly understood their duty , and if they had not been blinded with the mad zeal of persecution , they might have seen that it belonged to their place to have ended the matter of a disturbance , and not to have troubled a parliament with such a frivilous thing ; but it is certain , that persecutors in all ages were blind : and what a thing is this , cannot three justices of the peace ( so called ) nor a parliament determine in the matter of a disturbance ( if it had been so that we had made one , which we did not ) but that such a thing ●s that , must be turned over to the kings privy council to be considered of ? or is it because they would keep the innocent in prison , and are ashamed to bring them to an examination , having nothing justly to charge them withal ? i leave this to be answered , by that of god in all who shall read this . and seeing there have been many false reports touching the cause of our imprisonment , and also that some of our enemies have reported , that we may come out of prison if we will ; it was upon me to publish the manner of our imprisonment , and of our being kept , and by whom , that the truth of the matter may plainly be seen ; which being truly considered , people may see that it is even now as it was in the prophets dayes of old , for judgement is now turned backward , and justice standeth afar off ; truth is fallen into the streets , and equity cannot enter ; yea , truth faileth , and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey , and the lord hath seen it , and it displeaseth him , because there is no true judgement , isaiah . , . and as they did in the dayes of amos , even so do this generation ; yea , they now turn judgement into wormwood , and leave off righteousness in the earth , they hate him that rebuketh in the gate , and abhor him that speaketh uprightly ; therefore will the lord break forth like fire , amos . lambeth-house the st of the th month , . g. f. his faith touching four particulars demonstrated . i. concerning jesus christ the saviour of the world. ii. concerning justification . iii. concerning the resurrection . iv. concerning everlasting glory , and eternal misery . written for the satisfaction of some tender consciencious persons , who had heard false reports of him , and others of his judgement , touching the things above written . first , as concerning iesus christ , that was supposed to be joseph the carpenter's son , who as concerning the flesh was crucified , and put to death at jerusalem , between two thieves , upon the cross at mount calvary , i do believe he was the son of god ; and that that very body that the souldier pierced , was the very body that was prepared by the father for christ the true saviour to come in , to do the will of the father that sent him : and i do believe that by the grace of god he tasted death for every man , that as many as believe in ( and obey ) him , whose soul was made an offering for sin , might have eternal life through him , who gave his precious life a ransom for many . secondly , i do believe that no man can be iustified by the works of the law , nor by any vvork of his own ; but he or she that is iustified in the sight of god , it is freely by his grace , through faith in christ iesus , who creates such unto good vvorks , which god hath ordained , that they that are justified should walk in . now god through his free love hath made me a witness of true iustification ; and i testifie in the lord , that it is not my works that iustifie me ; but it is the lord alone , who worketh my works in me , and for me , according to his own good pleasure ; who loved me , before i loved him , and manifested his love to me in the covenant of light , whereby he drew me after himself , and gave me strength to obey and follow him in the manifestation and drawings of his love ; which whilst i did reject , i was justly condemned of the lord , and could not witness iustification in that state , although i sought it , and talked much of it , as many professors now do : but god , who is rich in mercy and love , shewed me how he had given me power and ability to receive his truth in the love of it , through which i am now saved and iustified . thirdly , touching the resurrection ; it is a mystery , which the carnal mind can never comprehend ; but they that come to witness a part in the first resurrection , which is christ iesus the light of life ; they in his light may come to perceive the mystery of the resurrection ; but if truth can be received and understood , then it will appear and be manifested to such , that i do not deny the resurrection : for i do verily believe , that the hour is coming , in which all that are in the graves , shall hear the voice of the son of god , and shall come forth ; they that have done good , unto the resurrection of life , and they that have done evil , unto the resurrection of condemnation : but to fools that say , that this body of natural flesh and bones shall be raised ; i say , that body which is sown , is not that body that shall be ; but god giveth a body as it pleaseth him , yet to every seed it s own body : now there is the seed of the serpent , and the seed of christ ; and they that can discern the body of each seed , are not the fools which are questioning how the dead shall be raised ? and with what bodies they shall come ? for they know all mankind will be found to be one of these seeds , and that every seed shall have its own body . fourthly , truly , if i did not believe that there was a glory to come , more than what is here , surely although the good presence , peace and consolation of god is in me , and his glory rests richly upon me , yet i should think my self to be in a more miserable condition than very many ; but for the glory that is set before me , which christ [ in me ] is the hope of , ( which anchors and stayes my soul ) i am content to endure the cross , and patiently to bear the affliction and sufferings of this present life , not counting them worthy ( though ever so great ) to be compared to that eternal weight of glory , which i do believe shall be revealed and given unto me , in the world to come . and as i do stedfastly believe , that there is a glorious state to be entred into after this life , by all them that shall be found in the immortal seed , wherein they shall be swallowed up of life , glory , and immortality ; so i certainly believe , that there is a woful , dreadful , horrible state to be entred into after this life , by all them that shall be found in the seed of the serpent , wherein they shall be swallowed up of perpetual torment and misery , where the worm dyeth not , but shall gnaw everlastingly , and the fire goeth not out . westminster pallace-yard gate-house , the th of the st . month , . a prisoner for the word of god , yet a free-man in the lord jesus christ ; glory to him in the highest . george fox , the younger . englands sad estate and condition lamented , in this just complaint , taken up against the greatest part of her inhabitants , because of their great abominanations , and treacherous dealings , both with god and man ; for which cause , the terrible and righteous judgements of the lord are coming upon them and the land. wherein is also contained some prophecies and exhortations . oh england , england ! the abominations of the greatest part of thy inhabitants , who can declare them ! they have reached heaven , so as they are come up before the lord , the jealous god ; and wo unto that part of thy inhabitants , who have sinned out the day of their visitation , and have wholly slighted the day of god's patience , and long forbearance , and would have none of his reproof , but have altogether rejected the same , and have made a mock at sin , and have sported themselves with their own deceivings and lusts , and have gone a whoring from under the god of their lives : wherefore thus saith the lord , the only god ; i will make such become a hissing and reproach , and my anger they shall not be able to escape , because of their provoking abominations , and treacherous dealings , both with me and man. oh england , england ! how have , and yet do , a great part of thy inhabitants rush into idolatry , and all manner of profaneness and grievous abominations , even as the horse and mighty rush into the battel ! how do they drink in iniquity , even as the ox , or parched ground , drinketh in water ! oh! what manner of lamentation shall i make for thee , my native country ! or , what manner of complaint may i take up against a great part of thine inhabitants , who have long sought , and yet seek thy ruine and destruction ! verily , their actions have declared them to be like the inhabitants of sodom ; yea , their sins have rendred them to be as bad as those of gomorrah . o they have vexed the righteous soul ; yea , and they have grieved the spirit of the lord from day to day , with their unjust conversations . they have multiplyed their transgressions , and heaped up their iniquities , till they are become as the sand on the sea-shore , without number . oh! the lord hath long striven with them ; yea , he hath also long born their iniquities , he would have gathered them to himself out of their abominations ; yea , he would oft have healed them , but they would not ; but they have stiffned their necks , and hardned their hearts against the lord and his counsel , day after day ; and have chosen their own wayes and works , even to their own hurt , and would by no means be reclaimed ; for when the lord hath reproved them ( by the light of his son in their own consciences ) and set their sins in order before their eyes , they have stopped their ears , and closed their eyes , and wilfully rebelled against the power of god , and trampled upon his witness [ the light in them ] as a thing of naught , counting it not worth the taking notice of . and when the lord hath raised up prophets , children and servants , and sent them out , commanding them to lift up their voices like trumpets , and to shew the people their transgressions , and to preach repentance and amendment of life : yea , to warn and exhort them to turn from their sins to god , and to lay before them their great abominations , and to prophesie what should come upon them , if they would not turn from the evil of their doings , oh! how have a great part of thy inhabitants scorned , and derided these ! yea , how have many of thine inhabitants beaten , whipt , stockt , stoned , and imprisoned some of these till death , for bearing their testimony for the lord , against a crooked and perverse generation , who hate such as speak uprightly , and abhor such as reprove sin in the gate ; that so it is even thus come to pass in thee , o england , that he that departeth from iniquity , maketh himself a prey to this generation of evil doers , whose hearts are set upon their lusts , idolatry , and grievous abominations ! and the lord hath beheld it , & it displeaseth him , because there is no true judgement ; for these evil doers are all gone out of the way ; yea , there is none of them that regard to do the thing that 's just and good , any further than it may be advantagious to their own corrupt designs . oh england england ! how oft hath the lord god smote thy rulers , and mighty , and proud men ! how oft hath he laid their honour in the dust ! yea , how oft hath he overturned and confounded thy mighty men , even thy men of war , with thy princes , nobles , and captains of thousands , hundreds , and fifties ! o how oft hath he overturned thy governments . and changed thy governours ! but how few of them have so regarded the out-goings of the lord in all these things , as they ought to have done ? and how few of them have rightly weighed and considered the causes for which the lord hath brought or suffered so many changes in the land ? or , have those who saw the causes that provoked the lord of hosts thus to act , lalaboured so to remove them as they ought to do ( or might ) have done ? nay , assuredly they have not ; for the lusts of this world , and the pride of life , hath blinded the minds of most ; and such who have seen what their duty was , the honour of this world , and that cursed self-interest , hath stopped and hindred most of them from doing those things which they saw they ought ( and which they had opportunity also ) to have done . oh! how have the new governours , in almost every change of late , cryed out of the tyranny and great oppression of those whom they did succeed ? and how have most of them vowed unto god , declared to , and promised the people , that they would remove the burdens and oppressions that the fore-going rulers had laid and continued upon them : but alas ! very few of them have regarded their vows , declarations and promises , , either to god or man ; but in treachery and deceit have they gone on , serving themselves and their own lusts , and not the lord , nor their generation fai●hfully : for , although many of them have been very large in promises and good words , ( whereby they have long sought to deceive the hearts of the people ) yet it is but very little that hath been done for their true liberty ; because that wicked spirit , which seeketh to make it self great by the ruine of others , hath ruled , and doth yet rule , in the hearts of many rulers ; & this is of the devourer and destroyer , who cannot forgive enemies , but cryes out of rebellion and treason , labouring to exasperate the spirits of others , that so occasions may be gotten , if possible , against them , thereby to bring them under , and keep them in bondage . oh england , england ! such is thy sad estate and condition , that several of thy rulers are , and have been , as roaring lyons , even greedy to devour ; and many of thy teachers have been , and yet are , like troops of robbers , robbing and spoyling of many of thine inhabitants . oh! how have most of thy priests temporized , and daubed with every power , as they have come up in the many changes ! how have they encreased envy , wars , and destructions , amongst thy rulers and people ! how have they one time cryed up , and prayed for the same thing , which at another time , they have cryed down , and prayed against ! oh! who shall ever believe them ? their god is their belly ; and who is it that many of them would not joyn unto , if thereby they might be upheld in pride , idleness and fulness ? how oft would they change again , and again ? and what idolatry is there , that many of them would not run into for their bellies sake ? ah poor nation ! are they not yet striving to kindle a flame within thy bowels ? hath not the lord divided them ? and are they not labouring with all their might to divide and rend thy inhabitants yet more and more ? yea , surely and it is just with the lord to suffer it to be so ; because of the greatness of their abominations , which are daily encreased . ah poor land ! how art thou overspread with wasters and spoylers ! who like caterpillars devour thy pleasant fruit. oh! the whoredoms and idolatries that are daily committed and acted in thee ; who can declare them ! oh! thy chief city , thy chief city , that bloody city ! can its abominations be parallel'd in the earth ! surely it hath exceeded sodom in wickedness . the lord is very angry with a great part of its inhabitants , and his vengeance is nigh to come upon them . wo unto you whoremongers , drunkards , gluttons , swearers , cursers , blasphemers , cheaters , and idolaters ! wo unto you , proud , wanton , and prophane , vain persons ! wo unto you , mountebanks , stage-players , bear-baiters , gamesters , and all manner of abominable workers , and you that build up towers , scaffolds , and vain heathenish representations , and such like ; and make and garnish images , to draw peoples minds after idolatry , and for your cursed gain and lusts , in pretence of honouring your king. oh! how are people drawn into gazing and wondring after these abominations ! it grieveth the righteous soul to behold such great wickedness ! oh! you wicked and abominable workers , & devourers of the creation ! the lord god will meet with you in a time when ye are little aware of him ; he 'l stain your pride , vain glory , and idolatry , and give you your portion amongst devourers ( except you speedily repent ) and your abettors , strengthners , and helpers forward of such ungodliness ( that do it knowingly ) and delighters therein , the lord will not acquit you , he 'l smite you for these things , and that right soon . oh! ye idolatrous people , do you think , that the lord god of pitty and patience , suffered your king to hide himself from his enemies in an oak , for that end , that ye might devour his creatures in making an idol of it ? is this the use you make of that which you say was god's mercy towards you ? is not this the way to turn those things , that might have been mercies to you , into plagues and judgements ? oh! how do you dayly provoke the lord against your selves , and your king ? oh! you wicked workers , how dare you make representations of destruction and ruine ? how dare you make a sport of such things ? verily , your provocations are great , wherewith you provoke the just god ; and it will be just with him to bring ruine , desolation , and destruction upon you and your city ; verily , great is the judgement that is nigh you , and your sins draw it on you apace . do you think that the lord cast out back-sliders , hypocrites , and vnfaithful men , to set up and establish idolaters and open prophane persons ? nay surely : therefore tremble ye wicked workers , and howl ye prophane idolaters , for the mighty and terrible day of the lord is near to break out upon you . thus saith the lord god , i 'le scatter , i 'le scatter , i 'le split , divide , and separate : i 'le break and dash to pieces , and none shall be able to gather , bind up , or ioyn together : for mine anger is kindled , and my jealousie shall burn till i have devoured mine enemies , saith the lord. therefore ye people of enland ( that yet live in wickedness ) who have not wholly sinned out the day of your visitation , to you i now speak ; you that feel the lord yet striving with you ; o return , return speedily unto the manifestation of his spirit , whereby he strives with you , to shew you your abominations , and to draw and lead you out of the same ; o be not still stiff-necked , but hearken to the word of the lord , which sheweth you the thoughts and intents of your hearts , and hearken and be obedient to the call thereof , that so by its power you may hasten out of babylon , both young and old , rich and poor , high and low , noble or ignoble , professor or profane , who yet are there ; for the lord's controversie is great with babylon her merchants , and inhabitants , and he will not much longer spare , but he will suddenly smite , and none shall be able to hinder his stroak ; yea , yea , he will wound and none shall be able to heal ; for the measure of her iniquities , idolatries , and whoredoms are nigh full , and the wine of her fornications , hath caused the fatts to overflow , and she is come up into remembrance before the lord , the just god , who will plague her and all her merchants and inhabitants according to their abominations , whereby they have grievously provoked him. therefore , come out of her , whilst mercy and time is offered , lest you perish with her in her judgements , which the lord is strongly and swiftly bringing upon her . oh england , england ! a day of sorrow and calamity is coming upon many of thy inhabitants , i have long been sensible of it ; even a day of such breaking , confusion and judgement , as hath not been for a long space ; for thy people have wearied out the lord with their iniquities , and grieved his holy spirit with their abominations , dayes without number . oh england , england ! the lord hath a precious and holy seed in thee ; yea , he hath a remnant , which he hath raised by his power to , and for himself , which are exceeding precious in his sight ; and these a great part of thine inhabitants have shamefully entreated , and grievously oppressed , and persecuted ; and they have patiently born the same , and have laboured in the life of innocency , and spirit of emanuel , to inform thy rulers and people in the things that are just and true , and have shewn them the wayes which have , and do displease the lord , and have exhorted and warned thy inhabitants , time after time : but notwithstanding their doctrine , lives , and conversations have manifested their innocency and uprightness of heart before god and man ; yet have many of thy rulers , priests , and people , oppressed them more and more ; some spoiling their goods , others imprisoning their bodies , in filthy holes and dungeons , till several of them have sealed their testimony for the lord with their blood , which cryeth for vengeance in the ears of the almighty , and the lord hath heard the cry thereof , and hath looked down and beheld the actings of the sons of men , and he is near to visit ; yea , the lord hath beheld , and doth behold , the snares that have been , and are laid for the innocent , who have no other helper but him alone ; and therefore they have committed their cause unto him who shall bring it to pass : yea , he hath taken notice , how several of thy rulers have combin'd together , and endeavoured to force his babes to violate his royal law , and to break his command ( who saith , swear not at all ) to uphold and obey theirs , which is contrary to his ; yea , he hath taken notice of the cruel sufferings , and great temptations of his people , who , many of them , are yet imprisoned , and both their bodies and estates threatned to be destroyed ( by some evil men ) if they will not break the royal law and commandment of christ , which he hath placed in their hearts to obey and do. oh! the lord hath seen the partiality and evil intents of several of the judges and rulers of this land , who have had power to let the innocent go free , and yet keep many of his ministers and servants ( many of which have outward estates ) prisoners in many places ; although they have no more against them , than against those whom they have turned forth , which is nothing else but for their obeying the command of christ in them , ( who this day saith unto his people , swear not at all , as he said to his disciples formerly ) and for meeting together , and speaking and praying in his name , for the edifying , comforting and building up one another in their most holy faith. the lord hath also taken notice , that when some of the rulers might relieve the innocent , and let the oppressed go free , they will not ; and then to cover themselves , they will say , they cannot act contrary to the law : but when a ruler will act that which he hath no law for , he can then plead a prerogative royal for that : and thus are the innocent lambs of christ made a prey upon . oh! the oppressions of his people , and others , are great this day in thee , o land ; and the crying of the fatherless , the widows and the needy is come up before the lord god of compassion , who will thorowly plead the cause of his people , and the poor and needy of the land. oh england , england ! i have oft heard and treasured up what the lord hath said in me , concerning thy inhabitants ; but now must i declare it in the appointed season : thus hath the lord spoken in me for a long time , concerning thy inhabitants , saying , the people are too many , the people are too many ; i will thin them , i will thin them : [ mark ] that is , he will make them fewer , for they cumber the ground . and the spirit of the lord hath oft signified unto me , for a long time , that an over-flowing scourge , yea , even an exceeding great and terrible iudgement is to come upon thee , o land ! and that many in thee shall fall and be taken away in the judgement ; and the spirit of the lord signifieth unto me , that the time draweth nigh , and that the decree of the lord is so firm , that though some of the lords children and prophets could appear so , as to stand in the gap , yet should not that alter his decree , onely in the righteousness of the lamb they shall be hid and saved from his wrath , whatever may be done to any of their bodies ; but his fierce wrath and indignation shall be poured forth upon the ungodly , and a great desolation and destruction shall there be ; for he will overturn and overturn , till he hath dis-throned and thrown down the man of sin , and exalted and established the kingdom of his dear son , over all the kingdoms of the world ; and the kingdom and dominion , and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven , shall be given to the holy people , the saints of the most high , whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom , and all dominions shall serve and obey him , who is king of saints . behold , ye despisers , and wonder ! this is the work which the lord will accomplish by his own power , though you will in no wise believe it ; but you shall feel , even both hypocrites and prophane , that the lord is able to bring to pass the thing that is in his heart . and you now think to set up and establish your idolatry , and to live in prophaness without controul ; and you who appear so hot against some of these things , and labour to stop and pull them down ( mark ) that you might set up and establish your own hypocritical will-worship in another dark dead form ; i will frustrate you both , saith the lord god , and you shall grind and waste one against another , as the upper and nether milstone ; and i will pluck out from you , and preserve a holy seed , beyond expectation ; and i will be avenged on you for that which you have already bruised , or shall yet bruise , [ mark ] and i will hurry and hurl you round with a mighty stream ; for the waters shall roar and swell : and after i have executed my vengeance upon the rebellious and treacherous dealers , i will then bring forth the remnant of my holy seed , which shall be preserved from their fury , and they shall spread over all , in my life , power , knowledge and wisdom , wherein they shall stand in dominion ; yea , and they shall rule the earth in mercy , justice , and true judgement ; and they shall forgive and love their enemies ( as they do at this day ) and do the thing that is just and good unto all , without respect of persons ; yea , they shall seek the good of the whole creation in the true love and self-denial ; for the spirit of love , meekness , healing and restoring shall mightily fill their tender bowels , and my blessings shall fill their dwelling-place , and the earth , for their sakes : these things will i accomplish by my own power , and in my own time , saith the lord god. but although these things , touching the holy remnant , shall certainly be fulfilled in their season ? yet before they be fully accomplished , great will be the tryals of many of the righteous , & there will be great judgements executed in thee , o land , by him who oft-times maketh a fruitful land barren , because of the wickedness of them that dwell therein ; and just will it be with him to deal so with thee , because of the great wickedness of the greatest part of thy inhabitants , who are departed and separated from the spirit of mercy , love , compassion and healing , and are labouring to devour , oppress , and destroy one another , and the whole creation . oh england , england ! there is also a people in thee who are come to see the great idolatry and superstition , which many are now striving to revive and set up in thee ; yea , there is a people in thee , which see and believe that the worship which is now a setting up , with the vain musick , altars , masse in english , and the foolish needless garments of the priests , and such like popist stuff , that these things are idolatry , folly and vanity , and but a mocking of god , and yet some of these people will run after this vain worship , for self-ends , flavish-fear , and to keep themselves in esteem with , or amongst those who plead for it : and others there are in thee , who instead of being sorrowful for such abomination and superstition , or reproving the practicers thereof in the solid , seasoned , savoury life and holy dread of the lord god , they write and speak scossingly of those things , even to the stirring up one of another into vain laughter , and so make a sport of others idolatry ; and this grieveth the spirit of the lord also , and doth not convince , but exasperate and harden those that are zealous for their blind worship and superstition . there are also a great number of brittle , fiery , rash , unsatisfied people , in thee , o land , who are as unstable as water ; and these rebelling against the light , not knowing the way of it , because they abide not in the path thereof , they are restless , rouling , and raging oft-times like the sea ; one time they will have a parliament , and cry out , they shall govern and heal them ; and when they have gotten them , in a short time they grow weary of them ; and then another time , they will cry out for a king , and say , he shall heal them , and make up their breaches : but these people are not long of one mind , for they are much like the athenians , who spent their time in little else but either to tell or to hear of some new thing· these people also are like mighty tydes in thy channels , o england , which one while run with violence , driving all unsetled , light , unfixed things one way , and shortly after run with as much violence the contrary way : therefore in a miserable condition are those rulers whose strength is in such a people ! and until rulers come to be settled , and fixed in him who is the rock of ages , and singly to rule in , and for him , whom the winds and the seas obey ; who maketh the waters to stand on heaps , and divideth them hither and thither , and altereth the natural course of tydes as he pleaseth ( as he hath done thine of late , to shew thee the figure of the people ) they can never be safe , neither will the people be still'd long together ; but there will be swellings , ragings , overflowings , sore breakin gs , and ruines . oh! that the foregoings rulers would have been perswaded to have received him for their teacher , who ruleth in the kingdoms of men , then should they not onely have seen , what the lord cast out others before them for , but they should have been taught how to have denyed all those things which the lord was angry with others for , and they should have received power to have abstained from the same ; but they would not hear and obey the lord , nor his prophets , and therefore were they cast out also . and therefore , oh! that the rulers that now are , would be perswaded ( whilst they have their day ) by the lord and his servants , to receive the lord jesus christ , to be their king and teacher , and then they should not onely see for what cause the lord cast them out , and others in their age , but they should be taught to deny and forsake all those things which god was angry with them , and others for , and they should receive power to do those things , which they and others before them left undone : but alas ! how few are there that will hear , regard , and obey the prince of life and his followers , and therefore is desolation coming as a mighty flood , which none shall be able to stop . now all people , in what sect or opinion soever , in whom there are any true breathings and desires after the lord , and the way of his holiness , fear not , neither be dismaid , because of the rage , that you may yet see the waters of the land in , and because of the confusion and cruelty of the people ; but stand still in that life which begetteth breathings and thirstings in you after the lord , that you may come to see and feel his salvation , and that you may be gathered into that patience , meekness , contentedness , rest , peace , and satisfaction , which many of the dear lambs and children of my father are gathered into ; wherein they ly down , and none can make them afraid , though bodies and estates be oppressed and abused . oh! stick not , stick not in your forms without power , neither flee the cross , any longer ; but wait in the true simplicity , to feel god's hand of tender love , which he reacheth sorth to , and manifesteth in you , to lead and guide your minds into his pure worship , which is in the spirit and in the truth . oh people ! this is the worship that he will set up . he will be lord and law-giver in the consciences of his people , and those that will not be content that emanuel should reign over them , he will slay them with the sword of the spirit , the words of his mouth . oh! hearken , hearken a little , and stand still , that you may hear the voice of the true shepherd in your own hearts , who calleth for truth in the inward parts ; & he will discover what lodgeth within , and he will shew you the way wherein you should walk , and he will let you see what the cross is unto , and he will teach you when you are alone in your beds , or where-ever you are ; if you will receive him who giveth you life and breath , whose gentle reproofs and instructions are the way of life . therefore you in whom the breathings and desires after the lord are , consult not with flesh and blood , neither reason against the cross , but submit to every appearance of god's power in you , which appeareth to crucifie the fleshly birth and nature ; which hath stood , and doth stand in rebellion and emnity against the pure and precious life , and requirings of the lamb of god ; that so that mind which is at enmity against god , and that nature in you , which is disobedient to his commands in spirit , may come to be crucified ; that so there may be a change inwardly felt and witnessed , by the working of the might power of christ in your inward parts ; and then the desires and breathings which are begotten in you after righteousness , they will be strengthned , and the teachings of the almighty will be truly known ; and you believing in the power , you will receive power to obey and practice whatsoever the lord shall make known unto you by his spirit , to be his will and requirings . oh people ! let the dread of the lord seize upon your spirits , in this the day of his power , wherein he is trying , sifting and winnowing the nations ; and wait to feel that life arise within you , which beareth testimony against all evil , within and without ; that so ye may become more and more acquainted with the teachings , drawings , and leadings thereof ; that thereby you may be drawn and led out of those things which have kept your souls in the death , & hindred you from enjoying the pure peace of god. and this know and consider , that all that come to witness their souls raised out of death , and brought to enjoy the peace of god , they must believe in the life of the quickning spirit , which is the second adam , the lord from heaven , who for sin , condemneth sin in the flesh , and appeareth in the inward parts of man , to work out sin and transgression , ( which hath separated from god ) and so to make clean the heart and inside of male and female . oh people ! this is the work of christ the son of god , even to make manifest and destroy the works of the devil , and so to reconcile man unto god , by the virtue of his own life , which he gave a ransom for many ; and blessed are all those that believe in the life of the son of god , and feel and know it manifested in their mortal flesh ; for they shall witness the power of it to make all things new , and so their souls will come up in the hand of god , and his peace will be received and enjoyed . oh people ! wait to know , and feel this work of christ within you ; that so you may be made able to stand in the judgement , and to endure the tryal , and that you may be hid from the wrath of the lamb , which is nigh to come upon the rebellious . oh! consider this , those that are his followers , they come thorow many tribulations , and their overcoming their enemies is by his blood , not by a talk of it , but by the virtue and power of it , sprinkled in their hearts , which washeth and maketh them white , clean , and without fault before god. oh people my bowels yearn ! my bowels yearn towards you ! whose desires in any measure , are after the lord : o that you would now return with all your hearts unto him , and obey the voice of his power in you ; then should you be made able to stand , and endure the fiery tryal which is come and coming . oh! the day hastens wherein all profession that is not grounded in the life and power of the lord jesus christ ( whatever the shew of it be ) it will be so shaken , that an utter blasting and withering shall come upon it ; and for that cause the lord doth , and will yet suffer great tryals to come , both upon the professors , and possessors of his name ; that so his children [ the possessors ] may be manifested unto all , and discerned from all that are but professors , though never so fair and seemingly covered ; for all coverings but what is of the power and spirit it self , shall be too narrow ; and all that are not covered with the spirit and power of emanuel , their shame and nakedness shall appear more and more . this is the testimony which the spirit and word of truth giveth ; therefore , he that hath an ear to hear , let him hear , before the day of his visitation be wholly past , and the things belonging to his peace he hid from his eyes : for yet a little while and the voice shall be , he that is filthy , let him be filthy still ; for the spirit of the lord shall not alwayes strive with flesh , but his plagues and indignation shall be poured out upon such as will be gathered in the day of his patience , long forbearance , and free-love ; and he or she that loveth father , mother , husband , wife , children , house , or land , liberty , honour , or any thing more than the life of the lamb , shall be counted not worthy of him , and plainly manifested so to be : read this who can ; and he that can receive it , let him : for the time draweth nigh , that these sayings must be fulfilled . printed the th . of the second month , . george fox , the younger . several epistles to friends who are gathered into the light of life . a general epistle and a tender greeting , sent unto the flock of christ , who meet together to worship the father and the son , in the spirit of truth ; to be read in the fear and wisdom of god amongst them . dear and tenderly beloved friends , and ●hildren of the most high god , who have felt and tasted of his eternal word of life , and have been acquainted with the workings and operations thereof , whereby you are begotten again unto a lively hope , and are brought to know that life , which you were alienated from , and that covenant of promise , which ye were strangers unto . oh friends ! unto you is my love in the lord jesus christ exceeding great , and for you do i oft pray to the father of life , that ye may be kept stedfast in that life , which ye have felt and tasted of , and that nothing may move you from that hope and confidence , which god hath begotten in you by the working of his mighty power : oh dear babes ! let the love of our god break and melt you into the meek tender spirit of the lamb ; and let the consideration of his mercy and grace , which to you he hath shewn , overcome you , and make you sick of love : oh how can i express his goodness , for it is beyond utterance ! yea , his loving kindness to you-ward , hath been exceeding large , who in an acceptable time hath appeared and visited you with his tender love , the light of the world ; and by his unresistable power hath he caused you to feel the day spring from on high , even the breaking forth of light in your hearts and inward parts ; yea , this did he do for you , who were as sheep without a shepherd , scattered upon the mountains , in the cloudy and dark day : oh friends ! how did his love reach unto you , when ye were enemies unto him ? how plainly did he shew unto you the evil of your wayes , which had separated you from his presence ? and how tenderly did he hold forth his hand of love , to lead you out of that which had made you miserable ? and how did he give you strength to walk when ye were lame , and inclined your hearts after that which he shewed unto you to be good ? and how did he manifest his eternal power and righteous judgement in you , against the body of sin ? and how did he beget and quicken a righteous seed in you , which cannot live but in his presence ? and how mightily hath he opened the eye of your understandings by his eternal spirit , that ye are brought to see the false wayes and worships of the world , wherein ye were once intangled ? and he hath also given you to see the way to himself , and the worship which he regards , in the spirit of truth , wherein you are come to know that which only can give satisfaction , and make you eternally free . oh let the unexpressable love of the father never be forgotten by you , my dear friends ! but all keep to , and dwell in , that eternal immortal power of an endless life , which ye have felt and tasted or ▪ and let your minds be kept to the workings and operations of the same , that so none of you may be daunted by the enemy within or without ; but all wait in the eternal light , the foundation of god , which can never be shaken , that so your minds may be girded up , and you kept upon your watch , and your ear kept open to the lord , that so when he calls ye may answer , and when he teaches , ye may observe and obey , that so your souls may live ; and that ye may see his eternal will in all conditions , and be contented therewithal , then will you feel the peace which none can take away . and friends , give all diligence to obey the word of wisdom , that ye may be known to be its children , and that ye may feel and witness your growth into the nature of the immortal seed , whose kingdom is not of this world ; that so your redemption from the earth , and all earthly things , you may know , through the blood of the unspotted lamb of god ; which blood , is the life which he gave a ransom for many , which life is manifested in your mortal bodies , that through faith in it ye may be saved . and know this my friends , henceforth you are not your own , for you are bought with a price , and you are called with an holy calling , that you might glorifie the lord in your bodies and spirits , which are the lord 's . oh my friends ! let not your delight be placed in the things of this world , for then will you be intangled ; but wait in the feeling of the pure power of the lord god , that ye may be kept and preserved thereby , that so ye that marry , may be as if you married not , and that ye that have of this world , as if ye possessed not , and that ye may be kept in the living wisdom of god , in the ordering of all things that are given unto you , that so the glory of god , and the honour of his eternal truth may be minded in all things ; and that your minds and hearts may be drawn out of all created things , and ye kept single and chast unto the lord , that so , if it were his will , that ye should be separated , either from wife , or husband ( outwardly ) or children , or houses , or lands , or any outward thing , for his name sake , that ye may be kept in that temper and frame of mind and spirit , that ye may resign up all freely without murmuring , that so ye may be known to be followers of the lamb , whithersoever he goeth ; for my babes , it is given unto you , as well to suffer for his names sake , as to believe ; and hereby shall the world know that ye are redeemed from the earth , if ye in patience and innocency give up to the will of god in all things : therefore dear hearts , wait in the power and life of god , that ye may feel your strength , and courage , and boldness for the lord increased , that when you are tryed , ye may stand in that spirit of life and meekness , which will give you eternal peace in all your sufferings and tryals ; for the lord will try you , that ye may see , and know him alone to be your strength , and that the world may know , that ye are a people saved by the almighty god ; and this know , that ye that are faithful , shall not be proved beyond your strength , for the lord will be with you in all your tryals ; and the more that you are persecuted for his name , the greater shall his power be felt in you , and the more your enemies afflict you , the greater shall be your joy , and this shall torment your enemies : so friends , let patience have its perfect work , that ye may be perfect and entire , wanting nothing ; for the lord will make up his jewels , and he will take away all the dross , and nothing shall remain , but that which will abide the tryal in the fire ; for the lord hath been loaded with the sacrifices of many , who have professed his name , but have not been subject to the leadings of his spirit , but have grieved it from day to day ; therefore will the lord god try all professions , and the chaff shall be blown away , and all false coverings shall be stript off , and men shall appear as they are ; yea , the chaff which some time seemed to joyn to the wheat , shall be driven to and fro , until the fire consume it , or until it mix it self with the mire where the swine wallow ; but god will have regard unto his seed , which is weighty : and friends , a day of calamity will come upon ●hem , who have worshipped , and do worship , 〈◊〉 ●●known god at a distance , and pretend the worship of the 〈◊〉 god ; for they shall call , but their god shall not answer , and they shall fret themselves , and fear and terror shall sieze upon them , and many shall joyn to , and fall under that , which they have called and esteemed babylonish : but there is a remnant yet to be gathered , both from among the professors and profane ; therefore dear hearts , let your circumspect walking in the life of righteousness , reach the witness of god in all consciences , and let your soberness and patience smite your enemies . and you that are strong in the lord , and in the power of his might , are able to endure much , bear ye with the weak , and encourage and strengthen the feeble , and let your tender love and care be over such , as ye feel have true breathings after the lord , though they have had little of a knowledge of the declaration of truth ; and let your words to , and before them , and all men , be seasoned with grace , that ye may minister unto the grace in the hearers . and ye that are weak , and yet have a true love begotten in you towards the lord , all wait in the feeling of the truth in your inward parts , that your minds may be wrought into subjection to the lord , through the working of his eternal power in you ; and when you are tempted , heed not the temptation , but heed the light that makes manifest the temptation , and believe in the light , and keep to it , and ye will feel the lord's presence and strength breaking forth to deliver you , and to make a way for you to escape the temptation , and if at at any time ye be overcome by the subtilty of the devil , and then the light arise in you , to make manifest the transgression , and to judge you for it , then joyn to the light , and love the judgement , and will not , but be still , until it works through , and breaks forth into victory ; and if ye see iniquity abound , then take heed that your love wax not cold ; and if ye see some fall from the truth , and turn back with the dog to the vomit , and with the swine that was washed , to the wallowing again in the mire ; and if ye see some for fear of persecution start aside , or for the love of this world depart from the faith , or turn from the holy commandment , which was delivered unto them , upon any account whatsoever , let none of these things move or trouble you , for such things will come to pass ; but blessed are they that are not offended with the light , but suffer and endure all things unto the end , for they shall be saved . but this know friends , that the lord god will try you , and you must pass through perils and tryals , not only among the open prophane ones , but also among such as have known the truth , and turn from it ; yet know my friends , that god will not try you further than he will give you strength to endure the tryal , if ye be faithful unto him . therefore watch and be sober , and wait in the life , that ye may have salt in your selves to savour withal ; and be not weary , neither faint in your minds , nor let not in distrust , but hope to the end , and be confident that god will appear and work deliverance for his people ; but if it be his will that ye must yet be further tryed , and that he will yet suffer the wicked to flourish , and spread forth themselves as a green bay-tree , and that ye must yet bear your testimony for the lord by greater sufferings : oh friends murmur not ! but hold fast your integrity , and know certainly , that whatsoever any suffer for the lord , they shall not lose their reward : therefore all friends , be valiant and strong , and bold for the truth upon earth ; and walk humbly with the lord , and wisely before your enemies , that so , ye by doing the thing that is right in the sight of god , may put to silence the foolish and ignorant , for this is the will of god. and friends , walk patiently towards all men , knowing that ye sometimes were ignorant , and foolish , and disobedient ; therefore let your pitty and patience towards them ( that be disobedient ) be known ; and wait that ye may be ready to shew them the thing that is good , and to instruct them concerning the way of righteousness ; or if you have not words given you , then let your conversation preach forth righteousness , that so haply god may give some of them repentance , and that ye may be made instruments for the bringing them unto the acknowledgement and knowledge of the truth ; and live in the vvisdom and power of god , that so your enemies may have nothing against you justly , but if they will persecute you for any thing appertaining to a good conscience , be not dismaid ; or if they falsly accuse you , and falsly swear against you , and so ye become reckoned among the transgressors by them , be not troubled , but be patient , and keep to the vvitness of god ; for thus the wicked served your master , who gave his back to the smiter , and his cheecks unto them that plucked off the hair , and the servant is not greater than his lord : so let nothing be too dear to be given up for the lord ; and bow not to any thing , but to the name of jesus , whose name is called the vvord of god , by which we must overcome and break through all this ungodliness : oh the lord keep you faithful and patient in your tryals , for much have we to pass through and to overcome , through the patience and long-suffering of the lamb. so let none be exalted above their measures , nor cast down by letting in of fears , but all dwell in the living nobility of the immortal king of righteousness , and keep in subjection to his government , and meet together oft in his name , though the sea and the heathen rage , and the people imagine vain things , and though the kings of the earth , and the rulers rise up together , and take counsel against the lamb , and his followers ; and though the rude multitude may persecute you , and the vvhore may drink some of your blood , yet be not dismaid , neither fear ye at all , for in vain do they strive , for the lamb shall get the victory ; glory to him in the highest . and so friends , keep your garments unspotted , ye , who have washed them in the blood of the lamb , and be exceeding tender toward such professors as have a tenderness in them towards god , in what sect soever they be in ; for poor creatures , they are to be pittied , and the way of truth is to be shewn unto them , and this day will bring some of them unto the principle of god in themselves , and they must come unto that , before they can find a true stay to their minds ; and them that come not to that , and keep not to that , will wither as the grass upon the house top . oh friends ! i can even rejoyce and sing for joy , notwithstanding the rage and strength of the enemies ; for i see the day that approacheth will be exceeding good for truth , and for friends that dwell in it ; for they that stand approved shall be made manifest , and the upright shall not lose , but gain through all these things ; and certainly , when our god hath tryed us to the full , he will appear for us ; and though our enemies were as the sand of the sea , and as strong as gyants , yet shall they fall as untimely fruit , and our god shall consume and weaken them by the majesty of his power , and an exceeding desolation shall come upon the earth , and a besom of destruction shall sweep away many . therefore dear hearts , be stedfast in the lord , and keep the word of his patience , and know , that not one hair of your heads shall perish , nor any thing shall be done unto any of you , but what the lord will be glorified by , and you shall receive a full and a sufficient reward for it , if ye continue faithful : so live in the power and seed of god , that ye may possess the kingdom , the eternal peace , joy and righteousness , which stands in the power : and love fervently ; oh friends , let that abound more and more one towards another , and by this shall men also know , that ye are taught of christ , if ye love one another ; and wait that ye may feel the springs of life in your selves , and feed upon that which proceeds from god , that ye may grow up in the power and life , and wisdom of god , and therein be established : so the almighty power , life , and wisdom of god , keep and preserve your for ever , amen . the lord god almighty keep you fresh and lively , meek , tender , and innocent , and fill you with every good word and work , which accompanieth peace and godliness ; if any decree unrighteous decrees , heed them not , for the decree of god shall stand , which is , to establish righteousness in the earth ; and in the power of the lord , we shall break the bonds of the ungodly , and cast their cords from us : so the spiritual weapon war withal , and stand in the faith , and hold fast the word of truth , that through it you may feel and witness your sanctification , and the birth immortal raised up over all , which is the heir of the kingdom without end , and assuredly god will do mighty things for his poples ; therefore be ye comforted and strengthened in the lord , and dwell in and keep his covenant , and answer his requirings in the light of life , and live in the retiredness , and in the wisdom of god , that your enemies may have no just occasion against you , and that ye may be preserved out of their snares ; and if they imprison you , and falsely accuse you , or spoyle your goods , or persecute you any manner of wayes , keep in patience , and freely forgive them , and suffer as lambs in the true innocency , that so your peace with the lord may be preserved in all conditions . and friends , let the dread and majesty of god fill you ; and as concerning the changing of times and governments , let not that trouble any of you , for god hath a mighty work and hand therein ; and he will yet change again , until that come up which must reign ; and in vain shall powers and armies withstand the lord , for his determined work shall come to pass ; but what is now come up , it 's just with the lord that it should be so , and he will be served by it : therefore let none murmur , nor distrust god , for god will provoke many to zeal against unrighteousness , and for righteousness , through things which are suffered now to work for a season ; yea , many whose zeal was even dead , shall revive again , and they shall see their back-slidings , and bewail them bitterly , and god shall thunder down from heaven and , break forth in a mighty noise , and his enemies shall be astonished , and the workers of iniquity confounded , and all that have not on the garment of righteousness , shall be amazed at the mighty and strange work of the lord , which shall be certainly brought to pass ; but my babes , look ye not out , but be still in the light of the lamb , and he shall fight for you : so the almighty hand which must break , and split , and divide your enemies , and take away peace from them , preserve and keep you whole , and in unity , and in peace with it self , and one with another . lambeth-house . the d. day of the th . month . i am your dear friend and brother in the kingdom and patience of christ , who am a prisoner for his testimony , and keep his word , and am made as willing to suffer bonds , or to dye for his name , as to declare and publish it amongst men : eternal living praises , and hallelujahs over all , be unto him for evermore , amen . george fox , the younger . an epistle unto all who love the lord jesus christ in sincerity , who are made partakers of the riches of his grace , and meet together to wait upon him therein , to be read in their meetings , in the fear of the lord. dear friends , whom the eternal god hath visited with his own life and power , and thereby hath called you out of the darkness of the world , into his marvellous light , and hath begotten and quickned a seed in you , unto which pertaineth the promises of life and peace , and also hath opened a good understanding in you , by the measure of his eternal spirit , and hath brought you into a feeling , and a sensibleness , and a savour of that which ministers and reacheth to ( and refresheth ) his own seed . oh friends , great is the love of the lord god unto you , and large is his eternal riches ; let not his everlasting love be forgotten by any of you , neither slight nor neglect his rich mercy ; but dear friends , dwell in the living measure of his grace , and hearken diligently unto the voice of the lamb ; so shall you be refreshed with the living presence of the father , and the fountain of life shall be enlarged unto you , whereby the babe of god shall be strengthned , and grow up in stature . and when you are met together to wait upon the lord , oh! feel his living gift in your selves , and be obedient to the motions and operations thereof , that so the presence and power of the eternal god may be felt and enjoyed in your meetings , ( and at other times ) for the bringing down , and working out , of all that which is contrary to himself in you , and for the working you into the express image of his own glory , and for the bringing you into the perfect obedience of his own life and power , that the nature of the lamb ( which takes away the sins ) ye may all grow into , that so the patience of christ may be felt and witnessed in you all , and that it may have its perfect work in you , that therein you may possess your souls ; then shall the lord enlarge your understandings , and ye shall grow into the meek quiet spirit , wherein your savour and discerning shall be encreased , and ye shall feel the gentle leadings of the invisible life , whereby satisfaction and refreshment shall be received unto the seed immortal . so dear hearts , let the living measure of the eternal father of life , and power , and wisdom , be your continual stay and habitation , that so , if any shall come among you , that are out of the true savour and feeling of the life in themselves , and shall act or speak any thing among you , that is out of the life , that ye then may not be drawn out of the savour and feeling thereby , but wait ye singly in the innocent , patient , long-suffering spirit of christ , and that will preserve you out of the fretting , and murmuring , and thoughts , and reasoning , and out of the enmity , and it will keep you settled and quiet , and in unity with god , and with all who abide in his life ; and this will reach the witness in them , who are turned from it , into the rambling unsettled state ; and if ye feel the seed burdened , then wait in the true patience , in the fervent love to the truth , and then the lord's counsel you will know , and his wisdom you will receive , and his power you will feel , whereby ( as you are obedient thereto ) the burden will be removed , and the evil will be judged , ( that caused the burden ) and the seed will be refreshed , and the unity of the faith will be known , and the weak there will be preserved , and so the peace will be witnessed , and the truth will be adorned , and its enemies shall be ashamed . oh my friends , dear is the everlasting unchangeable truth of god unto me , which he hath made known in and among us in this his day ; and dear and precious are all ye unto me , who abide in it , for therein is no schisms , nor parties , nor rents , nor envy ; for who goe into those , first goes from the simplicity of the naked truth , in which ( they that abide in it ) the patience , and forbearance , and unity is felt by them ; and such as go out of it , must feel the judgement ; but all who abides in the faith , shall not come into condemnation . so the lord god almighty of heaven and earth , preserve and keep you all in patience , in innocency , in uprightness , and in obedience , unto the living measure of his power manifested in you , amen . now friends , that which ministreth unto the seed immortal , know that ministration in your selves , for that is profitable , and that is durable , and fadeth not away ; and let the exercise of your minds be in that which is living of god , when you are met together ( and at other times ) that so ye may be kept out of that which comes to an end , in the feeling of the power of an endless life ; that so the seed of life may be raised up in you all , and ye established in it , to live in it for ever ; in which seed , the end of words is witnessed . oh friends , there cannot be another truth , or power , or saviour , preached unto you , that you are to mind , than that ye have already heard and felt , but the same you are to wait to feel an enlargement in ; therefore be valiant for the lord , and prize the worth of his unchangeable truth , and watch and be diligent , that his spirit of life and power may quicken you , and that his virtue and nourishment may be felt and lived in , whereby fruits of eternal righteousness and praises over all , may be given unto him , and that ye may be preserved fervent unto your first love in him , whose eternal day is dawned ( and broke forth ) of salvation , of life , of power , of immortality ; glory , eternal praises everlastingly , be rendred unto him , from the meek , lowly , quiet , peaceable spirit , which is risen , and arising in his babes , and tender plants , whereby he stayes , and settles , and satisfies them , even in the day of tryal , and in the day of prosperity . i am your dear and tender friend and brother in the power of god , in which i labour , for the gathering of the seed , for the bringing into , and keeping in the unity of the spirit , which is the bond of peace . george fox , the younger . to the called of god , who believe in the light of the lamb , to be read in their assemblies in the pure dread of the lord. dear children and people of the eternal god , who have known the working of his mighty power , and have been exercised in the operations of his eternal spirit , whereby he hath begotten your minds out of the world , in a great measure , and hath brought you into a feeling of his eternal presence , which filleth heaven and earth , wherein is the joy unspeakable unto them that are reconciled to god by the lord jesus christ , the immortal word : friends , you unto me are exceeding precious , and my desires and breathings to the lord for you , are exceeding strong , that ye may be preserved in the sence and feeling of the power of an endless life , and that you may be all kept in the true faith and obedience of the truth , which lives for ever ; all minding to answer its requirings in every particular , and waiting to feel its springings arising in you , whereby you may feel it quickning you up to god , that so your faith , and trust , and confidence may onely stand in him , who is able to deliver : for friends this know , the lord will assuredly try you to the uttermost , and you must come through the fire which will consume your enemies : therefore dear babes be stedfast in the lord according as he hath made manifest himself unto you , and wait and watch in that measure of his life in you , which onely is able to keep your minds and hearts out of the earth , and the things thereof , and as ye singly wait upon the lord , you will feel the growth of that birth in you , which is not of this world , which can endure the fire ; oh my friends , wait to feel your growth and translation into this birth , which doth the will of the father naturally ; this is the seed unto which the promises are ; this is the elect which obtains , and cannot be deceivid ; this is the heir of the kingdom without end ; this will god crown with victory , when the measure of it's sufferings is fulfilled ; this seed must work through all it's enemies , and work them under it's feet ; oh! wait in the eternal power to feel and witness it in the particular , and be patient till god bring forth his work outwardly ; look not out , neither be dismayed at the strange transactions of the times , but look to the lord , who onely can save by what means he pleaseth , and let the lord alone to appear as he pleaseth ; onely be you watchful , that when he appears , you may be ready for his appearance , and watch in the light which will give you clearly to see his appearance , and what he requires of you ; that so living obedience unto him may be yielded : oh friends , take heed that the things of this world draw not away any of your hearts : remember it is them that are redeemed from the earth , that must reign in , and with the lamb upon the earth : take heed that your love stands not in any thing , or things , that is of this world ; for the tryal will be great unto such : dear hearts , i know that some of you have suffered the losse of much for his name sake already ; oh faint not , neither be weary , for all your sufferings are known unto the lord ; and he will not alwayes so try you ; but he will sufficiently recompence you , if ye abide to the end : therefore watch unto prayer , and pray in the spirit , as it moves you thereunto , that you may be kept through faith unto the end of the tryal , that you may be prepared and made fit for the deliverance , which must come by an outstretched arm ; and when you are tryed deeply , either in prisons or otherwise , ( oh friends ) murmur not , but feel the lord's strength to support you , that you may not bow to the enemy , in any wise , whose day is but short , and therefore he is wroth and rages ; for such as bow to any thing , but the name of our king , verily their torment and perplextty will be exceeding miserable , when the lord shall deliver his chosen , who kept their integrity , and loved not their estates , nor lives , but gave up all for his name sake : therefore dear friends , hearken you to the voice of the lord , and keep you to the leadings of his eternal spirit , and let his dread fill you hearts . and you that feel but little sufferings and tryals , take heed of a wrong security , and of a false ease and liberty , least the day of the lord come upon you at unawares , and a violent storm unlookt for ; and you that are in deep sufferings and tryals , be not you cast down , but know that the tryal of your faith is exceeding precious , and if you keep your minds stayed upon the lord , then will you learn much in such a time , and you will feel the presence of god , and the virtue of his power , inwardly refreshing you ; and you will feel the power of his majesty giving you authority sutable to the condition you are in : so as all friends are kept in that which gives you the sence and feeling of your conditions , that principle of life will work your minds and hearts into contendedness with the will of god , which is your sanctification ; so let the bond of peace be minded in all things , for it is comely amongst brethren . and now the god of life and endless virtue and power watch over you , and minister unto every one of you , that which is sutable to your present conditions ; and the lord god almighty preserve and keep you low , humble , meek , tender , innocent , upright , faithful and valiant , ( out of the snares of the enemy ) and give you peace in all your tryals ; and let the patience of his lamb be increased in you , that you may stand unmoveable upon the rock of ages , and retain the life which quickens in your understandings : and the lord god open and keep open your discernings , that by no meanes the subtilty may beguile the similicity in this the day of tryal : eternal father unto thee i commend all thy flock , that thou father may fill them with wisdom , strength and courage , that to thy glory they may be preserved in their several places and measures ; to whom be dominion and glory everlasting for thy endless riches , for thou lord art worthy to reign over all ; even so come lord god and take thy kingdom . i the prisoner for the lord salutes all you , who loves the appearance of christ , in that love which abides for ever . george fox , the younger . lambeth house the th of the th month , . surely it was thee o lord , that gave bounds unto the sea , that the floods thereof could not overwhelm thy chosen ; thou canst let forth the winds and suffer a storm , and thou canst make a calm when thou pleasest , have thou the glory of all , thou king of saints , thou saviour of israel , thou canst do whatsoever thou pleasest ; therefore will we trust in thy name , neither will we fear what man can do unto us , because thou wilt not forsake us , but thou wilt plead our cause in the sight of our adversaries , and they shall know that thou art our god , who art able to save to the uttermost ; o lord our righteousness , we will praise thy name , for thy mercies indure for ever ; our eyes o god are unto thee , for we have no other helper ; our faith o lord standeth in thee , who canst not forget thy people ; thou hast revealed and brought up jacob , who wrestleth with thee , and prevails as a prince , therefore must the blessing come ; o lord the birth , the birth cryeth unto thee , thine own elect , which long hath been oppresse● ; ●hou canst not deny thy self , therefore have we faith and hope which maketh not ashamed ; oh , lord 〈◊〉 unsearchable are thy wayes ; thou hast even amazed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , with the depth of thy wisdom , thou on●ly wi●l have the glory of their deliverance ; and therefore 〈◊〉 thou suffered these things to come to pass : 〈…〉 righteous in all thy judgements , onely preser●e thy people ( which thou hast gathered and will gather unto thy self ) in the day of tryal , that so they may sing of thy power , and magnifie thy name in the land of the living . george fox , the younger . the breathings of true love , from the immortal seed , in the prisoner for the lord , unto his people . deear friends , brethren and sisters in the light , called to be a people , loved of god the father in the lord jesus christ , grace , love , and peace be multiplied amongst you , through the abundant manifestation of the spirit of life , proceeding from the father and the son. my children , and beloved friends , the god of all truth hath appeared unto you in the everlasting covenant of light , and life , visiting you in an acceptable day , and time ; making known unto you his eternal truth , by the revelation of his mighty power in your mortal bodies ; whereby he brought you indeed to feel and know the miserable estate and condition that ye were in ; and he hath also given you to see him upon whom help is laid , and you have received him ( who is the salvation of god ) through the drawings of his mighty power ; and you are brought to know and believe , that salvation is not to be had in another ; yea many of you have received the covenant of god , and do indeed know that your sins are washed away in the blood thereof ; for you have the witness in your selves , and the word of reconciliation is felt and known in your hearts , whereby abundance of peace and joy unspeakable is witnessed , and the kingdom is come , of which there is no end ; and some of you are placed together therein , in christ jesus ; and many others of you , the called of the lord , are travelling thitherwards through the righteous judgements of the lord , in the spiritual warfare , and in the faith and patience of the lamb. now my friends , be you stedfast in the truth of god received ; you have been a suffering people most of the time since the lord hath brought you in any measure into the obedience of his glorious truth and gospel , ( which is the power of god ) and you have abode in his fear , and singly given up to his will ; you have mightily been preserved , and you have felt the hand of a tender father upholding you , and giving you peace and content , when you have lost much of this world , and the honour and pleasures thereof for his name sake : oh friends ! he hath not been wanting unto you , he hath seen your sufferings , and hath looked upon your afflictions , and hath ministred strength proportionable thereunto , that you might not faint , nor be weary ; oh! let not his mercies and fatherly care and loving kindness be forgotten by any of you ; but let them for ever be had in remembrance ; so shall the reward be witnessed . now friends , the lord hath suffered a cloud and a mist as it were , to spread it self in these nations , whereby an evil savour is gone forth , which by fire must be taken away , in which he will yet further try his people , that they may be as gold , separated clearly from the dross , and that they may indeed be truly gathered and redeemed from the earth , and all earthly things ; and that they may wholly look unto him for deliverance , and know that he indeed is the alone refuge and hiding-place in the day of distress : therefore let all , who know the power of god , retire inward , and watch in the light of the lamb , that you may feel the movings of the life in your own vessels , and be kept in obedience to its drawings and leadings , in this day of tryal , temptation and darkness , which is spreading it self , for a moment ( mark that ) lest any of you be scattered ; for the enemies work is , an● will be , to seek to draw you from your strength and true guide , which , where he attains it , great will be the sorrow and loss of such . therefore my dearly beloved friends , who have tasted how good the lord is , in the tender bowels of christ , i beseech you , be fervent in love to god , and one towards another ; and be watchful in the light , and therein watch one over another , and strengthen , and comfort , and encourage , and build up one another , in the work and service of the lord : and if any ( through the temptation of the enemy ) hath at any time spoken or done any wrong to another , even as god in christ , forgave you , so freely forgive ye one another ; and be ye plain-hearted one to another , and ●e ye reconcil●d in that which destroys all prejudice , and purges out all hard thoughts , that so the unity may be witnessed in that love , which thinks no evil , and the one head and master over all submitted unto ; and let the gathering be unto him alone , that so the blessing may be multiplyed in and amongst you , unto the glory and praise of him that gives the encrease . and be diligent in meeting together ( whilst you may ) in the name and power of the lord , and be watchful in the measure of the life of god , that you may feel your strength renewed and encreased in the inward man : for friends , this is a day which will try every one's strength ; therefore dwell in the power , in which the true gathering is , that ye may not scatter abroad ; for he that gathers not , scatters abroad ; and he that goes from the drawings of the power , gathers not . now friends , as ye keep in the drawings and springings of the invisible life , ye will be knit together in one life , and there will be no striving who shall be greatest ; but every one will be serving the lord in their several places and measures , and one another in love ; and as this is abode in , the weak in somethings , and at sometimes , may help the strong , and the stronger in other things , may help the weak : oh friends ! be as children of one father , dwelling in innocency and love together , helping one another ; be ye indeed as members of one body , knowing that the nourishment to the several members thereof comes frome one head ; and considering that every member hath not the same office , yet of exceeding service , as each moves and acts in true love to the body , and therefore ought to be born and owned in their respective places ; and if any member would act any thing , that might hurt the body , or any part of it , either through being out of the sence , what is of service to the body , or otherwise , then if another member or members be made sensible of the same , it , or they , are bound in love to the body , to seek to hinder the same , and in tender love to restore the erring member , that so the body may be kept in true order , and every member seeking the good one of another . oh friends ! consider how the members , even of the true natural body , serve one another in love ; how does one cover another ? how does one bear , and strain , and labour for the good of each other , to help one another ! and how much more ought these things to abound in the spiritual body , of which christ is the head ? and now , that which chiefly lyes upon me at present to you is this ; that ye all , in the feeling of the pure life and power of god , may keep ; and that where there hath been any watching for advantage by any ( among you ) against one another , or strife of words , or prejudice , or striving to lord it one over another , or strangeness one towards each other , that these things be utterly laid aside and resisted ( for where these things , or any of them , take place , they eat as doth a canker , and devour the babe which should inherit the promises , and receive the blessing ) and that in tender bowels of love ye receive and embrace one another ; and that all whatsoever hath tended to the contrary in any , may dye and be forgotten , as if it had never been ; that so the birth immortal ( which hath been quenched in some ) may spring and grow in the vertue of the father , that its strong cryes , both in the male and in the female , may pierce through the clouds , and reach unto the father of life and power , and wrestle with him , until the blessing be given abundantly ; yea until he make bare his arm in the sight of his enemies , that the oppressor may cease , and the land may be swept of evil doers , that so a way may be made for the further spreading of his everlasting name and truth , and for the exalting of the kingdom of the lord jesus over all the kingdoms of the world. ah friends ! the unity , the unity ( in the spirit ) the love , the love ( from a pure heart ) is exceeding precious ; the yearning of bowels one toward each other ( in the lord ) the faith , the patience , the watching , and breathing , and groaning , and sighing , and praying , and crying in the spirit and power of emanuel , is able to astonish the heathen , and to confound armies , and powers , that withstand the kingdom of the lord christ , and to cause vengeance to come upon such as will not repent and turn to the lord , in the day of their visitation , even in the day of god's long patience and forbearance , but set and bend themselves against the lord and his anointed . now friends , here is our strength , and these are the weapons which we must war withal , against all this ungodliness that is come , and coming up : therefore every particular , hearken diligently unto the call of god , in the inward parts , and wait in the meek principle of life , that each may know and feel their own proper gift or gifts , weapon or weapons , and that every one may be kept sensible of the teachings of the captain of our salvation , that so ye may be expert in handling and using of it , or them , to the glory of him , who hath called you to war against babylon : and dear friends , if any who love the truth , be yet further oppressed , and their goods spoyled by the false prophet or beast , as many will be ; oh! be ye tender-hearted towards such , and know that the earth is the lord's , and the fulness thereof , and they that follow the lamb , are redeemed from the earth : therefore ye , who know the life , dwell in it , that your redemption from all earthly things may be witnessed , and that your bodies and estates may freely be given up to serve the lord , and one another , whilst you are suffered to enjoy them . friends , i know many of your bodies and estates have been , and yet are so given up ; but these things i speak by way of remembrance , to stir up the pure mind in all , who breath after the truth , that love unfeigned may be maintained and encreased among you , that ye may be all as children of one family , dwelling together in unity and peace , contented with the will of the father ; and be not at all discouraged or daunted , because of the strength , and malice , and cruelty that is in the adversary , but be still and patient in the faith , and stand out of all mortals , in the sence of the invisible , immortal power of god ; and in that , meet oft together , and visit one another [ whilst you may ] and be as lambs amongst wolves , and the lord our god shall appear for us , and fight against our enemies , as he fought in the dayes of old against the enemies of his seed ; yea , he shall confound our enemies , and bring them to naught , and bring liberty to his people , when he hath tryed them to the full ; be patient , and doubt not , though the day must be hot , yet it shall be but short , for the elects sake ; watch and look not out , he that will save his life shall lose it , but he that is willing to part with it , shall find it eternally . so the endless , eternal father of life , of power , of wisdom , of peace , of love , of salvation , gather , and knit , and unite you together , and preserve and keep you in the melting power and love of the lamb , that ye may be as a garden of spices , that your savour may be pleasant unto the lord , and unto all that breath after him , in this the day of tryal , amen . ah my dear friends ! you have had a large and glorious day allowed you , for the begetting and gathering of you into the precious faith , and the unity thereof ; and many precious opportunities have you had , for the assembling your selves together in the name of the lord ; and plenteously hath his eternal sweet power and life been manifested in and among you ; and as you have waited therein . oh! how have you felt the blood of the everlasting covenant , the life of jesus purging and purifying your consciences , that therein you might hold the mystery of that faith , which is your victory over the world. and now my friends , the lord our god hath seen it good , that ye may yet be tryed ; yea , you must further be tryed , your faith , your strength , your patience , must all be tryed , and that by fire ( as i said before ) that a pure people you may be ( who stand and endure the tryal ) unto the lord ; yea , a glorious people shall ye be , whose beauty and splendor shall fill the earth . therefore my dearly beloved in the lord , be watchful i beseech you , and turn in , and keep low , in the feeling of the eternal power in your own vessels , and know that every particulars strength lyeth there , and ever particular will be tryed . therefore keep to your particular strength , and be obedient to the power in all its movings , that so by it your minds may be drawn off all things that can or may change , and come to an end , and become wholly centered in the unchangeable endless life of god : then my friends , nothing can harm you . but verily , if any of your affections be centered in husbands , wives , children , or any earthen vessel , or visible thing whatsoever , so as that you cannot be willing to part with all , if it be required at your hands , then may your sufferings be great and dangerous unto you . therefore i beseech you be followers of the invisible life of jesus , in all its appearances anddrawings , that so by it you may be taught how to use all visible changeable things unto the glory of the lord , whilst you are permitted to enjoy them . and that you may be made willing to give up , and to part with all ; ye● , even with your lives also , if you be called thereunto , for the tryal of your faith ( or that your enemies thereby may fill up the measure of their iniquity , and that judgement may come upon them to the full . ) and whilst you have outward liberty , for the keeping your meetings together , be diligent therein ( as i said before ) and when any of you come to be hindred from such opportunities as you have enjoyed , oh! then be patient , and wait upon the lord for strength ; and if in any place it should come to pass , that but two or three of you could come together , neglect not that ; for if in the pure fear and love of god you be kept , it will be profitable & comfortable unto you . and dear friends , you who are but weak in the truth , to you i now speak ; take heed of looking out at any of us , whom the lord god hath drawn forth by his own power and love , to declare his living eternal truth , unto you ; i say , look not out at us ( as for strength or teaching ) but look to the endless life in your selves , which we have directed you unto , in which your strength and satisfactory teaching is ; for we may be removed far from you ( as to the outward ) but the life and power , by which you and we stand , abideth with and in you ; and we ( as to the outward ) may be bruised , broken , and slain , for the testimony of jesus , and the word of god , which we hold ; but the life and spirit of god and the lamb , dwelleth for ever with you that believe in it ; and if ye crucifie it not to your selves , there is none that can slay it . and while you have us , or any of us , among you , i exhort and warn you all , and that in the name and authority of the lord , that ye look not upon , or think of any of us , above what we are , lest thereby you should hurt your selves ( or any of us , ) but according as god hath distributed unto us of his heavenly treasure , even so know us , and feel us , and receive us in the lord , and know no man after the flesh , neither admire any thing but the pure life of god , and the birth born of him ; and know , that what of god's treasure we have in our earthen vessels , we have received it from the lord , that none might glory or boast ( in what they have ) over another . and what we have received , it is partly for your sakes , that we might impart of the same unto you , as good stewards of the manifold grace of god , and although we are become the lord's free-men , through the work of his eternal power and spirit , yet are we your servants in christ , and so let us be accounted among you , for that is our place and duty , even to serve you in the lord , and to stand given up , to spend and be spent for you ; and if we should not so walk among you in all humility of mind , i know the lord would soon withdraw his glorious power and presence from us , and then what should we be more than others , nay , how much less and weaker ? so dear friends , keep in the pure fear , and live in the true favour , that ye may have a true sensible feeling one of another in your present conditions ; and that ye may be able to strengthen one another in the lord. and if at any time , any be felt not to be in so clear and living a condition as they formerly have been in ; oh! take heed how you judge of those things , and beware of prejudice , or of a spirit that would rejoyce , because advantages at such a time may easily be taken , for that is accursed in the sight of god ; but keep ye in the dread and wisdom of the lord : and they that reprove , or exhort , such as are come to loss in their conditions , let it be in that spirit which can bear and suffer all things ( that are to be born ) for the seeds sake , in the true patience and meekness . oh friends ! this is the restoring , healing , strengthening , consolating spirit , which is of great price with the lord , and in this live , and you will feel the blessing , the peace , and mercy upon the israel of god , and you will be meet helps one to another . and now dear friends and babes , you who watch for peace and unity in righteousness , and can bear and endure all things ( that may be born ) for the elects sake , my life is bound up with you in the overcomings of god's love ; and i am refreshed in you , and i partake of your peace and joy , and meet and kiss you in the meek spirit , and rejoyce with you in the work of the lord : my friends , go on in the power of god , and build up one another in the living faith , and wait therein together , that in the eternal power ye may feel dominion over all the cruelty of the enemy ; for it 's the faith in the power that must break through all this wickedness , and bring down all this ungodliness , that is spreading it self as if there were no end of it : but friends , as in the dread of the lord ye keep , you will see the power of darkness vanish away , and they that act in it shall be chained under , though for a moment they have liberty , for the tryal of our faith : but verily in the power of the lord god , i can truly rejoyce over all these things , because i see the lord's presence and loving kindness in a wonderful manner amongst those that truly wait upon him , and trust alone in him for deliverance , even in the time of their tryals ; and because he hath given me stedfastly to believe , that he will bring deliverance for his people , and set them over all the powers of the earth by his own arm : therefore let none murmur , not think that the lord is slack concerning his appearing for his people , but let every one that knows the truth , in that patiently wait , and endure whatsoever the lord suffers the wicked to do unto you in the day of his long patience and forbearance , which he in compassion grants unto them , that they might come to repentance and amendment of life , which if they wholly slight , and will not be gathered in their day , he hath power enough ( and will execute it ) to destroy them , and to deliver his people , that trust in him . so in the pure life , and power , and vertue of the father be ye stayed , and quiet in your minds , and wait to receive your daily bread and water of life from him , that ye may grow up in the eternal , and be established for ever , in the power of an endless life : oh friends , if any look out in this day , they will let in weakness ; and whosoever feels weakness , let them abide and believe in that which makes them sensible of their weakness , and they will gather strength , and be able to stand . and as for you , my dearly beloved friends , who are come to witness your redemption from the earth by the blood of the covenant , and are now following of the lamb whithersoever he goeth , leads , draws , or commands you ; i know you are come to the anointing , and have received it , and that abides in you , and you into it are comprehended ; so that you need not any man to teach you , but as the same anointing that abideth in you doth teach you , for that is true , and there is no lye of it ; and that teacheth you of all things ( which are suitable to your conditions ) and it sheweth you things to come , and with it you are able to try spirits and doctrines , and even as it hath taught you , ye shall abide in him , the lord , that spirit . and where this is felt and witnessed , there is liberty ; and sitting and waiting in this , you are fed with the bread from above ( which giveth life ) and refreshed with the springs from beneath ( which makes its way through the rocks and mountains to the pleasant valleys ) and you that are come to this seat , you are able to judge of things within and without ; and although you have not need to be taught by letters , yet i know , you that are come to this state , can bear the word of exhortation to be sounded among you , that so it may reach unto them to whom it is of service , for the stirring up of their pure minds , that so the life and power immortal , may in the freshness and purity of it be felt in and amongst all the flock , and that in the sweetness and vertue thereof you all may be kept and preserved , in pure unity and peace with god , and one with another . so the blessing and mercy of the almighty , rest and abide for ever upon you all , who delight in the truth which is eternal . and friends , take heed how you receive reports , and report them again , for there is a great danger in those things , and there is and hath been very much wrong among people upon that account , for many thereby are begotten into strange lying wonders , and some into questionings and fears in their minds , and some into false joys and foolish expectations , and some into prejudice one against another , because false reports have been received and reported again . therefore that you may be clear of these things , be you very mindful , watchful , and careful , that you report not any thing but as you have a certain ground for the truth of it ; and as you may see a service in speaking thereof , or else you had better be silent to those things , and let them dye , that so truth , unity , and peace may be lived in , and abound amongst you in all things . london , the th of the th month. . i am your endeared friend and brother , in the bowels of christ , whose life is freely given up to answer the will and requirings of the father ; travelling for unity , and peace , and righteousness amongst men , where its wanting ; and greatly rejoycing with all those in whom it abounds , and is felt and witnessed . george fox , the younger . behold ! how good and how pleasant a thing it is , for brethren to dwell together in unity . to the tribulated flock of crhist , in bonds or elsewhere , salutation . ah ! my indeared tribulated brethren , sisters and friends , both in prison and out of prison , sufferers in body , estates or otherwise , for the holy powerful eternal truth as it is in jesus ; o blessed are you ye lambs of my father's fold , who are faithful to him in the testimony he hath given you to bear ; your reward is great , which in no wise shall fail : dear babes drink in the life abundantly which emanuel hath placed in you , and feed at the table that my father hath richly spread for you with food , sutable for you , in your several growths . oh! the word , the word of eternal life is appointed for your food , feel it in your selves and go no more out ; oh! how strong are the drawings thereof , and how pleasant is the virtue of it ? how are they overcome with the love of it , that abide therein , oh! my brethren and friends ; our strength , our safety , our peace and satisfaction is this , therefore let it for ever be the habitation of your delight . o this day is glorious to all that stand given up in the fathers will , whose heatts and minds are drawn and redeemed out of all those things that perish with the using . oh! ye babes , how strongly do i feel you in the power of love , who are retired out of all fading , changeable , ending things , into the eternal , invisible , unchangeable endless life of righteousness ; verily when i think upon you , and behold you in your habitation , i am even raised with joy and love ; oh you that keep your garments pure and clean in the life of the unspotted undefiled lamb , how are my tender bowels refreshed in you ? verily i cannot express the love that is in me to you ye lambs of my maker ; hold fast , hold fast the word of his patience , it shall crown you , it shall crown you in the end , by it shall you overcome through faith , yea by it your enemies shall be brought under you , and in it shall you be exalted over your oppressors . oh! who can declare the glory of the lord , as it shall be manifested in this age ? for verily he will work wonders in the earth , and in the heavens , till he hath brought to pass the thing that is in his heart ; in vain do all the potsheards of the earth strive against the former and upholder of all things , for he will exalt his son and his righteous kingdom , and establish it in righteousness over all the kingdoms of the world , and they must bow thereunto . therefore my indeared ones , be still in the light and life of the lamb , that you may behold the going forth of the lord in his glorious power in this day , wherein he is sifting , winowing , purging , and trying , that nothing but the wheat , and the gold may be left : oh babes , dwell in love and peace together , in the powerful anointing which the father hath poured forth upon you as a full gift , and placed in you as a true teacher and a leader , and let all keep to the holy drawings thereof , and answer the requiring of the same . o! blessed are you that bear the testimony therein ; and quench not the springs and arising of it , neither go without it , but simply and innocently obey its pure leadings ; and as you are kept in this , if any are not able to bear you , you will be able to bear them , for you will have nothing in your precious eye and mind , but nakedly and simply the honour and glory of your tender father , who will cause bowels of love to open in you one towards another , in the merciful , forgiving , forbearing , healing spirit , which will fill your precious immortal souls , whereby you will be able to gather and allure others into the same . oh! my friends dwell out of all mortals , in the immortal power and love of the father , and know the birth that inherits the blessing , and abides in covenant with god , which breaks and disanuls death's covenant and brings over death and its power into the tryal and dominion of the lamb. o ye innocent babes and plants , who in prisons , holes and dungeons are cast , because you dare not grieve the spirit of the lord your god in obeying man's unrighteous decrees , my father's love is exceeding great to you ; your righteous iust cause he will fully plead , therefore leave it wholly to him , and in the overcomings of his power and tender love solace your selves , and quietly lie down in his will , till he bring you forth in his own dominion : oh! you are precious unto me , who cannot defile your testimony for any outward enjoyment ; my bowels , my bowels are filled with the streams of love , and life , and compassion , which flow forth to you ; o my prayers , groanings , breathings , reach unto the god of life both day and night for you ; oh my beloved ones , watch , watch one over another in tender bowels , and bear the weak and feeble in your arms and bosom of love , and let mercy and peace fill your habitations , and god shall work your deliverance for you in his appointed time . o friends you are witnesses of that truth , which must spread over all the world , and never be extinguished more ; but to the brightness of its rising many shall come : and all of what degree soever that set themselves against it shall fall before it , yea , they shall not prosper , the lord hath spoken it : onely remember he will thorowly try his gold that it may be manifested unto all ; so the precious life , power , peace and virtue of my fathers ' , be multiplyed in and among you , till you all come to the stature of the fulness of christ in god eternal . amen . from westminster palace yard , gate-house , the d of the st . month , . your dear , tender , and loving brother , in the humble melted broken contrite spirit of christ , who am filled with his streaming consolating virtue , joy , peace , love , and everlasting refreshment . george fox , the younger . touching compelling engagements ; this in the truth i say . a fearful , hard , unbelieving heart in man , was the ground from whence those engagements arose ▪ they that stand & live in that ground , cannot trust in the lord but make flesh their arm ; and therefore where such have power , they seek to force and compell men to swear , vow , and promise , and engage to be true to them , and to seek to preserve them ; but whosoever do righteousness , and rule therein , god is their trust , and his arm is their strength ; and such are a dread and a terror to evil doers , and a praise to them that do well , and their hearts are inclined by the lord to such rulers . now he that desires to turn a fearful hard unbelieving heart , out of that state , he must seek to turn it from the false refuge , strength and security of it , made to preserve it self in that state ; and so direct it to that which must break it , and its confidence in its false refuge : also if a man puts trust and confidence in bulwarks of earth , that cannot preserve him , and labour to fortifie himself therein by building them higher , and believes that if he gets them higher , he shall be safe ( mark ) he that stands by , and knows certainly that such a one is deceived , and doth see that he cannot be safe in that place , and yet for self ends upon any account whatsoever , shall help the deceived man to build his bulwark higher , that man doth not do well in so doing , he doth not as he would be done unto . are not the children of light engaged , and bound to god in the bond of love , to resist every thing that is evil , and to do unto all men as they would they should do to them , yea to serve and obey the lord in all things ; is not this our covenant with god ; therefore can we consent to any evil custom of man without breaking covenant with god ; and have we not seen , counted , and declared this to be an evil custome that hath been upheld among the sons of men , ( mark ) for them that get upper most in the many changings , still to force and compel others to engage to them ; oh! consider this seriously . but what if the ruler will take that for an engagement to him that my principles leads me unto , whether he command me to it or not , may not i lawfully give him that , if that will save me from suffering , and if it be so , that he will persecute me , if i do not so engage to him ? it is not lawful for thee to do evil that good may come thereof ( mark ) the persecuter is not of god , but of the wicked one , and he is not to be bowed unto ; whatever thou suffer , thou oughtest not to be compelled to engage to any ; that compelling custom is evil , and is to be resisted in the lambs power ( mark ) although i dare not but serve the lord god according to the principle of his truth in me , yet if any man should come and say thus unto me , if thou wilt not promise and engage unto me , that thou wilt serve and obey the lord thy god , i will persecute thee , but if thou wilt , i will not ; i say , though i knew he had power to persecute , and execute the same , yet i dare not engage or make such a promise to him , whatever he were . first , because i know the lord requires no such thing at my hand . secondly , because if i did , i should in so doing , bowe and yield to the compelling power of a persecuting spirit , which is not of christ , but against him ; and this will dishonour and offend the holy god , and bring me into sore bondage also : therefore i dare not for conscience sake , yield to that evil custom of engaging to man , which hath been upheld in the compelling persecuting power , among the sons of men. from one that truly seeks the good of the whole creation , and can freely give unto cesar the things that are cesar's , but i must give unto god the things that are gods ; who also desires that the authority and honour of truth , may be preserved , whatever become of me . george fox , the younger . none can hinder the determined will of god. what my father hath determined for these men to do , no man can stopt it ; oh! that patienec might be abode in by all that know his name , and his will submitted unto by them that he hath called . o be still , strive not , but drink the cup which my father suffereth to be given ; i know it will be bitter to some : but whosoever striveth against it shall come to loss and shame ; for the lord will yet further try his people , till it be fully and clearly manifest who are the approved in his sight : this he will certainly do ; therefore let not the present calm beget a wrong security in any , for loe the day hastens , and comes swiftly , that another storm must arise ; and in vain will it be to flie to the tall cedars and strong oakes for shelter ; for nothing but the name of the lord can preserve in that day . written the beginning of the th . month , ( ) george fox , the younger . concerning the departure of dear george fox , the younger ; or words spoken by him a little before he was taken out of the body . this may inform friends , that as formerly he was a man full of the power of the lord , whose living presence dayly did accompany him ; so also in the last visitation of his outward man , even till the laying down thereof , it was largely continued to and with him ; for he lay ( although weak in body ) as a man dayly renewing his strength in the lord even to the last , whose living powerful presence was seen and felt to be very powerfully present with him ; yea he was so fill'd with the power and presence of the lord of life , that he said ( although very weak as aforesaid ) that he would even shout and sing for ioy of heart ; and so did exhort friends to keep in that vnity which he had so long travailed for : and then with much fervency of spirit he prayed , and exhorted all friends , to keep their garments unspotted of the world , because great was the day of tryal that was at hand ; recommending all friends to the lord , with his dear love to all the faithful lambs and babes of the lord , and taking his leave of friends fell a sleep in perfect peace with the lord , being in perfect memory to the last . this testimony was received from a friend , who was with him in the time of the weakness of his outward man , even untill the laying down thereof . this is for you who are called common-wealths men , both in the army and parliament , to read ▪ wherein are many plain and true things declared unto you ( which are suitable to your present estate and condition ) that ye may consider them in the same , that they are sent unto you , in which is in truth and in sincerity and singleness and uprightness of heart , in that love which thinks no evil ; even in obedienae unto the spirit of the lord which also saith , try all things , and hold fast that which is good . friends , in several of you , i know there hath stirred , and doth oft stir a pure true living principle of god , which hath begot ( and doth beget ) true honest and upright desires and breathings in you after righteousness , true liberty and freedom ( and loathings of oppression and tyranny ) and it hath been in the hearts of some of you , and much upon you to break down oppression and tyranny , and to remove oppressors , and to make void all such laws , as make provision for tyranny and oppression , whereby the oppressors have long been strengthened in their oppressing the people of this nation ; and some of you have felt the weight and burden of oppression and tyranny ( under which the innocent suffer ) and it hath been much in your hearts to set up righteous laws , whereby all people might have equity and justice done to them and for them , by such as you have had thoughts to put in authority , which would do just and equal things between man and man without respect to persons . these things the lords witness ( in you ) hath shewed unto you , that they ought to be done by you , and some of you have breathed and desired much to do these things , when ye have owned the pure movings and stirrings of the measure of the life and power god ( in you ) which hath stirred and moved ( in you ) towards righteousness , equity , mercy and justice ; but hitherto ye have been much hindred in this work . and truly friends , there are many things yet remaining in and among you ( mark that ) which hinder and stop you in this work of true reformation , and they will stop you therein ( mark that ) so long as they bear rule in and among you , and are consented to ( and regarded ) by you ; many of those things are as followeth . first , there are many that pretend that they are of you ( mark that ) which have joyned unto you in some outward appearance , but it is more for fear of loosing their places , and the riches and honour of this world , than for to the cause of equity , justice and true liberty ; and these are in the priests nature , who for covetousness and self ends , can change with the times and governments , and pretend they are for them ( so long as they will hold them up ) and such are neither true to god nor their country , for they can lay down their religion which they have pretended to stand for , and deny the cause of their country , if it will make most for their own gain , and then say it was the lords doing , and they are satisfied in it , though it be quite contrary to that , which they have formerly contended for : and of this sort there are many among you , which stop the work you ought to do . and several of you also , in whom the truth of god hath stirred against oppression and tyranny , verily your minds are yet so much in your commissions and places , and in the love and honour and wisdom of this world , that this stops you in the work ye ought to do . and some of you have so many relations ( mark that ) that have such a great gain in those very things , which greatly oppresse the people of this nation ; and also some of your selves are concerned in these things ; that so ye cannot tell how to take away oppression wholly , without taking away their and your own gain ; and these things being looked at by you , they exceedingly stop you in the work you ought to do , because herein private self ends , and respect to persons by you are preferred before the general good of all . now friends , whilst your minds , and thoughts , and hearts run into or after any of these things ; they ( with the enemy of your souls ) will not suffer you to do that which is equal , no further ( to be sure ) then it will stand safe for the upholding and preferring of yout relations , and your own private particular self ends . therefore all wait in that which is pure and living of god in you , which will shew you all deceit , if ye keep to it , that so by it your minds may be redeemed out of all self and respect to persons , that so all particular private self ends and respects to persons , may be denyed and utterly trampled upon by you , and that the general good and freedom of all , without respect of persons may be minded and acted for by you , that so ye may serve the lord god and your generation in singleness and uprightness of heart , and then the lord will honour you , and he will be your sufficient reward . verily it is a mighty thing , and it is highly to be prized by you , especially ye of the army , that ever the lord god should make use of you again , and again put an opportunity into your hands to do that which you formerly promised and vowed unto the lord ( and your nation ) to do , seeing ye so slighted ( mark that ) the former opportunities , which the lord god gave you , and acted so treacherously and deceitfully as ye did in your back-slidings ; and if ye should slight this opportunity also , do not expect another ( be not deceived god will not be mocked ) therefore consider these things and mind to answer the lords love yet continued unto you . but if ye look out at or suffer your minds to run into ( mark ) the greatness of your places , or after your gain , or the honour of the world , or if ye look out at love or hatred of your friends or known enemies , or at any particular self end whatsoever ; these things will strangle the principle of god in you , which moves to do that which is equal and just unto all , and then the tender seed in you , which feels the weight and burden of oppression , that will be murdered , and then the deadness and hardness of heart will come upon you more and more , and ye will settle deeper and deeper in the death ; and verily if ye should do thus , ye would become even as sodom and gomorah unto the lord , and he would overturn you with a great and mighty destruction ( as he did them ) therefore remember you have been warned . so look at none of these things , but look ye to the lord god , and mind the movings of his life ( in you ) and be obedient thereto , and as oppression and tiranny and injustice is made manifest unto you ( by the light of the lord in you ) in the power of the lord committed unto you , break it down and overturn it , and set up and establish righteous laws , equity , mercy , and justice and true liberty in its place , and then you nee● not fear what man can do unto you , for the lord will then be your preserver . so the lord god hath once more tryed you ; now if you love father , mother , wife , children , houses , lands , commissions , honours of the world , or any particular self end whatsoever , more then the work of the lord ; or if ye prefer any of them so as thereby to stop the lords work , or if you do the lords work negligently ( which he hath once more put into your hands ) verily ye shall not be counted worthy to be the lords workmen . so remember saul ( who was made an example that others might take warning ) who slew but part ( of that which was to be distroyed ) and saved a part alive , and therein he was stubborn and disobedient ; now if ye should destroy but part of the trranny and oppression , which is utterly to be distroyed ( mark that ) and preserve part of it , take heed lest the lord rent you from your places for your stubborness and disobedience , as he rent saul from his kingdom for his . therefore awake , awake , and wait in the light , to feel the lord's strength , that therein your zeal and courage for him may be renewed and linger not in things as ye have done , but dwell in the power of the lord ( ye who have felt it , and do not abuse it or resist it any longer ) and in his power act for the freedom and just liberty of all his creatures , & this will bring honour unto the lord , that so ye in whose hearts there is a singleness , an honesty , an uprightness unto the lord , ( may keep your selves from being defiled with the corruptness of others ) and so be preserved in his wisdom and power , in the breakin gs , overturnings , or purging , ●nd separating , that yet must be in the nation , and friends in the army , when will the spirit of ●●●hteousness and equity be clearly manifested among you , to rule you thus , that so long as ye bear an outward sword it might be onely turned against evil doers , and not for the upholding any oppression whatsoever , but for the breaking down of all oppression , and tyranny wheresoever it is found , and for keeping the outward peace , whilst equal and just laws be established , whereby the just liberties , and outward freedom of the nation , might be enjoyed ; and not to make a trade of using your swords , to enrich your selves by them , by heaping up outward riches , and to feed your lusts ; but whilst ye use your swords , to be content with such wages as might but even find you things necessary , and convenient for your places . now if this spirit lead you , then self denyal will be manifested in you indeed , and they that called you a mercenary army , then should be ashamed ; for if tyranny and oppression were destroyed , and equity , true outward liberty and freedom were established , and the enemies of it so brought to nought , that so there were no need of you , this spirit if it ruled you would make you as freely willing then , to lay down your places and swords , as ever any of you were made free to take them up , and then to fall upon improveing the creation in the fear and wisdom of the lord , and to be content to enjoy an equal proportion and share of the liberty ( with your fellow creatures ) which you have fought for ; and if it were thus , then ye might truly be called the common-wealths men , or servants . but if ye carry a sword & expect and desire still to carry or uphold a sword to make a trade of ( mark that ) then i know you will not utterly bring down oppressors and oppression , and firmly establish outward liberty though ye could , lest your trade should fall : now if you do not act singly for your nations good ( stand out of all self ends whatsoever ) but still continue making a trade of using your swords , then you cannot truly be called the common-wealths servants , but such as serve your selves , and such as are their masters , though you receive wages of them . and friends , there are many things done lately in the name of the keepers of the liberty of england ; now ( mark ) ye should first make england a free nation , and set it at liberty from all its oppression and bondage that it is in ( befo●e ye take such a name upon you ) and then in the fear and wisdom of the lord , see to preserve and keep its liberty , and then ye might truly be called the keepers of the liberty of england . but if ye do not first set it at liberty and then keep it , and ye be called the keepers of the liberty of it , ye will be but like unto those which had a name that they lived , and yet were dead ; and like the false christians who are puffed up with a name , but are out of the nature which belongs to the name . this from me who have a tender love going forth unto all , both in parliament , army , and others , who have any true breathings or desires ( in them ) after righteousness , truth , equity , mercy , justice , and true judgement ( which i wait to see set up and establi●hed ; ) and i honour the higher power , and am subject thereunto , where ever , or in whomsoever it doth appear ; which power hath made me a watchman unto you to warn you to watch for your souls and for peace ; and in obeying this power , i am clear of , and free from the blood of all men . given forth by geo. fox , the younger . the ear that heareth the reproof of life abideth among the wise . he that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul : but he that heareth reproof getteth understanding . friends , the reason why this comes last , is , because a copy of it could not be obtained till such time as the foregoing writings were printed ; otherwise it had come in order with the rest of his books . the end . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a -e * since the writing of this before it could be delivered , we have seen a declaration put forth by thee , by which in part this is answered , which as this and the rest comes to be fulfilled , the lord will bless & prosper thee . notes for div a -e † this abomination have i beheld several times out of my prison window . notes for div a -e * so that none shall be able in the day of the lord to plead , or say , lord because our first parents fell from thee , and became dead unto thee , and so were driven out from thy presence , and we being brought forth in this unreconciled state , there was no way left unto us to approach or come near unto thee , to lay hold of the grace , that thou offerest unto all , by reason of thine anger ; i say none shall be able thus to plead : for christ the fathers love hath consecrated a way , by his freely giving up himself a propitiatory sacrifice which appeaseth god , and therefore it is said , that god was in christ reconciling the world to himself , not imputing sin unto them . so he that perisheth it shall be for his own sins , not for his parents ▪ but because he believed not in christ , who hath freely made a way for him to come unto god , and by the power of his life visiting him , puts him in a capacity to receive the free grace , which bringeth salvation , which to all men hath appeared . notes for div a -e * as for the government and ministry of the town of harwich , their streets like sodom , have shewn its effects : and the angels and lot might as justly have been charged with making a disturbance in sodom , when the ungodly thronged lot's door , as rg . and i in harwich , as the sober reader may see : also , when i was in prison there , i have seen out at the window , many go staggering with drunkenness in the street , and both in the day and in the night , they have come to the gate and cursed me bitterly , and stammered our oaths by reason of drunkennes , and then cryed , — god save king charles , — saying , — he would hang the quakers , and the anabaptists ; and these have gone unpunished : but when sober people have come to the gate to hear the truth declared , them the goalors company hath thrown water upon , and the mayor hath come and commanded them to depart from the window , and the goalor hath come and shut it up , and threatned me . a warning of love from the bowels of life, to the several generations of professors of this age that they may awaken and turn towards the life, to be truly cleansed & saved by its powerful living virtue, before the storm of wrath break forth and the over-flowing scourge overtake them, which will sweep away the strongest and most wel-built refuge of lies, and sink those souls (even into the pit of misery) which are there found, when the storm comes : held forth in four propositions, assertions, or considerations concerning man in his lost estate, and his recovery out of it. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) a warning of love from the bowels of life, to the several generations of professors of this age that they may awaken and turn towards the life, to be truly cleansed & saved by its powerful living virtue, before the storm of wrath break forth and the over-flowing scourge overtake them, which will sweep away the strongest and most wel-built refuge of lies, and sink those souls (even into the pit of misery) which are there found, when the storm comes : held forth in four propositions, assertions, or considerations concerning man in his lost estate, and his recovery out of it. penington, isaac, - . p. printed for robert wilson ..., [london : ] caption title. imprint from colophon. signed: isaac pennington the younger. reproduction of original in huntington library. eng fall of man. a r (wing p ). civilwar no a warning of love, from the bowels of life, to the several generations of professors of this age, that they may awaken and turn towards the penington, isaac b the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the b category of texts with fewer than defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - john latta sampled and proofread - john latta text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a warning of love from the bowels of life , to the several generations of professors of this age , that they may awaken and turn towards the life , to be truly cleansed & saved by its powerful living virtue , before the storm of wrath break forth and theover-flowing scourge overtake them , which will sweep away the strongest and most wel-built refuge of lies , and sink those souls ( even into the pit of misery ) which are there found , when the storm comes . held forth in four propositions , assertions , or considerations concerning man in his lost estate , and his recovery out of it . propos. . that man is fallen from god . there is an everlasting , infinite , pure fountain and well-spring of life , from whence all creatures came ; from whence their life , being , motion , vertue and rest flows , in which they all have a place and standing according to their nature , estate , temperature and course of operation in his eternal counsel , who made all , disposeth of all , ruleth in and over all eternally : whose everlasting kingdom and dominion ( which was before all , and will be after all ) cannot be excluded by any power or dominion which ariseth after it ; but onely so far as it self hath pleased it hath given way to that power of darkness , which is contrary to it : which how it sprang up , what it hath to do , and how it is to vanish , is not for man's comprehension to fathom . in this spring of life , man had an especial place and standing . the lord had created and placed him supreme , under himself , over the works of his hands , gave him his kingdom here on earth under him , gave him his image to rule in , even a sufficient measure of that eternal wisdom in which he formed him , to which he was to be subject himself , and by which he was to reign over and order all with delight , joy , and comfort in himself , to the praise and glory of him who formed all , and had given him the dominion over all . here was the sweet estate , the sweet peace , the sweet liberty , the sweet unity of all , all being kept and preserved in that life , vertue , wisdom , goodness , power and love wherein they were made , the creatures naturally becoming subject to , serving and obeying man ( man using them and ruling over them not in the tyranny , not in the lust , not in the vanity , not in the excess ; but in the righteousness , in the love , in the meekness , in the moderation , in the divine wisdom , in the pure power and virtue of the life ) man likewise naturally vailing to his maker , walking in his light , living in his life , shining in his beauty , conquering and triumphing ( over all that might assault ) in his strength , and continuing perfect and streight before him in purity and cleanness of heart , in that sweet , pretious , preserving fear , which naturally springs up in the heart of the creature ( not degenerated ) towards his creator and preserver . now , what could man want , having the spring of life so near him ? what could he desire in the purity , in the life , which the father of life could have with-held from him ? had he asked the spirit , could the father have denied him ? and had he stood still a while in the life , out of the lust , could he have forborn asking the spirit ? had he not so suddenly been tempted to the tree of knowledg , surely he had eaten of the tree of life , and had lived for ever . but man being in honour , lodged not one night , ( he fel the first night , read me who can ) but became like the beasts that perish . he lost the divine image , and then had at best but the natural : but that , depending upon the divine , the beauty thereof was lost too . he lost the eternal wisdom , he lost the spring , he lost the godhead , he lost that which was to reign over the creatures , and then he became but as the creatures , nay worse then the creatures . what he henceforth knows of god ( as he stands in the degeneration ) he knows naturally , like bruit beasts ( even by the natural exercise of his mind , with the faculties thereof , even as the beasts learn and know by their nature , after their kind ) and in what he thus knows , he corrupts himself worse than the beasts . let the lord try him never so mu●h , never so often , drop down of the dew of heaven upon him , send him line upon line , precept upon precept , now a little and then a little , yet he still remains bruitish , both in his understanding , receiving , and in his making use of it all . still he forgets the truth , and loses himself in the image , gets a notion , an imagination , a comprehension of somewhat into his natural part ( which changes him not inwardly , but still he is the same in his root , ground and nature ) but the life , the eternal vertue he is still estranged from , and so is bruitish in all his knowledg and apprehensions of god and his truths , bruitish in his worshipping of him , bruitish in his belief and hopes , and his immortal soul perishes under all . outward israel was a true and full resemblance of him , who had many teachings , a pure law of worship , and sacrificing , many prophets to reduce and restore them to the right path of holiness and obedience , but stil they were erring in their hearts from the lord and his pure law of life , not knowing their owner or their masters crib , so wel as the ox or ass did theirs , isa. . . propos. . that man , by all the imaginations that can enter into his heart , and by all the means he can use or courses he can run , cannot return back to god again , or so much as desire it . the fall of man from god is such , that it hath benummed all his sences , yea so bereft him of them , that he cannot feel his own estate . he is dead , spiritually dead , and can no more feel his death , his spiritual death , then a man naturally dead can his natural death . he is bewitched into a fools paradice , where he hath a new life , a new vertue , a new wisdom , a new kingdom , a new dominion ( which is indeed but death ) with which he is so transported , that he forgetteth the old ; and in this new spirit and estate , cannot so much as desire after it . men speak of the reliques of the image , which the first man had : ah poor deceived hearts . what reliques of life are there in a dead man ? what reliques of purity in a man wholly degenerated and corrupted ? nay , nay ; the spiritual image , the divine image , the eternal life , the pure power and vertue is wholly lost , and there is nothing left , but what is captivated and destroied through the degenerating power . there is nothing at all of the eternal kingdom , of the spiritual image , of the divine life to be found in fallen man , but a little seed ; and that seed not so much as sown in his earth , as he stands in the degeneration ; for the sowing of it is the beginning of the work anew . and now , who can read this riddle ? the kingdom is within every man , & yet not so much as sown in any man , till the springing up of the eternal vertue according to the eternal pleasure ; nay the earth is not so much as prepared to receive the seed , until the lord send his plough into the heart . so that it is impossible for fallen man to attain to so much as one true breathing , or desire after god again ; this must arise from the grace , from the mercy , from a new begetting ( by the free gift ) towards life , towards the divine image again , which was slain in man ( and the impression of it on him wholly lost ) ever since the foundation of the world in his heart , which god hath set there , ever since he chose it . and indeed fallen man degenerated man ( would the spirit of the lord let him alone , and not disquiet him ) likes his own estate well enough . the world being written in his heart , his thoughts and desires are centred there , & of themselvs reach no further . might he but have the enjoyment of the creatures without , and the enjoiment of such a kind of earthly knowledg & wisdom within , as he now aspires after , he would sit down in egypt & babylon , resting fully satisfied with egyptian knowledg & wisdom , & with the babylonish treasures ( might he have enough of them ) and never think of sion , and the pure holy land of life any more . but when the eternal stirs in him , when the pure light opens at any time , then he has some little glimmerings of his estate , then he has some sense of his fallen condition , and some desire to remedy it ; what doth he then ? then he bestirs himself to get somewhat to cover him , then he gathers stones and makes mortar to build up a wall and raise a tower , that he may not lye open to the deluge of wrath ; for , by this stirring of the life , he hath some little taste and sight , that he is not one with the life , but departed from it . the soul being awakened by the opening of its own spring in it , begins to feel the want of its spring : it wants the true vertue , the true peace , the true joy , the true comfort and refreshment , the true rest , the true liberty , the true life , the true light ; and for want of this , its estate is miserable : and in the stirring of the spring , it feels this misery ; and in this feeling it groans , it mourns , it pants , it cryes out , and the creatural earthly spirit can have no rest because of it . what therefore doth the creature do to still this cry ? why , it joyneth , as it were , with the soul , it useth all the means it can to attain that , which the soul sees the want of : it inquireth after god , hearkneth out after those that know him , studieth the law , observeth the statutes and ordinances , performeth the duties , believeth , prayeth , hopeth , waiteth : nay , what is it , which the creature will nor set upon in this distress ( especially if the convictions of the eternal light pursue and follow him close ) to still the cry of the soul , and to attain the price of the eternal inheritance , which is set before the soul , which the soul can never be at rest or satisfied , without some assurance of , and progress towards ? but all this will not do . man in all his own obedience , as well as in his disobedience is shut out . there is a flaming sword which turns every way , to keep the way of the tree of life ; insomuch as man can by no means come at the way to the true life , nor enter into the strait and narrow path that leads thereto , but as he is cut to the heart , his life let out , and as he dyes , and comes into unity with that which slayes him , and keeps the way from him . so that man , in his running to god is thrust by , as well as in his running from him : in his willing and desiring after him he is rejected , as well as in his willing against him . it is not of him that willeth , nor of him that runneth , but of god that sheweth mercy . mark , there is a birth of bloods , a birth of the will of the flesh , a birth of the will of man , joh. . . all these will , all these run ( some of them very hard ) but they are all thrust by , and dis-regarded by the lord both in their willing , and in ther running . there are many found running the race , but one obtains the prize , which one is he that is born of god , to whom when god gives the prize , he will say to all the other births ( notwithstanding all their willing and running , their beleeving , hoping , praying , &c. ) depart from me i know you not , ye are the fruit of a strange womb , not of my spouse , and so must not inherit my kingdome . and as all these will be cut short of the inheritance at last ; so all that they do at present , is loathsome to the lords soul . the sacrifice of the wicked is abomination ; how much more when he bringeth it with a wicked minde , prov. . . his sacrifice , his worshipping of god , his praying , his reading of scriptures , his meditating thereon , and of god , and his works , his beleeving , hoping , waiting , fearing of threatnings and applying of promises , &c. all is abomination . the wicked man , he whose heart is not circumcised by the lords eternal spirit , whatsoever he can , or doth sacrifice to god , the lord loaths , and it cannot profit his soul . object . yea , when he does them in hypocrisie , so they are . answ. nay , more then so . when he doth them with an evill heart , they are much more abominable , how much more when he bringeth it with a wicked minde ? but let him bring it with a good minde with that which he calls the good heart ( for the circumcised heart , the heart of the true new birth is only the good heart , not that heart which every false birth is apt to call good ) let him bring it with that heart , which he takes to be the upright heart , with an honest intention , so far as he knows , take his sacrifices at the very best , at the very purest he can attain to , yet then they are abomination . and the reason hereof is plain and manifest . the fountain is unclean , the root in him is corrupt ; and who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? make the tree good , and his fruit will be good : but while the tree is bad , the fruit cannot be good . now can the holy god be pleased with that sacrifice which comes from the unclean spring ? can god own or approve that knowledge of himself , that faith , that love , that obedience , that integrity , or uprightness , that industry or diligence , those prayers or breathings , which man pumps up out of the old cistern ? nay all these must into the pit , with the common filthiness and pollutions of the earth : and when the lord rakes this aside from the several sorts of professors , what will be left in them ? oh how many have builded up a wall , dawbing it with untempered mortar , which will not stand in the day of trial , nor shelter them from the eternal flames ? oh what yelling and roaring will there shortly be in such , as by no means would be warned , but would be justifying of themselves in their false knowledg and practises , and reserving their fabricks of religion to the trial of the day ! and the day will try them indeed , even to the bitter perplexity and anguish of their hearts , when they come to see that there is now no way of escape , but they must lye down in the bed of eternal sorrow , misery , and torment , and in utter separation from that , wherein they thought they had a large and unquestionable share . propos. . that all professions of god and of christ upon the earth , all knowledg and beliefs whatsoever , with all practises of duties and ordinances of worship , save only such as proceed from , and are held in the pure life , are but as so many fig-leaves , or deceitful plaisters , which may skin over the wound , but canot truly heal it . the wound of man is deep by the fall : he hath really lost god , is shut out of his commonwealth , yea ( in that estate ) is altogether without hope ( for the hope springs from gods visitation of him with his light , and from the living promise . ) that which recovers man is the eternal vertue , the endless power , the life immortal , the christ of god . now what ever knowledge man gathers ( whether from the book of the creatures , or from the scriptures , or any other wayes ) or what ever man professes , or what ever man practises out of this , it is but a cover of his own , but a formed thing , but his own image of truth , of knowledge , of faith , of love , of obedience , of worship ; it is not the living truth the living knowledge , the living faith , the living love , the living obedience , the living worship : and so it is but mortal , but fleshly ; & when it coms before the eternal flames , it wil not abide them , but vanish . all flesh is grass : all the knowledg , the faith , the love , the worship , the obedience , the righteousness , &c. which man ( who is ignorant of the leadings and power of the life ) can come at , is but grass : yea the flower of it , the seeming beauty and goodliness of it , the very choicest of it in any sort of professors , is but as the flower of the field ; it may make a fair shew there , but when the lord cutteth it down with his fickle , and when his sun riseth upon it with its burning heat , it wil soon wither , and his fire wil soon devour it , so that its very place shal be found no more ? what wil become of all the fruit that flesh hath born , when god maketh bare , and cutteth down the root ? what wil become of all mortal knowledg of the scriptures , mortal worship , the faith and obedience which hath its root , growth and spreading in the mortal part when the lord heweth at it with his immortal axe ? do not deceive your selves ; there is nothing wil stand but what is immortal , and that which is gathered into it , and so one with it : no knowledg , no faith , no love , no obedience , no worship , no hopes , but what spring from the seed , are gathered into the seed , and live in the seed . this will abide , when all that springs from man and hath its place and residence in the mortal part ( and not in the true treasury ) wil come to an end , and disappoint all who have fixed their hopes of the inheritance there : propos. . that the living seed of eternal life , which god hath hid in man underneath his earth , hath in it the living vertue , which alone can heal man and restore him to god . that which heals of the death is the tree of life , whose rind or bark , whose leavs , whose blossoms , whose fruit , whose boughs and branches , whose bulk or body , with the whole sap thereof , is all healing , & there is nothing else can heal . let man catch all the knowledge that ever sprang from the life ; if he could beleeve ( i mean in the mans part ) all that ever the life spake , if it were so that he could perform all that ever the life called for , yet this would not heal him at all : whereas the least vertue from the life , springing up into , and livingly retained in the lifes vessel , truly refreshes and heals . the seed in all its springings up , and shootings forth in the heart , le ts out of its healing vertue . let 〈…〉 proof , a conviction , a judgement , a condemnation , which wounds that part which hath erred from the life , yet even in that there is a secret , hidden healing of somewhat else . the smitings of the righteous principle are as balm , and its reproofs as an excellent oyl . thy rod and thy staffe comfort me . light is sown for the righteous , and joy for the upright in heart ; in all the tearings , smitings and rendings of the earthly part ( with which the seed also suffers ) and the faith , in which these are received is the present substance of the healing , from the eternal vertue hoped for . now , who will be wise ? let him become a fool in the flesh : who will be strong ? let him become weak in the mans part . who will be saved by the eternal power ? let him cease from the man in himself . who ever would be able , in the life , to do all things , let him sink into that himself which is not , that it may bring to nought all things in him that are , that so it alone may be ; and he , by it being brought to nothing , will easily become all in it . this is the true way of restoration of redemption ; first to be lost , to be overcome , to be drowned , to be made nothing by that which is not , that that may come to be in him , and he be quickned raised up and perfected in that , and so become possessour of the fulness . the race is not to the swift , nor the battel to the strong ; but he that daily loseth his strength , and his ability to know , or so much as to will or desire ( even till at length he become nothing at all ) in him is the corrupt at last destroyed , and the mortal swallowed up of the life . he that feels the pure seed springing up ; and by the growth of that is daily begotten , quickned , raised , justified , sanctified , circumcised , baptised , fed in one part , and starved in another : when the work of begetting , quickning , raising , regenerating , justifying , sanctifying , circumcising , baptising is finished in him , and he is throughly begotten into the life , quickned by the life , raised in the life , regenerated , justified , sanctified , circumcised and baptised through the life ; he shall have the kingdome , wear the crown , enter into the joy of his lord , weilding the scepter of righteousness with his lord , in his kingdome for ever . now this work is to be done in the heart on this side the grave ; for after death comes judgement for the things done in the body ; and the tree is to be disposed of , according as it is found at its fall , either to the fire , or to grow and flourish in the land of life . therefore be not sloathful , but watch unto the movings of the living seed , that its work may be perfected , that it may arrive at its stature , and come to its full growth and may finish its service and testimony , that so it may enter into its habitation , and receive you with it into its everlasting mansion , where every servant , and constant sufferer with the seed , shall be welcomed of its father , and remain partaker of their joy and fulness for ever . isaac pennington the younger . the end . london , printed for robert wilson , at the sign of the black-spread-eagle and wind mill , in martins le grand , . concerning the worship of the living god which he teacheth israel his people who know him to be the only true god, and the worship which he teacheth them, to be the only true spiritual worship with some questions and answers relating to conversion, and to tenderness of conscience. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) concerning the worship of the living god which he teacheth israel his people who know him to be the only true god, and the worship which he teacheth them, to be the only true spiritual worship with some questions and answers relating to conversion, and to tenderness of conscience. penington, isaac, - . p. s.n., [london : ] caption title. signed at end: isaac penington. reproduction of original in duke university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng god -- worship and love. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - taryn hakala sampled and proofread - taryn hakala text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion concerning the worship of the living god , which he teacheth israel his people , who know him to be the only true god , and the worship which he teacheth them , to be the only true spiritual worship . with some questions and answers relating to conversion , and to tenderness of conscience . because the worship of god is a weighty thing ; and there have been ( and still are ) so many errors about it , and the errors therein are of such dangerous consequence , both in relation to mens eternal estate hereafter , and to their right constitution , peace and welfare in this world : and because i have had deep experience concerning the worship of god from a child , having travelled in spirit with my god for the right knowledge thereof , and in singleness of heart giving up unto him , according as he hath taught and led my poor , needy , depending soul : i say , therefore is it on my heart , to answer some few questions concerning the worship of god , for the service of such , as both desire and need instruction therein . quest . . who is the worshipper , the acceptable worshipper in the sight of god ? or whom hath god chosen out , to hold forth his worship in the sight of the world , since he rejected the jews with their worship . that god hath appointed a chosen people to worship him , that i presuppose : though , if need were , the proof thereof might be ready at hand . it is not every man that would thrust himself upon the lord , whom the lord will accept : but the father seeketh such to worship him , john . . there is a capacity to be found in man , to make him a worshipper , even such a capacity , as may enable him to perform that worship , which god requireth of him . now that is the thing to be enquired into , what this capacity is , and who are the persons that are found in this capacity ? answ . the worshipper in the times of the gospel , the worshipper under the new-testament is he that is born of god. he that is drawn out of the dark spirit of this world , and formed anew in the light of god's spirit . he that is a jew inward , he that hath the uncircumcision of his heart cut off by the power of god. this is the worshipper , whom the father seeks to worship him . this is the sort of worshippers god chose , when he cast off the jews . god did not chuse any one nation , or many nations , instead of that one which he cast off : but he sent his apostles and ministers among all nations , to gather a spiritual seed instead of the natural . and these alone are capable of setting up , and holding forth his spiritual worship unto the world , and to provoke them to wait for , and press towards the capacity of coming into the same spiritual worship with them . quest . . which is the place of vvorship ? answ . the only place of worship in the new-testament , is where the spiritual worshippers meet together . the place is spiritual . as the worship is spiritual : so is the place where it is to be offered . it hath a spiritual consideration , not outward as under the law. it is to be offered in the spirit , that 's the place . where doth my soul offer its private worship to god ? hath it relation to any outward place ? or is it in the building , which god hath reared up in my heart by his spirit ? which building stands in , and is comprehended in his spirit . and i can offer his publick worship in no other place , but in a building of the same nature , in an house built of more of the same stones . this then is the way of worship in the true light ; divers living stones meeting together , every one retiring in spirit into the living name , into the power which begat them , they all meet in one and the same place , in one and the same power , in one and the same fountain of life : and here they bow down to the father of life , offering up living sacrifices to him , and receiving the bread and water of life from him , and feeding in the rich pastures of his infinite fulness . in the holy city , in the living temple which is built by god , of the stone which all other builders refuse , is the place of the worship of the living god , where the true jews meet to offer up their spirits , souls and bodies , a living sacrifice to the father of life , and where they meet with such a glorious presence and power of the father , as none but the true jews were ever acquainted with . quest . . what is the worship , or what are the sacrifices , which the true worshippers offer up to god , in this holy place ? answ . the gifts of his spirit . these they offer up , and nothing else . the breathings which the father gives into the heart of the child , they are breathed back unto him in the same spirit of life , in the living sense , in the quickening power . nothing of man's wisdome , nothing of man's invention , nothing according to man's will , nothing that would please the flesh , or seem glorious in its eye , is offered up here : but the exhortations or directions , or reproofs that spring up in god's light , in god's wisdom , they are given forth in the leadings , and by the guidance of his spirit , and they reach to the hearts of those , to whom he pleaseth to direct them . and this is the ground of such meltings , and breakings , and convictions of soul ( and such like inward operations ) as are frequently found in such assemblies . for the living god is there , and the dread of his power overspreads the hearts of such , as are gathered into and assembled in his name ; and the life springs in the earthen vessels , and the favour is precious to all that have their spiritual senses . quest . . what is the season of offering up these gifts ? answ . the seasons of the true worship stand in the will of god. they are gifts , and the time of them stands in the will of the giver . prayer is a gift . a man cannot pray when he will : but he is to watch and to wait , when the father will kindle in him living breathings towards himself . so the word of god ( whether of exhortation or instruction ) is a gift , which is to be waited for , and then to be given forth in the life and strength of that spirit , which causeth it to spring . indeed it is an hard matter either to speak the word of the lord , or to hear the word of the lord. a man may easily speak what he invents , and another may easily hear and judge of such words : but to speak the vvord of life , requires the tongue of the learned in the language of god's spirit ; and to hear the vvord of life , requires a quickened ear : and to know the times and seasons of the spirit , requires both being begotten of the spirit , and being acquainted with it . quest . . was this the worship of the former christians , in the apostles dayes ? answ . search the scriptures : were not they come to the new jerusalem ? and where did they offer their sacrifices ? did they offer them in the old jerusalem or at samaria , or the mountain where the fathers worshipped ? or did they not rather offer them at the mount sion to which they were come ; where the male of the flock ( even the lamb without spot ) is known , and the blood of sprinkling felt ? heb. . , , . and pet. . . o read , read in the life of god , the nature of the things themselves , and do not feed upon your own imaginations , or the imaginations of any other men concerning them . sweet is our god : his living presence is exceedingly nourishing to the soul : precious is his power felt in the heart : it is no less then life eternal to worship him in his spirit . o let not the enemy of the soul cheat your souls any longer of the precious things of his kingdom , with husky and dry food instead thereof , which only gratifieth the earthly part , but nourisheth not the immortal life . quest . . how came the vvorship of god to be transformed , and changed so from the living power , into such dead formal wayes , as generally vvorshippers in the world are found in ? answ . the enemy hath done this , by god's permission . the lord pleased to suffer him thus far to prevail against the truth ; even to get into the form of it , and there to beget men into the form , and then deny and turn against the power . and this is the way of antichrist in kingdoms and nations , even to set up a formal way of worship , and by it to fight against the true power . quest . . how long hath this been done , and how long is it yet to last ? answ . from anticrist's beginning , all the time of his reign , until his overthrow . the formal way of religion will never be overturned , nor the power of religion find place in the earth , but there will be still countenancing of formal wayes of worship , and turning head against the power and life of the spirit , until antichrist's time come to an end , and the lord consume him by the spirit of his mouth , and destroy him by the brightness of his coming . quest . . when shall this be ? answ . the lord is about this work. he hath already raised up that , which hath not been raised up for many generations : and the lord hath sorely smote down the spirit of antichrist in many hearts already ; and he is fetching a great and universal blow at him : which stroke , when it cometh from the throne of god , the nations shall tremble before him ; and it will be as honourable to wait for the movings of his spirit , and to worship him alone therein , as now it is reproachful . some questions and answers relating to conversion , and to tenderness of conscience . quest . vvhat is the way of conversion ? answ . to turn men from darkness unto light , and from the power of satan unto god. quest . when is a man converted ? answ . when he is gathered into the light and into the power , out of the darkness of sin and dominions of satan . quest . how is man converted ? answ . by the operation of the light and power of god upon his conscience . quest . in what condition is the conscience , before god works upon it ? answ . hard and corrupt : hardened by selfish reasonings and dark imaginations against the convictions of the light and operations of the power of god , and corrupted with the sin and iniquity that dwels in it . quest . what doth god make it , in his working upon it ? answ . gentle and tender , fit to receive the impressions of his spirit . by the influence and power of his spirit on the conscience , he openeth the ear to hearken to his voyce , and prepareth the heart to follow him in his leadings . quest . how doth god carry on his work in the converted soul ? answ . by keeping it low and tender , out of the self-wisdom and hardening reasonings of the humane understanding : by this means he keeps it plyable to the light and power of his spirit . quest . is only the tender conscience then , fit to be wrought upon by god ? answ . yea indeed , that alone . the heart that is hard , is inconsiderate of the voyce of god , and stiff and stubborn against it , having ever at hand some wisdom or will of the flesh , to withstand the voyce and leadings of god by . quest . who is it that preserves the conscience tender ? answ . the lord of the conscience . he , who made it , knoweth the proper temper of it ; and his light and power is alone able to preserve it in that tenderness , which he formeth it in . quest . what is it that hardens the conscience ? answ . the wisdom of the flesh . man having gained a wisdom out of the light of god ; by the imaginations , reasonings and strength thereof , hardens himself against god. quest . what is most necessary for a man to be vigilant in , that desires to have the work of conversion go on in his heart ? answ . to be careful to turn from and avoyd the reasonings of man's wisdom , and to have his eye and ear open to the light and voyce of god's spirit , that his conscience may be kept upright and clear before the lord. quest . what stains the conscience ? answ . any disobedience to god's spirit , any hearkening unto or following the voyce of a strange spirit . this lets in the darkness , which defiles ; even as the light cleanses . quest . is a man then to expect such a thing as the leadings of god's spirit in his conscience ? answ . a man cannot inherit the kingdom of god , but he must be first born again , even born of the spirit , ( so saith the scripture , and so saith the experience of every one who feels the new birth ) and when he is born of the spirit , he is to abide with him , and learn the law of the new life , and receive power from him daily ; or the spirit of darkness will soon get ground upon him , and by degrees be recovering him back again into his dominions . quest . surely if it be thus ; hard is the way of religion , and few there be , who are found in the truth of it . answ . the way of religion is hard indeed , and wholly contrary both to man's wisdom and will , insomuch as he cannot enter into it nor walk therein , but as they are cut down . he that will be a disciple to christ , and follow the leadings of his spirit , must deny himself wholly and become anothers , and be content to stand or fall to his own master . he cannot please men , no not in his worshiping of god , but must turn from that which is glorious in their eyes , and sacrifice that which is to them an abomination . so that he must look to be condemned by men , who will be approved in the sight of god. quest . why hath god put his people upon such hardship , as still ( in all ages and generations ) to walk in a way contrary to the world , and still to be the object of its hatred , scorn and persecution ? answ . how can it be otherwise , he begetting them in a spirit contrary to the world , and which testifieth against the world , shewing that the deeds thereof are evil ? how can the spirit of the world but still turn against such , and hate and persecute them ? quest . how long shall it be thus ? answ . till truth be raised by the power of god , into dominon over the spirit and power of drakness . the spirit of life now suffers under the burthen of man's corruptions , in love to them striving to save them there-from . there is somewhat in every sinner , that at seasons groans under the weight of his sins , and in some proportion strives against the burthen thereof . this shall not alwaies lie underneath , but in the day of the lord rise over the transgressor : and in that day shall israel be glorious with his god , and receive praise of him , and be eased of all that hath oppressed him . quest . is there such a day to be ? answ . the scriptures testifie of such a day , wherein the lord alone shall be exalted , and wherein he will take away the rebuke of his people from off all the earth , and bring down all that is high and lifted up above the fear and spirit of the lord : and in this our age , the lord hath chosen many messengers to run up and down and proclaim this day . and as sure as the lord liveth , what he hath spoken shall come to pass , and not a tittle of it fall to the ground . god did not make man for him to serve his own lusts ; nor this creation to serve the lusts of man : but he made man 〈◊〉 fear before and serve his creator ; and he made the crea●●● to be ordered by man in the fear and wisdom of god , to the glory of god. the spirit of god now groaneth under man's iniquity , the spirits of his people mourn and sigh also , yea and the very creatures groan under the bondage of corruption : and the god of bowels heareth their cry , and a day , even a mighty day of redemption and deliverance is determined , wherein the spirit of the world shall be sunk down with all its weight of wickednesse , and the spirit of life and righteousness rise in its glory . amen , halelujah . everlasting praises to the omnipotent one , who was , and is , and is a coming ; who hath reigned , doth reign , and will reign over all the powers of darkness , in the pure power and glory of his life for evermore . let all the lambs skip for joy , let all the stars of the morning shout : for the darkness vanisheth and is passing away , and the light of life shall cover the earth , as the waters cover the sea , amen , halelujah . happy is the eye that seeth this , and the heart that prepareth for it , overlooking all that stands between . this is the hope of israel , and the expectation of all that wait for the lord , which he is hastening upon the earth . isaac penington . the end . the axe laid to the root of the old corrupt-tree, and the spirit of deceit struck at in its nature from whence all the error from the life, among both papists and protestants hath arisen, and by which it is nourished and fed at this day, in a distinction between the faith which is of man, and the faith which is of god ... / by ... isaac penington the younger. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) the axe laid to the root of the old corrupt-tree, and the spirit of deceit struck at in its nature from whence all the error from the life, among both papists and protestants hath arisen, and by which it is nourished and fed at this day, in a distinction between the faith which is of man, and the faith which is of god ... / by ... isaac penington the younger. penington, isaac, - . [ ], p. printed and are to be sold by lodowick lloyd ..., london : . imperfect: creased, with slight loss of text. reproduction of original in the union theological seminary library, new york. eng society of friends -- doctrines. a r (wing p ). civilwar no the axe laid to the root of the old corrupt-tree. and the spirit of deceit struck at in its nature, from whence all the error from the life, penington, isaac c the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the c category of texts with between and defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images - ali jakobson sampled and proofread - ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the axe laid to the root of the old corrvpt-tree ▪ and the spirit of deceit struck at in its nature , from whence all the error from the life , among both papists and protestants hath arisen , and by which it is nourished and fed at this day . in a distinction between the faith which is of man , and the faith which is of god . and in some assertions concerning true faith , its nature , rise , &c. it s receiving of christ , its abiding and growing in his living vertue . with a warning concerning adding and diminishing from the scripture in generall , ( and the prophesies of the revelation in particular . ) discovering what it is , and the great danger of it , with the only way of preservation from it , where is added a short touch about the use of means . as also a brief history concerning the state of the church since the dayes of the apostles . with an exhortation to the present age . by the movings of the life , in a friend to the living truth of the most high god , but an utter enemy to the spirit of error and blasphemy , where ever it is found , as well in the strictest of the protestants , as among the grossest of the papists . isaac penington the younger . london : printed and are to be sold by lodowick lloyd , at his shop next the castle in cornhill , . the preface there was a glorious day , and bright appearance of truth in the times of the apostles . they had the true comforter , who led them into all truth , and kept them alive in truly , and truth alive in them . by this spirit they , as living stones , were built up a spirituall house , founded upon sion the holy mount , into jerusalem the holy city , which is the church of the living god , the pillar and g●ound of truth . and here they had their conversation in heaven , with god the judge of all , with christ the mediatour , and with the spirits of ●ust men and the holy angels , which alwayes behold the face of god . they lived in the spirit , they walked in the spirit , they prayed in the spirit , they sung in the spirit , they worshipped in the spirit , and in that understanding which the truth had made free , and had god dwelling with them , and christ walking in the midst of them ; and by the presence and power of his life in them ; were truly dead unto sin , and alive unto god , they being not strivers against sin with mans legall spirit , but by the power of grace , which made them more then conquerours through him that loved them . this was part of the glory of that state , in that day of the sunshine of the gospel . but behold , a thick night of darknesse overspread the beauty of this ? some false brethren went out from the true church into the world , getting the sheeps cloathing , making a great outward appearance , and drew the world after them , yea and some from the very churches themselves : ( how hard was the apostle paul fain to plead with the corinthians about his own apostleship and doctrine that he might preserve that church from the false apostles ! ) and when they had gathered a sufficient party in the world , they made head against the true sheep & lambs of christ , fought with them , and overcame , them . and when they had overcome them that had the living testimony of jesus , and the true power and presence of the spirit among them , they set up their own dead form making a cry all over the nations of the earth , revelation is ceased , there is no looking now for such an infallible spirit , and such immediate teachings as the christians had in the apostles dayes , who had the anointing to teach them all things : but they point men to traditions , to the church , as they call it ( which title the whore hath engrossed since the dayes of the apostles ) or to searchings of the scriptures , and reading expositions upon it , and bodies of divinity , formed by the understanding part in man to instruct the understading part . thus the whole course of religion and of the knowledge of god , came to be out of that spirit and life wherein it first came forth ( and wherein it first stood ) and consisted in doctrines of men , and a form of worship and knowledge which the wisdome of man had framed , in an imitation of that which formerly stood in the life . and now men being gone from the life , from the spirit and his immediate teachings , into an outward form of knowledge and worship of god in the wrong nature ; now antichrist is got up , and the dragon sits in the temple , appearing there as if he were god , giving out laws and ordinances of worship in publique , and putting men upon duties and exercises of devotion in private , and he is obeyed and bowed down to in the observation of these ; but the true living god is not known ; nor his secret still voyce ( which calls out of these ) heard , because of the great noise which the dragon makes in his temple ( for so it is now , he having gained it , though it was once gods ) about his laws and ordinances of worship , which he would have all compelled to , and none suffered to testifie against them that they are his , and not the lords . yet it pleased the lord , all the night of this darknesse , to raise up some ▪ witnesses against the dragon , and all his invented forms of worship , though they were still hunted , persecuted , knocked down , and their testimony cryed out against as error , heresie , schism and blasphemy , and the wayes , worships and ordinances of the whore the beast and the dragon still cryed up as the truth . thus the papists , they cryed out against the protestanus as heretiques and schismatiques , who were witnesses against them ; and the protestants , they cryed out against the non-conformists , seperatists and brownists , who were witnesses against them ; and every sect cries out most against them , who are led further from the apostacy , and raised up by the lord as witnesses against them , against their setting down in their forme , and not pursuing the guidance of that spirit , which would lead them quite out of the darknesse , and not have them sit down by the way . now the lord god in these latter dayes , hath not only raised up witnesses against the whore , the dragon , the beast , the false prophets , with all their inventions which they have set up instead of the truth : but hath assayed , and begun to deliver his people out of this egyptian darknesse ; and to bring them back to the light of the land of canaan . and now great enemies have appeared , the sons of the night exceedingly strengthening themselves to keep out the day light , every one crying up his own form , and all joyning hand in hand against the power : yea & that spirit , which first tempted from god , is exceeding busie to cause those whom the spirit the lord hath been drawing out of the land of darknesse , to make a captain to return to egypt , or at least to sit down in some form , or some pleasant notion of things by the way & not to follow the lord , through all his intricate leadings in the vast howling wildernes , til he bring them into the possession of the true rest . what a work there was to quench that spirit wch stired in the protestants against popery , & to fix the in episcopacy , & in the use of the common prayer book ? when that was detected & turned from , then presbittery endeavoured to take its place , & to bring it its directory : but the pursuit of the lord was so hot against that , that it stunk presently , & his mighty hand would not suffer that so much as to arise much about the same time , independency and anabaptism appeared and contended ; and there was a more simple and honest thing stirring there , then in the other : and accordingly the blessing of the lord ( which was not to the form , but to the life that was stirring within ) did appear more among them but they , fixing there , lost the life and simplicity to which the blessing was , and met with the death and the curse , which is the proper reward of the form : for any form out of the life , kils the life ; and its reward is death to it selfe . the form kils the life , which stirred underneath , and made it appear with some freshness ; and when the life , from which it had its seeming beauty and lustre dyes , then it soon withers and dyes also : so that the living principle being once slain , there remains nothing but the dead spirit feeding on the dead form . there was one more pure appearance , and neerer to the kingdom then all these , which was of seeking and waiting : but death overcame this also , making a form of it , and stealing in some observations from the letter of the scriptures concerning the kingdom , whereby their eyes were with held from beholdingthe inward principle and seed of life within , to look for some great appearance of power without ( such as was among the apostles ) to set things to rights ; and so they were held captive by the same spirit in their seeking and waiting , whereby the others are held in their forms . thus have persons generally missed the following of that good spirit , which began to lead them out aegypt , the dark land ; and loosing their guid , have fixed somewhere or other by the way , resting in some form , or in some notion or expectation of things ( according as in their wisdome they have imagined from their skill in the letter ) short of the life it selfe . thus have their carkasses fallen in the wildernesse . now this i have to say to you all . all you who rest in any form whatsoever , or rest in any notion or apprehension of things short of the life it selfe , ye had een as good have stayed in egypt , as to fix by the way , and to take up a rest in the wildernesse , short of canaan . in plain terms , ye had as good have abided in popery or in episcopacy , ye had been as acceptable to god there , as here . not that i say your forms of indepedency , anabaptism , or seeking , are as bad as popery , episcopacy , or presbittery ; nay they are all somewhat neerer , and the last of them very much neerer : but your fixing there , and the dead spirit feeding there on the dead thing , is as remote from life , as if it had gone quite backe again . and this dead spirit is as hatefull to god here , as it is among the papists , yes and in one sence more , because it makes a pretence beyond them . and the truth is , ye have gone back againe , though not in the direct , form , yet into that very spirit , wherein poperey's strength and kingdom lies , & so are becom one of the beasts names , & your strength & defence lies in the beasts horns , either in the outward powers of the earth , or in that inward knowledge of things and wisdome from the letter , which is out of the life , and so are not yet come out of the city babilon . for mark , the spi●it that fixeth in a form short of the life , is the same that whored from the life : and the same spirit is the whore still , in what form soever she be . the spirit that rose up in the life , against the death and corruption whereof popery wholly corsisted , was a good spirit , and this spirit would passe through all forms , till it meet with the life : it is the other spirit that sayes to thee , thou host gone far enough , and so tempts to stay by the way . and he who hearkens to this spirit , and staies anywhere by the way , he is caught with the old whore in a new dresse , and is drinking the cup of fornication afresh . and then like the papists , he runs to the powers of the earth , to defend his form , against the witnesses of god ( and that 's his cover under which he persecutes , and there he lyes hid ) or at least to his own wisdom and reason , to strengthen himself with arguments for fixing here , and against going any further . and then he grows wise in the flesh , and cryes out against them , who are stil led by the same spirit to presse on further , as weak , silly , giddy , unsetled , seduced people , that can never know when they are well . thus the wise episcopalians revlied the simple-he-arted non-conformists , who pursued further then they : and the non conformists , when they lost their simplicity and begun to stick , reviled those that pursued beyond them ▪ and thus at this day , those who are pressing on in the spirit , are disdained by those who have took up their station in the flesh , and with their two great horns , of earthly power and earthly wisdome , are they pushing at them . look about you , look about you , all sorts of devout professors , see where ye are : are you not dead in your forms ? is not the good old puritan principle ( wherein once was true life in its measure ) dead and buried there ? consider with your selves , hath that grown in your forms , or hath it been slain there ? speak the truth in your own hearts , can ye truly say , from a sercible feeling in the life , that that principle is still alive in you ? if it were so , ye could never be drawn to persecute , no nor to suffer persecution , ye that have power to hinder it : but if that seed be choked , then ye may well connive at , if not further the enemy , and plead for him , and joyn i●terests with him . while abel lived in you cain could not rise up in his dominion , but now the righteous seed is ' slain , the murthering nature appears . o hasten out of this spirit , hasten out of babilon , cast off the spirit of popery , return to the old puritan ▪ principle : do not cry it up in deceit , to oppose the present appearance of truth , which is grown up further in it ; but subject that dead formall earthly spirit to it , which is fallen beneath it : and when ye are come to a true touch f life there , ye may be able to own the same truth in its growth to a further measure . but while thou art in the dead unde●standing and from the power and life of truth in thine own particular , dost thou think to be able to measure truth aright in others . nay , thou measurest by a false appearance of things in the fallen understanding , and in the wisdome which thou hast gathered there , since thou thy selfe fellest from the living principle : and this must needs commend that most , which is neerest to it , and not that which is neerest to truth . and this is the great error of this age , men with a gathered knowledge from scripture-words , without the true faith and life , go about to measure that life and knowledge which comes from the faith : and because it suites not with the apprehensions which they have taken into their minds , they condemn it . and thus being in the stumbling wi●dome and way of observation , to which truth was never revealed , but was ever an offence , they stumb'e at it : and thus men generally dish , and split themselves against the same rock now , as the pharisees did of old . now this understanding must perish , and this wisdome in men be brought to nought ; before that can be raised up which can judge aright . hearken therefore to my exhortation , as ye love your souls , come out of popery indeed and in truth , come out of the spirit of popery ; burn the whore in her new forms , as well as in her old : cast off all these new names of the beast , under which the old spirit has made a prey of the life in your own particulars , and lies lurking to make a prey of the life in others , and to force it into its own deceitfull forms of death , and slay it . leave defending your faith and church by the beasts horns , and come to that faith and church which is received , gathered , and defended by christ the one horn of salvation . leave your reasonings and disputings in that wisdome which has slain the life , and come to that wisdome which comes from the life , and springs up in the life ; and ye will find more certainty and satisfaction in one touch of true life , then in all the reasonings and disputes of wise men to the worlds end . the ground wherein mens religion grows ( even of the most zealous ) is bad , even the same ground wherein the pharisees religion stood and grew ; and it hath brought forth such kind of fruit , namely , such a kind of conformity to the letter , as theirs was , which stands in the understanding and will of man , rearing up a pleasant building there , but keeps from the life , and from building in it . but the true religion stands in receiving a principle of life , which by its growth forms a vessell for it selfe s and all the former part , wherein sin on the one hand , or selfe righteousnesse on the other hand stood and grew , passeth away . these things following strike at the king of babilon himselfe , yea even at the very root of the antichristian spirit in every man , which he that can mild y receive the stroake of , may feel the true spirit of life ( which lies slain underneath ) spring up in him , and give life to his soul ; which , when it is delivered , will be able truly to know and rejoyce in the lord its saviour . and when the root of that spirit is cut downe ( which never brought forth sweet pleasant fruit unto life , but only sowre fruit , finely p●inted and dressed for the eye and palate of death ) its body , branches , leaves and fruit will wither and dye dayly , and truth come to grow safely . a distinction between the faith which is of man , and the faith which is of god : one whereof is the faith of sion , the other the faith of babilon ; the one laying hold on christ , as he is revealed the king of life in sion , the other layes hold on an historicall relation of christ , the fame whereof hath sounded in babilon . there is a faith which is of a mans selfe , and a faith which is the gift of god ; or a power of beleeving which is found in the nature of fallen man , and a power of believing which is given from above . as there are two births , the first and the second ; so they have each their faith , and each beleeve with their faith , and seem to lay h●ld on the same thing for life ; and the contention about the inheritance will not be ended , till god determine it . cain will sacrifice with his faith , and he beleeves he shall be accepted : if he had not beleeved so , he would not have been so angry when he found it otherwise . and the cainish spirit in man , the vagabond from the life of god , which hath not an habitation in god , nor the eternall life of god abiding in him , he is busie with the same faith at this day , and hath the same expectation from it , as cain had . this is the root of the false religion , of the false hope , of the false peace , of the false joy , of the false rest , of the false comfort , of the false assurance , as the other is the root of the true . in this faith which is of man , and in the improvement of it stands all the knowledge , zeal , devotion , and worship of the world in generall , and of the worldly part in every man in particular : but the true knowledge , the true zeale , the true devotion , the true worship stands in the faith which is given of god , to them which are born of the immortall seed , which li●es in god , and in which god lives for ever . now it deeply concerns every man to consider , from which of these his knowledg , religion , and worship proceed , and in which of them they stand : for if they proceed from , and stand in the faith which is of man , they cannot please god , nor conduce to the salvation of the soule ; but though they may tast very pleasantly to mans pallate now , and administer much hope , and satisfaction to him at present , yet they will faile at the time of need : for as christ said concerning the righteousnesse of the scribes and pharisees , so may i say concerning this faith : except your faith , with the works of it , exceed that faith and all the works of it ( even to the utmost improvement thereof ) which is to be found in mans nature , it will never lead you to the kingdom of god , nor be able to give you any right to the inheritance of life ; for he that will inherit , must be the right heir , must have the faith of abraham , the faith of isaac● which springs up from the root of life in the seed ▪ and this leads the seed into that spring of life ( out of which it shot forth as a branch ) which is the inheritance promised to the seed . and here is christ , alpha and omega , in every particular soul , where life is begun and perfected , ●unning its course through time , back to that which was before the beginning . therefore observe and consider well , what this faith which is of a mans selfe can doe , and how far it may goe in the changing of man , and in producing a conformity of him to the letter of the scriptures . and then consider where it is shut out , what it cannot do , what change it cannot make , what it cannot conform to , that so the true distinction may be let into the mind , and not a foundation layed of so great a mistake in a matter of so great concernment . . a man may beleeve the history of the scriptures , yea , and all the doctrines of them ( so far as he can reach them with his understanding ) with this faith which is of man . as by this faith a man can believe an history probably related to him ; so by this faith may he beleeve the historyes of the scriptures , which are more then probably related . as by this faith a man can receive doctrines of instruction out of philosophers books , so by the same faith he may receive doctrins of instruction out of the scriptures . reading a relation of the fall of man , of the recovery by christ , that there is no other way to life , &c. this faith can beleeve the relation of these things , as well as it can beleeve the relation of other things . . this being believed from the relation of the history of these things , this naturally sets all the powers of man on work ( kindling the understanding will and affections ) towards the avoiding of misery , and the attaining of happinesse . what would not a man doe , to avoid perpetuall extremity of misery on soul and body for ever , and to obtain a crowne of everlasting blessednesse ? this boils the affections to an height , and sets the understanding on work to the utmost , to gather all the rules of scripture , and to practise all the duties and ordinances therein mentioned ? what can the scripture propose to be believed , that he will not believe ? what can it propose to be done , that he will not do ? must he pray ? he will pray . must be heat ? he will hear . must he read ? he will read . must he meditate ? he will meditate . must he deny himselfe and all his own righteousnesse , and duties , and hope only for salvation in the merits of christ ? he will seeme to do that to , and say , when he has done all he can , he is but an unprofitable servant . does the scripture say he can doe nothing without the spirit ? he will acknowledge that too , and he hopes he has the spirit ; god hath promised the spirit to them that aske it : and he has asked long , and asks still , and therefore he hopes he has it . thus man by a naturall faith grows up , and spreads into a great tree , and is very confident , and much pleased , not perceiving the defect in his root , and what all his growth here will come to . . this being done with much seriousnes and industry , there must needs follow a great change in man : his understanding will be more and more enlightened , his will more and more conformed to that , to which he thus gives himselfe up , and to which he thus bends himselfe with all his strength ▪ his affections more and more warmed , he will find a kind of life , and growth in this according to its kind . let a mans heart be in any kind of study or knowledg , applying himselfe strictly to it , he gathers understanding in his mind , and warmth in his affections : so it is also here . yea this being more excellent in it selfe , must needs produce a more excellent understanding , and a more excellent warmth , and have a greater power and influence upon the will . . now how easie is it for a man to mistake here , and call this the truth ? first , he mistakes this for the true faith , and then he mistakes in applying to this all that which belongs to the true faith : and thus entring into the spirit of error at first , he errs in the whole course of his religion , from the beginning to the end . he sees a change made by this in him , and this he accounts the true conversion and regeneration . this leads him to ask and seek and pray , and this he counts the true praying , the true seeking , the true asking . this cleanseth ( after its kind ) his understanding , will , and affections , and this he takes for the true sanctification . the justification which is to the true beleever , he also aplyes to this faith : & so he has a peace , ● satisfaction , a rest here , and an hope of happinesse hereafter . thus he receives what is already revealed , & he waits for what may be further revealed , which he can embrace and conform to , turning still upon this center , and growing up from this root . and he that does not come hither in religion , falls short of the improvement of mans nature and of the faith that grows there , ( which naturally leads all the powers of nature hither , and fixes them here ) which is but dead . and now this man is safe , he is a beleever , he is a worshipper of god , he is a christian , he is an observer of the commands of christ : when the overflowing scourge comes , it shall not touch him : all the judgements , plagues , threatnings in the scripture belong not to him , but to the unbelievers , to them that know not god , to them that worship not god , to them that observe not the commands of christ : thus by his untempered morter , from his false faith ; he has built up a wall against the deluge of wrath , which wall will tumble down upon him when the wrath comes . the growth of this faith , and great spreading of it into all this knowledg , zeal , and devotion , hath not changed the nature of it all this while , but it is the same that it was at the beginning , even a power of nature in the first birth , and all these fruits are but the fruits of the first nature , which is still alive under all this . all this can never kill the principle out of which it grows , but feeds it more and fattens it for the slaughter . thus far this faith can go : but then there is somewhat it is shut out of at the very first . there is somewhat this faith cannot receive , beleeve , or enter into . what is that ? it is the life , the power , the inward part of this . though it may seem to have unity with all the scriptures in the letter , yet it cannot have unity with one scripture in the life : for its nature is shut out of the nature of the things there witnessed . as for instance , it may have a litterall knowledge of christ , according as the scripture relates : of his birth , preaching , miracles , death , resurrection , ascention , intercession , &c. yea , but the thing spoken of , it knoweth not . the nature of christ ( which is the christ ) is hid from that eye . so it may have a litterall knowledg of the blood of christ , and of justification , but the life of the blood which livingly justifieth , that birth cannot feele ; but can only talk of it , according to the relation it reads in the scripture . so it may have a litterall knowledge of sanctification , but the thing that sanctifieth , it cannot receive into it selfe . so for redemption , peace , joy , hope , love , &c. it may get into the outward part of all these , but the inward part , the life , the spirit of them , it is shut out of , and cannot touch or come neer , nor can it witnesse that change , which is felt and knowne here . and here is the great contention in the world , between these two births , the one contending for their knowledge in the letter , and the other contending for their knowledge in the life ▪ the one setting up their faith from the naturall part , calling it spirituall , and the other who have felt the stroake of god upon this ( and thereby come to know the difference ) setting up the faith of the true heir , which faith hath a different beginning , and a different growth from the other , and will be welcomed into the land and kingdom of life , when the other will be manifested to be but the birth of the bondwoman , and be thrust forth with its mother to seek their bread abroad : for the seed of the bondwoman is not to inherit with isaac , the seed of promise . quest . what then is that faith which is the gift of god , and which is distinct from this ? answ. it is that power of beleeving which springs out of the seed of eternall life , and leavens the heart , not with notions of knowledge , but with the powers of life . the other faith is drawn out of mans nature , by considerations which affect the naturall part , and is kept alive by naturall exercises of reading , hearing , praying , studying , meditating in that part ; but this springs out of a seed of life given , and grows up in the life of that seed , and feeds on nothing but the flesh and blood of christ , in which is the living vertue , and immortall nourishment of that which is immortall . this faith at its first entrance , strikes that part dead in which the other faith did grow : and by its growth perfects that death , and raiseth up a life which is of another nature , then ever entred into the heart of man to conceive . and by the death of this part in us , we come to know and enjoy life : and by the life we have received , know , and enjoy , we come to see that which other men call life ( and which we our selves were apt to call life formerly ) to be but death . and from this true knowledg , we give a true testimony to the world of what we have seen and felt , but no man receiveth our testimony . it grieves us to the heart , to see men set up a perishing thing as the way to life , and our bowells are exceedingly kindled , when we behold an honest zeal and simplicity betrayed , and in tender love do we warn men of the pi● , into which they are generally running so fast , though men reward us with hatred for our good will , and become ou● bitter enemies because we tell them the truth , and the most necessary truth for them to know ; which they can bear neither in plain words , nor yet in parables . yet be not rough and angry , but meekly wait to read this following parable aright , and it will open into life . the parable is briefly this . that which sold the birth-right , seeks the birth right , with tears and great pains , but shall never recover it : but there is one which lies dead ( which hath the promise ) which stirs not , which seeks not , till he is raised by the power of the fathers life , and then he wrestles with the father , prevails , and gets the blessing from him . therefore know that part which is up first , and is so busie in the willing and in the running , and makes such a noise about duties , and ordinances , and graces , to keep down the life which it hath slain : and know that seed of life which is the heir , which lyes underneath all this , and must remain slain , while this lives ; but if ever ye hear the voice of the son of god , this will live , and the other dye . and happy for ever will he be , who knows this ! but misery will be his portion , who cannot witnesse a thorow change by the almighty power of the living god , but hath only painted the old nature and sepulcher , but never knew the old bottle broken , and a new one formed , which alone is able to receive and retain the new wine of the kingdom , whereas the other ( pharisee like ) can only receive a relation of the letter concerning the kingdom . some assertions concerning faith , its nature , rise , &c. with its receiving of christ , and what follows thereupon , namely , a growing in his living vertue , with a knowledge of the true , living , unerring rule , and an obedience to it in the life . assertion i. that the true faith , the faith of the gospel , the faith of the elect , the faith which saves the sinner from sin , and makes him more then a conquerour over sin and the powers of darknes , is a beliefe in the nature of god ; which belief giveth entrance into , fixeth in , and causeth an abiding in that nature . u●belief entreth into death , and fixeth in the death : faith giveth entrance into , and fixeth in the life . faith is an ingrafting into the vine , a partaking of the nature of the vine , a sucking of the juice of life from the vine , which nothing is able to do but the faith , but the beliefe in the nature . ( and nothing can beleeve in the nature , but what is one with the nature . ) so then , faith is not a beleeving the history of the scripture , or a beleeving and applying the promises , or a beleeving that christ dyed for sinners in generall , or for me in particular ; for all this may be done by the unbelieving nature ( like the jew ) but an uniting to the nature of god in christ , which the unbeliever starts from , in the midst of his believing of these . yet i do not deny that all these things are to be believed , and are believed with the true faith : but this i affirm , that they also may be believed without the true faith , and that such a belief of these doth not determin a man to be a believer in the sight of god , but onely the union with the nature of that life from whence all these sprang , and in which alone they have their true value . ii. that the true faith springs from the true knowledge , or comes with the true knowledge of the true nature of god in christ , which it believes in . he can never believe in the nature of god , who hath not first the nature of god revealed to him . if a man search the scriptures all his dayes , hear all that can be said by men concerning god , christ , faith , justification , &c. be able to dispute about them , and think he can make his tenets good against all the world ; yet if he hath not received the true knowledge of the nature of these things , all his professed faith in them cannot be true . iii. that the true knowledge , is only to be had by the immediate revelation of christ on the soul . no man knows the father , but the son , and he to whom the son reveals him . the dead shall hear the voyce of the son of god , and they that hear , shall live . there is no raising of a dead soule to life , but by the immediate voyce of christ . outward preaching , reading the scriptures &c may direct , and incourage men to hearken after and waite for the voyce , but it is the immediate voyce of christ in the soul , which alone can quicken the soule to god : and till the light of life shine immediatly from christ in the heart , the true knowledge is never given , cor. . . therefore they that never yet heard the immediate voice of christ , are still dead in their sins , and have not yet received the true living knowledge , but a dead litterall knowledge , which gives a false shining of things in the dead part , but kills the life . indeed the proper use of all means , is to bring to the immediate voice , life , and power ; and till this be done , till the soule come to that , to hear that , to feele that , to be rooted there , there is nothing done that will stand , but men stick by the way , crying up the means the means , and never knowing , tasting , or enjoying the thing which the means point to ▪ but he that knows god , comes into the immediate presence ; and he that dayly lives in god , lives in the immediate life ; and the true faith leads to this , giving the soul such a touch and tast of it at first , as makes it unsatisfiable without it . by this christ cuts off the jewes with all their zeale and knowledge , joh. . , . ye have not heard his voyce at any time , nor seen his shape ▪ and ye have not his word abiding in you . there 's the hearing of the voyce , the sight of the shape , and the having of the word of god abiding in the heart , which gives both the hearing of the voyce , and the sight of the shape , and keeps the soule quick and living in the life . the voyce gives life , the sight of the shape daily conforms into the image , which is beheld by the eye of life , and the word abiding in the heart nourishes , and feeds the living soul with the pure bread of life . but the jews knew not this , but were crying up their sabbaths , the law of moses , the ordinances of moses , the temple of god , the instituted worship of god , and so were shut out of the thing it selfe , ( which those things ended in ) and out of a capacity of receiving it . and thus many zealous ones at this day , not having come to this , no more then the jews did , but sticking in the letter of the gospel , as the jews did in the letter of the law , stumble at the present dispensation of life , and cannot do otherwise . iv. that christs immediate revelation of the nature of his father , is to his babes . not to the wise , not to the zealous , not to the studious , not to the devout , not to the rich in the knowledge of the scriptures without : but to the weak , the foolish , the poor , the lowly in the heart . and man receives not these revelations by study , by reading , by willing , by running , &c. but by being formed in the will of life , by being begotten of the will of the father , & by coming forth in the will , and lying still in the will , and growing up in the will , here the childe receives the wisdome which is from above , and daily learns that crosse which crucifies the other wisdome , which joyns with and pleases the other will , which loves to be feeding on the shadowy and husky part of knowledge without life . therefore if ever thou desire to receive this knowledge from christ , know that eye in thy self that is to be blinded , which christ will never reveal the father to : read at home , know the wise and prudent there , whom christ excludes from the living knowledge . and if thou canst bear it , that eye that can read the scriptures with the light of its own understanding , that can consider , and debate , and take up sences and meanings of it , without the immediate life and power : that 's the eye , that may gather what it can from the letter , but shall never see into the life , nor ●ast of the true knowledge : for christ ▪ who alone opens and gives the knowledge , hides the pearl from that eye . the true knowledge is only powred into the new vessell . it is the living soul alone , that receives the living knowledge of the living god from christ the life . the old nature , the old understanding is for death and destruction . the wisdom of flesh ( though painted never so like to the spirituall wisdome ) is not to be spared anywhere , but that wisdome with all its zeal , and growth , and progresse in religion must perish . all mens knowledge of the scriptures which they have gathered into that part , will profit them nothing , but hinder them . every building which the leprosie of sin hath overspread , is to be pulled down : therefore he that hath had only the old house swept and garnished , never received the true knowledge ( from whence the true faith spring ▪ ) but his life lies in the oldnesse of the letter ( in the conformity of the dead part to that ) and he knows not the vertue of the knowledge of god in the newnes of the spirit ( the vailt being over his heart ) which is only given to the new understanding . v. that this faith , which springs from the true knowledge , is gods gift , and is not that power of beleeving which is to be found in mans nature , but of another nature , even of the nature of the giver . and when man is called to beleeve , he is not called to put forth that faith wherewith he beleeveth other things , but to receive and exercise the gift of faith which is from above . that which is to be believed in , is spirituall : and that must be spirituall which believes in it . man , with all the powers of his nature , is shut out : it is another thing , distinct from man , which is let into life , and which lets man in . for man receiving the faith , entering into the faith , and becoming new-formed in the faith , then he also may enter : but till then he is shut out , and knoweth not the life , let him beleeve , and read , and pray , and hear , and exercise himself in that which he cals duties and ordinances never so much : for all these , set up in the wrong part in man , they onely feed the wrong part ; and that withall its food and nourishment , falls short of the life . therefore the true entrance into religion , is to feele that power , which slayes mans naturall ability and propensity to beleeve , that so the gift of the true faith may be received : for there is no rising up and living of the second , without the death of the first , with all his naturall faculties and powers . vi . that by this faith alone which is the gift , which is from above , ( and not that faith which grows either in the wilderness or garden of the old nature , and is fed by the oldness of the letter , and not by the newnesse of the spirit ) is christ received . for christ can be received , by the faith alone that comes from him : and that faith which comes from him , cannot but receive him . mans faith refuseth him : it receiveth a litterall knowledge of him from what it heareth from men , or from what it readeth related in the scripture concerning him , but refuseth the nature of the thing : and it cannot be otherwise ; for mans faith not being of the nature of it , cannot but refuse it . but this faith , which is given of god , which is from above , being of the same life and nature with christ , cannot refuse the spring of its own life , but receiveth him immediately . there is no distance of time , but so soon as faith is received , christ is received , and the soul united to him in the faith . as unbeliefe immediately shuts him out , so faith lets him in immediately , and centers the soul in him : and the immortall soule feeles the immortall vertue , and rejoyces in the proper spring of its own immortall nature . but the faith of man never reaches this , never receives christ , but only a relation of things concerning him : and with that faith which stands in the letter , opposes that faith which stands in the life . and here 's the spirit of antichrist , here 's the mistery of iniquity working out of one forme into another : for antichrist does not directly deny christ , or deny the letter , but cryes up christ , cryes up the letter , cryes up ordinances , but so as they may feed the faith of his own nature , and maintain an hope there . and thus the spirit of man is at unity with what will feed his own , with what interpretations his own understanding can gather out of the scriptures . and thus can he cry up christ , and say he hopes to be saved by him , while the spirit of enmity against the nature of christ lodgeth in his heart . this is antichrist , where ever he is found , and this is his faith , and great is his knowledg , and many are his coverings ; but the lord is searching him out , who will strip him , and make his nakednesse appear . vii . that christ is received as a grain of mustard seed . christ is such a thing , as every eye , but the eye of this faith despiseth . he is the stone , which the wisdome of the builders in all ages hath rejected . they look for a glorious messiah , but they know him not in his humiliation in the little seed , out of which he is to grow up into his glory : and so they missing of the thing , build up only with high imaginations in the airy mind concerning the thing . as when god sent christ in the flesh , there was no form nor beauty in him ; the jews , whose hope and expectation lay there , yet saw no manner of comelinesse , no desireablenesse in him : even so is it now ; when god comes to offer him to those , that think they place all their hopes in him , they see no lovelinesse in him , but refuse him daily . what this little thing , small like a grain of mustard-seed , can this be the glorious christ , which the scriptures have spoke so much of ? why we know the descent of this ( its father mother and kindred are with us ) we find this in our own nature . thus , like the jews of old , they make a great noise about christ , but refuse the thing it selfe . and this is for want of the true eye of faith , for if they had that eye , they would see the vertue in the little seed , and receive him in his humiliation in their hearts , where he knocks daily for entrance , and be content to wait till this grain of mustard-seed grow up into a great and glorious tree . but for want of this eye , they keep him out , and let in the painted murtherer , who dwells in them , and covers himselfe , with a knowledg , a zeal , a faith , an hope , &c. in the old nature , in the old vessel , in the old understanding : & thus they give god and christ good words , while the evill spirit has their hearts , and dwells there , bringing forth his own old evill fruit under an appearance of devotion and holinesse . hear now , ye wise in the letter , but strangers to the life ; there is a twofold appearance of christ in the heart . there is an appearance of him as a servant to obey the law , to fulfill the will of the father in that body , which the father prepares there for him : and there is an appearance of him in glory , to reign in the life and power of the father . and he that knows not the first of these in his heart , shall never know the second there . and he that knows not these inwardly , shall never know any outward visible coming to their comfort . for if christ should come outwardly to reign ( as many expect ) yet to be sure he would not reign in thee , whose heart he hath not first entred into and subdued to himself , which is only to be done by his appearance there first as a servant , and then as a king . but what estate are christians ( so called ) now in , who know not him in them who is able to serve the lord , but are striving and fighting in that nature where sin hath the power , and which can never overcome , being not in union with , but strangers to that life and power which is the conquerour ? therefore let all consider in the depth of their heart , for this is infallibly true : they that never received the seed of life in their hearts , never received christ ; and such shall never and such shall never be free from sin while they live ( for having not received the son , who makes free , how can they be free indeed ? nor be free from wrath when they are dead : for that faith concerning christ will not save them hereafter , which did not bring them to receive christ here . viii . that this seed being received , groweth up into its own form , or is formed in that creature , into which it is received . it there groweth up into the body , in which it is to serve the lord , and which body is to be glorified , when it hath finished its service . as a seed cast into fitted earth , or the seed of man or beast sowed in a fitting womb , receiveth form and growth into a plant or living creature : so is it with this seed in its earth . open the true eye , o ye christians , and begin to read the mistery of godlinesse ! ix . that this creature , or the spirit of life this creature ( which it is in union with , and which is never seperated from it ) is the christians rule , gal. . , . john . . heb. . , . the son is never without the spirit of the father , no not in the seed : and the spirit of the father is the sons rule . outward rules were given to a state without , to men who were not brought to the life , but were exercised under shadows and representations of the life : but the son who is within , who is the substance of all , who is the life , who is one with the father , whose proper right the spirit is , he is not tyed to any outward rule , but is to live and walk in the immediate light of the spirit of his own life . and he that hath the son , hath this rule : and he that hath not this rule , hath not the son . and he that hath not the son , hath not the true faith ( which immediately receives him ) and so is no christian , but hath stoln the name from the letter , having never received the nature from the spirit , to which alone the name belongs . x. he that hath christ ( or the seed of eternall life , which is christ ) formed in him , which seed the spirit alwayes dwels in , and utaer is absent from , which is the same spirit which gave forth the scriptures , he is a capacity of understanding those scriptures which that spirit gave forth , as that spirit leads him into the understanding of them . but he that hath not received that which is like the grain of mustard seed , and so hath not christ , nor his spirit ( what ever he may pretend to ) he by all his studies , arts , languages , reading of expositors , conferences , nay experiences , can never come to the true knowledge of the scriptures : for he wants the true key , which alone can open . he may have got a great many wrong keys , none of which can open , but wants the true key of the true knowledge , and so is shut out of that , and only let into such a kind of knowledge , as the wrong key can open into . and with this kind of knowledg the marchants of babilon have long traded , but their day is expiring apace , and their night of lamentation and howling hasteneth . xi . though he can understand the scriptures , as the spirit leads him into the knowledge of them , and can set his zeal to the truth of them , yet he cannot call them his rule : for having received the life for his rule , and knowing it to be so , he cannot call another thing it . he that hath received the new covenant into his heart , with the laws of the life thereof written there by the spirit of life , who doth write them there even in the least of all that beleeve , as wel as in the greatest , he knoweth that this living writing is his rule . the scriptures give relation where the covenant and law of life is writ , and if i will read it , thither must i go whither the scriptures point me . i must go to christ the book of life , and read there with that eye which christ gives , if i read the things of life . and the scriptures are willing to surrender up their glory to christ , who was before them , and is above them , and shall be after them : but there is a false spirit , which hath seated it selfe in a litterall knowledge of the scriptures , and hath formed images and likenesses of truth from it ( every one after the imaginations of his own heart ) and all these fall , if christ the life appear : and so this spirit cryes up the scriptures now in a way of deceit , just as the jews cryed up moses . it was a good remove to withdraw the ear from the false church , and to listen to the true testimony which the scriptures give of christ : but it is the seducing spirit which tempts to stick by the way , and to rear up buildings and forms of knowledge from the letter of the scriptures , and not to come to feel after , unity with , and live in christ the life . and unlesse ye come to this , your reading of the scripture is vain , and all your gathering rules of practise , and comforts from promises , will end in vanity : for untill ye know , and have received the thing it selfe , ye are at a distance from that to which all belongs . a lively and glorious testimony of truth hath god held forth in this age , at which all that stick in the letter cannot but stumble ; and there is no possibillity of knowing or receiving it , but by feeling the true touch of the inward life of it . wisdome is justified of her children : but they that are not born of her , cannot justifie her womb or birth . to the jews who were an outward people , there was an outward rule given , a law of commandements , statutes , judgements , and ordinances , proper to that state wherein they were , and to that thing to which the ministry was : but all this was to be done away , and to end in that which all this represented . so that to christians , christ the substance being come , which is the end of all these shadows , the true jew being raised in the immediate life , now there is a necessity of the immediate life for the rule . to them under the gospel , to them who are come to the substance , to them who are begotten and born in the life , there can be norule proportionable to their state , but christ the substance , christ the life , here he alone is the light , the way , the truth , the rule , the spirit is here the rule , the new creature the rule , the new covenant the rule , all which are in unity together , and he that hath one of them , hath them all , and he that hath not them all , hath none of them . so that directions taken out of the scripture , cannot be the rule to him who is the true christian , but the measure of grace , the measure of light , the measure of the spirit , the measure of the gift received into the living soule from the spring of life , this is the alone rule of life . but christians in the degeneration have lost this , and so have taken up words for a rule , ( which were not given to that end ) and so with deductions by the earthly part , they feed the earthly part . what is fed by mens scripture knowledge , but the earthly understanding ? the earthly will heated , the earthly affections warmed ; and of the fruits of this earth they bring sacrifices to god : and they are angry that god hath raised up abel , their younger brother , who offers up the lamb of god to god , and serves the living god in his own living spirit , and with the faith that comes from him . abels religion stands not in that part wherein all other mens religion stands , but in the death of that part ; and in the raising up of another part , wherein life springs . can ye mildly receive these gentle leadings ? do not provoke the the tender heart of the lamb against you , who also hath the voice of a lyon , and can roar terribly out of his holy mountain against the enemies of his life and spirit . a necessary warning , and of very great importance to all that call themselves christians , and hope for a share in the book of life , and the escaping the damnation of hell , which is their portion whose names are written in the booke of death , and blotted by god out of the book of life , though they hope to find them written there . here and consider . it is recorded , rev. . , . if any man shall adde unto these things , god shall adde unto him the plagues , that are written in this book . and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy , god shall take away his part out of the book of life , and out of the holy city , and from the things which are written in this book . great are the plagues that are written in this book , even the powring out of eternall wrath without mixture , torment day and night in the presence of the lamb , &c. as the growth , and fulness of the mistery of iniquity is spoken of in this book : so the measuring out of the fulnesse of wrath to it , is spoken of also . and great is the life and blessedness , that is here promised to those that fight with , and overcome the mistery of iniquity , and receive not any of the marks or names of the beast , nor are subject to any of his hornes , though ●e push never so hard with them . now to meet with all the plagues here threatned , and to miss of all the blessednesse here promised , is it not a sad state ? why , he that addeth to these things here spoken , or diminisheth from the words of this prophecy , the lord hath said this shall befall him . therefore in the fear of that god who hath spoken this , and will make it good , let every one search who is the adder , who is the diminisher ? now mark , see if this be not a clear thing . he that giveth any other meaning of any scripture , then what is the true proper meaning thereof , he both addeth and diminisheth ▪ he taketh away the true sence , he addeth a sence that is not true . the spirit of the lord is the true expositor of scriptures , he never addeth nor diminisheth : but man ( being without that spirit ) doth but guess , doth but imagine , doth but study or invent a meaning , and so he is ever adding or diminishing . this is the sence saith one , this is the sence saith another , this is the sence saith a third , this saith , a fourth : another that is witty , and large in his comprehension , he sayes they will all stand : another , perhaps more witty then he , sayes none of them will stand , and he invents a meaning different from thē all . and then , when they are thus expounding them they will say , take the sence thus , it will yeeld this observation , or take it thus , and it will afford this observation . doth not this plainly shew , that he who thus saith , hath not the spirit of the lord to open the scripture to him , and manifest which is the true sence , but is working in the misery of darknesse ? and yet this very person , who is thus working with his own dark spirit in the dark , will in words confesse , that there is no true understanding or opening of scripture but by the spirit of god . if it be so , how darest thou set thy imagination , thy fancy , thy reason , thy understanding on work , and so be guessing at that which the spirit doth not open to thee , and so art found adding and diminishing ? now he that is adder , he that is the diminisher , he cryeth out against the spirit of the lord , and chargeth him with adding and diminishing : for man being judge , he will judge his own way to be true , and gods to be false . that which is the adding and diminishing , he calls the true expounding of the place : but if the spirit of the lord immediately open any thing to any son or daughter , he cries this is an adding to the word : the scripture is written , there are no more revelations to be expected now , the curse saith he , is to them that adde . thus he removes the curse from his own spirit , and way of study and invention to which it appertains , and casts it upon the spirit of the lord . and man cannot possibly avoid this in the way that he is in : for having first judged his own darknesse to be light , then in the next place he must needs judge the true light to be darknesse . he that hath aforehand set up his own invented meaning of any scripture to be the true meaning he must needs oppose the true meaning , and call it false , and so apply himselfe to forme all the arguments he can out of other scriptures , to make it appear false . thus man , having begun wrong in his knowledge of the scriptures , stands engaged to make use of them against the lord , and against his own soul ; and yet really in himself thinks that he makes a right use of them , and that he serves the lord , and that he is not opposing his truth , but opposing error and heresie ; while he himselfe is in the error , and in the heresie , and against the truth , being a stranger to that spirit , in whose immediate life and presence the truth grows . did the lord in these words , of forbidding to adde or diminish upon so great a penalty , lay a restraint and limit upon his owne spirit , that it should no more hereafter speak in his sons & daughters , or did he intend to lay bounds upon the unruly spirit of man ? did god leave mans spirit at liberty to invent and form meanings of his words , and bind up his owne spirit from speaking further words afterwards ? when moses said , thou shalt not adde nor diminish , was this to be any stop to the prophets , in whom god should speake afterwards ? is not this one of the subtle serpents inventions , to keep up the esteem of mans invented meanings as the true sence , and to make a fortification against the entrance of that spirit , which can discover all his false interpretations of the true words of god , and to make him see that he is the adder and the diminisher , and that his name will not be found in the book of life , when the true light is held forth to read by . but this is generall , extending to all scriptures , my drift is more particular concerning adding to the things , or diminishing from the words of the book of this prophecy . there are two things chiefely spoken of in this book , mistery-sion , mistery-babilon : the true church , the false church : the lambs wise , the whore : the hiding of mistery-sion , the appearing of mistery-babilon in her place : the flying of the church out of her heaven into the wilderness , leaving all behind her which she could not carry along with her , even all the ordinances and institutions of christ , wherein once she appeared worshipping and serving god ; and the starting of the false church into her place ; taking up all that she had left , even all the ordinances and institutions of christ in the letter , thus covering her selfe with the form of godlinesse , with the sheeps cloathing , that she might passe the better for the true church : and the dragon , who mannaged the war against the woman and her seed , raiseth up first one beast , and then another , and sets this whore on the top of them , who with the cup of fornication makes all the earth drunk , all nations , peoples , kindreds , tongues , languages . and the beast he has his horns every where , his marks every where , his names every where , and also his image in every part of babilon . and who will not worship him , he fights with ; yea such as are led by god to rent from the whore , he calls schismaticks , hereticks , blasphemers , and persecutes them as persons not worthy to live . thus the state of things is quite changed , the power of truth lost , the form set up without it ; those that seek after the power hated , persecuted and blasphemed , those that lye still under any of the beasts forms , they go for good christians ; for members of the visible church , ●o called by them . now mark : he that calls any thing the church , but what this book calls the church , he adds : he that doth not know the wildernesse , and own the church in the wildernesse , he diminishes : the church of rome is not the church in the wildernesse , the church of scotland is not the church is the wildernesse , the church of england is not the church in the wildernesse , the severall gathered churches are none of them the church in the wilderness : all these have sprung up since the churches flight , and have appeared in her ab●ence ▪ usurping her name , appropriating it to themselves , but god ( who gave it to the church ) hath not given it them ; and so they must loose it again , when god brings back the church out of the wildernesse . so he that calls those , which formerly w●re the institutions and ordinances of christ , which the woman left behinde her , and which the harlot hath got and attired her self with , which she now appears in , and wherewith the dragon is now worshipped , he adds to this book , which sayes the outward court was given to the gentiles , and the true church had nothing left her but the inward temple , wherein alone the true worshippers worshipped : and they that worship elsewhere , are the fals worshippers worshipping in false temples , in temples of the whorish spirits building take it either outwardly or inwardly , for it holds true in both : he that makes the beasts names fewer then they are , or his marks fewer then they are , or his hornes fewer then they are , or his image lesse then it is , be diminishes . and the danger hereof is not small . for if any man worship the beast and his image , and receive his mark in his forehead , or in his hand , the same shall drinke of the wine of the wrath of god , which is powred out without mixture into the cup of his indignation , and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels , and in the presence of the lamb : and the smoak of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever . and they have no rest day nor night , who worship the beast and his image , and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name , rev. . . c. now this i affirm , whosoever has not the name of sion , the mark of sion , which he received of her in the wildernesse , where the living god is with her , and where he is taught by god the laws of the wildernesse-worship , and in some measure to testifie against all the corrupted ordinances , and institutions which have the beasts marks , and go now abroad in the world under the beasts name : i say , whoever has not the true mark of sion , it is impossible for him to avoid the mark of babilon : and he who avoids not the mark , cannot escape the plagues . but he that hath the mark of sion , he by a secret inward instinct of true life , is led from the marks of babilon : and if he faithfully follow the guidance , from out of all the names , and from under all the horns . it is nor enough to rent from popery , and sit down under the power and government of the same spirit in another form , or to rent from episcopacy , and the same spirit sit down in presbitery ; or to rent from presbitery , and the same spirit sit down in a form of independency , or anabaptisme ; or to rent from these , and the same spirit sit down in a way of seeking and waiting , and reading of words of scripture , and gathering things from thence without the life : but the true religion consists in knowing , and following a true guide to the church in the wildernesse , and there to receive the marke , the living marke , which will preserve out of all inventions , and further progresse of the dead spirit . now therefore look about you , know the spirit of whoredom , and see how ye have been begotten in the adultery , and born of the whore , and have served the dragon , and worshipped his dead idols , and not the living god . and be not satisfied with changing of forms & dresses ) which are but the several deceitful appearances of the whore ( but put off that spirit ; least when ye have hated the whore , and burnt her flesh as she appeared in one form , ye give your selves up to her again , when she appears in another forme : for the plagues are not so much to the form wherein the whore appears , as to the whorish spirit : and whosoever is found under her dominion , in any of her territories , under any of her formes , with that mark of hers upon them which belongs to that particular form , though never so curiously painted , he shall drink of the unmixt cup of wrath . therefore tremble all sorts of people , pluck off your false coverings , see the shame of your nakednesse , while it may be for your advantage so to doe . the angel is gone forth , the corn is reaping and gathering into the garner , many lambs are brought into the fold of everlasting rest , sion is redeeming , the true life is rising , the whorish spirit is judging , the dore of life is yet open : doe not lye secure in the whores wisdome ! do not lye slumbering , and reasoning , and disputing from the letter of the scripture , till the gathering be finished , till the doore be shut , till the eternall flames seize upon you , and ye find your selves in the bosome of hell unawares , and see the children of the kingdom in abrahams bosom , but your selves shut out , and left to weep and waile and gnash your teeth . quest . but how may i avoid adding to the things , and dimishing from the words of this prophecy , and of other scriptures , that i may not meet with the weight of this curse , or misse of the blessing ? answ. dost thou ask this question from thy heart , in the simplicity , out of the fleshly wisdome ? then hearken with that ear , and thou shalt set thy seal to mine answer . . wait for the key of knowledge , which is gods free gift . do not go with a false key to the scriptures of truth , for it will not open them . man is too hasty to know the meaning of the scriptures , and to enter into the things of god , and so he climbs up over the doore with his own understanding , but he has not patience to wait to know the door , and to receive the key which opens and shuts the doore : and by this means he gathers death , out of words which came from life . and this i dare positively affirme , that all that have gone this way to work , have but a dead knowledge , and it is death in them that feeds upon this knowledg , and the life is not raised . consider now the weight of this councill in the true ballance ! there is no opening of the scriptures , but by the true key : nor is there any coming at the key , till the lord please to give it . what then is to be done , but only to wait ( in the silence of that part which would be forward , and running before hand ) till the key be given , and to know how to receive it , as it is offered in the light , and not to wait in the will , or expect to receive it according to observations in the fleshly wisdome from the letter ? . let not thy understanding have the mannaging of this key , when it is given , but know the true opener , the skilfull user of the key , the hand which can only turn the key aright : and let him have the mannaging both of his own key , and of thine understanding . do not run in thine own understanding , or in thine owne will to search out the meaning of scripture : for then thou feedest with the scripture , that which it is the intent all words of life to destroy : but as thou waitest for the key at first , so continually wait for the appearances and movings of the user of the key , and he wil shut out thy understanding and will continually , which would stil be running after the litterall part of scriptures , and let thee into the life both of the prophecies and doctrines thereof . man when he hath received a true gift from god , he would be mannaging of it himselfe , and to be sure he will mannage it for himselfe ( for the gratifying and pleasing of himself , and not for god ) and then god , being provoked , takes away the substance , and leaves him the shell . therefore he that hath received a gift , must be very watchfull against that which would betray , or he may easily loose it : for though the gifts and caling of god are without repentance , yet if that lay hold of the gift which was not called , and to which it was not given , the lord will thrust that by , and take away his gift from it . . do not grast any of the fruit of the tree of life upon the tree of knowledge , for it will not grow there : an appearance , a likenesse of the true fruit may grow there , but the true fruit it selfe will not . my meaning is , doe not make a treasury of knowledge in the understanding part which is to perish , but know the true treasury of all the things of life , which is in the life it selfe , and in that understanding which is formed , kept , and lives in the life . lay no manna by to feed upon in the old store house ( lest the fleshly part should be running thither , when its fleshly appetite is kindled after food ) but daily receive the continuall bread from the hand of life . the wisdom of the life strikes at ●hy wisdom and understanding , and if ever thou wilt grow wise any more there , thou loosest this , and canst not possibly retaine it : for that part is then getting up in thee , in which it cannot be held , but only a shadow , an image , a resemblance and likenesse of it , which feeds and pleases that part , which fain would have life , but cannot know it , and therefore is necessitated to make images and likenesses , of things in heaven or things in earth , that it might have somewhat . . take not up a rest in openings of things , though by the true key . take heed of over-valluing that kind of knowledge : for that part which over-vallues that knowledge , will presently be post up with it : but there is a more excellent , and safer kind of knowledge to be pressed after , which is a knowledge of things by receiving of them . there is a knowledge of things , by the spirits opening the words which speake of them ( or by inward immediate prophecies from the word of life in the heart : ) this is an excellent knowledge , and not to be found in the earthly part of man ; yet the earthly part ( when this knowledge is given ) is very apt to be swelled and exalted with it : but then there is also a knowledge , which ariseth from the gift of the thing it selfe . this knowledge is very precious , and much more full and certain then the other , having the nature and immediate power of life in it self , and so is perfectly able to preserve . as for instance , to make it more plaine : there may be a knowledge of justification , by the spirits opening the words written in scripture concerning justification , and the blood of sprinkling , ( and this is a good knowledge , where there is a true opening of it from the spirit : ) but then there is a knowledg by feeling of the blood of sprinkling in the heart , and by seeing with the new eye the way of its justification ; and in this knowledge is the power and the cleansing of the life received , which in the other was but spoken of . therefore rest not in openings , or prophecies , or true meanings of these things ( though this kind of knowledge is very excellent , and hath been very rare ) but wait to feele the thing it selfe , which the words speak of , and to be united by the living spirit to that , and then thou hast a knowledge from the nature of the thing it selfe : and this is more deep and inward , then all the knowledge that can be had from words concerning the thing . . when thou feelest things , then seek their preservation in the proper spring of their own life . let the root bear thee , and all thy knowledge , with all that 's freely given thee of god . when thou feelest thy selfe leavened with the life , and become a branch shot out of the life , then learn how to abide in the life , and to keep all that 's given thee there , and have nothing which thou maist call thine own any more , but to be lost in thy selfe , and found in him . know the land of the living , wherein all the things of life live , and can live no where else . now in all this , in this whole course , from the very first step of it , there 's certainty , there 's stability , there 's infallibility . from the very first opening of the true key , i begin to learne somwhat of god , and to learn certainly , and feel an assurance and establishment in it : and growing up here , i grow up in the true learning , and in the true settlement , and so i am not unlearned and unstable , wresting the scriptures to my own destruction : for i take none of the knowledge of the scriptures from my selfe , from my own understanding , from my own study and invention , or from the studies of other expositors , but from a certain hand . and how can he rest scripture , who is kept single , and has no desire to have any thing to be the meaning of it , but what is the meaning , nor no will to know the meaning , further then the good wil of him whose spirit penned it , thinks good to give forth the meaning to him ; and who waits to receive this , not to feed the lustfull knowing pare in himselfe , but to feed the life with it ? and when the life hath no use for it , he is content to have it shut up , and to be without it : i say , how is it possible for this man to wrest scriptures ? but now , a man that hath taken in a body of knowledge already , he goes to the scripture , and bends it to make it speak answerable to that : and where it speaks contrary , he invents a way to make it comply , and so wrests scriptures forward & backward , to make them speak agreable to what he has already received and beleeved . thus every sort of persons , papists and protestants , bend the scriptures , to make them speak conformable to their opinions and practises , not having the true , learning , which gives to read them in the true originall , where the knowledge of what they speak and meane is certaine : and so they are also unstable , and subject to be shaken by a wind of reason which is stronger then their own . and this wresting of scripture is to their own destruction ; for that part , which is so much as desirous to bend a scripture , is to be destroyed ; and that part cannot receive the true knowledge , but stumbles in its own wisdome and way of seeking , at the wisdome of cod , and at the true way of finding . but the foregoing councill , faithfully hearkened unto , will preserve out of this , and also bring to the true means , and to the true use of the means , which all nations , who have drunk of the whores cup , have erred concerning , and taken the false for the true . the strength of this wine hath made all nations , peoples , tongues and languages to mistake , who in the heat of their drinke have cryed up the means , the means , the ordinances , the ordinances &c. not perceiving how this heat came from the spirits of the whores wine , and not from the sober , meek , calm , gentle leadings of the spirit of christ , and so in a fleshly zeale have set up the whores means instead of the lambs means , and contend for them with the whores spirit and weapons . now it is impossible for any man so , much as to know the true means , till the whores wine be purged out of him : for that will make him erre in judgment , and take the false for the true . and which way shall he ever come to the kingdome , which has lighted upon the wrong means ? or how shall he ever come to the true means , who never yet saw the witchery of the whorish spirit from the life , and how he himselfe has been bewitcht , and cosened with the false instead of the true ? as for instance . prayer , that is generally taken for a means , aske , and it shall be given you ; seek and ye shall find : knock and it shall be opened to you . if parents , which are evill , know how to give good gifts to their children : how much more shall the heavenly father give the holy spirit to them that aske him . this therefore is an undoubted thing , that prayer is a means . answ. true , there is a prayer which is a means , and there is a prayer which is not a means . there is a prayer which is an ordinance , and there is a prayer which is an invention . there is a prayer which is the breath of the true child , and there is a prayer which is the breath of the fleshly part , a breath of the whorish spirit . there is a prayer of the first birth , and there is a prayer of the second birth , both which cry and weep to god for the same-thing . now the one of these is the true means , the other not : one of them is christs ordinance , the other is antichrists ordinance . now the question is , which of these thy prayer is ? whether it be thine own breath , or gods breath ? whether it come from the renewings of the spirit of life , or from thine own naturall part painted ? for accordingly , it is either the true means , or the false means . if it be the true means , it shall have the thing , the spirit , the life , the kingdome it prayes for : if it be the false means , it can never obtain it . papists , they pray ; protestants , they pray ; some in forms , some without forms ; some meditating before hand , some not meditating : are all these the true means , or are any of them the true means ? the breath of the true child is the only true prayer ; and he prayes only in the moving , and in the leading of that spirit that begat him : and this is a prayer according to the will , in the life , and from the power . but all mens prayers , according to times they set the themselves . or according to formings of desires in their own minds , which they offer up to god with the nature and heart that sinneth against him , these are false means , and may satisfie the drunken spirit erred from the li●e , but are no means to the truth . canst thou pray ? how camest thou to learn to pray ? wast thou taught from above ? or didst thou gain the skill and abillity , by the exercise and improvement of thine , own naturall part ? didst thou begin with sighs and groans , staying there , till the same spirit that taught thee to groan , taught thee also to speak ? wast thou ever able to distinguish the sighs and groans of the spirits begetting , from the sighs and groans of thy own naturall and affectionate part ? and hath that part , with all its sighing● , groaning , desires , endeavours , &c been thrust aside , and the seed immortall raised , by the spirit of eternall life , which teacheth to cry and mourn , and at length to speak to the father for the preservation and nourishment of its life ? if it hath been thus with thee , then thou hast known that prayer which is the true means . but if otherwise , though thou pray never so long , and with never so great affections and strong desires , this is all but the fals means , with its fals warmth from the fall fire , this is but the means which the whorish spirit ( which is not in union with the life and power , but keeps the seed in bandage ) has set up instead of the true means . and this can never lead to truth , but keeps alive gods enemy under this pleasant covering : neither is this the worship of the living god , but as it is from another spirit , so it is to another spirit . o learn to be sober ! come out of this drunken fury , and consider things mildly and seriously . do not make a great outcry of ordinances , ordinances ; the means , the means . this is the voyce of the clamorous woman , who with her loud noise , would fain keep you from listning after the still voyce of true wisdome , which cannot be heard in the midst of this great noise and hurry in your spirits ; but consider which are the true ordinances , which are the true means ; which are the likenesses man has framed , and which is the true thing it self . and if ye could once be mild , gentle and calm , & turn from your own wisdome and fleshly knowledge of things it might please god to remove your stumbling blocks , and to open that eye in you which can see the antichristian nature , and discern between the coverings , which it hath formed to hide its deceitfull spirit under , and the true garment and cloathing of life . but the seed of the kingdome is little , and ye are great , how can ye enter into it ? the pearl lies hid in the field , and ye are gazing up to heaven how can ye see it ? christ is descended into the lower parts of the earth , and ye are using means to ascend upwards in the wrong nature , how can ye meet with him ? the gospel hath been hid , the sun hath not shined , it hath been night , and ye have got many fals candles ; which way can ye acknowledge the little glimmering of the day star , who have such satisfaction in the warmth of your false fires ? ye are far from the true light , who have not yet received so much of it , as to discover the darknesse of the night ! ye are too high , too wise , too knowing for christ , or for the sight and acknowledgment of the true means which lead to life . and if ye could once come to see this , there might be some hope but in that wisdome wherein your life and knowledge stands , ye are shut out : and ye are reasoning and stumbling at the stone , while others ( who are broken in spirit , and in meeknesse and humility led to try ) find it a sure foundation , even a foundation of eternall life for the true seed of life , and are built into the living city , which is made without hands , and without any of the tools of mans wisdome . a brief history of the state of the church since the dayes of the apostles , with the living seal to it , which he that hath eternall life abiding , in him , can read and witnes ; but that wisdom zeal and devotion which is in the death , cannot . after the universal degeneration and corruption of the jewish state , and the putting an end to the shadows thereof , by the appearance and succession of the substance , it pleased god to dissolve that people , state and pollicy , and by the power of his life ( without either the wisdome or strength of man ) to set upon the heathenish world , which he subdued and brought under the power of his life . by his apostles and messengers , who preached the everlasting gospel , the word of eternall life , he gathered assemblies up and down the nations , whom the nations by all their persecutions could not subject ; but they reigned over them in the power , authority , and dominion of god : for they were kings and priests to god in the sight of all the nations , and they did reign upon the earth ; in somuch as the heathenish spirit of man , observing their order in the spirit , and the wisdom and power of the spirit among them , who by his living light was able to search the hearts of those that came to observe them , could not but acknowledge , that god was in them of a truth . now the next thing to be expected , is satans opposition against this power of life , & his stratagems to undermine it . he withstood the growth and settlement of the church , all that he could by open force , making use both of the heathenish devout worshippers , who fought for their jupiter , their diana , and other gods and goddesses , and of the jewish devout worshippers , who fought for their temple-worship , with the laws and ordinances of moses , which were now expired . but neither of these would doe , but the church in the power of life gained ground upon him , and did rather thrive and increase , then diminish by this opposition . therefore now he falls to this stratagems , he gets some false brethren out of the church ( they went out from us ) these he cloaths as angels of light , puts the sheeps cloathing on their wolvish nature , makes them appear as like the apostles as may be , endues them with an excellent taking knowledge of life and spirituallity in appearance , forms in them an image of the truth , and inspires this image with the spirit of his own life , and with these he goes forth into the world , and gathers the world about him . now the world was presently taken with this ( the world went after him ) for this is that the world would have , an appearance of religion , an image of truth , but their own spirit in it . the worldly spirit , that flies off from the life , from the power , can readily close with this , because it is its own . bring forth never so high notions of religion and spirituall wisdome , the world will hug them , the world will feed on them , the world will cloath it selfe with them . the world can swallow , and digest any thing but life . any pleasant picture of things in heaven will down with the world : but the nature , the life , the truth , the spirit , christ in his true arid living crosse , this will not down with the world . now the devil having thus set up his false image in the world , and gathered a party after him , then he sets upon the church : and the battel goeth very hard , life striving to defend , and death to overcome , how hard did the apostles strive in their day , to keep their converts to the simplicity of truth , & to the way therof ( which even then began to be evill spoken of ) writing epistles to the churches , warning them of the false apostles , and wishing them to stand their ground ! yea christ himselfe writes severall epistles from heaven to some of them , cheking their backslidings and encouraging them to renew their zeal and strength , putting them in mind of the crown which attended the victory . but at length the divill with his stratagems prevails , gets the possession of the churches territories , and the church is faine to fly for her preservation : and such of her seed as are left behind her , the enemy makes war against , slayes , drinks their bloud . now here 's an end of all the glory of that state : now the divil hath gained the world again : the same spirit , that lost it under the heathenish power ( for there he was conquered ) recovers it under an antichristian appearance ; setting up the same wickednes , and the same course and current of death under forms of antichristian religion , as he had done before under forms of heathenish devotion . thus the devil being conquerour , having gained the field , he divides the spoils among his army : he tak●s whatever was the churches , and make , his own , and ranks them in his way of antichristian religion and devotion : so that now hence forward , those things which were once christs and the churches , they are no● all his , and distributed by him among his followers . he gives the name church to the whore which he sets up , he gives the name christian to his disciples , he prescribes baptisme , and the supper ( which he calls sacraments ) and praying , and preaching , and singing , which he calls publique ordinances , and be prescribes private duties and exercises of devotion ; and he gets the letter of the scriptures , and forms multitudes of meanings and expositions , and has lying signs and wonders for such as need them , that he might keep all the severall brigades of his army quiet under his pay , and might have some pleasing wares of traffick for every sort of his merchants in his babilon . for this is the city of that king which he built after his conquest over the life , and which he hath enriched with the spoils from the life . and here all his subjects shall have content , they shall have what they will , if they will but be faithsull to him in the main . call for what likenesse , what invention , what appearance of truth they will , they shall have it , so they will but be content without life . no notion about the spirit wil be deny them , so they will be content with the notion without the presence of the living spirit . they shall have light in their understandings , warmth in their affections , joy , peace , hope , comfort out of the scriptures . they shall apply as many promises to themselves as they will , have what they will , do what they will , so they keep out of the feeling of the living principle : but if once that stir , and there be any hearkning after that , then he begins to shew his tyranny on the one hand to force them back , and his stratagems on the other hand to tempt them aside from it . the devil having thus gained the form , and enriched himself with the churches spoils , and slain them which had the living testimony , then he falls to corrupting the form : for that filthy spirit , though he can cloath himself with the form to deceive from the life , & abid there , to keep down the life ; yet he does not much love it , he loves his own form better : and when he is out of feare of assaults from the life , then he returns to his own form againe , or patches up a garment more suitable to his own nature , taking i● somewhat of the other with it , to make his own passe the better ( for if he should have returned to the direct heathenish forms of idolatry and false worship he could not so well have ●ayn hid : therefore he makes a mix u●e of somewhat which was prescribed the jews , with some things sound practised among the christians . ) thus he brought in inventions of crosses , and images , and beads , and pictures , and reliques , and ceremonies beyond number , insomuch as not only the life and power was lost , but the true likeness also , even so lost , that it is impossible for all the wisdome of man , to recover the knowledge of the likenesse againe . men have striven much , but they never could form a true likenesse of the primitive church , and the way thereof . now , though it is the desire of the devill to keep men in the grossnesse of darkness , yet rather then loose them , he will let them have some part of the form again : nay he will tempt them with a gaudy appearance of the form , to keep them from meeting with the power and life , when he perceives true secret inward stirrings in them , which will not be quieted without somwhat . thus , when there was a stirring against popery , he tempted a●i●e into episcopacy : when that would hold no longer , then to presbitery : when that will not serve , into independancy : when that will not keep quiet , but still there are searchings further , into anabaptism : if that will not doe , into a way of seeking and waiting : if this will not satisfie , they shall have high notions , yea most pleasant notions concerning the spirit , and concerning the life , if they will be but satisfied without the life : yea they shall have all the liberty in the creatures they can desire ( the best painted liberty ) if they will but be satisfied without that liberty , which stands not in the creatures out of the life , but over the creatures in the life . and he that turns aside to any of these , he is still under the dominion of that spirit , and there he holds his knowledge , and there he performes his worship , and there he has his unity , his liberty , his life , his rest , his peace , his joy , his hope . now no man can worship god , till he comes out of every part of this babilon , and his feet touch sion , though there may be a secret panting , and an unknown safety , and an acceptation of the poor mourning soul in the passage yea , all sorts of people , here ye were accepted , in your stirrings after life , in hearkning to the leadings of life from out of the babilonish spirit : but your turning aside to the babilonish wisdome in a new dresse , and sitting down in a new form of her inventing , hath brought you to a losse of life , and hath made you hatefull to the living god , who hath drawn his sword against you , and hath prepared his vialls , his thunders , his plagues , his woes : and ye must drink of his cup with sorrow , as ye have drunk of the whores cup with pleasure . ye that have found a bed of pleasure in any of your forms , or in any of your notions , and so have found ease in the sion of the whores painting ; ye must be cast into the bed of sorrow , and know the fire the gods sion , and the furnace in his jerusalem , if ever ye become an habitation for god , or expect to feed on his holy mountaine . the condition of the church all this while ( all this time of satans reigne in forms of knowledg and worship ) hath been very lamentable , and is expressed in scripture by parables and resemblances of a sad state . she hath been as a city pulled down , like a ruined city , which needs rebuilding , before she can come to be a city again , ( when the lord shall build up sion . ) she hath been like a wildernesse , barren , undressed , unregarded . she hath been like a mournfull widow , whose husband hath been rent from her , and her children slain . she hath lost all her ornaments , all her garments , all her ordinances , all her appearances and wayes of life , in somuch as the wayes of sion mourn . but babilon , the mother of harlots , she has got all the beauty , all the glory , all the churches attire , all the churches ordinances , and all the trade and traffiqe runs thither , and she is cryed up for the true church ; and if any dare speak a word against her , & for the true church indeed , they are exclaimed against for schismaticks , and hereticks , and war prepared against them , and some or other of the beasts horns presently pushing at them . thus it has gone all the time of the apostacy , the whore has flourished with the name of the church making great merchandize of souls , selling their formall stuff for mony ; and abundance of children hath the whore brought forth , and nourished with her milk of deceit : but the true woman , the lambs wife with her seed , and the living food from her living breasts , have had no place on the earth . but this state of things is ended in part , and ending apace . the lord god of life is arisen out of his holy habitation to assault the dragon , to discover and strip the whore , to recover a possession for his life in the earth , to make roome in the world for his church , which he is bringing out of the wildernesse . the battel is begun , the territories of antichrist are assaulted , the lamb hath appeared on his white horse , and hath gathered many of his called , faithfull and chosen about him , the ensign is li●ted up : the light ( which searcheth the inwards of the enemies dominions ) hath appeared , and his inmost power and wisdome is not feared , but the lord god is feared , and the dragons arm withers , and the head of his pollicy ( whereby he ensnared & intangled from the life ) is crushing , glory to the endlesse power of life for ever and for ever . be wise now therefore , & loose not your share in the immortal crown . take heed how ye be found fighters against the lamb , in the wisdom & power of babilon which is to fall , painting will not passe now : that bloud of the lamb is felt , which washes off the whores paint , even all her painted notions of the blood of christ , & of sanctification and redemption , &c. the whorish nature being discovered underneath all these . ye have got the name of church , the name of christians , the name of ordinances , &c. by the whores help , but the nature of life ye want : and the living power is come to recover the name from you , and we , his living witnesses , testifie to your faces , that ye shall not enjoy it , but the name and the thing shall go together ; and he that hath not the thing , shall also loose the name . yea , your eyes shall see that ye have been the sacrilegious ones , who have stoln holy names and tirles , which ye never received from the hand of god ; but the whorish spirit ( which out of the life , and an enemy to the life ) hath handed them to you . and this is told you in dear and tender love , that ye might not perish , but have eternall life abiding in your hearts , and the new name written by the spirit of life on your foreheads , which all that know the writing of the life , may be able to read and acknowledge . there are severall touches of these things , in diverse of of the epistles of the apostles : but the full relation is given forth in that book of the revelation , which was penned by the spirit of god , to be read in the light of the spirit , and so to be a preservative against the overspreading contagion of antichristianism . adn it is said , at the entrance into it , blessed is he that readeth , & they that hear the words of this prophests , & ke●p those things wch are written therein . but men having lost the spirit , have not been able to read it , and having lost the right ear , they have not been able to heare the words it speaks : and how then could they keepe the things written therein ? he that doth ●ot understand what he is warned against , how is it likely he should be preserved by the warning ? the spirit of god judged this warning necessary but the spirit of deceit cryes it is a deep thing , not to be medled with . now this is a plain demonstration , that men generally are overtaken with the whoredom , and drink of the whores cup , & submit themselves to the beast , and exalt his horns , and receive his mark , and some or other of his names ; because they have not the knowledge of that which discovers these things , and was given by the spirit of god to forewarn , and so to preserve out of them . he that knoweth not the mistery of iniquity working under a form of godlines , may not he easily be deceived with the mistery of iniquity ? he that knoweth not what is become of the true church & ministry , and where to look for them , may not he easily own a fall church and ministry ? he that knoweth not the spirit of the scriptures , which the church carried with her , when she left the letter behind her , may not he easily set up the letter for his rule ? he that knoweth not the living mark and name of a christian , with which the spirit of life seals all the lambs , of christ in the life , may not he easily give this name to himself , and to others who have not this mark , but the beasts mark ? he that knoweth not the true faith , the true love , the true hope , the true joy , the true peace , the true rest , the true consolation in christ the life ( the true meeknes and patience of the s●ints , &c. ) may not he easily set up shadows , or liknesses of these ( which he gathers from the letter of the scriptures , and the promises thereof , receiving the knowledge of them into the wrong part , & applying them to the wrong thing ) instead of these ? ah poor hearts ! the book of the revelation is easie to that spirit that wrote it : and it was not given forth to be laid by as uselesse ; but to be serviceable in the hand of the spirit , for the ages after the dayes of the apostles ; and in the true light it is easily read : and they that can read it , can see that in it , which they that cannot read it , cannot beleeve . and this is plainly seen , that the●e is but the spirit of truth , and the spirit of deceit : but the lambs wife , and the whore ( which hath whored from the spirit , which hath made use of the lotter , to run a whoring from that spirit that wrote it : ) that there is but the true church , and the false church : but life , and death : but form , and power : but christ the mistery of godlinesse , and antichrist the mistary of iniquity : but god , and the dragon : god in the church or temple in the wildernesse , and the dragon in the worlds , churches and temples , appearing there as if he were god , giving sorth lawes and ordinances like god : and all the world falls down before him , and worships him as if he were god ; and hopes by this worship which they perform to him , and by their faith and hope which they receive from him , to be saved at last . i say there are but these two : and he that is joyned to the one of these , is not joyned to the other . let him that readeth , understand : which he may easily doe by the wisdome of the spirit , but never can by the wisdome of the letter . for though we know how to join these two in the life , yet there is a necessity of seperating them at present , till the letter be gained out of the hands of the whorish spirit , which hath built up severall forms of knowledge , religion , and worship in mistery-babilon , by the letter without the life , all which must fall with babilon . an exhortation , relating to the workings of the mistery of iniquity ; and the mistery of godlinesse in this present age . all people upon earth , who love your souls , and have any true secret pantings after god , look to the nature of your spirits , and look to the nature of those things ye let into your minds ; least ye take in death for life , error for truth , and so sow to your selves corruption , and rear up a fabricke in mistery . babilon , which will be turned into desolation and utter ruins , by the power of life from sion . strong is the spirit of deceit that is entred into the world , and glorious and very taking are his images and likenesses of truth , which will deceive all but the very elect , who were chosen from the foundation of the world , and whose eyes are opened to see the foundation of life , which was before the foundation of the world . it hath been an heavy dull time for many ages : there have only been witnesses hitherto raised against antichrist , and he hath sound it an easie matter to knock them down , and keepe up his wayes of prophanenesse , and of formall superstitious kinds of devotion , up and down all the nations . but now it is a quick time , the spirit of the lord god hath arisen , the searching eye is opened , the pursuit after the very spirit of antichrist is begun , yea very quick and fresh is the scent of that spirit which hunteth the whore ; and now she goes forward and backward , traverses her ground , changes her paint and colours often , shifts her garments continually , and uses all the art she can to save her life . now the king of babilon opens his treasury , brings forth all his likenesses , all his images , all his appearances ; with some or other of them ( if it be possible ) to tempt the simple soul , and keep it satisfied therewith , in some of his chambers of darknesse and imagery , out of the life and power . therefore now be warned and look about you , and be not cosened with any of the wares of babilon , where the marchandize and traffique is for souls , and where all the wares of deceit are , which are proper to cosen souls : but seeke for the nature of that thing , which the inward pantings of your heart at any time have been after ; and waif for the opening of that eye , which can see , through all manner of paint , to that nature : and keep low in the life , simple and honest-hearted , and then gawdy appearances will not take with you ; for they are only temptations to the aspiring part , which is lifted up above the pure , low , humble principle : and if that part were brought down , ye would be safe : but while that stands , ye will not be out of the danger of temptations . now this know : there is nothing whereof sion is built , but the likenesse of it is in babilon : and the likenesse is very taking , even more taking to that eye which is open in men , then the truth it selfe . the truth is a plain simple thing , it is not gawdy in appearance , its excellency lies in its nature ▪ but the appearances of truth which satan paints , are very gawdy , very glorious , seemingly very spirituall , very pure , very precious , very sweet ; they , many times , even ravish that understainding and those affections , that are out of the life , oh what shall i say ! shall i speake a little of the wares of babilon ? where is there an ear which can hear me ? yet he that opens my mouth , can open thine ear . therefore set me speak a little plainly . . there are many glorious fals births in babilon . there is no inheriting the kingdome , but by being born againe . this doctrine the king of babilon preacheth : he is fain to do so , else the letter of the scripture would overthrow his kingdome . now therefore to keep from the true new birth , he hath his images of the new birth , his severall false births . a great while outward baptisme , and a formall knowledge was enough to make a man a christian : but now since that is discovered , and will not do , he brings forth better births ; he hath inward changes of the minde ( multitudes of them ) fit for every one who is seeking after the life , to be tempted from the life with : and he tempts every one with a proper bait , with that which is taking to him in his present estate . what changes any kind of knowledge by vertue of the notion ( with the devills quickning power added to it ) can produce in any man , the devill can transform man into . yea many are these changes : and he that doth not know the nature of the true birth , may easily be deceived with that which is just like the thing he looks for . a man looks for a new birth , for an inward change : he looks for a knowledge to change him : he shall have just the very likenesse of that which his heart desires , the lively likenese , the devill is ready at hand to furnish him with it : which way can the man , who never saw the true thing , espy the cheat ? . there are many glorious desires in babilon , many pantings , many breathings after that which this birth of babilon takes to be life . the devil hath these wares , these images in his shop too . as he hath a false birth in imitation of the true , so he hath false breathings for his false birth . if his child could not seemingly breath towards god ( as if he were a naturall child of god ) he would soon be detected : therefore he inflames him with desires of growth , with desires of enjoyment of that which he calls life , with seeming desires of serving and glorifying god : and here come in the prayers of the fleshly birth , which are many times carryed on with exceeding great earnestnesse of the fl●shly part to which also the father of this birth given answers . and now which way can deceit be so much as suspected here ? and yet here also the deceiver lodgeth , and herein he worketh , raising strong desires in that part wherein he dwels , that he may alla● those pure desires , which otherwise would be arising from the life underneath , and which ( notwithstanding all this ) sometimes doe arise , especially when the soul is in anguish . . there 's false food in babilon , false knowledge to feed this wrong nature with . there 's knowledge falsely so called . there 's severall appearances of all the truths in sion . there 's outward knowledge of the letter , and there 's inward misticall knowledges and each of these have their warmth , and their freshnesse , and do nourish up this child , and cause it to grow . yea what knowledge and experience ; ( which at first sprang from the true life ) this spirit makes a prey of , and daily brings into his babilon , therewith to feed and fatten that which is born of him , and to cover the old deceitfull nature under , which is not slain thereby , but daily lives and moves and puts forth it selfe : this is certainly felt by that , which is made sensible in the life , but hard to be spoken , because the deceived heart is so grosse ▪ and the ear so heavy now here the painted whore , which hath dealt treacherously with the life , fits as a queen , and saves , she shall see no sorrow : this knowledge is certain to her , these experiences , she hath had the feeling of , and knows they can never be shaken . but o thou princesse of babilon , the lord will strip the , the lord will unbare thy inwards , & thine own eyes shall see they nakednesse , which shall be for a perpetuall reproach among all the inhabitants of sion : and then thy dark deceitfull spirit , shall have no more to say against those , who now see through thy covering to thy nature , in the light ; and judge thee ( not of themselves , nor in their own wills and understandings ) but from the true power , and in the true guidance of the life , whose work it is to pursue , overtake and judge dea●h even to death . for all this knowledge , and all these experiences in thee ( though thou seest it not , nor canst see it with that eye wherewith thou lookest to see ) are held captive by that which transgressed and hath erred from the life , and are made use of to keep thy soul in bands : and as they are thus held , death and the curse must overtake them , or that life in thee , from which they first sprang , can possibly arise . grasp not after the knowledge of this in the understanding part , but wait for the sence of it from that life , which lyes slain underneath these , and by that part which exalt● these . . there are false keys to open the several chambers of imagery in babilon . this food man cannot gather of himselfe , it must be given to him : this knowledge man cannot get into by himself , but as this spirit leads him , and opens to him : for he hath the keys of death , and opens into the treasures of death . now this hugely confirms a man in the deceit , without the least suspition of it . why , saith he , i had not this knowledge from my selfe , i came not to it by mine own skill or understanding , but it was given me , it was opened to me : and it came in fresh , and warmed my heart , begetting sweet and pure disires in me , and hath made me eye the glory of god , and not my selfe . ye● , it might come thus in the likenesse , and work the likenesse of this in thee ; and yet it self not be truth , nor be able to work the truth of this to thee and this is proper to deceive thy very heart , and make thee a pleasant inhabitant of babilon , and a joyfull worshiper of the kingt thereof , whom through this deep deceit , and most subtle false appearances in thy heart , thou mistakest for the king of sion . . this false spirit hath his false crosses , his selfe combats and fightings . the very papists have not only their wooden and stone crosses , but they have also then wayes of self-deniall , their wayes of crossing the naturall part , of resignation to the divine will ( as they call it ) of fighting against corruption , &c. it is manifest , that a man must deny himselfe , or else he cannot be a christi●n ( his own will must not , cannot live , if he truly give himselfe up to christ : ) therefore that spirit , which lyeth lurking to deceive , both severall wayes of self denyall to teach ( all which must have some hardnesse in them to the naturall part , or else they would not passe : ) and these may produce great , and constant conflicting in the flesh , and yet the fleshly nature be still kept alive under all these conflicts and exercises of selfe deniall . he hath a circumcising knife , which cuts off a great deale , but alwayes spares the nature : and as long as the nature is speard , the devil still hath that wherein he can dwell . . he hath his false love to god and man , and his false zeale for god love and zeale are two distinguishing things . all men conclude , that love determines a man to be a christian , and so they take up some appearance or other of love , somewhat that satisfies themselves that their love is right , both to god and man . the very papists , who are full of blood and cruelty , yet pretend to love : they have an image of love which contents them . but there are far higher images , even images of universall love and sweetnesse , which no eye can perceive , but that which knows the truth . and take one word from me , ye to whom it belongs : all ye that cry up universall love , from the sweet sense of its image , ye shall one day know , that one act of particular love from the true nature , exceeds this in its utmost extent . . he hath his false life . the devil hath not only a dead formall religion , but he hath a resemblance , and imitation of the quicknings of the spirit . the devill puts his life into this image , where need requires . he hath not only a dead litterall knowledge , but he hath paintings of the life : he draws a thing to the life : he makes his dead image of truth , as like the living substance of truth , as possibly he can ; insomuch as his images of life , at a distance , without being beheld in the true life , cannot but be taken for living . now here is the depth of deceit , when the devils images of life in the heart , are taken for the living thin , for the life it selfe . . he hath his false liberty . there is a glorious liberty in the gospell : there is perfect freedome in the service of the life : there is liberty in the power of the life over all the creatures . god made all things for man , and he denies him nothing , he being in subjection to him in the life , and using all in the dominion of the life . now the devil paints a liberty like this , yea a liberty that seems greater then this , even a liberty wherein the fleshly part ( whose very nature is eternally shut out of the nature of true liberty ) hath scope ; which liberty is not surrounded , nor cannot be surrounded by the power of life , as this is : and in this painted liberty , that spirit which painted it lives , which : paint the true liberty takes off , slaying that which calls it liberty , and gathering in the name of liberty from this false appearance , to that which is liberty indeed . and by the way , he that can read this , let him : the perfection of the true liberty lies in the perfection of bonds , in the perfect binding down of that which is out of the life : for the true liberty , is the liberty of the life , and of nothing else : and when all that is contrary to the life , is perfectly bound down , then the life hath its ful scope , without the least controul of the fleshly pa●t : and when the life lives , then that which is joyned to the life lives also . now here 's the mistery of iniquity , here 's the inward kingdom of darknesse , here 's the glory of babilon ! here 's he that contends for the kingdome , for the inheritance ! here the son of the bond-woman ( thus dressed , thus furnished , thus filled within and without ) will have it go for granted that he is the right heir : and yet all this while wants the nature of that which is to inherit , and cannot possibly receive that nature into himselfe , but only such images afore mentioned . and if in tender love to his soule , from a clear sight of this thing , we warn him , and bid him look about , he cries doe not judge . he really thinks he is right in the main , and he seemes willing to refer it to the day of tryal . ah poor hearts ! the eye is opened which can see . that which hath judged the deceit in us , can also judge the deceit in thee . cannot the spirituall eye see things in its kind ? to what end hath god given it ? canst 〈◊〉 see and judge naturall things in the naturall part ? so can they see and judge spirituall things who are in the light , and who live in the life : yea we shall continue judging thee in the ●e●● , and in the humility , till god open that in thee which can s●●l to our judgement . object . how difficult doe you make the way to life , if not utterly impossible ? if all this be true , who can be saved ? answ. the way to life is very difficult , yea and impossible to that part in man , which is so busie in willing and running towards life : but it is as easie on the other hand , to that which the father begetteth , raiseth up , & leadeth . the wayfairing man though a fool shall not erre . the wisest and richest merchant in babilon , connot set one step in it : the least child in sion cannot erre there . therefore know that in thy selfe , to which it is so hard ; and know that which god hath given to thee , which will make it easie . thou hast a living talent given thee by god , let not thine eye be drawn from that ; but joyn to that : keep there , and thou art safe : and that will open thine eye to see all deceits , just in the very season and hour of temptation . for thou must expect to meet with all these temptations , as thy growth makes thee capable of receiving them . and as they come , the true eye being kept open , they will be seen : and being seen , they will easily be avoided in the power of life , for in vain the net is spread in sight of the bird . therefore that thou mayst be safe . . know the light , the eternall light of life , the little glimmerings and shinings of it in thy soul . this comes from the rock , to lead thee to the rock : and if thou follow it , it will fix thee upon the rock where thou canst not be shaken . . keep in the light , keep within the the hedge , step not out of thine own , keep out of the circumference of the spirit of deceit , the power of whose witchery and sorcery extends all over the regions of darknesse . . love simplicity , love the nakednesse of life , stand single in the honesty of the heart , out of the intricate subtle reasonings , and wise consultings about things : for by these means the serpent comes to twine about and deceive thy soul : but in the simplicity of the movings of life , in the light , lies the power , the strength , the safety . . lye very low continually , even at the foot of the lowest breathing and appearances of the light . take heed of being above that wherein thy life lyes : for the wisdome , the power the strength , yea the great glory lyes in the humility : and thou must never be exalted , thou must never come out of the humility , but find and enjoy the honour and glory of the life in the humility . . mind the reproofs of the light , for that will still be setting thee to rights . that will still be bringing down that which would get up above , and there lyes the preservation . oh the chastnings of the light , the sweet chastenings of the love by the light ! these are healing stripes . this brings down the exalter , and that in thee which loves to be exalted , and to be seeking the honour of the spirituall riches , before the humility is perfected . thus in love to souls , have i powred out my soul before the lord , and held forth gentle leadings , even to the most stubborn and stiffe-necked . the end . the great and sole troubler of the times represented in a mapp of miserie, or, a glimpse of the heart of man which is the fountain from whence all misery flows, and the source into which it runs back. drawn with a dark pencill, by a dark hand, in the midst of darkness. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) the great and sole troubler of the times represented in a mapp of miserie, or, a glimpse of the heart of man which is the fountain from whence all misery flows, and the source into which it runs back. drawn with a dark pencill, by a dark hand, in the midst of darkness. penington, isaac, - . p. printed for j.m. for giles calvert, and are to be sold at his shop ..., london : . running title: a map of misery. "to the reader" signed: isaac penington. attributed by wing to isaac penington. reproduction of original in the cambridge university library. eng sin -- early works to . great britain -- religion -- th century. a r (wing p ). civilwar no the great and sole troubler of the times represented in a mapp of miserie: or a glimps of the heart of man, which is the fountain from whenc penington, isaac a this text has no known defects that were recorded as gap elements at the time of transcription. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images - emma (leeson) huber sampled and proofread - emma (leeson) huber text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the great and sole troubler of the times represented in a mapp of miserie : or a glimps of the heart of man , which is the fountain from whence all misery flows , and the source into which it runs back . drawn with a dark pencill , by a dark hand , in the midst of darkness . lord , what is man ? thou searchest the heart , thou tryest the reines ; no man knows himself , thou knowest every man . lord , what is man ! london , printed by i. m. for giles calvert , and are to be sold at his shop at the sign of the black spread-eagle , at the west end of pauls . . to the reader . reader , behold ( if thou be'st able to bear the sight ) a few specks of thine own black dark self , some broken fragments of that filthiness which every man thinks he is free from , and yet the heart of every man is ful of . who is there that looks not on the more hideous part of evil , at least , as at a distance from himself ? little does man think , while he cries out against it , and seems very zealous to have it purged out of the whol world ( if it were possible ) that it lodgeth so close in his own bosome , that he doth not , nay cannot discern it there . i the lord search the heart , and try the reins , but no man knows what is in his heart , or in his reins . abundance of wickedness hath broken forth in these few years , and every eye sees it in the spreading , in the budding forth of it , but who sees it in the root ? it appears in the kings party , in the parliaments party , in the armies party ; among the episcopal sort , presbyterians , independents , &c. all these see it plainly enough in one another , and strengthen themselves in accusations against one another ; but who suspects it at home ? who imagines , while he cries out against pride , covetousness , cruelty , treason , heresie , blasphemy , &c. that he himself is the spring whence these issue , and where they would live and flourish , if all the outward appearances of them were cut off ? what moses once said to the people of israel neer the time of his death , that they had seen great works & wonders of god , both in egypt and in the wilderness , yet god had not given them an heart to perceive , nor eyes to see , nor ears to hear , unto that very day , deut. . , . the same may be applied to me , and every man , in the sence in hand . we have seen great and strange breakings forth of wickedness ; man hath been stripped almost naked , turned inside out ; this have we all seen , but we have not seen our selves in this sight ; our own nakedness is not understood by us : it is the kings party that is so unjust , so prophane , so tyrannical , so cruel , so self-ish , not the parliaments : 't is the parliaments party , not the armies : 't is the armies , not the levellers : so in religion , 't is the episcopal party that is so loose , so formal , so oppressive in matters of religion , not the presbyterians : 't is the presbyterians , not the independents ; or if some of all these , yet not i , not such as are of my stamp , of my practise . ah subtle , whorish self ! who can finde thee in thy cuning shifts , who canst lodg wickednes so secretly in thy heart , that thou thy self knowest it not to be there ? well , shall i tell thee what i think ? surely condemnation is written in every mans forehead : every man , in finding fault with others , pronounceth judgment against himself dayly . when thy heart shall be opened by the searcher of it , and the quintessence of that discovered to be in thee , whereof thou hast condemned but some extracts in others , what wilt thou be able to plead why that judgment should not pass upon thee , that thou hast passed upon others . doubtless thou must be forced to confess , that how unrighteous soever thy judgment hath been concerning others , ( as most of our judgments passed upon others are , though we think otherwise , ) yet the judgment of god , concerning thee , is just : and it is a righteous thing , that thou thy self shouldst undergo that sentence , which thou thy self hast pronounced against others , in a case far short of thine , especially seeing thy saviour ( who can be thy onely hope of reserve ) bids thee expect it ; for he positively told his disciples , that with what judgment they did judg they should be judged , mat. . . thou hast here presented to thee a little taste of a parcel of thy self , how thou wilt rellish it , i know not : thou mayst think thy self injured because it is layd somewhat close to thee , without such limitations and exceptions as thou mightest have crept out at . well , be it so , but know withall , that when thou comest to be searched by the candle of the lord , thou must be forced to own these yet farther , and perhaps far more deeper , and greater abominations then these . however take this as kindly as thou canst from him , who waits , in some measure , as he is enabled , for the destruction of this whorish self , both in himself and in thee . who then shall become entirely thine . isaac penington . the great and sole trovbler of the times represented in a map of misery , &c. from jeremiah . ver. , . the heart is deceitful above all things , and desperately wicked , who can know it ? i the lord search the heart , i try the reins . here are four eminent things affirmed concerning the heart of man . . the extream deceitfulness of it , the heart is deceitfull above all things . there are abundance of deceits in the world , deceits in every art , in every trade , in every motion , in every appearance , in all the objects of sense , reason , religion ; but nothing like the heart of man for subtilty , for secrecy , for depth of deceit . there is deceitfulness , almost in all things , that presently cozens a superficial eye . all things are painted , and he that looks but upon the paint in things , and imagines , because he can see and acknowledg the paint , that he sees and knows the thing , is deceived in all things . but in some things there is a thicker paint , they are more throughly guilt , they are so curiously wrought , so like the thing they represent , that it will require a very narrow piercing eye to look through them into the substance it self . some things have yet a deeper dye , that 't is almost impossible to discern them . there are such cheats and cheaters abroad in the world in all sorts of things , in all sorts of objects ; in the objects of sense , in the objects of reason , in the objects of religion , that it is almost if not altogether impossible for any man to escape delusion , who meets with an accurate cheat , in the hand of an accurate cheater . but all these are nothing to the heart of a man , the heart of a man far surpasses all these , it is deceitfull above all things , it hath far more curious deceits , and it is far more exact at the art of deceiving then any thing else can be . it has deceits and skill to cozen it self with : it can seem to hate sin , and make it self beleeve it doth hate sin ; all manner of sin , it s own beloved sin , its inmost sins most , and yet all this while hugg , cherish , imbrace , enjoy them ; unseen , unknown to it self : it can kisse sin and suck the sweetness of sin , even in those very prayers it seems to put up against sin , and of that very sin which it seems in its own spirit to be most fearfull of , and most bent against . it can feed sin with that stroke which it seems to give to it , to mortifie and stab it . it can seem to be zealous for god , for the advancement of his glory , for the good of man in generall , and more particularly for the people of god , big with motions and designes this way , and in the mean time hate god his glory , yea , hate man and the people of god , and in those very designes and motions , endeavour the throwing of them all down ; and all this so unknown to it self , that it would think , you did it the greatest injurie in the world to conceive so of it ; nay , it should be injurious to it self , if it should suspect any such thing concerning it self . here is a deceiver indeed , other deceivers cosen others , and they are very exact in deceit that can cosen all others , but the heart can cosen it self at any time , or in any thing it pleases , and so cosen it self too , that it is impossible to suspect deceit in that thing wherein it cosens it self . the heart is indeed deceitfull above all things . . the extream wickednesse of it , and desperatly wicked , it is as wicked as it is deceitfull , as filthy within , as finely painted without . it is not for nothing that it hath this large cloak of sin , but it has within proportionable wickednesse to cover with it . there is a fountaine , a sea , an ocean of wickedness , and of the worst kind , the intensest kind , desperate wickedness . the sinne that appeares abroad in the world , is but some drops , some rivolets of that that is in the heart ; nay , it is hardly of the same kind . the evill that appeares in the world , it is modest , rationall , lovely in comparison of that which is in the heart ; that , there is a more mad , a more desperate kind of wickednesse ; that uncleanness , that pride , that cruelty , that enmity , that rebellion against god , that blasphemy that makes such a noise in the world ; alas , it is a poore peece of wickednesse to that which is in thine and my heart . if our hearts were opened and compared with such outward actings of those persons we now think very abominable , alas , they would be saints in respect of us , the sight of such a depth of desperate wickednesse would swallow up a little shallow breakings forth of it . . the vniversall ignorance of man concerning his heart ; nay , the impossibility of any ones knowing it . who can know it ? such a question according to the common rule of interpretation , is a strong negation , more forcible then if it had been barely thus expressed , no man can know it . who can know it ? every man thinks he knows his heart , charge him with any thing , how confidently will he go to purge himselfe of it , as if he were absolutely certain it were not in him . but his heart deceives him about the knowledge of it self , as well as about other things , for he doth not , he cannot know it . he may take a great deal of pains to search and examin it ; he may have some experience of some evill in it , some guesses at more , but the knowledge of the evill of it he has not . man is not capable of knowing his own heart , it is too bigg for him to comprehend , too vaste , too deep for his shallow brains , to receve the knowledg of . the light of religion may shew him much evill in it , and make him sensible that there is much more , but distinctly to shew it him , all the light of religion that i have tasted of , or heard of , cannot attain to . at sometime i have had some astonishing sights of a depth of pride , unbelief , covetousness , hypocrisie , &c. but distinctly to discern , or measure that depth , hath still been too hard for me , when the light was clearest and fullest . and here i am told , t is not my condition alone , but the condition of others also ; yea of all men , who can know it ? . the worke that god is continually about in reference to the heart of man , i the lord search the heart , i try the reines . would you know what god is continually doing in the world , why he is searching the heart , and trying the reines . no man can do it , he can , and does . he has a bucket that he can let down into this great deep , and bring up what kind of filth of it he pleases , and poure it forth in the sight of the sun . this is the work god hath alwaies been about-look into the scripture , what is it , but gods discovery of mans heart , a record of gods searching the heart , and trying the reines . it is mans work to hide and cover his heart , & to lay all his loathsomness deep , and remove it as far out of the sight of himself and others , as possibly may be . it is gods work to search out his filth , to fetch it up out of this dark depth , and set it in order before his and others eyes . and what a man may seem most free from , and think himself wholly mortifitified unto , god chuses to draw forth and discover to him and others . drunkenness out of temperate noah , incest out of chaste lot , unbeliefe out of faithfull abraham , rigid sharpnesse out of meek moses , impatience and curses out of patient and blessing job , pride out of newly broken and humbled hezekiah . and i have often found , that what evill i have dis-relished in others , and thought god might justly be meeet with them for , it was soon after opened , and let loose in mine own heart . this deserves serious consideration , for as it is the work god is alwaies about , so he seems now more especially to apply himself to it , he hath gone very far in it , he hath so opened this sink in all sorts of men , in every man , that every man is become abominable , i had almost said , to all but himself , and his own party . i the lord search the heart , i try the reines . my intention at present is only to treat a little concerning the second of these , the desperate wickedness of of mans heart , wherein there may also be a further touch given about the deceitfulness of it too , it being a part of its wickedness , as well as cloak for all the rest . the heart is desperately wicked . this is his testimony of it , who tries and knows it . i might mention other scriptures also which speak to the same purpose , as that in eccles. . . the heart of the sons of men is full of evill , and madnesse is in their heart while they live . he speaks not concerning one mans heart , but generally concerning every mans , the heart of the sons of men , and couples evill and them altogether : nor doth he speak restrainedly concerning some kind of evill , but indefinitely taking in all manner of evill ; there is nothing that is called evill , but is to be found in the heart of man . neither is there onely a spice or tang of some kind , nay of every kinde of evill , but every mans heart is full of all manner of evill . the heart is a very vast thing , but as vast as it is , it is full , and that of evill , has as much evill in it , as it can hold . and madness is in their heart while they live . madness is the greatest distemper that can befall man , it quite unmans the man , takes away his reason , or rather poysons it , that it becomes no way profitable to him , but a strong engine to entangle him ; and the greater and stronger his reason is , the more is he bound in the fetters of his distemper , and the less able to help himself . there are three known properties of madness , of mad men . misehievousness , especially to themselves , they care not how they cut and would themselves . insensibleness , they feel not the smart of blows . and wilfulness , there is no perswading of them to any thing , least of all to any thing that is good for themselves . this is the true picture , the resemblance of every man ; he is mad , what others appear to him to be in a shadow , he himself is in truth , a mad man , a man destitute of his true reason , that which is left , is no more profitable to him , then that is in him , whom he calls the mad man . he hath all the properties of madness , he is mischievous to himself , cuts , flashes , wounds his soul unmercifully . he is insensible , insensible of the wounds he gives himself , insensible of the afflictions god lays upon him . he is wilful , there 's no perswading him to any thing , but what agrees with his madness ; you cannot displease him more then to offer him physick , nor torment him more then force him to take it . and when god doth force any upon him , and cause it to work , how doth he roar and cry out , as if the healing of his madness were the loss of his happiness ? nor doth this madness lie in some of his motions , but in his heart , where it keeps possession all the days of his life . and madness is in their heart while they live , while man lives , while man hath an heart of his own , this madness lies in it when he dyes , and has a new heart given him , that heart is free from it . so that well known place , mat. . . out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts , murders , adulteries , fornications , thefts , false witness , blasphemies . what a bundle of wickedness is here that proceeds out of the heart , and therefore has its place and residence in the heart . to illustrate this further , i shall instance in some of the more common sort of wickednesses , which lodg in the heart , and contribute somewhat towards the filling of it , as particularly in these , pride , covetousness , envy , unrighteousness , enmity , cruelty , unbelief , hypocrisie . i. pride : pride is a desperate evil , it puts every thing out of its place , thrusts down what is excellent , lifts up what is base and vile , sets all things in a combustion and contention . what is the reason there is so much trouble and disorder every where , but because there is so much pride , which is still begetting , heightning and nourishing them . now the heart of man abounds with this desperate pride . pride chiefly acts and discovers it self in three things , in high conceits of self , in great desires , and vehement endeavors to exalt and set up self , and all these are in every man ; there is no man ( though perhaps most think otherwise concerning themselves ) free from such conceits , from such desires , from such endeavors . . every man is highly conceited of himself , of what he is , of what he does , of what he deserves . there is none so uncomely , but they are lovely in their own eyes ; none so foolish , but they think themselves wise ; every man admires his own parts , his own abilities , his own gifts ; every christian , so far as he is a man , his own graces ; and he is not set high enough thinks himself ; he is qualified for higher employments , in chruch , in common-weal , then he is put to . then for his actions , how highly does he think of them also ? what ever he does is well done . seldom does a man do anything so ill , that he does not justifie himself in , in some respect or other . is he angry ? he has just cause . does he any wrong ? he was justly provoked , it was not injury , but that which the party deserved . his good actions are exceeding good , his bad he was drawn to , incited to , tempted to they did not flow from himself ; he hath still somewhat before him , to make himself and his own actions lovely to him , and to take off that unloveliness which any else may fasten upon them . lastly , for his desires , he values them too according to the rate he sets upon himself , and upon his actions : he thinks he deserves highly of men , of christians , for all he does for them , and among them , he is never prized by any according to his worth , his friends do not value him enough , church , common-weal , where ever his service is , it is not sufficiently esteemed or rewarded . these are the thoughts that lie hid in every mans heart concerning himself , and at sometimes break forth so into his view , that he must needs shut his eyes , or acknowledg them . . man has great desires to set up himself ; 't is almost , if not altogether , the sole of his desires , to please himself , to have every thing subject to himself ; to be esteemed , honored and made use of himself , to have his abilities employed , commended , rewarded ; this is the very heart of the man , this is that every man pants after , and would fain possess . . he uses great endeavors too to attain this ; he will run through all difficulties , use all diligence , venture all hazards and dangers to satisfie himself , to please himself . what cost will a man be at to set up his own will ? how many contentions are dangerously begun and chargeably maintained , meerly to humour a mans own will ? when reason , judgment , nay , sense of smart says , let them fall ; no , says will , i will rather loose all first , and this alone many times continues them . what pains will a man take to maintain his own wisdom ? he will rather lay his folly open by multitudes of vain excuses , then suffer a blemish of indiscretion to lie upon him . how eagerly does he maintain the excellency of that which he commends , the worthlesness of that which he dispraises ? this is that every man strives for , to have his will the rule , his wisdom the counsellor ; if any thing be amiss , he would have had it otherwise ; if anything prove amiss , it was because his advice was not followed . all a mans thoughts , reasonings , discourses , beating of his brains ( were he able to see it ) tend this way , either directly to advance somewhat that hath reference to self , or secretly to undermine somewhat that stands in the way of the advancement of self-profit , pleasure , honor , either outward or inward , which draw all men after them , what are they , but severall waies of advancing self more sutably to its temper ? this is the first of those evils proposed to be instanced in , which hath its seat in the heart of man , pride . ii. the second is covetousnesse . as man onely would set up himself , so he would onely enjoy all himself . he would ' dwell alone ; he would be as god is , alone , and none besides him : he would have all to himself ; he is never satisfied , while there is any thing to be had . his eye is never satisfied with seeing , nor his eare with hearing , nor his heart with enjoying . every thing in man immeasurably covets , oh what a depth then is there in his heart that feeds all these . we look upon raking and scraping a little silver and gold together , as the chief part of covetousness ; alas ! that is but one branch of it , and but a poore petty one neither , in respect of what is in , and if occasion serve , can arise out of his heart . iii. envy . this is a desperate evill too ; it did david much hurt , his feet had almost slipped , psal. . v. . how ? while he envied at the foolish , vers. . man envies at good that falls besides himself , at others being lift up , at the thriving of others , either in outwards or spirituals . as he would be all , and have all , so he envies both at god and men that are above him . iv. unrighteousness . man is unjust in all his actions , in all the courses he takes to lift up himself , to attain the enjoyment of things himself . he is unrighteous towards god and men in his dealings with them , in his interpretations of his own , and their actions . he judgeth favourably of himself , but severely of them . there is no man almost that has to doe with him , acts well towards him ; he acts well towards all others . nay , for god himself , it is he that is too blame : he acts well towards god , but god acts not kindly towards him . he fasts , he prayes , he beleeves , he waits ; but god does not blesse him enough , either in outwards , or spirituals . he is forward enough in praying , in fasting ; but god is not forward enough in taking notice thereof . wherefore have we fasted ? &c. the waies of the lord are not equall . v. enmity . man hates everything but himself . he hates man , he hates god . the haters of god , it is a scripture phrase , and it is that which is the temper of man , it might be used for one of the most proper descriptions of him . would you know what man is ? why , this he is , one that hates god , and all thoughts of reconciliation and union with him . and so he hates man too , hatefull , and hating one another , even persons tyed together by the greatest bonds of wickednesse ( where likeness might breed love ) yet hate one another . ah! doe not shift this from your selves to others , but know , when yee heare of any wickedness in the heart of any man , it is but the heart of every man drawn out . ther is hatred to god , and hatred to man in us all . see it drawn out of any heart , and yee may be sure it is in evey heart : and the reason , why men cannot beleeve it is in them , is because there was never occasion to draw it out forcibly and undeniably from them . object . but this is evidently otherwise , will some be ready to reply . doth not man naturally love his kindred and friends , it is onely his enemies that he hates . answ. the answer is as ready . man onely loves himself : and so much as is of self in any thing , so much he loves . the reference that is to self in any thing , he loves : therefore he loves his kindred , because they are a part of self , they are but self a little multiplied , and removed . and thus he loves god , let him look upon him as a preserver of himself , as a saviour of himself , as one that is good and kind to him : but this is not the love of god , but self-love . in this sence a man may be said to love most things , for most things have some reference to him , and that reference he loves ; but this is not the true love of any thing , but the love of self in that thing . this is not a pure , but an adulterous love , and the flowings forth of it in every kinde , and in every step , are unchaste . vi . cruelty . man is very cruell indeed , nothing but cruelty . mercy is gods ; and when man seems to shew mercy , it is gods acting in him , though he know it not , it is the bowels of god , streaming forth from god through him as the pipe : but man himself is cruell , cruell to the creatures , a very tyrant over them . cruell to men , homo homini lupus , hence he is resembled to , and called in scripture by the name of such creatures as are most ravenous , as a lion , beare , leopard , woolf , &c. cruell to god , he would kill all the discoveries of god in himself , in others , in heaven , in earth , and put out his very being too , if he could . this is much shut up within man , by him who bounds all things , and most of all the heart of man , but let him but once let it loose , and anger and fear enough in man excite and draw it out , then it will soon appear somewhat like it self . vii . unbelief , distrust of god . man , there 's no faith towards god in him ; he cannot , he will not trust god , but himself , and creatures like himself he will trust , nay cannot , forbear trusting , how often soever he be deceived and wounded thereby . the jews , gods own people , could never be drawn to trust god , but the helps and means themselves sought out , though they proved continually broken reeds to them . all the experiences they had of god , all the miracles he did for them , all the miseries they felt by declining him in their distresses , and running to other shifts , could never bring them to trust god , but still every fresh occasion draws forth unbelief in them , and murmuring from them . perhaps some beleevers may be apt to complaine , that here wants distinction all along , and may have such distinctions in their minds , whereby they can throw off all this from themselves , and lay it at the doores of unregenerate and unbeleeving mens hearts . to such i shall say onely this , oh sirs , take heed , left when you heart come to be ripped up , and the depths therein laid open , they prove so vaste , as to confound and swallow up that distinction , which now appeares so great and clear in your eyes . viii . the last evill that i now shall mention , is hypocrisie . the heart is very deceitfull , cozens men , cozens it self , assaies to cozen god . be not deceived , god is not mocked . there is that in the heart of man , that will attempt to mock and deceive god . though all these forementioned evills are in man , yet there is no perswading him , any one of them is in him , at least in any such degree , as is spoken of , so deeply doth his heart deceive him . for pride . he is not so lift up in his spirit as was expressed . he has not any high conceits of himself , or of his own parts , or abilities , or graces ; he sees others go beyond him : and he has no such desires in him to be exalted ; nay , he would not be to high , nor does he use endeavours that way , he takes no pains at all to lift up himself , or to have himself exalted . for covetousness : it is far from him too , he does not rake and scrape as he sees many others do , but he is very well contented with what he has . is it not a strange thing , yet very common ? the most wretchedly covetous persons can see and cry out against covetousness in others , but they themselves seem to themselves free of it , and all that they do in this kind is no more then they ought , or at least are warranted to do . for envy ; he envies no man , perhaps he will confess he wishes it were somewhat better with himself , but yet he is not offended or grieved at the prosperity of any other . so for unrighteousness ; he is far from that , he will rather wrong himself , then any one else . and for enmity ; he bears ill will to none , forgives all the world with all his heart . as touching cruelty ; god forbid he should be so wicked as to be cruel to any . is thy servant a dog ? said hazael , when the prophet told him weeping , what cruelty he would exercise in ripping up women with child , &c. he could not harbor a thought of any such barbarism lying within him . unbelief likewise ; which uses to discover it self , both in a mans spirit , withdrawing from a naked depending on god , and in running to other things for support and relief , is exceedingly hid in the heart from the man , so that he cannot see or acknowledg it , unless in the lump , ( which the heart in a secret craft may do , to hide the branches of it the more securely . ) there is a notable example concerning the deceit of the heart about the unbelief of it , in the coherence of this verse with the former . the prophet had pronounced a curse from the lord upon the unbeleeving heart , verse . thus saith the lord , cursed is the man that trusteth in man , and maketh flesh his arm , and whose heart departeth from the lord . and had also proclaimed the beleever blessed , vers. . . blessed is the man that trusteth in the lord , and whose hope the lord is , for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters , &c. what now would this people say to him , who were always running to other means , and departing from the lord , but yet could never be convinced thereof ? why surely they would presently be blessing themselves ; they would look upon the gentiles , ( who did not know god , nor trust god ) as the persons to whom this curse did belong , but as for themselves , they were heirs of this blessing : their hearts could witness within them , that their trust was not in men ; indeed they did address themselves to men sometimes for help as means under god , so they might make use of the egyptians or assyrians in such a sense , but they did not trust them , their only trust was in god . ah , says the prophet , the heart is deceitful above all things : little do you know how your hearts cozen you ; you still think , you only use means under god , and your trust is alone in him , whereas in truth your heart departs from him , you dare not , you cannot trust him in any distress , looking it in the face , and not shrinking back ; but your heart is raised or dejected , according as the means and helps it hath recourse to , appear unto it . so exceeding deep is the hypocrisie of the heart , that man can never beleeve what is in him , until he see it break forth from him , and long may it break forth from him before he can be drawn to see it ; very palpable must that evil be , which mans heart cannot at least in some measure shift off from it self . thus thou hast had a little glimmering of the grosser part of thy self , which self is the strange woman that flattereth thee with her lips , alluring thee from the chaste and pure embraces of thy first love into her unclean bed : but should i track her in her more refined footsteps and motions , in her several dresses , attires , ornaments , paintings , & shew thee her covered here with a sweet meek disposition , with modesty , wth learning , with a natural nobleness of spirit , with all the excellencies of nature , covered there with all the excellencies of religion , crept into every form of holiness that is visible in the world , into all duties , into all graces , into all spiritual motions , into fasting , prayer , beleeving , waiting , love , joy , peace , sorrow for sin , humility , patience , &c. what wouldst thou say ? what wouldst thou think ? how wouldst thou stand amazed . and yet is she not now thus laid open to the sight of every observing eye , and espied under all these by them that watch her ? she was clothed with civility , with morality , with generosity , adorned with the choicest flowers of nature , learning , art , in the kings party , so finely guilded and painted with nobleness and bravery , that her worth seemed to be real and truly excellent : but how base did selfbreak forth , and appear under all these , and put off these at pleasure ? what base unworthy actings , unbeseeming men of honor or ingenuity , did self put those noble spirits upon ? she was clothed with religion , the reformation thereof , and regaining of just rights and liberties , and setting up a perfect administration of righteousness in the parliaments party ; a brave attire , very lovely apparel : but did not self too apparently lie underneath it ? did not this appear to be the dress of self , which she made use of , and threw off at pleasure ? she was clothed with several of the highest and most beautiful forms of religion in the army , with a flaming zeal of setting open the fountain , and all the channels of righteousness , possessing every man with a present enjoyment of those rights and liberties which others had under pretence of preserving , defrauded them of . sure here is integrity , here is the naked glory of god , and good of the nation springing up : who would think to find self lie lurking close here too ? nay , it is commonly reported , that this harlot is crept into churches , ordinances , religious exercises ; into fastings , prayers , preachings , morning exercises , where self-advancement , self-interests , self-ends , self-designs smell so strong , that they are offensive to all , but such as are engaged in them . blush oh heavens , and be astonished oh earth , how are ye both stripped ! there 's no vertue nor strength left in either of you . natural excellencies have now no power to keep self under in the earth among men , but there she gets up , and will be mistress . neither have spiritual excellencies any power to keep her under among christians , but there she lifts her self up as a queen also . what christ saith is to little purpose , what self saith is become now the law to christians . if she sow the seeds of enmity and division among them , it must grow , and the seed of love which christ sows must be nipped . though christ say , this is my commandment , that ye love one another , as i have loved you ; yet if self say , this is my commandment , that ye hare one another , that ye stir up hatred against one another ; that though other men would agree and be at peace , yet ye lay about you , and keep up war and bloodshed for your own ends and interests ; while self is mistress it must be so , her law must stand . but i find my spirit growing weary of this subject , ( there is another part that i would fain be vievving of , and digging into , and i am apt to groan out ; oh that this were shut , and that opened , or rather that this were burnt , and consumed , and that fourbished and brightened , ) i shall therefore only propose some few considerations by way of consequence from the premises , and so conclude . the heart is desperately wicked . then . see what all is , and must needs be , that flows from the man ; from such a bitter fountain what can proceed , but it must be bitter ? if the root be so bad , all the branches and fruit must needs be nought . all the thoughts , words and actions of man , what are they ? surely as they come from his heart , so they cannot but be like his heart , polluted , unclean , filthy , noisom , offensive to every pure eye , to every pure taste , to every pure nostril . he that hath a pure eye , a pure pallate , a pure nostril , cannot endure the sight , the relish , the scent of any thing of man . and this is the judgment that god , who knows what they are , passes concerning them , concerning all that flows from man , all his thoughts , all his words , all his actions . he passes this judgment upon his thoughts , gen. . . and god saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth , and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually . what ever man thinks of , his thought is evil : if he think concerning god or man , or himself ; if he think to please himself , if he think to cross himself , to deny himself , to worship god , to please god , to subject himself to the will of god , yet if this flows from the man , it must needs be evil , the root being so corrupt . the purity of the object , and the seeming integrity of the action , cannot take off the impurity which goes from the heart into every motion and thought of it . there are some kind of thoughts , malicious thoughts , cruel thoughts , passionate thoughts , covetous thoughts , unclean thoughts , such as these man will easily yield to be evil ; but that his holy thoughts , his religious thoughts , his meditations on god , his goodness , his providence , his thoughts of reformation , of suppressing evil in others , and searching and purging it out of his own heart also , that these should be evil , what man does or can suspect ? yet this sentence god passes on all his thoughts : nay , though he do not go so far as a thought , if he do but imagine in any kind , the very forming of a thought in him , the very first motion of a desire before it , and the object can meet , this is evil ; the least , the weakest motion of the heart has strength enough of evil in it : and this is not only in some imagination , when his heart is framing some notorious wicked thing , but in every imagination , what ever thought his heart is framing ; the heart is evil , and the thought is evil , and the passage between the heart & thought is evil . and it is only evil ; it is not mixed with evil , but it is all evil , nothing but evil ; it has not only a tincture of evil going along with it , a savour of corruption sticking to it , but it is all corrupt . nor is it only thus sometimes , or now and then , but continually ; all the time of man , in all the several shapes and changes he appears in of civility , morality , religion , shifting out of one into another , still it is thus with him , still of this nature are his thoughts , his imaginations ; day and night , winter and summer , seed time and harvest , his imaginations are not only evil in the night , in the dark time of his ignorance , but in the day , in his brightest time , in the time of his clearest light and knowledg ; they are not only evil in the winter , in time of adversity , while he is under sharp storms of afflictions , under distempers and oppressions of the outward or inward man , but in the summer too , in the time of his prosperity , when he thrives either outwardly , or in his spirit ; they are not only evil in his sad seed time , where he meets with much trouble , temptation and interruption , but in his harvest , when he brings in his crop of peace , joy , rest , comfort . continually , continually , in every state , in every condition , in every change evil , and only evil is every imagination of the thoughts of his heart . his words are evil too , they come from the same root , out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks ; they are unclean , for they defile the man , that which comes out of the man defiles the man . so also are his actions , all his actions his very best , his praying , his hearing , his repenting , his beleeving , &c. they are unclean . prov. . . the sacrifice of the wicked is abomination ; how much more when he bringing it with a wicked mind . the wicked here is the person in whom this evil heart is , we look upon him as wicked , whose life is evil in our eyes , but god looks upon him as wicked , whose heart is evil in his eyes . the sacrifice of this wicked person is his worshipping god , his serving god in the way of his own appointment ; his praying , hearing , meditating , &c. now this is abomination , that which god loaths , his very soul abhors ; that which he himself would loath , if he had but eyes to see into it . how much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind ? it may be made more loathsom by corrupt ends and desires , gathering into his mind in the performance of it , but however it is loathsom . when he does it with never so pure an intention to honor god , when he fasts and prays meerly to abase his spirit , and lay it low before god , yet then it is loathsom , though much more loathsom , when he does it with a wicked mind , when he fasts and prays intentionally to smite with the fist of wickedness , to set up his own ends and designs , and beat down other parties and interests that stand in the way of it . . take notice what a just ground there is , why god should deal sharply with us , why he should chide and fight with any of us , why he should so contend with the man in us . oh there is a desperate root of wickedness in us all ; can you blame him to be at enmity with it ? is it fit the holy and pure god should let such a fountain of unholiness of impurity stand in his sight , and not fight with it , sink it , and subdue it unto himself ? . consider what an unfitting thing it is for us to be judging one another , who are all so deeply guilty in that very thing wherein we judg , or can judg any other . therefore thou art inexcusable , o man , whosoever thou art that judgest ; for wherein thou judgest another , thou condemnest thy self , for thou that judgest dost the same things , rom. . . there is the root in thee of the same wicked action thou judgest another for , there wants only somewhat to exhaust the corrupt juyce therof into thy sight ; but in the sight of god , who judges by the heart , thou art as a deep in that wickedness as he , and thou by judging his wicked action , condemnest thine own wicked heart which is full of it ; nay , thou hast done it in the eye of god , who reckons that done which the heart would do , and perhaps thou hast brought it forth into act too in an higher kind , then he whom thou judgest hath done , though thou seest it not , and so canst not be sensible of it . what canst thou acquit thy self of , that thou judgest another for ? wilt thou judg another for adultery ? thou hast it in thine heart , and hast acted a worse adultery , hast forsaken the bed of thy unblemished husband indeed . wilt thou judg another for murder ? ( i speak not concerning judicial proceedings in courts of justice , where magistrates as they are entrusted with a work beyond man , so they are enstated in a degree above man , i have said , ye are gods ; yet therein they fall short too , because they are but men at bottom , and so at best can judg but according to the sight of the eye , and hearing of the ear , which is opposed to righteous judgment , isai. . , . ) i say , wilt thou judg another for murder ? thou hast that cruelty in thee that would commit it , yea , and hast killed the lord of life . wilt thou condemn antichrist ? thou hast the man of sin in thee , whereof that which thou callest antichrist is , as it were , but a figure . wilt thou judg another for fleshly principles , and fleshly actings ? alas ! how many fleshly principles prevail in thee ? how many fleshly actings issue out from thee , perhaps in an higher kind and degree of spiritual wickedness , then the party whom thou judgest is capable of . god has still given several outward representations in the several ages of the world , of the wickedness of mans inward parts , to point him thereby as with the finger , to the sight , knowledg and detestation of himself ; but this hath still been the subtle course of the deceitful heart of man , to cry out aloud against evil in those outward dresses , and the mean while to nourish the substance of it within . and still as persons grow in light and knowledg , and so come to discern the more secret and spiritual dresses of it , they are ready to give themselves scope to condemn it in such or such a dress , ( wherein now they full well know it , ) not seeing what more spiritual shape the same thing has put on in them , under which it hides it self , and acts more powerfully , then it did in those lower shapes and dresses whereby it deluded them before . if we did but know our selves , we should not dare to be judging one another ; but it is this same looking on evil as at a distance from us , as anothers , not our own that makes us so severe towards others . . it shews the reason of all that wickedness , that enmity , pride , cruelty , &c. that now breaks forth in the world , and abounds every where ; what is the matter ? how comes this to pass ? why god is ripping up the heart of man , opening the heart of man , and so that which is in it gushes out and appears . god is stirring the sink , and that makes it send forth that noisom savour that offends every nostril . . it may be unto us a ground to qualifie our spirits , and make them willing to enter into gods furnace , and quietly to endure the force of that fire which he in wisdom sees needful to purge out this wickedness , and purifie the heart by . what sober spirit that has the real sence of such pollution in him , would not loath himself , desire to be delivered from himself , and be willing to have the fire kindled , and so burn upon him , ( though it did scortch and pain him unsufferably , ) as to consume and devour this filth . never willhe wonder at the sharpness of god , who is sencible of the desperate evil of his own heart : never can he be weary of the refiners fire , who is weary enough of his own corrupt heart . 't is because we know not our own hearts , that we think god might cure us with less launcing . when we come to know our selves , nothing will be more burdensom to us then ourselves , and nothing will be more welcom then that sword which is sharp enough , and that hand which comes resolutely enough , and strikes home enough , to let out the very life of our hearts , which when once done will make us happy . finis . a weighty question, proposed to the king, and both houses of parliament together, with some queries about religion, for the good of mens souls, that they may seek after, and be established in that which gives life / by isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) a weighty question, proposed to the king, and both houses of parliament together, with some queries about religion, for the good of mens souls, that they may seek after, and be established in that which gives life / by isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . p. printed for r. wilson, london : . reproduction of original in duke university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng great britain -- history -- charles ii, - . - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - andrew kuster sampled and proofread - andrew kuster text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a weighty question , proposed to the king , and both houses of parliament : together , with some queries about religion , for the good of mens souls , that they may seek after , and be established in that which gives life . by isaac penington . london , printed for r. wilson , . a weighty question , proposed to the king , and both houses of parliament . the question is this which followeth : quest . vvhether laws made by man , in equity , ought to extend any further , than there is power in man to obey ? is it not cruel to require obedience in such cases , wherein the party hath not a capacity in him of obeying ? now in things concerning the worship of god , wherein a man is limited by god , both what worship he shall perform , and what worship he shall abstain from , here he is not left at liberty to obey what laws shall be made by man contrary hereunto . the new-testament worship is to be in spirit and truth , which is a principle above man's reason , and cannot righteously be limited by a lower principle ; but the lower principle in every man should be subjected to the higher , both in himself and others . these things i write , not in pride or conceitedness , but with an humble heart and in love , that god may have his due , cesar his , and all men theirs , and that wrath from god may not break forth upon this nation : for surely it cannot but greatly provoke him , to see his people so deeply suffer , for their obedience to him in what he requireth of them . i am a lover of peace , truth and righteousness , and an hearty desirer of the welfare and prosperity of this nation , and that it may no more be broken up in the wrath and indignation of the lord ; but that the peaceable and righteous seed , which he hath sown in the hearts of many , may be quietly suffered to grow up , to the praise of the lord , and to the good of mankind . this is from one , who was a mourner over you in your affliction , and is now also a mourner over those whom ye afflict . i. p. some queries about religion . query . vvhat is true religion ? is it a gift from god , bestowed on those whom he begets by the power of his life ? or , is it a profession or worship of the nature of this world , which a man by natural parts and industry may attain to , as well as to other things ? query . what is the sum and substance of the true religion ? is it not love from a principle of life ? is it not a travel out of the enmity of the creature , into the love of god ? doth not the light of life spring in the love , and gather into the love ? doth not christ revealed in the heart , and leavening the heart with the savour of his life , teach love to enemies ; to bear with them in love , to seek them in love , to forgive them in love , to pray for them in love , to wish good to them , and wrestle with god for mercy towards them , even while they are hating and persecuting ? quer. . are the papists , or protestants , or any other sort of religious persons , found in this love ? do they manifest by it their discipleship to christ , and the power of christ in them ? or rather , do they not set up their several forms , and maintain them in wrath and enmity against each other ? nay , would they not destroy each other , if they could ? surely this spirit is in too many of them . and doth not this give a strong evidence against their religion , that it hath but a form , and not the true power in it , and that in heart they are not the disciples of christ ? for if they were such , they would of him learn the love. quer. . whether any form of religion ( if not held in the power , and subjected to the power ) doth not fight against the power , keeping up an outside shew without the substance , and thereby crushing the substance ? what form of religion , at this day in the world , can suffer the love to grow , and the life to lead and rule in the love , and the lord of life to exercise his authority in the hearts and consciences of men ? and this is for want of power within , and because of forms forcibly set up without : for the religion of the gospel began in spirit and in power , and it never can be restored and preserved , but by the same spirit and power . the renting of the protestants from the papists was no further good , than it was in the power of the life : and the renting of others from the protestants is no further good , than it is begun and held in the same power : nay ; any party , though beginning never so uprightly , and by never so true and clear a leading of the spirit of god ; yet so soon as it begins to invent and turn aside to a form of its own chusing , and is upheld by the reasonings and understanding of man , it presently corrupts . quer. . whether the power of religion ( and the true love ) if it were raised up and restored again , would not make the world happy , and set every thing in its proper place , both inwardly and outwardly ? is not sense an excellent thing in man , if it be guided by reason ? and is not reason a much more excellent thing , if it be guided by an inward principle of life ? but sense left to it self , without the guidance of reason , how bruitish is it ? and reason left to it self , without the guidance of a principle of life , falls below sense . how cruel , how blind , how selfish , how unrighteous is man , that follows the dictates of his own corrupt reason , without knowing and becoming subject to that which should enlighten it , and give him the right use thereof ! quer. . whether god will restore religion again in the power ? whether he hath such a work to do in the world ? and whether the time be near , that god is about such a work ? and whether he hath already begun it , and made any progress in it ? is there such a thing as the power of religion sought after ? do men grow weary of their forms of worship , and find them empty , and unsatisfactory to the hungry soul , that pants after life ? nay , have there not been some touches and appearances of life and power , and of the true love in some poor , weak , despised ones ? o that men knew the times and seasons , and then perhaps they would see , that this is not a day for setting up of forms , but of longing and crying out after life and power . quer. . when god restoreth religion and raiseth it up in power , whether then forms and wayes of worship without the power , must not needs wither and decay ? when the power first appeared in the dispensation of the gospel , did not all the shadows of moses's ceremonies fly away and vanish before it ? and when it appears again , shall not all the shadows and inventions of man , which have sprung up since in the time of the night , vanish before the brightness of the light of the day ? where the power ariseth in any heart , what becomes of the man there , with all that springs from him ? where is his wisdom ? where is his former worship ? what becomes of all his forms of religion ? do they not all moulder and come to nothing , and he become as a little child , to be formed again in the power of life , and born of the spirit of life , that he may enter into god's kingdom ? do not all the old things pass away , and new things spring up from the seed of life , which god sows and preserves in the hearts of his by his power ? now , who is wise to understand these things ? who hath the key to open the mysteries of life ? who knoweth the times and the seasons ? ( the times and seasons of forms , and the times and seasons of life and power ? ) who seeth what god is about to do in the world , and prepareth his heart for his administrations on the earth ? who is a friend to god , and to mankind , and willing to travel in spirit out of this dark , corrupt , earthly state of things , into the heavenly nature and being , where man was at first , from whence he came , out of which he departed , and can never be happy till he return thither again ; and can never return thither by his own strength and reason , but only by the power and leadings of god , revealed in him in an inward principle of life ? and he that will follow this , must first feel it in his heart , and then turn his back upon the earthly nature and wisdom , and war against his own corrupt reasonings , in and with the light of the principle of life , as it ariseth and is further and further made manifest in his heart , through the grace and mercy of god , which thereby offereth its help to miserable lost man , to redeem him out of his misery and undone estate . man hath a time to hear allotted him by god : and when that time is over , it is determined concerning him . he is a seeds-man in this world ; and what he sows here , he must reap hereafter . he soweth either to the flesh or to the spirit ; either to his own will or to gods will. he followeth either the ways of his own heart , or of gods spirit . he either feels the power of religion , and is renewed thereby and fitted for god , or contents himself with a form without the power , and in effect remains what he was . he that is renewed , he that is changed in heart and life , he that soweth to the will and nature of god , shall inherit life with god. he that liveth in a form of religion without the power , and followeth the vanities of his own mind ( going out of this world unrenewed and unfitted for god ) shall be cut off from god , and lie down in sorrow and anguish of soul , where he will bitterly bewail his mis-spent time , and the losing of his souls life and happiness , for the injoying of a few earthly lusts and pleasures , suitable only to the earthly nature and spirit , in its corrupt and degenerated estate . o man , whoever thou art , that art drowned in the lusts and pleasures of this world , which answer only to the sensual and corrupt part ; o remember that thou hast also a precious soul , which wants redemption , by the power of god , to make thee happy . and one day this soul will be awakened in thee , and when it is awakened it will feel its want of god. this is the day of gods stretching out his arm to thee , o slip it not out , for if thou dost , terrible will the day of thy awaking be , and thy misery unavoidable and intolerable . and if now the pains of thy body be so dreadful to thee , what will the tearings of thy soul be by the wrath of the almighty ? lay it to heart and retire inwardly , seeking to feel somewhat of god gathering and guiding thy soul , out of thine own worldly nature and spirit , into the nature and life of his spirit , that thy soul ( at present seperated from god and drowned in the earth ) may return to and be happy in the center of life , from whence it came . for there is a center of souls as well as of the earthly nature : and the spirit of man returneth to god that gave it , as well as the body to the earth . and then the lord appointeth it to its proper place , which is according to the nature it is found in . if it be wheat , if it be of the renewed nature , if it hath taken up the cross and followed christ in the regeneration , then he gathereth it into his garner . if it be of the chaffie nature , of the earthly spirit , the mind remaining unrenewed and unreconciled to the nature of god , then to the unquenchable fire ( even to the fire which will burn and scorch unquenchably ) and to the worm which dieth not , but gnaweth perpetually , and bringeth to mind all the former vanity & nis-spent time , to encrease the heat and flames of the fire . o where is the soul , that if it were not wholly bewitched and lulled into a dead sleep , by the stupifying spirit of this world , would run so great a hazard , for the enjoying of a few momentary pleasures in the sensual part , and lose thereby the inward enjoyment of peace and reconciliation with god here , and of the pleasures of his kingdom of true glory afterwards . now for a close , let me say one word ( in the upright love and true good-will of my heart ) to this present generation , that they may consider and take heed ( if possibly , if possibly ) it is this . even as a father after the flesh , is tender of the children he begets according to his nature , and would not suffer them to be wronged or destroyed , if he could help it : so is the lord tender of those whom he begets in the nature of his life , and in his due season will appear for them as surely as he is god , and as surely as he hath begotten them out of the worldly nature unto himself , by the spirit and power of his life . therefore , o touch not any whom the lord hath in the least measure anointed with his holy oyl : for what is done unto the least of these poor , naked , sick , imprisoned ones , &c. he looketh upon as done unto himself ; because he is one with them in the sufferings of their flesh , whom he hath made one with himself in spirit . the end . an enquiry after truth and righteousness, and after the people whom the lord establisheth and will establish therein in some queries on isa. , and also on chapter . penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) an enquiry after truth and righteousness, and after the people whom the lord establisheth and will establish therein in some queries on isa. , and also on chapter . penington, isaac, - . p. s.n., [london : ] caption title. signed at end: "written in reading-goal ... the latter end of the th moneth . isaac penington." reproduction of original in duke university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng bible. -- o.t. -- isaiah lviii -- criticism, interpretation, etc. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - judith siefring sampled and proofread - judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion an enquiry after truth and righteousness , and after the people whom the lord establisheth and will establish therein , in some queries on isa . . and also on chapter . query . are there any people to be found , who exceed that state spoken of vers . . of seeking god daily , and delighting to know his wayes , as a nation that did righteousness , and forsook not the ordinance of their god ? they ask of me said the lord the ordinances of justice , they take delight in approaching to god. are there not many professions and sorts of professors at this day , who in gods sight fall short of this state , and yet think highly of themselves ? yet these the prophet of the lord was not to spare , but to lift up his voice like a trumpet against them , because of their transgression and sin which they committed , notwithstanding their thus daily seeking the lord. quer. . what was the transgression and the sins which the prophet was not to spare them in , but lift up his voice like a trumpet against them for ? was it not ( among other things ) for their wrong fasting , their wrong afflicting their souls , their wrong seeking of god , out of the meek , tender , merciful spirit ? doth god require such fasting or praying of any man ? or will the lord accept such fasting or praying at any mans hand ? ah how many fast and pray at this day , who never rightly considered nor truly understood what the fastings and what the prayers are , which god requireth , and which alone he will accept ? quer. . what is the fast which god requireth , and will accept in all ages ? is not this it , to loose the bands of wickedness , to undo the heavy burdens , to let the oppressed go free ; to break every yoke &c. ver . . . who can understand or learn the fast , but he that is taught of god ? quer. . are there any , whose light breaks forth as the morning , and whose health springs forth speedily ; and whose righteousness goeth before them , and whom the glory of the lord gathereth up , or is a rereward to ( as is promised to those who observe this fast ) and whom the lord is ready to hear and answer in all that they call upon him for , as ver . . ? doth not god teach his children in the new covenant to observe this fast ? and they who are taught by him to keep it ( and do faithfully keep it ) do they not inherit this promise ? quer. . are there any now among the sons of men , whose light hath risen in obscurity , and whose darkness hath become as noon-day ? whom the lord guideth continually , and whose soul he satisfieth in droughts , and makes fat their bones : and makes them like a watered garden , and like a spring of water , whose waters fail not ? surely if there be any , who are truly taught of the lord to observe that which leads hereto , they cannot miss of enioying these precious promises : for he is faithful and true who hath promised . ( vers . , . ) quer. . are there any , at this day , whom god honoureth in building the old waste places , in raising up the foundations of many generations ; in repairing the breach , and restoring the paths to dwell in ? what are the paths that are to be dwelt in ? are they not the same which the soul is to walk in ? is not the just mans path and his dweling place all one , even the light of the living , which he is both to walk and abide in ? see joh. . . and prov. . . it is said concerning christ , he that saith he abideth in him , ought himself also so to walk , even as he walked joh. . . how did christ walk ? did he not walk in the light of gods spirit ? in subjection to gods spirit ? was not the fulness given him ? was not the father alwayes with him ? and did not he act in the father , and the father in and through him ? now , doth not he give forth a measure of the same spirit , of the same anointing , of the same power to become sons unto all his ? and are not they to walk according to the measure of light and life they receive from him ? and he that walks according to this rule , can he err in so walking ? is not this the pure path , the living path , the path for the ransomed in the dayes of the gospel , who walk not after the flesh , but after the spirit ; not in the oldness of the letter , but in the newness of the spirit ? o that men could consider this with the true understanding , and know the way of life in the true sense and experience thereof ! that which enlightens and gives life to my soul , is somewhat from christ , even a measure or appearance of his pure spirit ; it is no less : and the law of life written inward is more to the soul then words written outwardly , though all the words that ever come from gods holy spirit are very precious , and greatly useful , to those , to whom he vouchsafeth to give the understanding of them . quer. . what is the sabboth spoken of vers . ? is it the law-sabboth , or the gospel-sabboth ? is it inferior in nature to the fast before mentioned ? what is gods holy-day , which is the souls delight , the holy of the lords honourable , wherein the souls that enter into the true rest ( by faith in him who is life ) honour the lord , in ceasing from their own wayes , pleasures and words ? see also hebr : . . and . qu. . they that keep gods holy sabboth , do they not delight themselves in the lord ? do they not feel the pleasure of his day , and of his appearance in his day ? are not these of the true seed of jacob ( who prevail with the lord for the blessing ? ) and doth not the lord feed them with the heritage of jacob their father , even with the blessings of the covenant of life and peace for evermore . some queries on isa . query . is there such a state to be witnessed , either in the particular , or in the general , wherein the womb that was barren shall travel and bear , and sing for joy of heart and spirit before the lord ? see vers . quer. is there such a state to be witnessed , as of the maker to become the husband ? is not this a glorious state indeed , and a name better then o● s●ns and daughters , signifying neerer intimacy and union , then any other rela●ion , with the holy one , the redeemer of israel ? and do not such as come to this state ( even to be married to the lamb ) partake more abundantly of his redeeming ●ower and holy presence ? see vers . . quer. . are there some so visited and redeemed by the lord , as that they shall never be cast off more as that the hoods of wrath shall never overtake them more , nor the covenant of thei● p●●ce removed ? ah precious state ! blessed are they doubtl●ss ▪ who have been so visited and redeemed by gods mercy , as to be mad● partakes of it . quer. . who is this that hath been afflict●d , tossed with tempest and not comforted ? have there b●en any such in our days , who have been deeply afflicted , for want of the presence of the lord god of their life , who h●ve been t●ssed up and down with tempest after tempest , and could meet with no comforter to speak a word in season to their weary souls ? and hath the lord appeared to these , visited th●se , built up these , comforted these ? surely then , the poor whom he hath raised out of the dust , and the needy whom he hath lifted off from the dunghil , cannot but praise his name . quer. who is this , whose stones god layes with fair colours , and her foundations with saphires ? whose windows god makes of agates , and her gates of carbuncles , and all her borders of pleasant stones ? was not the covenant of life so adorned in the apostles days ? and is she not so adorned now again ? quer. . whose children are they , who shall be all taught of the lord , and whose peace shall be great , who shall be established in righteousness , who shall be far from oppression ; so that they shall not fear , and from terror so that it shall not come neer them ? are there such a generation of the heavenly birth , of the covenant of life , brought forth in this our day , who sanctifie the lord of hosts himself , and make him their fear and their dread , but are not terrified with the wicked one , nor with the snares and engines of the ungodly ? surely they who are taught of god , have peace from him and in him , and are established in the righteous spirit and life of his son , they are like mount sion , which cannot be shaken or removed , by all the terrors and oppressing devices of the ungodly . qu. . by whom do they gather together , who gather together against such a people ? certainly it is not by the lord nor by any advice or counsel from him ; but by the advise of that spirit which opposeth himself against the power and work of the lord : and that spirit must fall for the s●kes of those , whom god hath raised up by his power , and undertaketh to defend . how tender was god of i●rael after the flesh in the day of his delivering them , see ●hron . ▪ . & c ? and will he not be as tender of his spirit●●l israel , in the day of his redeeming and delivering them ? indeed the opposition will be very great , but confide who shal have t●e victory , see rev . . certainly it is true , and s●aled by the spirit of the lord that patience , meekness , innocency love ▪ right●ousness &c. shall at length overcome all unrighteousnes , enmity ▪ oppression , cruelty , wrath &c , and that spirit from which they proceed : and as they are overcome , and when they are overcome , the lamb's spirit shall reign and shine in the glory of the father . o the sweet sense of this day and further hope thereof , how doth it bear up the suffering lambs in the midst of all their tryals and tribulations ! quer. . hath not god created the waster to destroy ? and hath not he power over him ? and doth not he limit him in the midst of his destroying work ? but did god create him to destroy his heritage ? or will god suffer him so to do ? they may indeed destroy the buildings which are not of god : but god is the wise , great , master-builder , who counted his cost before he began and knew he was able to maintain his building , against all the oppositions and opposors which could rise up against it . qu. . can any weapon formed against the covenant of life and the children thereof , who are taught of god and have great peace from him , and who are established by him in righteousness ; i say , can any weapon formed against these prosper ? every tongue that riseth up in judgment against them , doth not the holy tongue condemn ? is not this the heritage of the servants of the lord , in this our day ? and doth not the lord say ( what ever men say to the contrary ) that their righteousness is of him ? indeed , who ever receiveth the true righteousness , receiveth it from the hand of the lord , and knoweth it to be of him . and this testimony we have , even from the spirit of the lord , who taketh away our unrighteousness and filthy garments , and giveth us righteousness from and in his son ; that the righteousness which he giveth us , is his sons righteousness , even the very same wherewith the son himself was clothed . for as the seed is but one , and of one ( heb. . . ) so the righteousness is but one neither . be not hasty in spirit but wait to understand it in the light and spirit of the lord , which is wisdoms place of giving true understanding to her disciples . it is true , there hath been great darkness , and the true church hath been in the wilderness , and the remnant of her seed hunted and persecuted up and down the earth by the false church , which hath been cried up for the true . but blessed be the lord the darkness is passing away , and the true light shining again : which light discovers and redeems out of all that is false , into that which is true : so that he that is truth and no lye is again known , and he speaketh truth and no lye , and anointeth with the true and holy oyle of life and salvation , all that are truly living . and now the kingdom of darkness is going down , and the kingdom of our lord jesus christ raising up and exalting ; which is an inward kingdom , a spiritual kingdom , a kingdom of life , a kingdom of peace , a kingdom of righteousness , a kingdom of holy power and dominion over sin and death in the heart . and this will spread and increase , to the blessing of persons , families and nations ( as they come to be sensible of and subject to the holy light and power thereof ) which the blessings of abraham , wherewith all families and nations are to be blessed , as they come to be unleavened from the serpentine spirit and wisdom , and leavened with the innocency and righteousness of the lambs nature and spirit . the mighty god carry on his work , by the same mighty arm of strength wherewith he began it ; and open the eyes of this nation that they may see their proper hope and interest : for indeed the lord hath great love to this nation , and a blessing in store for it , ( for the seeds sake which he hath sown and caused to spring up in it , ) though many tryals and tribulations must first be passed through , and the spirit of enmity and opposition against the appearance of gods holy spirit and power worn out . o that men could come to that which gives the eye-sight , that thereby they might see a right , and no longer take the rise of their seeing from that spirit and wisdom which miss-represents things . written in reading-goal , in the tender love , true innocency and uprightness of my heart ; which the lord hath given me to suffer with for his truths sake ; about the latter end of the th moneth , . isaac penington . the end the flesh & blood of christ, both in the mystery and in the outward briefly, plainly, and uprightly acknowledged and testified to, for the satisfaction and benefit of the tender-hearted, who desire to experience the quickning, healing, and cleansing vertue of it : with a brief account concerning the people called quakers in reference both to principle and doctrine : whereunto are added some few other things which by the blessing of god may be experimentally found useful to the true pilgrim and faithful travellers out of the nature & spirit of this world / written in true love and tenderness of spirit by isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) the flesh & blood of christ, both in the mystery and in the outward briefly, plainly, and uprightly acknowledged and testified to, for the satisfaction and benefit of the tender-hearted, who desire to experience the quickning, healing, and cleansing vertue of it : with a brief account concerning the people called quakers in reference both to principle and doctrine : whereunto are added some few other things which by the blessing of god may be experimentally found useful to the true pilgrim and faithful travellers out of the nature & spirit of this world / written in true love and tenderness of spirit by isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . hicks, thomas, th cent. continuation of the dialogue between a christian and a quaker. [ ], , [ ] p. s.n.], [london? : . a reply to the second part of thomas hick's dialogues, entitled: a continuation of the dialogue between a christian and a quaker. probable place of publication from wing. errata: p. . reproduction of original in union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng atonement -- early works to . society of friends -- doctrines. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - ali jakobson sampled and proofread - ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the flesh & blood of christ , both in the mystery , and in the outward , briefly , plainly , and uprightly acknowledged and testified to , for the satisfaction and benefit of the tender-hearted , who desire to experience the quickning , healing and cleansing vertue of it . with a brief account concerning the people called quakers , in reference both to principle and doctrine . whereunto are added some few other things , which by the blessing of god , may be experimentally found useful , to the true pilgrims and faithful travellers out of the nature & spirit of this world. written in true love , and tenderness of spirit , by isaac penington . and without controversie , great is the mystery of godliness ; god was manifest in the flesh , justified in the spirit seen of angels , preached unto the gentiles , believed on in the world , received up into glory , tim. . . of whom are the fathers , and of whom concerning the flesh , christ came , who is over all , god blessed for ever , amen , rom. . . printed in the year , . the preface ▪ having been lately at london , upon occasion of a meeting between some of the people called quakers , and some of the people called anabaptists , and other confederates ; wherein i was somewhat concerned , being charged or brought in by thomas hicks , in his second book of dialogues , called continuation , page . to prove that the quakers account the blood of christ , no more than a common thing . and having been at that meeting , to clear my innocency in that particular : but the thing not then coming in question , and i being to return to my habitation in the country ( though i staid also a second meeting for that purpose ) it was on my heart , in the clearness and innocency thereof ; to give forth this testimony , to take of that untruth and calumny of t. h. both from the people called quakers , and my self , being both of us greatly therein injured , as the lord god of heaven and earth knoweth . i have had experience of that despised people for many years ; and i have often heard them ( even the ancient ones of them ) own christ , both inwardly and outwardly . yea , i heard one of the ancients of them thus testifie , in a publick-meeting , many years since , that if christ had not come in the flesh in the fulness of time , to bear our sins in his own body on the tree , and to offer himself up a sacrifice for mankind , all mankind had utterly perished . what cause then have we to praise the lord god for sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh , and for what his son did therein ! o professors , do not pervert our words ( by reading them with a prejudiced mind ) quite contrary to the drift of gods spirit by us . if ye should thus read the holy scriptures , yea , the very words of christ himself therein , and give that wisdom of yours , which fights against us , scope to comment upon them , and pervert them after this manner , what a strange and hideous appearance of untruth and contradiction , to the very scriptures of the old testament , might ye make of that wonderful appearance of god ? for the words of christ seemed so foolish & impossible , to the wise men of that age ; that they freequently contradicted , and sometimes derided him . if we be not of god , we shall come to nought : nay , we had not stood to this day , if his mighty power had not upheld us . we could not have stood inwardly , nor could we have stood outwardly , against the fierce assaults we have met with both wayes . and as we have not had by-ends to move us inwardly : so neither have we had by-ends to move us outwardly , as our god knoweth . o t. h. dost thou believe the eternal judgment , at the great day ; not outwardly only in notion , but inwardly in heart ? o then consider , how wilt thou answer it to god , for saying so many things in the name of a people , as their belief and words , which never were spoken by any one of them , nor ever came into any of their hearts ! innocency in me , life in me , truth in me , the christian spirit and nature in me , is a witness against thee , that thou wrotest thy dialogues out of the christian nature and spirit : and thy brethren , william kiffin and the rest , who have stood by thee , to justifie thee ( or at least seemed so to do ) must take notice of these things , and condemn them in thee , or they will expose themselves ( and their religion ) to the righteous judgment of god , and of all who love truth , and hate forgery and deceit . i pity thee : yea , i can truly say , i forgive thee the injury thou hast done me ( though indeed it is very great , thus to represent me publickly , what thou couldst not have done , if thou hadst equally considered the things written in that book ) and i also desire , that thou mayest be sensible of what thou hast so evilly done , and confess it before god ; that he also might forgive thee . o i would not bear the weight of this sin at the judgment seat of christ , for ten thousand worlds ! and that these books should be so long publick , and thy brethren take no notice of them , but rather at last apply themselves to justifie thee ; o how will they answer this thing , when they come to answer it for ever ! oh what will ye set up an interest against our lord christ ( who is the truth and teacheth truth ) and bend all your strength and understanding to make lies , falshoods and forgeries to appear , as if they were truth , and not forgeries . if ye will judge your selves and repent of these things , ye shall not be condemned of the lord : but if ye will go on , to cover and hide this great iniquity , ye shall not prosper therein . as for my particular , i had committed my cause to the lord , and intended to have been wholly silent , knowing my innocency will be cleared by him in this particular , at the great day , and the love , truth and uprightness , wherein i wrote those things , owned by him . but in the love of god , and in the stilness and tenderness of my spirit , i was moved by him to write what follows . and oh that it would please the lord to make it serviceable , even to t. h. himself , for his good , j. p. the contents . . the preface , relating the occasion of what follows page . the flesh and blood of christ , both in the mystery and in the outward , &c. page . the conclusion of the first part p. . a brief account concerning the people called quakers , in reference both to principle and doctrine p. . a few words concerning the way of peace p. . the conclusion of the whole p. . a post-script , containing , . a few words concerning the doings and sufferings of this despised people called quakers p. . an exhortation to true christianity . p. . the flesh & blood of christ , both in the mystery , and in the outward ; briefly , plainly , and uprightly acknowledged and testified to , &c. in the second part of thomas hicks his dialogues , called continuation , page . he maketh his personated quaker speak thus . thou sayest , we account the blood of christ no more than a common thing , yea no more than the blood of a common thief : to which he makes his personated christian answer thus . isaac penington ( who i suppose is an approved quaker ) asks this question , can outward blood cleanse ? therefore saith he , we must enquire , whether it was the blood of the vail , that is , of the humane nature , or the blood within the vail , ( viz. ) of that spiritual man consisting of flesh , blood and bones , which took on him the vail , or humane nature ; 't is not the blood of the vail , that is but outward , and can outward blood cleanse ? now to satisfie any , that desire to understand the truth as it is , and to know what the intent of my heart and words ( as spoken by me ) were ; i shall first say somewhat to his stating the question : and then open my heart nakedly and plainly , as it then was , and still is in this matter . first , i answer , these were not my words , which he hath set down as mine , but words of his own patching up , partly out of several queries of mine , and partly out of his own conceivings upon my queries , as if he intended to make me appear both ridiculous and wicked at once . for i no where say , or affirm , or did ever believe , that christ is a spiritual man consisting of flesh , blood and bones , which took on him the vail or humane nature : thus he represents me as ridiculous . it is true , christ inwardly , or to his inward being , was a spirit , or god blessed for ever manifested in flesh , which ( to speak properly ) cannot have flesh , blood and bones , as man hath . and then , besides his alterations at the beginning , putting in only four words of my query , and leaving out that which next follows ( which might have manifested my drift and intent in them ) he puts in an affirmation which was not mine , in these his own words . 't is not the blood of the vail , that is but outward ; and then annexeth to this affirmation of his own , the words of my former query . can outward blood cleanse ? as if these words of mine ( can outward blood cleanse ? ) did necessarily infer , that the blood of christ is but a common thing . herein he represents me wicked , and makes me speak by his changing and adding , that which never was in my heart , and the contrary whereto i have several times affirmed in that very book , where those several queries were put ( out of which he forms this his own query , giving it forth in my name . ) for in the tenth page of that book , beginning at line . i positively affirm thus , that christ did offer up the flesh and blood of that body ( though not only so , for he poured out his soul , he poured out his life ) a sacrifice or offering for sin , a sacrifice unto the father , and in it tasted death for every man ; and that it is upon consideration ( and through gods acceptance of this sacrifice for sin ) that the sins of believers are pardoned , that god might be just ; and the justifier of him who believeth in jesus , or who is of the faith of jesus . is this common flesh and blood ? can this be affirmed of common flesh and blood ? ought not he to have considered this , and other passages in my book of the same tendency , and not thus have reproached me , and misrepresented me to the world ? is this a christian spirit : or according to the law or prophets , or christs doctrine ? doth he herein do , as he would be done by ? o that he had an heart to consider it ! i might also except against those words , humane nature ( which he twice putteth in ) being not my words , nor indeed my sense : for by humane nature as i judge , is understood more than the body , whereas i by the word vail intended no more than the flesh ( or outward body ) which in scripture is expresly so called , heb. . . through the vail , that is to say , his flesh . secondly , i cannot but take notice of this , that he hath not cited the place , page or pages ; nay not so much as named the book , where those words or sayings which he attributeth to me are written , whereby any persons that were not willing to take things upon bare report ( especially in so deep charges , reflecting not only upon one person , but an whole people ) might consult the place , and see whether they were my words or no , and whether the queries i did put ( indeed to the hearts of people ) had any such drift or no , and might compare the words ( if they were mine ) both with what went before , and also followed after ; and with what was said in several other places of the book , which speak of christ's flesh and blood as of no common thing , but as that which god made use of toward the redemption of mankind . thirdly , the drift of all those queries in that book , was not to vilifie the flesh and blood of christ , by representing it as a common or useless thing : but to bring people from sticking in the outward , to a sense of the inward mystery , without which inward sense and feeling , the magnifying and crying up the outward doth not avail . indeed , at that time , i was in a great exercise concerning professors . love was deeply working in my heart , and i was in a very tender frame of spirit towards them , as any may perceive , who in the fear of god , and in meekness of spirit shall read that book ( it is entituled , a question to the professors of christianity , whether they have the true , living , powerful , saving knowledge of christ , or no , &c. ) and in this tender frame , in the midst of my crying to god for them , those queries from a true sense and understanding sprang up in my heart , even to necessitate them , if possible to some sense of the mystery , which there is an absolute necessity of , unto true christianity and salvation . this was the very intent of my heart in the several queries , which generally speak of one and the same thing , under several metaphors and figures . and that this was my intent , these words following in the second page of my preface to that book , do plainly express , the words are these . now to draw mens minds to a sense of truth , to a sense of that which is the thing , that they might know the bread indeed , that they might know the living waters , come to them and drink thereof , and find christ in them a well of water springing up to eternal life ; therefore was it in my heart to give forth this question and the ensuing queries , which he that rightly answers , must know the thing ; and he that doth not know the thing , by his inability to answer , may find that he doth not , and so may wait upon god , that he may receive the knowledge of it , and come to it , for the eternal life which it freely giveth and that i did mean the mystery , when i speak of bread , water , the vine , the live-coal from the altar , the leaves of the tree of life , the putting on christ , the flesh and blood of christ , &c. is very plain to him that reads singly . but to make it manifest particularly , concerning the flesh and blood of christ , i shall recite one query , it is the . query , page . the query is thus . is not the true church , flesh of christs flesh , and bone of his bone ? is not the false or antichristian church , flesh of antichrists flesh , and bone of antichrists bone ? what is the flesh of the spiritual whore , which is to be stripped naked and burnt with fire ? shall ever the church which is of christs flesh , be stripped naked and burnt with fire ? nay , doth not his flesh make able to abide the devouring fire , and to dwell with the everlasting burnings ? can this possibly be understood of outward flesh and bone ? is it not manifestly intended of flesh and bone in the mystery ? yea , that i did relate to the mystery in that very query , out of which he takes the four first words , and no more , is very manifest by the following words of the same query . it is the . query , page . the query runs thus , can outward blood cleanse the conscience ? ye that are spiritual consider ( can outward water wash the soul clean ? ) ye that have ever felt the blood of sprinkling from the lord upon your consciences , and your consciences cleansed thereby ? did ye ever feel it to be outward ? it is one thing what a man apprehends ( in the way of notion ) from the letter concerning the things of god , and another thing what a man feels in spirit : is it not manifest by the express words themselves , that i spake of the inward feeling of the blood in the mystery ? fourthly , this query , can outward blood cleanse the conscience , &c. doth not necessarily , nor indeed at all infer , that the blood of christ , as to the outward , was but a common thing , or useless . if i had been to answer this query my self , he doth not know what my answer would have been . it was put to professors to answer , inwardly in their hearts ; who , i did believe , upon serious consideration , could not but confess , in way of answer thereto , that outward blood it self ( or of it self ) could not cleanse and purge away the filth that was inward ; but that must be done by that which is inward , living and spiritual . then hereby they had been brought to see the necessity of the mystery , the spirit , the power , the life of the son to be inwardly revealed in them : and then had i obtained my end . nor was i their enemy in desiring or aiming at this for them , or in setting queries before them , which to my eye ( as in the sight of god ) seemed proper and conducible in themselves ( however they might fail as to them ) towards the obtaining of this end . and if they could once come to this , to own the flesh and blood in the mystery , and so come to partake of its cleansing and nourishing vertue , and not fix and appropriate that to the outward , which chiefly belongs to the mystery ; i say , if they could but go thus far with me , in owning the inward life and power , in the sensible feeling and operation thereof ; i could meet them a great way in speaking glorious things of , and attributing a cleansing or washing vertue to the outward , in and through , and with the inward . for i do not separate the inward and outward in my own mind , but the lord opened my heart , and taught me thus to distinguish , according to the scriptures , in love to them , and for their sakes . for that was not my intent , to deny the outward , or make it appear as a common or useless thing . there was never such a sense in my heart , nor was ever word written or spoken by me to that end : which to make more manifest i shall now plainly open my heart , how it hath been , and is still with me , in this respect , since it pleased the god and father of mercies , to reveal the mystery of himself , and of his son in me . in the first place , i freely confess , that i do own and acknowledge , as in gods sight , our lord iesus christ , his flesh & blood in the mystery . the apostle paul speaks of the mystery of god , and of the father and of christ , colos . . . the son was revealed in him , gal. . . and so he knew the mystery of christ , and preached the mystery of christ , colos . . . he was made an able minister of the new covenant ; not of the letter , but of the spirit , or mystery : and so he preached the wisdom of god in the mystery , or spirit , cor. . . cor. . . colos . . , , . and he had great conflict to bring people to the rich knowledge , and acknowledgement of the mystery , chap. . , . he was sent to turn men from darkness , & from the power of satan , ( which is a mystery , and works in mens hearts in a mystery ) to the light , to the spirit and power of god , which is a mystery also : and remission of sins is received in and through this mystery , act. . . and i desire every serious and tender heart to consider , whether this knowledge of christ in the mystery , was not that which he called the excellency of the knowledge of jesus christ his lord , phil. . . certain i am , that the knowledge of god and christ in the mystery , is the most excellent knowledge , and no less then life eternal , inwardly revealed and felt from god in the heart . and here no legal righteousness , no self-righteousness can stand : but the vertue and power of christs death and resurrection , inwardly revealed and felt in the mystery , subdues and destroyes it all . indeed self-righteousness may be given up in way of notion , or seemingly destroyed as to mens apprehensions , without the revealing or working of the mystery : but it cannot be destroyed in reallity , but where this is felt . but where the mystery is known , is received , and throughly works : self-righteousness can have no place there . now the apostle , who was acquainted with the mystery of christ , he speaks of his body , flesh and bones in the mystery , eph. . . ( and if there be flesh and bones in the mystery , is there not also blood in the mystery ? ) yea the apostle john speaks of spirit , water and blood , john . . now consider seriously , are all these of one and the same nature ? or are they of a different nature ? the spirit of one nature , & the water and blood of another nature ? blessed be the lord , the birth which is born of the spirit , and is spiritual , knoweth the nature of the spirit which begat it , and knoweth water which is inward and heavenly , and blood which is not at all of an inferiour nature to it . and jesus christ , our lord and teacher , speaketh of flesh which came down from heaven , which flesh is the bread of life , which he that lives , feeds upon ; and none can feed upon , but they that live . and by this it is manifest ( to all to whom god hath given understanding in the mystery ) that his flesh and blood in the mystery is intended by him , in that he saith , he that eateth my flesh , and drinketh my blood , dwelleth in me and i in him , john . . this dwelling in each other , is an effect of the mystery , and is witnessed by none that know not the mystery . and to this effect christ himself expresly expoundeth it , ver . . it is the spirit that quickneth , the flesh profiteth nothing : the words that i speak to you , they are spirit , and they are life . as if he had said , i am speaking of the souls food , i am speaking of the heavenly bread , i am speaking of spirit and life , i am speaking of the mystery , which ye look upon and understand as outwardly intended by me , and so miss of the mystery , of the spirit , wherein is the quickning vertue , and look only at the outward body or flesh , which without the spirit profiteth not , nor ever can profit any man. secondly , i confess further , that i have the sense , experience , and knowledge of this also , that in the mystery is the quickning vertue , the cleansing vertue , the nourishing vertue unto life eternal . the spirit , the water , the blood inwardly sprinkled , inwardly poured by god upon the soul , inwardly felt and drunk in by the thirsty earth , do cleanse , do feed , do nourish , do refresh . doth not god promise to sprinkle clean water upon his israel in the new covenant , and they shall be clean ? and to pour water on him that is thirsty , and floods upon the dry grounds ? is it not by the spirit of judgment and burning , that god washeth away the filth of the daughter of sion , &c. esay . . doth not the live coal from the altar , purifie and take away the iniquity ? esa . . o read inwardly , o wait to be taught of god to read inwardly , that ye may know what these things mean. why should ye quarrel at the precious and tender openings of truth , in love to your souls . thirdly , i have likewise this sense , and have also had this knowledge and experience , that the outward , without this , cannot avail . a man is not cleansed by notions or apprehensions concerning the thing : but by the thing it self . let a man believe what he can concerning the blood of christ , and apply to himself what promises he can , yet this will not do ( o how grievously do men mistake herein ! ) but he must feel somewhat from god , somewhat of the new creation in christ jesus , somewhat of his light ( shining from him the son , into the heart ) somewhat of his life , somewhat of his power , working against the darkness and power of the enemy in him . now a man being turned to this , joyned to this , gathered to this standard of the lord , translated in some degree out of himself into this : here somewhat of the mystery is revealed , and found working in him ; and so far he is of god , and hath some true sense , and some true understanding from him . and here also he hath right to christs flesh and blood in the outward , and to all the benefits and precious effects that come thereby . for by owning the mystery , and receiving the mystery , we are not taught of god to deny any thing of the outward flesh and blood , or of his obedience and sufferings in the flesh , but rather are taught and enabled there rightly to understand it , and to reap the benefits and precious fruits of it . fourthly , the lord hath shewn me this also , very manifestly and clearly , that in former times ( in this nation , as well as elsewhere ) before professors ran so into heaps ( i mean , into several wayes and forms of church fellowship so called ) they had more inward sense of the mystery , than now they have ; and were a great deal more tender ( both unto the lord , and one towards another ) than now they are . for then grace in the heart , and the inward feeling was the thing that was most minded among the stricter sort . they did not mind so much bare reading , or hearing , or praying , or any outward observation whatsoever , as what they felt therein . let men have spoken never so many glorious words concerning the things of god , yet if they had not been spoken warmly and freshly by him that spoke them , there was little satisfaction to the soul that hungred after that which was living , but rather an inward grief and dissatisfaction felt . so that in that day there was an inward sense of the mystery ( though not a distinct knowledge of it ) which was pretious in the eye of god , and very savoury inwardly in the heart . but now , in so long time , by looking so much outward , and beating their brains , and disputing about the outward , many have very much ( if not wholly ) lost the sense of the inward , and are found contending for the outward , against the very appearance and manifestation of the inward , and so are in danger of being hardned and sealed up in that which is dead and litteral , out of the limits of that which is living and spiritual . it is a dreadful thing to fight against the living god , and his living appearance in the hearts of those whom he chuseth , in any age or generation : the lord hath been pleased to bring us ( a poor despised remnant ) back to that which first gave us life , in the dayes of our former profession . o that ye were brought thither also , that that might remove the vail , hardness , darkness , and deep prejudices from you ; which can never be removed , while ye stick in litteral apprehensions , without the light and teachings of gods spirit ! now , as touching the outward , which ye say we deny , because of our testimony to the inward , i have frequently given a most solemn testimony thereto ; and god knoweth it to be the truth of my heart , and that the testifying to the inward ( from which the outward came ) doth not make the outward void , but rather establish it , in its place and service . god himself , who knew what vertue was in the inward , yet hath pleased to make use of the outward : and who may contradict or slight his wisdom and council therein ? glorious was the appearance and manifestation of his son in flesh , pretious his subjection and holy obedience to his father ; his giving himself up to death for sinners , was of great esteem in his eye it was a spotless sacrifice of great value , and effectual for the remission of sins : and i do acknowledge , humbly unto the lord , the remission of my sins thereby , and bless the lord for it , even for giving up his son to death for us all , and giving all that believe in his name and power , to partake of remission through him . and seeing it is thus with me , seeing the root of the matter is in me , o how can any man that hopes to be redeemed by my lord and saviour , reproach me for speaking of the mystery , without the least derogation to the outward , or what was done by him in the outward ! but if i should speak vehemently concerning mens neglecting the mystery , and setting up that which is outward instead of it , and without it ; i should not be condemned , but justified of the lord in so doing . indeed there is a great and weighty charge from gods spirit , upon the professors of this age , for departing from the inward ( i mean that sweet sense , which in some measure god gave them in former times of the inward ) and magnifying and striving to establish that which they apprehend concerning the outward , without it , and against it . o that it were otherwise with them , that god may not have this charge to manage against them , when at the great day they are to appear before him , and be judged by him : when all that have slighted or spoken contemptuously of his sons appearance in flesh ( and have not come to a sense thereof , and repentance for it ) shall be condemned , and they that have slighted or spoken contemptuously of his appearance in spirit , shall not be justified : which appearance is now made manifest in the hearts of many , blessed be the lord for it . o what cryes have been in my heart many years concerning you ! ( o ye professors of all sorts , who have had any tenderness towards the lord , ) that ye might see and know the lords christ , and confess him in spirit , in the mystery , even in his inward appearance in the heart , and might feel his redeeming power and vertue there , and so be brought into union and fellowship with him ! the conclusion of this part. there is a pretious promise of gods making a feast of fat things on his holy mountain , and of destroying there the face of the covering cast over all people , and the vail that is spread over all nations , esa . . , . now , what is this mountain ? was there not a mount-sion under the law , which was figurative ? and is there not a mount sion under the gospel , which is the substance of that figure ? and did not the christians in the apostles dayes , who were called of god and sanctified , come to this mount-sion , and to the city of the living god , the heavenly jerusalem , where they had fellowship with god the judge of all , and with jesus the mediator of the new covenant , &c. heb. . , . and was not the vail here done away , in him who was their lord , their light , their life , their strength , their son of righteousness , their bright and morning star ? so that with open face they could behold the glory of the lord , and were changed thereby into his heavenly image , from glory to glory , cor. . . but alas , how hath that life , spirit and power been lost , since the dayes of the apostles ! men have still owned the apostles words , and formed many notions and apprehensions out of the letter : but lost the apostles spirit , lost the knowledge of the holy mountain , where the vail is taken away , and where the feast of fat things is made : and so are only dreaming about eating and drinking spiritually , but know not what it is to feed on the living substance . and so ( being ignorant of that ) the vail is over their hearts , while they read the prophets words , and christs and his apostles words : and the mystery of life , and of the redeeming power is hid from their eyes : and that which god intended to them for a table , is become their snare ( as it was with the jews ) and their back is so bowed down under the loads and burthens of the enemy , that they cannot so much as hope or believe in the power of life for redemption there-from , but conclude it must necessarily be so with them all their dayes . o where 's the faith that gives victory over the enemys ? where 's the ability in the faith so to resist him , as to make him fly ? where 's satans falling like lightning ( oh his strength before the power of the lord is but a flash ! ) and the god of peace his treading him under the feet of his saints ? o where 's that truth , or that knowledge of the son , which makes free from him ? ( joh. . , . ) where 's that spirit , wherein liberty from his power and snares is felt , cor. . . where 's living in the spirit , and walking in the spirit , and in the pure light of the lord , when he cannot come ? where 's reading of the scriptures in that which gives to witness them , and which fulfils them in the heart ? o the mystery of godliness , the power of godliness , where the life is revealed , and the vail taken away , and an understanding given , opened and kept open to read and understand the scriptures aright , yea and the hidden glory also ! where it cannot be said in truth , to those that are there , ye know not the scriptures , nor the power of god ; but ye have received power to become sons of god , and ye are in him that is true , who truly opens the scriptures in your hearts , and gives you the enjoyment , inheritance and possession of the pretious promises , whereby ye are made partakers of the divine nature , and live in him who is the head and spring of that nature ! o that people , that profess christ , were here ! o that they did know him who begets ! and then they would not be so ignorant of those that are begotten by him : but would come into the true faith , into the true love , into the true knowledge and obedience of him , whom god hath appointed to guide and govern , and build up the whole living body ! the lord guide men inwardly thither , where the mystery is revealed , and the fellowship with god and his son and saints held in the mystery : for our fellowship is not in a notional knowledge concerning christ ; but in the life it self , which the lord god gather his people more and more into , and build them more and more up in , amen . a brief account concerning the people called quakers , in reference both to principle and doctrine . we are a people of god's gathering , who ( many of us ) had long waited for his appearance , and had undergone great distress , for want thereof . q. bvt some may say , what appearance of the great god and saviour did ye want ? answ . we wanted the presence and power of his spirit , to be inwardly manifested in our spirits . we had ( as i may say ) what we could gather from the letter , and indeavoured to practise what we could read in the letter : but we wanted the power from on high , we wanted life , we wanted the presence and fellowship of our beloved ; we wanted the knowledge of the heavenly seed and kingdom , and an entrance into it , and the holy dominion and reign of the lord of life over the flesh , over sin and death in us . quest . how did god appear to you ? answ . the son of righteousness did arise in us , the day-spring from on high , the morning star did visit us , insomuch that we did as really see and feel the light and brightness of the inward day in our spirits , as ever we felt the darkness of the inward night ? quest . how did god gather you ? answ . by the voice of his son , by the arm of his son , by the vertue of his sons light and life , inwardly revealed and working in our hearts . this loosed us inwardly from the darkness , from the bonds of sin and iniquity , from the power of the captiver and destroyer : and turned our minds inwardly towards our lord and saviour , to mind his inward appearance , his inward shinings , his inward quicknings ; all which were fresh from god and full of vertue . and as we came to be sensible of them , joyn to them , receive and give up to them , we came to partake of their vertue , and to witness the rescuing and redeeming of our souls thereby . so that by hearing the sons voice and following him , we came to find him the way to the father , and to be gathered home by him to the fathers house , where is bread enough , and mansions of rest and peace for all the children of the most high. now , as touching the blessed principle of truth , which we have had experience of , and testifie to ( for how can we conceal so rich a treasure , and be faithful to god , or bear true good will to men ! ) it is no new thing in it self , though of late more clearly revealed , and the minds of men more clearly directed , and guided to it , than in former ages . it is no other then that which christ himself abundantly preached , who preached the kingdom , who preached the truth which makes free , and that under many parables and resemblances : sometimes of a little seed , sometimes of a pearl or hid treasure , sometimes of a leaven or salt , sometimes of a lost piece of silver , &c. now , what is this , and where is this to be found ? what is this , which is like a little seed , a pearl , &c. and where is it to be found ? what is the field ? is it not the world , and is not the world set in mans heart ? what is the house , which is to be swept and the candle lighted in ? is it not that house , or heart , where the many enemies are ? a mans enemies , saith christ , are those of his own house . indeed the testimony concerning this was pretious to us : but the finding and experiencing the thing testified of , to be according to the testimony , was much more . and this we say , in perfect truth of heart , and in most tender love to the souls of people ; that whoever tries , shall find this little thing , this little seed of the kingdom , to be a kingdom , to be a pearl , to be heavenly treasure , to be the leaven of life , leavening the heart with life , and with the most pretious oyl and oyntment of healing and salvation . so that we testifie to no new thing ; but to the truth and grace which was from the beginning : which was alwayes in jesus christ the lord and saviour , and dispenced by him in all all ages and generations , whereby he quickned , renewed , and changed the heart of the true believers , in his inward and spiritual appearance in them , thereby destroying the enemies of their own house , and saving them from them . for indeed there is no saving the creature , without destroying that in the creature , which brings spiritual death and destruction upon it . israel of old was saved by the destroying of their outward enemies : and israel now ( the new israel , the inward israel ) is saved by the destruction of their inward enemies . o that people could come out of their own wisdom and wait for gods wisdom , that in it they might come to see the glory , the excellency , the exceeding rich vertue and treasures of life , that are wrapped up in this principle or seed of life ; and so might receive it , give up to it , and come to partake thereof . and as touching doctrines , we have no new doctrine to hold forth . the doctrines held forth in the holy scriptures , are the doctrines that we believe . and this doth farther seal to us our belief of this principle , because we find it a key , by which god openeth the scriptures to us , and giveth us the living sense and evidence of them in our hearts . we see and have felt in it to whom the curse and wrath belongs , and to whom the love , mercy , peace , blessings and pretious promises belong ; and have been led by gods holy spirit and power , through the judgments , to the mercy , and to the partaking of the pretious promises . so that , what should we publish any new faith , or any new doctrines for ? ( indeed we have none to publish ) but all our aim is to bring men to the ancient principle of truth , and to the right understanding and practise of the ancient apostolick doctrine and holy faith once delivered to the saints . head-notions do but cause disputes : but heart-knowledge , heart-experience , sense of the living power of god inwardly , the evidence and demonstration of his spirit in the inward parts , puts an end to disputes , and puts men upon the inward travel and exercise of spirit , by that which is new and living , which avails with god. now whereas many are offended at us , because we do not more preach doctrinal points , or the history of christ , as touching his death , resurrection , ascention , &c. but our ●eclaration and testimony is chiefly concerning a principle , to direct and guide mens minds thereto . to give a plain account of this thing , as it pleaseth the lord to open my heart at this time , in love and good will to satisfie and remove prejudices where it may be : thus it is in brief . first , that which god hath given us the experience of ( after our great loss in the litteral knowledge of things ) and that which he hath given us to testifie of , is the mystery , the hidden life , the inward and spiritual appearance of our lord and saviour jesus christ , revealing his power inwardly , destroying enemies inwardly , and working his work inwardly in the heart . oh , this was the joyful sound to our souls , even the tydings of the arising of that inward life and power which could do this ? now this spiritual appearance of his , was after his appearance in flesh , and is the standing and lasting dispensation of the gospel , even the appearance of christ in his spirit and power inwardly in the hearts of his . so that in minding this , and being faithful in this respect , we mind our peculiar work , and are faithful in that which god hath peculiarly called us to , and requireth of us . secondly , there is not that need of publishing the other , as formerly was . the historical relation concerning christ , is generally believed , and received by all sorts , that pretend to christianity . his death , his miracles , his rising , his ascending , his intercedeing , &c. is generally believed by all people : but the mystery they miss of , the hidden life , they are not acquainted with ; but alienated from the life of god , in the midst of their litteral owning and acknowledging of these things . thirdly , the knowledge of these , without the knowledge of the mystery , is not sufficient to bring them unto god ; for many set up that which they gather , and comprehend from the relation concerning the thing , instead of the thing it self ; and so never come to a sense of their need of the thing it self ; nay , not so far , as rightly to seek after it . and so , many are builders , and many are built up very high in religion , in a way of notion and practise , without acquaintance with the rock of ages , without the true knowledge and understanding of the foundation and corner-stone . my meaning is , they have a notion of christ to be the rock , a notion of him to be the foundation-stone : but never come livingly to feel him the rock , to feel him the foundation-stone inwardly laid in their hearts , and themselves made living stones in him , and built upon him the main and fundamental stone . where is this to be felt , but within ? and they that feel this within , do they not feel christ within ? and can any that feel him within , deny him to be within , the strength of life , the hope of glory ? well , it is true once again ( spiritually now , as well as formerly literally ) the stone which the builders refused ( christ within the builders of this age refuse ) is become the head of the corner , who knits together his sanctified body , his living body the church , in this our day , more gloriously than in former ages and generations , blessed be the name of our god. fourthly , the mystery , the hidden life , the appearance of christ in spirit comprehends the other , and the other is not lost or denyed , but found in it , and there discerned and acknowledged more clearly and abundantly . it was to be after it , and comprehends that which went before it . paul did not lose any thing of the excellent knowledge of christ , when he said , hence forth know we no more after the flesh ; yea though we have known christ after the flesh , yet henceforth know we him no more . if he did not know christ after the flesh , how did he know him ? why , as the father inwardly revealed him . he knew him in his spirit and power . he knew his death inwardly , he knew his resurrection inwardly , he knew the spirit , the vertue , the life , the power of it inwardly . he knew the thing in the mystery in his own heart . o pretious knowledge ! o the excellency of this knowledge of my lord and saviour jesus christ ! what is the outwardly most exact litteral knowledge without this ? but what then ! do i now deny or slight the outward ? no , i have it here , and i have the inward feeling of the spirit of life , how it dwelt in him , how it wrought in him , and of what wonderful value all his actions and obedience were , in and through the vertue of this spirit . was abrahams offering his son so pretious in gods eye ? o then what is this ! never was such a body so sanctified , so prepared : never such a sacrifice offered . o the infinite worth and value of it ! for by the inward life and teachings of gods spirit , am i taught and made able to value that glorious outward appearance , and manifestation of the life and power of god in that heavenly flesh ( as in my heart , i have often called it ) for the life so dwelt in it , that it was even one with it . yet still it was a vail , and the mystery was the thing , and the eye of life looks through the vail into the mystery , and passes through it , as i may say , as to the outward , that it may behold its glory in the inward . and here the flesh of christ , the vail is not lost , but is found and known in its glory in the inward . be not offended at me , o tender hearted reader , for i write in love , things true , according to the inward feeling and demonstration of gods spirit , though not easie perhaps to be understood at present by thee : but in due time the lord can make them manifest to thee , if thou in uprightness and tenderness of heart , and in the silence of the fleshly part wait upon him . a few words concerning the way of peace . the way of peace they have not known , rom. . . there is a way of peace , of true peace with god , who is an adversary to all that is unholy and unrighteous . those who have been unholy and unrighteous , who have been awakened , troubled , and could find no rest , but the severe and righteous judgments and wrath of the lord , lying upon their spirits night and day ; having at length had their ears opened by him , and being led by him out of the unholy and unrighteous way , into the holy and righteous way , have felt both life and peace therein . now there are two sorts , which the apostle ▪ here mentions ( or two states , which the apostle here speaks of ) which have not known , nor can know the way of peace with god ; who is an adversary to them both , and will one day speak trouble to them both , when their souls and consciences come to be searched and judged by him . the one is the prophane or gentile-state , which is without the sense of god , not heeding any appearance of his , or any inward voice of his spirit , or the writing of his law upon their heart . these never knew the way , wherein the heart is inwardly and spiritually circumcised and renewed , sin forgiven , and peace obtained . the other is the professing , or outward jewes-state , who may study the letter , and apply themselves to conform outwardly to the letter , but never were acquainted with the inward spirit and power . these greatly differ from the gentile or prophane-state , both in outward appearance , and in their own eye : but are the same in the ground , with the gentiles , and know no more of the way of peace , than the other do . quest . but what is the way of peace , which neither the prophane , nor any sort of professors out of the life and power , ever knew or can know ? answ . it is an inward way , away for the inward jews , for the inwardly renewed and circumcised to walk in . it is an holy or sanctified way , for the sanctified ones to walk in . it is a living way , which none but the living can find . it is a new way , which none but those to whom god hath given the new eye can see . it is a way that god prepares and casts up , and leads mens spirits into ( who hearken unto him ) and guides the feet of his saints in ▪ it is a strait and narrow way , which no lust of the flesh , nor wisdom of the flesh can find out , or enter into . o how little , how low , how poor , how empty , how naked must he be , that enters into this way , and walks therein ! many may seek after it , and may think to find it , and walk in it , but few shall be able , as our lord christ said . here circumcision outward avails not , here want of that circumcision hinders not : here bodily exercise profits little . the new creature is all here , the cross of christ is all here , the power of god is all here ; and he that walks according to this rule , peace is upon him , and the whole israel of god. but he that knows not this rule , nor walks according to this rule ; peace is not upon him , nor is he one of the inward israel of god , who receive power to become sons , who receive the law of the spirit of life in christ jesus , which is the inward rule of the inward israel . this was the way of peace from the beginning ; this is the way of peace still ; and there is not another . to be new created in christ jesus , to be ingraffed into him , to abide in him , to have the circumcision of the flesh ( the body of the sins of the flesh cut off ) by the circumcision of christ ( made inwardly in the heart without hands ) and to walk not after the flesh , but after the spirit ( even in the newness of the spirit ) he is life and peace , rest and joy for evermore . the lord of his tender mercy , give men a sense of it , and lead men into it more and more , amen . the conclusion of the whole . there is a birth which is born , not of bloods , nor of the will of the flesh , nor of the will of man ; but of god , john . . and this birth which is born of the spirit , is spirit , chap. . . now this birth , which is born of the spirit , and is spirit , hath a life and way of knowledge , suitable to its nature and being , which is very far above man. it 's life is in the spirit , & its walking in the spirit , and its knowledge is after the way of the spirit , very far above mans way of conceiving or comprehending . the birth it self is a mystery to man , and it's way of knowing , is a way altogether hid from man. it is indeed in the evidence and demonstration of gods spirit , in the shinings of his light in the heart . in thy light shall we see light . the birth knows what this means . there is a wise and prudent part in man , from which god hides the sight of his kingdom , and the heavenly glory thereof : but there is a babe , to which god reveals the mystery thereof . flesh and blood cannot reveal : but the father can and doth to his children , who is the teacher of them all , from the least to the greatest , in the new and living covenant . there is mans day , and there is gods day . there is mans day of gathering knowledge , after his fleshly manner of comprehending : and there is gods day of giving knowledge , by the shinings of the light of his own eternal spirit . in mans day , how doth wise and prudent man beat his brains , and labour in the fire for very vanity ! but in gods day , how doth the knowledge of the lord cover the earth , as the waters cover the sea ! when the day-spring from on high visits inwardly , when the lord lighteth the candle inwardly ; o how clear is the knowledge of the lord , and how doth it abound then ! o what a difference there is between mans apprehensions and conceivings concerning christ , and gods revealing him inwardly ! and between mans coming to christ according to his own apprehensions , and his coming to christ in the heavenly drawings and teachings of the father ( joh. . . ) o that the begettings of life and birth thereof were felt in mens hearts , that in it men might know the day of god , and the kingdom of god , and the treasures of wisdom which are hid in christ , and will ever be so , but as christ is inwardly revealed and formed in the heart ! many may have notions of christs being formed in them : ah , but to feel it inwardly ! ther 's the sweetness , ther 's the assurance , ther 's the life , ther 's the peace , ther 's the righteousness of the lord jesus christ , and ther 's the joy of the true christian for ever . come , o come , all sorts of tender professors out of your selves into gods spirit , into gods truth ; that ye may know what it is to be in the spirit , and in the truth : and what it is to live there , and to know things there , & to worship there , & to have fellowship with the father & son there . the poor receive the gospel , the poor receive the kingdom , the poor receive the power , the poor receive the righteousness and salvation of our lord jesus christ . ye are too rich in your comprehensions and gathered knowledge , from your own litteral conceivings , to learn to wait aright , to receive of him his gold , his raiment , and his eye-salve . what pleasure is it to us to testifie against you ? were it not for obedience to our god , and love to your souls , we would never do it . we are content and satisfied to be of the little despised flock , which the shepherd feeds , giving to every one his proportion of daily nourishment , life , peace , righteousness and joy. it is our love to you , that we would not have you lay out your money for that which is not bread , and your labour for that which will not satisfie the truly hungry and awakened soul , but might come to feed on substance , on the life it self , on the sweetness and fatness of gods house , where nothing that any of the children can need or long after is wanting . o that ye had the sense of our love ! if ye had the true understanding and sense of gods love , ye could not but have a sense of our love also : for it comes from him , and it flows towards you in his will and tender movings . do ye love god ? are your hearts circumcised to love god ? if not , ye do not truly love . and if ye loved him that begets , ye would love them that are begotten by him . your love is to your own notions and apprehensions of god ; not to his nature ; for if ye loved his nature ( that holy , heavenly , spiritual nature as it is in him ) ye could not but love it in his children also . well , our god is love , and our god hath given us love , and taught us to love , even our enemies , and to wrestle with our god for them ; that if it be possible , the lord may remove the scales from their eyes , and give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth , as it is in jesus , where it is more living and powerful , more effectual and operative ( inwardly purifying , sanctifying , yea and justifying also ) then any , but onely those that are born of god , ( and kept alive by him ) , yet ever knew or can know . a post-script . containing a few words concerning the doings and sufferings of that despised people called quakers , which are both mis-understood , and mis-represented by many ; with an exhortation to true christianity . first , their doings are looked upon by many , to be from a natural principle , and according to a covenant of works , and not from the free grace and gift of gods spirit . now concerning this , i can speak somewhat faithfully , as having been long exercised in the principle , and as having had experience of the grace and tender mercy of the lord from my childhood . and indeed , thus it hath been with me from my childhood ; what ever hath been done in me or by me , that was good , i have felt to be from gods grace and mercy to me , and have cryed grace , grace , mercy , mercy to the lord continually therefore . and when i was turned to his truth in the inward parts , i found it was gods grace and tender love to me to turn me to it , and to preserve me being turned ; and to cause it to spring in me day by day , and to give me ability through it . ah , none knows , but they who have had experience , how we have been weakned in the natural part ; how poor we have been made , that we might receive the gospel , and how poor in our selves we are kept , that we might enjoy the riches and inheritance of the kingdom . and this we daily experience , that not by the works of righteousness which we had done , but according to his mercy he saved us , and doth daily save us , by the washing of regeneration , and the renewing of the holy ghost ! yea , gods writing his law in our hearts , and placing his fear there , and putting his spirit within us , to enlighten and quicken and cause us to walk in his wayes , and to keep his statutes and judgments , and do them , and all the mortifying of sin , and denying of the lusts of the flesh , and performing that which is holy and acceptable in the eyes of the lord ( as all that proceeds from his own holy spirit is ) all this is of the new covenant , and performed by the working thereof , and not by the working of the natural part of it self , but by the working of the spirit of life in the new birth , and through the natural part as his instrument . so let none reproach the works that god brings forth in us , who hath created us a new in christ jesus unto good works , lest thereby he reproach the holy spirit and power of the living god , in which they are wrought , and by which they are brought forth , and could never be brought forth without it . then , for our sufferings , indeed they are gifts we receive from god : so that we can truly say , it is given us by the lord our god , not only to believe in his son , but to suffer for his sake : and that it is only in good conscience to god , and by the assistance of the lord , that we suffer : and that the patience and meekness wherewith we suffer , is not of our selves , but of him . when ever the lord permits afflictions or sufferings to come upon us ; our eye is to him , and we enter into them in his fear , knowing our own inability to go through them , and looking up to him for strength . and when we are in them , while they continue , we daily look up to him for strength , and have been many times very weak in our selves , when immediatly , or very soon after , we have felt great strength in the lord. also , after our sufferings , when the lord hath been with us all along , and brought us through our sufferings , in the peace and joy of his spirit ; we do not look back boastingly , as if we had been any thing , or done any thing as of our selves ; but we bow before the lord , and bless the lord , when we consider how he hath been with us , and how he hath upheld us by the right hand of his righteousness , and what he hath done for us , when we were very poor , weak , afflicted , and often sorely distressed . therefore let none reproach , mis-represent or vilifie our sufferings , which our god hath helped us through , and for which we ( in humility of heart ) give him thanks , and cannot but do so all our days ; because the thankful remembrance and sense of them is written by the finger of his spirit upon our hearts . o all sorts of people , whom we love and travel for , and use our interest in the lord our god for , that ye might be truly sensible of your conditions , know the inward appearance and visits of the shepherd and saviour of the soul , turn to him ( looking in true faith unto him ) and be saved , i say unto you , in tenderness of spirit , o , do not requite us so ill for our love and truth of heart towards you , as to cast untrue and unjust reproaches upon us , and to render that truth vile , which god has made honourable , in sanctifying and redeeming many thereby . truly our love is from the god of love . we could not so love you , as we do , if our god had not taught us : nor so seek after you , as we do , in tenderness of bowels , if we were not instruments in the hand of the shepherd of israel . and the light we testifie of , which we feel shine in us ; it is no less then the true , sure light of the sun of righteousness , which god hath caused to shine in our hearts , who also loveth mankind , and causeth it to glance into the darkest corners of the earth . and the life we are quickned by , out of sin and transgression , and the power we have received to become sons of god , it is from him who is the fountain of life , and hath all power in heaven and earth . o that ye could receive the blessed report ! o that the arm of the lord might be revealed in you ! o that ye could feel and witness the saviour working out your salvation in you , binding the strong man in you , casting him out of you , with all his goods after him , that the place of the wicked one might be found no more in you , nor none of his lusts or vain thoughts lodge in your hearts any more ; but ye might witness and experience the new heart , the clean heart , the pure heart , in which god dwells ; and the eye that sees him that is invisible . o glory to the lord for what he hath done in and for a despised people ( who were no people , before the lord made them one ) who hath brought them to sion , his holy mountain , where he dwells and reigns , and where he builds up his own house and temple , which he establisheth over all , where the sheep of israel seed , and where the shepherd of israel reigns and triumphs in glory , over the enemies of his kingdom . the little innocent babes tast somewhat of his holy dominion and power , and of his kingdom of peace and righteousness : but in his ancients his light shines very brightly , and before them he reigneth gloriously ; so that he is praised in the very heights of sion , and his name renowned there over all for ever . glory , glory to the pure spring of life , from whence the living streams come , which refresh the souls of the living . surely his pure praises shall be sounded in the hearts of the living for ever and ever , amen . an exhortation to true christianity . it is easie to pretend to christ : but to be a true christian is very pretious , and many tribulations and deep afflictions are to be passed thorow before it be attained unto , as those that are made so by the lord , experience . now everlasting happiness and salvation depends upon true christianity . not upon having the name of a christian only , or professing such or such christian doctrines : but upon having the nature of christianity , upon being renewed by the spirit of christ , and receiving the spirit , and walking in the spirit , and bringing forth the fruits of the spirit . oh , here is the christian indeed ; and it should be every ones care , not to fall short of this . now , because there is such a contention about christianity , who is the right christian ; it behoves every man to take care , as to himself , that he be really such : that he receive that from god , and be that to god , which none but the right christian can be , or can receive . this is the use i would make of these things in my own heart ; even to be sure i be such an one , as god hath made , and will accept and own as a christian . and having had some experience of this thing , and truly understand what the christian-state is , and what doth attend it ; i shall set down some few things , which he that inwardly knoweth ( witnesseth and enjoyeth ) is without all controversie , a true christian , what ever men may account of him . first , he that is a new creature , is without doubt a true christian . he that is regenerated , he that is renewed in the spirit of his mind by christ jesus , he that is new-created in the holy & heavenly image ; he has felt the power of gods spirit begetting him anew , forming him anew , out of the old nature and image of the first adam , into the nature and image of the second adam , who is the quickning spirit : and that which is begotten and born of him is spirit . secondly , he that is in the new covenant , is a true christian . he that hath thirsted after the living waters , and hath heard the call to the waters of life ; hath heard the voice of him who gives life , and hath received life from him , who giveth life to all that come to him , and who maketh the new and everlasting covenant with all that hear his voice , take up his cross and follow him ; he is without doubt one of christs sheep , whom the shepherd owneth and taketh care of . thirdly , he that is inwardly circumcised , with the circumcision made without hands , he is a jew inward , a christian inward ( in the sight of god ) who hath felt the spirit and power of christ jesus , and rejoyceth in christ jesus , and is one of those worshippers , whom god hath sought out and taught to worship him , in the life and spirit of his son. fourthly , he that is inwardly washed with the clean water , with the inward water ; he is the inward jew , the inward christian . god promised to pour out clean water upon his israel , and they should be clean . he who hath the clean water poured upon him inwardly , which inwardly washeth and cleanseth , he is without controversie of gods inward israel . fifthly , he that feeds on the bread of life within , and drinks the water of life out of his own well or cistern , he without doubt is living . he that is invited to the marriage-supper of the lamb , and comes and sups with the lamb , he is one of the same nature and spirit with him . he with whom christ sups , who hath heard christ knocking at his door , hath opened to him and received him in , to purifie his heart and dwell in him , and sup with him , and to give him to sup with himself ; so that he eats bread in the kingdom , and drinks wine in the kingdom , and partakes of the feast of fat things , which god makes to his israel in his holy mountain : he is without doubt one of christs , and partakes of this in and through him . sixthly , he that lives the christian life , who walks not after the flesh , but after the spirit , who doth not fulfill the lusts of the flesh , but hath the law of god written in his heart , and his fear put within him , and his holy spirit given to instruct him , and to guide him to answer the holy law written in his heart , which the carnal mind is not subject , nor can be subject to ; without doubt he is spiritual , without doubt he is a true christian . seventhly , he that lives by faith , who knows the faith which is the gift of god , hath received it and lives by it , who can do nothing of himself , but only by faith in that holy power which doth all in him : so that he lives , and believes , and obeys from an holy root of life , which causeth life to spring up in him , and love to spring up in him , and the lambs meekness and patience to spring up in him , and all grace to spring up in him ; i say , he that lives thus , without doubt is engraffed into the true vine , into the true olive-tree , and the root bears him , and ministers sap unto him , and he is a true , fresh , green , living branch of the true vine of the holy olive-tree . many more things might be mentioned , as they are experimentally known and felt amongst us who are true christians , though the baptists and others have represented us to the world , as if we were no christians , but that toucheth us not , their saying so , is no more to us than the professing jews of the same spirit , who said christ had a devil ; but these are to give a tast . and he that knows and feels these , may also know and feel the rest : and he that doth not know nor feel these , would not know or feel the rest , if never so many more should be mentioned . now the way to feel these , and to become a true christian ( and to grow up in the christian life ) is to feel the seed of the kingdom , which is the beginning of the kingdom , the beginning of true christianity : and then to feel the seed abiding ( the seed which is of the spirit , and which is spirit ) here 's the constant seal of christianity in my heart ; here are true and certain evidences , day by day , of the christian nature and spirit , manifesting themselves undeniably inwardly . and now , having the witness in my self , the testimony of him that begat life in me , testifying to his own work , and to his own birth : of what value are any testimonies of men without against this ? christianity is a mystery : and he only can truly see , who is a christian indeed , who hath the inward eye opened , and with that inward eye , is taught of god to peirce into that , wherein christianity consisteth . there have been many christians of mens making : there are also some christians of god and christs making , which christians god and christ will own ; but not the other . o let men have a care , that when god cometh to distinguish between cattle and cattle ( between christian and christian ) they be found such as god will make up as his jewels , and own as the sheep of his fold , such as shall be able to bear the tryal of his searching judgment , and pure impartial eye ; and not such as still , notwithstanding all their profession of religion and christianity , are found workers of iniquity , and so not created anew in christ jesus unto good works , and therefore not truly of him , nor true christians in his eye . the end. errata . page . l. . read ground , p. . l. . r. sun , p . l. . ibid. p. . l. . r. enemy , p . l . r. man , p. . l. . r. here , p. . l. . r. 〈◊〉 . a question propounded to the rulers, teachers, and people of the nations of england, for them singly to answer in their hearts and consciences in the fear and dread of the almighty god ... penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) a question propounded to the rulers, teachers, and people of the nations of england, for them singly to answer in their hearts and consciences in the fear and dread of the almighty god ... penington, isaac, - . p. printed for l. lloyd ..., london : . caption title. imprint from colophon. signed at end: isaac penington (the younger) reproduction of original in the harvard university library. eng society of friends -- apologetic works. a r (wing p ). civilwar no a question propounded to the rulers, teachers, and people of the nations of england, for them singly to answer in their hearts and conscienc penington, isaac c the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the c category of texts with between and defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - john latta sampled and proofread - john latta text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a question propounded to the rulers , teachers , and people of the nation of england , for them singly to answer in their hearts and consciences , in the fear and dread of the mighty god of heaven and earth , whose mighty arm of power is stretched out in this nation , first to overturn what stands in his way , and then to establish ( in the place thereof ) what he hath purposed in his heart . and this is the thing which the lord hath determined to do , both particularly in persons , and generally throughout the earth ; namely to pull down the mighty from their seats , and to exalt the humble and meek , ( who are made such by the presence and power of his life in them ) that he alone may be exalted in the spirits of his people , and throughout the earth . and this work hath the lord begun already ; for his great and notable day hath appeared , and breaketh forth apace , though the eye which is closed cannot see it , nor the benummed sense feel it . but he that hath an ear , let him hear the sound of the lords trumpet , which saith in the mighty breath of his spirit of life , a wake ye dead , and stand up to judgement ; for the day of recompence is come , the day of the eternal vengeance of our god , and the day of his everlasting mercy and plentiful redemption . the question is as followeth . question . vvhen this nation was rent from popery ( in part i mean , for wholly it was never rent , but did still retain the same spirit , though by the magistrates sword it was forced from that form and way of worship , which the pope had established ) did it wait on the lord for the guidance of his spirit and power , thereby to build up a true church and habitation for god in the spirit ? or did it take such materials as were ready at hand , and frame up a building as well as it could , wherewith the consciences of many ( that were tender hearted towards god ) were even then disatisfyed , and felt , in the eternal life of god , the reformation not to be right in its beginning ? this is a weighty question : for an errour at first , an errour in the foundation is great , and the cause of many following errours . if the spirit of god was not then consulted with , and waited upon , if he did not raise the fabrick , surely the building was not right . it was the spirit of god which rent men from popery ( so far as they were acted upon pure & honest principles ) shewing the blackness and darkness thereof , and kindling desires in men after a more inward and spiritual way of worship ; thus far was of him . but if men did then consult with their own wisdom , for the ordering and carrying on of the reformation , and so upon politick grounds and reasons , did raise up a building , and not wait on the lord for his light and power to build with ; then surely that building was not of god , nor could he be honoured thereby , nor his truth preserved , nor the integrity and conscientiousness of his peoples hearts towards him cherished : but all this would suffer , and be in danger by this building , and a contrary spirit be pleased with it , and thrive under it . and hath it not been so ? were not the non-conformists to it ( though known to be pretious persons in the savour and life of god ) looked upon and dealt with as enemies , while such conformists as were known to be loose and scandalous , yet could flourish wel enough , & make a fair shew in this national church , and be zealous contenders for the way of worship and government in it ? yea , those that have been strict in their lives and conversations , and truly zealous towards god , in their souls and spirits , pressing after righteousness and purity ; such as these though they might conform , yet were they not hated , nicknamed , in scorn called puritans , and snares laid for them to intrap them ? and how could it be otherwise ? for ●f the building was not right , if the constitution and government of this church was not of god , then it could not favour and cherish that which was of god , then it could not nourish or be pleased with obedience to his pure life and spirit , but rather with obedience to its carnall form . for so it is in truth and reality before god , this church with its whole constitution , government , order , and way of worship was either of gods spirit , and so spiritual , or of mans wisdome , and so carnal . if of gods spirit , then it wil be a friend to that which is spiritual , and an enemy to that which is carnal : if of mans wisdome , then it will be a friend to that which is carnal , and an enemy to that which is spiritual . and this is a true mark of the true church , and of the true church power and government , it begets and perserves that which is spiritual , it beats down the carnal ; whereas that church power and government which is carnall , preserves that which is carnal ( a carnal unity , a carnal uniformity in worship &c. ) but checks , snibbs , smites , and persecutes that which is spiritual : and such a kind of power and government to be set up , the carnal part in every man contends and cries out for . and so long as there is any change made in this church by the same wisdome it will never be otherwise , it will be but from carnal to carnal , and so still against that which is spiritual . therefore look back singly , and consider what the building was , and how it was reared up ; and see whether it was of god , or no ? or whether it was built up in the forwardness of mans spirit , by carnal reasonings and consultings , accommodating things to the present state of the nation , and not to the plain and clear measure of gods truth . first , see what the materials were whereof this church was built . were they materials fit to make up a true church of ? was it built up of a people truly converted to god ? of persons changed in heart ? of persons sensible of the fore going idolatry , and turned in their souls , minds , and spirits from dead idols towards the living god ? or was not rather the heart of the nation still inclined towards popery , even while it was turning into a protestant church ? and was it not cheifly made a protestant church by the force of the civil power , which wound in by degrees a protestant interest , the heart of the people still remaining unchanged , and hankering after popery , but at length , in tract of time , seeing they knew not how to help it , won over to protestanism with the same heart and spirit , that they came out of popery with ? consider seriously in the sight of god ( who looketh both forward and backward upon things with a true eye ) whether it hath been thus or no ? secondly , see what kind of ministry was then set up . was it a new ministry ( as john huss that famous bohemian martyr prophesied should arise , and as luther saw the neccessity of , utterly disclaiming the deriving of orders from popish bishops ) or was it the same ministry which was derived from rome ? it is a sore stresse the ministers of england have been put to , namely , to plead for the truth of the ministry of the church of rome , that thereby they might defend their own . now mark this thing following , there arose false apostles , false prophets , false teachers in the apostle daies , whom satan clothed like true apostles , like true prophets , like ministers of righteousness . thus they appeared , thus they seemed to be , but they were not of god , but satan ; not sent of god , not inspired by god , but inspired and sent by satan . these false apostles , these false prophets fought against the true church , and true ministry of christ . and though they were oftentimes discovered , by the spirit of christ in his church , and the church preserved from them , yet we find related in scripture , that at length they did prevaile , insomuch as the third part of the true ministers was shaken , and swept down from their place and standing by them , rev. . . yea and at length the church her self ( as to the truth of her outward state ) overcome , and fled into the wilderness , vers. . & . and a false church got up in her stead , which hath a cup of fornication to make people spiritually drunk , and to bewitch them from the true worship of god , into imitations and likenesses , rev. . . and those who will not acknowledge her likenesses & imitations to be the truth , but in the word of the lambs testimony witness against them , she drinks their blood , ver. . now can any man of any manner of seriousness and sobriety of spirit , ( who is not drunk & overcome with this whores wine ) beleive , that after false porphets had got the day , and set up the false church , that they would setup the true ministry in it ? o how blind have men been , that they should go about , and take such pains to derive a succession of the true ministry , from the ministers or prophets of the false church ! thirdly , what kind of maintenance was set up for this ministry ? was it a gospel maintenance ? was it that they should live of the gospel , which cannot but open mens spirits to the true ministers thereof ? or was it a maintenance forced from the people , by that outward power which set up the church ? and was this maintenance like unto , or the same with the maintenance which the popish ministry had before in this nation , for their idolatrous service ? fourthly , what kind of worship was it , which was set up ? was it the worship of the gospel , which is in spirit and truth ? or was it a form of worship invented by man , and so accommodated to the present temper of the nation , that they might with the more ease and willingness step out of popery into it , because of its nearness and likeness thereto ? fifthly , what kind of church government was set up ? was it a pure spiritual government ? was it put into the hands of the spirit ? ( for nothing is to govern , or can rightly govern over the spirits of christs people in spiritual things , but the spirit of christ . ) or did men frame up a church government by their wisdome , and put it into the hands of such , as might exercise it without , yea and against the spirit ? sixthly , what kind of order was set up in this church ? was it the true gospel order ? was it the order of christs spirit , whereby the carnal wisdome of man might be quenched , and his spirit have scope ? or was it a carnal order , whereby the carnal wisdome , learning , knowledge , and arts of man might have scope , and the spirit in its motions be quenched ? seventhly , by what wisdome was the common prayer book compiled and set up , and surplices , crosses , and other cerimonies injoyned ? was it by the wisdome of gods spirit , for the building up of the spirits of his people in the faith ? or was it for the pleasing and satisfying of the carnal part in people ? and what sort of persons were they who did most contend for , and were most pleased with these ? were they , for the generality , the stricter , or the looser sort ? eightly , how came it about , that the supream magistrate of this nation , was made cheif head and governor of this church under christ ? was this from christs institution , or of mans wisdome and invention ? if of mans inventing wisdome , then against christ , then of antichrists spirit , who exalteth that which is not of christ , to sit and govern in his temple . o weigh these things , look about thee , o england : o rulers , teachers , and people look about you ? and if it plainly , upon a naked search appear , that there was at the very first a foundation laid of suppressing the true worship , and the witnesses to it , do not shut your eyes . have not the people of god still been mis-represented , had reproachful names cast upon them , and in some degree or other been persecuted from the beginning of the reformation ? and though names change , and rulers change , and the teachers change , and the people also change in their religion and worships , yet is not the persecuting spirit still the same , and the persecuted spirit still the same also . the persecuting spirit changeth its cover often , but still retains its nature , hunting after the life and pure power of the spirit , in the children which are begotten of god . are not the people of god in every change a despised people , and their integrity towards god still struck at ? when the lord began a little to wipe off the reproach from them , at the beginning of these troubles , and the persecuting spirit could not so conveniently hunt them any longer under the name of puritans , then other names were invented for them , whereby the same spirit sought to make them appear odious again , under a new reproachful title , that so it might be persecuting the same thing afresh ? o how mightily hath the lord striven to keep the powers and people of this nation from falling upon his people ! and yet still so soon as they come to any peace , and feeling of power , they are at it again . o england , thy persisting in this , cannot but bring wrath upon thee . what wouldst thou have of us ? shall we not fear the lord ? shall we not obey the lord ? shall we not worship the lord our god , who hath redeemed , and is redeeming our souls from death ? shall we not be protestants in truth and uprightness of heart before the lord ? shall we not testifie against the popish spirit , and popish practises , and all new inventions of the same spirit ( though they get never so fine a covering ) in the church of england , as well as against them in the church of rome ? the lord is our witness , we would not offend thee , o england , no not the meanest persons of the whole nation : but from out of popery are we called ( and from what ever else the same nature and spirit may take up in the stead of it ) to follow the lord our god towards the land of the living ; and follow him we must , however thou deal with us . o england , if it had been so , that thy rulers had built up a true church , yet the evil spirit , the unclean spirit would have endeavoured to pollute it , to provoke the lor● to remove his candlestick ( which is an inward act of his spirit , the outward building might stand notwithstanding ) and then thy house must have been left desolate , and the same spirit would then have called his people out of it : but if thy building hath not been spiritual , and in the spirit , how can the spirit of the lord , suffer the children begotten by him , to lodge in it ! o when wilt thou have an ear to hear , that the lords wrath may asswage towards thee , which kindleth more and more , and is entring a pace within thy bowels ! this , this is the lords charge against thee , thou art for the protestant name ( it is now become thy interest , and a goodly covering in thy eyes ) but against the protestant spirit , which the lord calleth to follow him further and further from all the things of popery , and from all the things like popery . and the lord will put a difference between the protestant name , and the protestant spirit : between them that serve him in the fear which he begets in the heart , and them that set up that kind of fear wich is taught by the precepts of men . o england , we are now seemingly in thy hands ( who hast long handled us very roughly ) and we have no strength against thee , nor no hope of deliverance from thee , but in the lord our god , and there we are at rest , waiting upon him in the innocency , and integrity which he hath begotten in our hearts , until he plead our cause . and in that day , thou wilt see that we have not been thine enemies , and then thou wilt mourn over that mist of darkness , which hath with-held thine eye from discerning what true friends we have been to thee , and how we have endeavoured , and sought with our hearts to prevent thy drinking of that bitter cup , which is to go round the nations . and if thine ear could have been opened , thou mightest have been spared . post-script . the gospel is free , the grace and mercy thereof free , the spirit a free spirit ( freely given of god , and freely ministring for god ) the church a spiritual building , built in the freedome and liberty of the life of the spirit , the order a●● government of the church is from and in the same free , sp●rit , guiding a people whom god makes willing in the day of his power , the maintenance of the ministry a free maintenance , t●● whole obedience and worship free , in the free spirit , and in t●● truth which is begotten in the heart by the free spirit . the he●● of this church is christ , the living spirit , who hath appointed none to be head under him here on earth , nor hath giv●● power to any to make any laws concerning his kingdome , the government thereof , concerning his ministry , or ●t maintenance thereof . ( is it not thus ? doth not the least child light see it to be thus ? ) but the church of england was church built up by force , setled by force , upheld by force , her ministers maintained by force , her order , unity , uniformity and government forcible , and the free pure spirit of life can have no scope in her , but according to the wills of her rulers , teachers , and people : if it move otherwise , if it appear otherwise , it is sure to be nick named and persecuted . o england , england , can god alwayes suffer these things ? will not his hand at length be stretched forth against thee ? given forth by isaac penington ( the younger ) in the fear and dread of the most high . . of . month , . the day of the lord so cemeth , as a thief in the night . for when they shall say , peace and safety ; then sudden destruction cometh upon them , as travail upon a woman with child , and they shall not escape , thes. , , . and when the lord cometh , woe to him who is found beating his fellow servants , and endeavouring to force the conscience , ( which god hath made tender and plyable to the voyce of his spirit ) from its obedience and subjection thereto . the end . london , printed for l. lloyd , at the castle in cornhil , . some considerations proposed to the city of london, and the nation of england to calm their spirits and prepare them to wait for what the lord is bringing about, that they may not run readily into their own ruin and destruction, and by this extraordinary heat of their spirits kindle that fire, which will soon devour them. with a short exhortation to them, relating to their true settlement, and the removal of that which hinders it. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page image. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) some considerations proposed to the city of london, and the nation of england to calm their spirits and prepare them to wait for what the lord is bringing about, that they may not run readily into their own ruin and destruction, and by this extraordinary heat of their spirits kindle that fire, which will soon devour them. with a short exhortation to them, relating to their true settlement, and the removal of that which hinders it. penington, isaac, - . sheet ([ ] p.) s.n., [london? : ] signed: isaac penington, the younger. imprint suggested by wing. reproduction of the original in the harvard university library. eng restorations, political -- early works to . a r (wing p ). civilwar no some considerations proposed to the city of london, and the nation of england to calm their spirits, and prepare them to wait for what the l penington, isaac b the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the b category of texts with fewer than defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - mona logarbo sampled and proofread - mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion some considerations proposed to the city of london , and the nation of england , to calm their spirits , and prepare them to wait for what the lord is bringing about , that they may not run headily into their own ruin and destruction , and by this extraordinary heat of their spirits kindle that fire , which will soon deuour them . with a short exhortation to them , relating to their true settlement , and the removal of that which hinders it . . the lord god almighty , who made heaven and earthly who upholds them by the word of his power , whose they are , with all their inhabitants , he ruleth in the kindomes of men , establishing or overturning laws , governments , and governours at his pleasure , ( psal. . . &c. don. . , . ) . that the lord hath had an especial hand in the shakings and changes of this nation , and hath some great thing to bring about , which he ordereth all unto . and though many of the transactions and passages ( as relating to men ) have been very ●lamable , yet the lord hath been just and good in them all , and can in his own good time recover the ground which he hath seemed to lose , and advantage both the good of his people , and of the nation , by all their sufferings , losses , discouragements , and disadvantages . . in this late revolution , there may be more of god than man is a ware of . god in his infinite wisdome might see that this parliament was not fit for the work , and so might suffer such a thing to fall out between them and the army ( heightning their spirits on both sides ) as might occasion the removal of them out of the way . yea and this present change may be but a passage to another , unless the lord find these very faithful and diligent in his service , and not minding themselves and their own interests . . if this late revolution was of god , and he saw it good to bring it about , for the further carrying on of his work , he will be able to maintain it ; and those that oppose him therein , shall not be able to stand before him . they may bring ruin upon the nation and themselves but they cannot set up what god throws down , nor raise up any thing else in the stead of it according to their wills ; but that which he , by his providence and disposing hand , appointeth to succeed , must have the time of trial which he allotteth it . therefore let men fear the lord god , whose eye is upon us , and whose power is over us ; and let us take heed of being found fighters against him . the cause hath long lain a bleeding , yet there is at length a true reviving of it ; and those whose hearts the lord hath stirred up to seek it faithfully , the lord will be with them , and he is ready to pardon their former miscarriages . but oh that they could lay themselves low , and forget their own interests , that the cause might rise up clear and manifest above them ! remember this saying , o ye great ones , the lord did not throw down the former greatness of the nobility , for you to rise up in their places ; but ye should have lain low , and remained little , and have let the lord been great : and it is your true interest to descend and become little again . and if it were once manifest that ye did not seek yourselves , but the cause of god , the good of his people , and of the nation , that every part and sort of men might feel their oppressions broken , and their just rights and liberties recovered and preserved for them , this would draw the hearts of all the honest haerted people to you , as one man : and those which have been scattered , would be again united ; and our very enemies ( seeing our integrity and righteousness , and true reformation by the wisdome and guidance of god ) would magnifie that work of god , which as yet cannot but be a reproach . therefore o england , fear before the lord , and wait upon him , and let thine eye be taken off from man , for he is very vanity . neither thy good nor thy harm ariseth this way , but out of thine own bowels . what have all these afflictions done towards the refining of thee ? art not thou yet what thou wast ? o england wilt thou not be made clean ! when shall it once be ? murmur not against the rods , wherewith the lord seeth good to chastise thee ; but mourn over thy wickedness , thy pride , thy deceit , thy excess , thy cruelty , thy oppression , thy false worship and idolatries , &c. and over thy enmity against that which is of god , where ever it appears . at the beginning of these troubles , thou couldst bear with no form of worship , but thine own . now thou art come thus far , that thou canst almost bear with any form . nay but that will not serve ; the lord will have room for the power of godliness , and he will not alwayes suffer thee to smite his servants for their obedience to his spirit . this is his controversie with thee , and the cause of all thy misery ( when misery , distress , and ruin have opened thine eyes , thou wilt see it ) oh that thy day of calamity , might pass over thee ! if thou couldst indeed humble thy self before the lord , and not walk any longer thus contrary to him , in the work which he is resolved to bring about , the lord might pity and spare thee , for he delighteth in mercy : but if thou continue to walk contrary to him , and wilt be setled afore his time , and in a way , and by such means as he approves not , the steps of his power against thee will overturn thee . therefore fear , and be humble and meek before him , for therein lies the wisdome which can preserve thee ; but strive not to withstand his footsteps , least he trample down thy crown , thy strengh , thy hopes , thy peace , and all that is desirable in thine eyes . this is in tender love , as a gentle warning to you , that you may take heed of giving way to that fierce spirit , which is the forerunner of misery and desolation . from him who is a dear lover of this city , and of his native country , isaac penington , the younger . the jew outward being a glasse for the professors of this age : wherein if they read with meekness... such of them as have not overslipt the day of their visitation, may see their own spirits to their own everlasting advantage and comfort by learning subjection to that which hath power in it to destroy this evil spirit in them : containing some exceptions and arguments of the jews against christs appearance in that fleshly form of his in their dayes which the present professors may view and compare with their exceptions and arguments against his appearance in spirit in this age, that they may see and consider which of them are the more and the more weighty / by isaac penington, the younger. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) the jew outward being a glasse for the professors of this age : wherein if they read with meekness... such of them as have not overslipt the day of their visitation, may see their own spirits to their own everlasting advantage and comfort by learning subjection to that which hath power in it to destroy this evil spirit in them : containing some exceptions and arguments of the jews against christs appearance in that fleshly form of his in their dayes which the present professors may view and compare with their exceptions and arguments against his appearance in spirit in this age, that they may see and consider which of them are the more and the more weighty / by isaac penington, the younger. penington, isaac, - . [ ], p. printed by g.d. for lodowick lloyd, london : . reproduction of original in the harvard university library. eng society of friends -- apologetic works. society of friends -- controversial literature. a r (wing p ). civilwar no the jevv outvvard: being a glasse for the professors of this age: wherein, if they read with meekness, in the true light, such of them as ha penington, isaac b the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the b category of texts with fewer than defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - emma (leeson) huber sampled and proofread - emma (leeson) huber text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the jevv outward : being a glasse for the professors of this age : wherein , if they read with meekness , and in the true light , such of them as have not overslipt the day of their visitation , may see their own spirits , to their own everlasting advantage and comfort , by learning subjection to that , which hath power in it to destroy this evil spirit in them . containing some exceptions and arguments of the jews , against christs appearance in that fleshly form of his in their dayes , which the present professors may view , and compare with their exceptions and arguments against his appearance in spirit in this age , that they may see and consider which of them are the more , and the more weighty . by isaac penington , the younger . london , printed by g. d. for lodowick lloyd , and are to be sold at the sign of the castle in cornhill , . the preface . the lord god of infinite goodness , who hath ever dearly loved mankind , yet could never so appear to them since the transgression , as to be owned by them , till the vail was taken from before their hearts . israel in egypt hearkened not to moses , because of their anguish and bondage . when they were led out , they were ever and anon murmuring , and picking quarrels against him . samuel they rejected ( as the lord laies to their charge ) though they might excuse themselves , and say they had just exceptions against his sons . elijah , that mighty man of god , the great restorer of israel , and pleader against baal by fire , his life was sought for . and though there be not a particular record of their usage of the prophets about those dayes , yet in general he complains that they were all slain but himself , king. . . micaiah was smote on the cheek and jeered by the false prophet which smote him , and said , which way went the spirit of the lord from me to speak unto thee ? and he was commanded to be put in prison , and fed with bread of affliction , and water of affliction . jeremiah was put in the dungeon , even to the danger of his life : and by those few that were left , that seemed singly to enquire by him concerning the will of the lord , ( jer. . , . ) disdainfully rejected , chap. . . what should i spend time in particular instances ? what prophet can i except ? for though all their bad dealings with them , are not related in scripture , yet christ testifies that they did deal badly with them all , some of them they stoned , some of them they scourged in their synagogues , some of them they killed and crucified , and others they persecuted from city to city . yea , saith stephen , which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted ? and they have stain them which shewed before of the coming of the just one . ye make it such a strange thing , that if christ had been a prophet , ye should not own him : why which of the prophets was owned ? ye have still some exception or other against us , that we are not the prophets of god ; and against our message , that it is not the mind of god . ye take arguments from one prophets words , to oppose another prophet with ; and from one prophets manner of coming , to oppose another prophets manner of coming . if john come neither eating nor drinking , ye reject him for his austereness : if christ come both eating and drinking , ye reject him for his liberty and freedome in the life . now what is the reason of this ? christ himself gives the reason , mat. . . wisdome is justified of her children . ye are not the children of wisdom , ye are not begotten of the life , of the spirit of the prophets , and so cannot justifie that spirit . ye have got the letter of the prophets , ●e are born of that ; but ye are not born of the life , ye are not born of the wisdome . and so , whoever comes forth in the same birth from the letter with you , him ye can own : but if any prophet come forth with that same spirit , him ye cannot own . he that is born after the flesh , cannot but persecute him that is born after the spirit : jerusalem was all along the persecuter of the prophets , from the beginning to the end . and is this nothing to you , o ye professors of this age ? search and see who have been the persecuters among you , but they who have had the name of the church and her prophets ? who hath slain the witnesses ? the church of rome hath slain the witnesses against her , and the protestants have slain the witnesses against them . about the beginning of these troubles , if a man were never so truly zealous , yet if he could not conform to the common-prayer-book and ceremonies , how was he persecuted ? a non-conformist , a separatist , a brownist , an anabaptist ( though owning the same christ in his very heart and soul ) yet because his practise was a testimony against the false church-worship of the common protestant , must be hunted up and down to courts , imprisoned , fixed , banished . and to this day , the lord can bring forth no birth of his spirit , but the zealous professor hates , reviles , and seeks to destroy . if the lord lay any law upon the conscience , if it be not suitable to their apprehensions from the letter , how do they reproach , disdain , revile , and endeavour to render such odious to the magistrates , and to the people ! but why should we wonder at these things ? there is no new thing under the sun . the state of the world is just as it alwaies was . the power of truth in every age , hath been still opposed by those who cryed up the form . it were a wonder if it should be otherwise . i should much more , wonder , if the teachers and professors of this age should own . truth , than that they fight against it and persecute it . well friends and brethren , be strong in the lord , and faithful to his truth in the power of his might ; bear the reproach , the afflictions of this age , the persecutions of this your day : verily your eyes shall see that there is a reward for the righteous , and your hearts shall be satisfied with it , when the children of the kingdome ( of this age , as well as of christs , and all former ages ) shall be shut out in utter darkness , where shall be weeping , and wailing , and gnashing of teeth . some exceptions and arguments of the jews , against christ's appearance , &c. the jews were once the only outward visible people of god , who were chosen by god for a peculiar people , who had the promise of , and expected the messiah , whose faith and hope of salvation was in him , yea , and at that very time they were looking for him ; yet when he came , he was a stone of stumbling , and a rock of offence to them , and they could by no means receive him . they were full of reasonings , and doubts , and contendings about it , but could never with all their wisdom from the letter , determine that that was he . though he lived as never man lived , though he spake as never man spake , though he did what never man did ; yet still some exception or other they had from the letter of the scriptures , to which his manner of appearance , his conversation , and his doctrine did not suit in their judgment ; and so after many disputes and debates , they at length deliver him up to death , as a blasphemer , a deceiver , a seducer of the people . many exceptions and arguments they had against him , against his descent , his doctrine , his practises , his miracles , his followers , &c. which i shall refer to heads , to make them more obvious . . they excepted at his descent and kindred . is not this the carpenters son ? is not his mother called mary ? and his brethren , james , and joses , and simon , and judas ? and his sisters are they not all with us ? matt. . , . ( what this the glorious messiah , the great king of glory , of whom all the prophets have prophesied and spoke such great things ! surely it cannot be . ) and they were offended in him , vers. . it was this made them they could not receive that heavenly doctrine of his , which otherwise might have been life to them , when he taught them that he was the bread of life that came down from heaven : but they murmured because of it , and said , is not this jesus the son of joseph , whose father and mother we know 〈◊〉 how is it then that he saith , i came down from heaven , john , ● , . so again , john . . we know this man whence he is ; but when christ cometh , no man knoweth whence he is . this was a close argument , and was raised up to eat out a deep impression of his being the christ , as may appear from the foregoing verse . he speaketh indeed boldly , and deep things , &c. as if he were the christ ; but how can he be he , seeing it is known from whence he comes ? . at his country , or place of his education and residence , which was nazareth of galilee . can there any good thing come out of nazareth ? john . . shall christ come out of galilee ? john . . search and look ; for out of galilee ariseth no prophet , verse . . at the time and season of his coming . he came ( as to their sense ) before elias . with this argument they pinched the disciples , as is signified in that query of theirs to christ , why then say the scribes that elias must first come ? matt. . this could not but be a sore argument in the mouth of the scribes , who might reason with the disciples on this wise : what poor , ignorant , sottish , deluded people are you , to own this man for your master , and take him for the messiah ? elias must first come , and restore all things . if this man preached never so heavenly doctrine , and did never so many miracles , yet if he pretend to be the messiah , he can be but a deceiver ; for the true messiah comes not before elias ; and every one knows that elias is not yet come , nor his work of restoring all things , so much as begun . . his doctrine administred abundance of offence to them , and they were continually stumbling at it . that heavenly doctrine mentioned a little before , that he was the bread of life , they murmured at it , john . . when he did but say , god was his father , they presently flew out upon him , and said he made himself equal with god , john . . when he said , destroy this temple , and in three dayes i will raise it up ; they misunderstood him , and brought it forth as an argument against him at the time of his suffering , mat. . . and cast it as a jear in his teeth , mat. . . when he did but say to the man sick of the palsie , son thy sins are forgiven thee ; the scribes and pharisees presently exclaimed against him , who is this which speaketh blasphemies ? who can forgive sins , but god alone ? luke . . and chap. . . when he preached very powerfully against covetousness , the pharisees derided him , luke . . yea , when he did but preach a parable or two about the widdow of sarepta , and naaman the syrian ( it coming a little close to their state ) all they in the synagogue were so filled with wrath , that they rose up and thrust him out of the city , and led him unto the brow of the hill to cast him down headlong , luke . , . at his saying that abraham rejoyced to see his day , and he saw it , and was glad ; the jews replyed , thou art not yet fifty years old , and hast thou seen abraham ? john . . how absurd and impossible was this to them , that a man of not fifty years , should say that abraham ( who lived so many ages before ) saw his day ; and instead of giving them an argument to demonstrate it to them , he only returns them a more confident affirmation , verily , verily , i say unto you , before abraham was i am ; vers. . which so enraged them , that they took up stones to cast at him , vers. . now mark , the life speaks what it sees and knows , and so it gives forth its testimony : the wise professor not being in the life , he cannot know or receive the testimony , but calls for arguments and damonstrations to his wise eye , the life refuseth to answer him , but instead thereof , only affirmeth the thing more strongly & confidently ; this ( being so far from that which he looks for and requires to satisfie him ) kindles disdain and rage in him : and he looks upon the life , for this way of proceeding , as worthy to be stoned . what , when they should lay before christ a fair argument , whereby they might plainly convince him by evident reason , that he could not see abrahams day ; and he instead of answering it , should only bring forth a more confident affirmation . would not mens wisdome in this age , even hiss at such a thing ? yet this was the way of the life then , in that day ; and the life may at his pleasure , take the same way again now , to offend the wise and knowing . when he spake of his being the good shepheard , and of his laying down his life for the sheep ( and of the hirelings fleeing in time of danger to save himself ) john , vers. . . &c. many of the jews said , he hath a devil , and is mad , why hear ye him ? vers. . many of them that were then the people of god ( the separated people : for the jews were a people seperated from the world , and studied the law , and observed the ordinances of moses ) looked upon christ , as a man not fit to be heard speak , but as a mad man , as one that had a devil , as one that might have great power of deceit from the devil , to bewitch men from truth ; why hear ye him ? what good can ye expect from him ? he hath a devil , and is mad . o how desperately will bold flesh venture to judge of the life and power of god , when it hath got a little knowledge from the scriptures , and a way of worship , duties , and ordinances ! when he said , i and my father are one , john . . they took up stones again to stone him , vers. . and made no question but they did well in doing of it , as appears by their answer to his demand ; for which of his good works they stoned him ? they reply very confidently , for a good work we stone thee not , but for blasphemy , and because thou being a man , makest thy self god , vers. , . and when he said , if a man keep my saying , he shall never see death , john . . then said the jews unto him , now we know that thou hast a devil . abraham is dead , and the prophets are dead , who makest thou thy self ? vers. . were not abraham and the prophets holy men ? had not they the sayings of god ? and did not they keep the sayings of god ? yet they are dead . such a kind of speech as this must needs be from the devil . now thou makest manifest from what spirit thou speakest , now know we that thou hast a devil . and indeed how could the professors of that age digest such things , being so contrary to what appeared to them , to be certain truth in the scriptures . and there were many other things as hard to them , though the exceptions which might or did arise in their minds , are not particularly mentioned : as when he saith , i am the door of the sheep . all that came before me are thieves and robbers , but the sheep did not hear them , john . , . how offensive must this doctrine needs have been to them , going carnally to understand and reason about it ? what were all the prophets and holy men before thee , thieves and robbers ? did the truth never come , till thou broughtst it ? what became of our fore-fathers in former ages ? were they none of them gods sheep ? did none of them find the door ? for thou saist thou art the door , and thou hast been but of late . and whereas thou saist , the sheep did not hear them , that 's utterly false : for they did hear moses , and they did hear the prophets : and we have their writings , and will keep to them for all thee , let who will be thy sheep . when he said , that he came not to send peace but division , mat. . . how readily might they reply , that his own mouth discovered him , not to be the messiah , the saviour , the peace-maker , but the worker of divisions , the causer of breaches in families ; setting three against two , and two against three , luke . . when he said , whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin , john . . might not they well except against this , as condemning the whole generation of the righteous , and making null the way of sacrifices which god had appointed for sins committed at any time by his people , which could not but presuppose their commission of sin ? did not abraham , isaac , david , moses , & the rest of the prophets all commit sin , and were they servants of sin ? he taught also , that the children of the kingdom should be cast into utter darkness , mat. . . oh how harsh would this sound in the ears of the zealous professing jew , who was waiting and hoping for the kingdome ! so in his doctrine there seemed many contradictions to the fleshly understanding , for one while he said , i judge no man , for i came not to condemn the world : and yet was he not continually judging and condemning the scribes , the pharisees , the priests , the lawyers , and that whole generation of professors ? so again he came to seek and save that which was lost , to preach the gospel of peace : and yet another while he saith , he came not to send peace but a sword , and to kindle a fire , and to set men at variance , &c. again , one while he said , i and my father are one , another time , my father is greater than i ; one while he bid men do as the scribes and pharisees , taught ; another while he bid men beware of the leaven , or doctrine of the prarisees and saduces , mat. . . but to what purpose should i heap up any more instances ? o thou that readest this , wait to know in thy self the ear that cannot hear christs doctrin , and while thou condemnest the jews , do not run into the same error of unbelief and gain-saying , but wait to know the voice of christ in this day , and to receive the ear that can hear it , for though thou shouldest be willing to hear , yet thou canst not , till thy ear be opened . nicodemus who could acknowledge christ a teacher come from god , yet could not receive the doctrine of the new birth from him , john . . and there were many things the disciples themselves were not able to bear , for when , at a certain time , he spake of giving his flesh to eat , not only the jews , john . . but they also stumbled , ver. . and who is there among professors , that can now bear it , or receive christs own interpretation of it ? who saith , that the flesh ( which they understood ) profiteth nothing , but the flesh which he meant was spirit and life , ver. . . at his practises , and conversation , how is it that he eateth and drinketh , with publicans and sinners , mark . . behold a gluttenous man , and a wine bibber , a friend of publicans and sinners , luke . . this man if he were a prophet , would have known who , and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him ; for she is a sinner , luke . . at the publicans and sinners drawing nigh to hear him , the pharisees and scribes were offended , and murmured saying , this man receiveth sinners , and eateth with them , luke . , . and when he went to zacheus house , they all murmured , saying , that he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner , luke . . again , because he healed on the sabbath , and justified his disciples in plucking of ears of corn on the sabbath , they were filled with madness , and communed what they might do to him , luke . ver. . and ver. , . and took counsell how they might destroy him , mark . , . another time , the ruler of the synagogue spake with indignation about it , luke . . yea , the jews did persecute jesus , and sought to slay him because he had healed a man , and bid him take up his bed and walkon the sabbath day , john . ver. , . and some of them made it a strong argument against him , this man is not of god , because he keepeth not the sabbath day , john . . what come from god , and be a breaker of his ordinances ? can these two stand together ? read and consider , what more strict ordinance of god under the law , than the sabbath ? what one ordinance more conducing to the honour and worship of god ? did not their whole religion and worship much depend upon it ? how could this possibly but be a great offence to them in that spirit , and litteral wisdome from the scriptures , wherein they stood ? yet christ , in his fleshly appearance , was lord of the sabbath ; and in his spiritual appearance he doth not lose his dominion . again they excepted against him , that he did not teach his disciples to fast and pray as john did , luke . . but could suffer them to transgress the traditions of the elders , mat. . . he was not strict after the jewish way of devotion , not strict after johns way neither ; but against the traditions of the godly elders of the jewish church , against sanctifying of the lords sabbath ( justifying his disciples in plucking ears of corn thereon , whereas their fore-fathers the jews , were not so much as to gather manna on that day ) against fasting and prayer , for he justified his disciples in that they did not fast and pray as john did , saying , how could they while the bride-groom was with them ? mat. . . and consider which way the jews ( in the state they stood ) could understand such an answer as this , to rest sastified therewith ? . they excepted against his miracles , partly because he did them on the sabbath day , john . . whereupon they concluded he could not be of god ( for if he had been of god , he would have observed the day which god commanded ) & if he wrought them not by the power of god , by whose power then must he work them ? so they concluded , he casteth out devils , through the prince of devils , mat. . . he hath belzebub , and by the prince of devils casteth he out devils , mark . . . and having thus concluded in themselves , there was no ear open in them , to hear any thing that might be said to the contrary . and again partly , because he did not answer their wils , in giving them such a sign as they required : for this was still their tone , master , we would see a sign from thee , mat. . . what sign shewest thou unto us , seeing that thou dost these things ? john . . and they more particularly express what sign they would have , they would have a sign from heaven , luke . . what sign shewest thou , that we may see and beleeve thee ? john . . we are ready to be convinced , we are ready to beleeve , if thou would give us sufficient ground of beleiving in thee . as for all thy healing people , and casting out devils , belzebub ( the prince of devils ) may furnish thee with power ) therewith , to deceive and bewitch us from the law and ordinances of moses ( which we are sure are of god ) but shew us a sign from heaven , or else blame us not for not leaving moses to run after thee . . they excepted at the testimony , which the spirit of god in him , gave concerning him . when he spake the inward testimony , which the spirit of god gave from within , saying , i am the light of the world , he that followeth me , shall not walk in darkness , but shall have the light of life , john . . they presently cried out thou bearest record of thy self , thy record is not true , verse . mark his answer , it is written in your law , that the testimony of two men is true , i am one that bear witness of my self , and the father that sent me beareth witness of me , verse . . how would such an answer pass now in these dayes , though the same life should speak it ? would not the wise professors of this age even hoot at it ? yet the thing is known at this day , even the life which the father begets , and the fathers testifying of it , and with it : and thou that readest this , mightest know it , couldest thou wait in the loss of thine own life , ( wisdome , and knowledg ) for it . . they excepted against his disciples and followers , which were women , publicans and sinners , the common people , yea the meanest , the poorest , and most ignorant ( in their account ) who were fittest to be deluded and led away . are ye also deceived ? have any of the rulers , or of the pharisees beleeved on him ? but this people who knoweth not the law , are cursed , john . , , . the common people , the ignorant people , the unsetled people , such as know not the law , such as understand not the scriptures , they run after him , and cry him up : but which of the setled ones , which of the truly zealous ones , which of the wise men in the knowledge of the law and prophets , which of the orthodox scribes and pharisees , who keep close to moses , which of these beleeve in him ? whom of them can he deceive ? as for the heady people , who ( for want of knowledge of the scriptures ) are ready to run after every new fangle , they are not worth the minding , they are accursed , and therefore no marvel though god give them up to follow this deceiver , & to cry up his new light , and forsake the good old light of moses & the prophets . . they excepted against him , that he did not rebuke his disciples , and the multitude ( spreading their garments , cutting down branches from the trees and strowing them in the way ) with the children that cried hosanna to him , as he rode on the asse colt to jerusalem : but he rather justified them , luke . . and mat . , . what a ridiculous , and vainglorious peice of pageantry would this seem to the fleshly wise eye ? . that he did not shew sufficient authority for what he did . by what authority dost thou these things ? and who gave thee this authority , &c. mark . . thou takest upon thee great authority over the people of god , over their teachers , yea over gods temple , sabbath , and ordinances ; but where 's thy authority so to do ? shew us that , &c. . they excepted when he spoke of his sufferings and death , we have heard in our law , that christ abideth for ever ; and how saist thou , the son of man must be lift up ? who is the son of man ? john . . sure he that is to be lift up , cannot be the christ which is to abide for ever , and not to die : so that here ( in one breath ) thou hast overthrown all that thou hast been setting up by thy preaching and miracles . now which way could they understand this thing ? nay the very disciples themselves could not swallow it , but were startled at it , and christ was fain to hide it a long time from them . and yet if there be any thing held forth now in these dayes by the same spirit , ( as concerning light and perfection , or other truths which are seen in the spirit ) because men cannot apprehend them with their carnal understanding , and make them agree with their carnal knowledge of the scriptures , what liberty do they take to themselves to speak both against the truth it self , and also against them who have seen these things in the spirit , and speak them from the spirit ? now whosoever becomes a disciple , must wait in the obedience to know the doctrine , and not think to enter with that wisdome , and carnal reasoning from scriptures , which the scribes and pharisees , and professors of that age were shut out with . there were many other things which they could not but except against , as at his answers to their questions , to which sometimes he was silent and gave no answer at all . at other times , he answered not directly , but in parables ( and how offensive is this to mans wisdome , who requires a positive and direct answer ? ) and sometimes his answers might seem quite from the thing , as john . , . his not giving respect to persons ( for it was a known thing of him , that he regarded not mens persons , mat. . . ) could not be very pleasing to them , who loved greetings , and sought honor one of another . he shewed not respect to herod the king , ( but spake contemptuously of him , as men would account it ) go saith he , and tell that fox . he did not shew respect to the reverend and grave doctors of the law , nay nor to the high priest himself . nay he did not shew respect to his own disciples , but said to peter , ( when he mildly and affectionately desired his death might be avoided ) get thee behind me satan . how harsh and rough a reply might this seem ? if peter had erred , through his affection and tenderness to his master , a meek spirit would gently have informed him ; but to call him devil , and say , get thee behind me ; what kind of spirit doth this favour of , would that professing jew say , who knoweth not the true meekness , but seeks after a fleshly meekness , which is a servant to the fleshly wisdome and prudence , but not true born ? nay he did not speak respectively to his own mother , ( as mans spirit , by its rule of respect would judge and condemn him ) but said , woman , what have i to do with thee ? john . . and in a manner denied all his relations , mat. . . lastly , ( to instance no more ) at his harsh censures of all the professors of that age , ( which observed the law of moses , and israels statutes ) with all their laborious and godly teachers , justifying none but himself , and what he taught , and a few of his followers . he told them that they had not the love of god in them , john . . did not this ( think ye ) seem to them a very harsh charge ? and why not the love of god ? because they did not follow him , and his new doctrine ? yea , would they be ready to say , they did love god , and kept his commandements , sabbaths , and ordinances , which he transgressed . he laid this also to their charge , that they did not believe moses , john . . what an unjust charge might this seem , when they were so zealous for moses , and their very dislike of him , and controversie against him , was for the sake of the law and ordinances of moses ? another charge he laid to them was , that they were not the children of abraham , or of god , but of the devil , john . ver. , , . what a rash censorious man might they account him thus to speak of them , who were the human seed of abraham , who were such strict observers of gods laws and ordinances , ( which is the property of his children ) and such enemies to the devil , that they would not be drawn from the truths , and way of worship taught by moses and the prophets , no not by all the miracles he could work ? he called them a faithless and perverse generation , ma t. . . he told them that they did not know god , though they said with confidence that he was their god , john . , . how could they bear this ? they had been studying the law and prophets , and had a great stock of knowledge from thence , and were strict and exact in worship ( some of them , as well as paul , might be according to the law blameless ) and now to be told they did not know god ? nay , he that aboundeth in knowledge , devotion , and worship , yet being not in the life and pure power of the spirit , hath not one dram of the true knowledge . he told them that they should dye in their sins , john . . ( o hard word , and severe judgement ! ) and yet he had told them a little before that he judged no man , ver. . yea they did think themselves exceedingly wronged by him , and thought that no man that had any thing of god in him could speak such things , but only one that was an enemy to the people of god , and led by the spirit of satan . to this effect they expresse themselves , verse . of that chap. say we not well , that thou art a samaritan , and hath a devil ! yea when christ charged them with going about to kill him , they seemed to themselves so clear in their own consciences , that they answered , thou hast a devil , who goes about to kill thee ? john . . how easily might they closeup the controversie , and by this very thing conclude him to be a false prophet ? he sayes we went about to till him , when ( god knows ) there was not such a thing in our hearts . can this man be a true prophet ? yet christ knew the prefessing jews to be the murtherer , and in and for his religion sake still seeking to slay him . and there is no such murtherer of christ ( the life ) upon the earth , as the zealous professor and worshipper out of the life . he that is in the life cannot persecute any man ; he that is out of the life , cannot but persecute him that is in the life . hereby the true and false christian may be discrened , by the weakest simple and single eye . and then for their teachers and expounders of the law , how exceeding bitter did be seem against them ? and how heavy things was he continually laying to their charge ? he called them blind guids , hypocrites , painted sepulchres , graves which appears not , and pronounced woe upon woe against them . read that one place , mat. . , ye serpents , ye generation of vipers , how can ye escape the damnation of hell ? what speak thus of our zealous teachers , who study the law , are strict in practising of the ordinances , and take such pains to ininstruct us in the mind of god , from moses and the prophets ? was such a man as this fit to live ? nay and he does not shew a gospel spirit , mark how sharp and bitter his words came from him ( for indeed a sharper speech , with greater vehemency and indignation of spirit , can hardly be spoken ) and they might seem to aggravate this sharp condemnation of his , from his own confession : he himself had confessed that they sate in moses chair ( now he might have shewn some honour to moses chair , and to their office , which was of god , and doubtless good ) and not have gone about to make them thus odious in the eyes of the people . nay he himself had bid men do as they said , but in ver. . of that chap. now was it likely that ever men should mind what they said , or observe their doctrine , when he had thus represented them , as oppressors of the conscience , ver. . as devourers of widdows houses , and making long prayers in hypocrisie , ver. . as making their proselytes more the children of hell then themselves , ver. . as neglecters of the weightier matters of the law , judgement , mercy and faith , ver. . . as appearing righteous to men , but full of hypocrisie and iniquity , ver. . as of the same generation that killed the prophets , ver. . . as d●ceivers , as such as led into the ditch , ( and bid men beware of their leaven ) were not these good kind of incouragements for people to hear them ? yea he charged them with shutting up the kingdome of heaven against men , and not going in themselves , nor suffering men to enter that were going in , ver. . how could they observe what they taught without hearing them ? and would christ wish any to hear such men as these ? yet for all this , without doubt they were not without their justifications against christ in these respects , and also had their charges ( on the other hand ) ready against him . now how did they shut up the kingdome of heaven against men ? did not they teach the law , and direct men to the ordinances of god , and open the prophets words to them ? was this shutting up the kindome of heaven ? and would not they suffer men to enter ? why , their work was to win people to their profession , they would compass sea and land to make a proselyte . how stifly might the jews have pleaded against christ , that he did slander their godly ministers , who were very painful and zealous in opening the scriptures , and teaching the way of god ? nay he himself could not deny but they taught well : for he himself saith , whatsoever they bid you observe , that observe and do , mat. . . but mark now , that ye may understand the thing , it is thus . any teaching , or expounding of scriptures out of the life , shuts up the kingdome : for the life is the kingdome : and words from the life yeild the savour of the kingdome : but words out of it ( though never so good and true ) reach not to the life in another , but only build up a knowledge in the contrary wisdome , and teach to hold the truth in the unrighteousness , where satans kingdome stands , and where he hath the dominion over all that is brought thither . and so this kind of teaching and knowledg shuts up the door and way of life ; and must be lost , before the kingdome can be found . they shut up the true kingdome , but they opened another kingdome , they opened the kingdome another way , ( which was in truth shutting of it , ) and they had disciples and children of the kingdome ▪ whom they tickled with the hope of life , and fed with promises and comforts : but these the lord would shut out . many shall come from the east and west , and shall sit down with abraham , and isaac , and jacob , in the kingdome of heaven : but the children of the kingdome , shall be cast out into utter darkness , mat. . , . this is as true at this day , in this present dispensation , as it was then in that dispensation , though men make it a great accusation against us , charging us that we say none are the people of god but our selves , and as if all were damned but we . these are mens harsh and unsavory expressions ; we use not to speak after this manner , but soberly open the state of the thing , as it stands in the truth ( and as it hath been revealed unto us , by him who is true , and cannot lie , ) which is thus : that through which men are saved , is the dispensation of truth in their age . the measure of light , which god gives forth in every age ; that is the means and proper way of salvation in that age : and what ever men get , or profess of the knowledg of truth , declared in former ages , yet making use of that to withstand the present dispensation of truth in their age , they cannot thereby be saved , but may thereby be hardened against that which should save them . and this we are assured of from the lord , that as the jews could not be saved by the law of moses ( making use of it in opposition to the shining of the light of god in the prophets in their present ages ) nor afterwards could be saved by magnifiing and observing both the words of moses and the prophets , and their belief from thence of a messiah to come , ( making use of these things to oppose that appearance of christ in the flesh , which was the dispensation of their day then . ) no more can any professors be saved now , by belief of a christ come , or any thing which they can learn or practise from the scriptures , making use thereof to oppose the dispensation of this day ; which dispensation is the immediate and powerful breaking forth of the light of the spitit , in the hearts of gods people ( who have earnestly sought , and in much sorrow and perplexity of spirit , longed and waited for him ) after this long dark night of the antichristian apostacy . there remain yet some other exceptions against him , about the time of his suffering death , with his hard usage , which would not wholly be passed over . as first , his disrespective or irreverend answering of the high priest , ( as it seemed to them ) when he asked him of his doctrine , john . vers. . his answer was , that he spake openly in the world , not in secret , why askest thou me ? ask them that heard me ; whereupon one of the officers struck him , saying ; answerest thou the high priest so ? vers. . the plainness and simplicity of the life ( which bows to god , and cannot regard man in the transgression ) seems rude and unmannerly to the lofty spirit of the world . . his silence at the testimonies brought against him , and to the high priest when he questioned him , mark . , . indeed either the speaking or silence in the life , is offensive to the carnal professor , who knoweth not the law of the life in this particular , but can either speak or be silent according to his own will . this is the difference between the true and the false christian ; the false christian , his knowledg and religion stands in his own will , in his own understanding , ( he speaks in his own time ) both which are crucified in him that is born of the spirit . . when he did speak the truth of himself , the high priest rent his cloaths , and charged him with blasphemy , mat. . . and those that were by , fell in with the high priest , and said he was guilty of death , vers. . then they spet on his face and buffetted him , and smote him , and mocked him , and blindfolded him , and struck him on the face , bidding him prophesie , who smote him , mat. . , . and luke . , . when they brought him to pilate , they would have pilate take it for granted that he was an evil doer , and worthy of death , for when pilate asked for their accusation against him , they answer , if he were not a malefactor , we would not have delivered him up unto thee , john . , . pilate refusing so to proceed in judgment , ( vers. . ) they begin to bring in their charges , we found this fellow perverting the nation , and forbidding to give tribute to caesar , saying , that he himself is christ a king , luke . . pilate examines him herein , but professes he can find no fault in him at all , john . . then the chief priests accused him of many other things , ( mark . . and were more fierce , saying , he stirreth up the people , teaching throughout all jury , beginning from galilee to this place . ( this indeed was his great offence , he taught with the authority of the spirit , and not as the scribes . ) then pilate sent him to herod ( where the chief priests and scribes stood vehemently accusing him ) who questioned him much , but he answered him nothing . and herod , with his men of war , set him at naught , and mocked him , and arayed him in a gorgeous robe , and sent him back to pilate , luke . , , . pilate professed that he could not find him guilty of this second charge neither of perverting the people , vers. . therefore chastising him , he would release him , vers. . but the people ( by the perswasion of the chief priests and elders ) cried all at once , away with this man , and release unto us barbas , vers. . but let him be crucified , crucifie him , crucifie him , vers. . &c. now when pilate had scourged him , and the souldiers had stripped him , and put on him a scarlet robe , and had put a crown of platted thornes on his head , and a reed in his right hand , and had bowed the knee to him in mockery , and spit on him , and smote him with a reed , he brings him forth to them again , hoping this might appease there malice , and they might be content to spare his being crucified . they tell him they have a law , and by their law he ought to dye , because he made himself the son of god , john . vers. . to . ( see how they turn and wind every way to make the innocent an offender , and to make some law , of one kind or other , take hold of him ! ) but when all their accusations would not prevail with pilate , but still ( from the sense of his innocency ) he had a mind to release him , they use another subtile artifice , telling him , if he let this man go , he was not caesars friend , john . . this carries it with pilate , now he disputes no further , but delivers him up to their will , luke . . now thou , who readest this , take heed of judging the jews for all this wickedness , while the same nature is alive in thee , which did all this in them : for assuredly thou ( in whom that nature , which did it in them , is not subdued ) wouldst have done the same thing , hadst thou lived in those dayes . thou that disdainest and persecutest the appearance of christ in this age , whuldst have disdained , & have persecuted his appearance in that age , do not deceive thy soul . the jews did as little think , that ever they should have put a prophet , or any good man to death ( much less the messiah ) as thou canst : yea , they could blame their fathers for killing the prophets , and say ; if they had lived in those dayes , they would not have done it : and yet dost thou not read what they did ? the persecuting spirit was ever blind , and could in no age read its evil and bitter nature , and its enmity against the life and power . be not thou blind in thy day ( as they were in theirs ) and an enemy under pretence of being a friend . . another exception or argument against him about the time of his suffering death , was , that he did not put forth his power to save himself from the cross , he saved others , let him save himself , if he be christ the chosen of god , luke . . is it likely that this is the son of god , and that he did so many miracles by the power of god , and cannot now save himself from the cross ? this his suffering death on the cross did a little stumble some of the disciples ( as may appear , luke . , . ) and was enough to have overturned the faith ( of any ) which stood not in the spirit , and in the power . the souldiers also could mock and manage this argument against him , saying , if thou be the king of the jews , save thy self , luke . . and they that passed by , reviled him , wagging their heads and saying , thou that destroyest the temple , and buildest it in three dayes , save thy self ; if thou be the son of god , come down from the cross , mat. . , . likewise the chief priests with the scribes and elders , mocked among themselves , saying , he saved others , himself he cannot save . let christ the king of israel descend now from the cross , that we may see and believe , mark . . , . one of the thieves also railed on him saying , if thou be the christ save thy self and us , luke . . and when he cryed out to his god , eli , eli , &c. they derided him , this man calleth for elias , let us see whether elias will come to save him , mat. . , . and after he was dead , the chief priests and pharisees spake of him , as of a known deceiver , vers. . and seem in a pious zeal for the church , to take care that there be no further occasion after his death , for the reviving and spreading of his deceit and errors , vers. . thus the holy one , the pure one , the just and true one , ( in whose heart and mouth was no guile found ) was numbred among transgressors , accounted a deceiver , and put to death as a blasphemer by the zealous priests and professors of that age , who were so confident of the righteousness of their cause ( on the behalf of the law of moses , and their sabbaths , temple , &c. ) against him , that when pilate washed his hands as clear of his bloud , all the people answered and said , his bloud be on us , and on our children , mat. . . now let men consider what the great exceptions are , which they have against the living appearance of christ in his spirit ( now towards the close of the apostacy ) and against us his witnesses , whom the lord hath called forth to testifie to his name . many exceptions men have against our persons , our doctrine , our practises , for want of miracles , &c. is this generation more wise , or just in their exceptions then the former was ? consider the main ones a little . their great exceptions against our doctrine are . . that we preach up a light within , and that he that receiveth that light receiveth a perfect gift ; and growing up in it , groweth up to perfection , which in this life ( through faith and obedience to this light or perfect gift ) may be attained , and the body of sin put off , and the new man christ put on . answ. indeed we cannot but preach up the light within , and declare unto men how great things it hath done for us , even that which we could never by any means meet with , from any light without . and this is perfect , and tends to make perfect , carrying on its work daily . now he that feels its virtue , cannot doubt of its power . he that seeth the body of sin daily going off , cannot doubt but he may be stripped . indeed if a man strive against sin in his own will , ( and by his own gathered knowledg ) he cannot get much ground , and so it is hard for him to believe perfection . but he that feels unity with that which is perfect , cannot but acknowledg that it is able to perfect him , and in faith and patience is encouraged to hope and wait for it . . that we deny that christ which dyed at jerusalem , and his imputed righteousness , and set up an inherent righteousness . answ. we know no other christ then that which dyed at jerusalem , only we confess our cheif knowledg of him is in spirit . and as christ said in the dayes of his flesh , that the way to know his father , was to know him ; and that he that knew him , knew the father also . so we now witness , that the way to know christ is to know the spirit ; and that he that knoweth the spirit , knoweth christ also , with whom christ is one , and from whom he cannot be seperated . and as for imputed righteousness , it is too pretious a thing to us for to be denyed by us . that which we deny is mens putting of it out of its place , applying it to them who are not in the true faith , and walk not in the true light : for in the true light ( where the fellowship is with the father and the son ) there alone the bloud cleanseth , john . . and there alone the righteousness is imputed to him , who is cleansed by the bloud in the light , and not to him who knows it not . and as for inherent righteousness , we meddle not with that word , but this we say ; that our life exceedingly lies in feeling the righteousness of christ wrought , and revealed in us ; and we wish men could come out of the reasoning about it , into the feeling of the same thing with us : for then we are sure they would not so sharply , nor so long contend . . that we deny the ordinances and means of salvation . answ. we deny nothing that the apostles or christians formerly practised , nor do we deny any thing that any now practise in the light , and in the faith : but the setting up of such things in the will , that we deny ; or the imitating these without the command of the spirit , that we deny also . and this we testifie , that antichrist crept in here , and that they are his great cover to keep men from the life , and therefore warn men to mind the life , and to take heed they be not kept from the substance by the shadows , where antichrist lies lurcking to bewitch from the substance . and we are sure that these in antichrists hands , are not the means of salvation ; but keep from the sight of the holy city , where the life and salvation is . and we read that the outward court was given to the gentiles ; who trod under foot the holy city , revel. . . and we have found by experience , that while we our selves were crying up the outward court , we did trample under foot the holy city , though we then knew it not . their exceptions against our persons are , that we are ignorant , illiterate , and also unsetled persons ( who have still been seeking up and down , &c. ) answ. what persons are fittest for god to make use of , towards the recovery of his people out of the apostacy ? doth not god chuse that which is weak , and mean , and contemptible , that his glory might the more appear ? is not this a more likely way for him to steal upon the world , then if he appeared in the wise and learned ones ? and among whom is his appearing to be expected ? among those who are setled upon their lees in the apostacy ; or among those who have mourned , panted , and sought to come out of it , and could not be setled without his appearing to them , and fixing of their feet upon the rock . but have we been unsetled , since god hath fastned us on the living foundation ? nay , here is no more going out , but he that abides faithful , remains a pillar in the house of god . men except likewise against our practises , as that we shew not respect to persons , and that we are not strict ( after their manner ) in duties , &c. answ. we have heard that voice , fear god , and give glory to him , revel. . . ( not only as it is written there , but in spirit : ) and where the lord is exalted , the glory of the creature falls : read isa. . how all falls in that day , that god alone might be exalted . and we cannot , in this mighty day of the lord , any longer give to man that honour which he hath gathered in the fall , and which pleaseth the fallen nature , and not that which is borne of god . and for duties , we have bewailed ( in the sight of the lord ) our former running into duties without his spirit : and we must confess we can only pray in the spirit , sing in the spirit , wait in the spirit , speak in the spirit ( as that gives utterance ) and not of our selves , or when we will , but as we feel life ( strength and power from on high ) leading and assisting us . and our religion consists neither in willing nor running , but in waiting on the spirit and power of the lord , to work all in us and for us . all these things we look upon to be our duty , and practise them . it is likewise excepted against us , that we do not work miracles . answ. we point to that which wrought all the outward miracles formerly , and which now worketh great inward miracles in spirit : and we are sure the same power ( which we have received the gospel in ) is of the same healing virtue . but that power worketh according to the purpose of its own will , and not according to the will of man ( yea though paul had the gift of healing , yet he left trophimus at miletum sick , tim. . . ) neither was the will or wisdome of man satisfied in all those miracles which christ and the apostles wrought . it is enough for us to feel and live in the moving of the power , in which we rejoyce and are more satisfied ( that by it our names are written in the book of life ) then we could by any such outward and visible appearance and manifestation of it . but if we did work outward miracles , yet if thou hadst not an inward eye to see them with , thou wouldst not be able to distinguish by what power they were wrought . to what purpose should i mention any more particulars ? is it not enough ? o fear before the lord , and do not lose the present dispensation of life through mistake ( or because ye cannot have things suited to your corrupt wills ) but know the gospel , which is an inward dispensation , and doth not consist in outward shadows , but in inward virtue , life and power : for the kingdome of god is righteousness , and peace , and joy in the holy spirit . come to wait for that , to feel that , to unite there ; and then we shall not differ about that which is outward . but it is antichrists way ( by the magistrates power ) to force an agreement about the outward , which destroyes that tenderness of conscience which prefer vs the inward . and now let me put one question to you ; where is the deceit of the ages after christ to be expected ? did the jews deny moses and the prophets writings , or ordinances ? nay were they not very zealous for these ? and were not these their cover , under which they persecuted christ , and vented all their malice against him ? so can it be expected now , that the deceivers of this age should deny the apostles writings , or the practises therein mentioned ? or is it not rather to be expected , that under their crying up of these , they should hide their enmity against the life ? search and see , hath not every after-age of professors took up the words and practises of them who were persecuted in the foregoing age , and under the profession of those words and practises , have hid their spirit of persecution ? there is a remnant only among professors to be saved , the generallity of them have still been persecuters , creeping into the form , getting that for a cover upon their backs , and then fighting against the life and power . o wait on the lord in his fear , that ye may be found worthy to know the persecuted truth on the one hand , and the persecuting spirit on the other hand in this day of large profession , and also of bitter persecution ! now what might be the cause , or how could it come to pass , that the zealous worshippers of that age should thus err in their zeal , and be thus heady and rash against him , whom they looked for to be their saviour ? how came they thus to err in vision , and stumble in judgment in so weighty a matter ? shew unto us the cause , that we may see whether the same cause be not in us ? for undoubtedly if it be , it will produce the same effect , and so we may ignorantly draw upon our heads the same heavy wrath in our day , that they did in their day . answ. the causes were very many , i may mention some few of the principal ones , which if they be seen into and removed , ( by that power which is able to do it ) such as are of a more inferiour influence , will not be able to stand . . one cause of their blind zeal , and bitterness against christ , was , their ignorance of the scriptures , and of the power of god . if they had known the scriptures in the true light , they could not but have known christ , from whom the scriptures were given forth ; and if they had known the power of god , they could not but have known him who came in the power , yea who was the power . they had knowledge enough of both these one way , that is in the letter ; they knew the words of scripture ( they could make large expositions of them ) they knew what was said in scripture concerning the power of god , but they knew not the thing it self ; and so turned against it , and made use of the words ( which came from it , and testified of it ) against it . . a second cause of this their sad miscarriage in their zeal , was , their putting the law and ordinancee , and writings of the prophets out of their proper place . they exceedingly magnified , and cryed them up , in that carnal way wherein they apprehended and practised them , but understood not the right end and use of them . and by these means , practising the shadows in the carnal mind , they lost the substance , which the proper use of the shadows was to have pointed them unto . . their high conceits of the goodness of their state in relation to god , and of the certainty of their knowledge of the truths of god from moses and the prophets . they were confident that they knew god aright , and that he was their father , and that they were his children and people . and so christ appearing in a seeming contrariety to these ( notwithstanding all his powerful preaching and miracles ) they made no question but they might boldly conclude him , not to be of god . . christs coming in a way that they looked not for him . they had concluded from the scriptures , how christ must appear , and he coming in a far different manner , they could not own him , but looked upon him as a deceiver , one that pretended to be christ , but was not like to what the scripture said of christ . so what the scripture saith of christs second coming , is hid as much from the carnal eye of professors in this age , as what was said concerning his first coming , was hid from them in their age ; and he will steal upon them as a thief , at a time , and in a way , and after a manner that they expect not . . ( which is the main one , and the cause of all the former ) because they were from the light within , from the true light in their own hearts and consciences . the light within is the great ordinance of god , and the proper means to give the knowledge of him , ( . cor. . . ) without which it was never received under any dispensation : for the light that shines abroad ( or from without ) can alone be known and received by the light that shines within . christ himself opens this in a parable ; the light of the body ( saith he ) is the eye ; if therefore thine eye be single , ( clear , without beams or moats ) thy whole body shall be full of light , mat. . . but if that be evil , if that be dark , if that be closed by the god of the world , all moses words , all the prophets words , yea all christs and his apostles words , cannot give thee light . can i see the light of the sun , moon , or stars , ( or of any fire or candle ) if i have not a natural eye , and if that natural eye be not open ? so neither can i see the light of any dispensation of life , if i have not an eye within me open , wherewith to see it . so that that which gives me the sight of the things of god , is the eye which god hath given me . by that may be read the eternal power and god-head in the creatures , in the books of moses and the prophets , in the writings of the evangelists and apostles , as the spirit leads and opens . yea the same spirit that opened to these without books , may again open to any of us without books at his pleasure , ( and will not be limited to books ) and we then may read also as they did , even within in the spirit , and in the immediate life ; but without this , can none of the things of god be read aright . now the god of this world had blinded this eye in the jews , yea they themselves had stopped their ears , and closed their eyes , &c. they would not see this way , they would not be converted and healed this way . they would keep up the knowledge , which they had gathered from moses and the prophets without this eye ; and with that they would see , or not at all . thus being from the light within , they could not see the place of life within , where life is to be received : they could not see the wombe of wisdom , which is within , and so could not enter into it , and be born again . and being not born of the wisdome , how could they justifie the wisdome ? being not born of the light , how could they know or own christ , whose coming and appearance was in the light ? for that appearance of christ the life , in that body of flesh , could not be discerned by all mens wisdome in the letter , ( the disciples themselves came not so to know it ) but my father which is in heaven hath revealed it to you . and mark it , the disciples , who were illiterate and not so knowing of the scriptures that were written of christ , yet they knew christ : and the scribes and pharisees , which were very skilful in the letter , could not know him . what was the reason ? the reason lay in the difference of the eye , or light wherewith they looked : the one looked with an outward eye , the other with an inward eye . and a little inward light wil do that , which a great deal of outward light will not do . and this i can certainly affirm , that all the light that men can gather from the scriptures , cannot give them the knowledge of christ as he hath appeared in this age , nay nor as he hath appeared in any age since the daies of the apostles : but a little true inward light will give the knowledge of this thing , and open those scriptures infallibly ( in its season ) which all the generations of wise and learned men have been controverting and disputing about , in that wisdome and searching spirit which is never to understand them . this then is the main and full reason of this deep error of the jews , and their desperate splitting upon the rock , which would have saved them , they were begotten of the letter which was given forth in former ages , but not of the life which was raised up in their age : and so they knew not how to turn to the light within , which alone was able to give them the true and certain knowledge of the things of god . now consider these things well . o ye professors of this age , and take heed that ye do not fall after the same example of unbeleif . be not high minded , but fear . be not so confident of what you have gathered by your wisdom for truth from the scriptures , ( after the manner that they were , of what they had gathered by their wisdome ) but fear lest ye should be mistaken , as they were : and wait for the opening of that eye in you , which was shut in them , even the true eye , in the true light , by the holy anointing , where there never was , nor can be any mistake . the jews fell by unbeleif ; unbeleif of what ? they beleeved the scriptures , they beleeved according to that knowledg they had gathered from the scriptures : but they did not beleeve in the living word . they had a knowledge abiding in them , which they had gathered from the scriptures , but they had not the living word abiding in them ; and so their faith was but unbeleif : ( for the living faith , stands in beleif of the living word in the heart , which the scriptures direct to ; without the knowledge of which , all knowledge of words is vain ; and without faith in which , all faith is vain also ) now saith the apostle to the gentile-christians , thou standest by faith , rom. . . by what faith ? by faith in that word in the heart , which they neglected and turned from , rom. . . for moses had taught them , after the laws and ordinances , about worship and sacrifices , that the word that they were to obey and do ( the word that could give them life , and make them obedient to all the commandements without ) was in their heart and mouth , deut. . . and so the prophet micah , when they proposed sacrifices , and oil , to please god with , he brings them to this which was given to them in common with mankind , mich. . . for all ordinances and laws , and observations , and practises without , are but to bring to the life within , which is to be found again there , where it was lost , and still lies slain and hid ( even in the feild , or house where it was lost . ) and he that seeks abroad , never finds it ; but when the candle is lighted in his own house , and he searches narrowly in the feild in his own heart , and the eternal eye begins to open in him , then he cries out , god was in this place , and i was not aware of it ah how the enemy bewiched me , to run from mountain to mountain , and from hill to hill , and hath hereby covered my eye from beholding the mountain of the lords house , and from feeling the spring of my life , which i further and further ran from , all the while i was seeking abroad . therefore o ye professors , be not so conceited like the jews , and running after them into their desolation and misery , but learn wisdome by their fall ! do not you set up your ordinances and scriptures , after the manner that they set up theirs : for this is your danger : for this i clearly , in the light of the lord , testifie to you : that if ye gather a knowledge and wisdom from the letter of the scriptures , after the manner that they did , without knowledge of the word within , and without a light within from that word , ye lose the living faith , ye are but dead branches , and all your knowledge of scriptures , and practises , and faith , and duties , &c. that ye here hold and observe , are but for the fire ; and the flames of eternal wrath , shall kindle more fiercely upon you because of them , then upon the jews : for ye stumble at the same stumbling stone , at which they stumbled and fell , and it will fall upon you also . and as you have more scriptures , then they had , and the experience of their fall to warn you : so your destruction will be exceeding dreadful if ye neglect so great salvation , where of at this day there are so many living & powerful witnesses , as they are known and owned to be in the light of the lord , though despised in your exalted and conceited wisdom . now to help any honest and single hearts among you , over this great stumbling block of a light within , consider these few things . . that all the knowledge ( all the true knowledge ) that ever ye had of god was from a light within . i do not deny that ye might receive your knowledge through the scriptures ( and some warmth formerly in those things which ye call ordinances , and duties ) but that whereby ye received the knowledge , was the light within , the eye that god secretly opened in your spirits . this was the way ye then came by it , though ye perhaps might feel the thing , but not know how ye came by it : even as a babe may see truly , but doth not understand its own eye , or knows how it sees . . while this eye was kept open in you , your knowledge was true in its measure , and serviceable to you , and did draw you neerer to god , making ye truly tender , meek , sweet , humble , patient , loving , gentle , and full of pretious breathings towards god , and after righteousness . o how lovely were you to god in this state ! when israel was a child , i loved him . god remembreth at this day the kindness of your youth , and is seeking after you , o why do ye so harden your hearts against him ! . that wherever this eye is shut , the vertue of the true knowledg is lost , and the sweet fruits thereof wither . the outward part of the knowledg may be retained , yea , perhaps much increased , but the life is gone , and the pure sweet savouriness ( to god ) vanished . and if this eye were but a little opened again in you , your death and unsavouriness might be soon seen and felt by you in all your knowledge , duties , ordinances , yea in your very graces and experiences . you have a faith still , yea , but it wants the savour of your former faith : ye have some kind of love , gentleness , and meekness ; yea , but it is but a thing formed by the fleshly wisdome and reasoning , but not natural from the living spring , not such as ye once felt , &c. for the true and living eye being shut , that which is then best ( or afterwards attained ) is held but in the dead part , and serves but to feed death . . the great work and design of the enemy of your souls , is not to steal away the bulk of your knowledg , or to draw you from ordinances , or duties , but to steal the life out of your spirits . this i have experimented from my child-hood , i might still have knowledg enough of any kind , but that which i wanted was life , and i was still sick under all the sorts of knowledge that ever i met with , and under all ordinances and duties , for want of life . the lord had given my soul a taste of true life , whereby i became unsatisfied without it , and no manner of knowledge or enjoyment could take me up by the way : yea , when through extremity , i seemed willing to be content with any thing , yet still my heart was sick after that one thing , which alone could truly ease and satisfie it . now if the enemy can but prevail herein , to blind the inward eye , and steal away the life within , he hath enough . then abound , as much as thou wilt , in knowledg , in zeal , in duties , in ordinances , in reading scriptures , praying , meditating , &c. thou art the surer his hereby , and so much the better servant to him : for how much the richer thou art in knowledge , experiences , hopes and assurance ( without the life and power ) so much the more acceptable , and honourable , and useful art thou in his kingdome . therefore see where ye are ; is the inward eye open in you ? do ye know the light within ? ( surely he that sees by a light within , can hardly speak evil of it ! ) or hath the enemy , by some of his artifices , drawn a vail over that eye , wherewith ye once saw in some measure ? o be not slight in a matter of so great weight ! o please not your selves with the eye of the perishing wisdome , with deaths eye , and with deaths knowledge of scriptures , and of the son of god , which speaks great words of the fame of true wisdome , but is a stranger and enemy to the thing ! o , life is pretious , eternal life is pretious . to have the word of god abiding in the heart , and to feel the true light giving the true life , who can set a value on this ! ah do not loose your souls for a trifle , for a little such knowledge of scriptures as the earthly part can gather ! ( this i cannot but exceedingly despise , although the scriptures i truly honour , for their testimony of that whereby i live ) if ye see not the way of life by the inward light ( which alone can shew it ) ye loose your souls . if the god of the world hath blinded that eye in you , what are all your treasures of wisdome and knowledg ? what are all your hopes ? and what will become of you ? all these sparks of your own kindling from scripture , will not secure you from the bed of sorrow . o several sorts of professors why will ye dye with the uncircumcised ? why will ye go down into the pit , among them that know not the lord ? but what shall i say to this generation ? the spiritually-wise foreseeth the storm , and hideth himself ; but the spiritually-foollish run on headily , and are punished . the cloudes have long been gathering , but the sick eye cannot discern the signs and seasons of the times , and so because judgment comes not as men expected , they grow hard , and wear off the the sense , wherewith they were somewhat affected at the first threatning of it . but assuredly both judgment and mercy hasten , and they will come , and will not tarry . for the same lord god almighty , which confounded the heathens babel ( when their sins and vain confidence was ripe ) which they built to prevent any future floud . for though they once had the true knowledg of god from an inward light , rom. . . yet they soon left that , not liking to retain god in their knowledge , vers. . but running out into imaginations , and so building a babel , whereby their foolish hearts became darkned to the light , which god had made to shine in them , which shewed what might be known of god unto them , vers. . yea the lord god which overthrew the jews babel , which they had built from their knowledg of the laws and ordinances of moses , and the scriptures written to them ( they running out into imaginations also ) whereby they likewise thought to prevent the overflowing scourge from coming near them , isa. . . the same god will overthrow the christians babel , which they have built from the prophets and apostles words , ( by their own imaginations , and conceivings , in the high mindedness , out of the fear ) whereby they think to escape the deluge of eternal wrath : ( for their city also shall be thrown down with violence , and shall be found no more at all , revel. . . ) and the great work o● this day is to discover the rottenness of their wall , and the untemperedness of the morter wherewith they have dawbed it . he that readeth let him understand : but the uncircumcised in heart and ears , cannot . the end some questions and answers for the opening of the eyes of the jews natural that they may see the hope of israel which hath so long been hid from them : with some questions and answers for the direction, comfort, help and furtherance of god's spiritual israel in their travels in spirit from spiritual egypt through the spiritual wilderness to spiritual canaan ... / by isaac penington, the younger. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) some questions and answers for the opening of the eyes of the jews natural that they may see the hope of israel which hath so long been hid from them : with some questions and answers for the direction, comfort, help and furtherance of god's spiritual israel in their travels in spirit from spiritual egypt through the spiritual wilderness to spiritual canaan ... / by isaac penington, the younger. penington, isaac, - . p. printed for robert wilson, london : . imperfect: pages torn, faded and stained. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng jews -- conversion to christianity. christian life -- quaker authors. society of friends -- controversial literature. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - ali jakobson sampled and proofread - ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion some questio●● and ansvvers ▪ for the opening of the eyes the jews natural , that they may see the hope of israel , which hath so long been hid from them . with some questions and answer● for the direction , comfort , help and ●●●therance of god's spiritual israel , in 〈◊〉 travels in spirit from spiritual 〈◊〉 through the spiritual wilderness to spi●●●●al canaan , which is the land where 〈◊〉 redeemed soul flourisheth in the life 〈◊〉 with god and worshipping him 〈…〉 and truth . by isaac penington , the you●●●● london , printed for robert wilson , 〈…〉 le grand , . the preface . several things hath the life , begotten by the eternal vertue , breathed in me towards my father for , in relation both to my self and others , from my childhood . as touching my self , first , that i might be a vessel for him , that i might be freed from the bondage of corruption and brought forth in the image of his life . secondly , that i might be filled with his life , that i might be satisfied in the presence and with the fulness of the spring of my life : even that i might have enough of my god in my heart continually . thirdly , that he would of his own meer goodness both preserve the vessel and dwell in it for ever : that so my tenure and possession of him , and fitness for him might be of his grace , of his love , of his good will , of his own nature , depending wholly and altogether on him , and not at all on any thing that can be expected from the creature-hood in its purest state. and likewise , that if he pleased to use me in any service , it might be of him , and for him , and to him : that he would bring me so low in my self , that i might not be able to detain any of his glory and vertue from him , but the meanness of the vessel might still so appear to me , and also be so sensibly discerned and acknowledged by all other eyes also , that the excellency of the power and of the glory might run back entirely into his pure bosom . besides these , there have been vehement desires in me concerning others also . first , towards mankind in general , that they might have an exceeding merciful and powerful day of visitation , even that the whole earth might be touched with the power of life and drawn out of the darkness . o how hath my soul breathed for poor lost mankind , and how hath my spirit travelled ( with unutterable pangs and earnestness ) for unheard of , unthought of , and altogether unexpected mercy and good will towards the sons of men in general ! secondly , towards my brethren in spirit , that they might know the day of redemption and power in spirit , and not alwayes lie groveling on the earth , and groaning and mourning because of the lusts and corruptions , but might know deliverance in power , and might sing the song of moses and the song of the lamb ( because of their feeling victory over pharaoh and the dragon ) and might serve and worship the living god in spirit and truth , without fear of interruption , and captivity from the enemy any more . thirdly , towards the jews after the flesh , that their iniquity might be blotted out , their wound healed , the pure eye opened in them , and the pure glory revealed to them : that they might know the shepherd of israel in spirit , the spiritual tents of jacob , the beauty of the footsteps of the spiritual flock , and might travel out of their darkness , earthliness and litteral knowledge into the land of pure life , rest ▪ peace and fresh joy in the living god ( whereof their land of canaan , with all the good things thereof , was but a shadow ) and might be annointed with the fresh oyl of the salvation of the messiah , and might become indeed an holy nation , yea , a kingdom of priests to offer up spiritual sacrifices on god's spiritual altar . my soul still breatheth to the lord , and waiteth on him , for all these things : and as he draweth my spirit forth , so am i ready in spirit to be serviceable unto him therein . these present drawings and openings of my life , in the questions and answers following , are both towards the jews in flesh , and also the jews in spirit ; that they may meet in one , even in the one path and pasture of life , where there is one shepherd , one seed , one flock , one spirit , one beginning , one progress , one end in one and the same circle of life . the lord my god take it into his own hand , dispose of it for good , mannage and bless it according to his pleasure . j. p. some questions and answers for the opening of the eyes of the jews natural , that they may see the hope of israel , which hath so long been hid from them . question . what was the rise of that people the jewes ? ans . they came of abraham after the flesh , who was god's friend , whom god took from his father's house and from his native country ( where he was worshipping and serving idols ) to be the stock and pattern of the faithful , both of the jews according to the flesh , and of the jews in spirit . of this root , of this stock came this people according to the flesh , who were an holy nation , a circumcised people , a sanctified people outwardly : and ( as long as their day lasted ) were the beloved of god , the pitied , the pardoned , the redeemed ones , even until the shadows were finished , and the season came , for the substance to appear and be set up in the world ; whereof they had the first offer also , and out of whom was the first gathering for the spiritual building . but they generally hardening their hearts , and cleaving to the wisdom and knowledge which their wise ones had taught them ( from their mis-understanding the letter of the scriptures ) missed of the spirit , rebelled against the redeeming power , and so lost their share in the inward glory , and by god's righteous hand were cut off from their outward also , their day being spent , and the blood not onely of the prophets , but of the son and heir himself also required at their hands . quest . how came this people to be the chosen people at first , and so long to continue such ? answ . it was not for their righteousness , not for their loveliness , or plyableness to god above other people : but because it pleased the lord freely to love them , and to pitch upon them for the people of his choice after the flesh , in the free covenant which he made with abraham . the earth is the lord 's with the fulness thereof , and he may chuse whom he will to fill with his inward and spiritual glory ( even with the manifestations of his pure love , life and presence ) and he may also chuse whom he will to make outwardly or typically beloved , great and glorious . he chose abraham freely , he gave to abraham an heart to follow him , he gave him the faith and obedience which made him accepted with him : and he chose his seed after the spirit to be his eternal heir , and his seed after the flesh to be his temporary heir . thus of isaac in spirit came the children of the promise in spirit , and of isaac after the flesh came the seed of promise after the flesh . sarah after the flesh bare one of these , the sarah represented by her ( or the free woman which is from above ) bare the other . and of isaac comes jacob , worm jacob , who serves for his wife , who flies from the face of esau , yet afterwards finds favour in his eyes : from this worm do the twelve patriarks branch forth , who were the heads of the tribes of israel . thus hath it been with that nation according to the letter ; & thus it hath also been and is still inwardly in spirit , as the israel of god , the jews in spirit ( who are learned in the law of the spirit of life ) can very well read . thus outwardly israel was god's child , ephraim his dear , his beloved , his pleasant son ; judah his praise , whom his heart was towards , and to whom he stretched forth his arm of salvation all the day long . in all their affliction he was afflicted , and the angel of his presence saved them : and he said , surely they are my people , children that will not lie , so he became their saviour . thus it was with them till the day of israel after the flesh expired , and the day of israel in spirit was to succeed in the sight of the world. quest . what was the end for which god chose that people ? answ . it was to be a vessel for him to form , to try and experiment what his love could bring them to , and bring forth in them in that way of manifestation and operation . this god opens to jeremiah concerning them , bidding him go down to the house of the potter , where , in a parable , they might read their own state , and what they were to expect from god , even to be formed by god unto the utmost , untill he had made a perfect tryal of them , and then to be broken and laid aside , as a vessel that could never be fitted for the master's use in this way of dispensation , jer. . . on the lord's part there was no defect towards his child , his spouse , his vineyard , his garden of pleasant plants ( as this people was in that dispensation : ) for he was still a father to them , faithful in covenant , tender in bowels , abundant in loving kindness and mercies : yea what could be expected from the lord towards a people , according to that dispensation , which the lord failed in ? but they were still faithless , continually breaking covenant , erring from his dear and tender love , and drawing down the strokes of his wrath upon them , forsaking the guide of their youth , forgetting the love of their espo●sals , continually starting aside from the right state , wherein god pleased at first to set them , or at any time afterwards in any measure to reduce them . q. how did god exercise and try them to the utmost , even till at length it was plainly manifest , that there was no firm keeping a people to him by vertue of that dispensation , but he must necessarily cut them off , chuse another people , and take another course , if he would have a people for his heart to love and delight in , and for them to injoy and possess him ? answ . he tryed them several ways , and in several states and conditions : as first , in a state of captivity in the land of egypt . secondly , in a state of straits and continual dependance upon god , even for necessaries , in the wilderness . thirdly , in a state of enlargedness in the land of canaan , which flowed with plentiful provisions for the outward man ( which were also shadows and instructions concerning the inward blessedness . ) fourthly , in often captivities . fifthly , in returns to their land again , with settlement and peace and many blessings therein . quest . how did god try them in egypt ? answ . first , with sore bondage and oppression from pharaoh and the egyptians . secondly , with giving them the feeling of their state , the sence of their bondage , and causing them to cry unto the lord for deliverance . thirdly , in raising up a deliverer , and giving them a sign of the deliverance by the hand of the deliverer , in his smiting of an egyptian and saving an hebrew . fourthly , in sending the deliverer to them with promises of deliverance , and with signs and symptoms of the delivering power . fifthly , in pardoning their unbelief and rebellions against him in egypt , and shewing many signs and wonders for them in that land , till at length he had brought them forth by his mighty outstretched arm , even against the will and mind of pharaoh and their task-masters . quest . how did god find them in egypt upon this tryal ? ans . very unbelieving , very stubborn , mis-interpreting his sign of deliverance , reasoning against his promise , because it came not so soon and after the manner they expected . when he lift up his hand to them to redeem them from under pharaoh , to bring them forth of the land of bondage , to the good land he had espied for them , and bid them forsake the idolatrous worships of egypt , and not defile themselves any longer therewith ; because he was now to become the lord their god , & to appear in his power for them ; yet they would not , ezek. . . &c. when moses would have reconciled and hebrew to his brother , he would not hear him , but upbraided him for slaying the egyptian , not waiting on god to understand the figure , but mis-interpreting and abusing it in the fleshly mind . when the deliverance succeeded not according to their expectations , they murmured against moses and aaron : and when god sent them again with a fresh promise , they would not mind it . yet god bare with all this in them , and did not cast them off , but asswaged his wrath , and stirred up his love to make a further tryal of them . quest . how did god try them in the wilderness ? ans . by many temptations , signs and wonders ; by powerful appearances for them against their enemies ; by bringing them into many straits ; by unexpected and impossible supplies ( i mean impossible to the sight or expectation of the outward eye ) as with bread from heaven , multitudes of quails , water from the rock , keeping their cloaths and shoes from wearing out and decaying . likewise he gave them an holy and righteous law to inform their minds in equity and righteousness , directing them in an holy way , walking with god , and one towards another , and chalking out unto them an acceptable path of worship : and this law was delivered in great majesty , dread and terrour , to cause a deep impression thereof upon their minds . quest . how did god find them in the wildernesse ? answ . full of discontent , full of murmuring , full of self-will , full of doubts and questionings concerning god's power . they did not wait on him , who had delivered them out of the hand of pharaoh , and from under the egyptian task-masters , but they murmured against him . they did not wait for food , or water when they wanted , but distrusted and complained , repining at moses and aaron , and sometimes talking of making a captain to lead them backward . neither were they content with the provision which god allotted them ( that was mean in their eyes ) but they would have flesh : though the manna , the light bread ( as they esteemed it ) of god's choice and with god's blessing , had been far better for them , then the flesh with his curse , upon that lust which asked it , and would not be content without it . again , they would not go on towards canaan or fight when god would have them , and when his strength would have gone along with them : but when he forbad them , of their own will , and trusting to their own strength , they would go on and fight . it is a sad record which moses their tender shepherd ( who with the eye of true light had faithfully observed them ) left concerning them , deut. . . you have been rebellious against the lord , from the day that i knew you . quest . how did god deal with them in reference to the land of canaan ? answ . first , he prepared them for it . secondly , he dispossessed their enemies , and placed them in it , giving them an inheritance according to his will. thirdly , he poured down blessings upon them therein . quest . how did god prepare them for the good land ? answ . eirst , by many afflictions and exercises in the wilderness , wherein he judged and wore out the rebellious generation ( who were consumed with dying ) and raised up their children in the awe and dread of his mighty power . secondly , by giving them a righteous law to walk by in every respect , that they might not be to seek how to please god , or how to walk one towards another , or towards the heathen among them , or round about them , but in every thing might be rightly instructed . thirdly , by warning them of their own proneness to err from god , and of the danger thereof , both in relation to the loss of mercies and drawing down of judgements , that they might watch against the erring nature and transgressing spirit in their hearts . fourthly , by appointing a way of sacrifice and mediation , whereby god might be atoned either for particular persons , or for the land in general . fifthly , by directing them to a principle as near to them , and more strong than the unrighteous principle ; whereby they might be preserved in the obedience of the law , and from out of the reach of the curse . quest . how did god find them in their own land ? ans . that generation which was thus prepared , thus taught , thus directed , walked sweetly with the lord , and was a precious savour in his nostrils : but soon after the evil thing sprang up again in the generations following , and they did quickly corrupt themselves , departing from the lord , and running a whoreing after their own hearts lusts , judg. . , &c. quest . how did god deal with them then ? answ . he brought judgment upon judgement , still weightier and weightier upon them , according as their need required , exercising loving kindness and mercy towards them , as much as possibly their estate could bear . he sent his prophets to forewarn them of the wrath , that they might be spared , if possible : and when his judgments and severity came , he mingled mercy therewith , that by both he might try to the utmost , what they might be wrought to . he tryed them a long while under the judges , and a long while under the kings , often recovering them and setting them to rights , expecting the fruit of his rod and of his love towards them . quest . what was the result of god's trying them under the judges and kings ? answ . they wearied out god's prophets , yea , they wearied out the lord also in that way of his dispensation . they chose the false prophets before the true , lying divinations before the openings of life , and dead idols before the living god. the kindnesses and mercies of god were wasted upon them , for with his love they were not drawn : the bellowes also were burnt , the lead consumed , the heat of the furnace spent upon them , and yet their tin and dross not purged away . under the judges they tired out the lord 's patient expectation of good from his delivering hand , insomuch as he resolved to deliver them no more , judg. . . under the kings they were as unruly ( whether good kings or bad kings , given in love or wrath ) insomuch as the lord said , why should ye be stricken any more ? ye will revolt more and more , isai . . . there was indeed no bending of israel after the flesh & keeping him strait to god , in that way of dispensation : therefore must he be cast off , even becoming reprobate silver in the sight of the whole earth , because the lord would reject him . quest . how came israel after the flesh to be rejected ? answ . his day of flesh was out , and the day of spirit was come , wherein the spiritual glory ( which was to succeed the shadows of the fleshly ) was to be set up : and so he not seeing that , nor entring into that , his own sun set , and he hath abode in the darkness unto this day . quest . how came he not to see the spiritual glory ? ans . because the eye of the flesh was open in him , which eye cannot see it . he read the law in a gathered light , in the light of the earthly wisdom , and not in the light of the spring from whence it came : and then how could he possibly understand the law aright ? could he then chuse but set up the shadows of the law , in the stead of the substance which was vailed therein ? he read moses with the eye which can see but to the vail , and not to the glory which was revealed to moses , & which moses hid under the vail . and thus likewise he beheld the prophets , in the dayes of their appearance ; not in the light in which they appeared , but in the light of his own reason and imaginations : and upon this ground the jews still chose and cryed up the false prophets , but persecuted the true. now not seeing moses in spirit , nor the prophets in spirit , how could they see him who was greater then the prophets , he looking so contemptibly to the sight of that eye , wherewith they expected to see him ? it is the jew in spirit , who alone can see and own the messiah in spirit : yea , no fleshly jew could possibly discern him then , whose eternal life ( light and power ) was hid under so mean a vail . he must be more than a jew after the flesh , who can own so much as the law , or any of the prophets in spirit : and then surely it can require no less than inward jewship , to discern the messiah himself . they knew by the letter , that then he was to come and to appear ; but they could not know by their observations from the letter , which was he , but alone by the pointing of the finger of the spirit , which they were unacquainted with . quest . what did they do to him , not seeing his glory ? an. they dealt with him as they had dealt with the prophets before him , disdained him that he should claim to be the son of god , slighted him , reviled him , reproached him , preferred moses and the prophets above him ( who all did but declare of him ) yea at last they preferred a thief and murderer before him , and put him to death after that manner that the prophets had foretold they would do . quest . did the prophets foretel that the jews would put the messiah to death ? answ . yea , very manifestly , with the manner and circumstances thereof . daniel said plainly that the messiah should be cut off ; though not for himself , chap. . . isaiah shews the cause why he was cut off , to wit , for the transgression of my people was the stroke upon him , chap. . . he was the lamb without spot , there was no iniquity found in his heart , nor guile in his mouth , but he offered up his spotless soul ( through the eternal spirit ) as a ransom for the souls of transgressors , and with his bruise are they healed . david shews yet more particularly how he should be cut off , they pierced my hands and my feet , psal , . . and zachary saith , that afterwards in the day of their visitation , they shall look upon him whom they have pierced , ch. . . was he not betrayed by one of his own table ? ( psal . . . ) did they not cast lots for his garments ? ( psal . . . ) was not gall also given him , and vinegar to drink ? ( psal . . ) were not his bones kept from being broken , according to the paschal lamb the type ? ( exod. . . ) o that the jews could read the words of their own prophets in the light of the prophets , and not in the light of man's imagination , and then they could not but bow before the spring & fountain of that light , as it was revealed in flesh according to the scriptures , and see how that body was prepared for the light to shine in , and for it to do the will in , and to offer up the sacrifice which god would have , that so an end might be put to all the sacrifices and offerings which god would not have , psal . . . dan. . . quest . what was to befall the jews for refusing the day of their visitation by the messiah , and for the putting of him to death ? answ . they were to be cast off , to become no people , their covenant to be broken , their glory turned into shame , their light set in obscurity , their house made desolate , and the hand of god pursuing this desolate people , making them a scorn and reproach throughout all nations ( dan. . . and is not this come to pass upon them ? for what person hath been more hateful and hated than a jew , who was once the glory and envy of all nations ? yea , hardness and blindness hath so happened to them , that they cannot see the plainest things written in the prophets , concerning the expiration of the day of moses with all his shadows , and the succeeding of the spiritual glory in the dayes of the messiah , but their eyes and hearts are still blinded and held captive in the figures of things . quest . is there any scripture of the prophets , which declareth that they should be thus blind and hard ? answ . the spirit of the lord in the prophet david ( the beloved king and figure of the messiah ) prayed for this righteous recompence to them . let their table become a snare before them , and for welfare a trap. let their eyes be darkned that they see not , &c. let their habitation be desolate , &c. psal . . , &c. what is their table ? where and on what do they feed ? is it not on the writings of moses and the prophets ? now all the meanings , observations and hopes which they gather from these ( being under the curse , and out of the spirit of the prophets ) cannot but be their snare and trap : and that which entangleth them deeply to this day is , their mis-understanding and mis-interpreting of moses and the prophets . o lord my god , in the abundant riches of thy goodness at length pity them , and let the fierceness of thine indignation abate towards them , and in thy love open their eyes to see their state , & what they have refused , and against whom they have lift up their heel in their conceited wisdom & knowledge , which they have gathered from moses and the prophets writings , that they may mourn after thee , and wait for thee in the way of thy redemption . quest . how long is this desolation and hardness to abide upon them ? ans . until god visit them with his spirit , and open their eyes to see his spiritual glory , and turn their hearts towards it . then their outward expectations , and desires after an outward glorious kingdom , will soon come to an end ; and the messiah will be known , owned and received by them in spirit : yet any outward glory that the lord god sees good for them , they shall not want neither . this the prophet isaiah plainly relates to the ear that is spiritual , chap. . . ( until the spirit be poured upon us from on high , and the wilderness be a fruitfull field , and the fruitful field be counted for a forrest . ) they must lie wast , until the lord god please to let forth his spirit upon them , to gather them into his spiritual glory : for the day of their outward glory did end , and a spiritual succeeded , which they are to be gathered into , when the days of their distress and tribulation are accomplished . the spirit was once poured down from on high on the disciples of the messiah , upon his ascending into his glory , and the wilderness then became a fruitful field , and the fruitful field was accounted for a forrest : but over that glory the defence was not so stretched forth , but that a night overtook that day , and the wild beasts made a prey of that vineyard and fruitful field also , as well as of the former . but there is to be a more general pouring out of the spirit , even upon all flesh , and the wilderness is more generally to be visited & become a fruitful field , and the fruitful field is more generally to be blasted & made a forrest : insomuch as all flesh every where shall appear grass , and the glory thereof as the flower of the field , which shall fade and wither before the breath of god's spirit . then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness which is then visited , and righteousness shall remain in the field which is then made fruitful : and righteousness shall be powerfully-operative , working out the lasting peace , and the effect of it shall be quietness and assurance for ever ▪ no more war , no more fighting with creatures , no more burthening and oppressing of the creation , no more sinning and offending against the creator , no more being dispossessed of his life and glory , but the dwellings , which god reareth up in the last dayes for israel his people , shall be peaceable habitations , sure dwellings and quiet resting-places for evermore . o let israel feel that which is able to awaken him , and wait for this . quest . how shall they be visited and gathered ? answ . by the new covenant , by by the new law of the messiah , which is to go forth out of the new sion , and by the word of the lord , which is to issue out of the new jerusalem . not by the covenant of moses ( their eyes may fail in hoping and looking out that way ) but by the covenant of the messiah , where the law of life is written , not in tables of stone or outward writings of the letter , but in the heart by the spirit . there they shall be cleansed by inward water , receive the inward circumcision and mark of the inward jew , be sprinkled with the everlasting blood of the lamb , and taught to offer up the spiritual sacrifice , and shall hear the voice which will tell them of the way , and which will lead them in paths they have not known . there the spiritual seed , the spiritual israel shall find the shepherd of israel , who leads into the land of life , puts forth his sheep into the pastures of life , gives them of the living streams to drink , begetting them as heirs of , and bringing them up in the everlasting power and dominion of the life . quest . how may old israel enter into this path , and so become new israel ? answ . by waiting on the lord for the closing of that eye , which is wise according to the flesh ; and for the opening of that eye which is at first weak in spirit . there must be a low beginning . israel must know and not despise the day of small things , if ever he will grow up into the riches and inheritance of this glory . there is a light in every heart , which gives a sound in the natural vessel , which is very hardly at first distinguishable from the natural , till ( by obedience and subjection thereto ) its living touch , vertue and power comes to be felt and distinguished : but in the meek , humble , believing and obidient , it daily appears more and more , and makes it self more clearly manifest to them , who are walking on unto the kingdom and inheritance in it , while others are disputing about it . quest . how may israel believe , and become subject to the light ? answ . when there is a drawing felt in the heart , either to good , or against evil , he must not dispute concerning it on the one hand , nor run on in the forwardness on the other , ( for both these wayes , the breathings of the spirit on him , and springings up of the good seed in him are easily quenched ) but in the fear he is to trust himself with what his heart certainly feels in the drawing vertue , and in the humility to give up the members to the good and to withhold them from the evil , waiting for strength from the fountain of strength towards both . by this means there is a travell and removal , out of the corruption and filth of the heart , into the pure holy law , nature , image and will of god. quest . where doth god find the heart , when he first visiteth it with his light ? answ . in egypt , in the darkness , in the bonds and captivity of death . quest . what doth the lord do with it there ? answ . he exerciseth it a while there , till he hath made it fit for a wilderness-state . quest . what doth he do with it then ? ans . he bringeth it into the wilderness , which he hath fitted it for . quest . what doth he do with it in the wilderness ? answ . he prepareth it for , and leadeth it towards the land of life . quest . what doth he do with it then ? ans . he giveth it an entrance into the everlasting kingdom ( which is the land of life ) according as he hath prepared and fitted it . that which is new-begotten , new-created and formed , new-born in the messiah's eternal light , findeth an entrance into and an habitation in the light , and is not turned back into the land of darkness , it abiding in the vertue and principle of its life , although sometimes it may be exercised with the darkness for its further advantage . thou art our habitation from everlasting to everlasting , saith the child of light unto the father of spirits , in all ages and generations . now that israel after the flesh may the better understand the path of the spiritual israel in the way of redemption , by the powerful visitations of the light of the messiah in their hearts and consciences ; & may know the gospel of his salvation , which is able to effect that , which the law of moses could not , because of the weakness of the flesh on their parts ; let them in fear and silence of the natural wisdom , and in waiting on the lord in spirit , consider these questions and answers following , relating to spiritual israel . some questions and answers , for the direction , comfort , help and furtherance of god 's spiritual israel , in their travels in spirit from spiritual egypt , through the spiritual wilderness to spiritual canaan , which is the land where the redeemed soul flourisheth in the life , walking with god and worshiping him in spirit and truth . quest . what is the gospel ? answ . a good message or glad tydings to man in the fallen estate , concerning a promise of redemption out of it . quest . is man then in a fallen estate ? answ . his present temper , constitution , disposition and whole course , upon the least touch of god upon his spirit , do in some measure discover his fall unto him ; though the insensibleness , which is come upon him by his grievous wound and death through the fall , maketh him very unapt to take notice thereof . quest . what was his estate before his fall ? answ . a state of glory and blessedness , wherein he came pure out of the hands of his creator , was fitted for his use , service , enjoyment and delight , even for him to appear or disappear in , and exercise according to his pleasure . quest . wherein did his glory and blessedness consist ? ans . chiefly in these four things , to wit , in the light ; in the life ; in the liberty in which the vessel was formed ; and in the indwelling and appearing of the creator there , according to his pleasure . quest . open this a little further . answ . man was made a vessel of light , a vessel of life , a vessel of pure freedom . he was formed in the eternal image , and had a pure being in that image . he was light in the lord , living in the lord , free unto all good , and from all evil in the lord. this was the state of his being at first , and thus was he made in the image a pure resemblance of the eternal purity and blessedness : but besides this he had the eternal life , the eternal substance , the eternal purity it self dwelling in the vessel , shining in it , and manifesting it self from it according to its pleasure . quest . how came man to fall from this estate ? answ . not willingly , not of an inclination of his own , but he was deceived , through the subtilty of temptation , to entertain a desire of enlarging his blessedness , out of the limits of the will of his creator . quest . how could such a temptation enter man , he being pure and holy , inclined to good and against evil , after the image of his creator ? answ . man was not made to enjoy a perfection in himself separate from his creator , or to live of himself , but by dependance . now though he had no inclination in him not to depend , or to seek a life in himself out of the fountain , yet there was a capacity of so doing : before which capacity the tempter laid his bait of advancing him to a greater wisdom , glory and excellency , than his creator had placed him in ; with which he consulting out of the dependance upon his creator , fell from that which alone was able to uphold him in the pure state , wherein he was made . thus was he taken in the snare of misery and brought to that loss , which all the sons of adam lie groveling under to this day , when the lord at any time awakens the sence thereof in them . quest . what was the state of man in and since the fall ? answ . a state of darkness , a state of death , a state of deep captivity , wherein his soul , body and spirit are become dark as to the light of god , dead as to the life of righteousness , and captive unto that spirit which hath entred them by their hearkning thereto , who dwelleth and ruleth in them in the darkness , as god did before in the light. quest . how is man dark ? how is man dead ? is his soul or body dead as to their being ? or how else is it ? answ . man is not dead as to his being either in soul or body , but as to the right , pure and sanctified state of each . the vessels still remain the same in being , but they are emptied of their proper liquor , and filled with other wine . the understanding is the same , the reason the same , the will the same , the memory the same , the bodily members the same as to their being or matter : but they are all otherwise leavened , and another king now dwells in them and reigns over them . quest . then there needs not any dissolution of man's reason , or bringing it to nothing , in relation to man's recovery , but onely a changing of the leaven . answ . man is become another thing by degeneration from the life . he is so poisoned by sin and corruption , that he is to be wholly broken down and brought to nothing , even in the very naturals , that he may be new made and built up in the newness of the spirit . thus he is to become as a fool , as a little child , or rather as a seed to be cast into the womb of life , there to be formed and born of the spirit . and as he springs up in the life , he is to forget his own country , living in the spirit and walking in the spirit : where watching to the spirit , and against his own reason in the pure childishess , in the simple instinct and naturalness of the life , he shall at length find a reason new formed and springing up in him , which waiting on the lord in obedience and subjection , shall be taken into unity with the life : but if the eye of reason open too fast , and be not kept down to the light of life , the betrayer will enter again at that door , and bring the soul into death , after it hath had sweet and precious tasts of the redeeming vertue and power . quest , can man in the fall see his fallen estate , and so seek after a recovery out of it ? answ . it is not possible for him so to do , without some light shining upon him from the redeemer . how can darkness discover darkness ? that which maketh mamanifest the darkness is light. when the vessel is dark , and the prince of darkness filleth it and dwelleth in it , what can that eye see but according to the darkness , judging evil good and good evil , bitter sweet and sweet bitter ? quest . but there is no man but hath some light , no man but at some time or other seeth good or evil in some measure . answ . that ariseth not from the light of man's nature , as it now stands in the fall ( which being wholly in the enemie's hands , and being it self become darkness , cannot at all give man notice of or light him out of the darkness ) but from a fresh visitation of the life , which giveth all men a day of visitation by the shining of its light , wherein is some manifestation to man , and some certain sight by him both of the good and of the evil : and not onely so , but there is also the living spirit striving with him , and attracting him from the one to the other , according to the lord 's good pleasure , whose is both the light , and also the determination of the proportion of every man's visitation by it . quest . but hath not man naturally a light in the fallen estate , which discovereth unto him good and evil ? answ . not a true light , not a true discovery , but onely somewhat which the enemy setteth up in man as such , to keep him in the entanglements of the deceit , and out of the suspition of it . for the enemy entring into him , by his subtilty blindeth and deceiveth his eye ( that he may the better hold him captive in the deceit ) insomuch as he discerneth not the false image which the enemy hath stamped upon him : for though the enemy bringeth man into a state of real darkness , death and captivity ; yet these do not at present appear to man what they are , but are miscoloured or painted to appear what they are not , the better to deceive , bewitch and entangle man therein . the enemy did not represent darkness in its black hue , death and captivity in its dreadful appearance to adam ; but as wisdom , as light , as a better life , as a greater freedom . and thus he still enters man , and after this manner he still dwells in man , until the true light pursue him , opening and discovering his deceit , and drawing man back from this false paradise of pleasure in wisdom and liberty out of the life , into a sence of his want of , and breathings after the true garden of the living god. q. is man then mistaken in his judgment of good and evil since the fall ? answ . yes , altogether : and by this means doth he so pleasingly scituate himself , and take up his habitation in the kingdom of darkness , wherein are strong holds and wise reasonings against the true god , and for the false appearances of good , which the enemy of the soul strongly makes men believe to be such as he represents them for , in the darkness . thus in particular persons , and also in societies evil is pursued after , and advanced for good , and the true good suppressed as evil , through the working of the mystery of darkness in mens hearts . quest . what then is the proper estate and condition of man in the fall ? answ . a state of false light , of false life , of false liberty . he seemeth to himself advanced in wisdom above the low , empty , naked estate of innocency , which is nothing and hath nothing , but by a continual dependance on the goodness of the creator . he seemeth also advanced in life , advanced in liberty . he can speak his own words , think his own thoughts , do his own will , seek himself , please himself , satisfie himself . the life of righteousness is a yoak , a bond in his eye : he is free from the restraint of it . he hath life in himself , and is exceeding wise in the compass of his own dominions . thus doth the enemy transform the kingdom of darkness and death , giving fallen man a share with him in it , while he remains his willing subject . and here the goods of the enemy , the heart estranged from god , yea , not onely the devout and zealous worshipper in invented forms , but also the gross sinner , the envious , lustful and wicked mind , the perverse tongue , the bloody hands and feet are at peace , and have joy and pleasure in their course and circuit in the earth . but all this is but the deceit of the enemy , wherewith he hath cheated man , with false appearances and representations instead of the true , as man himself will see , when ever the eye of his soul comes to be throughly awakened by the eternal light , whether here or hereafter . quest . what is the work of redemption ? answ . to purge this old leaven out of the vessel , to purifie the vessel from all the false appearances of light , to batter down all the strong holds of the enemy in the mind , all the reasonings , thoughts , imaginations and consultations , which are not of the pure nor in the pure ; and so to new-create and new-form the vessel in the image of the wisdom and purity , wherein it was at first formed . quest . who doth this work , or who is man's redeemer out of the fall ? answ . the eternal word or son of the father , even the wisdom and power which went forth from the fountain in the creation , the same goeth forth from the bosome of the father to purifie the creature , and so bringeth the creature back ( being purified and cleansed ) into his bosom again . quest . with what doth this word or redeemer redeem ? answ . with his own life , with his own blood , with his own eternal virtue and purity . he descendeth into the lower parts of the earth , becomes flesh there , sows his own seed in his prepared earth , begets of his flesh and of his bone in his own likeness , and nourisheth up his birth with his flesh and blood unto life everlasting . quest . what is this life , or how doth it first manifest it self in the darkness ? answ . it is the light of men. it is that which gave light to adam at first , and again to him after the fall , and to all men since the fall. it enlightens in nature , it enlightened under the law : it did enlighten under the gospel before the apostacy , and again since the apostacy . quest . how doth the light enlighten ? ans . by its shining . the eternal word moves , the life opens , the light shines . this in the least degree is a beginning of redemption ; in its fulness it is redemption perfected . quest . how doth the light work redemption in its shining ? ans . two wayes . first , by turning the heart from the darkness towards it self . secondly , by exercising the heart being turned . quest . how doth it turn the heart from the darkness ? answ . the light by its shining and enlightening findeth out it s own , openeth it , toucheth it with a secret virtue , which perswades out of , and draws the heart , from the principle and power of death and darkness , towards its own native spring . quest . may not these drawings be quenched , and the work of god stopped ? answ . the plant of the lord is exceeding tender , his pure spirit jealous , the enemy very strong and subtil ; insomuch as the plant it self may easily be crushed , the spirit grieved and quenched , and the captivity redoubled . quest . if adam was betrayed in his full strength , how shall this poor weak plant spring up and grow , without being supplanted by the violence and treachery of the enemy ? or how shall the grieving of the spirit be avoyded , by an heart so full of corruption and provocations , us man in the alienated state is , when the light first visits him ? answ . the lord god is nigh to help , nigh to pitty , nigh to pardon , nigh to watch over and support worm jacob , yea nigh to revive life and spirit in him freely , and to heal his backslidings and multiply pardons , or it could never be . yea , the creature can never be brought so low or so far lost , but there is still help in the nature of god concerning him , though there may not be help in any revealed promise . quest . how doth god exercise the heart that is turned ? ans . in faith and obedience through very great varieties and changes of conditions . he exerciseth it in believing his voyce , and in obeying his voyce and following him , in what ever and into whatsoever he draws and requires . quest . how is the voyce of god known ? doth not the enemy speak inwardly also , and resemble his voyce ? how then is the voyce of the redeemer distinguished from him , who counterfeiteth the shepherd and his voyce ? ans . by these two means . first , the soul lying low , out of the wisdom in which the enemy appears and forms his likenesses , in the simplicity which the lord hath begotten , the life opens to it , and the true light appears , which manifests the false light and false appearances of the deceiver . secondly , in that which is begotten of god there is not an hastiness or suddenness to determine , but a silent waiting on the lord in subjection , till the life speak and make things manifest . thus the knowledge and light of the child is held in the will of the father , and received from his hand and according to his pleasure . thus what he will he hides , and what he will he makes manifest , and the child which is born of his will is content with his will ; and lying down there , it keeps out of the enemie's territories , and out of the reach of his temptations . quest . what are the several estates or conditions , wherein god exerciseth the spirit of man in faith and obedience ? answ . the particular estates and conditions are innumerable , but they may be referred to these three general heads . first , an estate of breaking down the former building . secondly , an estate of devastation or preparation to be new-built . thirdly , an estate of rebuilding . god doth not forget , but exercise his people in egypt , even while they are in bondage , before they come to receive his law : he is visiting them in the dark land , opening the eye that can see the captivity , causing groans and sighs in their oppressed spirits ; and then holding forth to them the promise , and preparing them for a departure from that land. secondly , he hath a time of stripping them , of nurturing and bringing them up under his discipline and close exercises , wherein they are desolate and ready to sin and perish every moment , but as they are wonderfully provided for and abundantly helped and pardoned . thirdly , there is a state of rebuilding the stones , when they are prepared therefore , into a new-building for the life to dwell in , and for their entrance into the land of life . quest . declare these estates and the exercises therein more plainly , and first shew what is the estate of the soul in egypt spiritually , when the lord visiteth it there with his light ? ans . an estate of deep bondage and groaning under the powers of darkness , whose bitter oppressions thereof increase , even as the sensibleness and tyredness of the soul increases . the soul then sees its captivity from the life , and finds a building of death and corruption raised up in it , in which the prince of darkness dwells and bears rule : and then o how it groans and longs after departure from that land , and waits for the promise of redemption out of it ! but yet it is still left in the hand of the enemy , and dayly feels the bitter bondage , from the powerfull law of sin and death springing up in the heart , and issuing out through the members . quest . how is faith and obedience here exercised ? answ . in believing the promise , in waiting for the promise , in feeling some remote drawings of the life and uniting therewith , so far as is possible in this dark and captived estate . there is an acknowledgement of the true prince , and a bowing to him even in this estate of captivity , until he please to break the bands thereof and receive under his guidance . quest . what is the estate of the wilderness spiritually ? answ . it is an estate of waiting for the guidance of the leader , of receiving direction and laws from the leader , of following the leader as he pleaseth to lead , through the entanglements , temptations , straits and necessities , which he seeth fit to exercise the spirit with , for the wearing out of that which is not to inherit , and for preparing the heir for the inheritance . quest . how is faith and obedience here exercised ? answ . in waiting on the light for the leadings in the law of life , and then in subjecting to the leader , being content with all his dispensations therein : with the time he chuseth for standing still , and with the time he chuseth for travelling on , with the proportion of light and leading that he judgeth fit , with the food and cloathing which he prepares and preserves , with the enemies which he sees fit to have avoided or encountred with . hereby the own wisdom , the own will , the own strength , the own desires , the own delights , with all the murmurings , weariness and discontents , which arise from the earthly part , are by degrees worn out , and a pure vessel prepared for the pure birth to spring up and appear in . quest . what is spiritual canaan , or the heavenly-built state or state of the gospel ? answ . a state of regenerating or renewing in the life and pure image , where the building is reared up which is made without hands , where there is a sweet and peaceable growth in the life , and a fresh and satisfactory enjoyment of the life . quest . how is faith and obedience here exercised ? answ . in abiding in the vine , in drawing from the vine , in returning the sap and vertue back into the vine , and living according to the will and in the free dispensation thereof . thus works are excluded with self from whom they proceed , and the vine becomes all in all . quest , are egypt with the wilderness and canaan spiritually as distinct estates , as they were litterally ? answ . there are such distinct several estates spiritually , wherein a man may be spiritually in egypt , and neither in the wilderness nor canaan . so there is an estate in the wilderness , which is out of egypt and not in canaan : and an estate in canaan , which is beyond both egypt and the wilderness . yet these estates in spirit are oftentimes inter-woven , with the exercises thereof : insomuch as the soul may in part , or in some respect ( to his own understanding ) be in egypt , in part in the wilderness , and in part in the rest , life and peace . but these things are not to be curiously sought into , lest a wrong wisdom and knowledge get up ; but abiding low and little in the little seed , the kingdom and everlasting inheritance grows dayly in the soul , and the soul dayly shoots up into it and is enlarged in it . quest . is there any return back into egypt or into the wilderness , after the state of the soul is advanced higher , the entrance into the everlasting inheritance being administred , and the soul partly taken into and having found a place of rest in the life ? answ . the enemy lies near to deceive : and while he hath power to tempt , if there be an hearkening to his temptations , there is a departure from the pure life , and a return of the captivity or bewildering in some measure . in the faith and in the obedience to the light of life is the preservation , out of it is death and destruction eternally . quest . is not the pure being untouched by death and destruction ? and shall not the creature , when it is redeemed into him , be as he is ? answ . the pure being cannot be impure , evil cannot enter upon him , it hath no place in him , his nature excluding it : nor can it enter into the principle of life that comes from him , and is always preserved by him : nor can it enter upon that man , who is begotten of that principle , abideth with it and is preserved in it . but so to be in him , as to abide and not go forth is a great state , even higher then the first adam knew . quest . but is not light and darkness , good and evil all alike to god ? & shall they not be so also to him , who is in perfect unity and fellowship with god ? answ . all the light and darkness , good and evil which can issue from the creature , cannot reach god's being as it is in it self , but only so far as he hath pleased to expose his life ( in the various manifestations thereof ) to be reached thereby . yet his eye seeth the evil and the good , the perfection & the imperfection , and his nature is perfectly excluded from all evil and imperfection ; insomuch as he cannot possibly lie or deceive , or be unrighteous or unmerciful in any of his dispensations : and that which is gathered into him , is thus one with him . but that which can do any thing which is sinful and evil in it self , is not in the true unity with the eternal being , but in the deceit of that spirit which erreth from him , and centereth the creature in the imagined likeness of his life and happiness . quest . how far may persons go , and yet be lyable to the enemies snare ? answ . very far . they may come out of egypt , they may pass through the wilderness , they may receive an inheritance or portion in the holy land , they may have houses and vineyards which they builded not nor planted , they may have had deep draughts of the life , deep incomes of the love , large riches of the grace , and precious tasts of the fulness : they may have been in the paradise of god , may have been anointed by god , may have stood upon his holy mountain , and walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire , &c. and yet the enemy may have leave to tempt , and may find entrance for his temptation , advancing above this estate in the deceiveableness , and increasing the glory in the eye of the wisdom which he steals in , and so hold the spirit captive in his golden chains , and lead it back again to the chambers of death . quest . how doth or can the enemy prevail over persons in so glorious an estate ? answ . by opening a larger eye in them , than is given them in the life to see with . the eye of life is limited in man , and man is to be held within the limits and openings of life , and his heart and mind to be bounded within the desires and delights , which arise from the life : he is to wait on the life for its living , moving and being all in his being : and here he shall be large enough , and full enough , and wise enough , and happy enough . but there is somewhat which presents to him a kingdom , a riches , a dominion , a vastness of perfection in himself & at his own command ; the which he beginning to listen unto , the same opens an eye in him to see the beauty and glory thereof , and then immediately his heart is taken , and he cannot avoid the snare : nor can he henceforth know where he is , until that which he hath forsaken , again please to visit him , and to discover to him his iniquity and errour from the true root . quest . what is the way of safety , when god enlargeth the territories of life in the soul , and causeth his love and grace to abound ? answ . to drink the draughts of joy and sweetness in the pure fear and trembling , not departing therefrom in what ever it doth for god or receives from him , till the salvation be wholly wrought out and perfected , the habitation of unspotted love prepared , and the soul led into , and seated in its compleat mansion therein . and then the name of fear is no more heard of in the land of life , though the principle from whence the fear sprang , and the birth and building ( which was begotten , raised up , formed and perfected in the fear ) abideth for ever . so that the pure love doth not cast out the pure fear ( wherein is no bondage of the life , but the preservation of the life from the bondage ) but swallows it up and comprehends it : for the pure fear is but love descended , and the pure love is but fear ascended , the eternal principle or substance being one and the same in both . quest . is there then such a state of safety , upon which the enemy cannot intrench ? answ . there is a state of such union with the life , as the enemy cannot come between , where there is lying down and rising up in the power of the life , and no beast of prey can make afraid any more ; nor can any root of bitterness spring up from within , to trouble or make any disturbance between the life and the soul any more . some questions and answers conducing towards the further manifestation , and opening the path of redemption and eternal life to the eye of spiritual israel . quest . how doth the son of god , or eternal word , in whom is the light of life , redeem man out of the fallen estate , out of the kingdom of darkness and death , into the kingdom of everlasting righteousness and peace in the life ? answ . three wayes . first , by wounding him in the natural and corrupt estate , and so breaking his peace and pleasure in the kingdom of darkness and making him weary thereof . secondly , by weakening him under the teachings and chastizements of the law. thirdly , by healing and binding him up with the oil of salvation in the power of the endless life , which is the gospel . quest . how doth god wound him in the natural and corrupt state ? answ . by pursuing him with his light , which letteth him see what it is , discovering the evil and danger of it , and so weaning his heart from it , and making him look out after , and long for a redeemer . o how burthensome is the captivity to the awakened soul , when he hath a glimpse of what man was before his fall ( when he had a place and being in the life , with a spirit suitable to the life ) and what he is now in his estate of estrangedness and alienation from the life , and whither he is going in his paths of unrighteousness , estrangedness and alienation ! and while his heart is thus turning from the land of death and captivity , and longing after the redeeming power and vertue of the life , the enemy ( the power of darkness ) layes load upon him , drawing him more and more under the chains and bonds of iniquity to the utmost of its strength . so that now lusts abound , evils increase , temptations and snares multiply ; and in the land of captivity their strength is great , the soul weak and faint , and the redeeming power and vertue seems very far off . now this is the estate of conversion ; when the lord , in the midst of the powers of death and darkness , turns the heart from them towards himself , causing it to wait ( under the captivity ) for the appearance of the arm of his strength , to break the yoke of the oppressor from off the necks of the oppressed , and so to bring out of the land of death and darkness , into the travels towards the land of promise , where the peace , the life , the liberty in the lord , the rest , the joy , the full content and happiness is reaped by the soul , which follows the lamb thither . quest . how doth god weaken the creature under the teachings and chastisements of the law ? answ . by exercising him towards good and evil , and correcting him for his unbelief and disobedience , as he finds good , just and necessary for him . quest . how doth god exercise him towards good and evil , and correct him ? ans . when he hath brought him from under the power of darkness in some measure , and in some measure set the spirit free there-from , by the vertue of his life springing up in the heart , then he exerciseth the heart and conversation towards the good and from the evil : then he giveth out laws for , or against things , according as he findeth most proper to the estate of every particular soul. now upon the giving forth of the law ( the life being in some measure raised ) there is that which loves its teachings and pure path , and there is that also which draws back from it ; and that being yet strong , there come many strokes and chastisements from the lord upon his own dear child . and these are bitter ; and to be forced into the sin which it loaths and in heart is turned from , and to be kept from the good which it longs after , & in heart is united to , ( partly by the strength of the enemy , and partly by reason of its own weakness and negligence ) this is bitter also : insomuch as it cryeth out day after day , and findeth this administration of the law almost as heavy a yoke , as the land of captivity it self was , because of the weakness of it through the flesh , and the strength and advantages which the corruption of the heart and prince of darkness gather thereby . quest . what is the benefit of these exercises upon the soul ? answ . they melt , they break , they make the heart tender and fit to be moulded by the eternal vertue and power , into a vessel for the power . quest . what frames of spirit do they work the heart or mind into ? answ . into very many precious ones . as for instance , first , they make the spirit poor . the daily inroads of sin and corruption dashing against the holy and righteous law of life , the over-bearing the strong desires after purity and forcing into the defilement , hindring the soul from doing what it loves , and making it to do what it hates and would not ; this makes it become poorer and poorer , and more afflicted day by day . upon some visitations of the pure life and some fresh vertue received , oh how strong doth the soul seem ! but when it suddenly forfeits its mercies , loses its freshness , and is plunged deeper in the pit than before , how poor and weak doth it then feel it self , trembling at the next openings of the life and springings up of the vertue thereof in it , not knowing what weakness , captivity , entanglements and misery from the snares of death remain to follow ! secondly , they bring into a mourning estate . they fill the eyes with tears and the heart with sorrow , yea they cause an entrance into the house of mourning . to be accustomed to wounds , bruises , snares , grieving of the spirit , provoking of the deliverer , furthering and giving advantages to the enemy , &c. the sence of this overwhelms the heart with grief , and causeth continual sorrow and lamentation to that which is upright towards god. thirdly , they bring into a meek , merciful and tender-hearted frame towards others . he that is tempted , he that often falls , and is so often wounded and made miserable , he pitties those that err , he mourns over the miserable . his heart is broken with the sins and afflictions of others , and he knoweth not how to be hard towards them , feeling such continual need of abundant mercy himself . it is the rich man , the sound man in religion , that is rough and hard : but he that is once throughly melted in the furnace and made up again , is made up tender , and retaineth the impression of the meekness , love and mercy for ever . now a broken estate in religion , or a state of waiting for the life is much more precious , than that which is rich and full by what it had formerly received and still holdeth , out of the immediate feeling and fresh vertue of the life . fourthly , they bring into an hungry and thirsty state after holiness and righteousness . o how the soul , that is sensible of its filth , longeth to be washed ! how it panteth after the pastures of life , the food of life , the living waters : to appear before and enjoy god in the land of the living ! o how doth the heart , that is dayly afflicted with its unbelief , and disobedience , long for the faith that stands in the power , and the obedience that flowes from the power ! o teach me thy statutes , shew me the pure path of obedience in the way of life , guide my feet in the way everlasting : o write thy fear in my heart , that i may not depart from thee : create a clean heart in me , and put thy spirit within me to be my strength . o continue thy loving-kindness to them that know thee , and thy righteousness to the upright in heart . o what unutterable breathings dayly issue out from the broken spirit , towards the spring of its life ! fifthly , they bring into a pure frame , into a cleanness of inside . cleanse first the inside of the cup and platter , said christ to the pharisees , and he doth so in his disciples . with the mind i serve the law of god , said paul when he cryed out , o wretched man that i am , who shall deliver ! it is not conceiveable what purity of heart is formed by god in his israel , by the fire which he kindleth in his sion , and by the furnace which he setteth up in his jerusalem : for though in the furnace the dross still appears , the sight whereof is apt to grieve and afflict the precious heart , yet the melting and purifying sweetly goes on , and the soul ( which abideth the heat ) is effectually cleansed thereby , as is very manifest afterwards , when righteousness springs up with the quiet fruit thereof ; but this cannot be discerned , while the flames are discovering and taking hold of the unrighteousness . sixtly , they bring into a patient frame ; fit to bear reproaches and persecutions from the world , who in the midst of all this weakness ( misery and distress ) lay load upon the poor soul , persecuting him whom god hath smitten , and speaking to the grief of him whom god hath wounded . god smites for want of obedience , for too much propensity to please the world , for not coming soon enough out of their customes , vanities , earthly wayes and worships : and so soon as the heart and conversation is given up in obedience to the lord , the world is discontent , and they smite and persecute because of the obedience . now the more the spirit is broken by the hand of the lord , and taught thereby to fear him ; and the less strength it hath in it self , to grapple with the persecuting spirit of the world , the fitter it is to stand in god's counsel , to wait for his strength and preservation , which is able to bear up its head , above all the rage and swelling of the waters of the worldly spirit in the men of this world. much more might be said , but this may suffice . what is behind will be felt inwardly , as the soul waits on god in the leadings of his spirit , through the teachings , chastisements and distresses of the law. quest . with what kind of things doth the lord exercise the spirits of his israel , to bring their hearts into these and such other like precious frames ? ans . with several sorts and kinds of things both outward and inward . as , first , with oppositions , reproaches and interruptions from the earthly part , both in the men of this world and in themselves . there is abundance within and abundance without to resist , disdain and interrupt the work of god in the heart to oppose and withstand that which he hath begotten there , his leadings of it and its obedience to him . secondly , with temptations from the enemy , even of many kinds , natures and degrees , according to the present temper and condition of the soul : as either to doubt and so despaire , or be confident in the flesh from knowledge received , out of the pure fear and fresh feeling of the life : so again either to halt and draw back , or to be over-hasty and forward : so likewise either not to obey and act for god , or to act in that will and wisdom which is against god. now these , with such like , are very numerous , frequent , and sometimes very violent 〈◊〉 ●●petuous . thirdly , by withdrawings o● 〈◊〉 life and sweet presence of god 〈◊〉 the soul. these are very frequ●●● from the lord towards his peop●● , insomuch as he is called by this title ; " the god that hideth his face from the house of jacob , " isai . . . chap. . . fourthly , by buffettings and prevailings of the enemy . when the spirit is grieved , the life wounded and withdraws inward , the enemy often gets ground , giving wounds and causing bruises to the soul ; not onely tempting , but finding entrance and taking in the snare the bird , which once escaped & was delivered . fifthly , by doubts , fears and confused reasonings concerning the voice of god and the voice of the enemy . in the hour of darkness ( when the lord seeth good to let forth the power thereof , and to withdraw the beams of his light ) how 〈◊〉 ●●at be clearly distinguished , 〈◊〉 alone is known and seen in the 〈◊〉 ? how can the motions , draw●●●● and pure low-workings of the 〈◊〉 be discerned , from the false images and transformings of the enemy ? o the misery and anguish of the poor soul in this condition ! how is the poor upright-heart pained between faith and unbelief , obedience & disobedience , &c , not knowing when it is drawn forward or backward , or by whom ! quest . when do these exercises begin , and how long do they continue ? answ . the lord doth begin to exercise the soul even in egypt : for after the promise ( of deliverance from spiritual pharaoh ) the bonds increase , the yoke grows more heavy , pharaoh grows more violent and furious , the captivity increaseth much ; but there is no sight of redemption at all , save to that eye which is weak and easily over-born in israel . but the exercises are much more full 〈◊〉 sharp in the wilderness , where is●●●● is led about , tried , afflicted , c●●sumed day by day , as if he sho●●● never come to the holy land , 〈◊〉 any of israel be left to enter therei● ▪ yea in canaan , in the rich possession , in the plenteous overflowings of the life , there is still somewhat left to try israel and bring him low with , if at any time he be exalted with the glory and fulness of his own estate , and begin to forget his god. quest . why doth god thus exercise his israel ? why doth he lead them in such a knotty , and not in a more easie and ready way to the everlasting possession , and to the fulness thereof ? answ . because their estate and condition requires it . they could not be so purified and fitted for the life , their vessels would not be so inlarged to receive it in , nor they so safely enjoy it , were it not for this course of wisdom , wherein god ●●●●●ises and tryeth every cranny of 〈◊〉 spirits , until he hath perfected 〈◊〉 and stopped up the entrance of ●●●th every where . quest . how do these exercises puri●● and enlarge them ? ans . first , they try the strength and vertue of the life in them , and discover to them their further want thereof . in the time of the soul's prosperity there seems to be enough : but the day of distress maketh manifest the estate and condition as it is . then the faith , the love , the patience , the meekness , the constancy and chastness to the spouse ( loving him , and cleaving to him above all , and in all ) many times is found to be less , then it was judged to be . secondly , it brings to a waiting on god for support , and for receiving of more from him . then the life breaths vigourously , and the soul hankers after , cleaves to , and sees its need both of the presence and increase of the vertue of the life . then he that was rich becomes poor , and he that was full becomes empty and nothing : yea he that had enough to live on and to spare , is now pressed with hunger , want and penury . thirdly , it prepares for a clear●● entrance into and safer enjoyment of the fulness . as the soul is more emptied of the strength and riches it received from god : so it is more prepared to enter into and live in the pure being it self . for nothing can live there , which vails . in the life god was , and is , and is to be all in all for ever . that therefore which enters there , and lives and abides there , must be poor , empty , naked , nothing , and remain nothing for ever . as it gathers any thing from the fulness and becomes any thing in it self thereby , it is shut out . quest . how doth god heal and bind up that , which he hath wounded and broken to pieces with his various and frequent exercises ? answ . by opening the power of the endless life , in the vessel which he hath throughly purified and prepared , and filling it with the power . the free power of life , that 's the gospel . to the meek , to the broken-hearted , to the cleansed it is promised : and when the work of cleansing is finished , the wound made wide enough and kept open long enough , and the death to the first husband fully accomplished , then the perfect oyl is perfectly poured in , and everlasting health and salvation obtained . this is the end , which god aims at in the visitations and leadings of his seed : happy are they that pass through the vail of misery , and drink off the dregs of the cup of trembling , not fainting nor sitting down by the way , but following the faithful shepherd and leader of israel , till they arive here . quest . what is the great danger in the path of life ? answ . the great danger is of ascending a step higher , then the present estate and condition will bear : for by this means the aspiring mind gets up , and is exalted and holdeth somewhat received from the life , out of the pure fear which preserves the heart clean , and out of the sencible feeling which keepeth fresh and living to god ; and then the simplicity is betrayed , and a wrong spirit lives , and a wrong eye is opened : so that there is nothing now but whoredom from the life , and the heart exalted and conceited in the way of its whoredoms , as if it were the pure bed and most excellent way of enjoyment of the life . quest . what way is there of preservation here-from ? ans . watching to the life , keeping low in the fear and close to the feeling . here the aspirer is shut out , or soon espied at his beginning to enter , and then the living cross received , which crucifieth and driveth him back . and indeed there is no way of safety in the travels towards the enjoyment of life , or under any enjoyment before the state of perfect death , but under the cross to that spirit and nature which would dwell there , and please it self therewith , and be somewhat therein , and so forget the pure everlasting spring . adulterating with the streamings forth of it . man was made for god , to be a vessel of his pleasure , and to receive his content , enjoyment and happiness by reflection . so that man's proper work was to watch to the spring from whence he came ; to be disposed of , ordered , and to be according to his pleasure . this was natural to man before his fall , till a corrupt spirit by deceit entred him & corrupted him . and while any thing of that corrupt spirit or fallen nature remains , he is apt to aspire in the self-hood , and to seek the enjoyment of what comes from the fountain ( yea and of the fountain it self also ) in and according to the will and wisdom of the selfhood . and here let man receive what gifts soever from god , be advanced to never so high an habitation in the land of life , yea have the very fountain it self given him , yet by this means he will corrupt , lose the gift or spring , be separated from it , and adulterate with what he can still retain or gather in his own principle . and here do deep travellers lose their way , falling from their portion in the land of life and from their enjoyments in the paradice of the pleasure of the life , into the earthly and sensual spirit , holding things wisely and richly there in the earthly principle , not knowing the remove of their habitation thither , nor thinking that they are there . he that readeth these things , let him not strive to comprehend them , but be content with what he feeleth thereof suitable to his own present estate : and as the life grows in him and he in the life , and he comes to meet with the things and exercises spoken of , the words and experiences concerning them will of themselves open to him , and be useful and serviceable to him so far as the lord pleaseth , he keeping to the leadings , savour and principle of life in in himself , wherein alone his knowledge , sight , growth and experiences are safe . now he that would travel safely in spirit unto the land of life , let him wait to have these things following , written by the finger of god in his heart , and the sence and impression thereof preserved fresh in him . first , it is the free grace of god which begins the work of redemption , which causeth the light to shine , which worketh the repentance or turning from the dead state , and also the belief in and turning towards the living god. secondly , it is the same grace alone , that can preserve and cause the plant of grace to grow . if there be a withdrawing of the light , a withholding of the free influence , that which depends thereupon cannot retain its freshness : which the lord may do as often as he pleaseth , for the chastisement of the rebellious part , or for the tryal of his pure life and vertue in his plants . thirdly , the grace of god visiting the soul in the death , in the darkness in the fallen estate , begetteth life anew in it , maketh it in some measure light in the lord , openeth an eye in it to see the things of god , an ear to hear and distinguish between the sound of life and of death , an heart to turn from and refuse the vanity , and to turn towards and abide in the living substance . fourthly , the spirit of god carryes on the work of redemption by drawing , leading and acting the quickened soul , by exercising that which he hath begotten in the life , under the law of the life . thus the life draws the soul dayly nearer and nearer towards the everlasting spring , and from the fading emptiness of sin , vanity and the creature-hood ; and the soul , by the enlivened vertue , dayly follows on after the life , in the leadings , spirit and power thereof . there is a living soul begotten by the vertue of the grace , and the living soul dayly lives in the grace , and travels in the vertue thereof from the unbelief to the faith , from the enmity to the love , from the perversness to the straitness , from the iniquity to this righteousness , even from all the territories of the darkness , and also from the weak measures and degrees of the grace and life towards the fulness it self , even until it perfectly center in , and be fully filled therewith . fifthly , where there is a stopping of the vertue received from the grace , and not an answer of it in the heart , there the work of redemption is stopped . if the soul follow not in the drawing , the drawing is lost , as to it . if the ear open not to hear the voyce of the word , or if it be not mixed with faith in the heart hearing , it proves ineffectual . if strength issue forth from the lord , yet if the soul receive not the strength which issueth forth and bubleth up in it , or answer it not in giving up to it and travelling on , the soul abideth where it was at least , if it also retire not backward from that estate and condition , whereto the life had advanced it : for if the vertue of the life and grace be refused , there is an advantage given to death to re-enter , and gain ground by its contrary vertue and power . sixthly , mark therefore diligently , how the lord doth carry on the dispensation of his love and free grace , even as if there were much done by the strength and diligence of the creature . what wounding of it self by repentance ! what striving to believe ! what wrestling against enemies and for the influences of the grace , and to keep the hope up and the distrust out ! what strict watching and waiting , even as if the creature did work out its whole salvation ! seventhly , though the creature seemeth to do much it self ( having received life from the grace , and acting abundantly towards god in the grace ) yet it is the grace and vertue which comes from the creator ( who is also the redeemer ) which indeed doth all : for though the creature repent really , and turn from the darkness with its whole heart , yet the repentance is of the vertue which flows from the grace , and not of the creature which receives the grace : and so likewise is the faith , the love , the obedience , the meekness , the patience , the watching , the waiting , the hoping , &c. yea the very receiving the grace , is not of the creature , but of the grace : for the creature is dead , until it be visited by the grace ; and by the visitation of the grace alone is made alive , and able to receive it . behold then the mystery of redemption . god is all in redemption . god doth all therein as fully as in creation ( it is a new creation ) even the whole work thereof ; yet the creature quickened and renewed is in unity with him in his operations , phil. . , . he whose eyes are opened can read the mystery , and in true understanding say ( if he hath been led and hath proceeded so far ) i am able to do all things through christ that strengtheneth me ; yet not i , but the grace of god in me . now to bring the creature to this , the lord exerciseth it dayly in obedience unto him , in the life and vertue which floweth forth from him , causing it to feel its weakness as it forgets the vertue , or aspires to live of it self on the vertue received , out of the sensible feeling of its dependance upon the spring . and indeed , the vertue that comes from god can alone answer god , and the creature is onely accepted with the spring and father of life , as it is found therein . quest . but if the work of redemption be wrought by god's creating power , how cometh it to meet with so many rubs and interruptions , and sometimes overturnings ? can any thing stop god's creating power ? answ . so far as god absolutely pleaseth to create , nothing can stop or hinder : but the entrance of that , which he beginneth to create , into the creature and its getting a being there , as also the growth and preservation of it there , may be hindred by the force of spiritual enemies , if the lord please to permit , or by the grieving and provoking of that free power , which alone begetteth and preserveth life in the heart . object . then the work of redemption is not carryed on by an absolute free-creating power . answ . the creating power and preserving power is the same , but the work is somewhat different , both in the outward visible creation , and in the inward new-creation . the preservation of that which is created and planted ( unto its growth and perfection ) is by the same power which created and planted : but rather in a way of care , industry , art and skill , than of such immediate force and power , though by the exercise and putting forth of the same vertue and power . there are three things in redemption . first , there is the issuing out of the free grace , love , vertue and divine power towards the creature . secondly , there is the opening of the estate of the creature thereby , convincing and drawing it out of the alienation from the life , towards unity with the life . thirdly , there is the following of the creature after the life , in the quickening vertue of the drawings , through all the snares , temptations , diversions and oppositions of the enemy . now there is no hindring of the issuing forth of the free grace towards the creature , or of those convictions and inclinations of the creature to follow , which necessarily ensue thereupon . but the pursuit and progress of the creature ( or its abiding with the quickening vertue and power ) may many wayes be interrupted and diverted , and so the creature drawn from under the influence of the free covenant : for though the covenant be free , yet the creature onely partakes of it , as it is drawn into it and preserved in it . therefore let those fear , who feel the power and redeeming vertue , and know , that notwithstanding the free and certain promise to the seed , yet the creature is as clay in the hands of the potter , which may be made a vessel of honour or dishonour , as he pleaseth to favour it or take occasion against it . and who ever would pass through the work of salvation and redemption , unto the salvation and redemption it self ; in the living vertue received from the life , let him keep fast hold on the good pleasure , and in it give all diligence to make his calling and election sure , working out his salvation with fear and trembling , because god worketh in him both to will and to do of his good will. and walking diligently and industriously in this path , he may attain the seal of the redemption , even that mark which can never be worn out , and to full assurance of faith in the redeeming power : though it is also possible for him afterwards , through much negligence & grieving the spirit whereby he was sealed , to lose the sight of the mark and the comfort of the assurance , which was once fresh and clear in his spirit . for a close at this time , i shall add a few words concerning the unity of god's grace ( or free light of his spirit ) notwithstanding the various estates and conditions of man whom it visits , and the variety of its operations . there is a threefold state of man , wherein the grace of god visits him . first , the gentile-state , or state of nature . secondly , the jew-state or administration of the law , wherein god takes him under his own tuition , making known his will to him , and requiring obedience of him : and not only so , but also directs him to the inward teacher , and to the principle of the pure fear , which is the place of wisdom's teaching and instructions . thirdly , the gospel-state , or state of faith , where the principle is raised , the seed lives , and that is felt springing up , known and enjoyed , which does the will and receives the promise . now in all these the law , the light , the life , the wisdom , the power is one and the same ; but the administrations are different . in the gentile-state or state of nature , the ●ight which man receives there ( to discover evil and work him into good ) is of the spirit and by vertue of the promise . for he had been everlastingly shut up in the darkness , had it not been for the promise : and it is for the promise sake and from the free grace , that he hath any visitation in the state of nature , and any desires after or leadings towards the good and from the evil ; which spring not nor can spring from corrupted nature , but from the free fountain of the new life . in the law-state the light grows more clear , the teacher is there discerned and acknowledged , his drawings , warnings , instructions and reproofs felt more distinctly , and the soul ( that is watchful ) continually exercised therein . in the gospel-state the principle of life is raised , the promised seed come , the power which doth the will received , and the light of life entring into and possessing the vessel . now this is the whole of man , to wait on the ministration of the life to him in his present-estate , whether he be yet in the estate of nature , or under the law or under grace . to know whence his redemption springs , and to wait on the redeeming arm for the beginnings , progress and perfecting of it : and if he be in the feeling of that vertue , it is enough : or if he be but kept longing and panting after it , it is well : yea , if there be but a desire in him after a thirst , there is hope : nay , if there be but the least feeling of his dead , barren and sensless estate , there is some life in him , which the lord loves and will find a time to express his bowels towards : yea , that which is wholly in the darkness and shut up in the pit , the lord hath bowels in him towards , and after many dayes may please to visit . oh the height , the depth , the length , the breadth of the riches of the mercy and love of god! who knows his yearning towards souls , and his wayes of visiting and redeeming ! o my soul , hope thou in the lord for evermore , and leave not breathing towards him , till thou and his whole creation be filled and satisfied with him ; and then fetch the full breath of life in him for ever . the end . a post-script . i have been treating of the inward work , as it is wrought in the heart by the power , and brought to the sensible experimental knowledge of the creature ; yet would not be so understood , as if i made void what was done without by christ in his own person , or any of those ends and purposes for which it was wrought , and appointed so to be done by the father : though this i know , that the knowledge of those things with the belief therein , or any practices and observations therefrom without the life , can no more profit now , than the jews literal knowledge of the law could profit them , when they were rejected therewith . and since the apostacy , of this latter age especially , i have clearly seen in the spirit of the lord , that the professors knowledge of the letter of the gospel , and cleaving to their apprehensions which they gather therefrom , is become a snare and trap to them , to keep them from feeling the power , and living in the sensibility of the vertue of the grace , even as the jews table ( or gathered knowledge from moses and the prophets ) became their snare and trap. the lord open their eyes in his due time to discern it , that they may not withstand that ministration and revelation of his everlasting gospel , which god seeth good to visit the apostatised world with , after this long dark night of the apostacy ; whereof those that stick in forms , or knowledge of things from the letter without the power , cannot but prove the greatest enemies , opposers and persecutors . now to help them a little , if the lord please , in the rouling of my bowels towards them i find my heart opened , to lay a few things before them . first , with my heart , in the sight of the lord do i own that principle , which formerly wrought in some of them , which i my self was wrought upon by , and knew not onely the outward knowledge which they were acquainted with , but also the inward work : and i also knew what i called the light of nature , and what i called the light of the spirit , the one whereof was not the other , but differed as far as spirit and flesh . second●● i also own all the openings and refreshments which they received from the lord in reading of the scriptures , in their publick or private exercises , and the experiences which they had from god in their own hearts : and i know that these things in themselves were true , in their proportion ; however their present sence , and holding of them out of that wherein they received them , may justly be judged by the spirit of the lord in his servants . thirdly , though those things were true in their day , and in their proportion and measure , yet in them they might lose their vertue and die ; and so they not retain the thing in its life , in its own principle , in the newness of the spirit , in that birth to which god gave it , but onely an image of it in the natural understanding , in the earthly part , in the dead principle : and then their knowledge of god and their experiences cannot but be corrupted , and now become the possession of death , and the engines of death in their hearts . again , god had somewhat further to manifest , even to bring forth that , which they so earnestly prayed for in that day ; which they , having abided in that vertue wherin they prayed , might easily have discerned and embraced : but being out of that , and pleasing themselves with the litteral knowledge of the things they then received , holding them in the wise earthly part , that part cannot but stumble at the low and contemptible appearances of god , which are still offensive to that part . the great glory of god is hid in a little seed , and how can the great eye of the fleshly-wise see it ? we have moses and the prophets , said the jews after the flesh ; but as for this man , we know not whence he is . even so it is now : we know the relation which the scriptures have given of christ by the apostles , we are sure this is of god , say the professors ; but as for this little seed of the kingdom , or light of god in the heart , we cannot believe that all we want is to spring up in it . now fourthly , there is a necessity both of the knowledge of persons to pass away , and also of their experiences to be given up and let fall , in these two cases following . first , when the vertue is withdrawn from them , when death hath caught them , when they become death's goods . for that which is received from the life , is onely profitable to the soul in the vertue of the life . when the earthly part hath caught them and seated it self there , they then become the strong holds of the enemy , and the engines of death to the heart ; so that then life and true relief is not to be had in them , but where the eternal vertue pleases next to appear . secondly , when god hath somewhat to bring forth further in the world or in any particular heart , to make way for it , he brings death upon that which was before living . thus when god is pleased to bring forth a greater measure of faith and power of his spirit , he distresseth the heart , making the fore-going faith and power appear weak and pass away , and many times for a season shutteth up the soul in the unbelief , until the fresh faith and fresh power spring up and arise . and this causeth the necessity of the further dispensations of his eternal vertue to appear , and the beauty of them to shine , which they would not have done so abundantly , had it not been for the fore-going distresse of the hea● ▪ the●●●●●e yet some things further weighty upon my heart to lay before them , needful for them to consider of , which may be serviceable and helpful to them in their present condition , if the lord please to open their hearts and impress them thereon . they are four propositions , relating to the right knowledge of the things of god , which are these following . first , that the knowledge of the things of god comes from the spirit . as the scriptures themselves came from the spirit : so the true knowledge of them is alone given , to any man which receiveth it , by the same spirit . and no man living can know the mind of the words which the spirit spake , but as the same spirit which spake them , gives the meaning of them . secondly , that the knowledge of god ( the living knowledge the serviceable knowledge ) is 〈◊〉 held in the spirit and in the birth which is of the spirit . man's natural part is not the true treasury , nor is man's reason to be master of any of the things of god's spirit ; but that which holds the knowledge of the kingdom , the grace of the kingdom , the living experiences , is that which is born of the seed of the kingdom ; and man's reason is for ever to be shut out of the things of god , further than it bowes , is limited and subjected . thirdly , that the knowledge received from the spirit , is still to be tryed by the spirit . the spirit alone can keep it living , and the spirit alone can tell whether the life and vertue be still in it , or whether death hath caught it : whether it be manna fit for the soul's food ; or manna once given , but now corrupted . o my dear friends , wait to understand my experience concerning this thing , which is this . that which i had certainly received from god , and which the true birth at first had fed on , the earthly birth would be catching at , laying hold of , and treasuring up to feed on at another time . likewise in my reading of the scriptures , i lay open to this great snare of reading in my own will , and of gathering from thence in mine own understanding , & so growing wise concerning the things of god after the flesh : for though , at that time , i was not without living knowledge and experiences of god , yet i knew not how to turn from the death , nor to keep to the life ; and so the bad , the lean , the earthly , the ill-favoured overgrew the good and wel-pleasing to god , and brought it into bitter misery and death . o that ye knew being begotten of the will of the father , and keeping the will of the father , & receiving the bread dayly from his hand . that which man conceiveth concerning the scriptures , is not the pure milk of the word , but that which the breasts gives out : that is it which hath the immediate life , vertue and true nourishment in it . and this must be returned back into the treasury , and not held in the earthly part , in the earthly will and understanding , but received from the life again when it is again needed : yea , this have i often known , that when i have been in great distress , i have received fresh comfort from the lord : but running to that afterwards , it never was able to comfort me , but more deeply wounded me . and thus hath the lord been teaching me to live upon himself , and not upon any thing received from him , but upon the life it self , the mercy , the good pleasure , which proportions out the living bread dayly to the living birth . fourthly , it is easie receiving of knowledge in the earthly part , in the earthly wisdom , out of the spirit and living vertue . when one readeth a scripture , it is easie conceiving and apprehending a meaning ones self , or taking in another man's meaning ; but it is hard abstaining from all conceivings and reasonings of the mind , and waiting for the pure will and opening of the spirit therein . also it is easie retaining of knowledge , and making use of it in the will and wisdom of the earthly mind ( for both these are natural ) but it is hard denying the reason , the thoughts and imaginations , and watching to the spirit . o professors ! wait for the living appearance of god , even for the freshness of his spirit in your spirits , that in that which cometh from the spirit ye may know the spirit , and may also know how to turn to him and abide with him , having the watch set against that wisdom in your selves , which in all ages and generations is eternally shut out of the things of the kingdom , although it may gather , get and hold a vast knowledge of the things of the kingdom in the earthly treasury . thus fleshly - israel hath the wisdom of the letter , but spiritual - israel the wisdom , vertue and life of the spirit in all ages and generations . and though he that is born after the flesh , despiseth him who is born after the spirit , yet this is god's heir : and the bond-woman , the earthly wisdom , with all her children ( even the greatest giants in knowledge , profe●●●●n of religion and scripture o● 〈◊〉 ) must be cast out , and 〈◊〉 inherit the land of life . this is written that that might be raised in you by the power , which is to inherit the life eternal : and ye not find your souls deceived when the light of that day fully opens , which hath already dawned . i was in a poor low condition , when the lord formerly visited me ; as lost , as undone , as miserable as any . what knowledge , what life , what precious vertue i then received , was from god's grace ; which was still his own , and he might call for it at his pleasure . and surely , he which hath received from the fountain , ought to trust and to give back again to the fountain , when he calleth for it ; and then to remain empty ▪ naked and desolate , until he be 〈◊〉 freely visited . this is an hard ●●ss●n , who can learn it ? who can trust his life with the fountain , and lie open to what follows ? yet this did the lord require of me : and my heart being not willing to part with my life , but striving to retain it , and grow in the first way of the dispensation of the grace unto perfection , he brake it after an unutterable manner , and brought such a misery & desolation upon me as i could not possibly have suspected , having been sealed by him . and now he is teaching me to live more fully upon his grace , or rather upon the spring , where i am nothing , where i can be nothing for ever : but he is and will be what he will be , and when he will be ; and nothing in me can be satisfied with him , but what is of him and lives in him . and here all that i have known , or formerly tasted of him , springs up again at his pleasure ; and i drink of the old wine and also of the new , but have nothing at my own dispose . and when i catch at any thing or would be any thing , i lose the spring and am corrected for my backsliding and adultery of spirit , but am still again visited with fresh love , and the springings up of the fresh power and life , and fresh visitations of the rich mercy and grace , which the everlasting fountain naturally openeth in its own . the pearl is exceeding rich , the treasure of life unutterable ; and he that will possesse it must sell all for it , even all his lusts and corruptions , yea all the riches of his nature ( the best of his will , the best of his wisdom most refined ) nay not onely so , but all the riches of his spirit , all that he hath held or can hold out of the life . then , when he is poor in spirit , and hath nothing in himself but emptiness , nothing so much as to receive or retain the life , but what is formed , groweth up in , and is preserved in the life according to its own meer will and good pleasure ; then alone is h● fit to be comprehended and brought forth in the eternal spring . perfectly happy is he , who is perfectly possessed thereof : yet he is not without a proportion of blessedness also , who is mourning after it and travelling towards it ; which can never be attained by the natural part 's retaining the letter of any spiritual revelation or knowledge , but onely by beginning in the eternal vertue , abiding in it and travelling from death to death , and from life to life , till all be slain which is to die and perish in the way , and all be raised and perfected which is to receive , and live in the kingdom and crown of life for ever ; which the lord layes before all to run after , but none but the spiritual seed ( begotten of and abiding in the spirit ) can obtain . mind then this brief summ. the lost creature , the undone creature , is graciously sought after and visited by the fountain of its life and being . being visited with the mercy and grace , and impressed , it receiveth somewhat of the grace and living vertue from the fountain . having received somewhat , the creature is apt to retain it in the creaturely vessel ( even in the own will , and to inlarge the own wisdom thereby , and so to become somewhat again in it self ) forgetting the spring . as the creature retaineth any thing in the natural part out of the immediate feeling of the living vertue , it corrupts , it adulterates 〈…〉 the living spring . and that , which any one hath thus adulterated with , must be taken from him , and he be made dead to it , and it to him , before he can be recovered into a living state , fit to enjoy what he formerly received , or further to receive of and grow up in the fresh living vertue . the end . a touchstone or tryall of faith by the originall from whence it springs and the root out of which it grows : held out by way of expositions of the and verses of the first chapter of iohn's gospel and of the six former verses of the third chapter which treat expressly about this point ... : to which is added the spirituall practice of christians in primitive times. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial 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(eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) a touchstone or tryall of faith by the originall from whence it springs and the root out of which it grows : held out by way of expositions of the and verses of the first chapter of iohn's gospel and of the six former verses of the third chapter which treat expressly about this point ... : to which is added the spirituall practice of christians in primitive times. penington, isaac, - . penington, isaac, - . spirituall practice of christians in primitive times. [ ], p. printed for giles calvert, london : . "to the reader" signed: isaac pennington. reproduction of original in the university of illinois (urbana-champaign campus). library. eng society of friends -- apologetic works. regeneration (theology) a r (wing p ). civilwar no a touchstone or tryall of faith, by the originall from whence it springs, and the root out of which it grows: held out by way of exposition penington, isaac c the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the c category of texts with between and defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - jonathan blaney sampled and proofread - jonathan blaney text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a touchstone or tryall of faith , by the originall from whence it springs , and the root out of which it grows : held out by way of exposition of the and verses of the first chapter of iohn's gospel , and of the six former verses of the third chapter , which treat expresly about this point : intended not for the disquiet of any , but for the eternall rest and peace of all , to whom the lord shall please to make it usefull thereunto . to which is added , the spirituall practise of christians in the primitive times . london , printed for giles calvert at the black spread-eagle , at the west end of pauls , . to the reader . reader , if thou hast any leasure from partaking in , or exclaming against the bitter contentions of this present age , which have eat out most mens content in themselves , and their pleasingnesse to others ; here are some serious considerations proposed to thee , as thou wilt one day acknowledge , when thine eyes come to be fully opened . it is high time to look out after some other place and certainty of entertainment there , when this earth by its continuall shaking and cracking under us , doth so often threaten that it will not long support us . there is no true security for us , but by faith in chrisst ; he is the only rock , and there is no stepping thither but by faith : there is no certainty , but by an assured knowledge of the truth of this faith ; whereof there are so many and such accurate cheats , that it is not possible to discern the difference without through sifting and scanning . the devill , that great cozouning merchant , hath all kinde of counterfeit wares which hee paints and guilds , that he may put off for true . he hath grosser ware for the grosser sort , whom he can content with any thing ; but more refined stuffe for such as look more narrowly into things : men that are openly vaine and prophane , yet can hardly bee beaten off from it , but that they love god , and have such a faith as will carry them to heaven ; though they doe not live so strictly as others , yet they believe in christ , and that is it god looks after . this deceit thou seest through oh stricter soule ! but know withall , the devill hath more curious counterfeits , wherein there is the exact proportion of the thing resembled , all but the life and power ; yea , he is cunning also in imitating the life and power of every thing , he hath a resemblance of that too ( for those that will not otherwise be content ) to keep them from attaining the truth and substance which if they were not thus deceived by him , with the similitude of , they would not cease to pursue . thou art confident thou art not deceived , so are all that are deceived ; the devill could not deceive thee , with that which is false , if he did not withall work in thee a perswasion that it is true : what will it hurt thee to try and try thoroughly ? nay , surely it will much advantage thy very confidence : after tryall , thou mayst be confident upon knowledge , now thou art confident but upon supposition ; and if thou shouldest at last prove mistaken , thou wouldest have too much time to befoole thy selfe , and bewaile thy confidence ; thou wilt be more angry that thou wert pressed no further to tryall , then thou art now offended that thou art pressed so much to it . thou art but a traveller in this world , and yet thou wilt look after a sure title in these transitory things ; oh look that there be not a flaw in thy title to thy true inheritance : and if thy spirit be seriously bent towards this employment , here perhaps the lord may administer to thee some help and direction , or furnish thee better some other way when he shall see good . the way of tryall here propounded , is certaine , though somewhat difficult , yea , indeed altogether impossible without the help of gods spirit : and yet , what sweeter , safer , truer direction can be given , to us poore , weak , empty creatures , who are nothing , who can doe nothing , then to fly to him who is able to do all things , to issue out that power to us , and manage it in us , whereby the thing we desire may be effected ; and to waite quietly upon him in our present uncertaine condition till he shall please to do it , rather then patch up a satisfaction of our own ? and this way of tryall is not any invention of mine , but it is plainly represented in these scriptures , from the mouth of iohn and christ , referring the tryall of faith , to the birth , and of the birth to the spirit , as thou mayst more fully see in the discourse it selfe ; to which i now leave thee to make what use of it , the lord shall direct thee . thine in what the lord pleaseth , isaac pennington . a touchstone or tryall of faith : john . vers . . . but as many as received him , to them gave he power to become the sonnes of god , even to them that believe on his name ; which were born not of blood , nor of the will of the flesh , nor of the will of man , but of god . this sweet and soaring evangelist having glanced at the excellency of our lord christ , in his relation to god ( being his word ) his presence , and onenesse with god , vers. . in his influence upon all things , he gave them their being , vers. . he gave them their life too ( for it was first in him ) and his life containes all that light that man at any time receiveth , either naturall or spirituall , either from and through the creatures , in at the windowes of his own sence and reason ; or more immediately from the spirit of god , into his own spirit , vers. . having thus given a generall and pithy description of him , who was to be the maine subject of his discourse ; he comes in the next place to speak of his fore-runner , and what of christ might be learned from him . he describeth this fore-runner : . by his mission , he was sent from god ; hee did not goe of his owne head , but god bid . him goe : . by his name , his name was john , vers. . . by the end of his comming it was for to be a witnesse , to testifie somewhat from god unto the world : . concerning what he was to witnesse ; it was concerning that light he had spoken of , that came into the world and shined in the darknesse , uncomprehended by the darknesse , that this was the light indeed : . to what end he was to witnesse this , that all through him might believe ; that by his meanes men might universally come to acknowledge this light , and to cast themselves upon it , to lead them unto life , vers. . in vers . . he removes a mistake which might arise in men minds , concerning this end ; he was not that light , but to beare witnesse of that light ; as if hee had said , do not mistake , he was not this light himself , he came not to that end to be the light , but only to give in a testimony from god concerning the light ; to tell men which was it , that men might not have recourse to him but to the light ; he was to point with the finger at christ , and to send men thither . and hee gives a reason why iohn could not bee this light , vers. . because he wanted the property of this light : this light is the originall light as it was described before , who hath all light in him who giveth out all light , who is the very light ; the true light that lightneth every man that commeth into the world : it is he gives the light of reason to every man that comes into this outward world , it is he gives the light of the spirit to every man that enters by faith into the inner world . now iohn was not this true light , this very light , but only had his candlelighted by it . vers. . the evangelist proceeds further to describe this light : he was in the world , and the world was made by him , and the world know him not : he did not only enlighten the world from the beginning of it , but at length he himselfe came into the world ; and the world had a neere relation to him , for hee gave it its being , it was the workmanship of his hands , and yet the world knew him not ; though he had not fo●gotten the world , but came in due time to look after it , yet the world had forgotten him and knew not who he was . yea , he came to his owne , vers. . his own people the iewes , whom he had selected out of the world ; whom he had alwayes cherished , to whom hee had promised this comming of his , and who had long expected it , and yet they received him not . all this seemeth to be the answer of an objection , such an objection as this : object . if christ was the light , what need he have such an one as iohn to goe and proclaime it ? what need iohn come to beare witnesse of him ? light discovers it selfe : the sun needs none to goe and proclaime that there is light in it ; if this were the fountaine of light , the very light indeed ; what need hath he of iohn's testimony , of iohn's finger to point at him ? answ. yes , saith he , need enough , for though he was in the world ; yea , and was the great architect of the world , yet the world knew him not ; and though he came to his own people , who had all the light of god that was in the world , yet they received him not . the world , they did not know him ; the iewes they would not own him ; though they did partly know him , yet they did not like him . surely , he who was thus unknown , who lay hid in the field of the world , to the world ; who was thus rejected by his own , had great need of a witnesse , to declare to the world who he was , and to testifie to the stubborn jewes , their rebellion against the light . but then it may further be demanded , what did the iewes loose by not receiving , or what should the world gaine by comming to this light , when they were pointed to it by iohn ? why very much , as verse the th holds out : but as many as received him , to them gave he power to become the sonnes of god : they should gaine this great dignity to be the sons of god , comming into union and fellowship with him , they should partake of his honour from , and interest in the father . christ would give them this priviledge , to become the sonnes of the most high ; to go and call him father , and desire any fatherly act of him ; and if he be questioned for it , tell him christ bid him doe so ; hee gave him this right and priviledge , to bee a sonne : what meanes that ? what is it to have a father ? what is it to be a sonne ? it includes these three things in it . . carefull education by the father . . a sonlike spirit in himself from the father . . a sonlike inheritance for himself with the father . each of these is included in this prerogative of being a sonne . . carefull education by the father . the father is to nurture , and bring up his child , sutable to his own state and degree . this is an universall law of nature , and universally observed by every creature ; every creature brings up , what it brings forth ; and doubtlesse the substance of this law is written on go●s heart , who hath written the image of it on every thing that comes from him . now education hath these three things in it . first , instruction in such literature , as becomes such a sonne : thou maist goe to god , for such knowledge as becomes a sonne of god ; thou art to bee brought up in the knowledge of the most high , this is thy right ; it is written in the prophets , and they shall be all taught of god ; they shall all know me from the least to the greatest . the least of them shall not want sutable knowledge ; they shall all know god who is the greatest thing to be known , and whom it requires the highest life to know : this is life eternall , to know thee the only true god . secondly , preservation from dangers . the father is to provide tutors and governours to look to the child , that he doe not wrong himselfe , nor that any else wrong him ; when thou passest through the waters , i will be with thee , and thorow the rivers , they shall not overflow thee ; when thou walkest through the fire , thou shalt not be burnt , neither shall the flame kindle upon thee : all things shall work together for good to them that love god : the stones of the field shall be at peace with thee . creatures , men , devils , temtations , sins , corruption ; nothing shall hurt them , nor they shall not hurt themselves ; nothing can hurt them but departing from god , and their father will look to that too ; i will put my feare in their hearts , that they shall not depart from me , ier. . . thirdly , provision of meat , drink , cloathes , recreations , and whatsoever else is needfull for him , sutable to his degree : this god wil take care for too , he will take care of this for the body , hee that feeds the ravens , and cloathes the lillies , shall he not much more feed and cloath you ? but it is their spirit he●●s specially the father of , that is his child , and spirituall meat , drink , cloathes , recreations , &c. hee will not faile to provide for it : he will give grace and glory , and no good thing will he withhold : the lions may suffer hunger , and want food for their bodies ; but none of his shall want food for their spirits ; as he promiseth the poore captive exile , who is banished from his presence and in captivity under satan , bound in his pit ; he promiseth him that he shall not die there , nor his bread faile there , esay . . the words in the hebrew are in the future tense , he shall not die in the pit , and his bread shall not faile . . a sonlike spirit : it is naturall to the sonne , to be , like the father ; but why ? because he hath it from his father . god also will put his spirit into his sonnes , i will put my spirit within you ; indeed , it is the spirit of a son makes a sonne ; and therefore those that want the spirit of sonnes , we say they are unnaturall . god should beget unnaturall children if he should not endue them with a sonlike spirit : he could not be a true father , beget a true child , unlesse he begat his own spirit in him : there can be no life of a sonne , no voyce of a sonne , no motion of a sonne without the spirit , rom. . , . sonship and the spirit are knit together , gal. . . because yee are sonnes , god hath sent forth the spirit of his sonne into your hearts , crying , abba father . it belongs to the father both to beget , and cherish a sonlike spirit in his son : god hath undertaken for his , as well that they shall be sons and daughters , as to be a father to them , cor. . . he will beget in them , and poure out upon them such a sonlike spirit , that neither he , nor they , shall be ashamed of the relation . . a sonlike inheritance : such an one as becomes such an heir ; what god now possesses , he must inherit ; if he be his son , his heir , it is his priviledge ; what power , wisdome , goodnesse , glory , &c. god now enjoyes , he must have when he is grown up to it , rom. . . this all that receive chri●t , must have from and with christ ; all this god hath given unto christ , and he giveth it all with himselfe , so that take him and take all . quest . but what is this same receiving of christ ? who are those persons that receive him ? how may we know them ? answ. the next words tell you , it is them that believe on his name ? the name of christ is his power to save , to bring men out of their misery and wretchednesse unto this . this light comes to lighten men out of their darknesse into it selfe ; and who ever lay hold on him he fetcheth them out ; who ever is fastened unto him , cannot abide in darknesse , but must come out with him : now to believe on his name , is to fasten on this power of his ; faith is that glue which makes the soule in whom it is , stick and cleave to christ ; and any such soules he fetcheth them out of the clutches of the devill presently , and from amiddest that power of darknesse under which they lay , and giveth them this priviledge to become sons of god , act. . . quest . but how may we know those who believe ? or how come these persons to believe and receive him before others ? his own they receive him not ; how comes it about that these receive him ? answ. that is resolved in the following verse , ( vers. . ) they have a new principle of life put into them , which inclines them so to doe , which were born not of blood , nor of the will of the flesh , nor of the will of man , but of god . these persons come to it by a new birth , they come not to faith by the powers of nature , but they are new born before they believe : they have a new seed of a new life put into them , out of which faith growes , and from which it fetcheth its ability to act . now concerning this birth , that we may not be deceived about it , he shewes first what it is not , whence it doth not proceed ; and then what it is , whence it doth proceed : it is not a birth of blood , nor of the will of the flesh , nor of the will of man , but of god . . not of blood : blood may import that instruction in religion and disposition towards religion , which a man receiveth from his parents ; there is a veine of religon runnes along with the blood , and there is a kind of naturall inclination in all persons towards religion , both which meeting together with some addition of instruction , will carry a person very farre in religious practises . this was the religion of the iewes generally ; what they drank in from their parents , and were accustomed to by their education , that they were very strict in the observation of . and this is the root of most of the religion , at this day in the word ; turkes , papists , yea , protestants generally suck in their religion with their blood ; indeed , they all pretend to a power of god , and strive to make up a kind of satisfaction to themselves one way or other , whereas the ground-work whereupon they build is rotten . but this is not the true birth ; man in the naturall way of generation cannot convey it ; abraham did not thus convey it to isaac , but he was a sonne by promise ; it is not the blood of abraham through which the faith of abraham runnes . . nor of the will of the flesh : the will of the flesh being distinguished from the will of man , denoteth the corrupt part with the desires thereof , which also doth operate and has a power to produce a birth in religion though not the true birth . this will of the flesh may work a twofold way ; either in ones selfe , or in others ; and either way may effect a great change in the person , in the reference to religion , though not the true one . first , there is the will of the flesh working in a mans selfe ; when a man for by-ends , as vaine-glory profit , quietnesse sake , or any such like thing , taketh up the profession and practice of religion ; this is from the flesh , from a corrupt principle ; when a man takes up religion , not from a pure conviction of conscience , not for religions sake , but because it suites with such and such by-ends of his , tends to advantage him in this or that respect . thus the pharisees took up most of their practises , out of a desire of honour and gaine ; and it hath beene observed , and known of many in former times , that they have been puritanes on such termes as these , to obtaine a wife , to please their friends , to encrease their custome and the like ; and thus are many things maintained among us at this day , which the light that is abroad would quickly and clearly dispell , only corrupt ends keep them alive . and thus a man may be born anew as it were , a great change may be made in him , and he appeare a new man to all that behold him ; when as it is indeed but the working of the flesh , his prosecuting some corrupt ends of his own which maketh him thus forward and zealous in religion . secondly , there is this corrupt part , or will of the flesh , not only working in a mans selfe but in others also ; and that is , when other men for corrupt ends of their own , strive to bring on persons ( specially such as may be more easily led ) to such and such practises in religion , and to zeale in such and such particular things : thus the pharisees did bring the people into many practises , for their own corrupt ends ; and thus were the poore proselytes born , they were brought into a way of religion by the iewes , who took great paines to effect it , but made them ten times more the children of hell then they were before : and this we shall see , will be the case of many poore soules at last , who have followed such guides as have had glorious pretences in view , but corrupt ends in their hearts ; they become ten times worse at present , and will be ten times more miserable at last then if they had never known such and such wayes of religion , or had not been so zealous in them . but this is not the true birth neither whence true faith doth flow ; all the changes that are made in us , from any corrupt end or desire of our own , or of any others whatsoever , will bee of little valew to us . . nor of the will of man : the will of man being distinguished from the will of the flesh , notes the purest and most ingenuous part ; and that either in a mans selfe or any other ; it notes , that desire that is naturally in man , to finde out god and his will , and to worship and please him , and so to use the best meanes the soule can meet with in reference thereunto , as seeking into his word , hearing , conferring , praying , and observing what it findes to be his will ; this indeed is noble , ingenuous , and acceptable in the sight of god in its kind and degree ; but yet it doth not rise so high as this birth that is here spoken of : all this prosecuted by the soule , yet will never bring it to god , though god doth ordinarily ( if not alwayes ) bring such persons to himselfe , whom he thus seriously and constantly inclines . nor will this desire in others , with all the meanes they can use accomplish it ; though they themselves be new born , yet this will not beget another ; though the most pretious saint that is , should never so earnestly desire the begetting of a soule to god ; out of the purest ends that might be , and should use all spirituall means towards it , pray hard to god , diligently spread the knowledge of christ before the person and begge on him day after day with teares , to pitty his poore perishing soule , yet all this will not doe ; abraham did as much for ishmael as could be done , if the will of man would have done it ; he was carefull to instruct his whole family , but in a speciall manner very faine would he have had grace breathed into him , oh that ishmael might live before thee ! how faine would isaac have had the blessing runne to esau ! how much did christ doe for the iewes , how large were his affections ; oh that thou hadst known at least in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace ! how vaste his paines ! all the day long have i stretched out my hands to a foolish and gain-saying people . so paul for the iewes , rom. . , . the apostles of christ though they did travell with men , yet they could not beget or bring forth whom they would ; and those persons that were born of this will of theirs , yet that birth came to nothing , they fell away from the faith afterwards , both from christ while he was alive , ( as this book abundantly testifies ) and from the churches after his ascention . so that here are the three great engines of religion , which turn all the world upside downe , and make almost all the changes in religion among men , tradition , corruption , reason and ingenuity , they are all here discarded , as not being able to convey the true birth whence true faith proceeds . then at last , the evangelist having shewn whence it did not proceed , sheweth also whence it did proceed , both the birth and the faith ; but of god , the birth comes from god , the faith from the birth or from the new born child : god by his spirit , breathes a breath of life into him , puts a new principle within him , and by vertue of this he comes to believe on christ : god by the power of his grace , changeth him and maketh him a new creature , and then he comes to put forth this new act of true and spirituall faith : god soweth a seed in him , causeth this seed to grow and at length bringeth it forth , so that the child is born ; and then faith naturally , after the law and manner of the divine nature sprouts from it : the first act of the living child , is to exercise the power of faith , which before lay hid in him . and this is done , this birth is brought about , not from a mans own will , whether corrupt or ingenuous , nor from the will of any else , but from god , from his will , of his own will begat he us , iam. . . this , and this alone is the true birth . for a close to these two verses , take notice of these foure great truths , wherein much of the gospel doth lie ; three of them are contained in these two verses , the first of them in the fore-going part of the chapter . . that christ is the light come into the world to lighten men out of their darknesse ; there is no getting out of spirituall darknesse , but by christ the true and only spirituall light . . the persons for whom he doth this , must believe , must receive him by faith for their light . . faith proceeds from the new birth , a man must be new born that he may believe . . the great priviledge christ bestowes on those that believe , which is this , he gives them authority to become the sonnes of god . those that will be the sonnes of god , must believe on his christ . those that will believe on gods christ , must be born of god . those that are born of god , cannot but believe on christ , and christ cannot but lighten them out of their darknesse , for that end he came . iohn . vers. . there was a man of the pharisees , named nicodemus , a ruler of the iewes : . the same came to iesus by night , and said unto him , rabbi , we know that thou ' art a teacher come from god : for no man can doe these miracles that thou doest , except god be with him . . iesus answered , and said unto him , verily , verily i say thee : except a man be borne againe , he cannot see the kingdome of god . . nicodemus saith unto him , how can a man be born when hee is old ? can he enter the second time into his mothers womb , and be borne ? . iesus answered , verily , verily i say unto thee , except a man be born of water and of the spirit , he cannot enter into the kingdome of god . . that which is borne of the flesh , is flesh ; and that which is borne of the spirit is spirit . here is an excellent dispute betweene christ and nicodemus concerning true faith ; iohn had described it before in the twelf and thirteenth verses of the first chapter , where hee had shewed that those that did indeed believe , were born of god : this act of faith in them , which did entitle them unto christ , and whereupon they did receive the right of sonship in and from him , did not proceed from any light set before them by men ; nor from any inclination of heart which man could work in them ; but from a new principle of life breathed into their soules by god . here the case is more fully argued betweene christ and nicodemuus . nicodemus a pharisee , and rules of the iewes , comes to christ by night , acknowledging him to be a teacher from god , one who had the will of god revealed unto him by god himselfe , and came to make it known unto the sonnes of men : hee giveth christ the ground which induced him thus to believe , which was , because of the signes hee shewed , the wonders hee did , which no man could doe unlesse god were with him . those things he did were beyond the working of any humane power , therefore god must needs be with that person who doth them ; he comes as one that would be a disciple ( though hee comes not so openly as others did ) and at his first salute , hee acknowledgeth christ to be a teacher sent from heaven by god , rendring his reason withall , whereby hee could not chuse but so judge , which was no meane one neieher , but drawn from the mighty things christ did , wherein the very power of god did appear to the eye of reason evidencing unto it that living spring from whence he came , and the pres●●●● of that living spring with him : this is expressed in the first and second verses . in the third verse , christ applyeth himselfe to his particular state , wishing him to consider the ground whence this acknowledgement of his did arise ; telling him plainly , that true faith must arise from another root then sight of his miracles ; iesus answered , and said unto him , verily , verily , &c. as if hee had said , mark what i say , i know what i speak , verily , verily , it is most certainly so , unlesse a man be born againe , he cannot see the kingdome of god . what is the kingdome of god ? the kingdome of god , is that state of life and blessednesse , which god hath brought to light by iesus christ . as the kingdome of the devill is that state of death and misery man lies in by nature ; so the kingdome of god is the state of life and glory man is advanced to by grace : philip preached the things concerning the kingdome of god , and the name of iesus christ , act. . . he opened the life and blessednesse that belongs to this kingdome , and the name of christ who is to bring us into it . to see this kingdome , is an act of faith , which is the eye wherewith wee behold every spirituall thing ; this eye no man hath , but he that is born againe , he that is born from above : this eye doth not lie hid in nature , and so only wants somewhat to cleare it , and draw forth the act of it ; but it belongs to a new birth ; he that is begotten and born of god , hee hath this eye in him , and none else : therefore nicodemus consider thy mistake , thou thinkest because thou seest by an eye of reason that i am come from god , and art drawne by thy reason and ingenuity to acknowledge and owne it , that therefore thou believest : no , no , nicodemus , if thou hast faith , it ariseth from another ground then the sight of my miracles , it comes from a new birth in thee , though god may make this usefull to thee also to help thee to believe ; but if thy faith have no better ground-work then this , it is like the fore-mentioned faith of those in the former chapter , vers. . whom i dare not , i cannot owne as disciples . oh weigh and consider this , all wise and ingenuous men , behold your snare , and take notice of this also , which may help to enervate the force of it . that sight and acknowledgement of any spirituall thing which wee are drawn to by a power of reason , by such evidences as reason it selfe cannot withstand ( as miracles were ) wee have just cause to suspect as not true and spirituall : it is the sight of reason not of faith ; it is such an act of faith as proceeds from the naturall man , not from the spirituall man ; it is that act the eye that was in us before puts forth , not the new eye . oh see , how men are quite out in seeking after the truths of god in every kind : they call for reason , for evidences to have it brought by such hands as no man could justly refuse : ah! they should call for new eyes , or least for gods discovering his truths in a spirituall way to their eyes which all the miracles in the world cannot doe : they may by miracles bee brought to a rationall sight , and so to a present acknowledgement of truths ; but never to a spirituall sight , which alone ●s satisfactory , and which alone w●ll be lasting . verse . nicodemus apprehends this spirituall truth very carnally and grossely , of a fleshly birth of the fleshly part ; and it seemeth a direct absurdity to him , what christ had now affirmed : he thinks he hath caught the great master ( whom hee acknowledged just now a teacher come from god ) in a trap , and hee so expresseth it , as if christ had overshot himself , and could not tell how to make good what hee had laid downe ; how can a man be borne againe when hee is old ? is there any possibility of this ? can hee enter the second time into his mothers wombe and bee borne ? verse . christ doth not abate any thing of what hee hath said , but affirmeth it againe with the same vehemency , further opening , and confirming it , iesus answerd , verily , verily , i say unto thee , except a man be borne of water and of the spirit , hee cannot enter into the kingdome of god . doest thou come to be a disciple to learn the way to happinesse ? wouldst thou enter into that state of blessednesse , that i come to preach ? thou must be born againe ; and not carnally , not of carnall things ; but of water and of the spirit . for the better apprehending of this , let us enquire a little into these ensuing particulars . . what is meant by water ? . what it is to be borne of water ? . what it is to be borne of the spirit ? . what this entring into the kingdome of god is , which none none can doe , but that person which it born of water and of the spirit ? . what is meant by water ? by water is meant , the knowledge of god in christ , the sight of god in the face of christ , wherein eternall life consists . if thou hadst known the gift of god , &c. thou wouldest have asked of him , and he would have given thee living water , ioh. . . what is this living water ? why , this is life eternall , to know thee the onely true god , and iesus christ whom thou hast sent ? ioh. . . the heavenly doctrine of life and salvation , is often expressed in scripture , by this tearm of water , my doctrine shall drop as the raine , my speech shall distill as the dew , deut. . . & is. . . heb. . . as god is the fountaine whence all the life and sweetnesse of the creature flowes , whether naturall ( is. . . ) or spirituall ( ier. . . ) so those beames of eternall light , those streamings forth of life , which issue out from god in the knowledge of iesus christ , they are waters from this fountaine . . what it is to be born of water ? it notes that fundamentall and radicall change which is made in the heart by the power of the truths of christ conveyed thither , and working there . there are three great effects of this water . it begets , it washeth , it nourisheth ; it begets a dead man to life , it begets a man unto god ; for it is a living and active water ; or rather it is the seed whereof a man is begotten and born ; or at least the vessel , that living vessel which containes it : it is that also wherewith he is washed after hee is born ( though there be a washing with blood too . ) and it nourisheth him after hee is both borne and washed , hee lives upon the very same water that he was borne of and with : it is the first of these effects that is here spoken of , that stroke that water hath in the generation and birth of the new creature , he is born of it . it is by letting in these waters upon the soule and into the soule that god changeth it , and maketh it a new . our change in our spirits , and our conversion to god proceedeth from , and is to be attributed to that power of truth that god lets in upon us ; and to that the apostle ascribeth it ( as in many other places ) rom. . . iam. . ● . as our first change from god , was by drinking of the devils waters , which were waters of darknesse and death , waters of errour and deceit ; so this great change to god againe , is wrought by drinking of gods waters , his spirituall waters of life , which are his truths which hee holds out unto us , wherein there is no darknesse nor deceit at all , but they are cleare , living , and substantiall . . what is it to be born of the spirit ? it is to have this change from these waters wrought in us by the spirit . a man can never change his own heart , by any of the truths of god ; but it must be the spirit that must doe it . this water is too spirituall a seed for any man to sow in his own heart : no man , no creature can sow anothers seed ; this is the spirits seed , and hee must sow it if it be sown : christ himselfe openeth and illustrateth this further in the eigth verse of the third chapter , the winde bloweth where it listeth , and thou hearest the sound thereof , but canst not tell whence it commeth , nor whither it goeth : so is every one that is borne of the spirit . the spirit breathes his own breath , blowes his own blast , makes his own sound of life himselfe in our spirits , and thus are wee born of him . it is not all the changes a man can make by the light of naturall truths , nay by the light of spirituall truths , working them upon his heart with never so much paines , that will amount to a new birth ; but it must be the spirit of christ breathing this seed into him , and forming him into a new creature by this seed ▪ as it is water or the word of truth , whereby we are begotten ; so it is god alone who begets , and that hee doth of his own inclination too , iam. . . of his own will begat he us with the word of truth . . what is it to enter into the kingdome of god ? the kingdome of god , is his spirituall dominion in christ , to which every spirituall thing belongs , and in which all spirituall excellencies and blessednesses are laid up : to enter into this kingdome , is by a spirituall act of the soule to come within the verge and bounds of it , even that very act which nicodemus was speaking of , vers. . namely , an act of true saith ; by laying hold on iesus christ and becomming one with him , a man presently hath right unto , and entrance into this kingdome . now saith christ , it is impossible for any man to doe this who is not first new borne ; hee can never truly mount upward , whose earthly nature is not first changed . a man may talk of spirituall glories and his right unto them , but of a truth he is not entred into the kingdome , nor cannot by true faith , who is not born againe , and that both of water and the spirit . to partake of the priviledges of christ , to have life and blessednesse from him , requires a birth of water , and of the spirit : there must a new birth of water and the spirit precede there , without which the person is not in a capacity of it ; he must bee made up againe of water , and that not of his own forming neither , but of the spirits forming ; and then by faith he enters into the kingdome , and becomes entituled to all the priviledges of the kingdome , which without this birth fore-going cannot be done . vers. . in this verse , christ layeth down a position , to confirme the truth he had spoken in the former verse : there is a necessity of being born of water and the spirit , or else a man cannot enter into the kingdome ; for that is a spirituall act , and a man can act no higher then hee is , and hee is not spirituall , he is but flesh , if hee be borne but of flesh , that which is borne of flesh is flesh . flesh here is not to be taken in its latitude , but for that part of it which is powerfull in spirituall generation and production ; for that power of man , together with the meanes and engines that hee can come by ( whether naturall or spirituall ) whereby he works a change in his own heart or upon others , in imitation of that change which god alone doth , and can work , by his spirit : nature , reason , art , with all the advantages they can possibly desire or have ; nature enlightened and purified by reason and art ; nature furnished as much as may bee with the knowledge of god , with desires to be like god , to recover his image , to obey him &c. this is here meant by flesh , and doth more directly thus reach the state of nicodemus , to whom christ spake ( whose present conviction was wrought by christs miracles meeting with his reason and ingenuity ) then if it were understood in a more grosse ence . to bee borne of the flesh , denotes the greatest change that possibly can be made in a man by this power with all the meanes that it can use : the change is so great , that a man is new born , becomes a new man , is changed inside and outside , both to his own appearance , and in the thoughts of others . it is an imitation of that work whereby god brings a man forth a new man . the flesh will take his tooles , set about his work and seem to produce the same effect , bring forth the new birth ; but , in truth and substance , it fals short of it , for it is but flesh : this birth , when a man hath done all he can , used all the spirituall meanes hee can , yet it is but flesh . the fruit can have no more vertue or strength and spirituality then the root had from whence it did proceed , which was but flesh ; and though there were never so many spirituall engines in the hand of flesh , yet this will not alter the case ; for those engines cannot work of themselves , and the flesh cannot make them work spiritually : so that all the births produced by man , are but fleshly , all the changes man can make in his own heart , or any else , is but from flesh to flesh , from grosser flesh to flesh somewhat more refined . conversion by miracles and strong arguments , is but a fleshly conversion ; all the wayes that man can take to bring his owne heart to believe , to close in with christ , to love christ , can produce but a fleshly faith , a fleshly love ; all the wayes man can take to kill and subdue sinne in him , it is but a fleshly mortifying of sinne ; sinne is truly alive for all this , and will discover its life again , when it sees its time . christ doth especially allude to the miracles that were in nicodemus his eye ; wer 't thou born of these ? thy birth is but fleshly ; how spirituall soever such a person may seeme , how spiritually soever he may seem to act , yet at the root he is but fleshly ; the change is made but by flesh , and the thing changed is still but flesh , how glorious soever the change may seeme . think well of it , it cannot be said too often ; all the wayes and meanes man can use , to bring up his heart to god , they are but fleshly , and can produce but fleshly operations in him ; all this faith and holinesse , though raised to never so great an height , it is but that his heart must bee mortified to , if ever he live spiritually . oh! it would be sweet and profitable to consider the abundance of fleshly changes , wherewith the devill cozens men ▪ they see a reall change in themselves , and so think they are sure ; whereas it is but a reall fleshly change , not a reall spirituall change , and so indeed not reall in the true sence ; a change from naturall unbeliefe to naturall faith , ( for there is a power in nature to believe , which may either bee afrighted or perswaded to put forth it selfe , for its own preservation . ( nature being convinced of its present danger , and that there is no way of safety , but by believing on christ , which faith must bee accompanied with love to christ , the truths of christ , the people of christ ; and that this love must shew it selfe in obedience : nature i say , being convinced of this , does presently muster up all its forces of faith , love , obedience , laying them at christs feet to dispose of ; it will trust him , love what he will have it love obey what he will command it , hate what he will have it hate , deny it selfe , its own ends , interests &c. there is nothing so spirituall , but it will undertake and goe thorough after its manner rather then perish : and alas ! what is this ? all this is but nature working from its own principle , with its own power , to its own end . there is no new birth necessary to all this , though all this doth also proceed from a new birth ( where it is ) after more a excellent manner then nature can attaine to . but now , that which is borne ( or begotten ) of the spirit is spirit ; that which the spirit begets , which the spirit produceth is spirit : that faith , that love to god which hee breathes into a man , that is truly spirituall . if a mans heart bee changed , not by reason , not by the power of miracles , but by him , by his immediate power , then the change is true and sound : as it is the spirit who begets , so that which is begotten by him , with that water which he useth in his act of generation , is a true and spirituall birth . there are three particulars which discover the reality of spirituall things , as well as of other things . the originall from whence they come , the nature whereof they are , and the effects which they produce . every spirituall thing it commeth from the spirit , it is spirituall it selfe , and it worketh spiritually , there is a true tincture of its nature , and of its originall in every effect it produceth : as every naturall man is begotten by a man , hath the nature of a man in himselfe , and acteth like a man , worketh the operations of a man ▪ so every new man , every spirituall man is begotten by the spirit , hath the nature of the spirit in him , and discovereth his nature and originall , in every one of his spirituall motions and actions . his faith , his love , every thing in him proceeds from the spirit , partakes of the nature of the spirit , moveth and acteth spiritually . the former of these , christ argues the truth of the new birth from , in this place , its comming from the spirit , that which is born of the spirit is spirit . what ever the spirit worketh in a man , is truly spirituall ; that light he shews , is true spirituall light ; that grace he gives , is true spirituall grace ; that change hee makes , is a true spirituall change : but all other changes are but countersets of that true spirituall one , which he alone can make . and this may shew us the reason why there are so many changes in this flitting age ; it is because most men are changed by the flesh , the greatest power of flesh still changeth them : a strong objection which they cannot answer , will startle any man that is changed by a power of flesh . hence men take up one practise to day , another to morrow ; now acknowledge this or that for a truth , by and by it is false , then true againe ; why ? because they see not things by the light of the spirit which never varies , but by a force of argument , by a power of reason which sometimes appeares stronger , sometimes weaker , sometimes greater , sometimes lesser ; but a soule whose light is changed , whose practises are changed by the spirit , that change remaineth good , let all the winds and gusts of arguments blow never so strongly . take heed therefore of changing your apprehensions or practises about any thing , till you can say the spirit changeth them , else it will be but a fleshly change . what further remaines , but that every one that loveth his soule should lay this to heart , and consider thoroughly according to the weightinesse and importance of it , how it is with him ? what that religion is , whereupon he groundeth his hopes , what oyl feeds his lamp , whence his faith , his love came , and of what rank and kind they are . and not to doe this slightly , or determine suddenly ( as is most usuall with men in matters of religion ; ) but , as on the one hand , to be thankfull unto god for , and make much of the least hope ( which is not every ones lot ; ) so on the other hand , not to rest satisfied or let god alone , till he hath brought us to an absolute certainty ; then and not till then we may safely without hazard give over the debate of this question . and though we may perhaps be a long while before we attaine it , yet if god carry on our hearts in the pursuite , we may meet with sweet pledges and refreshings in the way , as may much mitigate gods seeming tediousnesse in deferring our full satisfaction herein . and indeed , though god leads his people in such harsh and difficult wayes to the eye of sence and reason , as would affright any carnall heart ; yet he hath withall such sweetnings to mingle with them , as maketh them very passable to all whom he leads through them : egypt , the bondage of it he can make tolerable ; the wildernesse , the intricacies of it he can make a plaine way through ; canaan , the high wals and strong enemies thereof , even the children of anack , whose very sight strikes terrour , he can make conquerable to his christ and to his seed . onely take heed of suddennesse , of sudden judgement . men that are apt to be sudden , are as liable to deceit , and commonly are deceived , especially in abstruse and difficult cases ; he that will give sentence at first dash , without weighing the matter thoroughly , and the severall circumstances of it , may easily erre in judgment ; and an error herein is of no small concernment ; there cannot be a worse and more dangerous mistake . there are two sorts of persons very prone to be sudden in the judgement they passe on spirituall things , and their own estate in spirituall things . the weak and dark christian , who is ready still through his fear which ever accompanies weaknes , & darknes to conclude all against himselfe : and the slight and superficiall christian , who never thoroughly looked into spirituall things , nor hath been well versed in the deceits about them , he is apt to take the likenesse and appearance of every thing for the thing it selfe ; and to conclude all for himselfe with as great confidence , as the other thrusts all from himselfe with over-much diffidence . the former , lay any promise before him ; he will say it belongs not to him : bring him to any tryall , he is presently cast : try his faith ; alas ! there is nothing but unbeliefe to be found in him : try his love , it is but a naturall affection : try his obedience , it is but forced by the command : try his uprightnesse , why , there is nothing more deceitfull then his heart . the latter , he is in a clean contrary posture : mention any promise , he can presently lay hold o● it , it belongs to him , and he can suck a great deale of sweetnesse out of it : speak of faith , why he hath it ; he knowes that he is undone without christ , and that he is the only way to life , such as believe on him shall be saved , and him hath he trusted with his soul : tell him this faith must be wrought by god , why he knowes that no man can work it himselfe , it is the gift of god : tell him it must be a spirituall faith , hee knowes that too , every grace is spirituall . name any thing else , so soone as you have spoke it , he hath it ; speak of love , either to god or the brethren , his heart will presently witnesse to him that he doth love both god and the brethren , and it is a sincere love , not for any by-ends in one kind or other : come to obedience , he holds sound there too , he obeyes the will of god , at least in desire and endeavour ; he performes duties , he strives against his corruptions ; nay , and hee doth not this in in a legall way , as thinking to be saved hereby , hee knowes he must be saved by christ alone , by faith in him : and for his heart , though he faile in many things , yet hee blesseth god that it is u right , and he knowes god is mercifull to pardon his failings , and accept of his integrity : so that he hath no cause to feare or trouble himselfe about any thing ; for he is sure what ever may befall him here , it will be well at last , and so he is at rest . now both these are commonly mistaken : the former ; for the promises many times belong to such a soule , though hee cannot apply them ; and hee may have true faith , and true love , and true obed●ence , though he cannot see it : the seed may bee sown in him , and grow up in him , though hee know not how , and so cannot acknowledge it ; and he is not to be blamed for not acknowledging it ( for how can he till hee know it ? ) nor for suspecting it ; but only for such a sudden and positive determining of the contrary , which hee hath as little if not lesse ground for , then for his suspition . and for the latter , the promises doe seldome belong to such a person : the promises doe not so easily meet with and melt into our spirits , as such kind of language implyes ; and for his faith , his love , his obedience , his uprightnesse , they may be but of the stamp of nature ; and if they should meet with such tryals and blasts as god hath generally appointed , and doth usually prepare for his , they would soon discover themselves . now marke the danger of each : the former loseth his peace , his comfort ; the latter his soule , if hee be deceived ; and both by the same miscarriage , their forwardnesse and suddennesse in judgement ; the one determines for himselfe , the other against himselfe , upon their own imagination and apprehension , before they have the thing laid before them , and opened to them , which they should judge ; or the light held to them , by which they should judge ; the one determines against his faith , the other for his faith ; and yet neither knowes what faith is , and they both doe it by their own reason , which is no true light to discern or judge spirituall things by . it were a more modest and sutable action for either , to bewaile their own ignorance with a sence of their need of understanding and determining this thing , and to pray and wait for light and help from him by whom it is cleerely discerned , and who can make it discernable unto them . finis . the spirituall practise of christians in the primitive times : wherein are contained the sweet goings forth of life in the soule which is enstated in christ , and in the sweetnesse and clearnesse of the gospel . having laid down the tryall of a christian in the fore-going treatise , it may not be amisse to adde somewhat concerning the practise of a christian , ( as it was cast in upon reading the episte to the ephesians ) or some part of the rule whereby their practise was squared , which in that epistle resolves it selfe into these foure streames . to suck in the sweetnesse of the gospel . to admire god and christ who have been at the great cost to purchase and prepare this feast of fatnesse and sweetnesse for the soule . to walk worthy of this his his goodnesse : and to stand upon our guard that wee bee not driven from it , from enjoying the sweetnesse of it , from honouring god with it : this is the path whereinto christians then were led , and wherein they walked . . to suck in the sweetnesse of the gospel , to be ever seeding upon christ ; to be ever delighting in that glorious state , and in those glorious priviledges god hath bestowed upon us in christ ; and this is to bee done two wayes . i. by considering the mercies and priviledges we have in christ : as first , we have redemption , pardon of sinne in him , we are bought from our captivity and misery by his blood , we are washed from our sinfulnesse , from our filthinesse by the same blood , eph. . . secondly , we are made sonnes and have a sonne-like inheritance ; we are made gods portion , and god is made our portion , vers. . & . thirdly , we have all we can desire in this life , we have accesse to god for any thing ( chap. . . & chap. . . ) who will bee sure to doe every thing for us we need , freely , and to put us upon praying for every thing wee need , and also upon believing and waiting , that we may misse of no mercy his grace hath designed us ; god will take care of us as of his own houshold , chap. . . he will be as sure of our growing up , as he is of the foundation he has laid to bottome us upon , vers. . . ii. we further suck in , and better rellish the sweetnesse of the gospel by comparing our present state with our former : we were dead , but are alive ; we were darknesse but now are light ; we were cursed with all spirituall curses in adam , but now are blessed with all spirituall blessings in christ ; wee were without god , without hope , strangers to life and blessednesse ; but now wee are in god and full of hope , and every way nigh unto him , and every excellency in him , chap. . . , . & vers. . . . and chap. . . . to admire that god and that christ who have done this for us , who have made such a sweet change in our condition . admire that great love wherewith they loved us , which was working from all eternity to effect that for us , which now they are carrying on amaine , chap. . . chap. . . admire that abundant free-grace that has made no spare of any thing for us , but has acted fully according to the strength of love , chap. . . chap. . . & . there were but two pretious lives , the life of god , and the life of christ ; and grace hath given us them both : to recover us from death , the life of christ was given for us ; and to keep us in life , the life of god is given to us . admire that rich mercy wherein all our former sinnes , and every dayes unkindnesses even against christ and his pretious gospel , and god our father and the sweet spirit , are continually buried , chap. . . admire that various , that manifold , that {non-roman} {non-roman} {non-roman} {non-roman} {non-roman} , ( chap. . . ) which laid all the plot of love , and which worketh us up daily more and more into the heart of god , and nearer and nearer to our happinesse , notwithstanding all the pull backs in our selves , in the world , in our spirituall enemies , in the varieties of our conditions , which all almost distemper us , that though we are untoward under every thing , and in danger by every thing , yet we lose nothing . admire the mighty power which hath thus translated us from darknesse to light , which daily preserves us from ●●lling back againe , and is often mightily working in us to raise us up to further degrees of perfection , chap. . . . chap. . ● . . to walk worthy of this blessed gospel state ( chap. . . ) ( wherein god is our father , and christ our head ; wherein we have so many pretious priviledges at present , and hopes for the future ; wherein we professe our selves broken to the world , and to all the powers of nature in our selves too , ) to live like men that live upon a new principle , from god , and in god , and to god . walking , it notes our whole course , all the service wee are now to perform to christ , whose we are , and whom alone we are now to serve ; in care over our own hearts , in all duties of worship , in our callings , in our converse , in every thing . this walking worthy , principally appeares in our manner of acting towards men , whereof there are three sorts . our fellow-christians , the world , and persons that stand in outward relations to us . first , our fellow-christians , and specially those in church-communion with us , for they are those god hath more specially set us to walk with , they are those with whom we are chiefly to worship , and whom we must especiall love , and of whom wee must especiall take care , and watch over . now the manner of our acting towards them , must bee : . with all humblenesse and meeknesse with low thoughts of our selves , and in a meet manner , chap. . . . with long-suffering , forbearing one another in love , vers. . we must not be apt to apprehend injuries , or seek recompence for injuries , but suffer long , and forbeare one another ; and not simply because it is the will of christ ( who hath forborn us much , and forgiven us much ) that wee should so doe , but from the love we beare one to another , from a tender brotherly affection , and in a tender brotherly manner . . the apostle tells us what should be our great aime and endeavour in our actings one towards another , vers. . to keep up unity , the unity of the spirit , to keep it in the bond of peace , endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace ; we must not keep a sinfull unity , a carnall unity in the bond of peace ; no , the bond of peace must bind up no such unity in it , but there must be warre with , and opposition against , all such unity ; but the unity of the spirit , that unity the foundation whereof god hath laid among us , ( who hath made us perfectly one in spirituals ) being all of the same body , having all the same spirit of life running in us , having all the same hope to attaine the same end , all the same lord to serve , all the same way of union with him , subjection to him , and owning of him , all the same god and father who begate us all , vers. . , . to which might bee added , wee have all also the same enemies and the same dangers . now god having laid such a foundation of unity in all our spirits , we must endeavour to keep up unity so farre as it is spirituall , and not to rent one from another , in that wherein god hath made us one . humblenesse , takes away the root of contention , ( which is the bane of all societies , quickly eating out both the sweetnesse and benefit of them ) for that still flowes from pride ; pride begets , pride feeds contention ; a man that has low thoughts of himselfe , has little minde to contend ; it is height of spirit that blowes up the fire of contention . meeknesse , takes away the occasion of contention , which arises much from a rough harsh manner of expression ; a meek spirit as it seldome takes occasion of contention , but quietly lets it passe , so it seldomes gives others occasion to contend with it . long-suffering and forbearance , puts a stop to the breaking forth of contention , when occasions are given . but besides all these ; there must be an endeavour , an industry used to keep up true and spirituall unity . . the apostle directs us how to make use of our severall gifts profitably , according to the end for which they were given , which is , not to set up our selves by them , but to perfect this unity , to build up one another in faith , in knowledge , and that so we may in all things grow up into christ the head , vers. . to . secondly , the world ; towards them we must walke wisely , chap. . . first , taking heed of partaking with them in any evill , nay , of countenancing the least evill in them , chap. . . chap. . . . secondly , redeeming the time from them as much as may be for converse with god . thirdly , doing as much good as we can to them while we are with them ; both which are included in that phrase of redeeming the time , vers. . thirdly , those in neare relations to us , whether brought home to christ , or in their naturall condition , we are to observe the strict lawes of that relation we stand debtours to them in , which wee are not to faile in towards them , bee they superiour or inferiour , how ever they act towards us , chap. . vers. . to the end of the chapter , and chap. . to vers. . our engagement to christ does not set us free from our relations and duties in any kinde to men , but onely layes a bond on him to furnish us with free spirits , and power to fill up what wee owe in every relation ; christ gives us not freedome from , but freedome unto every thing that is of god . . to stand upon our guard , not to be driven from the sweetnesse of the gospel , nor from acknowledging and admiring god in every step of his love , mercy , wisdome , power and grace ; nor from this walking worthy of the gospel , by any enemy , any temptation , or any thing that befals us in any kind , chap. . . . but to stand armed against our enemies , who are spiritually mighty , and lay the sorest temptatious and baits in spirituall things , vers. . we are to stand armed thus : . with an understanding having its light clear about it , and with a will having an holy disposition ready to act in any kind god shall please to call it out unto , vers. . to have an understanding ready to put forth it selfe , knowing how to carry it selfe ; how to obey , how to suffer ; how to embrace , how to resist ; and a will graciously disposed to either , whensoever god shall call it forth : our loynes commonly are ungirt , our light is to seek , our grace hangs loose about us , that we are unfit to act for god at all , much more unfit to doe it in the face of that opposition which we are still likely to meet with in every spirituall undertaking : and for want of this piece of armour , we lie open to our spirituall enemies . . with an holy resolution to act for christ , according to that light hee shall give in to the conscience ; to meddle with no evill , to omit no duty of any kinde ; this is that brest-plate that keeps the heart or conscience pure and safe , vers. . when the devill do●s not finde us resolved against sinne , or resolved for duties , ( bee it how it will with us ) hee commonly takes us in his snare . . with affections taken with the sweet truths of the gospel ▪ ( as pardon of sinne &c. ) and ready to hold out these truths for the gospel to make out its way into mens hearts , vers. . troubles and ●fflictions wee meet with within and without , will quickly damp our affections , if they bee not well fenced with these . . with faith over all these , defending even these as well as our selves in other respects by faith ; by faith interposing the power of christ between us and every enemy that may come to assault us in these or in any other respects ; that may come to ungird us and make us unfit to act , to damp our holy resolution for god , to deaden our affections towards the sweet truths of the gospel which prepare the way for christ , or to wound us with any temptation whatsoever ; faith is a true shield , it defends both the person and the rest of his armour , as we know a shield does : the devill cannot prevaile in any point against a believing soule , vers. . alas ! we can doe nothing our selves ; doe no good , avoid no evill ; all our strength lies in trusting god with our selves in every condition , and with every spirituall advantage and help hee hath given us to manage it as he pleaseth for us . . with hope of salvation by grace , both for eternity and from any present distresse in gods time : because many seeming miseries may befall the believing soule , contradictions to his prayers , desires , faith , yea , to all the motions of gods spirit in him ; hee must have an helmet of hope , ( vers. . ) as well as a shield of faith : and this will keep up his spirit , that hee shall not feare looking up to god what ever befals him . . with the sword of the spirit , the word of god , the living word , the word which is spirit and life ; this will kill all false reasonings , and every thing that exalts it selfe against christ ; this will make enemies flye from the soule ( for they hate the word of life , they know it is their death ) and it will also make the soule it selfe subject unto christ , vers. . and all this and every thing else must bee done by prayer , vers. . wee can doe nothing , not gaine this armour , not put it on , not use it ; all must be done by prayer , by intreating another to doe it for us ; wee cannot believe , wee must pr●y for faith ; neither can we pray , we must believe for prayer ; we cannot doe either , both must flow from the spirit , and be done in the spirit , praying alwayes with all prayer and supplication in the spirit : oh , how are we stripped ! when every motion sends us out of our selves to another , and yet withall tells us , wee are altogether unable to goe out of our selves , or step the least step towards that other . and wee must watch unto prayer , catch opportunities to breathe out our hearts to god to doe that in us which he bids us doe ; not being discouraged with any difficulties , but persevering in our requests for our selves , and all the people of god , vers. . behold ô christian thy spirituall employment , thine easie , and painfull employment , easie to thy spirit , painefull to thy flesh ; and as yet , somewhat painfull to thy spirit also , by reason of the cumberance of thy flesh , the weaknesse of thy spirit , the power and fury of thine adversaries . finis . some sensible, weighty queries, concerning some things very sweet and necessary to be experienced in the truly-christian state whereunto is added a postscript, containing some queries on isa. . , . a scripture of deep counsel & concern to the darkned and distressed states, of some among those that fear & obey the lord. written by one, who hath been sorely darkned and distressed, for a long season, but at length mercifnlly [sic] enlightned & comforted by the hand which afflicted & distressed him, isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) some sensible, weighty queries, concerning some things very sweet and necessary to be experienced in the truly-christian state whereunto is added a postscript, containing some queries on isa. . , . a scripture of deep counsel & concern to the darkned and distressed states, of some among those that fear & obey the lord. written by one, who hath been sorely darkned and distressed, for a long season, but at length mercifnlly [sic] enlightned & comforted by the hand which afflicted & distressed him, isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . , [ ] p. s.n.], [london : printed in the year, . place of publication from wing. caption title on p. reads: some sensible, vveighty queries, concerning some things very sweet, & necessary to be experienced in the truly christian-state. imperfect; final page of text in ms. reproduction of the original in the british library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng bible. -- o.t. -- isaiah l, - -- commentaries -- early works to . christianity -- essence, genius, nature -- early works to . theology, doctrinal -- early works to . - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - john latta sampled and proofread - john latta text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion some sensible , weighty queries , concerning some things very sweet and necessary to be experienced in the truly-christian state. whereunto is added a postscript , containing some queries on isa . . , . a scripture of deep counsel & concern to the darkned and distressed states , of some among those that fear & obey the lord. written by one , who hath been sorely darkned and distressed , for a long season , but at length mercifully enlightned & comforted by the hand which afflicted & distressed him , isaac penington . come and let us return unto the lord ; for he hath come , and he will heal us : he hath smitten , and he will bind us up , hos . . . and in that day thou shalt say , o lord i will praise thee , though thou wast angry with me , thine anger is turned away and thou comfortedst me , isa . . . printed in the year , . a brief preface . indeed , the lord hath reached unto me by his living power , and thereby hath begotten somewhat which he doth own , and which he hath taught to know and own him in his living appearances in my heart : and by its pure life and operations in me , i know it to be the pure power . and truly i would fain have this life and power more and more reach to , prevail and spread in my own heart , and in the hearts of other men . i am not for any noti●nal religion out of the power , in any way or form whatsoever ( no indeed , i am not so much as for the very true form of godliness out of the power ) but where there is any touch , any sense , any operation , any savour of the true life and power any where , my soul loveth and embraceth it blessing the lord for it . and o that this might be visited by the lord , wherever it is , and kept alive to the day of redemption , and led by the lord into the pure and living way , and holy , everlasting covenant of life , wherein he redeems , for which end these queries have broke forth from me ; and indeed , no less then a necessity ( or a necessitous fonci of love and life pursuing me ) hath constrained me to publish them , who with reverence of spirit commit them into the hand of the lord , who can open the hearts of whom he pleaseth , and give the living sense of what comes from him . i am satisfied that god's powerful work of redeeming will go on . o blessed be his name , who hath a mighty arm , and hath done mighty things with it , inwardly ●n mens hearts ; and we are in the true faith assured , that he will yet do more mighty thin●s , as he seeth good , to the gladding of the hearts of those whose hope is in him , and who have no help besides him . some sensible , vveighty queries , concerning some things very sweet , & necessary to be experienced in the truly christian-state . query . what is the water , wherewith the soul or inner-man is to be washed , that it may be cleansed from its inward filthiness , as outward things are by washing with outward vvater ? ezek. . . psal . . , &c. q. . vvhat is the answer of a good conscience towards god , when the soul is inwardly baptized and made clean ? pet. . . q. . christ faith , blessed are the pure in heart ; do , or can any witness purity of heart before this washing ? q. . how may the heart be sprinkled from an evil conscience , and the body washed with pure water ; so that there may be a drawing near to god with a true heart , and in full assurance of faith , heb. . . psal . . . q. . how might the jews wash and make themselves clean , isa . . . could it be any otherwise done by them , then by taking heed to the vvord of the new covenant , nigh in the mouth and heart , to which moses had directed them , deut. . . psal . . . q . vvhat is the fire which takes hold of , and burns up the lusts and corruptions of the heart ? is it not the word of life within , which flames against evil , and hammers down evil ? doth not the holy one in the midst of the spiritual israel do this ? vvhen christ who knocks at the door of the heart , is let in , and his voice hearkned to , doth not he become a spirit of judgment , and burning , judging and burning up , what is evil there ? is it not blessed to know this spiritual appearance , and this work of christ in the heart , isa . . . & . . q . vvhat are the enemies of a man's house ? vvho must overcome them ? how may they be overcome ? is a man safe or delivered from them till they be overcome , mat. . . cor : . , . q. . vvhat is the house of the strong-man , where he dwells till he be dispossessed ? vvho can dispossess him ? how doth he dispossess him ? how doth he spoil his goods and then garnish the house a new ? o what a new creation and change within is witnessed , when this is done ? and who would not wait , and pray , and believe , and suffer the judgings and burnings of the spirit of judgment and burning , that this might be done throughly and effectually , luke . , . isa . . . cor. . . q. . vvhat is that coming to christ , which none can witness , but those that hear and learn of the father , and are taught by him ; in the drawings of the life and spirit of the new covenant , to come to the son , john . , . q. . vvho can confess jesus to be the lord by the holy ghost ? can any but they that receive the help of his spirit ; and feel somewhat of his lordship and holy dominion in their hearts , isa . . . q. . vvhat is the precious faith , which is the gift of god , which none can obtain , but they that are born of god ? john . ; . q. . can any rightly believe that jesus is the christ , runless they receive this faith , which god gives to his own children that are born of his spirit , john . . q. . doth not this faith give victory over the world ? ( over the worldly nature and spirit within ; over the worldly nature and spirit without also ) can any other faith give victory ? john . . q. . vvhat is the love of god's children ? vvhence doth it arise ? how come they to love ? is it not of an heavenly , spiritual nature ? doth it not arise from god's begetting them and circumcising their hearts , and teaching them in the spirit of the new covenant to love him , and one another , yea and enemies also , john . . deut. . . thes . . . q. . how come the children of god , who are begotten of him , to obey his commandments ? is it not from the constrainings of his love , which makes them natural and easie ( where this birth and nature is grown up ) and not grievous and burthensom , mat. . . john . . q. . vvhat is the fear god puts into the hearts of the children of the new covenant ? is it a fear taught by the precepts of men , or a fear springing from the root of life within ? can any who receive this fear from god , and who are preserved in the sense of it ( and in the holy awe and reverence which it produceth ) depart from the holy , tender , living god and father ? jer. . . q. . vvhat is the law which god writes in the hearts of the children of the new coenant ? is it not the law of the spirit ●ife in christ jesus ? is it not the law which the isles wait for ? isa . . . and do the isles wait for it in vain ? o blessed be the lord , by the once distressed and miserable ones , in this age it hath not been waited for in vain . q . vvhat is the truth that makes free indeed , from the law of sin and death ? is it not the truth as it is in jesus ; the inward truth , which hath virtue and power in it , to work against and work out that which is contrary to truth , and so deliver and free the mind from it ? for the light , which is truth , can expel darkness ; the life which is truth , can overcome death ; yea , the truth which is living , holy and righteous , can overcome and subdue the unholy and unrighteous nature , and break down the strong holds , and bring every rebellious and captivating thought into captivity and subjection , john . . rom. . . ephes . . , . cor. . . . q . how doth god cause the children of the new covenant to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments and do them ? is it not by putting his spirit into them , and by the holy virtue , power and operation thereof in them ? doth not that make them a willing people in the day of his power ? and doth not that give them to do also , and strengthen them with might in the inner man ? so that not grieving that , or quenching that : that is as a flame of life in them , and fills their hearts with joy , and the joy of the lord is their strength ; and in this joy and strength they can rejoyce and work righteousness , and remember the lord in his wayes , isa . . . ezek . . q. . can any work righteousness , or do righteousness , but he that is truly righteous , inwardly righteous ; in whom the righteousness of god , the righteousness of christ is revealed from faith to faith ? must not the tree be good , before the fruit can be good ? must not the heart be changed , be made holy and righteous , before it can bring forth that which is holy and righteous ? can any but the plants of god , the plants of righteousness , bring forth the fruits of righteousness ? isa . . . & john . . o that people , nations , tongues and languages , could understandingly , sensibly and experimentally as in god's sight , with the seal of his blessed spirit , answer every one of these things ! three queries more added . query . dost thou indeed know the new covenant ? hast thou inwardly felt the spiritual , powerful gathering , by the mighty arm and power of the lord , out of the sinful nature and state , into it ? dost thou abide with god therein ? and art thou daily taught and fed by him there ? these are very weighty things , can any man be safe or happy without experiencing them ? heb. . . &c. q . hast thou experienced the true hunger and thirst after the living waters ? hast thou been called and led to them ? hast thou eat and drunk the bread , wine and milk which those waters yield ? hast thou been abundantly satisfied with the fatness of god's house , and hath he given thee to drink of the river of his pleasure ? hath the lord opened an ear in thee to hear as the learned ? and hast thou inclined thy ear and come unto him who gives life , and received him who is life and gives life in that inward , spiritual , living appearance of his in the heart , wherein and whereby he gives life ? hast thou known his appearance inwardly , as of a living stone ? hast thou heard and learned o the father how to come to him , as to a living stone ? and hast thou been new-created and formed a living stone by him ? and art thou a living stone built upon him the living stone inwardly in spirit , daily living in him , any daily receiving spiritual life and virtue from him ? if it be thus with thee , then surely thou dost know and enjoy the everlasting covenant , even the sure mercies of david , isa . . , , psal . . , . pet. , . q. . dost thou sensibly and experimentally know , how the spirit of the father begets the child-like life , love and fear in the heart , and how the pure fear of the lord is the beginning of vvisdom , and the living child's treasure ? and dost thou know what the vvomb is , wherein the living child is formed ? vvhat the jerusalem above is , which is the mother of all that are truly living ? and how christ is formed in all that are begotten , and born of , and live in his spirit ? isa . . . gal. . . john . v. , & . gal. . . the conclusion . o how miserable is he , who is deceived about these things ! o how happy is he , who hath received the true understanding from god , which cannot be deceived ; wherein he hath the evidence and demonstration of god's spirit concerning them , and knoweth the truth as it is in jesus ; as it is in his life , in his spirit , in his power , who ministers after the power of an endless life unto all his sheep , wo are returned to the shepherd and bishop of the soul , who hear his voice and follow him , wherever he goes or leads , who is an eternal shepherd and eternal door of life to his , and leads to precious pastures , and sweet still sreams of life , and is giving the sweet food , rest and pure pleasure of eternal life unto his abundantly , even as it is his will , that after their many sore trials , exercises and travels ( & faithfulness to him therein ) they should abundantly possess and enjoy it . glory to the lord for ever , whose kingdom is set up in the hearts of many , and who already reigns in the hearts of many , and will reign in the hearts of more . o that men might hear the sound of his everlasting gospel , and learn to fear him , and give glory to him , and know the hour of his judgment come in their own hearts ; that by his judgment against sin and unrighteousness in them , they might come to know and worship him , and then the worship of the dragon and beast would soon come to an end in their hearts ; and they would worship the begetter of holiness the begetter of life , the king of saints , who dwells and rules in those that are his own , as the devil the destroyer doth in those that are his . the lord god of everlasting power break down the kingdom of satan ( the kingdom of unrighteousness and darkness in mens hearts ) and exalt the kingdom and scepter of his own son instead thereof , amen . postscript , containing some queries on isa . . , . verse . who is among you that feareth the lord , that obeyeth the voice of his servant , that walketh in darkness and hath no light ? it is rendered in another translation . and no light shineth upon him , ( which was job's case in his great affliction , as is signified by him , chap. . . . ) let him trust in the name of the lord , and stay upon his god. verse . behold all ye that kindle a fire , that composs about with sparks , walk in the light of your own fire , and in the sparks ye have kindled , this shall ye have of mine hand , ye shall lie down in sorrow . query doth not the tender and merciful god , many times in the bowels of his love and mercy , bring darksness and great distress upon mens spirits , that they might wait for his healing and redemption ? yea , doth not this befal some who fear the lord , and are found in the holy reverence and obedience to him ? and is it not good that it should befal them ? q. . should not men in such a condition of darkness and distress , trust in the name of the lord , and stay upon him , till he cause light to arise out of obscurity , and comfort them that mourn in zion ; giving them beauty for ashes , the oyl of joy for mourning , and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness ? q. . are not persons very proue and liable in time of darkness and distress , instead of waiting upon god for his help and salvation , to be kindling a fire and compassing themselves about with sparks ? q. . are there not some who cannot be content without heat and warmth in their religion and performances ; and yet instead of waiting for god's kindling the fire , and his causing the sparks of life to arise , kindle a fire of themselves ; and compass themselves about with sparks of their own kindling q. . may not men after they have kindled a fire and sparks ; walk in the light thereof ? and may not god in his just judgment and sore displeasure against them , leave them to themselves , and give them up so to do ? q. . what will god do in the end , or what in the end shall befall them from god , who kindle a fire and sparks ; and have continued walking in the light thereof , and have been heated and warmed thereby ? will not god cause them at length to lie down in sorrow ? o that persons that are serious in religion , might not thus err , and so provoke god to give them up , to walk in the light of the fire and sparks of their own kindling . q. . when do men kindle a fire and sparks of their own ? do they not first forget the god of their salvation , and become unmindful of the rock of their strength ? and do they not then , plant pleasant plants , and set strange slips ? ( and where do they plant and set them ? ) but what will the harvest be in the day of inheritance , when they come to reap and inherit what they have planted and sown ? ( for what a man so weth , that must he also reap . ) will it not be a heap for the fire of god's jealousie to take hold of , in the day of their tribulation , anguish and desperate sorrow of heart , isa . . , . q. . in what light do men build up a wall inwardly , and daub it with untempered morter , to secure themselves from the wrath to come ? is it not in the light of the fire and sparks of their own kindling ? will any wall or defence built up in the light of this fire or sparks secure men , will not the wrath of god in the day thereof , break forth upon all the workers of iniquity , whatever their faith or hope be to the contrary ? will any wall defend the soul from the over flowing storm of wrath , but the wall of god's salvation ? & can any enter within that wall but the righteous nation which keepeth the truth , isa . . , . the name of the lord indeed is a strong tower , but can any run into it , and get shelter in it , but the righteous , prov. . . q. . vvho is he , who when he falleth , shall arise again ? and after he hath sate in darkness , the lord shall be a light unto him ? is it not he that feareth the lord , that obeyeth the voice of his servant , that in the time of his darkness and distress trusteth in the name of the lord , and stayes upon his god ? yea is it not such an one , as is willing to bear the indignation of the lord , because he hath sinned against him , until he plead his cause , and execute judgment for him ? vvill not the lord bring forth such an one to the light , and shall not such an one behold his ●ighteousness ? mic. . , . q. . vvhen shall persons light rise in obseurity , & their darkness be as the noon-day ? vvhen shall their light break forth as the morning , and , their hea●h spring forth speedily ; and their righteousness . go before them , and the glory the lord gather them up . and when shall the lord be their continual guide and satisfie their soul in droughts , and make fat their bones , and make them like a watered garden and like a spring of water , whose waters fail not . are not these promises belonging to the gospel-state ; and are they not fulfilled in the gospel-state , as people come to know of keep the gospel-fast , and the gospel sabbath . read 〈◊〉 . to the end and wait on the lord to receive understanding from him that in reading thou mayst understand . o that men knew the gospel-fast and the gospel sabbath with the leasts of unleavened bread tabernacles , trumpets , &c : a little of the knowledge of mystery of the hidden life and power , is of more value , and would do their souls more than heaps of litteral knowledge , wherewith the world is so filled . the knowledge of god and christ in the mystery , is no less than life eternal in them and to them , who are taught in the new covenant or ministration of the lower of the endless life , so to know them . the end . some things of great weight and concernment to all briefly opened, and held forth from a true sense and understanding, for the healing of the ruines and breaches, which the enemy of mankind hath made in mans souls, as . some assertions concerning the principle and way of life, . some further directions to christ, the principle and fountain of life, . the end of christ's manifestation, his salvation, and whom he saves, . three questions answered concerning justification, . of the pure, constant, eternal, unchangeable nature of god's truth / written in the time of my confinement in alisbury when love was working in me, and the life of god in me travelling and wrestling with the lord for the salvation of others, isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) some things of great weight and concernment to all briefly opened, and held forth from a true sense and understanding, for the healing of the ruines and breaches, which the enemy of mankind hath made in mans souls, as . some assertions concerning the principle and way of life, . some further directions to christ, the principle and fountain of life, . the end of christ's manifestation, his salvation, and whom he saves, . three questions answered concerning justification, . of the pure, constant, eternal, unchangeable nature of god's truth / written in the time of my confinement in alisbury when love was working in me, and the life of god in me travelling and wrestling with the lord for the salvation of others, isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . p. [s.n.], london : . reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - john latta sampled and proofread - john latta text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion some things of great weight and concernment to all ; briefly opened , and held forth from a true sense and understanding , for the healing of the ruines and breaches , which the enemy of mankind hath made in mens souls , as , . some assertions concerning the principle and way of life . . some further directions to christ , the principle and fountain of life . . the end of christ's manifestation , his salvation , and whom he saves . . three questions answered concerning justification . . of the pure , constant , eternal , unchangeable nature of god's truth . written in the time of my confinement in alisbury , when love was working in me , and the life of god in me travelling and wrestling with the lord for the salvation of others , isaac penington . london , printed in the year , . some assertions concerning the principle and way of life . that it is a great and hard matter to come into a capacity of knowing and receiving the truth . it is no hard matter to take up any religion that a man finds in the world. to reade scriptures , to believe what a man finds related there , according to his understanding of them ; yea , to believe that he hath the light and help of the spirit in his reading and understanding , to apply himself also to practise and observe what he finds therein required , and to aime at holiness , &c. this is no hard matter , every man that is serious , and seeks religion of any kind but in the weight of a mans spirit , may go thus far . but all this administers not the true capacity , but he that meets with it , must go further then thus . . that which gives the true capacity is a principle of life from god , and there alone and no where else can man meet with it and receive it . this principle is the seed of the kingdom or heavenly leaven , with which the mind must be in some measure leavened , ere it can come into a true capacity of understanding and receiveing the truth . and in this leaven must it abide and grow up , if it abide and grow in the true knowledg , &c. . that from this principle and in this principle , not only the true light and knowledge of the lord jesus christ and all spiritual things is given and received , but also the true faith , the true love , the true sanctification , the true justification , the true peace , the true joy , &c. and what of these is not received and held here , is not of the truth , but a garment of mens own forming and not the covering of the spirit . . that the spirit himself sows this principle , and is received in this principle . and he that receives this principle and is born of this principle , receives and is born of the spirit ; and he that receives it not , nor is born of it , neither hath received nor is born of the spirit , but is but in the imagination and self-conceit about the things of god , but is not in the truth , as it is in jesus . . that in this principle the new covenant is made with the soul and entred into ; and he that receives this principle from the hand of god , receives life and enters into the covenant of life , and feels the pure fear , wherein god cleanseth the heart , and whereby he keeps the heart clean , and feels the laws of god daily writing there by the finger of gods spirit , and feels the power and sence of the spirit to teach and cause obedience ; so that the yoke , which is hard to the transgressing nature ( alienated from the life and power ) is easy ( and as i may say natural ) to him that is born of this nature . for being dead with christ , and risen with christ , and changed into the nature of christ , by the principle which is of him , through the power and spirit of christ which worketh therein , he can say as christ did , when the lord cals him to any thing , loe i come , t is my meat and drink , yea my great delight to do thy will o god , yea thy law is written in the midst of my bowels . . among those who are gathered into this principle , and abide in the sence , light and life of this principle , there is great love and unity . they are of one mind , of one heart , of one soul , of one spirit , of one life , gathered into one demonstration of truth , and there is no jarriug , no doubting , no dissenting , &c. all this is out , in the world , in the earthly wisdom , in the earthly professions and walkings , but it is excluded the principle of truth , and them that are gathered into and abide therin . . that all that are not gathered into , nor walk nor live in this principle , they are yet in the darkness and error from the pure power of god , and stand and walk in slippery places : and though their way may seem very right , and their estate and condition sure ( as to god-wards ) in their own eyes and judgment , yet is not really so ; but they are but in a dream concerning the truth , not in the truth it self , which ( how strange soever it may seem to them at present to be affirmed concerning them ) yet they shall certainly feel to be so , when the lord by his powerful voice and bright appearance of his spirit awaketh them . for many things go for truth now with men in the dark , which will vanish like smoak before the light of the day , and then that only which is truth indeed shall have the glory and praise of being accounted so ; and then what will become of those who have mistook about truth , and are not clothed with the pure wedding-garment ( the spotless life and righteousness of the son ) but only with that which they have accounted so . . that to those that see in the light of this principle , the mountain of the lords house is discovered , and those that abide and grow up therein , they know and experience it established above all mountains and exalted abve all hils ; all earthly knowledg , earthly religions , earthly ways , earthly worships , earthly spirits and minds , &c. in their greatest exaltations and glory , being far beneath it . and here the feast of fat things , and wines on the lees well refined , even the fruit of the vine which gladdeth and refresheth the very heart of god , is fed and partaked of by those that dwel here . for the father and the son and the spirit is here revealed , in the holy house and tabernacles which are built here : and here they make their feast , bringing forth the riches of their nature , spirit and pretious life , on which they feed with the soul , and give unto the soul favour and ability to feed with them ; in which food there is the life , strength , righteousness and joy of the kingdome given forth and received . . that in the heart which discovers iniquity , reproveth it , witnesseth against it , & striveth with the mind to turn it from it , and to wait for life and power from on high , that is this very principle . in that is the divine nature , even the nature of gods spirit , which was always against sin and ever will so be , and in all its appearances testifieth against it , and in love to the creature striveth with the creature to convince it of that in it which is contrary to god , and to draw it to that strength and divine vertue which stoppeth it , beateth it back , and worketh it out of the mind and nature of the creature , as it can get entrance , and is harkned and subjected to . for there is no salvation , but by the cross and yoke of our lord jesus christ : for in that is the power to crucifie the affections and lusts , which lead into sin and death , and will not cease to tempt and lead aside , till the soul be gathered into unity with that , and become subject to that which is contrary to them . so that this is the main thing in religion , even to know christ revealed in the soul as a standard against corruption , and to be gathered under his banner , which is the cross , or that living principle in the heart , which resisteth the corrupt principle : and he that is gathered hither , and continueth faithfully fighting here , shall receive mercy help and strength from on high , in every time of need . . that the true and certain way of knowledg of the things of god , is in the faith and obedience of this principle . it is not by reasoning & considering things in the mind ( after the māner of men ) that a man comes to know spiritual things : but they are spiritually revealed by god , after a spiritual manner , to the believer , to the obeyer ; and they are revealed to him in his believing , in his obeying , in his waiting , in his holy fearing , in his distrusting of himself , and feeling his own insufficiency , either to attain them or retain them , but as the lord god makes them manifest in him , and preserves him in the sense of them . he that doth my will , shall know of my doctrine , saith christ . this is the way . wouldst thou know what god requires of thee , what this or that is which appears in this or that sort as truth , whether it be so or no ? mind this principle in thee , mind the pure , the holy light , inward touches and leadings of this pure divine principle : that will make manifest to thee whatever is fit for thee in thy present state to know ; and thou art not to desire more , but as a child to rest contented with that proportion of knowledge and strength , which the wise and tender father judgeth fit for thee : and as thy state groweth capable of more , he will not fail to administer to thee . and what he giveth thee is good , seasonable and proper for thee , which thou mayest safely feed upon and enjoy in the sense and fear of him . but if thou press after what he would not as yet have thee know , thou entrest into the will and wisdom of the flesh , and there are the disputes , discontents , murmurings and ill tempers and dispositions of the mind , which there will increase and grow upon thee to thy hurt . . that the mind that is gathered here , will find great opposition , both within and without , insomuch as he shall not easily pass from out of the kingdom of darkness , into the kingdom of the dear son , but through many tryals , temptations , oppositions and dangers many wayes , for turning the back on the kingdom of darkness , by joyning to the principle of life , in hearkning and subjecting to the light thereof ; hereupon the powers of darkness both within and without bestir themselves to hinder the souls progress , and to bring it back again into subjection under the will and wisdom of the flesh . o how doth the will and wisdom strive within in a mans own bosome ! what risings of the impure are felt against the pure ! what secret and subtil reasonings to ensnare and entangle the mind ! and if they cannot draw the soul back from the lord and the living-path , then they strive to vex , afflict and torment it ! there is none knows what is felt inwardly by the followers of the lamb but those that travel with him in the living-path ; they are often sensible of what they meet with in their travels , and how hard it is to abide in the path of salvation , insomuch as they understand the truth of that saying , if the righteous scarcely be saved . it is scarcely indeed , so subtile , so strong , such a many holds , so many stratagems hath the subtile , twining , crooked , piercing leviathan , to ensnare , perplex , over-run and entangle them with . and then outwardly , the same flesh , the same earthly spirit and wisdom , the same crooked , hellish will is striving in men without also , to bear down and subject the pure principle in them who are born of god , to their devices and institutions , decrees , wayes , customs , &c. which are of the will and wisdom of the flesh . so that , as the apostle said , through much tribulation is the entrance of the soul into the heavenly kingdom ; and there is no avoiding the many tribulations , but by turning aside out of the way ( which though thereby the flesh get ease for a time , it will be to the greater loss and sorrow in the end : ) for the spirit of the world , the wisdom of the world , the nature , religion , worship and whole course of the world , is contrary to the way of the pure wisdom and spirit of god , and useth it as its enemy , where ever it findeth it : and they that will not bow to the spirit , wisdom and way of the world , must feel the force of its beastly claws . for is it not a beastly thing ( even far beneath the nature of a man ) to persecute that which is good , to hurt , reproach , and pursue the innocent life of the lamb ? and yet this is that which the spirit of the world ( which is not of god , but wise and seemingly just and righteous in another wisdom , nature and principle ) always hath done , still doth and will do to the end . . that there is a glorious crown prepared for all those , who are gathered to the lamb in this principle , and abide with him faithfull therein to the end , hearing his voice , believing the demonstration of his spirit , obeying him in all his motions and requirings , undergoing every yoke ( which is appointed by him to yoke down the fleshly nature and mind ) and taking up every crosse of every kind in meekness , patience and fear . and there is not only a crown laid up for them at last , but the power of the lord god is nigh unto them to work all in them , to bear them up through and over all , and to keep them to and in that principle , whereby and whereinto his tender mercy and powerful arm gathered them . for , as the power of the lord began the work : for there could never any heart be gathered from under the power of darkness to the light which leads out of it , but by the power of the lord : for the powers of darkness stand between , and would hold and keep their own , did not a greater power appear and put forth it self for the soul against them . i say , as the power of the lord began the work , so the same power alone is able to go on with it and perfect it ; and it will go with it and perfect it upon the same terms it began , and no other . how were the terms at first but on a giving up of the soul in the faith to the lord , in the sense of his love and goodness and mercy , touching and drawing and making willing ? and how is the standing , but in the same giving up still , in abiding with the lord , in hearkning to the voice of the lord , in waiting for the wisdom and counsel of the lord ? but if any man draw back from this , if he despise the spirit and his motions and counsels , and hearken to the voice of a contrary spirit , believing and following it , like the angels that fell , he departeth from his place and habitation , which he had in the drawings , life and power of god , and is not to god what he was before , nor is god to him what he was before : but the lord who loved him before , and delighted in him to do him good , hath now no pleasure in him , he being turned from that which the lord loveth , and in which he hath determined and appointed to chuse , love , and own the children of men : who as they are gathered thither , are his children ; as they are gathered from thence , into a contrary principle , are the children of the wicked one . and now what is of man in all this ? where is the man that can boast before the lord , who is thus saved ? he hath all from a principle , yea he is gathered into , preserved in , and abideth in this principle by the power , goodness and mercy of the lord. the power begins the work in him , the power accompanies him ; the power carries him through , or he falls and miscarries . there is no man can stand any longer here , than he submits to and is upheld by the power , nor act nor suffer , but as the power acts in him and helps him to suffer . let the man that boasteth , bring forth somewhat of his own , if he can , here . is the will at any time his own ? doth not he that is spiritual and in the true sence , always finde god to work in him to will , when ever he willeth rightly and holily ? and if he cannot will of himself , can he do any thing of himself ? can he beleive of himself , pray of himself , wait of himself , resist enemies and temptations of himself , nay , so much as give a look to the lord at any time of himself ? indeed in the grace of the lord , and principle of his life there is sufficiency , and therein he that is joyned to the lord and become one spirit with him , what can he not do here ? but that is , as he is new-made in christ , and as christ ariseth , lives and acts in him , which he that is in the true sence and feeling will still acknowledg , not only in his words to men , but in his heart and spirit before the lord. some further directions to christ , the principle and fountain of life , by way of question and answer . quest . . vvhat is christ ? answ . he is the word of eternal life , who is appointed of the father to give life , and who giveth life to them that receive him and obey his gospel . he is the son of god , the wisdom of god , the power of god , the righteousness of god , the saviour and salvation of god. the peace , the rest , the joy , the life of the soul . the king , the priest , the prophet , the shepherd of the sheep . the way , the truth , the door , the vine , the olive-tree , into which the living are gathered and engrafted . and he is also an hammer , an ax , a sword , a fire to the corrupt tree and fruit . quest . . how is christ known , received and obeyed ? ans . as a seed : as the seed of life , as the seed of the kingdom , as a leaven , as salt : as a little smal thing , rising up in the heart against all that is great & mighty . as a branch out of a dry ground , as a little child to lead , which all the wisdom of man and flesh cannot but despise : and therefore that must first be brought down in some measure in the heart , before christ can be owned in the heart and subiected to . quest . . how is this seed received ? answ . by feeling its vertues , manifestations and operations in the heart , and subjecting thereto . quest . . what are its vertues , manifestations and operations ? answ . they are all living , and have all living and powerful effects upon the heart , as they are let in . they are all against darkness , sin and death , tending to discover it , to turn the mind from it , to lead out of the captivity , power and reach of it : and they are also all for god , tending to prepare the heart for him , and to bring it into union and covenant with him . quest . . what is the first operation of the seed to the soul , wherein it is to be waited for and closed with , that the soul may come into the farther sence and feeling of it ? answ . it is according to the state of the soul , which being in darkness , sin and death , it appears as a light to discover the darkness , sin and death , and to lead out of it to the redeeming power . and then , to them that thus receive it , and wait upon it in the fear and humility which it gives and begets , it appears as life , quickning the soul , and as power enabling it in some measure to live to god , and to walk with him in the way to the kingdom . quest . . how comes this way to be hid from some that desire after the lord , and to know his truth as it is in jesus ? answ . from the subtilty of the enemy , who blinds the eye which alone can see , and stops the ear which alone can hear , and hardens the heart which alone can understand ; and hath devices , snares , and baits , and falle reasonings from scriptures , and from experiences , which any one that hearkens unto , and is entangled and ensnared in , is his captive , and cannot be at liberty to see or know , or embrace the truth as it is , but his heart is deceived about it , and filled with prejudices against it . ( therefore such should wait for the true circumcision , that they might hearken to the lord , come out of the enemies snares and subtil devices , and live , 〈…〉 isa . . , , . ) quest . . but may not these be saved notwithstanding ? ans . there is no salvation but in and by christ jesus ; and the salvation is not to them that received a bite notion of him under the law , or another empty notion under the profession of the gospel , but only to them that receive him as he was promised , as the holy seed : for in that alone is the redemption , freedom from sin , and power of life felt , and no where else . so that he that hath not this knowledge of him , hath not the true knowledg ; nor he that doth not so beleive in him , doth not rightly beleive ; nor he that doth not so hope in him , doth not rightly hope : and without the true knowledg , the right faith and hope , how can any man be saved ? therefore awake , awake , o weary , thirsty souls , come to the spring of life , come to the living waters . become little , that ye may learn of christ ; wait to have your eyes anointed , that ye may see him , and your hearts opened ; that ye may know and receive him . o wait for the manifestation of this seed in you , be abased before him , joyn to him , receive his checks , receive mourning and repentance from him ; wait for the light and faith that he gives , and the power that issues from his throne , and ye shall find him the bruiser of the serpent head ( which none else is able to do ) and the breaker of the bond of iniquity , which keeps down the just and lets the unjust at liberty , till he dissolve it . and this is sufficient to manifest against all the disputes of the mind , that this is he and no other , by his doing that which none else can do . this demonstration he gave to the jews in flesh , in his appearance in flesh : and this demonstration he giveth now to the jews in spirit , in his appearance in spirit , whereby he satisfieth their hearts , and putteth them out of doubt that it is he . and we must profess to the world ( as our hearts are drawn and guided by the lord , to give forth the testimony we have received of him ) that we look not , yea we cannot look for another . whom should we look for , besides the lamb , besides the word which was in the beginning , besides him who is one with the father , and hath the eternal life , wisdom , righteousness and power of the father , and manifesteth it in us ? we look for indeed more of the same , and the more universal and powerful breaking of it forth , but another thing , another christ , another life , spirit , power , &c. we cannot look for . and this we further testifie , that whoever receives this testimony in the truth and uprightness of his heart , waiting on that which discovers sin to him , and in simplicity joyning and giving up thereto , and walking with him in forsaking the evil and cleaving to the good , in the faith of him and of his power , he shall witness the same thing with us , and all the reasonings , imaginations and strong holds of his mind shall be battered down and come to nothing , before the vertue , power and life of him who thus is pleased to appear and manifest himself after the apostacy , even as he did before , even in an inward principle , an inward seed , an inward light , an inward life , an inward word , an inward power . and friends and people , mark ( in your minds , and learn to put a right difference betwen ) that which stumbles you , and that which draws and convinces you . what makes any of you own truth at any time ? is it not an inward , lively , powerful touch and demonstration of gods spirit ? what makes you afterwards doubt and question ? is it not another thing , of a different nature from this ? is it not a subtil reasoning , whereby the enemy twines into your spirits , and begets first a doubt concerning , then a prejudice , and at last a great strength against that , which before ye had some sence of and some unity with , in the teachings and quickenings of the spirit of the lord. and what spirit is it in you , that thus worketh in your minds ? and whither doth he lead you by these workings and subtile reasonings ? oh that ye might see ! oh that ye might feel the snare , and know with us the preserver there-from : for we have met with much of this ; and had we not been helped by the lord , and given up to him , we had been entangled to this very day , as ye are . and he that hath helped us , waits to be gracious to you : and o that you would not reject his help , that he might deliver you also , that ye also might bless his name , in feeling the benefit and joy of his preservation . and this is written in true bowels and tender yearning love , that ye might be a little stirred up to wait to know the fathers house , and might feed on the bread which abounds therein , and drink of the waters which makes fresh and living to god , and be clothed with the raiment which the master of the family gives to his spouse , children and servants . the end of christs manifestation , his salvation , and whom he saves . christ came ( and is manifested in the hearts of those that receive him ) to destroy the works of the devil , and to set the soul free from sin : and whom he maketh free , are free indeed . is the liberty which the son giveth , inferiour in this life , in its kind , to the captivity and bondage of the enemy , in its kind ? which of them is stronger ? the enemy to enthrall , or the lord jesus christ , to set free from his thraldom ? yes ; the lord jesus christ , the captain of our salvation , the mighty saviour ( who is more able to save , than the enemy to destroy ) delivereth his israel out of the hands of their enemies , and so mightily and powerfully delivereth them , that they are able ( in the power of his might ) to serve him , without fear of them any more , in holiness and righteousness before him all the dayes of their life . it is true , there is a state of darkness , sin and death , wherein satan reigns : and there is a state of weakness , wherein satan much prevails , if the watch be not strictly kept to him , who is the everlasting strength ; and there is a state of fighting and groaning under the body of sin and death , and crying out who shall deliver from it ! but there is also a state of growth in the life , and of victory ( through the life ) over that which captiv'd and caused to cry out . there is a treading down of satan under the feet by the god of peace , insomuch as not only the elders , but the very young-men in christ overcome and triumph over him , feeling the enterance ministred to them abundantly into the everlasting kingdom , into which no unclean thing can enter . oh! wonderful is the travel to the holy rest of the pure life ! happy are they that meet with the true leader , and faithfully follow him , till they have travelled through and overcome all that stands in their way ! for to them , and to them alone , is the promise of the possession of the everlasting inheritance ; and such find and feel the lord to be their god indeed , and themselves to be his children ( brought forth in his holy life and nature ) which to feel in truth and certain knowledge , is more than tongue can utter . christ saves only those that come unto him , and believe in him , and so are born of his spirit , & by the faith and through the strength and vertue of his spirit overcome the wicked one , his works , snares and temptations in their hearts . and these feel in themselves the root of his life , the holy seed of his kingdom springing up in them , into which they are ingrafted and become one with him , and so bringing forth the holy fruit , the living grapes , the new and righteous conversation , wherein the life of god shines and is glorified . now it is not knowing , or believing , or receiving any thing into the old understanding , that avails with god , or the reformation which is there wrought , but the new creature alone , created of god in christ jesus . this is born of god , this lives in him , this is cloathed with him . this puts off the old man with his deeds , and puts on the newness of the nature and spirit of the lord jesus christ ; so that this man is as really in christ , in the spirit , in the new adam , found in him , formed in him , covered with him , as the first man or nature is in the old adam . therefore this is the main thing in religion , to mind the seed of the kingdom , the leaven of the kingdom , its growth in the mind , foul and spirit , and the minds , souls and spirits gathering into and growth in it . and here is faith , the true faith , the true love , the true hope , the true meekness and patience ; the true justification and sanctification felt , and not elsewhere : but those that are out of this , out of christ the seed , out of christ the word , out of christ the vvisdom , righteousness and power of the father , are only in a dream concerning these things , but know not the truth and real nature of them , as they are felt in jesus , by those who are truly ingrafted into him , and livingly grow up in him . three questions answered concerning justification . quest . . vvhat is justifying or justification with god ? answ . it is god's owning the state , works or actions of a creature , either inwardly in his own mind , or manifestly to them . this is god's justifying of them , or his justification : his disowning or disallowing them , is his condemnation . as for instance , god's owning adam in the upright estate of his innocency , wherein god created him ; and any thing he did in that state and spirit , was his justifying of him and his works . gods disowning and disallowing his hearkning to his wife and the serpent , and his eating the forbidden fruit , upon their temptation , was his condemnation thereof . quest . . what is it god justifies , and what is it he condemns ? ans . that which god justifieth is the spirit of his son , the life of his son , the nature of his son brought forth in any creature ; the faith which is in him , and so the creature as it is in the obedience which is of him , and the works that are wrought in him : but the fallen estate of man from him , and all that is done by man out of him , god condemns . quest . . how is justification received , kept and grown up in ; and what is the preservation out of condemnation ? answ . justification is only received by receiving him , who is the righteousness and justification , and only kept by abiding in him , and only increased by growing up in him . for as every one that is found in him , is justified : so he that hath more of him , more of his life , more of his faith , more of his nature , more of his spirit , more of the pure obedience , more of the garment of righteousness and salvation drawn over him , he is more justified . for there are degrees of justification , as the soul that is really in the thing , and is acquainted with the true nature and dispensation of it from god , feels and knows . a father is more or less pleased with his children , yea with the same child sometimes , which is a true figure to man who is come under gods teachings . and the preservation out of condemnation , is , by being preserved out of that , which god condemns : for no man upon the earth , that hath the true sence and feeling , shall ever find the holy and just one justifying him in his sins , but as the heart is turned from them , and by the power of life kept out of them . he that will be kept in the justification , must be kept out of that which the justification is not to : for there he is not justified ; but in his being drawn again out of it , and turning again from it , his justification in the tender mercy of the lord is renewed . justification under the law , was according to that covenant : and justification under the gospel , is according to that covenant . he that walkes with god in that covenant , he that walks in and after the spirit of christ , he is therein justified : but he that walks after the flesh , and doth any thing that is fleshly ; that is not justified with god , nor he in that : but in the faith which cleanseth and giveth victory over it , in that is the justification from it , and the pure heavenly peace with the lord god of life witnessed . he that is in christ , and receiveth his knowledge from christ , and is kept in the pure fear and sense of him , he understandeth the truth of these things : but he that is erred in spirit , and holds but up a literal knowledge ( though from , or at least accompanied with some remembrance of former feeling and experiences ) he errs about these things also , and deceit and a lie hath prevailed over him , as he will find , when the lord confounds his wisdom and present apprehensions of things , by awakening his witness in him . for religion , the true religion is a mystery , life a mystery ; christ is a mystery , the spirit is a mystery , faith is a mystery , obedience ( the pure obedience ) is a mystery , worship ( the spiritual worship in and according to the new-covenant ) is a mystery , hid from the eyes of all the wise searchers of the world , but revealed to the least babe that is of god , and abideth in the quickned life of his son. but many that are out of the mystery of truth , are in the mystery of deceit , and have a knowledge or profession concerning christ , his spirit , faith , obedience , the spiritual worship , &c , in that mystery of deceit , which they for the present account the true , and by it venture to judg , disallow and condemn the truth it self : but that is not at all to the hurt of the truth , or such as are in it , but rather to their own hurt and great danger . for the sparks which man kindles , will never light him to god ; the garments of man's righteousness ( either according to his apprehensions or the letter of the law , or letter of the gospel ) will never cloath him ; but for all that , he must lie down in shame and sorrow , when the truth of god appears in his conscience , and all his shadows and deceits flee away . therefore hearken to the testimony from these , whom the lord hath awakened , whom the lord hath quickned , whom the lord hath led out of the darkness of the night , into the light and brightness of the day ; who have seen jesus , and testifie what they have seen , heard , felt and handled of that eternal word , which was from the beginning , which appeared in flesh , and afterwards in spirit before the apostacy , and hath again appeared ( since the apostacy ) as a shepherd , as a gatherer , as a seeker-out and preserver of his wandring sheep , who were driven from him in the cloudy and dark day . and if ye would hearken aright , breath to the lord , in that which desires and longs after him , that he would circumcise the heart , and open the right ear in you , that the ear may hear his witness in you , that so ye may indeed know the voice of the shepherd , and in true understanding , sense and constant experience bear witness to that true testimony , which christ spake in the dayes of his flesh ; my sheep hear my voice , and follow me ; but a stranger they will not follow : for they know not the voice of strangers . of the pure , constant , eternal , unchangeable nature of gods truth . truth is of god , and was with god and in god , before any thing else had a being . truth was before error or deceit : for it was from the truth that the error was , and it was about truth that the deceit was . there was somewhat which erred from truth , and brought in deceit into the world , and hath propagated deceit in the world : but truth remains the same that it was , keeping its pure , eternal , unchangeable nature ; and is not , nor ever was , nor ever can be defiled or tainted with any errour or deceit ; but testifieth against it , reproveth it , and condemneth for it , draweth out of it , and delivereth from its bands and captivity , all those that hearken and cleave to it , in the faith which is of its nature and begetting . the father , the fountain of truth , is the same . the son , his express image ( whom he fills with himself , and in whom he appears ) is the same . the spirit , the anointing ( who is truth , and no lie ) is still the same . the principle , or seed of truth , is still the same . the doctrine and way of truth is still the same : for it was the same truth which was preached in shadows under the law , the substance whereof appears and is witnessed in the gospel : and it was the same before the great apostacy , in the latter dayes from it , and all the times of the apostacy , and again after the apostacy . it hath the same nature still , the same properties , the same operations and effects , and gives forth the same testimony in the ears and hearts of all that are open to it . indeed the minds of men , and the states of men may often change in relation to truth : but truth it self changeth not , but is equal , fair and just to all men upon the earth , in all ages and generations , alwayes condemning that which is unjust , erroneous and deceitful , and alwayes justifying what is pure , holy and righteous . now is not this a pearl ? nay is not this the pearl indeed , the precious pearl of price ? who would not buy it ? who would not sell all for it ? who would not dig in the field where this treasure is hid , until he find it ? the field is near thee , o man , which thou are to purchase and dig in , and must feel torn up by the plough of god in some measure , before this pearl or treasure appear to thee : and thou must take up and bear the yoke and cross of christ , until all be bowed down and crucified in thee which is contrary to its nature before it be polished in thee , and thou come to behold and enjoy , its riches and ever lasting fulness . o happy are they , that are begotten and born of it ! happy are they that know its voice and give up to it , to be gathered and redeemed by it , out of all deceits , out of all errours , out of all that entangles and on snares the soul in sin , misery and utter perdition : for destruction and misery everlasting is out of it , and life and salvation is alone to be found in it . there is a witness in every heart , which knows these things and will testifie it to their faces , when the light of god is opened in them and its tongue speaks therein to them . o happy they , that wait for , know , hear and subject to the heavenly voice while he day of their visitation and reclaiming lasteth , wherein they may travel from sin to holiness , from death to life by its help and guidance . o why should man perish ● why should man hearken to that which hates him , and seeks his destruction , and stop his ear against that which loves him , and warns him of his danger in the dearness of love , and in tenderness of bowels towards him ? the end . many deep considerations have been upon my heart concerning the state of israel both past, present, and to come, some of which i find drawings to communicate : together with some questions and answers concerning unity. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) many deep considerations have been upon my heart concerning the state of israel both past, present, and to come, some of which i find drawings to communicate : together with some questions and answers concerning unity. penington, isaac, - . p. s.n., [london : ?] caption title. signed: isaac penington. reproduction of original in the british library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng israel (christian theology) society of friends -- doctrines. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - judith siefring sampled and proofread - judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion many deep considerations have been upon my heart concerning the state of israel , both past , present and to come , some of which i find drawings to communicate ; together with some questions and answers concerning unity . the considerations concerning israel , are these which follow . . the pretious living state , which my soul remembreth to have been , about the beginning of the late troubles of this nation , when israel was bent to seek after the lord , and applied their hearts to wait upon him in fastings and earnest supplications , wherein my heart hath often had the testimony , that they were accepted of him , and had many times the seal of his presence and power among them : yea my heart did truly unite with and enjoy the lord in what was then given forth , and i can never be drawn to deny the truth and worth of that dispensation , though i know it was swallowed up by a greater desolation , soon following after , and since by the breaking forth of a more lively dispensation . . the over-running of that state by the subtilty of the enemy , drawing the minds of the simple and upright-hearted from the living feeling , and from the inward power of religion , into disputations and contentions about forms of worship and church-government , which drew out the reasoning part , and withdrew the spirit of the mind from feeding on its proper nourishment ; and so life decayed in the spirit , while wisdom and knowledge and subtilty encreased in the understanding . and so the upright-hearted missing of life , where before they had found it , were scattered up and down to seek after it : and those , who abode where they were , grew dry , barren and contentious , losing the savour , sweetness , meekness , love , and indeed whatever was living and pretious , and remained fixing their minds on that , which the lord had departed from . oh the darkness and misery of this state ! o the pain of the hearts where life was stirring , for want of the living god! o the death and formality of those , that were dead and formal ! surely had not the lord pittied his people in this state , and appeared to them in his life and power ( which this great desolation made way for ) it had been determined concerning israel for ever : for death had over-grown the generality , and life was even gasping and expiring in the single-hearted . . the pretious breaking forth of the lord ( at this dismal time , in this hour of distress and desperate condition of israel ) in some hidden vessels , whom he had kept waiting upon him , and whom he had preserved fresh in the sense of him : to whom his appearance was very glorious , to whom he opened the state of the earth and the state of his people , giving them the everlasting gospel to preach to the inhabitants of the earth , and promising them that his spirit and power should go along with them , bidding them go forth to till and dress the earth , and to gather his people into his fold . and who can utter what the glory of this light was , in its shining and breaking forth in their hearts ! how welcome to their weary souls , how pleasant to the eye of their spirits , how demonstrative and satisfactory to their hearts ! o the joy of that day ( surely it can never be forgotten by them ) wherein they sensibly felt the pouring down of the spirit of life upon them , and their hearts gathered into the bosom of eternal rest , and their souls and bodies sanctified and set apart for the lord and his service . . the contemptible means god put into their hands , to work his work by ; which was not by preaching any new thing , but by directing to a principle , which god had already hid in the earth of every man's heart , and which was to be known by its divine nature and light , turning against and repoving sin , testifying that this was the way the lord of heaven and earth had chosen , to bring his sons and daughters into the power and glory of his life . o what heart can receive this , what eye can see any beauty in this , but that which the lord toucheth and openeth ! i testifie ( in the sence of life ) that the wisdom of man , yea the wisdom of israel corrupted , cannot but despise and turn from this . is not this the lowest of all dispensations ? is not this common to all mankind ? doth not this fall short ( in its self as i may say , and as it hath formerly been dispensed ) of the dispensation of the law of moses to the jews , much more of the dispensation by christ and his apostles ? who would have looked for the lord here ! and yet this hath the lord chosen to gather his people by , and to appear to the world in , and hath gathered the life , vertue and substance of all former dispensations into it , as those who are gathered thereby and have waited upon him therein , and felt the nature and power of his life ( and seen things past , present and to come ) are living witnesses of , against all the gain-sayings , thoughts and reasonings of flesh and blood . . the contemptibleness of the vessels , which the lord chose to fill with this treasure , and to let forth this dispensation of his life through . they were for the most part mean , as to the outward , young country lads , of no dèep understanding or ready expression , but very fit to be despised every where by the wisdom of man , and onely to be owned in the power of that life , wherein they came forth . how ridiculous was their manner of coming forth and appearance , to the eye of man ! about what poor , trivial circumstances , habits , gestures and things did they seem to lay great weight , and make great matters of moment ! how far did they seem from being acquainted with the mysteries and depths of religion ! but their chief preaching was repentance , and about a light within , and of turning to that , and proclaiming the great and terrible day of the lord to be at hand : wherein i confess my heart exceedingly despised them , and cannot wonder that any wise man , or sort of professors did , or do yet despise them . yea they themselves were very sensible of their own weakness , and unfitness for that great work and service wherewith the lord had honoured them , and of their inability to reason with man ; and so ( in the fear and in the watch of their spirits ) kept close to their tetsimony , and to the movings of his power , not mattering to answer or satisfy the reasoning part of man , but singly minding the reaching to and raising of that , to which their testimony was . . the blessing that god gave to this his dispensation of life in their hands . o how did the lord prosper them in gathering his scattered wandering sheep into his fold of rest ! how did their words drop down like dew , and refresh the hungry thirsty souls ! how did they reach to the life in those to whom they ministred , raising up that which lay dead in the grave , to give a living testimony to the living voice of god in them ! how did they batter the wisdom and reasonings of man , making the loftiness thereof stoop and bow to the weak and foolish babe of the begettings of life ! eye hath not seen , ear hath not heard , nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive , what the power of life hath wrought through them in the hearts and consciences of those , who have longed after and waited for the lord. o the breathings and meltings of soul , the sence of the living presence of god , the subjecting of the heart unto the lord , the awakening of and giving strength unto his witness , the falling down and weakning of the powers of darkness , the clear shining of the light of life in the heart , and the sweet running of the pure streams thereof into the enlivened souls , which hath often been known and sealed to from the powerful appearance of god in their ministry ! indeed when i have considered these and such like things in my heart , and narrowly marked them in my converse with them , i have been often forced to cry out concerning them , truly here is man very weak and contemptible , but god very glorious and powerful . and indeed , when at any time i looked on the man , i was hardly able to forbear disdaining them : but on the other hand , when the eye of my spirit beheld the power and glory of the lord in them , i could hardly forbear over-esteeming and exalting them . . the glory which the lord advanced these vessels to , since his beginning to make use of them . how hath he enriched them with gifts and abilities , and every way fitted them for the service and employment , he hath had for them ! how hath he enlarged their ministry , that they who had very little to say , either by way of declaration or disputation at first , now abound with strength , and abundantly surpass the knowledge and wisdom both of the world , and of other professors of religion ! the lord indeed hath adorned them , putting his beauty upon them , and causing them to grow up in his strength , and in his wisdom . this mine eye hath seen and often took notice of , blessing the name of the lord , and praying to him for their preservation . and surely whoever he be , that hath either known himself or heard the relation of the poverty of these young striplings , when they first came forth in the power of the lord , how empty in themselves they then were , how sensible they went up and down of their own weakness , how little they had to say to people , that came to observe them and enquire of them , how afraid they were to be drawn from their watch , at what a distance they stood from entring into reasoning about things , i say , he that did know and doth consider this , and shall also behold how the lord hath advanced them since , making them mighty and honourable with his gifts and abilities ( with the beauty whereof the very man flourisheth , to the sight of every eye that is in any measure truly open ) cannot but acknowledge the change to be wonderful . . i have had the sence and consideration of this also in my heart , that their danger is now greater , then when they were poorer , weaker , and not so enriched and gifted by the lord. the enemy is very subtil and watchful , and there is danger to israel all along , both in the poverty and in the riches ; but the greater danger is in the riches : because then man is apt to forget god , and to lose somewhat of the sence of his dependance ( which keeps the soul low and safe in the life ) and also to suffer somewhat of exaltation to creep upon him , which presently in a degree corrupts and betrays him . the heart that is in any measure lifted up in its self ; so far it is not upright to the lord. let every one feel this , waiting to be preserved , and praying for those who are most beautified , and advanced by gifts and abilities from the life , because in this respect ( and at this time ) their danger is greatest . when israel is poor , low , weak , trembling , seeing no loveliness nor worthiness in himself , but depending upon the meer mercy , and tender bowels of the lord in the free covenant of his love &c , then is israel safe . but when he hath a being given him in the life , and is richly adorned with the ornaments of life , and come to have the power it self in his hand to make use of ; then is he in more danger of becoming somewhat of himself , and of forgetting him that formed him ( being apt to make use of his gifts without such an immediate sence of the giver , as he had in his trembling and weak estate ) and so of departing out of that humble , tender , abased , contrite state and temper of spirit , wherein he was still preserved . . this also hath been manifest to me , and deeply impressed on my spirit all along , that the lord may , if he see good , suffer some great and eminent ones to fall in israel . man may forget himself , and the lord may let out temptation upon him , and suffer it to enter , that he may bring him to the sence and feeling of his weakness again . yea , those who have felt the power of the lord in and through an instrument , may give more to the instrument than belongs unto it , and so put the lord upon recovering the honour due to him , which is misplaced and misapplied to that , which is but his instrument . this is the lord's day ( the light thereof is his , the life his , the power his ) and the glory thereof will he not give to another . if therefore any man , in this day , shall take to himself what belongs to the lord , or any other shall give it him , the lord will not so lose it , but will find out a way to recover his own : and happy is the man , who lieth continually perfectly-abased before the lord , assuming nothing of the lord 's to himself , nor attributing any thing of the lords to another , that the lord alone may be exalted every where . and let all gifts serve the seed , and its rising over all gifts be waited for , that the life every where may have its due , being lifted up over all . . i have had a deep sence of this also , that if the lord should suffer such a thing to fall out among us , it may cause a great shaking and shattering in israel . surely i may say , it would come very unexpectedly and unsuspectedly to many ; and so such persons would be surprized with it , and not at all prepared for it . alas , who could suspect ( feeling persons so eminent in the power , and so exercised and skilful in the way and paths of righteousness , and so able to instruct others therein ) that they could possibly fall in any degree , from the truth and power of life ! and yet they are not free from temptation : and if they be confident of their own strength , and forget the tender hand of the lord , he may suffer a temptation to enter them , which presently begets a ground for evil weeds to spring up in , and for blindness , and hardness , and error from the pure power to creep in at . o dear friends , who know the pretiousness of life , and desire the preservation of the lord in your several conditions , let us fear the lord and his goodness to us , remembring what a low ebb we were at , when the lord visited us , and how freely he visited , and how freely he daily preserveth , that we may not be hardened or lifted up against the world , or against any sort of professors , but may magnifie the grace which hath made and keepeth up the difference between us and them , praying to the lord for them , and watching for the hour of his mercy to them , exercising all manner of sweetness and meekness and long-suffering towards them in the mean time , also pittying and bearing with all the tempted ones among our selves , as such who are sensible that we also may be tempted , and that understand the ground why we fall not by the temptation . what shall i say more ? there are three queries appearing in my view , in relation to this thing , which the hearts of some may desire satisfaction about , to which i find somewhat in way of answer springing up in me . querie . how may a man , whom the lord hath exalted by gifts and services to him , be preserved from falling ? answ . . there is that which waiteth to preserve & is still stretching forth its hand to keep to its self that which it hath gathered , which being hearkened and yeelded unto in its discoveries and warnings , will not fail to deliver the soul from the danger and snares of every condition . . there is the free mercy and love of the covenant , wherein the soul may find help and pity , although it should be somewhat tainted and entangled with the snares of the enemy . . there is a proper frame or state of spirit , to wit of humility and brokenness , which is fit for israel in every condition , but more especially when he is exalted in the dominion and power of life , and honoured with great gifts and services for the lord. in this israel is safe : and happy is he , who is not suffered to abide in any degree of exaltation of spirit , but is brought down again ( through the tender mercy and love of the lord ) into this , though by the buffetings of satan . querie . how may the little ones , if the lord should suffer one or more ( of such as have been very eminent in his service ) to decline and fall , how may they be preserved from falling with him or them ? answer . keeping to the measure of life in the particular , and not valuing others , by an apprehension concerning them , but onely knowing and honouring them as they are felt and discerned in the life , this will preserve every particular ( that is thus ordered ) from being tainted with any of their snares or deviations . o israel , o little babes , know no man after the flesh , but the lord alone in his living spirit . for man is but a vessel , wherein the life may appear or disappear at pleasure ; and the lord is not engaged to make use of man in his service , further then he seeth good . the lord may appear where he hath never appeared before , and he may not appear where he hath hitherto appeared very frequently and powerfully . o know the life in thine own heart , that is to be the judge in thee concerning the appearances of life in others . if that judge not , be still and silent in thy heart , waiting for its judgement : when that judgeth , let all thy thoughts and reasonings be bowed down under it . let man have no more than his due , while the lord pleaseth to make use of him ; and to such there will accrue no great shaking or dammage , when the lord layeth aside any of his own instruments . but if any thing but the life judge , it will still either be setting up or throwing down man , whereby there will come loss on either hand in the issue , to all such who thus act . querie . how may any such , as have fallen from an high and glorious state in the power and dominion of life , be again recovered ? answ . indeed this is a very difficult thing : not because the mercy and power of the lord is at a loss to or concerning man in this state , but because this condition sets a man's spirit at so great a distance from the use of that remedy , which the lord hath appointed for man's recovery . it is very hard to bring such an one to the sence of his loss ( whereby the depth of his fall might be prevented ) until he be gone very far : and the farther he goes in his declining from the life , the harder will his recovory be . again , it is hard for such an one to become so poor , and lye so low and so long at the foot of god's grace , as also to be contented to be so laid aside and not made use of , as the spirit of the lord may judge necessary for him , to bring him into a perfect abasement of spirit , and to work that perfectly out of him , whereby the enemy now entred to betray him : yea the judgement of the lord ( the righteous and severe judgement of the lord ) is hard to be born in this state ; and it is much , if such a vessel do not break here , in its new forming on the wheel . yet that which boweth before the lord , being willing to be smitten and abased by him , and to lye under his correction and judgement his season , even until he say it is enough , the lord will without doubt restore into his favour , if not also into the honour of his service again . object . but some tender heart may say ( which feeleth many weaknesses , much unbelief and the danger of falling daily ) if this be true , o what will become of me ! if such as these be liable to fall , and to fall so dangerously , how shall i stand ! i was wounded enough before with the sence of mine own condition , but this affrighteth me much more . answ . o tender heart , the enemy may make use of this to trouble and afflict thee , but it was not so intended by the lord , who is very full of unutterable bowels , and who hath a day of bowels for thy state : yea his day , which hath already dawned , is so dawning , as to reach thee . the lord hath not yet done gathering his scattered sheep , nor yet shown the utmost skill he hath , either to gather or to preserve : and the state of the weakest , under the preserving power of the lord is safe . creat are the diseases of israel , great is yet the loss of scattered souls , which as yet know not the call of the shepherd ; and if at any time they do feel a touch thereof , are easily reasoned again out of it , and driven back by the thoughts of their own hearts . o great , great also is the skill of the shepherd , and his hand very tender , which the lord is putting forth for the help of th●se , blessed be his name . and as the condition of these needs and requires that from the nature and soul of the lord , which the conditions of others do not require : so the nature of the lord hath mercy and love in it to answer their states , and will give it out in his day and season ; o let none be offended thereat . let no eye throughout all israel be evil , because the lord is exceeding good . if he please to kill the fatted calf , and set it before his prodigal son ; let none that have walked faithfully with him in any dispensation , be offended thereat : but rather let all ( in whom is life ) stand ready to shout at the issuings forth of love and mercy , in the varieties of the dispensations thereof , according to the need and capacity of every sort of vessels , prepared by the lord to receive it . therefore , o thou afflicted , tossed with tempest and not comforted , thou shalt know and feel this from the lord , that he knoweth how to bring home his consolations to thy soul , and to cast thee into the mold of his life , and bring thee forth in the power of his righteousness ; and that he needeth not to find any worthyness or righteousness in thee : for he can create and make room for it in thy heart , yea he can begin , carry on , and perfect his work in thee for his own names sake . and to thee , o broken soul , i cannot ( so much ) say , do this or believe this ; but rather , the lord will work in thee , yea the lord will quicken faith in thee , and raise up his own nature from the seed of his own life , which he himself hath sown in thy inward parts , and will not fail to preserve . besides , this broken state of thine ( wherein the vileness and weakness of self is daily felt , with the exceeding great need of the lords preserving power and mercy ) is a safe state , towards which , that which ( alone ) preserveth is continually issuing forth in the bowels of its tenderness . and though thou dost not see the love of the lord and his tender care over thee ( and so wantest the comfort of thine own condition ; ) yet it is never a whit the less in the heart and spirit of the lord towards thee : and in divers respects , i may say , it is better for thee at present to want the sight of it . i am satisfied in my heart concerning the nature and ways of the lord , and i know there is that mercy in him , which my soul crieth for ; and that it is not onely treasured up , but about to be issued forth towards those for whose sakes the cry is unto him for it . the lord will arise and have mercy upon sion , even upon the mourners and distressed ones in sion ; he will say to them who are of a fearful heart , and mourn bitterly because of their unbelief ( finding themselves as unable to believe now for righteousness , as ever the jews were to work for it ) be strong , stand still , wait on me your god , behold my righteousness is ready to be revealed , and i am bringing that faith with me which ye want , to give your souls the enterance into my promises , and into my divine nature promised . ye are my lambs , and my bosom is for you , and thither will i gather you ; yea , ye have already conceived and are with young , though ye know it not , and i will lead you on gently in a way that ye cannot nor never shall know , as ye would know it , but shall not want or miss of that knowledge thereof , that i see good for you . i will beget a deeper life in you , and bring it forth after a deeper way of dispensation , than ye have yet been acquainted with , or than your understandings can comprehend : but in the death which i am bringing upon you , and in the travelling pangs which ye shall feel in your hearts , shall it spring up in you and be brought forth . o dear lambs , mind the quickenings of life , and the savour and sence which the lord begets in the heart , and let the outward knowledge ( even of what ye have had experience ) go , but as the lord quickens it : and mind not the noises of thoughts and reasonings about things , which the soul's enemy will be striving to fill you with and batter you by ; but sink down from these , and wait to feel that which lyes beneath them , in the free nature , life , vertue , power and motions whereof alone is your soul's salvation : and if ye cannot receive the sence of this direction at present , wait on the lord either for it , or for what other manifestation or tender help he shall please to give forth unto you . some questions and answers concerning spiritual unity . quest . . vvhat is spiritual unity ? answ . the meeting of the same spiritual nature in divers , in one and the same spiritual center or streams of life . when the spirits or souls of creatures are begotten by one power into one life , and meet in heart there : so far as they thus meet , there is true unity among them . quest . . wherein doth this unity consist ? answ . in the life , in the nature , in the spirit wherein they are all begotten , and of which they are formed , and where their meeting is . it consists not in any outward or inward thing of an inferiour nature , but onely keeps within the limits and bounds of the same nature . the doing the same thing , the thinking the same thing , the speaking the same thing , this doth not unite here in this state , in this nature , but onely the doing or thinking or speaking of it in the same life . yea though the doings or thoughts or words be divers , yet if they proceed from the same principle and nature , there is a true unity felt therein , where the life alone is judge . quest . . how is this unity preserved ? answ . onely by abiding in the life , onely by keeping to the power and in the principle , from whence the unity sprang , and in which it stands . here is a knitting of natures , and a fellowship in the same spiritual center . here the divers and different motions of several members in the body ( thus coming from the life and spirit of the body ) are known to and owned by the same life , where it is fresh and sensible . it is not keeping up an outward knowledge ( or belief concerning things ) that unites , nor keeping up an outward conformity in actions , &c. for these may be held and done by another part in man , and in another nature ; but it is by keeping and acting in that , which did at first unite . in this there is neither matter nor room for division : and he that is within these limits , cannot but be found in the oneness . quest . . how is this unity interrupted ? answ . by the interposition of any thing of a different nature or spirit from the life . when any thing of the earthly or sensual part comes between the soul and the life , this interrupts the soul's unity with the life it self , and it also interrupts its unity with the life in others , and the unity of the life in others with it . any thing of the man's spirit , of the man's wisdom , of the man's will , not bowed down and brought into subjection , and so not coming forth in and under the authority and guidance of life , in this is somewhat of the nature of division : yea the very knowledge of truth and holding of it forth , by the man's wisdom and in his will , out of the movings and power of the life , brings a damp upon the life and interrupts the unity ; for the life in others cannot unite with this in spirit , though it may own the words to be true . quest . . how may this unity be recovered , if at any time decaying ? answ . in the lord alone is the recovery of israel , from any degree of loss in any kind , at any time , who alone can teach to retire into and to be found in that , wherein the unity is and stands , and into which division cannot enter . this is the way of restoring unity to israel , upon the sence of any want thereof , even every one through the lord's help retiring ( in his own particular ) and furthering the retirings of others to the principle of life , that every one there may feel the washing from what hath in any measure corrupted , and the new begetting into the power of life . from this the true and lasting unity will spring amain , to the gladding of all hearts that know the sweetness of it , and who cannot but naturally and most earnestly desire it . o mark therefore , the way is not by striving to beget into one and the same apprehension concerning things , nor by endeavouring to bring into one and the same practices ; but by alluring and driving into that , wherein the unity consists , and which brings it forth in the vessels , which are seasoned therewith and ordered thereby . and from this let all wait for the daily-new and living knowledge , and for the ordering of their conversations and practises in that light ( and drawings thereof ) and in that simplicity and integrity of heart , which the spirit of life at present holdeth forth and worketh in them ; and the life will be felt , and the name of the lord praised in all the tents of jacob , & through all the habitations of his israel : and there will be but one heart , & one soul , and one spirit , and one mind , and one way and power of life : and what is already wrought in every heart , the lord will be acknowledged in and his name praised , and the lord's season contentedly waited , for his filling up of what is wanting any where . so the living god ( the god of israel , the god of everlasting tender bowels and compassions to israel ) fill the vessels of his heritage with his life , and cause the peace and love of his holy nature and spirit to descend upon their dwellings , and to spring up powerfully in them towards his living truth , & towards one another . and let all strive to excel in tenderness , and in long-suffering , and to be kept out of hard and evil thoughts one of another , and from harsh interpretations concerning any thing relating to one another . oh this is unworthy to be sound in an israelite towards an egyptian , but exceeding shameful and inexcusable to be found in one brother towards another . how many weaknesses doth the lord pass by in us ! how ready is he to interpret every thing well concerning his disciples , that may bear a good interpretation ! the spirit , saith he , is willing : but the flesh is weak . when they had been all scattered from him upon his death , he did not afterwards upbraid them , but sweetly gathered them again . o dear friends , have we received the same life of sweetness ! let us bring forth the same sweet fruits , being ready to excuse , and to receive what may tend towards the excuse of another in any doubtful case ; and where there is any evil manifest , wait , o wait to overcome it with good . o let us not spend the strength of our spirits , in crying out of one another because of evil , but watch and wait where the mercy and the healing vertue will please to arise . o lord my god , when thou hast shewen the wants of israel in any kind sufficiently ( whether in the particular or in the general ) bring forth the supply thereof from thy fulness , so ordering it in thine eternal wisdom , that all may be ashamed and abased before thee , and thy name praised in and over all . isaac penington . the end . concerning persecution: which is, the afflicting or punishing that which is good, under the pretence of its being evil. which practice is contrary to the very nature of mankind (so far as it is drawn out of the corruption and depravation) which would be good and do good, and have good cherished, and evil suppressed, both in it self and others. ... yet this unhappy error will always be committed in nations and governments, until the proper right and just liberty of men's consciences be discerned, acknowledged and allowed. likewise, there are some answers given to that common objection, against affording conscience in its due liberty, because evil persons may pretend conscience to escape the just punishment of their evil deeds. with a brief account of that supposed stubbornes, which by man is objected against the people called quakers. ... by isaac penington the younger. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; 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(eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) concerning persecution: which is, the afflicting or punishing that which is good, under the pretence of its being evil. which practice is contrary to the very nature of mankind (so far as it is drawn out of the corruption and depravation) which would be good and do good, and have good cherished, and evil suppressed, both in it self and others. ... yet this unhappy error will always be committed in nations and governments, until the proper right and just liberty of men's consciences be discerned, acknowledged and allowed. likewise, there are some answers given to that common objection, against affording conscience in its due liberty, because evil persons may pretend conscience to escape the just punishment of their evil deeds. with a brief account of that supposed stubbornes, which by man is objected against the people called quakers. ... by isaac penington the younger. penington, isaac, - . , [ ] p. printed for robert wilson, in martins le grand, london : . reproduction of the original in the henry e. huntington library and art gallery. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng persecution -- early works to . - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - andrew kuster sampled and proofread - andrew kuster text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion concerning persecution : which is , the afflicting or punishing that which is good , under the pretence of its being evil . which practice is contrary to the very nature of mankind ( so far as it is drawn out of the corruption and depravation ) which would be good and do good , and have good cherished , and evil suppressed , both in it self and others . it is contrary also to all equal and righteous government , which is for the suppressing of evil , and cherishing of good , and not for the afflicting and crushing of that which is good , upon pretence of its being evil. yet this unhappy error will alwayes be committed in nations and governments , until the proper right and just liberty of men's consciences be discerned , acknowledged and allowed . likewise , there are some answers given to that common objection , against affording consience its due liberty , because evil persons may pretend conscience to escape the just punishment of their evil deeds . with a brief account of that supposed stubbornes , which by many is objected against the people called quakers . given forth in love to this nation , that at length the true bottom and foundation of a lasting peace and settlement may be espied , the spirits of the governors and people fixed thereon , and that dangerous rock of persecution ( whereon both the powers and people of this nation have so often split ) carefully avoided by all . by isaac penington the younger . london , printed for robert wilson , in martins le grand , . the preface . there hath been an enmity in the seed of the serpent against the seed of the woman , from the time of the promise even until now . god in mercy to mankind , hath given unto him since the fall , a seed or principle of life , in the light and strength whereof he is to war against and subdue the corrupt principle , and so be freed from the curse , and become heir of the blessing . against this principle all the powers of darkness fight ( even in every particular man and woman ) until they be overcome and subjected there : and against those in whom this pure principle reigns , all the powers of darkness in the world fight also , striving to make it miserable , and to bring it into death and captivity , that they might keep up the content and happiness of the corrupt state. all the nations of the earth have alwayes warred against the principle of god and the people of his choice . in the time of the law , the jews were the object of the envy and hatred of all the world : in the times of the gospel , the jews in spirit were hated and hunted , in that day and hour , not only by heathens , but also by such as were jews according to the letter ; and ever since the apostacy by christians also , according to the letter , who are as great enemies to the spirit & power as ever the jews were . now all the misery of the world , as it at first came by departing from the principle of life ; so it hath been ever since continued by mens joyning with the principle of death and corruption , to oppose and withstand the workings of the principle of life , both in themselves and others . vvhat man is there that hath not in him a witness against that which is evil ? but where is that man , who joyns with this witness in him against the evil , and not with the evil against this witness ? oh how doth god's witness reprove for sin , making the heart ( which is not sensual and brutish , but seriously considers its latter end ) sad because of it ! this is god's way of making the creature weary thereof , of weaning him from it , delivering him out of it , and so rescuing him from the wrath and everlasting burnings , which are the portion and inheritance of the wicked . but who is it that doth not strive to stop , silence and suppress this witness in himself , that he might enjoy his lusts , ease and content in the flesh , by keeping the sight and remembrance of the evil-day far from him ? and if he can do so , then he rejoyceth and maketh merry over the testimony of the witness in himself ; and when he hath so far prevailed , then he is in a good capacity to persecute others , who hear and obey the voice and testimony thereof in themselves . that which is to redeem the world out of misery , is the power of the gospel : and precious is the peace which comes thereby , after the work of the spiritual sword ( with the trouble thereof ) is finished . o how blessed would the principle and power of life make the world , might it but have its free course therein ! o how happy is that man , who bears the condemnation because of sin , follows the guidance of the living god , and waits for the day of his salvation ! o the sweet inward peace of spirit which is enjoyed after the storm , and after the judgment of that which is to be judged and destroyed ! and that which makes one person happy , the same must make nations happy . there is no true settlement nor abiding security , but in the setled and abiding principle . god is arisen to shake the earth , and it can settle no more upon the old foundations : yea , the same god hath shriveled up the old heavens , and they can no more be stretched forth again . behold , i make all things new , saith the lord in the days of the gospel , when he stretcheth forth the arm of his power : and who is he which shall venture to establish the old heavens and the old earth , which the lord god is removing and causing to passe away , and abolish the new heavens and the new earth , which the lord god hath created and formed and is establishing ? o that men knew the place of wisdom , that they might be wise and not fight against their creator , from whom their strength comes , and against whom their strength cannot prevail . o that men could see how industrious they are to keep up misery , and to keep out happiness . the eye of man ( in the fallen and corrupt estate ) cannot see aright : and mis-seeing , how can he chuse but mis-aim and mis-act ? and mis-aiming and mis-acting , how can he attain his end ? but the lord's counsel shall stand , and he will fulfill all his pleasure in every heart and throughout the earth . happy is he who is weaned from himself , and begotten in the light of life which is incorruptible , he shall stand and be blessed , when all flesh falls before the breath of the lord and becomes miserable : and the fall of all the fleshly will , wisdom and strength hastens apace ; happy is he who is delivered from them before the day of their ruine , which is nearer than man is aware of , or can believe . i. p. concerning persecution , &c. because men , generally , in persecuting know not what they do ( neither whom it is they persecute , nor how they sin against god therein , nor what danger they are exposing themselves to , and what misery they are drawing upon themselves thereby , both in this world and for ever ) even as christ said concerning the jews , who were persecuting him even to death , father forgive them , for they know not what they do : and afterward to saul ; saul , saul , why persecutest thou me ? therefore , in love to those , who are at unawares running into this great error , that they may find the good hand of god stopping them therein for their own good , are these things following concerning persecution written , wherein are manifested , first , what it is that is persecuted . . who it is that persecutes , or is the persecutor . . the nature of persecution . . the grounds or causes of persecution . . the ways and meanes of persecution . . the ends of persecuting , what men aim at therein , or rather what that spirit in men , which puts them upon persecuting of others , aims at thereby . . the colour or false pretence of the persecuting spirit . . the blessedness of the persecuted . . the misery of the persecutors . . the way and meanes whereby men may come to avoid this great evil of persecuting others . whereunto ( in the last place ) are added , some sad effects of persecution , to kindle in men a desire of avoiding so great an evil in its self , and so pernitious an enemy , ( to all that is good in general , and particularly to the peace and welfare of mankind ) as the persecuting spirit is . . what or who it is that is persecuted . the persecuted in all ages , is that which is born after god's spirit , gal. . . he that is new-created in christ jesus , who is formed in the image and by the spirit of god ( which is contrary to the image and spirit of the world ) and who followes christ in the leadings and teachings of his spirit ( which is out of and contrary to the course , fashions , ways & customs of the world ) this is the man that is persecuted in all ages . he that is of another spirit & principle than the world , & so cannot be as the world is ( being made otherwise by god ) nor walk as the world walks , nor worship as the world worships , being taught and required of god to do otherwise , this is the man who is afflicted , reproached , hated , hunted , persecuted . and so the apostle laies it down , not only as a thing to be in his age , but in after ages also , tim. . . yea and all that will live godly in christ jesus , shall suffer persecution . men may talk of christ , profess christ , worship christ according to the way that is set up in nations , and avoid persecution ; but come under the new principle , come into his life , live godly in him , become really subject unto the power and direction of his spirit : then there is no longer avoiding of persecution . that which comes into the life of christ , comes presently into a proportion of suffering from that which is contrary to his life . . what or who it is that persecuteth , or is the persecutor . the persecutor , in all ages , is that which is after the flesh . that spirit and principle in man which is from beneath , puts the men in whom it is upon persecuting the other principle , and the persons in whom it appears : or more plainly thus ; that which is of the world , that which loves the world and present state thereof ; that which lies in the darkness , is in unity with it , loveth it , and the corrupt wayes thereof ; that hates the light , and persecuteth the children of the light , who are witnesses against and reprovers of the darkness , john . . he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was after the spirit . so it was formerly , so it is also now , saith the apostle , gal. . . now there are several sorts and ranks of these , as some in the way of open prophaness and wickedness , some more civilised , and of a more gentle , noble and considerate spirit and temper , some more religions and devout in worships ( though not rightly principled and guided , but turned aside to some inventions or other of the earthly spirit , all which are pleasing to the earthly spirit . ) but all these , though they are different one from another , and agree not well among themselves , but are full of dislikes one toward another , yet they all agree in this , to wit , in a willingness to have that persecuted and subjected , which is of a contrary spirit and nature to them all . they are all against this more or less , though not all against it in the same degree of heat and vehemency . . the nature of persecution , or what it is to persecute . persecution is the opposition of the flesh against the spirit . the fretting or dashing of the earthly spirit , or spirit of man corrupted , against that which is born of god. the fighting of the unregenerate and unrenewed spirit in man , against the spirit of man renewed by the regenerating power of the spirit of god. the fighting , the opposing of this spirit against the other , is persecution . what ever any man does in his own will , according to his own wisdom , and after the inclination of his own heart , against another who desires to fear the lord , ( who waits on him for the counsel and guidance of his spirit , that he might obey and worship him aright ) is persecution . the principle of god teaches to fear the lord not according to the fear which is taught by the precepts of men , but according to the fear which god puts into the heart ; it teaches likewise to worship the lord , not according as man invents and thinks good to prescribe , but as the lord instructs and requires ; it teacheth likewise not to conform to the world , but to deny it , and come out of it : now the hating , opposing , and punishing of that which is thus taught , because of these teachings and its obedience thereto , this is persecution . the rising of the heart against such , is persecution in the heart . the reproaching , scoffing at or speaking evil of such , is persecution with the tongue . ( so ishmael's mocking of isaac , gen. . , . is called persecuting of him , gal. . . . ) the smiting , fining , imprisoning , of such , &c. in relation to any thing that they do from this principle , is persecution with the hand , or lifting up of the power either of a particular person , or of a magistrate against such . . the grounds of persecution , or what are the things that cause the one spirit and principle to persecute , and the other to be persecuted . the grounds and causes which expose the one to persecution , and kindle the heat of persecuting in the other , are chiefly these three ensuing . . the enmity of the birth of the flesh against the birth of the spirit . there is enmity in the serpent against the woman , and in the seed of the serpent against the seed of the woman . that which is born of the corrupt principle cannot endure that which is born of the pure principle . that which walks and worships in the will and according to the inventions of man's wisdom , and in shadows and fleshly forms pleasing to the flesh , cannot endure that which worships in spirit and truth . . the contrariety of that which is born of god and drawn out of the world , to that which is of the flesh ( or of corrupt man ) and left in the world , this is that which incenseth , and draweth forth the enmity in the corrupt principle . they are not of the world , even as i am not of the world , john . . therefore the world hateth them , v. . they are of another spirit , of another image , of another make , of another heart , of another desire , of another manner of carriage and demeanor , of another principle , & have other ends in all they do , then the world : and their whole course and conversation ( being in the light and in the love , & in true purity of mind ) reproves the world , which lies in the darkness and in the enmity , and walks in the wickedness . and how can the world bear this , in the midst of all their height glory and greatness , to be continually reproved by a poor and contemptible generation , as gods choice in the world have for the generality of them always been , even looked upon by the world as the off-scouring thereof , as not fit to be suffered to have a being in it , but rather as deserving to be scowred off from it ? the light , whereof the children of light are born , and which they hold forth ( or rather , which god holds forth by them ) condemns the world. the evenness , sweetness , and straitness of their conversation and practices condemns the unevenness , crookednes & perversenes of the spirit of the world. the integrity , seriousness and spirituality of their worship ( with the living power and presence of god , appearing among them ) condemns the deadness , formality and hypocrisie of the worships of the world , who draw nigh to god with their lips , when it is manifest , that their hearts are far from him , being ensnared , and captivated with vanities and self-interests , and love of the world and earthly things . indeed the whole course , and manifestation of the light and power of god in them , is a continual upbraiding of the principle and ways of darkness in the men of the world . and how can the men of the world forbear making an unrighteous war , even a war of persecution against that which invades their territories and makes war with them in righteousness ? can darkness chuse but fight to save its own dominions ? it must put out the light or it cannot save its own , but will be losing ground daily . . because of the children of light leaving and coming out of the world . they were once of the world , as well as others ; of the same nature , of the same spirit , of the same corrupt will , of the same corrupt wisdom , walking in their way , worshipping according to their worships , approving and observing their customs , fashions and vanities . but when the spirit of christ called them out of the world , and created in them that which could hear his voice and was willing to follow him , then they left all these and stood witnesses ( in god's spirit which called , and in that life which was begotten in them , and in the fear , love and power of that god who quickned them ) against all these . and this mads the world , in that they were once of them , but left them . had they staid in the world , and been still of the world , the world would have loved them , as it doth the rest of its own : but departing from the world , travelling towards another countrey , subjecting themselves to another spirit , and testifying against that spirit which formerly led them and still leads the world , and against those ways and practices wherein formerly they walked , and wherein the world still walks ; this fills the worldly spirit with rage against them . . the wayes and means of persecution . the wayes and means of persecution , are very many . who can want instruments to afflict the innocent and helpless , who can neither resist the evil which is offered them , nor harm that which offers it ? i shall onely here mention three general heads , to which many particulars may be referred . . one great way of persecution is , by making use of laws already made , either according to their proper tendency to that end and purpose , or by bending them aside , from their proper intent , to reach those whom they have a mind to afflict and persecute . thus the jewes , when they had a mind to have christ put to death , told pilate , we have a law , and by our law he ought to die , john . . . another way is , by making new laws fit for their purpose , whereby they may catch , ensnare and suppress that which is contrary to their spirit and principle , and which will not bow thereto . this is a certain way to take that which is born of god , and which cannot but be true to him , and so cannot bow to the corrupt will of man , nor to any law made in the corrupt will to strengthen the corruption , and against the holy pure will and mind of god. thus daniel and the three children were caught in the snare by laws , daniel for praying to his god against the royal statute and firm decree of the king , signed in writing , according to the desire and advice of all the presidents of the kingdom , the governors , princes , counsellors , and captains , dan. . , . and the three children for not worshipping the image nebuchadnezzar had set up , according to the decree of the king. ( observe this by the way and consider it well . what hath been set up all this night of the apostacy , but images of the true worship ? and what compelling hath there been thereto ? ) thus have articles been framed , and statures made here in england , ( as in king henry , . and in queen mary's days ) which have been great engines of persecution : and thus have there been some late laws made in new - england to the same effect , though better might have justly been expected from them . and this is not only a certain way , but a very plausible way likewise , whereby the persecutor hides himself from the imputation of persecution , and appears as a just executer of the law ; and so represents him , who is upright before god and innocent in the sight of god , as an offender and breaker of the law , and so justly punishable . but this will not alwayes cover the unjust spirits persecution of the just . he that shall persecute the lord of glory ( as he that persecuteth the least member of his , how contemptible soever he appears to his eye , doth no lesse , act. . . matth. . , . ) when christ shall call him to account ; therefore it will be a vain plea for him to say , there was a law for it , and he acted according to law. it is fit for all men and laws to bow before the lord , and not to disturb any in their obedience to the lord , or hurt the principle of his life in any , but cherish and nurse it up ( as much as in them lies ) in that tenderness which christ begetteth in it , and in that spiritual liberty which christ allows it . . a third way of persecution is by the hand of violence , without either law , or so much as pretence to law. thus the persecuting spirit , when it hath power in its hand , and is out of fear , smiteth ( with the open fist of wickedness ) that which is an enemy to , and stands a witness against its wickedness . . the ends of persecution , or what the persecuting spirit aims at in its persecuting , and would fain attain thereby . . the main end of persecution , is , to bring the children of light , ( who have left the evil , darkness and corruption of the world ) back to the world again . that which they persecute them for , is , for leaving the world both in its principle and practices , and for professing obedience and subjection to another spirit : that which they drive at in persecuting them is , to force them back from under subjection to that spirit which hath led them out of the world , into subjection to the spirit of the world again . there is a great fight between the spirit of god and the spirit of the world , in the two seeds ; the spirit of god striving to bring the spirit of the world under , and the spirit of the world striving to bring the spirit of god under . this is well known in the heart , where the new birth is witnessed . o what striving there is by the powers of darkness , with all manner of secret temptations and forcible oppositions ( so far as the lord permits ) to bring the heart ( which the lord hath begun to redeem , and in some measure set free from them ) under their power again ! and the same that stirs up the darkness in the heart against the seed and birth of light there , the same stirs up the darkness in other men against it also . the lord knows what bitter fights we have had with the enemy in our own hearts , before we could leave our principles , paths and practices of darkness , how hard it hath been to us to deny the world and come out of it : and yet when the lord hath conquered and subjected the darkness in our own hearts in any measure , then we meet with a new fight abroad in the world , the same principle and power in them fighting against us , as did at first in our selves . and as this was the aim and work of the power of darkness in our selves ( and still is , so far as any of it is left in any of us ) to bring us back under the darkness again , even from the light and leadings of the spirit , and from single obedience thereto : so it is the aim and endeavour of the same spirit in others . and if they could but bring us back from our god into the world again , they would be at peace with us as well as with other men , and love and cherish us as they do the rest of the world. . a second end of persecution in the spirit that persecuteth , is , to keep the children of light from gaining further ground . the kingdom of god and his truth is of a growing spreading nature . it is like leaven , like salt , like the light of the morning ; it 's nature is to leaven , to season , to overspread and gather mankind from the evil , from the darkness , from the corruption , from the death and destruction . now the spirit of the world , and that spirit which ruleth the world , is loth to lose ground ; and therefore hunts and seeks to destroy the vessels wherein the light appeareth , and from whom it shineth sorth , and to make them appear as odious as they may , that they may keep all their own territories and dominions in a perfect detestation of them , and distance from them . thus though the people of god have still been an innocent people , and simple as to the subtilty and deceit of the serpent , and weak and foolish in compare with the wise and strong ones in the worldly nature and spirit : yet they are still represented as most dangerous , most subtile and pernicious , as shrewd deceivers , witches , jesuites , &c. yea , any thing that is hateful and hated . . a third end of persecution , is , to afflict , grieve , vex , disturb and torment those , whose principles and practices are displeasing to them . there is enmity in the nature and spirit of the world , against the holy pure spirit and seed of god : and if it cannot overcome and get its will one way in bringing back , yet it will strive to have its will another way , even in vexing and afflicting . it is the pleasure of hatred or enmity to do any thing which may hurt that , against which its hatred is . thus the evil spirit rejoyceth in iniquity , in grieving and afflicting that which is good . as the spirit of love delights in love , and in doing good even to those which persecute : so the spirit of enmity delights in hatred and doing evil , even in vexing and oppressing those which seek their good , because they are not , nor cannot be one with them in their dark principles and evil practices . . the colour , or pretence which men put upon their persecutions of that which is good . persecution is so hateful ( and hath such a blackness of spirit in it ) that it cannot endure to appear in its own colour . where is the man that would appear to persecure that which is good in men , or men because of their goodness ? therefore all persecutors , though they still persecute that which is good , and those which are good ; yet they still represent and charge them as evil , that they might thereby hide the badness and unjustness of their persecutions from their own eyes , and from the eyes of others . thus the true prophets of the lord were alwayes misrepresented by their persecutors , even as false prophets , as troublers of israel , as mad men , as men not fit to be tolerated in the kingdom or commonwealth of israel : see jer. . , . and those which condemned their fore-fathers , for persecuting the true prophets in former dayes , yet could also persecute the true prophets in their own dayes . christ himself , when he asked the jews , for which of his good works they stoned him ? they said , not for a good work , or as a good man ; but for his doing evil , for his blasphemy , in that he being a man , would make himself god , joh. , , . and the pharisees did not represent him as a good man , as an holy teacher from god ( as indeed he was , though his doctrine and conversation differed very much from theirs ) but as a deceiver , a seducer of the people , a mean man , the son of joseph the carpenter , one whom none of the wise scribes owned , but only such silly people as knew not the law ( joh. . . ) yea , as a very bad man , as one that was against the worship and ordinances of moses , against god's temple and priests in his doctrine and principles , and a prophaner of god's holy sabbath in his practices : yea , more than this , they represented him as a man that had a devil ; and when the mighty power of god appeared in him , they said it was the power of the devil , and that he was able to do such great things beyond them , through the help of beelzebub the prince of devils . could the jews think they did otherwise than well in desiring such a man as this to be put to death ? might they not well prefer barrabas before a man thus represented by their chief priests and teachers , who knew and could expound the law , and were best able to judge ( as they might well think ) both what was the truth , and who were deceivers ? . the blessednesse of the persecuted . the disciple of christ , who is persecuted for conscience sake , who suffers from men and their laws for the uprightness of his heart towards , and for his obedience unto christ , that man is precious in the eye of christ and hath his blessing with him : yea , the more men disesteem and hate him upon this account , the greater is his blessedness . blessed are ye when men shall revile you , and persecute you , and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake . rejoyce and be exceeding glad , matth. . , . he is blessed in several respects . . that man is in that spirit and in that way which god hath chosen , and so he is in a happy state and condition at present . he is in the path of life , in the way of peace , under the leadings of god's spirit . the world loveth and cherisheth that which is its own , that which is of it and walketh with it ; but is at enmity and war with that which is of god. therefore the world's dislike , enmity and persecution is an evidence of god's choice , and of a removal from it towards god. it is an happy thing in the eye of man , to be at unity with the world , to have the love and friendship thereof , to have all men speak well of one , to be found doing that which is pleasing in the eye of the world , and to be enjoying the pleasures and profits thereof : but in the eye of god it is happy to be in unity with that which is contrary to the world , and procureth its ill-will . love not the world , neither the things that are in the world. if any man love the world , the love of the father ( which begetteth out of the world ) is not in him . but he that loseth the love of the world ( for the principle of god and his subjection thereto ) is in that which the father loveth , and feeleth the love of the father opened in him , and revealed to him : and this is truly an happy state . . the recompence , which god will give to them in the world to come , who cleave to him and his truth , for all the persecutions which they endure in this world for his truth 's sake , is exceeding great . great is your reward in heaven , mat. . . our light affliction , which is but for a moment ( but at most , for the time of this world ) worketh for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory , cor. . . . the reward is great in this world also . there is an hundred fold recompence to be reaped in this life . the peace of god in the conscience , the presence of god , the life of god , the vertue of god , the glory of the spirit of god ( which accompanieth , resteth with , and abideth on the heart which is faithful , and waiteth upon god for patience , meekness , innocency and strength to carry through the sufferings ) may well be valued at above an hundred fold income and recompence , for all the hardships and tribusations which are undergone for his name-sake . if ye be reproached for the name of christ , happy are ye ; for the spirit of glory and of god resteth upon you , pet. . . . the grievous misery of the persecutors . it is a miserable thing to be deceived about that which is good , to put good for evil , light for darkness , sweet for bitter , and so ( under a mistake at least ) become a persecutor of the good . all good is of god , and he that is against good is against god ; and it is a dreadful thing for the creature to set himself in battel against his creator , and to engage the power and wrath of the omnipotent one against him , though while the eye is shut , it doth not appear to men , either that they are against god , or that their danger is so great thereby , as indeed it is . the children of god are as the apple of his eye : who can touch them , and he not be deeply sensible ? yea , and they are most dear to god in that , for which the world most persecutes them . and therefore their danger and misery must needs be great , which may further appear in these three respects . . in respect of the weight of wrath , which their persecutions of others here will bring upon themselves in the world to come . then every hard word , with every thing they have done against any lamb of christ's , shall come upon them . there is a time of judgment for all that is sowed in this world : and then every one shall reap what he hath sowed . and if he that hath not visited the sick and imprisoned for christ's sake , shall hear that sentence , go ye our sed , &c. what will his portion be , who hath imprisoned them and caused their sickness ? now is our time of trouble ; but the lord hath prepared a day of rest for that spirit which is troubled in this world by the spirit of this world , and then shall the troublesom spirit , which troubled the peaceable spirit ( and would give it no rest in its following and obeying the lord ) be troubled by the spirit of the lord , thess . . , . and what shall the misery of that spirit be , whom the spirit of the lord troubleth and filleth with anguish , and torments in his fire and with his brimstone ! oh that men would awaken and consider in time , and not fell away their everlasting inheritance for a mess of vanity and transitory lusts and pleasures . . the hand of god doth often overtake them in this world , and the lord doth many times curse their very blessings to them , insomuch as they cannot enjoy this world with that sweetness and content they might , were it not for the rage and bitterness of their spirits against god's people , and their provoking of god against them thereby . how many of his own people did pharoah lose , and how did he break the strength and glory of his kingdom , by persecuting god's israel of old ? how did amalek cause his name to be rooted out from under heaven ? how did the nations and mighty powers of the earth fall upon this account , one after another ? and in this nation how many powers have already fallen thereby ! jerusalem is a burthensome stone ( it was so in the type , it is much more so in the substance ) which lyes in the way of every earthly spirit and power , which they know not how to build with , neither can they rear up their own building because of it , and therefore every power strives to remove it out of their way : but they know not the weight of it , nor who it is that hath squared it , nor how firm it is fixed upon the rock . the earthly spirit is never to enjoy any true or lasting peace and settlement ( which is the gift of god ) until it leave off persecuting god's israel ( which are the people whom god calleth out of the world ) and leave them free for god to enjoy , command and dispose of : and whatever holds israel in bondage , either within or without , must either subject to the lord , or be broken by that arm of power , which the lord putteth forth to redeem israel with . . by all their persecutions and afflictions they shall but increase and cause to grow , that which they strive to suppress . this is misery indeed , for a man to hazard his soul eternally , and his peace and prosperity in this world , to crush and suppress a people , and yet not be able to effect that neither , but even thereby occasion their growth and encrease : and yet so it is in the day that god putteth forth his hand to redeem israel . the wayes that man takes to bring them back into captivity shall be the means of perfecting their redemption . come , said pharoah , this people multiply too fast , they grow more and mightier than we ; let us deal wisely with them , and keep them down by hard labour , lest they grow over-numerous and joyn with our enemies against us , when they see their advantage : but they grew and spread the more , upon his wise plotting and contriving to diminish them . and what did he get by striving to keep them from going forth of his land and idolatrous worships , to worship the lord aright , but plagues and judgements upon himself and his people from the lord ? can the powers of the earth withstand god any more now , than they could formerly ? shall not he redeem and bring forth his people from the land of babylon ? his spiritual israel from the spiritual egypt ? shall he not break the antichristian yoak from their consciences , that they may be free in spirit to serve the lord ? can any hinder god from breathing his spirit upon people , and from begetting them in the image and likeness of his spirit unto himself ? and shall not these be the lord's ? shall not the same spirit teach them to worship the lord ? shall god call them to worship him openly , and shall they not obey him , but worship him according to man's inventions and commandments , or not at all publickly ? oh ye sons of men be wise , do not contend with the lord ; be not bewitched by the cup of fornications , from the pure spiritual worship of the living god , into man's inventions , which the lord's soul loaths ; nor do not strive to hold any back from the lord , whom the lord draws after him : but consider his power , wait to know his work in the world , and do not intrench upon his dominions , but be thankful for and content with your own ; and do not provoke him against you , who can more easily take yours from you , than ye can his from him. and consider this watch-word , in that which can open and shew the truth of it ; the lord hath put forth his arm to recover his possessions from out of the hands of antichrist : and who shall be able to force it back again , to make it return into his bosom without effecting what he stretched it forth for ? therefore , o magistrates of this nation , do not make use of the sword to suppress the plants of god , but to cut down that which manifestly is not of god. look abroad throughout this nation , behold how much evil there is to grieve and provoke the lord , and to divert good from the nation ; and to bring wrath upon it and the government thereof ; strike at that in righteous and true judgment , and with mercy to creatures souls and bodies : but that which certainly is of god , meddle not with ; and that which may be of god , for ought ye know , be circumspect in medling with , lest ye engage god against you . it were better to let many tares grow , than pluck up one ear of corn. christ hath absolutely expressed it to be his mind , that he would not have that done , which may so much as hazard the plucking up of an ear of corn , ( mat. . . ) but oh how are the laws and governments of this world to be lamented over ( and oh what need there is of their reformation ) whose common work it is to pluck up the ears of corn , and leave the tares standing ! the chief cause of this misery ( from whence it principally ariseth ) is men's medling with those things which god hath reserved for himself , and assaying to do that carnally , which god once did spiritually , and will do spiritually again in his due time , when he hath sufficiently shewn how untoward and improper mans hand is to effect it . the christians in the apostles dayes , were of one heart and one mind , which proceeded from the power and work of god upon them , and then they soon came into one way and worship : but men will have unity and uniformity in a way of religion and worship , before there is one heart and one mind . now this is contrary to the spirit of god and to the very nature of religion , and the cause of much cruelty upon mens consciences : and this hath been and will be the constant effect of it , even the crushing ( as much as lies in man ) of that which is tender , and of and for god , and the encreasing of that which is formal , dead and earthly . now if ever christ appointed or intended such a church-government , which naturally produceth this effect , let all that fear god , and are of sober spirits , judge . . the way and means to avoid persecution . where is the man ( in whom there is any good , who hath any love to goodness and righteousness , who hateth cruelty and oppression over mens outward liberties and estates , and much more over the consciences of people ) that could not with his heart desire to have this grand enemy removed , both from particular persons , and also from governors and governments , that peace and settlement might be known , righteousness reaped , all cruelty and hardness in one man towards another removed , and there be no more complaining in our streets , either because of oppressions from men , or fear of wrath from god upon those governments which oppress ? and who would not earnestly pray to god for the discovery of that way and those means , and be very industrious in the use of them , whereby this persecuting spirit and temper might be wasted and dryed up in him ? now the way and means whereby the persecuting spirit may be subdued , are divers , as , . by a true awe and fear of god in the heart . the fear of god teacheth to depart from iniquity , and to seek the crucifying and bringing under of the worldly spirit in a man's self , and to wait daily to have god's will revealed , and likewise to be made obedient thereunto . now he that is in this temper of spirit , will hardly be drawn to persecute another , but rather rejoyce to see a tenderness of spirit in him , and true subjection of heart to what he believes to be the mind and will of god ; and dares not so much as judge him for differing , either in apprehensions or practices about worship , much lesse persecute him therefore . but that man who is of a prophane spirit , or comes easily by his religion ( even by the wisdom , industry and parts of man , and not by the gift of god ) and is exercised in that fear of god which is taught by the precepts of men , but knoweth not that fear which god puts in the heart ( from whence the true religion and worship springs ) either of these may be drawn to persecute , yea indeed , it will be hard for either of them to abstain there-from . . by meckness of spirit . the gospel makes meek , tender , gentle , peaceable , fills with love and sweetness of spirit , teacheth to love , to forgive , to pray for and bless enemies : and how shall this man persecute ? can a lamb persecute ? can a dove persecute ? indeed a wolf in sheeps clothing may raven and devour , but a true sheep cannot . as the power of the gospel is known , the devouring and persecuting nature is destroyed : and that being taken away , persecution soon comes to an end . . by a sober and patient consideration of their cause whom they persecute , and what it is in themselves which moves them to persecute them . the strength of persecution lies in the darknes , in the dark thoughts , mis-judgings and misapprehensions about him , whom one persecutes or is inclined to persecute , in prejudices , and false judgements of persons and things received : which by a sober hearing and considering of things in god's fear and in meekness , might be removed ; and then the eager persecuting heat of spirit would soon abate and fall , the fewel ( which kindled it ) being taken away . the jews stopped their ears and ran upon stephen , acts. . . this is the way of persecuting spirits ; they take in prejudices against persons , their principles and practices , stop their ears against what may be said to manifest either the equity of the thing in its self , or their mistake about it , and then run headlong in their fury of persecuting and devouring . but he that is sober and considerate and weighs the cause before he engages against it , and observes what it is in him which moves so hotly against another , and which is so ready to believe ill aforehand : he shall soon see that , which is always hid from the eye of the persecutor , and find water to cast on this devouring fire of spirit in him . . by a righteous frame of spirit , which is willing to do by another , as he would be done to in the like case . persecution ariseth from unrighteousness and selfishness ; righteousness and true equity would soon end it . if no man would make another man's conscience bow by force who would not have his own so bowed , persecution would soon cease . but this is the great evil and unrighteousness of man ; whoever is uppermost , thinks he hath , right to bow all the rest under him , and looks upon them as guilty and offenders , if their consciences do not yield and bow under him . and he that newly complained of the load laid on his conscience by others , yet if he can get ease and power into his hand , is presently laying a load upon others . here is a wrong frame of spirit within , and how can it chuse but bring forth injury and persecution outwardly . . by taking heed and watching against the corrupt and carnal , principle , with the reasonings , self-ends and interests thereof , and hearkening to the principle of god , which teacheth and speaketh right reason . man , as he came from god and was by especial favour formed in his image : so it pleased god to place in him a principle of his own life to govern him . this image was defaced by the fall , and this principle forfeited , yet for christ's sake ( who is the saviour of all men , but especially of them that believe ) the lord stirreth up and visiteth all mankind more or less , by the pure eternal principle of his own light and life in christ . in hearkening to this , man's reason is rectified , purified and preserved pure ; and his steps here are safe : but consulting and contriving out of this , he meets with that which corrupts him ( captivating and mis-byassing his reason ) and then all his intents , designes and contrivances become corrupt , and tend not onely towards the prejudice of others at present , but also to his own loss and detriment in the issue . he therefore that would be safe in the enjoyment of any blessing which he hath received from god , and faithful in doing him service in his generation , must know what of himself is ready to betray him , that he may watch against it and turn from it , and what in himself is given him of god to enlighten , guide , instruct and preserve him , that he may hearken thereto and be made happy thereby . . and lastly , to set it yet more home upon all that are ingenuous , and would be worthy and noble , and do that which is worthy and noble , abhorting cruelty , afflicting and oppressing of others , let them consider the fruits and effects of persecution , which are very many , and of the worst kind , even sutable to the nature of the root . at present i shall onely mention these four . . in a great degree it hindreth the growth of the present good in every age and generation , so far as the earthly power or sword of the magistrate can well hinder . persecution of that which is good by the earthly powers , in its proper tendency is an hinderance to the growth thereof in their age and day , though the lord can overbear the malignity of it and further the growth of his seed thereby . . it wholly tends towards hindring the shooting up of any further seeds of good , which god hath to saw in the earth : for all the seeds of good which god hath to sow in the earth , at first they are looked upon as evil , until by god's blessing upon them , and opening of mens eyes through the much suffering of those vessels , in whom god causeth the most excellent seeds of his virtue and goodness first to appear , their innocency and beauty begins at length to shine in mens eyes and be discerned . . it occasioneth the growth of evil . for good withstandeth , opposeth and chaseth away evil , even as light doth darkness : and therefore the preventing of the springing up of the good , is a cherishing and strengthening of the evil . besides , the same spirit , government or power , which persecuteth and keepeth down the good under a pretence of its being evil , cannot chuse but also cherish and nurse up the evil , under a pretence of its being good . for the same eye , tongue and heart , that seeth , calleth and acknowledgeth that which is indeed good to be evil , cannot chuse but also mistake the evil and think it good . . it draweth down the wrath of god upon people , powers and governments , where such persecution is ; where the evil is cherished under a pretence of its being good , and the good endeavoured to be suppressed under a pretence of its being evil . if men from their hearts do acknowledge the being of god , and his disposal of things : then surely what is truly good in persons or nations is of him ; and what is of him , his eye is upon . he beholdeth the plants which he hath planted in the earth , and the plants which the envious one hath planted ; and he cannot bless that place , that people , those powers , that government , where his plants are crushed , under a pretence of their not being his , and where the evil hature and plants are cherished as if they were the good . therefore he that would not be an enemy to god , an enemy to goodness , an enemy to himself , an enemy to mankind , and a friend and promoter of evil , let him wait on the lord , for the fear of his name and power to be written on his heart , and for a meek righteous frame of spirit , &c. that he may consider his steps and the reasonings of his mind , and not mistake evil for good , and good for evil , and so persecute men for being and doing that , which ( might it have its course and progress ) would make the world happy . object . but will not this undermine magistracy , and interrupt its punishing of evil-doers , if they should be thus tender and considerate ? for what man cannot pretend conscience for what he does ? and if the magistrate should hearken to every pretence of conscience , the laws would soon be silent , government at a stand , and every one do what they list , bringing in all manner of licentiousness and disobedience to authority , under a pretence of conscience . answ . . conscience is of god ; and tenderness and conscienciousness towards him is necessary to the receiving of his pure fear , and towards the springing up and growth of all good in the heart . the seed of good is tender : and if it be not received into tender and well-prepared earth ( but into thorny , stony or high-way ground ) it cannot grow . and it cannot reasonably be supposed , to be the intent of god in appointing governments , that ever their laws or authority should hurt that tenderness of conscience , wherein his seeds of good are sown . . it is true , the corrupt nature of man , which is selfish and seeketh covers for evil , may also seek this cover to hide iniquity under , and may pretend conscience when there is no matter of conscience at all , but self-will and self-ends at bottom . . notwithstanding this , god would not have the true conscienciousness and tenderness in any of his crushed ; nor can it be done by any person , authority or law , without provokeing god on the one hand , or without injury to such who are so dealt with : viz. who are punished by man for the exercise of that conscientiousness which is of god , and which he requireth and is pleasing to him. . it were far better in it self , safer for governours , more agreeable to equity and righteous government , and more pleasing to god and good men , rather to suffer some ( by their craft and false covers ) to escape due punishment , then to punish those who by the goodness , innocency and righteousness which god hath planted in them ) are exempted from punishment . yea , it were better and much safer to spare many evil men , then to punish one good man : for mercy and sparing ( even of offenders ) is natural to that which is good , but severity and punishments are unnatural , and but for necessities sake . and as for that man , who by his subtilty and deceit thus escapes man's hand , he wil be no great gainer : for god , who is above all , will be sure to meet with him . yea that magistrate ( who spares some evil and evil-doers meerly upon this account , lest he should hurt that which is good ) the lord will help and bless ; whereas that power and government which wilfully errs herein , the lord may soon cut down : and that which errs thus through mistake ( it being a grievous mistake to cut down the good in stead of the evil ) the lord , who loveth the good and hateth the evil , may easily be provoked against . . as government came from god : so the righteous execution of it depends upon god. every man needs god's help daily , else he may easily erre in his course : and governments and governours need god's help much more , in the many intricacies and perplexities which they often meet with . and god is nigh to them in their difficult cases , who wait upon him for counsel and direction . if the case be knotty , yet if god give wisdom , hath the magistrate cause to complain ? and will not the lord assist that magistrate , who in his fear waits on him , and is not willing to spare the evil , and afraid to hurt the good ? if there were not so much consulting with man's wisdom and policy , ( nor such laying of designs and intents at first , as spring from man and not from god ) but a naked upright waiting on him for instruction , who can onely guide the spirit of man aright , governments would not prove so difficult , nor the success therein so dangerous . a brief account of that stiffness , resolvedness and supposed stubborness , which by many is objected against the people called quakers . object . that the people called quakers , are an innocent and industrious people , that they aim at good and might be serviceable and profitable to the nation in many respects ; this many believe concerning them , and in their hearts wish that the powers would let them alone and make a trial of them : the which they might be the more enclined to do , were it not for a certain stiffness which appears in them , they being so gined to their principles and practices that they will not bend in the least , nor so much as meet the magistrate one jot in any favour he would shew unto them . this is such a temper as no magistrate or governour can beat , and therefore there is a necessity either of banishing or suppressing them out way or other . answ . i freely confess , that ( looking upon them with man's eye ) it may easily appear so to man , who cannot see either whence that is , or what that is , which is wrought in their hearts by god. and how can i blame others for judging thus of them , when i my self should be liable so to judge , if i did so look upon them ? but yet , if i had patience to hear them , and to consider the thing in the fear of god , ( watching against that wisdom , from which the knowledge of the things of god and the state of his people is hid ) i see also , that there is some ground may appear unto man , to let him see that this is not such a stiffness and stubborness of spirit as he judgeth , but ariseth from , and necessarily accompanieth a true tenderness and conscientiousness towards god ; which to make the more manifest to such as are willing fairly to consider the thing and know the truth thereof , i shall thus demonstrate . . stubbornness , or such a kind of stiffness and resolvedness , ariseth from the strength and corruption of the natural will and earthly wisdom . the wisdom which is from above is gentle , easie to be entreated : and the will which is created by god is mild and flexible , and easie to be led ( by the least child ) in the line of goodness . and i can truly say this , that i never in my whole course and conversation ( who have long been a spectator and un-interested person both as relating to the civil state and the various professions of religion , till the power of truth and presence of god appearing in this people drew my heart after them ) yea i cannot but say in the singleness of my heart , i never met with a more mild , gentle , flexible-spirited people . and he that can reach the ground of the thing , cannot but see it to be thus : for he that is daily exercised in denying his will and wisdom , he on whose back the lord lays the cross and crucifies him every day , his self-will and self-wisdom ( with all the conceitedness and stiffness which ariseth therefrom ) must needs be much broken in him . . in the tenderness and pliableness to good , which god begets , there is and cannot but be an unbendedness to evil . consider this , o ye that are wise : in the birth which god begets in the heart , in the immortal seed of life , which god hath sown and causeth to spring up in his heritage , there is a bowing to god at every appearance of good , accompanied with a tenderness , gentleness and good will to man : but it cannot bow to that which is evil in any man upon the face of the earth . read then this riddle , with a true understanding : the tender one cannot yeild , the flexible one cannot bow , but naturally standeth upright and strait towards god , even in every thing it hath learned of him , and which he requireth of it . thus in the apostles days , the christians ( though meek , though sweet , though pliable to the spirit of god and to all good , yet ) could not bow to so much as an appearance of evil any where , but shun and avoid it every where . and if it were not for this kind of stiffness and unbendedness , the children of god could never be preserved in their departure out of the worlds spirit , wayes , worships and practices : but would soon be ensnared and drawn back again , by the enticements and subtilties of the worldly nature either in themselves or others . . a stiffness then i grant , an unbendedness i grant ; but not of the earthly , not of the self-wil , nor according to the earthly : but such as ariseth from truth in the heart , and from tenderness of spirit towards god ; such as is begot in his fear , preserved by his power , and is necessary towards their preservation who are born of him , and called by him out of the world. and if those who are apt and liable to mis-judge of them , did but see the sincere desire of their hearts not to offend man , but to be subject to the utmost according to the will of god , and knew what breathings there are in their hearts to god ( in relation to the magistrate , and when they appear before him ) that they may be preserved in the pure fear , and in righteousness and inoffensiveness , and how they cannot but refuse to break any of god's commands , because he is their supream lord , and they dare not disobey him to please man , or avoid their own sufferings from man : i say , if men did see this , surely they would not call it stubbornness and self-willedness , but a pure subjection and denial of the self-will in god's fear , joyned with an holy and humble boldness in his power . . let it be equally considered , and it will soon be acknowledged , that the least thing which god requires ( the command being from so great a king , upon whom the soul hath so great dependance , from whom it hath so great hopes , and to whom universal obedience is so due in it self and so profitable to the creature ) is exceeding weighty : and it is impossible for the fear of him and due tenderness towards his commands , to be preserved , without a strict and close giving up the will to him , and standing in his strength , strong and unbended against all temptations , provocations , allurements and affrightments to the contrary . ( and how easily may men call this stubborness and stiffness . ) but this they receive from god , as well as the law of obedience and power to obey ; and this ( which men call stubborness ) flows in upon them from him , when they are in the sweetest and meekest frame of spirit , most ready to deny themselves and to yield up their own wills , to whatsoever is good and righteous , and so of god. . the same thing , which is offended at this unbendedness and resolvedness , which is wrought and preserved in them by the fear of god ( calling it by way of reproach , stiffness and stubborness ) i say , the very same thing will commend that resolution and stiffness , which is taken up in man's wisdom , and held in man's will. is it not good to weigh and consider things reasonably , and then to chuse and hold fast to those principles which appear most reasonable ? what man , but will say it is ? and is it not good to obey and keep to that light which is higher than reason , which comprehends reason , rectifying and preserving it , making it profitable and serviceable to god which made it , to the vessel in which it is , and to the rest of the creation ? but wisdom is justified of her children . he that knows not the principle of the eternal light , who is not born of it ( much less by unfeigned obedience and subjection formed into it ) he cannot justifie it in his paths : but he justifies the earthly wisdom and reason of man , by it setting up appearances of good , instead of good , and would make all acknowledge and bow to them as good : whereas that which is indeed acquainted with the good , living in the principle thereof , cannot bow to the false appearance , but only to the truth it self . when man's spirit and wisdom is wearied out of all its paths , and he broken with the misery which will certainly overtake him therein , at last the path of god will be welcome to him , and that principle which ( through the operation of god ) is able to rectifie him and make him happy . there hath long been a peace and prosperity throughout the world in unrighteousness : but the season is at length come for the breaking thereof , and now there is not to be such a setled false peace in unrighteousness any longer ; but tribulation , anguish and destruction is coming upon the selfish and unjust spirit : and he that refuseth the path of righteousness , must not know peace , but be overtaken with the over-flowing scourge , and swept into and shut up in the pit , which hath long been digging for the wicked ( psal . . . ) and mark this thing following , ye that would not find your selves deceived of your souls hereafter , nor of your outward peace and prosperity here : for it deeply concerns both . the spirit of the lord once raised up a spiritual building , which the spirit of the dragon overturned ( as to its outward state : though the gates of hell could not prevail against the being and inward state of the true church ) and instead thereof set up an earthly image , agreeable to the earthly spirit in nations , but burthensom to that which is innocent , pure and spiritual . the lord god suffered this to stand all it s allotted time , and to have power to keep down the visibility of his truth and people : but the lord hath appointed a season to raise up his own building again , and to throw down this image . now this i say to all men , in the fear and dread of the almighty , stand still and mark , if all the power of man be able to keep down god's spiritual building which he is raising up , or to keep up any part of the earthly image which he is throwing down . the spirit of man ( in various wayes ) hath shewed , what it judgeth best to have down and to have up , and hath put forth its strength to accomplish its will and counsel : stand still a while and ye shall see , that the spirit of the lord will also shew what he would have down , and what he would have up , and he will also put forth his strength to accomplish his will and counsel . it is the glory and honour of the lord to carry on his work in the midst of all the oppositions of man , and against the full current of his strength and will. this will make it to appear to be of god , and cause the glory of his name to shine . o that men could fear the lord and bow before him , that he might be honoured in them , and see good to honour them in the carrying on of his work , and so might not be forced ( through their hearkening to the dark spirit , and because of their ignorance of , and disobedience to the light of his spirit ) to get himself a name by overturning their strength and councils , and causing his glory to shine over them . we have been a poor oppressed people , from the day that the power of the lord brake forth upon us , and his light sprang in us , even until now . and now we are brought lower than ever , and are in greater danger ( to the eye of man ) than ever . yet our confidence is still in our god : and this we are certain of , that our principle ( and practices there-from ) shall stand , and man shall not be able to prevail against it : for god will preserve his people in his life and power , and the heads of all that wait upon him in his fear , shall be lift up above all the swellings of the waters ; yea , a song of praise is already prepared in the hearts of god's chosen , against the day of his deliverance . we look not out , but give up our backs to the smiter , as if their stroaks were never to have an end : and yet we wait on our god and hope in him , as if deliverance were springing up every moment . and , oh that god would smite the spirit of enmity and darkness in men and powers , and then there would be love , peace , pursuing after god and righteousness , and no more persecuting and smiting of god's people for the uprightness of their hearts , and for their obedience and faithfulness to him. but be it known throughout all the earth , we are the lord's , and we must worship and serve him. he hath redeemed us ( even all of us in some measure , who have known unity with his living truth ) in soul , in body and spirit : and they must all be his in the first place , and cannot bow to man ( in the least ) against his will , or contrary to the law of his pure life , and leadings of his spirit in the heart . here is our standing , in the strength of our god , whatever become of us . and here we stand in love and good-will to mankind , yea to these present powers , however they judge of us ; and have been praying for them , and mourning over them , while they have been smiting of us . and when they have drawn the hand of the lord upon themselves ; if the lord shall please to open their eyes to see what we have been towards them ( and how fain we would have had them set footing there , where they might have stood firm and have been preserved ) they will bewail as much their dealings with us , as what will befall themselves . the lord will manifest all things in his time , and give his truth a passage in the earth , and his people a quiet habitation therein , how black soever the face of things now appear , as relating to them . o how happy will the day be when the lord shall have wrought down the selfish spirit in man , and shall have raised up his own noble and equal principle . then shall righteousness spring up and spread abroad throughout the nations : and the work of righteousness shall be peace , and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever . the end . three queries propounded to the king and parliament, in the fear of the most high, and in the tender love of my soul to them penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) three queries propounded to the king and parliament, in the fear of the most high, and in the tender love of my soul to them penington, isaac, - . p. s.n., [london : ] place of publication from wing. caption title. signed at end: isaac penington. caption title on p. reads: the queries. reproduction of the original in the british library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng great britain -- history -- charles ii, - -- early works to . - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - taryn hakala sampled and proofread - taryn hakala text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion three queries propounded to the king and parliament , in the fear of the most high , and in the tender love of my soul to them . the preface . the main thing conducible towards mans safety and happiness , is to see things aright : and he that seeth aright , must see with a right eye . there is an eye which cannot see the things of god ; there is an heart also which is insensible of his warnings , and so runs into the pit . there is also an eye , to which god giveth the true sight , which foreseeth the evil and seeketh an hiding place ; and an heart which feareth its maker , and waiteth on him for counsel , distrusting its own understanding , which it feeleth shallow and apt to err . o that man might feel his want of god , and receive a principle of divine life from him , and be fixed and act therein . if i should pray thus particularly for every one of you , would ye be offended with me ? i have written somewhat here in the kindlings of my love , and in the light of life which shineth in my heart ; o that the lord would please to open a vein of the same life in you , and then would ye reade them in the same , and ( in a secret sence of spirit ) feel what they are and from whence they come . now if it should please the lord that any of you should feel any touches of heart , and secret assent of soul to the truth of them , o take heed of the fleshly wisdom and reasonings of the earthly mind , which will soon rise up afterwards , to wear out the sence of any good that god begets in the heart . the queries . quer. . vvhether ye do certainly and infallibly know , what was the ground or cause why the hand of the lord was so heavy upon this nation , and why he overturned the government thereof , and brought the honourable into contempt ? three things are supposed or taken for granted in this query . first , that it was the hand of the lord that did this . it is he that hath the anguish of soul and the diseases of body at his command , and afflicteth both mens bodies and souls at his pleasure . and he also afflicteth nations , with the powers and authorities thereof , when it seemeth good unto him . now this is the thing which is mainly to be eyed by particular persons , and also by nations in whatever befalleth them , to wit , the hand of the lord in things . . that there was a ground and cause for which the lord did it . the lord is tender-hearted , and loveth his creature , delighting to do it good , and doth not afflict it out of any pleasure he hath therein , but upon a kind of necessity , that he may bring down evil and bring up good in a nation . he doth not afflict willingly , nor grieve the children of men . it is no pleasure to the lord to torment his creatures : but to destroy the seeds of corruption and unrighteousness , and to bring up the good seed which he hath sown in the hearts of men , this is a pleasure to him . now as your afflictions were very great , and the alterations in this nation strange ; so there was a consideration in the lord's eye to countervail them , or they had never been . . that it is requisite and necessary for you , certainly and infallibly to understand the ground why the lord did this : what his meaning was : what he was offended at and intended to bring down ; what he was pleased with and intended to give scope to spring up and grow under this confusion , which could not under the former settlement . the reason , why this is necessary for you , is this : because unless ye certainly understand this thing , ye may err and mistake in your present course , setting up the same things now , which the heart of the lord was then against , and endeavouring to suppress the same things , which it is the will of the lord should grow up , and so may provoke the same hand against you again ; which truly i think is not good for you to do , nor indeed can i think so of you , as that ye willingly would do it . therefore pray to the lord for the upright ballance to weigh a thing of such a nature in , and of so deep concernment to you : for if ye do run a contrary course to the mind of the lord , and he be provoked against you , and stretch forth his mighty arm and overthrow you , it will then be too late for you to consider of these things . quer. . whether when the lord did overturn the former powers , with the glory and beauty of this nation , and raise up other powers out of the dust ( as i may say ) even from among them of low degree : if they had then answered what the lord expected and required of them in their day , whether they should have been continued by him in their dominion or no , and whether ye should have had this day of tryal , which it hath pleased the lord now to afford you ? the day of power and government which the lord had given you formerly , was manifestly by his providence come to an end ; and whether ever ye should have a day more , was very doubtful . all your councils and strength availed nothing , save only to make the work the more difficult , if not at length almost impossible . and now the lord was busie in trying several sorts of these , what they would do for his name : and truly this i may say concerning them all ( though i would not reproach any ) that they did not answer the expectation of the lord. but this i leave to you to consider , whether if they had answered the expectation of the lord , and done what his soul delighted in , and what in part they promised , whether the lord would have continued them in authority or no ? i propose this , that ye may take notice upon what ticklish terms ye then stood , as to your future hopes , and how easily your authority and greatness might have been for ever buried , and that which was lately uppermost have continued so , if it had seemed good unto the lord ; that so ye may be sensible of what the lord hath done in relation to you , and pray that ye may walk worthy of it , making use of it in the fear of his name , who hath all still in his hand , and can still do what he pleaseth in this nation . indeed he can yet bring down whom he will , and he can yet set up whom he will ; and what he will do , ye know not : but in the fear of his dreadful name , and in holding your standing out of self-confidence ( because of your present strength ) is your safety . quer. . if ye do not certainly know what was the cause of the lord 's former displeasure against you , and of his so sore afflicting you , but shall err in judgement and set up the same things again , which the lord then put forth his hand to throw down , and also endeavour to crush and suppress that , which the lord then made way for the growth of , whether this will not endanger your overthrow from the hand of the lord ? sure i am the lord is able to overturn you as easily , as he overturned them that were in power before you . what is man to the lord ? what is his flesh to the lord's spirit ? what great tree could stand before the late vehement-wind ( where the lord gave it power ) which was terrible and dreadful , tearing up by the very roots , which might be a figure and warning where the lord gives eyes to reade . after ye have done all ye can , even made laws as strong as ye can , and put them in the strictest course of execution ye can , one night from the lord may end the controversie , and shew whether we please the lord in obeying him , or ye in making laws against us for our fidelity and obedience to him . and as the lord is able to overturn you : so if ye mistake your work , misinterpreting the passages of his providence , and erring in heart concerning the ground of his former displeasure ; and so ( through the error of judgment ) set your selves in opposition against him , replanting the plants which he will not have grow , and plucking up the plants of his planting ; do ye not in this case provoke the lord , even to put forth the strength which is in him against you ? we are poor worms : alas , if ye had only us to deal with , we should be nothing in your hands ! but if his strength stand behind us , we shall prove a very burdensome stone , and ye will hardly be able to remove us out of the place wherein god hath set us , and where he pleaseth to have us disposed of . and happy were it for you , if instead of persecuting us , ye your selves were drawn to wait for the same begettings of god ( which we have felt ) out of the earthly nature into his life and nature , and did learn of him to govern in that ; then might ye be established indeed , and be freed from the danger of those shakings and overturnings , which god is hastening upon the earth . now because ye may be apt to think , that i write these things for my own sake , and the sakes of my friends and companions in the truth of god , that we might escape the sufferings and severity which we are like to undergo from you , and not so mainly and chiefly for your sakes , lest ye should bring the wrath of god and misery upon your souls and bodies : to prevent this mistake in you , i shall add what followeth . indeed this is not the intent of my heart : for i have long expected , and do still expect this cup of outward affliction and persecution from you , and my heart is quieted and satisfied therein , knowing that the lord will bring glory to his name and good to us out of it : but i am sure it is not good for you to afflict us for that which the lord requireth of us and wherein he accepteth us ; and ye will find it the bitterest work that ever ye went about , and in the end will wish that the lord had rather never given you this day of prosperity , than that he should suffer you thus to make use of it . now that ye may the more clearly see the temper of my spirit , and how my heart stands in this thing , i shall a little open unto you my faith and hope about it , in these ensuing particulars . first , i am assured in my heart and soul , that this despised people ( called quakers ) is of the lord 's begetting in his own life and nature . indeed had i not seen the power of god in them , and received from the lord an unquestionable testimony concerning them , i had never looked towards them : for they were otherwise very despiseable in my eyes . and this i cannot but testifie concerning them , that i have found the life of god in me owning them , and that which god hath begotten in my heart refreshed by the power of life in them : and none but the lord knows the beauty and excellency of glory , which he hath hid under this mean appearance . secondly , the lord hath hitherto preserved them against great oppositions , and is still able to preserve them . every power hitherto hath made nothing of over-running them : yet they have hitherto stood , by the care and tender mercy of the lord ; and the several powers which have persecuted them , have fallen one after another . thirdly , i have had experience my self of the lord's goodness and preservation of me , in my suffering with them for the testimony of his truth , who made my bonds pleasant to me , and my noisom prison ( enough to have destroyed my weakly and tenderly-educated nature ) a place of pleasure and delight , where i was comforted by my god night and day , and filled with prayers for his people , as also with love to and prayers for those , who had been the means of outwardly-afflicting me and others , upon the lord's account . fourthly , i have no doubt in my heart that the lord will deliver us . the strength of man , the resolution of man is nothing in my eye , in compare with the lord. whom the lord loveth , he can save at his pleasure . hath he begun to break our bonds and deliver us , and shall we now distrust him ? are we in a worse condition than israel was , when the sea was before them , the mountains on each side , and the egyptians behind pursuing them ? he indeed that looketh with man's eye , can see no ground of hope , nor hardly a possibility of deliverance : but to the eye of faith it is now nearer , than when god began at first to deliver . fifthly , it is the delight of the lord and his glory to deliver his people , when to the eye of sence it seemeth impossible . then doth the lord delight to stretch forth his arm , when none else can help : and then doth it please him to deal with the enemies of his truth and people , when they are lifted up above the fear of him , and are ready to say in their hearts concerning them , they are now in our hands , who can deliver them ? well , were it not in love to you , and in pitty ( in relation to what will certainly befall you , if ye go on in this course ) i could say in the joy of my heart , and in the sence of the good will of my god to us , who suffereth these things to come to pass , go on , try it out with the spirit of the lord , come forth with your laws and prisons and spoiling of our goods and banishment and death ( if the lord please ) and see if ye can carry it . for we come not forth against you in our own wills , or in any enmity against your persons or government , or in any stubborness or refractoriness of spirit ; but with the lamb-like nature which the lord our god hath begotten in us , which is taught and enabled by him , both to do his will and to suffer for his name sake . and if we cannot thus overcome you ( even in patience of spirit and in love to you ) and if the lord our god please not to appear for us , we are content to be overcome by you . so the will of the lord be done , saith my soul . post-script . o dear friends ▪ hearken to the voice of the love of my heart , which speaketh thus unto you ; o wait , wait to feel somewhat of god , somewhat of his divine life and power stirring in your hearts , and travel ( in the light and leadings of it ) out of the earthly nature , leaving the corruption of man behind , which makes you miserable , and putting on the holiness and righteousness of the nature of god day by day , which will make you happy , as ye are made partakers of it : yea , do but come into the power of that religion which ye your selves profess , not so much minding the outward form ( for it is not of so much value ) and ye shall find that we shall agree in religion sooner than ye are aware . now if in your hearts ye shall ask me , what it is to come into the power of that religion , which ye your selves profess ? i shall appeal unto your own souls , whether it be not this , even to forsake the devil and all his works , taking up the cross unto your own hearts lust and corrupt wayes , and under this cross ( wherein is the power of god felt by them that mind it , and wait upon god there with humble and subject spirits ) to fight the battels of christ against temptations to sin and the souls enemies , even until death . here ( if ye will enter at this narrow gate , and walk on in this streight way unto the kingdom , into which flesh and blood cannot enter , but the selfish nature and earthly spirit must be left behind ) in this religion , which indeed is the substance of all true religion , we can readily meet and unite with you . but if ye will set up a form to stop the power and progress of the spirit of the lord , in the hearts of his people in this nation , and not mind the power of religion your selves , but with vehemency go about to force others to your form ( which ye cannot truly say is of god , but of man ) in this we cannot close with you , but must be content in the will of god to suffer under you , the time which the lord hath allotted , which ye cannot go beyond . and blessed for ever be the name of the lord our god , who hath made us acquainted with that life and power , which was before all forms and wayes of religion and worship of man's inventing , and which will be after them ; and who hath hitherto born up our spirits in the testimony , which he hath given us to bear to his living truth and worship , and who we doubt not but will yet bear us up , even to a conquest in his spirit over all that he hath called us forth to testifie against . and that great city or building of religion , which is built up by man's wisdom and maintained by man's strength , we are sure is falling and shall fall throughout all the earth : yea man's striving to re-edifie and re-establish it , will but make the ruins thereof more speedy and more dreadful . the mouth of the lord hath spoken it , both in the scriptures of truth which cannot be broken , and in the hearts of many of his servants , in this day of his appearance in spirit to those , the eyes of whose spirits he hath opened , and by whom he hath given a visit and warning to the earth , which the earthly ear cannot hear , but will be overtaken and surprized with the day of the lord : and o what running and seeking will there be to the rocks , and hills , and mountains for an hiding-place from the wrath of the lamb , but none will be then found . o miserable earthly-spirited man ( who hast passed away thy time in a dream , and hast little minded or regarded the salvation of thy soul , or considered what thy present vain pleasures and courses would tend to ) what wilt thou then do ? there is a pit prepared for the wicked ( i speak not an imagination of mine own , indeed it is the truth of god. ) now the lord seeks the souls of lost men to save them from the pit : but their ears are dull of hearing , their eyes vailed , their hearts grosly fatted and made insensible with the sences and delights of the earthly nature , and the voice of god ( with the things that concern their eternal peace , yea their present welfare also ) cannot enter into them ; and so they let slip the time of their redemption , and waste away the season of their visitation , hardly ever so much as thinking what will become of them in the end . o lord my god , awaken thy poor creatures , that they may live and not dye : rather let thy judgments break forth to awaken them , than that they should thus run on towards utter destruction , even to perish from thy life and blessedness , and to be swallowed up in the misery , torment and wrath due to that nature , which they have contracted and wallowed like swine in . every nature , principle and spirit is travelling towards its end . o man , take heed what nature thou art of , in what principle and spirit thou actest , and towards what thou travellest . and remember that god loveth his creature ; thy destruction is not of him , if thou perish : but in him is thy help , if thou hearken to his voice , and turn at the reproofs of that which he hath placed near thee , even in thy heart to reprove sin in thee , and to beget thee into the love and holiness of his life and nature , leavening thee into a new man , as thou becomest subject to the checks and leadings thereof . this is pleasing to the lord ; that which proceeds from this , and is performed in this , is the true worship , and not that which man hath invented , and with which the earthly nature is quieted and satisfied , but the power of life turns from . it is the great mercy of the lord to stop any man in the way of his error ▪ and happy is he that is stopped by him . another post-script . yet one thing , perhaps as my last unto you , let me freely propose : and be not hasty in spirit , but wait on god for skill and ability to weigh the thing aright , and to give an upright answer thereto , as before him , in the secrets of your consciences . it is briefly this , why may not the power of religion be permitted to flourish under you ? cannot the government of god's spirit and your government stand together ? i beseech you consider it . no man knoweth how short his time is , nor what is to come after his present determination of things . it is now your day : o that ye had the true light to walk by in it , that ye might not afterwards repent , and that my heart might be gladded concerning you , who have so prayed for you , as if i had felt mine own soul in your conditions . isaac penington . the end . concerning god's seeking out his israel likewise concerning the principle of lief [i.e. life] whereby he seekth them and the way of their closing with his spirit therein : as also concerning the two covenants under one whereof he pleaseth to exercise and prepare them for the life and inheritance which he hath treasured up for them in the other : with a postscript relating some things necessary for lost man to be acquainted with in his travels from his lost estate / by isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) concerning god's seeking out his israel likewise concerning the principle of lief [i.e. life] whereby he seekth them and the way of their closing with his spirit therein : as also concerning the two covenants under one whereof he pleaseth to exercise and prepare them for the life and inheritance which he hath treasured up for them in the other : with a postscript relating some things necessary for lost man to be acquainted with in his travels from his lost estate / by isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . 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ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng society of friends -- doctrines. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - taryn hakala sampled and proofread - taryn hakala text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion concerning god's seeking out his israel likewise concerning the principle of lief vvhereby he seeketh them and the way of their closing with his spirit therein . as also concerning the two covenants , under one whereof he pleaseth to exercise and prepare them for the life and inheritance , which he hath treasured up for them in the other . with a postscript relating some things necessary for lost man to be acquainted with in his travels from his lost estate . by isaac penington . printed for robert wilson in the year . to such in godmanchester and thereabouts , who bear the reproachful name of quakers , whose religion began in the power , and who still abide and walk on in the power waiting to be perfected in the full manifestation and appearance thereof . dear friends in gods pure eternal truth , it was my lot once to be among you in a meeting , together with i.c. where i had a word unto you from the lord , while i. c. was declareing . but being exceedingly bowed down in spirit , and afraid to interrupt the service in him ( whom i looked upon as far more abundantly grown up in the life , and fitter to minister from the life ) i waited till the life in him should stop . but then those words which had often sprung in me before , sprung not again ; and i durst not then speak them from a bare remembrance of them , not finding the spirit of the lord then giving them me to speak . so i went away with a burthen on my own soul , and also with a sense of some lose to you of some part of the good , which the lord intended you . since that time , i have often remembred the thing with grief , crying to the lord that , that which hath so often stopped the life in me , and my service in the life , might in his good time be removed ; and that the day might come , wherein the man might never more be or appear , as of himself , or as a determiner concerning the things which flow from the life , but that the life might have its free course and current through me , in its own pure streamings , to the delighting of my own heart in the lord , and the refreshing of others . and indeed this day i exceedingly long for , that nothing of self might be left to be brought forth , and that all which is of the life might spring up and flourish , both in me and every where . now one morning , as my heart was breathing towards the lord , not having a thought either of you or this thing , the very same words ( which were given me in that meeting ) sprang up again livingly in me , with a pointing to write them down , with what ●he lord should please to give in further , and send them to you , together with a paper which was a little before written cencerning the two covenants . and when i had almost finished what was then given me to write , i was further directed to annex to the first paper , another concerning the principle . how the lord shall please to improve them to your advantage or to the advantage of any others , i have to him , it being the earnest desire of my heart , that his work may prosper in his hand , and that the light and power which issueth forth from him for the salvation of souls may be effectual thereunto ; and that nothing of love , of mercy , of goodness , of life , of salvation , of his searching and healing vertue may be held back by him , which the state or condition of any of his sheep or lambs ( whether lost or gathered ) calleth for : that his israel may become the glory of the earth and all nations may be refreshed with beholding the beauty and tasting the sweetness of life and righteousness , which shall assuredly flow forth from his sanctuary . and surely the time is not far off ( whatever the eye of sence may judge , and however things may appear to mans understanding ) wherein israel shall be no more compelled to worship in the temples of mens building and dedicating but shall in the beauty of holiness for the day is come ( yea the blessed day is come ) wherein the lord god of life will build up his sion , and appear there in his glory amen , hallelujah . concerning god's seeking out his israel . this is the word , which was given to me ; the shepherd of israel is seeking ovt his sheep , even the lost sheep of the hovse of israel : concerning which , these three questions sprang up in me one after another , as i was about to write and writing . quest . . who are his sheep . answ . his sheep are the sons of men ; the lost sheep of the house of israel are those among the sons of men , who have felt touches of his life , begettings into his nature , and were in some measure gathered into some appearance and dispensation of his life by his holy spirit , wherein they felt warmth from god in their spirits , and a delight and joy in what they felt , and a longing after a further manifestation of him . these were his sheep , in a gathered estate in some degree , by those dispensations of life in the darkness , which had some strength in them to gather from under the darkness , and did gather into that measure of light and life , that was then dispensed . but the sheep cleaving to the dispensations ( which were very weak and imperfect , and had little of spirit , but very much of flesh in them ) and not following the lamb out of them into the further dispensations of life , into which he stood ready to lead , the lord brake them in pieces , departed from them , and left the life to be made a prey of and brought under the captivity of death : so that the sheep were scattered upon the mountains and every beast of prey was ready to fasten his teeth on them and devour them . o the precious buddings forth of the virtue and power of god , that was to be found in several sorts of professors , while they sought the lord only , and the knowledge of one another in the breathing spirit , and minded not the outward form , but the feeling of life in their duties and ordinances ! but when they began to mind the form , and cry up several forms ; the lord also began to loath the forms , and did not give forth that among them , which formerly they met with , but took away the kernel and left them the shel : and oh how dry and barren have they become since ! where is the feeling of life ? where is the love to one another in the living sence ? where is the zeal after and earnest seeking of the power of religion ? where is the nature of the sheep to be found in them ? and where is the presence of the shepherd among them ? are they not lost sheep indeed lost to god ? lost to themselves ? have they not lost the holy , pure , sweet , meek , heavenly , tender , gentle nature of the sheep ? have they not lost the pasture and the fold , whereon they were wont to feed and wherein they were wont to lie down safe ? have they not lost the preserver of their souls from the devouring spirit ? nay , have they not lost the very seed of life , which the good husbandman did sow in them ? and do not evil seeds shoot up in the stead thereof , to the poisoning of their hearts and blemishing of their conversations ? and are not some of them insencible of their lose , and lie still drowned in their forms , thinking to confine the appearance of the freelife and unlimited spirit there ? others of them sick , and deeply wounded and languishing , not knowing where to meet with the good shepherd , nor how to make shift without him ? o the cryes of the desolate and mourning souls , which love god at theit hearts and have the relicks of his nature left in them in a seed still , which he once begot and brought forth in some freshness ! oh their deep anguish , their miserable lost condition for want of meeting with the phisitian , their pantings , their teares , their distresses , their roarings out , their over-whelmings , their several kinds of captivities , and the cruelties exercised upon their spirits by the captiver even break my heart , that i am almost overwhelmed in the sence of their misery . but my heart is somewhat comforted with the freshness of this testimony , which hath often risen up in the immediate life of god in my heart , and i have heard his voice speaking it , even that he will seek them out . and i know he hath the skill to finde them , in their several mourning holes , wherein they lye hid ; and the pits where into they are tumbled ; and the bryars and thorns of the wilderness , wherewith they are torn , and wherein they are twisted and entangled , and held pining to death ; and in the prisons , and chains , and fetters of their spirits , wherein they are closed up and bound down by the enemy of their souls . quest . . how will he seek them , and how will he find them out ? answ . by the light of his spirit shining in their hearts , by which he will touch and quicken the sheep's life , and open the sheeps care and perswade the heart to know and believe that it is he , that visiteth in his tender mercy , and that he will have mercy on and shew compassion to that , which hath long been cast off and forsaken ; and that he will be their god , and they shall be his people , even the house of israel that had departed from him : and that he had not forgotten them , but waited for the hour of mercy , and for the season of the bringing forth of that life and power , whose searching and healing vertue will reach to the utmost extreamity of their conditions . quest . . what will he do with them , when he hath sought after and found them out ? answ . he will gather them into the fold of life , and lead them into the pastures of life , and feed them with the food of life , as their conditions are able to bear ; he will be fitting them by the exercises of his spirit , for their passages from death to life , and as they are capable , so he will be still translating them from the one into the other . he will bring them from their several fals-built states in the land of egypt ( or babylon ) into a true wilderness state : and there , as he wears out the old nature in them , so will he speake comfortably to them and build up the new , and nourish the true israelitish babe there with manna from heaven ; and after he is grown up to a mans estate , and hath received the inward circumcision , lead him into the pleasant land , where there are the rich pastures , & the sweet still waters , and the precious milk and hony of the living , with which the land flows naturally , and which yeilds pure nourishment to all the living off-spring . o my heart is not able to contain the sence of all that god will do for israel , or of what he will be to them , or of what they shall be to him , when he hath finished his work upon them , and brought them forth ( through the strength of his covenant ) in the nature and into the possession of his life . but sure i am he hath begun his work , the light of the day ( even of the everlasting day ) hath sprung and visited many , the principle of life hath been revealed in the hearts of many , and many are gathering into it , and finde the man sinking and dying , and the life rising and living in them day by day . and though the passage be bitter , and the passover still eaten with bitter hearbs , and the devourer often let loose and suffered to nip and destroy , yet out of the eater at last comes forth meat , and out of the strong one in the issue comes forth sweetness . yea , though there be no faith found to close in with the light , nor any strength left to obey or follow , because of the deep foregoing breakin gs ( wherein both nature and spirit were all dashed in peices , and swallowed up in confusion ) yet the breath of life and the power of the light ( in process of excercises , and after much deep misery , and impossibilities , to the sight and judgment of sense ) at length raiseth up a little seed in the longing soul , which receiveth and bringeth forth after an hidden way that , which it could not . and here life is indeed of grace and wholly of the seed , in this state . only waite to learn and know in spirit ( and then take heed of dispising ) the weak beginnings and dawnings of light , in the secret stirrings and movings of the principle of life : and waite also for a watch to be set up in thee against that fleshly wisdome and understanding , which will be apt to be judging about the work of god in thy heart ; for if it prevaile so far , it will then also be begetting in thee dispisings of and turnings from the low beginnings thereof , and so divert thy feet from the path of life . for the prevention whereof , and for the furtherance of thy soul , in its closing with and travelling on in the light and guidance of the spirit of the lord this following paper is added . concerning the seed or inward principle , whereby life is begotten and maintained in the heart . the lord god , who is full of everlasting bowels of compassion towards mankind in general , but more especially towards those , in whom he hath begotten a sence of the want of him , with breathings and desires after him , hath chosen a seed or inward principle of life to appear in , towards the breaking the bonds of their captivity , and the bringing them from under the power and misery of death . this , many who have been overwhelmed with misery , and whose spirits have melted and failed with the want of the sence of their god , and have felt that life , which was formerly built up in them , broken down and laid wast , and their communion with god swallowed up in the ruines thereof , and their souls ready utterly to perish and be devoured by the enemy every moment ; after the cutting off of their hopes , and the shutting up of their eyes towards all ways of releif , i say , after all this and much more than can be expressed , in the tender mercy of the lord , have they felt this principle revealed in their hearts , and their hearts by degrees through the skill and same mercy of the lord , which revealed the principle ( and not from any worthiness , or faith and obedience of theirs : for that was as freely given and preserved , as the principle it self was revealed ) gathered into the principle , where the life reigns , and where the strength and dominion of death is broken in all those , who by the allurings and guidings of the spirit of the lord are led thither . now the main thing necessary towards the redemption of the soul is , after the revealing of this principle , and some sence and feeling of it , and the turning of the minde towards it , to wait to be made more and more acquainted with it , that in the stirrings , movings and leadings thereof , there be a ready giving up to be gathered into it , and to be guided by it . for though this principle be all life , yet it is at first but as a seed , and the appearance of the lord in it , is but as in a seed , very little , low , weak ; hard to be discerned ; easie to be over-looked and despised , and some greater and m●re undeniable appearance expected . yet that is not the way , but the soul must become subject unto and ●owed under this little appearance : and so as the seed gets advantage and grows bigger and larger in thy heart , the appearance of the lord will be greater and fuller there . but to look for the greater appearance , before the seed be owned and received in its lesser appearance ( and the vessel thereby fitted for the greater appearance ) is not the way of god , but the deceit of the enemy , whereby he would destroy the soul , and cut it off from the lord for ever ; which he certainly will do , if he can keep the seed from growing there , and the soul from joyning with and growing into it . therefore watch to feel the savour of life in thy heart day by day , and therein to feel leadings , and drawings from the life , suitable to thy state : for in this savour , and in these drawings rises the true light , vvhich leads into the way of life . and then watch against the reasonings , and disputations which the enemy will raise in thy minde , who will strive to make thee a judge over these drawings ; whereas the light , which ariseth in the savour and in the drawings , is thy king ( though in this low appearance ) and not to be judged by thy minde , thoughts and reasonings , but to judge them all down , and be bowed unto and obeyed by thee . and consider , in the weight of thy spirit , art thou ( in thy darkness and with thy earthly minde ) fit to be a judge concerning the light which ariseth in thee ? or rather is not the light , in its lowest and weakest appearance , appointed and fitted by the lord to judge thee , and make thee bow down in fear and trembling before it ; and thy crown ( thou in thy highest exaltation ) is to be cast at the lowest footstept thereof : and then it will in some measure , thou lying at the foot thereof and bowing in spirit before it , enter into thee , and enlighten and quicken thee . but in thy being wise about it , or taking upon thee to judge concerning it , it will stand at a distance from thee , and leave thee in thy darkness and captivity . therefore consider where thou art , and breath unto the lord to reveal that unto thee , which is proper for thee at present , and to bow thy spirit under his present will and manifestation to thee . and be content to be little and low , and to receive little and low instructions from god , and to walk in the path of brokenness and humility before the lord : for this is his way of fitting for , and advancing into the high and glorious power of his life . and this my soul is assured of , that none shall enter into or abide in his kingdome , but as they become little , poor and naked , and as they are led by the little child of god's begetting , who not at all answers the wisdome of man and his expectations , but still confounds them , and leads on in such a path , as if the eye of man's wisdome be open , it will still be crying out , it can never bring to life . yet that which disputeth not , but beleiveth , at seasons feels a progress , and that the growth of life had advantage in the heart by those very things , which at present seemed to give death the advantage . therefore watch against thy understanding , and all the workings thereof , as ever thou desirest life : for it will still betray thee , and either keep thee from the way , or turn thee out of the way , when ever thou hearkenest to it . and mark this , that which god sowes and brings up in thee is a sensible plant , not a knowing mind ; and thy right judgement is only in the sensibleness of that plant , and not in the understanding or comprehension of thy minde : yea that sensible plant ( which thy wisdome will be very apt to despise and perk over ) must batter down and bring to nothing thy understanding , and grow up in the stead of it , if ever thy soul be made an habitation for the life . therefore sink into the feeling , and dwell in the feeling , and wait for the savour of the principle of life , and the touches and drawings of the savour , and walk along in it towards the land of life , parting with all , and leaving behind thee , whatever the savoury of life disrelisheth , and entring into and taking up whatever the savour of the life relisheth , that thou mayest be prepared for the lord , and for the glorious appearances of his spirit in thee . and as thou art led into this , and becomest subject to this ; so thou wilt taste the lord , and feel the sweetness of his ointment , and the peace of his nature , and the joy of the beginnings of his kingdom in thy heart , and the blotting out of thy iniquities for his own names sake . for though the enemy may lay load upon thee , and fill thee as much as he can with his filth , and lay it close to thy charge , insomuch as thou art not able to acquit thy self at all , but art as ready to charge thy self therewith , as the enemy is to charge thee : yet the lord considereth the seed he hath sown in thee , and the desire which he hath wrought in thy heart to be joyned thereunto ; and he knoweth whence the stirring of this mind is , and how weak thou art in this hour of thy darkness and captivity ; and the intent of his heart is to deliver thee from all this , and not to condemn thee for it . but oh take heed of limmitting the lord to give forth so clear a light , as the natural understanding will be judging necessary : but be content with the light which ariseth in the savour , and shineth inwardly to thy spirit in the drawing , and be subject and bowed under the light of the drawing , though never so much against the light of the creaturely understanding and the reasonings thereof . clearness of light is a state , which is to be grown up into : but before thou comest to this , thy understanding must be darkened , confounded and brought to nothing ; and thou canst not have such a clearness there , while it is confounding . there is indeed a true clearness in the principle of life ( proportionable to its state and growth ) even then : but the reasonings of thy dark m●nde will be continually overclouding and overbearing it ( as if it were darkness , and not the light ) & will prevail , unless thou be kept in the savour , and suffer not thy understanding to judge , but keep it under the judgement of the savour . mark therefore heedfully this which follows , the first work of the lord is to confound the knowledge and understanding of the creature , especially in those , who have been deep in wisdome and experience of things : for if they were not closely pursued with darkness and confusion , they would presently be gathering a stock into the old store-house again , and so grow wise after the flesh , and never learn the life of the spirit . now in this work of confounding , how can the leadings of god's spirit be manifest and clear after the flesh , and to the fleshly understanding ? yea , if they were manifest after this manner , how were it possible to withhold the fleshly part from drinking them in , and so the man would live again , but the seed not live , which gains its life ( and being , and form and perfection ) in the man , by the death of the man : even by the man's being hunted , and battered , and broken out of his wisdome , and knowledge , and reasoning , and comprehension ; and becoming as a fool or child , being able to know nothing , nor retain nothing , nor performe nothing , nor keep his standing , but still as he is led , and taught , and created , and preserved in the power and by the presence of the life . concerning the two covenants . what is the covenant of the law ? doth it not contain and hold forth eternal life to man , upon his faith in an obedience to the spirit of god ? what is the covenant of the gospel ? doth it not contain the promise to the seed , and life to man through the seed , and forgiveness of his sins for the seed sake , and the uniting of his heart to and preserving it in the seed through the grace , as also repentance , faith and obedience from the grace ? mark then the difference between the two covenants . the covenant of the law is all of works and according to works , yea even the faith that is there found ( which is begotten and brought forth in man by vertue of that covenant ) is of the man or of the working principle . the covenant of the gospel is all of grace ; and the very works that are there found , are from the grace , and the seed bestowed and conveyed by promise . now mark , the seed ( or standing principle of life ) in both covenants is the same . it is the same christ by which adam stood before the fall , and which was the promised seed after the fall . the light of both the covenants is the same , even the eternal light of the spirit . the life and power is the same , even the life and power of the spirit . the end or mark , at which man aims , and towards which he travels in both is the same , even the land of rest and peace in the spirit of the father , who begets a living soul under both covenants . but the tearms of the covenants , and the manner of dispensing them are different ; and the wombs , whereof the children of each covenant are born , are different likewise , the one being the working nature ( which also came from god , and hath its blessing from him in its obedience and subjection to him ) the other the womb of grace , which brings forth the child of grace in man according to and by vertue of the promise ; and doth not finde a will in the day of man's choice and liberty , but createth a will in the day of god's powerful appearance in it . yet this seed of promise , or this new man begotten by the seed of life according to the promise , must walk through the law , and travel through all the dark paths of that covenant , before it come to inherit the promised land ; where the rigor of the law and weakness of the flesh will be throughly felt , and many transgressions and many stripes , yea many captivities and cuttings off from the life may be felt also : yea the seed of the first covenant may live and flourish , and injoy and boast much of god , while this seed is miserable . but when this womb is visited with the strength of grace , and free power of life , and bringeth forth her children therein ; and no more is called for from the working part of man , but all brought forth in the free , full and fresh power or life ; then shall the seed of israel after the promise , become an everlasting habitation for , and a perfect joy in the life . therefore distinguish in spirit between the law and grace , and the covenants of each , and the dispensations of each , and how they are mixed and intermingled , both towards man and towards the seed , in the several dispensations in which each are brought forth . for there hath been no perfect covenant brought forth , either of works or of grace ( in a way of publick administration ) since the fall of adam . had there been a perfect covenant of works , there had been no capacity of salvation thereby to fallen man. had there been a perfect covenant of grace there had been no possibility or capacity of destruction : for grace in its perfect going forth , cannot but overcome and save the man. but god ordereth both these covenants , both towards the man and towards the seed , according to the state of the man and the state of the seed , and according to what ( in his eternal wisdome ) he judgeth meet to work upon them thereby . man being fallen , and having lost his strength of faith and obedience in and to the requirings of gods spirit , the visitation of him is now by grace , and not meerly to call forth what is left in him , but to help him with light and power , and by the influences of the grace and of the power to quicken him towards god. yet man in the receiving of this , is apt to over-look the grace , and attribute too much to his own strength , thinking himself somewhat because of the grace and power which hath visited him , and new refreshed the strength and nature of his principle in him again . hereby he is apt to fix his standing on his obedience to the spirit or appearance of the grace , and so in effect builds his life and hopes again on his own principle , or on a new-received power , as held or kept to by him ( which he may fall from now , as well as he did at first ) and not on the free begetting and free preserving of a principle of life in him . this visitation of grace is to all mankinde , there being none upon earth , whom the lord doth not thus seek and visit with the light of his eternal life , thus administred through the grace : which so far as they fall in with , the lord doth receive them and beget life in them , engrafting them into the living vine , and preserving them according to their abiding in it , and according to their obedience to him in the springings up of the sap of the vine in them . but besides this common administration of the grace to all mankinde , god formerly picked out a people after the flesh of abraham , and afterwards a people after the spirit of abraham , towards whom in a more peculiar way his grace did administer it self , and whom he dealt with , not as with other nations , but chose to love and work up into life and communion with himself , by a more especial administration and visitation of his love and grace . the one of these were that people of the jews , the other the believing christians . with the jews he remembred the covenant with abraham . by vertue of that he loved and chose them to be his people after the flesh , ( or his outward people ) by vertue of that he brought them out of egypt , led them through the wilderness , brought them into canaan , giving them an inheritance therein , and delivering them from their enemies time after time . yet he also made another covenant with them ( even that of the law ) which was suitable to their state , and which their nature desired , and chose to walk with god in , but hardly ever kept it , and so brought the curse and misery due thereby upon their heads , and at last were utterly cut off , so far and so long as the lord pleaseth to let the curse of that covenant have power over them , untill he shall please again to remember to them his covenant with abraham , isaac and jacob , and breath life through it into their dry bones . now though god did make this covenant with them , because they were fleshly , and their present state required it ; yet he did not disanul or make void the other to them , all the while their day lasted ; but remembred loving-kindness and mercy towards them in it , often delivering and redeeming them for his own names sake , pointing them also to the word in the heart and the gracious administration thereof : but they were blinded and held captive in the earthly nature and principle , and in the law thereof , and held their marriage and union with god thereby . and so , though this administration to the jews ( wherein god did strive with them by his spirit , and sometimes stir life and beget a true sensibleness in many of them , calling to them for the circumcision of the heart , and pointing them to the principle of life in the heart , whereby it might be circumcised ) though this advanced them far above the heathen ; yet they through the flesh and the letter , at last fell below the very state of the heathen , proving greater enemies to and persecuters of the life than they . and so the lord brake them off from the olive tree into which they were engraffed , and cut them off from the covenant which he had made with abraham , isaac and jacob , whereas hitherto ( though he had been often provoked by , and sorely offended with them , yet ) he had still loved them for the fathers sake . after them and in their stead he chose the believing gentiles , engraffing them into the stock from whence these were broken , letting them into a sweeter , and fuller , and more spiritual and abiding estate and influences of the covenant . for here the life was manifested , and the light did shine in great beauty and clearness , and they were gathered into the true fold of the shepherd ( besides that outward state , which was also built up by the lord and preserved for a season among them : ) and they saw their standing to be by and in the grace , and were established in the grace , and could feel the good pleasure calling , the good pleasure working , the good pleasure being and doing all in them , and could cry grace , grace to this building and say , not for any works that they had wrought , or for their faith in or , obedience to the light of life , which was made manifest ; but of his own mercy he saved them , who wrought in them both the will and the deed of his own good pleasure , and preserved them by his power through faith ( which was of his gift and begetting ) unto salvation . yet for all this , there was somewhat of the law or light eternal to be administred unto them , which was suitable to the natural part or first principle , through which they were to travel , even until the man or first nature was wholly wasted ; whereby some of them were in danger of falling away wholly , others of coming under chastizement and judgement , with which the lord pursued them , that they might not be utterly condemned with the world . mark therefore this brief sum of the matter . . man fell under the first covenant . his restitution is never to be thereby , but by the second ; through which god works up vessels into a state of life and glory in the administration of his grace . . but in this working up of the vessel , he sees necessary to make use of the other covenant , according to the capacity that is left in man to answer it : and so as that capacity wears out , the covenant of the law wasteth and passeth away by degrees , and the covenant of grace succeeds and fills up the room thereof . . there is great danger of falling from the life for some , as also of chastizements and judgements to others , while this capacity remains , even while the earthly nature , spirit and principle is not worn out by the entrance , death and resurrection of the principle of life in the heart . . when the first principle is wholly dead , and the heart perfectly formed in the life , and all perfectly raised and renewed in the life ; then there is no danger of falling or fear of chastizement ; but perfect life , and peace and joy with god in his spirit of power and glory for ever more . . though god begin with man in a covenant of grace , and bring in a covenant of the law to man ( suitable to his present state ) only in subserviency to the covenant of grace ; and would not have man stick there , but cling to him in the grace , and seek remission through the grace for his own names sake : yet man through the prevalency of the first principle in him ( and his looking on god through that ) is apt to fix on this covenant , and draw comfort or discouragement to himself from his own obedience or failings , and not live on the freeness of gods love , and the faithfulness of his heart to the soul to all conditions , for his christ's sake . this hath been the great error of israel ( even of israel after the flesh , and of israel after the spirit also ) that while god layes hold on them by his love , promise , mercy and grace ; yet they lay hold on him by another covenant , even their obedience to the laws he gives forth : not knowing , that the obedience to the first covenant must be a fruit of the second ; and that they are not beloved or accepted for that , but that that flowes into them and is brought forth in them , through the love , and through the free and powerful workings thereof in them . i say , this ( to wit , their obedience ) is not the ground of their acceptance or being loved , so far as they are in this covenant : though as far as the other hath yet an influence , it hath some force in this respect . but this the eye is to passe through , and to be be fixed on the other covenant , still waiting for the revealing and manifesting the riches of the mercy thereof , and to feel the washing and cleansing thereof from all the guilt , which under the remainers of the first covenant will be daily contracting , while any thing of the earthly principle and offending part is left standing . there hath been in this day , a very glorious administration of life to the sons of men ( after the long foregoing night ) wherein both these covenants have been again administred in spirit , suitable to the state of the persons , whereto they have been administred . and because of the necessity of faith and obedience in the new covenant ( both to the seed and to the man ) the man is so apt to fix his eye and build his hopes upon them ( and not upon the free love of him that works them in him ) that he is in danger of falling from and dishonouring the free grace ( which is the hope of israel ) and of losing his state , which is not sure ( how far so ever it be advanced in a present power and dominion ) further than it is built upon and fixed in the grace . and therefore is this given forth , that the life in israel may be sure and lasting , and that they may grow up perfectly ( out of the principle of nature ) into the principle of grace , and know the difference between their being united to and living in god , either in the fear , faith or love , so far as they can receive or retain them ; and god's living in them , and creating continually the fear , faith and love in them , and bringing forth all the fruits thereof in and from himself . for though the covenants are and have been still the same from the beginning , yet the manifestations of them have been still greater and greater . and a greater manifestation may yet be of the love and life of god ( and the sweet , free nature of his covenant ) than hath hitherto been , or yet is , which israel is to wait for and feel the need of , before it be brought forth . and though all those fore-mentioned ( to wit , of fear , faith and love ) are pretious states , which god works his israel up to , in and by the covenant of his grace , according to their several growths and capacities , yea and according to which the delight and pleasure of his soul is in them : yet the absolute assurance is only in the latter , even where the creature is so gathered into the life of god , that its state depends not at all upon what it self is , or doth , but only upon what god is and will be to is freely of himself and for his own names sake . this is written in love , for preservation ; and not for discouragement or destruction : but that that which standeth , may feel where to fix . for in the highest state that man can be advanced to , yet if any of the creaturely principle be left in him unsubdued , and not yet buried with the seed into its death , there is so far a capacity of falling : and his fall ( in case the lord do suffer his feet to slip ) will be the greater , by how much the higher and more exalted he was in the dominion and presence of the power , and by how much the more it vvas unexpected by him . and this my heart hath often said within me , and still saith to a weary soul , which hath felt the touches of life , and desireth-everlasting unity with it ; yea to all that desire to walk with god , and to abide in the power of his life in any dispensation ; keep the eye of thy minde to the grace which visits thee : not so much to the light which comes from the grace , as to the grace from which the light comes ; and dayly look for help and remission from it , as freely as thou hadst at first . and in all losses , and darknesses , and ●●sings up of guilt and condemnation , cast thy self at the foot of it , saying in thy heart , if thou hadst not freely visited me at first , i had not set one step in the path of life ; and if thou dost not as freely visst me still , and renew life in me dayly of thine own accord , and from the same love and goodness , i cannot but be lyable to miscarry . o that i might obey every beam of thy light , and every moving of thy life , but i dare not undertake it , o that thou wouldest undertake for me . my righteousness my obedience , my love to thee , my faith in thee is like the morning due , which soon passeth away , and i cannot finde or come at it again : o raise up life from an everlasting seed , and gather my heart into it and preserve me in it , not according to what i am or have done , or yet can be or do ; but for thine own names sake , and in thy love to thy seed , and to thy creature in and through thy seed by the promise . thus as any grows into the covenant of grace , through the covenant of works ( which is necessary to be dispensed in some measure , till the mans nature and principle be wholly worne out by it ) they will finde sure footing there and building upon that , from which the soul ( that cleaveth to it in the vertue and nature that floweth from it ) can never be removed . yea the peace and safty of israel in there travels ( fixing here ) will be greater , and there assurance greater , and their falls and the prevailings of the enemy not so dangerous ( that being had recourse to , which never fai●es of healing that soul , which lyes at the foot of it and in heart waits its season ) however they may be hurred and driven about with tempests , through the violence of the enemy and good pleasure of him , who seeth it fit for the present state of the soul , to have it thus exercised . the intent of god in the salvation of man , is to magnifie the riches of his grace and the freeness of his love . and this is effected , as man is broken in his natural principle and power of beleiving and obeying , and a seed of life freely raised up in him , and he freely gathered into it and preserved in it . and where is the boaster here ? or where is he , who in this state , can throw a stone at another because of his transgressions ? nay , nay ; he that is freely forgiven , and lives meerly and for ever by mercy alone , he is formed and brought forth in the tenderness of the bowels which begat and nourish him : and he cryeth mightily for the spreading of the same bowels over other sinners , waiting for the season of their visitation and gathering into the same love , and by the same powerful hand , if it may be . o my god , bring up the power and sweetness of thy life in israel , and shew mercy to all nations . purge the earth with thy fan , scatter the corruption there of from the hearts of the sons of men , and make them the paradice of thy pleasure : that thou , o living god , mayst dwel in and shine forth from thy temple , and it may no longer lye wast , nor the abomination of desolation defile it , to the dishoner of thy name , and to the ruine and misery of thy creation . postscript . some things are exceeding necessary for lost man to be acquainted with , in his travels from his lost estate , into the life and peace of god. as , . to his lost estate and misery for ever , unless the lord pitty and help him . . to know the light , wherewith the lord visits the souls that sit in darkness , that he may wait for the shinings therof , and in them travel with the leading spirit of life , from the darkness and death of sin , tovvards the land of the living . . to breath unto the lord and wait to have his heart joyned to the light and power of life dayly , and separated from the powers of death and darkness , under which he was and still is a captive , but as th● lord appears for him and delivers him . . to put forth all the strength of his soul and mind , and all the members of his body in the service of the lord. for as he is , in any measure , set free by the lord from the service of sin ; so is he to serve and obey the lord in righteousness . . to wait dayly to receive the strength from the lord , wherewith he serueth the lord. for though by the redemption of the lord , he feels the creaturely part ( in some measure ) renewed and restored , and an ability received to serve righteousness , which before he had not : yet this is not so given to him , as that the lord hath it not still in his hand who can stop or let it out at his pleasure . and happy is that man , who looketh not upon himself as somewhat , because of what in any kind he hath received , but feeleth his dependance upon the lord. . to feel the grace and mercy of the lord , in whatever he receiveth from the lord , or whatever he doth for the lord. it is all of the lord : happy is the man that sees it . it is the mercy of the lord that man is not consumed . it is the mercy of the lord , that any man in any state ( or degree of life and redemption ) is preserved . the mercy of the lord endureth for ever , therefore is israel safe . this will be the song of praise in the house of the lord for ever . . to wait for the wasting of the man , and the raising up of the seed day by day : that that to which the covenant of works is na-natural , and which cannot but desire it and seek to live by it , may be worn out ; and that to which the covenant of grace is as natural ( if not more ) and which alone lives by the promise , and through the faith and in the grace which freely flows from the eternal fountain , may be raised up and succeed in the place and stead thereof . here is safety indeed . here is everlasting righteousness so brought in , as that it can never be removed out of the heart more . here everlasting life and the soul are one for ever . here is no more going into captivity , which israel setled in canaan , and enjoying the sweetness and rest thereof , under the first covenant may . here are no tears , nor sighing , nor departing from the ●●fe , nor grieving the holy spirt of the lord , nor being grieved by it any more : but what the heart desires of god and what god desires of the heart mutually received , and the going forth and the coming in and the abiding one and the same for ever , the same life and power and love and eternal sweetness being all and in all for ever . this is the mark of israel , and the haven of its eternal rest , to which the lord is leading the poor , hungary , empty , mourning , afflicted , lossed souls , to whom it is as sure in the love and good-will of god ( and in the councel of his heart determined thereupon ) as if they were already in it . the end . truth's principles: or, those things about doctrine and worship, which are most surely believed and received amongst the people of god, called quakers viz. concerning the man christ, his sufferings, death, resurrection, faith in his blood, the imputation of his righteousness, sanctification, justification &c. written, to stop the mouth of clamour, and to inform all who desire to know the truth as it is in jesus; by the servant of the lord, john crook. to which is added, somewhat concerning the difference between the perswasions of reason, and the perswasions of faith. crook, john, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing c estc r this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) truth's principles: or, those things about doctrine and worship, which are most surely believed and received amongst the people of god, called quakers viz. concerning the man christ, his sufferings, death, resurrection, faith in his blood, the imputation of his righteousness, sanctification, justification &c. written, to stop the mouth of clamour, and to inform all who desire to know the truth as it is in jesus; by the servant of the lord, john crook. to which is added, somewhat concerning the difference between the perswasions of reason, and the perswasions of faith. crook, john, - . penington, isaac, - . , [ ] p. [s.n.], london : printed in the year, . 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ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng society of friends -- apologetic works -- early works to . - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - taryn hakala sampled and proofread - taryn hakala text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion truth 's principles : or , those things about doctrine and worship , which are most surely believed and received amongst the people of god , called quakers : viz. concerning the man christ , his sufferings , death , resurrection , faith in his blood , the imputation of his righteousness , sanctification , justification , &c. written , to stop the mouth of clamour , and to inform all who desire to know the truth as it is in jesus ; by the servant of the lord , john crook . to which is added , somewhat concerning the difference between the perswasions of reason , and the perswasions of faith . london , printed in the year , . truth' 's principles : or , those things about doctrine and worship , which are most surely believed and received amongst the people of god , called quakers . many are the reports that are abroad concerning this people , not only as to their practices and deportments , but also as to their doctrines and beliefs . the former , time having in a great measure resolved and worn out , as being the refuge of lyes for the ignorant and unrighteous to fly unto ; but that stormy and wintry appearance is well nigh over and gone , because the sun is so far risen , and the true light so shineth , that most begin to see , that those reports were but lyes and scandals , raised as fig-leaves to cover the nakedness of other professions , that begun so manifestly to appear , through the light that shined in these peoples lives and conversations . but though the first be gone , yet the latter still sticks with many , as not knowing what they hold , as to doctrine , some saying they deny the scripture , and the resurrection of the body , and all ordinances , with the man christ , and his death and sufferings , and imputation of his righteousness , and faith in his blood , &c. wherefore , for the satisfaction of all that would willingly be resolved , and know the truth as it is in jesus , i have written this short account of their faith and belief ; and if it were possible to stop the mouth of clamorous tongues , before sentence be given against them by some signal stroke of the lord from heaven , which he will undoubtedly in his appointed time reveal and make manifest , to the trembling of all hearts concerned therein , and tingling of all ears that shall hear thereof , when it shall be said to them , the holy shall be holy still ; and be that is filthy , let him be filthy still , rev. . . we believe , that the god of all grace , hath given a measure of grace , or some manifestation of his spirit and light thereof unto all men , according unto these scriptures ; john . . tit. . . cor. . . nehem. . . and experiences of all men , who ( at some time or other do feel something in their hearts and consciences , that doth lust against the flesh , and the flesh against it , and that these two are contrary the one to the other , one lusting after evil , which is evil , and the other after good , which is good ; the one carnal , the other spiritual ; the one from the earth , the other from heaven , gal. . , . we believe , by this gift , grace and inspiration of the almighty , man only can come to know the true god truly ; what he is , and how he works in the hearts and consciences of people , to regenerate them and make them bear his image , according unto cor. . , , . luke . . and experiences of all that ever were regenerate and born again . we believe , that all the errors and mistakes about god , and the things relating to his kingdom , sprang and arose from mens wandring from this gift of god into their own imaginations ; whereby , though they thought themselves wise , yet they became fools and erred , their foolish hearts being darkned , according to rom. . not knowing the scriptures nor the power of god , as it is written , mat. . . we believe and know , that this gift and grace of god appears in and unto all men , that all may be without excuse , accusing for the evil , and excusing for the good , according to rom. . , . shewing unto man what is good , and reproving of him in his own conscience for the evil , whether thoughts , words or deeds ; and that this reproof of instruction is the way of life , prov. . . we believe , that as the true god and eternal life is known only by the light of this gift and grace , according unto the scriptures , from which light and spirit of god came the scriptures , both of the old and new testament , as it is written , pet. . . so can they only be read , as truly to be believed , fulfilled and practised , in the light and power of the same ; and all that are out of this spirit , must needs be ignorant and unlearned in the apostle's sense , who wrest the scriptures to their own destruction , as it is written : for peter and john were unlearned men outwardly , not knowing letters , but inwardly read in the knowledge of this light and spirit of god , and wrested not the scriptures , acts . . pet. . . we believe , according to the scriptures , cor. . . that wheresoever the power of god is not known within , there the gospel is hid and unknown unto them that are lost , in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not , lest the light of the glorious gospel of christ , who is the image of god , should shine unto them , and god should heal them ; because it is only by the light of christ , the power of god , that the creature comes truly to see himself in his lost and undone estate ; from which sight ariseth the true sence in the heart of the creature , that makes him cry out of his wretchedness by reason of the body of sin and death , which necessitates him to look out for a saviour , whom god manifesteth in and by the same light , that shines in the heart , on purpose to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of god in the face of jesus christ , god's image , whereby god healeth the soul . and therefore doth the devil , the god of the world , strive so much by the gifts of the pleasures , profits , vanities , and lusts that are in the world , which he presenteth to men and women now , as he did to christ in the dayes of his flesh , when he shewed to him all the world , with its glory ; which glory is , the lust of the flesh , the lust of the eye , and the pride of life , what-ever may make this life happy ( as it were ) in the things that may pride it , or lift it up to sit as queen . and as men and women take and receive these gifts from the god of this world , their minds are blinded , because they believe not in the light , which sheweth them the vanities of all the gifts of the god of this world ; which gifts the devil knows ( if they be received ) will so blind the minds of them that receive them , that they will not come to be sensible in the true light of their lost conditions , so as to cry unto god from the deep and true sence ; for then god , out of the depths of his love and mercy , could not but heal them : and therefore , lest the true light should shine into them , to give them the sensible knowledge of themselves , and god should heal them , the devil ( as god of the world , by the things of the world ) endeavours to blind the mind ( not the brain-knowledge , but the hearty feeling sence within in the mind ) lest the light within should so shine , as god should heal them ; and all the busslings of satan with his gifts , are but to blind the mind within , lest god should heal the soul , that complains to him from the true sight and sence of his misery , as in himself . by this grace and gift within , we believe , that to us ( though in the world there be lords many , and gods many ) there is but one god , the father of our lord jesus christ , witnessed within man only by the spirit of truth , that manifests both the father and the son ; and yet these three are one , and agree in one ; and he that honours the father , honours the son that proceeds from him ; and he that denies the spirit , denies both the father and the son , and is anti-christ ; but he that believes in the spirit , and is led by it , is the son of god , rom. . . as many as are the sons of god , are led by the spirit of god. we believe , the scriptures bear witness unto , and testifie of christ ; but they say the witness of god is greater than them , the spirit it self bearing witness with our spirits , that we are the sons of god : for it is not the scriptures without the spirit , nor the spirit contrary to the scriptures , but the spirit 's discovering the will of god in the heart , or opening of the scriptures in its own time and way , and not in or by the will of man , but as it self pleaseth ( who searcheth all things , even the deep things of god , and manifests them unto the soul ) which giveth the perfect sound and saving knowledge : for said christ , the spirit shall take of mine , and shew them unto you . and as holy men gave forth the scriptures , pet. . . so holy men , and they only , come truly to understand them , and not proud or ungodly men ; because their hearts and lives do not answer the hearts and lives of those that gave them forth , as face answereth face in a glass . and this we believe to be the reason , why so long preaching ( by men of corrupt minds , who have and do handle the words deceitfully for selfish ends and filthy lucre sake ) hath brought forth so little fruit , and been to so little purpose , except to their purses and bellies : for bad they believed , and therefore spoken , and stood in god's counsel , they should have profited their hearers , jer. . , , . to the end . through this gift we believe , that christ jesus ( the son of god ) was manifest in the flesh , in the fulness of time . and this we know by the same spirit , by which our fathers believed he should come ; and abraham saw his day ; by the same do we believe he is come , and do see his day ; as also by the prophets and apostles writings , which twofold cord is not easily broken . we believe also , according to the scriptures of truth , that this same jesus hath god highly exalted , and given him a name above every name , that whosoever believes in him shall not perish , but have everlasting life ; and that there is not another name whereby man can be saved , than this name of jesus christ ; nor is remission of sins to be preached by any other name . but as we do not believe that the outward letters & syllables are that name , that are to be bowed to by the outward knee , no more than the letters or syllables in the words , god , or spirit , seeing the 〈…〉 god , who is a spirit , 〈…〉 . . but that name which saves , is the power and arm of god , that brings salvation from sin , and makes every soul that names it , to depart from iniquity . this is that name which was preached , and which is preached through faith , in which name remission of sin is obtained : therefore was the outward word jesus given him , as his outward name ; thou shalt call his name jesus , for he shall save his people from their sins . [ mark ] for he shall save , &c. so that which saves , is the name which is to be believed in , which is that arm of god that brings salvation , when no eye pitties , neither is there any to help ; the power of god that then saves , is that grace that comes from the fulness of christ the saviour . and without this vertue , christ and jesus are but empty names , cor. . . no man can say that jesus is the lord , but by the holy ghost . we believe also , that this jesus died for , or because of sin , and rose again for the justification of those that believe in him , as well as to manifest to all the world , that he was the son of god , and that he thereby spoiled principalities and powers , and triumphed over them openly , and led captivity captive in his own person ; yet we believe and know , by his grace in our hearts , that as his name jesus , without vertue and power is but an empty word ; so his dying , without man's conformity to his death , or being planted into the likeness thereof , or being crucified with christ ( as saith the scripture , rom. . , , , , . gal. . . ) will not profit man , as unto the salvation of his soul , no more than the naming of his outward name [ jesus ] doth at this day make people to depart from iniquity . for we believe and are sure that man must dye inwardly , as well as christ died outwardly ; and must be put to death in his flesh , as christ was in his : for he that is in the flesh , cannot please god , rom. . . neither cease from sin ; but he that is dead , is freed from sin , rom. . . and yet mans dying unto sin , and the root and principle of it in himself , is so far from making void christ's death in his own person , that it establisheth it to all those ends and purposes , for which it was intended of the father . as the cures which the physician doth , manifest and establish his skill and ability ; so doth mans dying unto sin and self , and living unto god , manifest and establish the virtue and power of christ's death : for as man manifests his being risen with christ , by his seeking the things that are above , col. . , . so doth he manifest his knowledge of the death of christ , by his being crucified with christ , and bearing about in his body the dyings of the lord jesus ; for as it is not an outward belief , gathered from the letter , that will change the heart and life ( though the judgment and opinion it may ) so is it not a belief from the history , or letter only , that can give man a saving knowledge of the death of christ ; but he must have the same glory and power of the father in measure , working in him there , to beget faith in his heart , that he may believe unto salvation from his own filthiness and righteousness , as well as confess with his mouth , rom. . and must have that spirit in him quickning his mortal body , as well as to believe that it was in christ , and raised up him from the dead , rom. . . and this man , whoever he be , bond or free , that thus believes the death of christ , and its satisfaction to god , as well as its usefulness to man , cannot make it void , nor divide it and its virtue upon the soul that thus knows it , but will say , here is a dying man , witnessing the death of christ , and nevertheless the same man living with christ , and concluding if christ had not died , man must have perished in his sin ; this being the way found out by god to recover him , whereby he knows christ and him crucified , and what the preaching of the cross of christ is , which is foolishness to them that perish , but to them that are saved , the wisdom of god , and the power of god , cor. . . by this gift of god in our hearts , we further believe , that christ jesus rose again from the dead , according unto the scriptures , and sits at god's right hand in a glorious body ; and we believe that our low estates and humbled bodies shall be made like unto his glorious body , through the working of his mighty power , whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself ; and that this mortality shall put on immortality . for though we believe that christ jesus hath lighted every man with his light , whereby man may come to know himself lost and undone , as before is said ; yet therefore is not every man saved , though the grace that appears to all men is sufficient in it self ; but some have the grace of god bestowed on them in vain , not liking to retain god in their knowledge , though something within them shewes them what is good ; but they reject the counsel of god within , or against themselves , to their own destruction , luk. . . ( see the margent ) and yet it doth not follow that the grace is insufficient of it self , no more than it follows that christ's death is insufficient , because he tasted death for every man , and yet every man is not saved . neither doth regeneration , or the believing in the light of christ within , make void the death and sufferings of christ without at jerusalem , no more than believing the scripture-testimony without concerning christ's death , makes void the work of regeneration and mortification within ; but as the apostle saith in another case , so say i in this , for as the man is not without the woman , neither is the woman without the man in the lord ; even so is not the death and sufferings of christ without at jerusalem , to be made void and of none effect by any thing within , neither doth the light within make that of none effect without , but both in the lord answers his will ; for though there is and may be a knowledge and belief of what christ did and suffered without the gates , in his own body , upon the tree , and yet sin alive in the heart , and the work of regeneration not known ; yet it cannot be so where the light within is believed on , and obeyed so as to have its perfect work in the heart , to regenerate and make all things new and to be of god ; this man can never make void what christ hath done and suffered without . and yet this new-birth , or christ formed within and dwelling in the heart by faith , doth not limit or consine christ to be only within , and not without also ; but both within and without , according to the good pleasure of the father to reveal and make him known ; for he fills all things , and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him , and yet is he at god's right hand far above all heavens in a glorious body . and we also believe the resurrection of the just and unjust , the one to salvation , and the other to condemnation , according unto the judgment of the great day ; and then shall every seed have its own body , according to cor. . , , . which we verily believe : for if the dead arise not , we are of all men most miserable . but because we dare not be so foolishly inquisitive , as to say , with what bodies shall they arise ? therefore do some say , we deny both the resurrection of the body of christ , and of all that are or shall be dead : but this also is false ; for every man shall be raised in his own order ; but christ the first fruits , cor. . . and we believe , they shall be raised with the same bodies , so far as a natural and spiritual , corruptible and incorruptible , terrestrial and celestial can be the same . we further believe , according unto the scriptures , concerning faith , that that faith is only true , which is god's gift , and hath christ jesus the power of god for its author and object , and is distinguished from the dead faith by its fruits : for though in description and definition they may carry a resemblance , yet in nature are as different as a living man is from a dead , which wants not form or shape , but life and power . so saith the apostle james , as the body without a spirit is dead , so is faith without works ; even so is that faith which stands in the wisdom of words , and not in the power of god : by the one , man is kept in captivity to the world and the things of it , but by the other he hath victory over the world , joh. . . and the seal and witness thereof in his own heart , whereby it is purified , and god is seen ; for the pure in heart see god , mat. . . this faith differs men now , and their worships , as it did cain and abel ; for , by faith abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than cain , heb. . by this living faith , abel saw beyond the sacrifice unto christ the first-born of god , beyond the firstling of the flock , which he offered , and therefore god had respect unto abel and his offering ; but god rejected cain and his offering , though he had faith to believe it to be his duty , yet sticking in the form , and not flying on the wing of faith unto christ the one offering , he missed the mark , as all have done ever since that have gone in cain's way of worshipping , as well as killing men about worship . but we believe that faith to be onely true and saving , that slyes over self-righteousness , as well as filthiness , unto the fountain of life in christ ; which faith hath nothing of man in it , but is as the breath of life by which the soul lives ; not a bare assent to the truth of a proposition in the natural understanding , but the soul 's cleaving unto god , out of a naturalness between christ and the soul ; and so lives rather by relation , than bare credit or desperate adventure and hazard ; not looking at its doing to commend it , but god's love and bounty in christ the light , to receive it ; and yet holiness is its delight , and he can no more live out of it , than the fish upon the dry land . we believe that this faith keeps the mind pure and the heart clean , through the sprinkling of the heart , from an evil conscience , by the blood of jesus , which remits the sin and justifies the soul , through the vertue of this blood received into the heart by this living faith , which receives all its power and vertue from christ , in whom it abides as its root and object , whereby justification is witnessed from sin , not in sin , rom. . . but now being made free from sin , and become servants unto god , you have your fruits unto holiness , and the end everlasting life . we believe that justification and sanctification are distinguished , but not divided : for as he that sanctifieth and justifieth is one , so do these go together ; and when the soul hath the greatest sence of justification upon it , through the vertue of the blood of jesus by the living faith , then is it most in love with holiness , and at the greatest distance from sin and evil ; and whenever there is a failing in sanctification , there is also some eclipse of justification in the eye of the soul , until faith hath recovered its strength again , which it lost by sin 's prevailing . for , as the furthest and clearest sight is in the brightest day ; so is it with the soul , when it is most in the brightness and beauty of holiness , its justification appears most glorious , and its union and communion most sweet and lasting ; and so , like two twins , as they are much of an age , so they are like one to the other ; and what god hath joyned together , let no man put assunder . we also by this light believe , that acceptance with the father is only in christ ; and by his righteousness made ours , or imputed unto us : not by the creaturely skil , but by the applicatory act of god's gift of grace , whereby the soul feels the difference between self-applying by its own faith , and god applying by his spirit , and so making christ unto the soul , wisdom , righteousness , sanctification and redemption : so that we believe and are sure , that there is a great difference between imputation , as it is the act of man's spirit , and as it is the act of free grace , without man's forcing . and so we distinguish between imagination and imputation , between reckoning or imputing that is real , and reckoning or imputation that is not real , but a fiction and imagination in the creaturely will and power . and because we are against the latter , we are clamoured upon , as if we denied the imputation of christ's righteousness ; when it is only unto those , that are not made righteous by it , to walk as he also walked : for , as the scripture saith , is it not he that saith he is righteous by the imputation of christ's righteousness , but he that doth righteousness is righteous , as christ is righteous , joh. . . he that believes otherwise is deceived . and yet it is not acts of righteousness , as done by us , nor as inherent in us , as acts , by which we are accepted of god , and justified before him ; but by christ the author and worker of those acts in us and for us ; whereby we know that we are in him , and he in us , and we hold him as our head , into whom all things are gathered together in one , even in him . we further believe , that god is only to be worshipped , and not any likeness that man makes unto himself of god , from any view , sight or knowledge that he hath had of him ; but in every act and service , man is to know what substantially , as well as whom speculatively or notionally he worshippeth , as it is written , joh. . . ye worship ye know not what : we know what we worship ; for salvation is of the jews . and he that thus worships the father , honours the son by the same spirit , which is one with the father and the son ; in which spirit only god is worshipped , according to the form of its own choosing and manifesting of it self in and by , according unto the good pleasure of the father , who is a spirit , and limits man unto the spirit 's form , but allows not man to limit the spirit unto his form , though it be not of his inventing originally , but of the father ; yet man must no more limit god unto it , than he could command god to appear in it at first : for as he chose it himself , so he hath reserved liberty to leave it at his pleasure , who works all things after the counsel of his own will , which he hath purposed in himself , that the gift of the knowledge of the mystery of his will , might for ever be acknowledged to be of his grace , and from the riches of the glory thereof , according to ephes . . and man be bound , but god free ; man bound to wait in the light for god's movings , but god free to move in whom , to what , and when he pleaseth : then man is to go when he saith go , and come when he saith come ; and such servants do serve him ; and then there is no more curse , as in the dayes of will-worship and voluntary humility , but the throne of god and of the lamb , col. . , . rev. . , . and they shall see his face , and his name shall be on their foreheads . we believe also , that this worship is spiritual ( and not carnal ) in all its parts and ordinances , and not to be imposed by any outward force , but performed by the inward leadings of god's spirit , according as the holy men of god were led and guided in the dayes past , who gave forth the scriptures ; all impositions of worship outward , being only enjoyned under the first covenant , that made nothing perfect , until the time of reformation , spoken of , heb. . . but christ being come , there is an end as well of such impositions , as of the meats and drinks , and divers baptisms and carnal ordinances , they being all but temporary , and in order unto an end ; but all to vail to christ , the sum and substance of all , [ the first ] pointed at by all , and [ the last ] ending of all , the amen . and he that thus worships god in christ , his ordinances are spiritual and not carnal , and his faith carries him beyond his works , with righteous abel , and preserves him that he is not drowned in the form , like cain ; neither falls he short of the glory of god , nor of his assurance of acceptance with him . we believe there is one baptism necessary unto salvation , ephes . . . one lord , one faith , one baptism . and this baptism is spiritual , of which john's water was but a figure , joh. . . that he should be made manifest to israel , therefore am i come , baptizing with water , saith john : and pet. . . the like figure whereunto , even baptism , doth also now save us ; not the putting away of the filth of the flesh , but the answer of a good conscience towards god , by the resurrection of jesus christ . this one spiritual baptism into the name of jesus christ , is that which saves ; the water being but a figure , that christ might be manifest to israel , who had divers baptisms imposed on them , until the time of reformation ; but christ the substance being come , the shadows fly away . and yet where ever any are commanded now by the same spirit that commanded the believers to be baptized in the days past , either for the furtherance of the gospel , or tryal of their faith , we judge them not . but this obedience is very rare to be found , and we could heartily desire , that all would consider seriously , whether litteral sayings observed onely by outward reading , hearing by the ear , or inward impulses upon the heart by the divine power , are the motives unto obediences in this kind . and if honesty and uprightness of heart may be heard , we believe and know , the many dead souls every where , notwithstanding their baptisms , will be as so many witnesses against them , by their groveling upon the earth , as so many slain and killed men by the letter , while the spirit 's quickenings have not been known in the true baptism into death . for we find by daily experiences , that most men and women live like pharaoh's lean kine , onely to eat up the fat , and to envy those that are not so lean-soul'd as themselves . we believe also , that as there is one true saving baptism , so is there one bread or body of christ , which all the saints do feed upon ; and though they be many as to persons , yet their bread is but one , and they all in it but one bread. and this we believe is the flesh that came down from heaven , joh. . . though the outward jews now , as then , murmur at him because he said , i am the bread which came down from heaven , vers . , . but christ , ( vers . . ) to stop their murmuring , tells them , that the knowledge of this mystery was only revealed unto them whom god ( and not man ) teacheth ; and no more than are taught of god , can set seal and subscribe unto this truth in jesus : though we believe also , that jesus did take outward bread and brake it , and gave it to the disciples , as the scripture saith ; and this was a figure of his body ( that was to be pierced and broken upon the tree ) and a shew , to shew forth his death until he came . and we believe he did arise again , and appear unto his disciples ; and all that believed were together and had all things common , &c. and they continuing daily with one accord in the temple , breaking bread from house to house , did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart , praising god , and having favour with all the people , act. . , , . . and we believe that the apostle in cor. . . saith true , where he saith , when ye come together therefore in one place , this is not to eat the lord's supper . and all that he speaks in that chapter , is not to perpetuate that outward breaking of bread , otherwise than as the believers did , that were filled with the holy ghost in singleness of heart , as before is said ; and yet we judge not those who break outward bread and drink outward wine , being commanded so to do ; and put in remembrance thereby of the body and blood of jesus christ , by the remembrancer , the spirit of truth , which is appointed by the father to lead into all truth . but to do it by imitation , or tradition only , ( as most do it , if not all at this day ) we know it is not an offering unto god in righteousness , neither do we believe this to be the communion of the body and blood of christ ; and yet , the eating of the flesh , and drinking of the blood of christ , we believe man must know and witnesse , or he hath no life in him , joh. . , , . and we believe that many are striving now in their spirits as the jews did , vers . . saying , how can this man give us his flesh to eat ? and not onely the jews but many of his disciples said , this is an hard saying , who can bear it ? vers . . and at vers . . he tells them , it is the spirit that quickens , the flesh profiteth nothing ; the words that i speak unto you , they are spirit , and they are life ; and he that hears and understands these words , that are spirit and life , will not be offended at what i have spoken of the flesh and blood of christ . by the same spirit and grace we believe , that prayer is an ordinance of god when performed by his spirit , in its words ( and not those which man's wisdom teacheth ) or without words , by sighs and groans which cannot be uttered , and these so often as the spirit it self pleaseth . but the form without the spirit , whether it be by words of other mens framing , or words of a man 's own spirit , according to his will , time and manner , this is not the prayer that prevails with god. and we believe there is none so weak and infirm , but this spirit profers its help at some time or other , though man regardeth it not . and the more man's mind is gathered within from all visibles , the more he comes to be sensible of the movings and stirrings of this spirit , in its secret cryes to god , answerable to the wants of that man or woman , in whom it moves and cryes . and by due watching thereunto , we believe and know , the spirit of prayer and of adoption , that cries unto god , comes to be discerned and distinguished from a man 's own spirit and will. we believe by the same gift of grace , that there are several ministrations , and several operations , according to cor. . and all by the same spirit , as before the law , and after the law , by moses , and after by john the baptist , and christ , and his apostles ; and in all these , the ministration had acceptance with god through the management of the spirit , and its rejection and dislike of god for the want thereof . and by this spirit were the scriptures given forth , and did the holy men of god speak , prophecy , preach and pray as they were moved ; and for want of it , the letter did , and doth kill . and for the further appearance and pouring out of this spirit , answerable unto the work and service that god had for them to do , they were to wait , as christ commanded his disciples to do at jerusalem , to receive the promise of the father : for , by this spirit he that speaks , speaks as the oracle of god. and therefore , as it was the practice of the people of god in old time , to wait for the moving and stirring of this spirit , that they might speak , as it gave them utterance , in the evidence and demonstration thereof ; so do this people ( called quakers ) now ; and according to its moving in their hearts , they minister , according to the signification of the spirit , whereby they understand , both what and when to speak , and when to be silent ; as also , who they are that minister and speak in their own wills , above the cross of christ , which the apostle was careful always to be in subjection to , lest he should make it void , by speaking the words which man's wisdom teacheth ; and therefore as the saints did , so we do believe , and therefore we speak : and such preaching and speaking in faith , as well as praying in faith , is acceptable unto god as his worship , and not otherwise . and we further believe by the same spirit , that the sum of all religion , according to truth , and the signification of the word [ religion ] is , man not at liberty in his will , but bound again unto god by his having given to him , by the light of christ within , the true sight and knowledge of himself as in himself , as lost and undone for ever , and from this sight a true sence to arise upon and remain with him ; from whence spring unutterable groans and crys unto god , under the weight of the burden and wretchedness , by reason of the body of sin and death ; and then when there was none to help or pitty in this state , then is mercy shewed in christ the arm of god , which is revealed as an help , neither seen , nor known , where , how or when to come at it , or meet with it : and this begets in the heart of that man and woman , in , and unto whom it is thus revealed , thanks and praises unto god , for this gift and revelation of his son , in this needful time , whom the soul sees to be the gift of eternal love. and we believe and know , upon this love and faithfulness of god , is founded , built and established the everlasting covenant ( whereby not onely all men may be saved , for its ability , but some shall be saved because of its prevalency ) which is not like to the covenant which he made with our fathers . and although all mankind is not saved , yet it is not because either of insufficiency in this covenant , or because of the weakness of the grace that appeares in and unto all men ; but because of man's will , loving death and choosing his own delusions , whereby his destruction is of himself , and god clear of his blood in the free tender of his grace , gift and striving of his spirit within him . for we know assuredly , according to the scriptures of truth , and experience of all souls that ever were truly converted to god , that though by grace man is saved , not of himself , but by the free gift , yet as the old world did , and those rebellious jews spoken of acts . who , as did their fathers , so did they , alwayes resist the holy ghost , so do men now . and yet in the tender of this grace and striving of his spirit , the lord is a god so hiding himself in the management of this striving and ministration of his spirit , as if it wholly depended upon man's choice and consenting , that man's will , as to him , is ( as it were ) free in rejecting or accepting , life and death being set before him ; whereby in the wisdom of god , the propensity of his nature , as it came out of the hands of his maker , hath an advantage by this dealing of god , to put forth it self ; so that man is as free in the choice , as he is in the refusal of the tender of mercy and help , and that with an equal indifferency , as it appears to him in this state ; notwithstanding afterwards , in the further growth in this grace , and knowledge of christ , he sees clearly and convincingly , that the grace ( that wrought hiddenly from his sight and knowledge in the first working , tender , and ministration of god towards him ) gained his consent through its own prevalency in the love of god ; by which sight and sence self comes to be abhorred , and the free love so admired , that he knows from first to last , all was of grace , and that free ; that self is not able to challenge any thing as due from what it had done , but all of gift , and yet as before , with such an equal indifferency on man's account ; so that god may and will appear to be just , both in condemning and saving , and the justifier freely of all that believe in jesus , the light of the world. therefore , let all take heed , how they dislike this ministration of god , and striving of his spirit in their hearts and consciences , under colour and pretence of its insufficiency , and therfore they will not come to him , because his drawings and strivings are not so strong as they would have them to be ; looking for such an overpowering and irresistiblness , as they are not able to withstand and gainsay ; lest such perish through a wilful neglect , & for want of stretching out their hand , when the lord holds out his ; and so they perish in the ditch , with a vain expectation of further power or cry in their mouths , lord have mercy on us : and so with the sluggard , while they cry , yet a little more slumber and folding of the hands to sleep , their garden is overgrown with weeds , and their backs clothed with rags , and they beg in harvest ; whilst others that have sown in tears , not fainting , do in due time reap in joy , and not despising the crums that fell from the table , nor the day of small things , witness the presence of their beloved , come down into his garden , and walking among the lillies . let these things be truly considered , pondred and weighed in the true ballance of light and righteousness , lest any soul perish through the false weight and measure ; so shall my soul rejoyce that any have escaped the net of the fowler , through the discovery of the true light , and god have all the glory , unto whom alone it belongs , and man ashamed , confounded , his mouth stopped , and he laid in the dust for ever ; and then shall my end be answered in writing these things . the end . concerning perswasions in matters of religion . there is the natural man and the spiritual man , and there are the perswasions of each in and about matters of religion . there is the perswasion of reason , and the perswasion of faith. the perswasion of reason is that belief which man receives into his mind or heart from the exercise of the reasoning faculty : and this perswasion in matters of religion is but man's opinion or judgement , which how certain or infallible soever it appear to him , yet may be shaken by a demonstration or evidence of an higher kind and nature . the perswasion of faith is that belief , which the new-creature receives into the renewed mind , from the evidence and demonstration of the spirit , which openeth and manifesteth the things of the spirit , unto that mind which is begotten and renewed by it . and this perswasion is certain and infallible , however it may be struck at and battered , by the reasonings of the wise earthly part , even in that very man , whose heart is thus perswaded , by the light of the spirit of god , concerning the things of god's kingdom . now the lowest perswasion of faith is higher and of a more noble nature than the highest perswasion of reason : because faith is of an higher principle , and of a deeper nature and ground , than man's reason is . but this ( because it appears not in man's sphear , but rather out of it , and is contrary to the line and reach of his wisdom ) is accounted by him foolishness and madness . thus is the wisdom of god ( and the children thereof ) judged and condemned by man in his day . and how can it be otherwise ? how can the wisdom of man but judge that as foolishness , whose beauty and excellency is hid from its eye ? but this is , because the wisdom of man is out of its place , not subjected to the wisdom of god , but exalted above it ; therefore ( as a curse unto it ) is it suffered to lift up it self in its conceitedness against , and so to persecute the pure wisdom of god and the births thereof , that it might fall , and be broken , and snared , and taken , and its day deservedly come to an end , and be shut up in the shadows and chambers of eternal darkness . but what ear of man can hear this ! surely none that is whole in the line of man's wisdom , reason and understanding , but that alone which is bruised , broken and in some measure dashed to pieces , by the inroads of a diviner life and nature . this , in the leadings of that life which hath broken it , and in the shinings of the light eternal upon it and into it , may be enabled to take up the cross to the natural part , and to die that death with christ , which preserves from the second death , with the misery thereof . happy is he , who knows and hearkens to the perswasions of god's spirit , who is born of god , and taught to wait upon him and worship him in spirit , who receives his religion from the light of faith , into the renewed nature and mind , and not from the reason of man into the natural understanding , which is easily corrupted and cannot be kept pure , but alone by the indwelling of the principle of eternal life in it . for though such may suffer very deeply in this world , from the men of this world ( as the subjects and servants to the principle of life have done in all ages and generations ) yet their principle will bear them out , in which god will appear to strengthen and refresh their spirits , and carry them up above all their sufferings in the patience , meekness , and faith of the lamb. and keeping to their principle , they cannot be overcome , but must either live or die conquerors , according to the will and good pleasure of him who ordereth and disposeth of all things well , and bringeth good out of every evil , in despight of all the powers of darkness . and he that overcometh ( whether by life or death ) in the lamb's spirit , shall wear the lamb's crown , and sit down in that perfect rest in the kingdom of the father , which will give the hearts of all his children full satisfaction . in which assured hope ( life stirring in our bosoms , and quickning our hearts with love unto our god , and zeal for his truth ) we can freely give up all that is near and dear unto us in this world , and lay down our heads in inward peace , in the midst of the greatest outward persecution and trouble . even so , o lord , thy will be done concerning this generation of thy people , whom thou hast begotten to thy self , and brought forth by thy mighty power , to testifie to thy truth in this present day . dispose of them as it pleaseth thee , and let not their faith in thee , nor thy faithfulness to them fail , but let them be a praise to thy name throughout all generations , and tendred by thee as the first-fruits of thine appearance , in the glorious light of the everlasting day , after this great , long , thick and dark night of apostacy from the life and spirit of the apostles , which hath so long eclipsed and covered the brightness of thy beauty from the sight of the earth . isaac penington . an epistle to all such as observe the seventh-day of the week for a sabbath to the lord. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page image. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) an epistle to all such as observe the seventh-day of the week for a sabbath to the lord. penington, isaac, - . sheet ([ ] p.) printed for robert wilson, [london : ] signed: isaac pennington the younger. imprint information suggested by wing. reproduction of original in: friends' library (london, england). eng society of friends -- england -- pastoral letters and charges. sabbath. broadsides -- england -- th century. a r (wing p ). civilwar no an epistle to all such as observe the seventh-day of the week for a sabbath to the lord. penington, isaac b the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the b category of texts with fewer than defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images - jonathan blaney sampled and proofread - jonathan blaney text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion an epistle to all such as observe the seventh-day of the week for a sabbath to the lord . friends , in true love to your souls , and in the fear of the lord i have a few things to lay before you , that the simplicity in you may not be deceived , and yee err from the way of life , while yee may be eagerly seeking and pressing towards it : for notwithstanding that , if with the wrong eye yee be searching into scripture , ye must needs mis-read , mis-understand , and mispractice ; and so thereby will still be running further and further from god , even while yee think yee are drawing nigher towards him . be perswaded therefore seriously to consider ( out of the wisdome from which god hides , in the babish simplicity of his begetting , where the true life springs ) these few things following . . that the whole law of moses ( the ten words , as well as the institutions about sacrifices and worship ) was added because of transgression , gal. . . . that the whole law ( the ten words , as well as the sacrifices ) were representations , figures or shadows of somewhat relating to christ the seed , subservient to the promise not making perfect , but pointing to , and making way for the bringing in of the better hope , gal. . . heb. . . the law of commandements , or the ten words did no more make perfect , than the other shadows or sacrifices did , but with them made way for the better hope , towards which they were to lead their schollar or disciple as a school-master . . that the whole dispensation of the law was given to the jews , and not to the gentiles , rom. . . and so not any thing there written bindeth the gentiles ( as there written ) but onely the jews . god had another way of making his mind known to the gentiles , rom. . . and . . according to which he would judge them , ver. . and not by the law written , which was given to the jews , which spake not to the gentiles , but to the jews who were under it , rom. . . . that the duration of this dispensation of moses law in the letter , was till christ , the seed should come and fulfill it , gal. . . and ver. , . moses his family with all the laws thereof , were to prepare for christ the seed , and to give way to him when he came : for when that dispensation which was figured out , is come ; then that dispensation which did figure it out , is at an end , heb. . , . christ came to do the will , to keep and fulfill the whole law , and so to put an end to that dispensation of it , psal. . rom. . . and so he taketh away the first administration of the law , which was in the letter , that he might establish the second , which is in the spirit , heb. . . cor. . , . this then is the truth , as it is in jesus concerning this thing , that christ comming in the flesh , and fulfilling all the righteousnesse ( as well of the ten commandements , as of the sacrifices ) puts an end to that dispensation wholly : so that henceforth both jews and gentiles are to come to him , to hear his voice , this is my beloved son , hear him . and moses foretold , that when that prophet came , he was to be heard in all things ; whose whole ministration was but to figure out what the son was afterwards to fulfill in spirit , heb. . . who would be faithfull to give forth the entire law and substance of life to his house or family of believers , as moses was faithful to give the entire shadow to his house or family of that nation of the jews , ver. . so that here , in the gospell , christ being come , the new covenant and law in the spirit takes place , and not the old covenant or law in the letter . and this law is more inward , more full , more close , more spirituall , and more lasting , then the ministration of moses law to them of old time was , gal. . . &c. and it is the ministration of this law of the spirit which is not to passe away from the disciples of christ , untill all be fulfilled ; but is to remain a sword against every lust and desire of the flesh in them , untill they all with the very root of them be thereby cut down , mat. . . heb. . . mat. . , . quest . but what were the ten commandements a figure or shadow of ? answ. the tables of stone were a representation or figure of the fleshly tables of the heart , wherein the new law of the covenant of life is written . the writing of the law of commandements in the tables of stone , was a figure of the writing of this new law by the finger of gods spirit in the heart . the outward writing in the outward tables , was a figure of the inward writing in the inward tables . the law it self of commandements , which was written in those tables , was a figure of the law of life which is to be written in these tables . and this law thus received , thus written , is easily fulfilled , whereas the law in the letter , because of the weaknesse of the flesh was very hard to be fulfilled , and generally proved an hand-writing of ordinances against the jews : for he that was guilty of one , was guilty of all , and so upon every transgression had the force and strength of the whole law against him . and whosoever now runs back to the law in the letter , to take up any command as held forth in it , and so making himself a debter thereto , will be found a breaker thereof in spirit , even one that hath more gods then the lord , a maker of images or liknesses of things in heaven , or things in earth , if not of both , a taker of the name in vain , a prophaner of the sabbath , &c. for he that hath not received the law of the spirit of life in christ jesus , knoweth not the lord of life to be the onely true god , but maketh images in his mind , and taketh his name in vain , not feeling the living power thereof , nor can keep his sabbath ( ceasing from sin , forbearing his own works , his own willing and running , and entring into the rest of the gospell ) for there is but one day of rest holy to the lord ; all the sabbaths of the law were but signes of it , having but a significative or representative holynesse ; but the day of redemption which the lord hath made , psal. . . ( in which his redeemed rejoyce , and rest to him ) that hath the true holynesse . this was it which came by christ , the other came by moses , joh. . . moses his family or children were to keep that day ( that was the day for the servants , who were to be exercised under the shadows ) but the believers are to keep this day in the spirit , to enter into this rest by the faith , heb. . and to worship the father in it , in the spirit , and in the truth , on the mountain of his holynesse , joh. . . whereof the other mountain , temple , worship , and day was but a shadow . now the sum or substance of this law of the spirit , may outwardly be signified in divers short words , as love , that comprehends the whole of it , so doth fear ; there is the whole wisdom and course of the life comprehended also : or thus , thou shalt not lust , ( thus it was administred to paul , rom. . ) or thou shalt keep the sabbath , or believe in the light , folow the light . the observing of any one of these in the spirit , is the keeping of the law ; for every breach of the law is out of the love ▪ out of the fear , a lust of the fleshly spirit , a transgression of the sabbath , or spirituall rest to god , out of the light , and out of the faith . but if ye will read this in the spirit , and come to the true righteousnesse of the faith , which is received in the obedience of faith , to the law of the spirit , ye must come to the word of faith , to which paul directs , rom. . . by the hearing whereof is the justification , and not by a bare believing that christs blood was shed : for it is the vertue of the blood which saves , which vertue is in the living word , and is felt and received in hearing , believing , and obeying that word , thereby bringing into unity and conformity with him both in his death , and in his resurrection and life . this is the onely way to life , be not deceived : there is not , nor ever was any other . o wait on the lord in his fear , that it may be opened to you , and that slain in you which cannot bear the straitnesse thereof , and with which there is no entring . from a friend to your eternall peace , isaac pennington the younger . to the army penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (thomason .f. [ ]). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page image. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p thomason .f. [ ] estc r this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (thomason tracts ; : f [ ]) to the army penington, isaac, - . sheet ([ ] p.) s.n., [london : ] signed at end: isaac penington, the younger. imprint from wing. an exhortation to humility. annotation on thomason copy: "xber. [i.e. december] . ". reproduction of the original in the british library. eng england and wales. -- army -- early works to . soldiers -- religious life -- england -- early works to . a r (thomason .f. [ ]). civilwar no to the army. penington, isaac a this text has no known defects that were recorded as gap elements at the time of transcription. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images - pip willcox sampled and proofread - pip willcox text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion to the army . friends , do ye not see how often ye have been betrayed ? the lord hath done great things for you , and by you , and put great opportunities into your hands ; but still they have been lost , his work fallen to the ground , and his name become a reproach over all the earth , through your means . o be abased before the lord , and lie very low , and consider how justly he may lay you aside from being his instruments , in that great and glorious work he hath to bring to pass . if ye desire to stand , look up to the lord to keep your spirits very low , and poor , and meek , and ready to hear . o wait to know what hath betrayed you hitherto ! for assuredly that lies in wait to betray you again : and if the lord mightily preserve you not from it , will make you forget him , and cause you to mind and seek your selves afresh , so soon as ever your fears are over . therefore in the day of your prosperity the lord watch over you , and keep you close to the stirrings and honest movings for publick good , that have sprung up in your hearts in the dayes of your adversity : and take heed , lest the subtilty in the wise fleshly-reasoning part deceive you . but fear the lord in your reasonings , and beg earnestly of him to keep the simplicity alive in you , that the fleshly wisdome get not mastery over it . for the evil counsellour is neer you , even in your own bosomes , and he lies lurking in plausible , & fair-seeming reasonings . therefore keep close to the simplicity , and let your reasonings be servants to it , and not masters over it . ah remember how often ye have started aside like a warping bow : become now at lengtht uprigh to the lord , carrying faithfully to the mark those his arrows , which he is shooting at the regions of babylon . this is from one who waits for what the lord will effect , and hopes at length to see an instrument in his hand , wherein his soul will delight . isaac penington , the younger . light or darknesse, displaying or hiding it self, as it pleaseth, and from or to whom it pleaseth: arraigning, judging, condemning, both the shame and glory of the creature, in all its severall breakings forth from, and appearances in, the creature. / held forth to publike view in a sermon, a letter, and severall other inward openings. through isaac penington, (junior) esq; penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (thomason e _ ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p thomason e _ estc r this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (thomason tracts ; :e [ ]) light or darknesse, displaying or hiding it self, as it pleaseth, and from or to whom it pleaseth: arraigning, judging, condemning, both the shame and glory of the creature, in all its severall breakings forth from, and appearances in, the creature. / held forth to publike view in a sermon, a letter, and severall other inward openings. through isaac penington, (junior) esq; penington, isaac, - . [ ], , [ ] p. printed by john macock, london : m. dc. l. [ ] annotation on thomason copy: "may. .". reproduction of the original in the british library. eng sermons, english -- th century. a r (thomason e _ ). civilwar no light or darknesse,: displaying or hiding it self, as it pleaseth, and from or to whom it pleaseth: arraigning, judging, condemning, both t penington, isaac b the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the b category of texts with fewer than defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - john latta sampled and proofread - john latta text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion light or darknesse , displaying or hiding it self , as it pleaseth , and from or to whom it pleaseth : arraigning , judging , condemning , both the shame and glory of the creature , in all its severall breakings forth from , and appearances in , the creature . held forth to publike view in a sermon , a letter , and severall other inward openings . through isaac penington , ( junior ) esq jer. . ver. , , , . i beheld the earth , and lo , it was without form and voyd : and the heavens , and they had no light . i beheld the mountains , and lo , they trembled ; and all the hills moved lightly . i beheld , and lo , there was no man , and all the birds of the heavens were fled . i beheld , and lo , the fruitful place was a wilderness , and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the lord , and by his fierce anger . london , printed by john macock . m. dc . l. to the reader . reader , behold , ( if thou hast an eye to pierce into the inward state of things , ) look stedfastly , and thou shalt see a strange sight : one who hath been deeply affected with wisdom , true wisdom , heavenly wisdom , spiritual wisdom , inward wisdom , and vehemently pursuing it from the womb ; being still encouraged by some tastes of it , and certain lively hopes of further attaining and enjoying its sweetness ; at length wholly stripped of all his riches in this kinde , and his desire after it again ( though it remained strong a a good while after the loss ) quite taken from him also . never was i perfectly at enmity with any thing but folly . it was not simply sin that i was at variance with , but the foolishness of sin . i knew well enough that god and the creature had an hand in the same act , even in every act of sin : i could bear with it in god , because he knew how to do it wisely ; but i could not bear with it in the creature , because it did it so foolishly . that which made god so lovely in my eye , was chiefly his wisdom , which to me was the crown of his love , power , goodness , and all his other excellencies , which , unless possessed by wisdom , and managed by wisdom , would , to my eye , have had no lustre in them , but deformity . that which made the creature so unlovely still to me , as it hath always been , was its folly , which hath made all the excellencies of the creature ( wherewith it hath at any time been clothed , and whereby it shined in the eyes of others ) so fulsom to me , that my spirit hath stil turned as much from them , and from it in them , as from its greatest pollutions . but now , i have been so toss'd and tumbled , melted and new ▪ molded , that i am changed into that which i thought it utterly impossible for me ever to be . i am grown at peace , if not in love , with folly . i begin to prefer folly at my very heart above wisdom . i am half perswaded , that there is a more sweet , quiet , and full enjoyment of ones self in a state of folly , then in a state of wisdom ; besides its being a neerer , readier , and easier passage to somewhat else . i confess , i am not yet so far subdued and changed , as to be content to take up a state of folly to perpetuity , but onely for a season to lie down in it , to obtain a little ease and respite , and to have the visage and remembrance of that wisdom perfectly blotted out , which did formerly so ravish and enchant me . in this state of folly i finde a new state of things springing up in me , and representing themselves to my view ; which i entertain like a fool , not wisely enquireing what bottom they have , or how they will endure the tryal of the fire , but letting them in or out very carelesly , not regarding either what they are , whence they come , or whither they go . i see , i feel , i am a fool , i know not ( nor can know in the state wherein i am ) to whom they belong , i know not how i come by them at any time ; they are strangely formed in me : let them look to themselves if they are afraid of injury , either from me , or from any else because of me ; let him look to them to whom they belong , if he set any value upon them , or have any esteem of them . as for me , i have nothing to do with them , but to let them have their course in me , and through me , which i am now at length become very free unto ; nay , indeed in the present state wherein i am , i am altogether unable to stop them in it . i finde my self powerfully forming into somewhat , which , what ere it be , it will be no thank to me , for i did not like it , nay , resisted as long as i could ; but now i am vanquished , and so broken all in peeces , that there is no more strength or wisdom left in me ; i begin to yeeld up my self somewhat freely into the hands of this unknown potter , to mold me into what he himself has a minde . i am weary of , and much weaned from , my own will and desires , even those which were most pure , most spiritual , and now i begin to lisp to this hidden power which i know not , yet feel working in me . thy will , thy unknown will , thy undesired will ( by any but thy self ) be done . what ever thy will be concerning any , let it take place in them , and upon them , to the utmost . bend thy felf no longer to please the desire of the creature in any thing , but henceforth apply thy self to please thy self in every thing . let not me nor any else be what we would ; but what thy will pleaseth to have us ; and fulfil thy whole will and counsel upon us , without giving us the least account of it , until thou pleasest . if thou wilt lead us into folly , sin , death , hell , any thing , every thing , do what thou wilt , carry us whither thou wilt . let our will wholly dye in us , that it may never avoyd any thing more , nor chuse any thing more in any kinde , but as thy will chuseth for us . ye cannot but be offended at this kinde of voyce o ye wise men , who know groundedly , and from principles of light and wisdom , how to frame your desires and requests ; yet , if ye be able , give liberty to him ( who is made a fool by the forcible breaking of all these principles in him ) to speak according to what he hath ( though very unwillingly ) been made . i have nothing to say to perswade or invite thee to cast thine eye , bestow any pains on , or give any regard to that which follows ▪ what thou mayst finde here , i hold out but as the words of a fool , yet i will not give thee leave to judg them so : for as i my self ( feeling my self to be a fool ) do not , so i know thou canst not judg them . this is a kinde of scripture which thou art not acquainted with , and though thou wouldst fain be approving or condemning , yet thou canst not , until thou comest to know and understand it . this light , this darkness ( be it what it will ) is of a deeper kinde then thine is , ( thine must be blotted out before this can be written ) and thine eye cannot discern it . this is of a new stamp , of a new nature , of a new edition , and lies open onely to the judgment of the new eye , which alone can discover what it is in its kinde , whether true or false , unfeigned or countefeit . the lowest in this region can see into the highest in thine : but the clearest eye of the highest in thy region , cannot discern the lowest here . therefore look to thy self ; take heed what thou thinkest , or sayst , lest thy wisdom ( which is now exalted , and can distinguish and judg things , to the satisfaction of it self and others ) whereby thou scornest folly and the fool , come under the just sentence and condemnation of the fool . he who made all things , and hath often prepared folly to bring wisdom down , may be about the same work again in a way as uncouth , strange , unexpected , yea , impossible to the present wise man , as those ways he formerly picked out still were to the wisest in those generations . this is an angry age , and men can hardly bear any thing , though they are throughly crossed in it , for the less they can bear , the more is layd upon them : yet methinks the wise man should be able to bear . he can gladly suffer a fool , who knows himself to be wise . and yet who is more offended then the wise man ? none is less careful of offending then the fool , and none more capable of offence then the wise man . so far as i have any tincture of what i formerly was , left upon me , i am very loth to offend : but as i am a fool , i am no whit shy of it , but can delight to lay snares and stumbling blocks , and to see wisdom entangled in them , and breaking its shins upon them . therefore have no regard to me , but use thine own freedom in thinking , speaking , judging : it is onely in regard to thy self that i should advise thee to be sober and silent concerning that which thou canst not yet reach ; which counsel , if thou canst receive , it may be for thine ease and advantage , which , when thou comest to feel what belongs to true torment and loss , thou wilt then know how to prize . and when thou findest what changes they will make in thee , which all the strength of thy reason and religion shall not be able to withstand , ( nay , they will break both reason and religion at their pleasure ; and the more they oppose them , the faster wil they break them ; ) i say , when thou findest this by evident sense and experience past all denial or gainsaying , that enmity , rage , or zeal , which is now in thee so hot against others , will quickly abate ; and thou wilt grow silent concerning them , if not friends with them . a sermon to all sorts of people : tending towards the allaying that bitterness & enmity of spirit , which abounds every where , among all sorts , towards such as differ in any eminent degree from themselves . matth. . . if the light that is in thee be darkness , how great is that darkness ? joel . . the sun shall be turned into darkness , and the moon into blood , before the great and the terrible day of the lord come . the preface . o how thick hath misery enwrapped it self about the bulk of this creation ! where is that eye that can see through it into happiness ? that happiness which most have dreamed of , is already to many swallowed up in misery : but where is that happiness , which can swallow up this unexpected inundation of misery , which drowns both heaven and earth ? there are waters above , as well as beneath , ( though it is hard to conceive so ) and when both meet , they make a dreadful deluge . o how is truth drowned , light drowned , life drowned , purity drowned , in the great abyss of confusion ! where is that that remains certain , after this sharp vehement shaking ? they perhaps may boast , who have not yet felt the violence of the wind ; but it would somewhat interrupt their exultation , if they could but consider , that their day is also coming ; yea , it might wholly quash it , if they knew how near it were upon them . o what a brutish thing is man , that can never beleeve or be made sensible of any thing , until he come to feel it ! though houses round about him be on fire , and he have that within which kindles the flame , yet he makes no question but he shall live secure . from the day that man has been upon the face of the earth , still has he been blessing himself , and pleasing himself with his own condition , magnifying it beyond others ( whom he is very wise in accusing and condemning , ) in the mean while not truly knowing , either whence he came , what he is , or whither he goes . o foolish justifier of thy self , o foolish condemner of others , being ignorant both of thy self , and others ! thine eye is dark . the light whereby thou seest is darkness ; what meanest thou to be so forward & confident in judging either thy self or others ? o god , put out this eye of man , put out this light of man , cover it with an eternal night . bring forth a true , a substantial state of things , with an eye that may behold it , an heart that may comprehend it , a life that may quicken and live in it . awake , awake o sons of men , how long will ye love vanity ? how long will ye seek after lyes ? how long will ye love shadows , and please your selves with them , as if they were the substance ? your condemnation is written on your foreheads , and in the palms of your hands : ye accuse , condemn , prosecute , for calling darkness light , error truth ; and yet which of you doth otherwise ? come forth o god , and triumph in the condemnation of all : throw down the great justifier , and lay him flat with the lowest that he has condemned . o that my spirit might be once satisfied , in beholding that thrown down which it abhors , and that exalted which it loves . and this is that which my soul in its inmost part desireth , that the tincture both of good and evil , in all its varieties and expatiations , might be blotted out ; and things reduced into , and produced in their originality , which comprehends both good and evil in an absolute perfection . and then we shall see all things , no more with one kinde of eye appearing to be evil , nor with another kinde of eye appearing to be good , but as they are indeed in their inmost bottom , where alone is true knowledg , peace , rest , and content , eternally to be found and possessed . perhaps , reader , thou mayst expect an account of this ensuing discourse , which i must profess to thee i am driven to by a kinde of inward impulsion , which i know not of what nature it is : and i am made so weak by continual different exercises upon my spirit ( which i finde powerfully destroying and blotting out in me , what ever i have been , or have desired to be , and molding and forming me to somewhat else , which i neither expected , nor desired ; hereby i say i am brought to so much weakness ) that i am become altogether unable to resist it , otherwise it is likely at this time i should not have troubled thee . one word more . there was a passage in that book last set forth , which i hear hath administred offence to divers . the passage was about pure sporting with sin , which they think cannot be . i will not say that i spake that upon a deeper ground then man usually speaks upon ; yet this i cannot but say , it is my interest , and i must stickle for it , though not with men , yet in mine own spirit . some questioned with me , whether i meant the act of sin ? i confess my eye , or thoughts , was little upon the act , but upon the inward nature of it , which must not remain in perpetual enmity , but at last be owned as an excellent servant to him , by whom and for whom all things were made , out of whom they came , and into whom they return , according to his own will and guidance . and sin could never have done him that service that it has , if it had not had that nature that it has . and sin must have its due from the righteous judg , who will as well be glorified in being just unto sin , as in shewing his wisdom and power in conquering of it . in a word ; to the creature , in the present state of the creature , under the present law of the creature , according to the judgment of the eye of the creature , every thing is unlovely ; and he that sees them not to be so , falls short of the perfection of the creaturely eye . but come deeper , beyond this state , beneath this law ; look with a true eye , and there you shall finde all this unloveliness pass away , and an excellency appear , that the creature could never so much as imagine or dream of . and now come back with this eye into the present state of all things , and behold them through the true glass , and you shall see them all new here also , and very far differing from what you did or could take them to be in your creaturely apprehension . if this may tend to afford satisfaction to any concerning the further discovery of my minde in this respect , it will be pleasing to me , who delight not to have it hid , but would fain have it opened and presented to the view of all , not as desiring either their approbation or condemnation , but to satisfie the desire it self . this is all i have to express by way of preface . a sermon to all sorts of people , from job . . this is uniform , thereupon i speak : he destroyeth the perfect and the wicked . job was a very excellent spirited man , and very exact in his practice ; so exact under that present administration wherein he was set , that his life , temper and motions were exceeding pleasing to him , who had so formed and acted him ; in so much as he was not ashamed to boast of him , even to the face of the great opposer , disturber , and destroyer of such kinde of buildings . this job as he was perfect under that administration , so he was in a proportionable manner blessed with children , sheep , camels , oxen , asses , and a very great family . in a moment all these blessings are snatched away , rich job made poor , by being stripped of all ; which he takes very patiently , retaining as sweet a temper of spirit under his affliction and misery , as had attended him in the time of his prosperity . after this , ( as if there had been a design to wear him out ) his whole body is smitten with disease and pain , and his mind wounded to purpose too : and yet at first he takes this kindly also , his spirit not at all deviating out of that path of perfection , wherein hitherto he had walked . but at length , anguish overcoming him , it opens the very depths , and causes that to come forth which had long layn hid in him , if not also from him . certain friends of his ( in this state of his ) come to visit him , sit silent by him as astonished at him , not knowing what to think of him , nor what to say to him : but at length foolishly and weakly take occasion , from some distemper in his words , to nourish in themselves groundless jealousies concerning him , and with all the strength of arguments they can lay hold on , to impose them upon his belief . jobs state they know not , neither in the nature of things , nor in their own experience ; yet a great mind they have to say somewhat to him , with an intent to help and relieve him ; but for want of a true bottom of light , they fall to imagining and ghessing , and feeding these their imaginations with reasonings that flow in upon them , and take it very ill , that these dark conceptions of theirs cannot overbear that more illuminated principle that was in job . they take it for granted , that sin must be the cause , or god would never have dealt so with job . they urge this from the justice of god , from the experience of all ages : and therefore wish job to look to himself , to acknowledg his sin , and humble himself before god , and not to fly out into such extravagant self-justifications or accusations of god , as his present distemper might dispose him to . job here endeavors to take them off from these excursions , and draws the point between him and them to an head . he denies the bottom whereupon they go , and lays down his own bottom . this is uniform , this is every way true . that which ye speak is true ; it is true , that sinners are met with , oppressors must have a time to be themselves oppressed , hypocrites shall not always flourish , the righteous shall be blessed , &c. but this will not hold so far as ye extend it , that every one that is thus dealt with must needs be such an one . but that which i lay down is uniform , has no such exception , is a deeper , a fuller truth , perfect and wicked he destroyeth . how exact soever a man be under his administration , yet it is in the power of him , who made him and formed him into what he is in that administration , to bring him to destruction in it at his pleasure . he that bringeth both the perfect and the wicked upon the stage , may turn either of them off from the stage , when he will . there is no more to hinder him from destroying the perfect , then there is to hinder him from destroying the wicked . they are both equally his , they are both at his dispose , they are one and the same under several representations , and he has appointed them both to one and the same end , which is destruction . this is it i will stand to , overthrow it if ye can , he destroyeth the perfect and the wicked . perfect and wicked . perfect are such as are upright under that administration under which they are set , who in their state and motions suit with the law of it . god has a law for every thing he brings forth in this state of weakness : he that suits with the law of his administration ( that administration which he is set under ) is perfect ; he who deviates wholy from it , is wicked . adam had his law of forbearing the forbidden fruit , the jews theirs of circumcision , keeping the passover , &c. christians theirs likewise , of faith , love , spiritual obedience , spiritual worship , a sweet , meek , humble , heavenly conversation , &c. now so far as each of these did answer their peculiar law , they came towards that perfection , towards that righteousness , which they were appointed to , and which was to be measured thereby : so far as they deviated , they came towards and into a state of sin and wickedness ; both which are not absolute , but only under and by the force of the law of the present administration . he destroyeth . destruction is putting an end to the state . when the life and being of a person is put out , he is destroyed . when the plagues of god light on his outward man unto the death of the body , his body is destroyed : when the plagues of god light on his inner man , and put out the life of his spirit , his inner man is destroyed . we think , in every dispensation , 't is only the weak , the imperfect , the wicked , that wrath must light upon , but the righteous , the perfect , they shall escape , they shall meet with blessedness : but job tells you , that they must be consumed too . doct. god hath stored up destruction both for the perfect and the wicked , and they shall both be sure to meet with it . god when he pleaseth falls either upon the wicked or the perfect even to destruction . this is uniform ( saith job . ) what ground soever ye speak on , i am certain of this . i dare lay this as a bottom to build upon , he destroyeth the perfect and the wicked . our god is a consuming fire , ( saith the apostle . ) it may be used as an argument to draw men on to heighten holiness in their dispensation : and yet after it is heightened , the same spirit may speak to them in the very same dialect , and tell them yet further , that they must be consumed by this fire for all that . reas. . from gods soveraignty . he is lord of all , he has the dispose of all , and his soveraignty delights to shew it self . all the excellencies of god have their seasons of putting themselves forth to the utmost , his wisdom , mercy , power , love , &c. so has his soveraignty . now nothing doth so much discover his soveraignty , as his falling upon the righteous , upon the perfect . ye think to secure your selves by his faithfulness , his word , his promises , to which he must be faithful : and will ye not have him faithful to his soveraignty ? he is lord of all , and has the dispose of all , and let him make never so many deeds of gift , he cannot give away any thing from himself ; but still he has the power of life and death in his own hands , and may let it out as he pleaseth . and this doth wonderfully set forth his soveraignty , his exercising it upon the perfect , that when he has tied it up , as fast as may be , by never so many promises , yet it should still have its scope , and be able to deal with whom it will , as it will . by this means he that is lord indeed , truly lord , originally lord , vindicates and manifests his lordship , when he can subject that unto his will which seems most exempted from it , as well as that which lies most open to him in the way of clearest and most acknowledged justice . reas. . because all dispensations are but for a season , they are not everlasting ; therefore eternity delights to swallow them up ▪ perfect and wicked are both of the same lump , only differently clothed to act their several parts , which when they have done , their cloathes must be taken off , and they turned back into the lump again . there is nothing durable but the eternal state of things . now therefore hath god treasured up destructions for all dispensations , because it is sutable to all dispensations . it is as fit for the king to be stripped of his gorgious apparel when the play is done , as the begar of his rags . this is but a momentany righteousness or perfection , a momentany wickedness or imperfection , according to the law of the present dispensation : and the righteousness , the wickedness , the law of the dispensation , the dispensation it self , all must pass into the dust again : when they have lived out their transitory life , and acted their several parts , they must return to death . so that though there be righteousness , and wickedness ; righteous persons , and wicked persons ; blessings to the one , woes to the other : yet all this is but under the dispensation , for the season of the dispensation , which when it comes to an end , all this passes away . object . against this it will be easily and readily objected , that this will destroy all religion towards god , and righteousness amongst men . what need any man care , what he thinks or does ? how can any man desire to be righteous , to be perfect , if his end must be the same with him who is most imperfect and wicked ? answ. no , it will not , it cannot , if rightly understood . it will not destroy any true religion in any way of administration whatsoever ; but only that corrupt enmity , corrupt hope , corrupt desire , corrupt selfish-interest , which every administration inclines very much to breed and nourish , but perfect love cannot suffer always to stand : which if it were once eaten out , every administration would be sweet and pleasant . if we knew our selves , and one another , our own parts , and the parts that others are to act , we should with more rest and satisfaction act ours our selves , and with more peace and pleasure behold others acting theirs . besides , the righteous have a double advantage : one in their present life , another in their ensuing death . in their present life , they both enjoy themselves and their god , in such a way as the wicked cannot , nor are in any wise capable of , in their state and practise of wickedness . and in their ensuing death they have another advantage , it being a more immediate step to somewhat further then the death of the wicked can be , ( i speak not of the shadow of death , but of that which is death indeed , the dying of the spirit in and to its present state . ) therefore there is no ground , why the righteous should be discouraged in pursuing righteousness , nor why the wicked should please himself in abounding in wickedness , though ground sufficient for both to be weary of either , and to long after somewhat more perfect . vse . not for any to magnifie themselves much above others , nor to promise to themselves any such great blessedness beyond others , or to look upon others as objects of such great misery , because of some appearing-difference between them and others . indeed there is a difference at present in this dispensation , but it is no thank to them that 't is so . nor are the wicked so much to be blamed as they think : ( they have their parts to act , and they are fitted to their parts . ) this dispensation will have its end , and then you will find no such great difference between you and them , as you thought there was . destruction will make an end of their wickedness , yea and it will make an end of your righteousness also , and then ye will become both one lump of clay , without either good or evil . vse . not to grieve over-much when you find destruction seizing upon you . if your body or spirit moulder away , if god consume your righteousness , your holiness , your perfection , by the blast of his spirit ; grieve not beyond measure at it : alas it must dye , this must not last for ever . you thought to have been made happy by this , your happiness lies in being delivered from it . this is not the true treasure , or at least not in its true and lasting shape , and therefore must undergo death and destruction in this its present appearance . the apostle james raises it higher , bids you rejoyce in it , chap. . . and he gives a strong reason , vers . . for the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat , but it withereth the grass ; and the flower thereof falleth , and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth : so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways . therefore be glad at the death of that that must dye : ye have undergone that sorrow which there was no avoyding ; this is great matter of joy . the pain of having the sap and moisture of your spirits dryed up by the scorching heat of the sun , if it be in any degree past , 't is great matter of joy . better is the day of this death , then the day of this life . there is greater matter of joy in parting with , in putting off this excellency , then in putting it on . now for a conclusion to all this , i intend to lay down the brief sum of the whole matter , even of the whole course of man under every administration , wherein he is either lifted up or thrown down , or both lifted up and thrown down , ( first lifted up , and then thrown down , ) and through which he passes to his lasting state . take it thus . we were all made by him who is the great potter or former of all things , ( what e're we are , whether righteous or wicked , under what administration soever : ) and this , not so much for any ends we can conceave or drive at , as for his own pleasure ; which will have its course upon us , and will toss and tumble us up and down into several sorts of deaths and lifes , as great and as often as it pleaseth ; till it hath quite confounded and brought us to a perfect loss in all our own hopes , desires , and apprehensions , yea till at last it hath quite swallowed us up in it self : where when we are dead , buried , and cease to be , know , or desire any more ; that life may at length spring up in us , which till then we are uncapable of any distinct desiring or possessing . and the passage to this , though it be very dreadful to the flesh , being even through the gates of hell , death , and destruction ; yet it is in no small measure joyful to the eye of that spirit which discerns it to be but a passage , and a necessary passage too . and what brave royal heart would refuse to joyn issue with this request ? o let all shadowy perfections , all perfections that come in and by administrations , dye and pass away , be swallowed up by a death , by a destruction , more powerful then themselves ; that so way may be made for the discovery of true and compleat perfection , that it may come forth to swallow up , both destruction , and all that it hath destroyed , for ever ; and to bring forth it self and every thing again in its primitive glory , that they may return to that beauty wherein they were , before they were stained by that vanity , misery and vexation , whereunto all things are at present subjected . a letter impleading a conversion , ( whether real or pretended is not material ; ) and all such kind of changes in the creature , ( backward or forward ) by principles , either outward or inward . dear anne , i have seen your recantation in a letter of yours , which doth wonderfully please me . i like well to see the creature with its waxed wings mounting up towards heaven , and soaring aloft beyond the reach of the sight of its fellow creatures : but i like it much better to see the wax melted by the heat of the sun , and the poor foolish forward creature tumbling down into the sea , or unto the earth again . what should the creature do in heaven ? the light of god should not quit it self like it self , if it did not at least dazle , if not wholly extinguish the fleshly eye , and turn it back into its fleshly principle again . so let all thine enemies perish , o lord , so let all the principles the creature either sucks in from others , or beats out it self by its own purest searchings and reasonings , come to nought , be so throughly and effectually thrown down , that the quite contrary may easily be reared up in their stead . but where are you now , sweet anne ? you see the rottenness of your former foundation , are you sure you now build upon firm ground , upon the inmost rock ? you have seen a light , which clearly shakes that great light which did so transport you while it appeared light , but are you sure this light is so clear , so deep , of so inward perfect a nature , as it shall never be shaken ? what pretty sport doth original wisdom make with us ! he tosses & tumbles us , makes us be or not be , own or not own , what and when he pleases ; and well ▪ he may . while he hides from us the true and original colour of things , and that skill whereby he colours things , he may cosen us as often as he pleases ; he may put what colour he will upon things , and what eye he will into us . and we in beholding the present colour with the present eye , may be confident in what we see , yea in both judging it , and other things by it , not knowing either the root of it , or of that eye that judges it , nor considering what changes both the colour and the eye may undergo . let me run over your letter a little . i who am unworthy of the esteem of a servant , do you know your self , that you call your self unworthy ? i cannot bear , that the creature should either exalt or throw down it self , for i am sure it does it not from true knowledg , but from imagination . though by the light in them at present it is knowledg , and true knowledg , unto that eye that is in them ; yet to me ( or , if you will , to somewhat in me , which searches , judges and condemns both that eye , and that light ) it is but imagination . yet again , beholding how the creature acts , i can bear with either or both , both the creatures lifting it self up , and throwing it self down , according to the different eye , state and principle which it has , and wherein it is and acts . so that though in one sence i am an utter enemy to all persons , principles , things and actions , yet in another sence i am perfectly reconciled to them all . i like none of them as such as they take themselves to be , but i like them all as they are , and as i know them to be . do make bold to declare unto you , what the lord , through his great love , hath done for me , you speak here of the lord , of his love , his great love , of the working of this love , and what it hath wrought for you . do you know the lord , or his love ? what if i should tell you , that both the lord and his love , with all the workings of it , both upon you and others , shall pass away , and never again be acknowledged , or known , as now they are , by yours , or any others , creaturely apprehension ? what would you say to me ? you might be drawn forth to judg me wonderful deeply and clearly by your present eye , but can you or any else throughly resolve this ? i tell you truly , when i can speak i will not be silent , for fear of mans judgment and condemnation . and i will venture to add thus much in the mean time . my god would not please me , if any creature could measure the least part of him with that eye which they call spiritual ; their heart must not know the least spark of his nature , nor their tongue be able to utter the least tittle of his name . they may have , and shall have , while the time lasts , a knowledg suitable to them , but not the least tittle of the true knowledg . in the discovering me the error of my principle . do , condemn it , it must come under condemnation , so must the light that judges it . all principles have their course of springing up , growing , living flourishing , and at length of returning into death , into condemnation . that present principle , that present light , which lives now in the death , in the condemnation of this , shall feed another with its death . i made account to have gone on through your whole letter , but i find my flesh weary , and my spirit likewise shutting up . i shall therefore only glance at two or three things more , and so close . you say , that god is not all things . you speak as true as those that affirm him to be all things . when either of you come to see indeed , ye will acknowledg both the one and the other in a larger extent then as yet can be conceaved . then you will tell me the meaning of this riddle , which man cannot but account madness , there is every thing besides the lord , and yet nothing but the lord ; every thing so filled with creatureship , as if it were quite empty of the creator , and yet the creator every where so every thing in every thing , as quite to drown the whole creatureship in all its being and motions . you say , there is evil . so say i too , to all eyes but one : but if you will say there is evil to that eye , you speak beyond your bounds : you know not that eye , what it is , nor what it sees , and you venture too far if you say it sees either good or evil . these are the colours wherein things appear to your eyes , but the colour wherein that eye sees things is not yet known , nor can be seen by any eye but that which dyes in perfection , and rises in perfection . this is the great quarrel that i have with you and all , that ye will be measuring all things by your own measure . and all shall lye under condemnation in this respect , for judging things so to be in themselves , as they appear to them . the painter shall be justified for putting several colours on one and the same substance , and for making several eyes and lights to see each of them by , but all shall be condemned who justifie any sort of these colours in opposition to the rest , and so pass sentence both upon all the rest , and upon the substance it self . and this is the whole work of man , to be picking out the colour that suits with his eye , and to be exalting it , and laying all others flat . and as often as he changes his eye , his light , his colour , still he takes the same course , and therefore still in all his changes deserves to come under the same condemnation . you say , there is a hell , into which they shall be cast who violently break the law of god , but do you know what this hell is , what this law is , or who are the breakers of this law ? i know according to your present measure you do , and so do others according to theirs , but do you know by the true standing measure ? man by several measures judges righteousness and unrighteousness , but when god comes to measure , that which man calls righteousness will be found unrighteousness too . that which is righteousness in the scale of god is very weighty , but that which man heaps up in treasures , thinking to be very rich , and of great value , when it comes to the true touchstone will prove but dross . who shall scape hell , when all the unrighteous in the eye of man , when all the unrighteous in the eye of god , are cast into it ? he that can be content to please himself in escaping hell , where others must scorch in unutterable torment , is he righteous ? oh how my soul loaths all that which all men call righteousness ! i see as much need of a proportionable fire to burn it up , as to burn up wickedness . and oh that the everlasting flames were once universally let loose upon the foundations of it , for it , and the misery by it , stands more in the way of true righteousness , and true happiness , then wickedness , and the misery by it , does . coleman-street , london , april . . several inward openings . i. hearken , o man , and try if thine ear can let in knowledg . there is an inwardness of all that outwardness which thou beholdest , which is the spirit , strength , life , substance , of the outwardness . this is that which thou callest god , who is within all that appears , which are but his several garments , wherewith he clothes and covers himself from every eye , but that which pierceth through the inmost vail . this life , this strength , this spirit , this inward substance , doth please himself to contract himself in , and to thrust forth shadows , which he quickens with a shadowy life , and infuses into them an instinct of preserving that life , that he may make himself the better sport , in hunting it up and down , and catching it , in his snares of death and destruction . it is no sport to us ( no more then it is to the birds in the air , the beasts of the field , the fishes in the waters ) to be hunted and caught : but it is pure sport to him , to see the feveral subtle workings of that life to save it self ineffectual , which was made to be taken and destroyed . and this is his maner of proceeding herein . first , this life , this original being , thrusts forth an outward being , which he endues with a life suitable to its outwardness . . he provides food for to maintain this life , and means to preserve it against the danger of death . he prepares a strong one to hunt , conquer , catch and kill this outward being in this outward state of life . thus he does , and then lets the creature loose , and his engine of death loose , and pleases himself in beholding the several windings and turnings of the one and the other from first to last . the great thing that tends to preserve the life of man is the knowledg of god : ( the bestial part may feed on other things , but that is not the man ) but man cannot reach the inwardness of them ; he is shut out from the tree of life , that he cannot come to eat of it , and therefore he must dye . the same power that quickens in him the desire of life , and chalks out unto him the way to life , hath so shut it up and fenced it , that there is no entering so much as into the paradise where the tree of life groweth . god hath took great pleasure in presenting himself to the view of man , in making discoveries of himself unto man ; and these in several gradations , that some go far beyond others , some even abound with the knowledg of god in respect of others . but he hath another greater pleasure , which is to strip the best of these naked , and make them see that theirs is not knowledg neither ; only comparative knowledg , not true knowledg ; it is not an understanding what god is , but a likening of god to somewhat . and this is the great difference between men , some set up idols of wood and stone , others of silver and gold : some have very carnal gross imaginations and resemblances of god , others have more refined , and more spiritual ones . ii. there is no true knowing of god by the understanding of the creature . yet it is the pleasure of the lord to present himself to the eye of the creature , and to quicken in that eye a desire to see and discern him . every eye was made to see god with , but no eye can , therefore it sickens , languishes , pines and dies under a curse , that through death and destruction it might pass into a capacity of attaining that , without which it cannot enjoy it self . as god made all things to shadow out himself , the excellencies of the creature in every kind , to shadow out his excellencies in their several kinds : so particularly he made the eye of the creature to shadow out his own eye ; and it is his own eye in a shadow , has all the properties of his own eye in a shadow ; but being but a shadow , it can never in its utmost exaltation attain to the sight of that which is substance . no man can live and see god ; he must first dye throughly , and rise up again in the substance , before he can apprehend or comprehend the substance at all in truth . he may have a taste , a glimpse , of the substance in the shadow , but yet it is but a shadowy glimpse , that which is seen ( though by him that sees it , it be accounted very substantial ) is but shadow , just like the eye that sees it , which cannot possibly reach the view of any thing beyond its sphere . the created eye is fitted to see nothing but colours , as colours are suited to the created eye : and though fools think they see more then colours , they see things in their own apprehension , ( this thing , and that thing , and the other thing , ) yet those that are wiser know they are mistaken , and that they do and can see nothing but the colour . we see good and evil which colour the whole creation ; but do we see that substance which is coloured with these ? or do we know whence these colours came , or what they are in their root ? they indeed put several glosses upon the substance , representing it variously to the eye of the creature ; but do they not hereby hide it from the creature ? does not truth lie hid under the colour ? and is it not vailed by the colour from that eye which can pierce no further then the colour , and so must either view that or nothing , judg by that or by nothing ? o god , how art thou miscoloured ! man thinks he hugely pleaseth thee by putting the finest kind of paint upon thee , not understanding how it difigures thee , and how loathsom it is unto thee , because it makes thee lovely in his eye . but know , o man , o refined'st man , god loaths to be lovely in thine eye . true excellency can be justified by nothing but that which is the same with it self . gods excellencies were not deep enough , if mans eye could pierce into them , or approve them , if man could acknowledg them excellent . god likes nothing of man , and man likes nothing of god . indeed man hugely likes the god that he frames in his own imagination ; the god that his eye sees and acknowledges , is very excellent ; he likes god as he paints him : but god as he is , god in substance , god throwing off all this paint , and not acknowledging himself to be any such thing , but somewhat else which the creature never thought , nor could imagine , nor could desire him to be , this is a dreadful god , and in no wise desireable . the creature may live , and see such a god as it frames , yea the more it lives the more it seeth him , and the more it seeth him the more it lives ; but the true substantial sight can never enter into any , till after perfect death . o how poor creatures cosen themselves ! they think they love god , would fain see god , know god , live in communion with god : and this is true in their sence , such a god as they have framed to themselves they love , and would fain see , know and enjoy . but he who is indeed god , they are not able to bear in the least in what he is . there is nothing that they so perfectly hate , there is nothing which they so study to avoyd , nay , there cannot be a greater hell to them , then his true presence ; and how can it be otherwise ? for he carries in his countenance the death of all that is their life , joy , hope and happiness . o what an astonishing sight will it be at the opening of the heart of man , when he shall come to plead his love to god , his delight in god , his love to others for his sake , &c. that the contrary should be mani●ested to him ! and he shall plainly be made see and confess that he was only the lover of an idol , the lover of a god he had framed to himself in his own understanding , which is in truth nothing ; it is not god , but the creatures creature , a creature which the understanding of the creature hath made , whether by the help of nature or scriptures it comes all to one . is it not time for you , o sons of men , to look about you ? ye little think how quick and piercing the approaching judgment will be . ye think your selves very able now to justifie your selves , and condemn others : but the light whereby ye shall be judged , will be far different from that light whereby ye now judg your selves . o what a strange thing is it , and utterly incredible , that beleevers , lovers of god , performers of righteousness , in the highest and strictest strain , should have so much deep intense spiritual unbelief , hatred of god , and all manner of unrighteousness discovered in them , and in their purest actions and motions , as to lay them even with , if not below , the common sort of men , whom they themselves condemn from the glory of gods presence , because of their wickedness ! wo be to thee , o holy man ! o righteous man ! o strict exact man ! it is against thee that true righteousness and true holiness hath the greatest quarrel , because thou standest most in its way . it is thy wickedness and remoteness from righteousness and holiness , that is now to be discovered . under thy skirt are found all the abominations that thou condemnest . it is not thy paint that will hide thee from the eye that now searches thee , though it doth hide thee from thine own eye . thou must come to judgment ; the high court of justice is chiefly erected in reference to thee , to examine and finde thee out . and wo unto thee , for thou shalt not stand in judgment , what ever thou thinkest of thy self ; nay , it shall be easier for sodom and gomorrah in the day of judgment , then for thee . iii. and what if i should say , that this should be the course and progress of the judgment ? first , that vnrighteousness should be set before the judgment seat in all the sorts and degrees of it , according to the several rules and administrations of it , and it condemned ; and righteousness in its several kindes and degrees justified . then that righteousness should be brought upon the stage in its several kindes and degrees , and it condemned ; and unrighteousness justified . then that both should be brought in again , and the justification of both be taken off , and both be utterly condemned for ever . ( it is a seat , a throne of perfect judgment , and therefore righteous judgment must be passed on every thing according to every consideration and aspect that it hath ; and things must be throughly judged , they must be scanned and judged under every consideration . ) and lastly , after the condemnation of man , of all man , of man in all wherein he expects and desires to be justified , that then everlasting righteousness , righteousness which shall stand for ever , righteousness which can in no respect be impleaded , but is every way true , full , and perfect , should break forth in its lustre , and swallow up this condemnation , and the fear of it . it is but a weak righteousness that can justifie only such as are under such or such a law , whether of external or spiritual faith and obedience : but that which hath the true vigour and strength of righteousness in it , can swallow up all unrighteousness under all laws and administrations for ever . that righteousness is universal which fills all , it is like god who leaves nothing empty of his own life and being . that righteousness is indeed everlasting , which will suffer no unrighteousness to last or appear after it is discovered . where god appears , the creature must vanish , it cannot stand in his presence : and where the righteousness of god appears , both the righteousness and unrighteousness of the creature fly away . o how dreadful will the day of judgment be to the creature , to the whole creature , in one part of it or other ! dreadful to the unrighteous in one respect , dreadful to the righteous in another respect ; but how pleasant in every part to the creator ! to see all things fall before him , and all his own adjudged to him , and recovered by him . there is none shall be able in any wise to stand this tryal , but the son , who hath learned this point of obedience , to give up his life , righteousness , and all his excellency ( though by very painful suffering ) into that bosom from whence he received it , that it may never live more in him , or in it self , but in that fountain from whence it did flow , and whereunto it could not but return , where and where only will it suffer it self purely and perfectly to be embraced and enjoyed . iv. be silent o flesh : yet speak while thy time lasts ; speak until i silence thee . open thy fleshly mouth , utter thy fleshly minde , till i stop the one , till i confound the other . profess that thou knowest the lord , till i convince thee that thou knowest him not . say and think thou lovest me , and longest to be one with me , till i shew thee that thou hatest nothing so much as me , and communion with me . worship me according to thy present light and apprehensions of me , or thou shalt feel the smart of neglecting it : and though thou dost , yet will i not spare thee , but destroy both thee and thy worship . i am come to judg thee and thy light by my light , and thou shalt not stand but fall in iudgment , thou thy self into nothing , and thy light into utter darkness . and by how much thou exaltest thy self above others , by so much will i lay thee beneath others . by how much the higher thou hast soared , by so much the lower shalt thou fall . the greater thy pleasure , hopes and confidence have been in thy foregoing life , the greater shall thy torment , amazement and distress be in thy approaching death . my glory shall chiefly spring out of the destruction and desolations of thine . i am now whetting my glittering sword to pierce into , and fetch out , thy very heart blood . i am about to say i live for ever , and when i speak it , thou shalt dye for ever , in thy purest , in thy highest enjoyments of life . my life and thine cannot consist together , but while thou livest i dye , and when i come to live thou shalt dye . thou hast hitherto sucked and enjoyed thy life out of my death ; and now is my turn and time come to gather and enjoy my life out of thy death . thou hast appeared , and i have not been ; now will i appear , and thou shalt be no longer . thou hast been unrighteous in killing me , and detaining mine own from me ; but i will be righteous in killing thee , and recovering all into mine own possession again . live then bravely o flesh , flourish as well as thou canst , come off bravely at last however . eat and drink , for to morrow thou shalt dye . eat and drink lustily , that thou mayst be fatted for the slaughter , and fitted for my table : for as i live , saith the lord , i will feed on thee , and devour thee , and thou shalt never be any thing any more but what thou art in me , but what i by the power of my life , by the warmth of my stomack , convert thee into within my self . v. god who is one and the same , altogether unchangeable in his own nature ; yet is full of various changeable appearances to the eye of the creature , and can onely be seen by the creature in some shape and appearance , but not at all as he is in his own nature . according to his design concerning the creature , so he fits the present state of the creature ; and according to the state of the creature , is his appearance to the creature , and the creatures sight of him . to the creature in its pure natural state he appears as a lord , as a good kinde bountiful lord , and so adam in his state of innocency looked upon him ; as one who did lay out his wisdom in the frame of the creatures , and his treasures of goodness and kindness in his tender provision and care for the creature ; as one who loved the being of the creature , desired to have it go well with the creature , and delighted himself to have communion with the creature . to the creature in its fallen sunk estate , he appears as a severe dreadful iudg , as an enemy to the life , being , and happiness of it ; as a tormentor to it , as a destroyer of it . to the creature in its servile state he appears as an harsh law-giver , as one that propounds life and death , misery and happiness , upon very hard conditions , such as it is easie to miscarry upon , but very difficult ( if at all possible ) to attain the end ( the creature hath in its eye ) by . to the creature in its son-like state he appears a tender father , one who communicates his own nature , life and blessedness freely to the son ; who as he hath begotten , so he taketh care of him , maketh him his heir , keepeth his inheritance safe for him , and him for it . and this is an excellent sight of god , a true , a substantial sight in compare with any of the former . this is his image wherein he is seen : his goodness , wisdom , power , love , iustice , mercy , &c. which were very darkly held out in the rest , shine here in their lustre . now all these appearances are written in the state and in the heart of every creature , the present kinde of appearance being still suited to the present state : so that man findes them , not so much by the hearing of the ear , seeing of the eye , or by searching into any books , whether of creatures or scriptures , as by looking into his own heart . and man is much deceived in this , he doth not , he cannot learn so much either from men or books ( as he thinks to do ) further then they occasion the opening of his own heart in him : for let man strive never so much , he can learn no more then is written in his own heart , and in that state wherein he is . let adam look into his own heart in the state of innocency , he shall presently read there a sweet , a good , a kinde , a bountiful god . let fallen man look into his heart , he shall presently read there a severe accusing condemning iudg. let the servant , the slave , look into his heart , and ( in plain terms ) he shall presently read god a tyrant . he may strain other thoughts of god into his understanding , but let him look into his heart , he shall finde , he thinks and can think no otherwise of him , then as of an hard master . let the son look into his heart , and he shall read god a tender father , one who loves and takes care of him , as of himself . but what is all this ? all these are but several appearances of god in the creature , of god to the creature . this is not the first , and this shall not be the last . this is not god as he is in himself , but god as he appears to us . all this , as it hath a time to be sown , born , spring up , and live ; so it must have a time to dye , and pass away . none of this is the true knowledg , if you speak properly . it is not the knowledg of god , but of the present appearance of god . it is not the knowledg of the substance as it is in it self , but as it lurks and makes resemblances of it self under a cloud . and as he often blots out one resemblance by another resemblance , so he will at last blot out all resemblances by discovering the substance . o poor man ! why art thou so puffed up with thy knowledg ? it is not the knowledg of the true god , at best it is but the knowledg of his likeness , ( and alass , how little is there of this kind too ? ) nor is it true knowledg , but onely the likeness of knowledg . both this knowledg , and the thing as thus known , must pass away for ever . as certainly as there was a beginning shall there be an ending , ( all things that have a beginning must have an end , ) and nothing shall be last but that which was first . vi . there is a double condemnation lying upon all men ; both upon the world , and upon the people of god . one is , in that they do not seek to know and worship god according to that light of reason or religion that is sown in them , and would spring up and break forth through them , did it not receive checks and quenchings from them . the other is for idolizing that which they do in any degree know or attain , which is or can be but a shadow , and yet is still set up by them , and magnified , as if it were the substance . man falls short , in reaching after , and comprehending the shadow : but for all that , how short soever he fall , though he catch hardly the shadow of the shadow , yet he will not endure it should go for less then the substance . search the course of man throughout the whole world , where is he who sees , knows , worships the true god ? search all sorts of christians , where is he that knows the true christ , the true way to god through christ ? hath not every one set up the idols of his own heart , the stumbling block of his own iniquity before his eyes ? they think they behold god , worship god , &c. but alass , it is but their own idol . search the course of man ( vain man , or religious man ) throughout the scriptures , how finde ye him there ? the jews they can judg the heathen as idolaters , and god he judges the jews as idolaters all along . and yet what a continual inveterate enmity is there between these ? the heathen still striving either to convert or root out the jews , and the jews still striving either to convert or root out the heathen . they were both so drunk in their own imagination , and so hid in their dark state one from another , that they sought to destroy that in one another ( or one another because of it ) which was their own life . and what opposition is there at this day between turks and papists , papists and protestants , protestants and puritans , episcopalians and presbyterians , presbyterians and independents , independents and anabaptists , anabaptists and seekers ? &c. and yet the same sap runs through them all , the same principle lives in them all , and fighteth thus vehemently with it self , because it knoweth not it self in this darkness , which hath so long been spread over all . they none of them truly know god , but every one sets up his own idol , the imagination of his own brain , by virtue of this one and the same principle according to its present tincture in them ; and it is the variety of the tincture that produceth this variety , and by that means setteth them at such a wonderful distance , as if there were no similitude nor possibility of conjunction between them , who are already one and the same both in their principles , motions , and end . and though they judg one another very partially and unjustly , yet they shall finde when true judgment is given , that they are indeed one , and justly come under the same justification or condemnation . how different soever their appearances are , yet their root , their life , their principle , is one and the same . and the best of these , in judging the worst of these , do but judg themselves , and in justifying themselves , they justifie the worst of these , for they are the same in the main . o poor man , how art thou vailed from thy self ! how are all others vailed from thee ! how art thou befooled with the eye of thy wisdom ! thou canst not see any thing as it is . if thy heart could take scope to it self , and judg them quite contrary to what thine eye seeth them to be , thou wouldst come neerer to truth by such a mad thought of thine heart , then by the soberest sight of thine eye . thou art thine own utter enemy ; all that thou desirest , tends to undo thee : all that thou judgest to be good , life , happiness , is far otherwise . all the knowledg thou hast of good and evil comes by thy fall , by thy darkness ; and the clearer and clearer revelations thou hast of both , are still but to this dark eye , to thee in this dark state , to thee fallen from , and uncapable of beholding , true light in any kinde . when wilt thou know and acknowledg thy friend ! this is the character of him , it is he who plots thy destruction , who hunts after thy life , who follows close the scent of thy feet , and will not leave thee till he hath overtaken thee , torn thee in pieces , and quite devoured thee . vii . o how livelily is death written upon all things ! but who can read it ? who is so skilful as to understand the characters either of life or death ? thou art weighed , o man , in the ballance , and art found too light ; thou art but as the dust thereof , which weigheth nothing , but is altogether unable to sway the scale either one way or other . why gaddest thou then to change thy way ? thou shalt be worried out of all the imaginations of thine heart . thou canst be safe no where ; destruction will find thee out where thou art , or whithersoever thou thinkest to remove for greater security . thy time hath long been determined , and is now arriving at its period , and thou mayst not enjoy life or pleasure any longer . give account of thy stewardship , for thou shalt be no longer steward . the earth is sinking under thee , thy elements melting in thee , thy whole life and being expiring ; what wilt thou do ? where wilt thou shelter thy self ? there is no escaping that death and judgment which is seizing on thee . thy sun is setting , and that black night , which thou fearest , is hastening upon thee . i am stripping thee of all that is fweet and lovely to thee , and driving thee out of thy present paradise of present enjoyments and future hopes , into the land of oblivion . into the wilderness must thou go , where thou shalt be stripped of all thine ornaments , and dye in ignominy and torment . how wilt thou bear the loss of all thy beauty , wisdom and excellency , wherewith thou hast flourished like a god above the rest of thy fellow-creatures ? in one moment , which thou lookedst not for , shall misery befall thee , and make an utter end of thee . though thou expectest to sit on a throne for ever , to live with and enjoy god in perpetual embraces , yet thine own mouth shall give thee the lye : and when i cause the power and pangs of death to fasten upon thee , thou shalt know and feel , that thou neither wast , art , nor shalt be ; but i alone was , am , and will be , what thou by my disappearance hast foolishly imagined thy self to be : for i am resolved to gather back all that belongs to me , and leave thee no more then belongs to thee , which is neither life , being , sense , nor motion , but meer emptiness and vanity . and then live if thou canst in thine own imagination , when i have gathered all the reality of life into my self . viii . tremble , o earth , at the presence of the lord , and quake , o heavens , for ye shall be shaken also : your sun shall be darkened , your moon turned into blood , your stars shall lose their light ; the whole fabrick of heaven shall fall into , and perish in , the bowels of the earth . and who ( or what ) shall live when god doth this ? surely that alone which cannot dye . he then shall live , who gave life to all , and hath prepared a death for , and suitable to , every life : yea , he shall live who can swallow up death , and drown it for ever in the power of his own life . o live , live , live , thov only , for thov alone art worthy . thou art the land of the living ; thy life lives only in thine own land , and thou livest only in thine own life . this is the true inheritance , the true canaan , the true happiness , the true enjoyment of god . this is life eternal , the rise and result of all . this is life indeed , which can quicken death it self , and make it as living as it self . this is power indeed , that can cloath the greatest weakness with its own immortal and eternal strength . this is light indeed , that can make darkness shine in its own brightness , where the darkness and the light are both alike , and where the night shineth as the day . this is purity indeed , which is every where , in every thing , and can purifie every thing in it self ; a pure river , which gathers all waters into it self , purging and cleansing them , till it hath made them like it self . this is true happiness , that can swallow up all misery , and make it equally happy with it self . this is true spirit , which can devour all flesh , and by the strength of its quickening vertue , turn it into spirit . this is a philosophical stone worth having , which can turn any thing it toucheth into perfect gold . but where dwells this skill ? where dwells this life , this spirit , this power ? is it anywhere ? is there any such thing ? there is every one harping at it ; sure methinks there should be such a skill somewhere , and if there be , it cannot but delight to shew it self , and will have its season so to do . only it may first contrive to bring forth vanity , misery , weakness , emptiness , darkness , death , &c. in their perfection , that it may give a true taste of its own vertue . when it hath prepared all the eternals and everlastings that can be imagined to swallow up , then will appear the efficacy and vigour of its own eternity and everlastingness . these are the bowels out of which all things came , which are still rolling , and will never be at rest , till they receive them in again ; and nothing can truly rest , till it returns thither again . this was the first , and this must be the last ; and after all the toilsom compasses and circuits that are now a fetching , the circle will end where it began , and then will that saying be indeed verified , the first shall be last , and the last first . but every thing must be throughly tired out of its own motions , desires , ends , hopes , happinesses , before it come to rest in this center , yet this irksom and wearisom circumference will make it more lovely , both in its beginning and in its end . ix . before this world , this state and being of things ( as we call it ) was , man will confess there was nothing but the lord . when ever this world shall cease to be , there will be nothing but the lord again . it is his right to be the last , who was the first : and if he will be true to himself , he can no more suffer any thing to be after him , then it was before him . and yet must nothing be lost , but every thing found ; lost indeed in its own weak , fading , perishing state , but found in a standing , enduring , eternal state : where when things arrive , that vanity , death and mortality , which is now written upon them all , shall be swallowed up in perfect and immortal life and glory . and what are things at present ? are they things that are , or things that are not ? have they a real , or an appearing existence ? to our eye they are real , but is there not an eye to which they are but-ciphers , which swallows them up in the sight of it self ; which acknowledgeth him that was , and him that shall be , only to be at present also ; who is so all , and so fills all , that he can leave no room for any thing else to be where he is ? there is no object his eye can behold , but himself . where ever he looks , his eye dispels and scatters every thing that falls short of his own substance and perfection : yet is there nothing to be seen , but he must see it . nothing can escape his eye , nor nothing can abide his eye . it is the shutting of his eye in us , that makes ours open : but when his eye opens , ours will be shut , and there will be no eye left to see , but the lords , and nothing left to be seen , but the lord himself : yea , it is only to us that it is otherwise at present , but not to him . o foolish man ! when wilt thou cease boasting of thy knowledg , and come indeed to know the lord ? if i should tell thee never so plainly , yet thou hast not an ear to hear it ; therefore i will forbear perplexing thee any further at this time , with over-straining thee to hear , see or comprehend , beyond the compass of thy present ear , eye or heart ; and leave thee to enjoy what thou hast ; which as yet thou mayst , with some kind of quietness , for a short season , if thou canst be content so to do without over-exalting it : otherwise know , that the wind is too boisterous , to suffer any thing that is high and lifted up , to remain unshaken . finis . concerning the sum or substance of our religion, who are called quakers, and the exercises and travels of our spirits therein penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) concerning the sum or substance of our religion, who are called quakers, and the exercises and travels of our spirits therein penington, isaac, - . p. s.n., [london : ?] caption title. signed: isaac penington. date taken from bm. wing lists imprint as . reproduction of original in duke university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng society of friends -- doctrines. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - taryn hakala sampled and proofread - taryn hakala text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion concerning the sum or substance of our religion , who are called quakers , and the exercises and travels of our spirits therein . this is the sum or substance of our religion , to wit , to feel and discern the two seeds : the seed of enmity , the seed of love ; the seed of the flesh , the seed of the spirit ; the seed of hagar , the seed of sarah ; the seed of the egyptian womb , the holy seed of israel : and to feel the judgments of god administred to the one of these , till it be brought into bondage and death ; and the other raised up in the love and mercy of the lord to live in us , and our souls gathered into it , to live to god in it . now when the light of gods holy spirit breaketh in upon man , and his quickning vertue is felt ; then life enters into that which was slain , and there is a desire begotten in the heart to travel out of the egyptian state , into the good land ; that the soul which came from god , might return back again to him ( out of the sinfull , wandring , miserable , lost estate ) and might live and walk with him , in the purity , vertue and power of his own life and spirit . but then the other birth strives for its life , and pharaoh ( the king of egypt ) takes part with his egyptians against israel ; and there is no help to the poor soul , but as god pour out his judgments upon that hard nature and spirit in man , which is of the birth of the flesh , and receives the influences and strength of its father , which harden it against the true seed . and now what a condition is this poor soul in ! the light of gods spirit giveth it the sence of its state , and the quicknings of life make it sensible of its bondage , there are also some desires and longings after deliverance : but this doth but provoke the enemy , and the soul being yet in his territories , and under his power , he dealeth the more hardly with it , increasing its burdens and oppressions daily . and o the out-cries of the soul in this state ! how is its spirit pained , anguished and vexed within it , so that it could almost many times chuse rather to lie still in egypt then undergo the heavy burdens , oppressions , fears and dangers , that it daily meets with in this state . yet there is a secret hope , springing up in the heart from the true seed , which often encourageth it to trust him , and wait upon him who hath visited , in his pure ministration of judgment . for this is felt many times ( as the soul is made truly sensible by the lord ) that the judgment is not to the seed , not to israel ; but to pharaoh and his egyptians : and by every stroke of gods wrath upon them , the seed is eased , and its deliverance working out . and so at last when the judgment is finished in the land of egypt , the strength of pharaoh and his egyptians broken , their first-born slain , out comes israel , out of the dark land , out of the house of bondage , to travel towards its resting place . then the paschal lamb is known and fed on ; yea , it is because of the blood of the lamb , sprinkled upon the door-posts , that israel is passed over and saved , in the day of egypts visitation , o who can read this truly , that hath not felt and been a living witness thereof ! but now , when the seed is come out of egypt , there is not the end , but rather the beginning of its travels . pharaoh and his egyptians ( with their horses and chariots ) may pursue again and even overtake ; and there may seem no way of escape or help to the soul , but only to stand still , hope in the lord and wait to see his salvation . then shall the sea be divided , which stopped israels course , and pharaoh with his egyptians ( the enemies of the soul in this appearance of dreadfull oppressing power ) be destroyed and seen no more . yet in the wilderness in the passage through the entanglements to the holy land , there are many straits , trials and sore enemies to be met with , who will strive by open force and also with enchantments to betray israel : yea there is a part yet unbrought down , yet unwrought out , at which they will be striving to enter the mind . and as israel forgets his god , walking out of his counsel , hearkning to that which his ear should be shut against , and so joyning to the contrary seed ; the plagues , the judgments , the indignation and wo will be felt by him , and many carkases may fall there . so that there may be a great outcry in the heart , who can stand before this holy lord god ? shall we be consuming with dying ? yes , there is somewhat must be consumed with dying . yea , if a man came so far , as to witness dominion and victory over his souls enemies , the evil seed brought into death in him , & a possession and inheritance in the pure rest of life : yet if that part be not kept in the death , if there be not a praying and watching to the preserver of israel ( in the pure fear and humility ) the enemy will be sowing to the flesh again ; he will be getting some of his corrupt seeds into the heart again ( if the soul do but sleep and become negligent ) and so corruption will take root again , and the contrary birth grow up again , and the foxes break into the vineyard and spoil the tender grapes . so that this is our religion , to witness the two seeds , with the power of the lord bringing down the one , and bringing up the other : and then to witness and experience daily the same power , keeping the one in death and the other in life , by the holy ministration of gods pure living covenant . and so , to know god in this covenant ( in this covenant which lives , gives life and keeps in life ) and to walk with god and worship and serve him therein , even in his son , in the light of his son , in the life of his son , in the vertue and ability which flows from his son into our spirits , this is our religion , which the lord our god in his tender mercy hath bestowed upon us : and indeed we find this to be a pure , living and undefiled religion before god , daily witnessing his acceptance of it in and through his son , whose name is here known and confessed , worshipped and honoured , according to the very heart of the father . this may be further illustrated , and perhaps made more manifest to some , by a scripture or two . the flesh lusteth against the spirit , and the spirit against the flesh , and these are contrary one to the other , saith the apostle , gal. . . here are the two seeds ( the seed of the serpent , the seed of the woman ) whose striving and fight is in man , when god awakens the soul , the one whereof hath a nature , a desire or lust contrary to the other . now as the one of these prevails in any heart ; so the other goes down . as the one gains life and power : so the other is brought into death and captivity . so that this is it every one is to wait for , after they once come to the sensible knowledge and experience of these two , to feel the flesh brought down , the lusts of it denied , the judgments of the lord administred to it ; that so the other may come up to live , thrive and prevail in the soul , and so the soul witness salvation and redemption under its shadow . thus sion is redeemed with judgment , and her converts with righteousness , isa . . . what is sion ? is it not the holy hill of god , whereon his son is set king to reign , whereon the holy city is to be built , and god to be worshipped in spirit : what condition is sion in , when god visits her to redeem her ? is she not laid wast , desolate , lying in the dust : ( as psal . . , . ) well : how will god redeem her ? zion shall be redeemed with judgment , and her converts with righteousness . by bringing judgments upon that which keeps her under , upon her enemies , the contrary seed , god redeems her : and by bringing forth righteousness ( the righteous life and spirit of his own son ) in those whose minds are turned to her , whose faces are set sion-ward , thus god redeems her converts . yes , yes ; it is truly felt and witnessed , the living righteousness of christ , revealed in the heart and having power there , sets free from all the unrighteousness which was there before . and then , when the unrighteous one is cast out , and the righteous one revealed , and the soul united to him and receives vertue and power from him ; then he becomes a servant of righteousness , and doth not commit sin , but doth righteousness : and he that doth righteousness is righteous , even as he is righteous , joh. . . for how can it be otherwise , when the righteous life is revealed and brought up into dominion in him ? how can the same righteous spirit and life ( revealed in the members , as was in the head ) bu● live and act after the same manner in the members , as it did in the head ? ( o that men were turned to that , which would give them the certain knowledge and sensible experience of this ! ) now this is exceeding comfortable and precious to them that are in the true travel towards it : much more to them that enjoy it . this is the sum of all , even to know and experience what is to be brought down into death , and kept in death , what to be brought up out of the grave , to live to god and reign in his dominion , and what to be kept in subjection and obedience to him who is to reign . now to experience it thus done in the heart ; the flesh brought down , the seed of life raised , and the soul subject to the pure heavenly power , whose right it is to reign in the heart in and by the seed , this is a blessed state indeed . for here the work is done : here the throne of god is exalted , and his king reigns in righteousness and peace , and all his enemies are under his feet ; and this soul ▪ this true israelite , this redeemed one may wear the white robe , and serve god in righteousness and holiness without fear of his enemies ( keeping in and to the covenant , which ministers life and power abundantly ) all the dayes of his life . for that was to be the outward state of the outward israel , keeping to god in the outward covenant : and it is to be the inward state of the inward israel , keeping to god in the inward covenant , which is a pure covenant of life and peace , of all inward and spiritual blessigs and mercies in christ , wherewith the souls are blessed that are obedient to god , and walk humbly with him in this covenant . and i beseech you to consider ( o tender people , who are grieved because of sin and corruption in your hearts , and would fain witness victory and dominion over it , in the name and strength of the lord jesus christ ) whom did that prophesie of zachary ( luke . , , , . ) concern ? what was that holy covenant ? who were to be so redeemed ? who were the israel that was to inherit this promise ? all the promises are yea and amen in christ to the israel of god. why should not the israel of god hope to enjoy this ? even so to be acquainted with gods holy spirit and to wait upon him , that they may witness it granted to them , that they being delivered out of the hands of their enemies , might serve him without fear , in holiness and righteousness before him ( whose eyes are piercing , and can behold no iniquity ) all the dayes of their lives ? surely they who witness that promise ( mentioned isa . . ) fulfilled to them , cannot fall short of this . and truly , the children of the new covenant can never come throughly to live to god , till they witness the inward circumcision of the heart , so as to love the lord with all the heart and soul , deut. . . now , where it is so , the devil or lust can find no place of entrance : and how then should they be able to sow their seed and bring forth sin ? out of the evil heart proceeds all evil : but out of that heart which is throughly circumcised , to love the lord god wholly , evil cannot proceed . if lust be not conceived , it cannot bring forth sin : and where the womb , which conceived it , is kept dry and barren , it cannot conceive again . and is not this the promise of the gospel , that the womb , which was once barren , shall be very fruitfull and bear abundantly ; but the other grow feeble , and be able to bear no more ? o that people had experience of gods power , and did believe therein ! what should stand in the way of it ? it was israels sin of old , when they looked at their enemies , and saw their footing and strength in the land which god had promised to abrahams seed for an inheritance , they could not believe that they could be overcome . o take heed of the same unbelief now . concerning christ , coming to the father by him , receiving him , walking in him ( not in the oldness of the letter , but in the newness of the spirit ) and concerning reading the scriptures aright . i am the way , the truth and the life : no man cometh unto the father but by me , saith christ , joh. . . man in the corrupt , degenerate estate , is fallen from god , hath lost his image ( the holy , heavenly image of the father of spirits ) is driven out from his presence , dwells in the land of darkness and confusion , under the government of the prince of the power of the air , who rules in and hath power over all the children of disobedience . now this should be mans work , even to return to the father : to come back , out of the prodigal lost state , to the fathers house ; where there is sufficiency and fulness of true bread and water of life , to satisfie every hungry and thirsty soul. the way whereby a man must come , the truth wherein he must be renewed , the life wherewith a man must be quickned , is christ , the son of the living god : and he must know him as the son of the living god , and feel him revealed in him and received by him , and so walk in him the way , in him the truth , in him the life , if ever he come to the father . he must not rest in the description of things ; but feel and know , receive and walk in the thing , which by the spirit of the lord hath been often formerly and is still described , in what words and by what means the spirit pleaseth . but to receive all the descriptions of him that were formerly given forth , or all the descriptions that are now given forth , that will not do : but the soul that will live by him , must receive him and feel the ingrafting into him , the holy root , the living word of gods eternal power , and must feel this word ingrafted into his heart , so that there be a real becoming one in nature and spirit with him . and then he is truly in the vine , in the olive-tree , and partakes of the vertue and sap thereof , he abiding therein and walking in the spirit , life and power thereof . now here a man walks not , nor cannot walk in the oldness of the letter ; but in the newness of the spirit only . paul , notwithstanding all his knowledge of the scriptures , walked but in the oldness of the letter , before christ was revealed in him . and those in the apostles dayes , who had got the form of godliness , but turned from and denied the power , they walked but in the oldness of the letter . yea , the church of sardis ( for the most part ) and the church of laodicea , who had received the right order and ordinances , and the true descriptions of things , and thought they were full and rich and wanted nothing , they walked but according to the oldness of the letter , and not in the newness and power of the spirit of life . but alas , how far are many ( who pretend to christ in this day ) from this state ! who never came so far as to walk in the oldness of the letter , from a true understanding thereof ; but have only learned and continued to walk in the oldness of their own apprehensions and conceivings upon the letter . can these , in this state , possibly understand truth , or know the inward spiritual , precious appearances thereof , either in their own hearts or others ? surely no. why so ? why this is the reason ; because the measure the appearances of truth ( either in themselves or others ) by their own old apprehensions and conceivings upon scriptures concerning truth , which is not the proper measure of it . now all such are yet in darkness , let them pretend what they will , and grow never so high in knowledg , exercises and experiences after this manner : and so the best , zealousest and most knowing of them in this state , are but blind leaders of the blind , and ( thus going on ) shall most certainly fall into the ditch of perdition . o that men could feel that which makes rightly sensible , and might lay it to heart ! for no man can confess christ ( how then can he receive him and walk in him ? ) but by the holy spirit . and he that knoweth not the spirit rightly , knoweth not christ rightly : and he that doth not know him rightly , doth not confess him rightly : and none can know him rightly , but by the revelation of the father inwardly . the mystery must be opened within , or there is no true knowing . the mystery of deceit is discovered within ; and the mystery of life is discovered within also . and though the heart of man ( in the unregenerate estate ) is deceitfull above all things , and desperately wicked , and no man of himself can search or know it : yet that is not the state of the true israelites whom god hath cleansed , and taught to deny themselves daily ; but they have boldness before that god who hath searched them , and removed from them the iniquities which he found therein . yea , whoever witnesseth christ revealed within , shall find him revealed within for this very end , to destroy the works of the devil there : and he is a powerfull saviour of the soul from sin , and a powerfull destroyer of the works of the devil within . now concerning reading the scriptures , mind this . it is said of the jews , that when they read moses ( or in reading the old testament ) the vail was upon their heart , which vail is done away in christ , cor. . , . o consider seriously , is the vail done away from thee ? dost thou read the scriptures with the unvailed eye ? dost thou read in the anointing , in christs spirit , in the pure heavenly wisdom of the divine birth ? it was promised of old , that god would take away the face of the covering cast over all people , and the vail spread over all nations . dost thou witness this promise fulfilled to thee ? dost thou know the difference between reading the scriptures with the vail on thee , and with the vail off ? are the scriptures opened and unlocked to thee by the key of david , so that thou readest and understandest them in the light and demonstration of gods holy spirit ; or is thy own understanding and will at work of it self , in searching into the scriptures ? if the wrong birth , the wrong wisdom , the wrong understanding be at work ; it can gather but that which will feed and strengthen it self : and if thou beest not in christ , and dost not read in christ , the vail is not taken away from thee : ( for the vail is only done away in him : ) but thou readest and walkest in the oldness of thy apprehensions upon the letter , and not in the newness of the spirit ; and so knowest neither the scriptures nor the power of god , what ever thou professest to men , or dreamest concernning thy self . for it is no other indeed : thy knowledge , thy apprehensions , thy faith , thy hope , thy peace , thy joy ( being out of the compass of the pure living truth , in which the substance , the vertue , the kernel of all is comprised and comprehended for ever ) are but as so many dreams . o that men that are any whit tender , and have any sincere desires in them towards the lord , could read that one scripture ( psalm . , . ) sensibly and experimentally . o send out thy light and thy truth ; let them lead me , let them bring we unto thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles . ( what , did not david know how to go to the hill and tabernacles of god , without a particular sending forth of light and truth from god to lead him thither ? ) then may men go unto the altar of god , unto god their exceeding joy , and witness his hill and house their dwelling-place , when god by his light and truth , send forth from him into them , leads them thither . the scriptures are words , whose chief end , drift and service is , to bring men to the word from which the scriptures came . and when men are there ; then they are in the life of the scriptures , and witness the fulfilling of the scriptures , even the executing of the righteous judgments of god upon that spirit , mind and nature in them , which is contrary to his image ; and the fulfilling of the promises and sure mercies , which belong to christ the seed , and to them who are gathered into , and abide in christ the seed . here 's the covenant , the new covenant . that which is said , or those things which are said concerning the covenant in the scriptures , are but descriptions of the new covenant : but christ within , the hope of glory , the spirit within , the fear within , the power of life within , breaking down and reigning over the power of sin and death ( so that the lord is served in the dominion and power of his own life , in righteousness and holiness before him , out of the fear of sin and death , all the dayes of our lives ; so that captivity can lead captive nor break the souls peace no more , nay not so much as make afraid those , that keep their habitation on gods holy mountain ) here is the covenant indeed : the strength and vertue whereof is witnessed in the soul , as the soul feels the power of life revealed in it , and is made subject by the power to christ who reigns in righteousness , love , mercy and peace , in the hearts of those whom he redeems out of the earthly nature and spirit , up to the mind and spirit of his father . and here the psalms , hymns and spiritual songs , the pure songs , ( the song of moses , the song of the lamb ) are sung to the father of spirits , to the redeemer of israel , which never were sung , nor can be sung in any part of babylon : but all those songs are but dreams of the night , which will be turned into howling and bitter lamentation , when the whore ( that which hath whored from god , and is not in the wisdom of his spirit , what ever she may pretend ) is stripped , and the nakedness of her profession and religion ( with all her duties and ordinances , as she calls them ) made manifest . concerning the gospel ministration . if the gospel be not a ministration of words or letter ; but of spirit , life and power ; and if it was the intent of god , that men should not stick in words or testimonies concerning the thing , but come to the thing it self , and live in the sons life and power , and feel the son living in them : then they are greatly mistaken , who think to gather a rule to themselves out of the testimonies and declarations of things in the scriptures , and do not wait upon the lord to receive the spirit it self to become their rule , guide and way . for these are all , one . the truth is the way . the truth , which lives and abides in the heart ( where it is received and entertained ) is the way : the rule is the guide . for god is one . there are many names , but the thing is one . the life , the power , the wisdom in the father , son and spirit , is all one : yea they themselves are one , perfectly one , not at all divided or separated ; but where the father is , the son is ; and where the son is , the spirit is ; and where the spirit is , there is both the father and the son , who tabernacle in man in the day of the gospel . and where these are , there that is which is to be preferred before all words , which was afore them , and is in nature , spirit and glory above them . he that hath the son , hath life , even the life eternal , which the words testifie of . he that hath the son , hath him which is true : and he that is in the son , is in him that is true ; and abiding there , cannot be deceived : but he that is not there , is deceived , let him apprehend and gather out of the scriptures what he can . o how is god glorified , and how is redemption and real salvation of the soul witnessed in this dispised dispensation of truth , which god hath held forth in these latter dayes ! blessed be the name of the lord , who hath hid this pure dispensation of life from the eye of the prudent , worldly wise part in every man , revealing it only to the babish simplicity which is of his son , and which lives in him and by him . concerning christs being manifested without , and his being also manifested within , and how both are owned by them that know the truth . it is objected against us , who are called quakers , that we deny christ ( and look not to be saved by him ) as he was manifested without us , but look only to be saved by a christ in us . to which this is in my heart to answer to such as singly desire satisfaction therein . we do indeed expect to be saved ( yea and not only so , but do already in our several measures witness salvation ) by the revelation and operation of the life of christ within us ; yet not without relation to what he did without us . for all that he did in that body of flesh , was of the father , and had its place and service in the will and according to the counsel of the father . but the knowledg and belief of that , since the dayes of the apostles , hath been very much held in the unrighteousness , and in the separation from the inward work of the power and life of christ in the heart : which , as so held , cannot save any . but whoever feels the light and life of christ revealed in him , and comes into union with god therethrough ; he feels the work of regeneration , of sanctification , of justification , of life and redemption ; and so comes to reap benefit inwardly , and to partake of the blessed fruits of all that christ did outwardly . yea , he that is thus one with christ in the spirit , cannot exclude himself , nor is excluded by god from the advantage of any thing , nor every thing christ did in that body of flesh . this indeed is the main thing , to witness salvation wrought out in the heart : to witness the eternal power and arm of the lord , laying hold on the soul to save it ; and not only laying hold on it to save it , but to witness the working out and the effecting of the salvation , as really in the substance , as israel of old did in the shadow . for as they witnessed moses and joshua outwardly : so the true israelite ( the inward israelite , the spiritual israelite ) is to witness that which is the substance of these , even the son of god revealed inwardly . now they were not saved outwardly by a bare outward believing , that moses and joshua were sent of god to save them : but by following them , in faith and obedience to what from god they required . so to the inward israel christ is given for a leader and commander , who appears to the distressed , embondaged soul in egypt , brings out of egypt , and so leads on towards the good land and into it . now , as the soul follows ; as the soul believes in his appearances , and obeys his voice in the holy pure covenant of life ; so he works out the redemption thereof . but as unbelief and disobedience gets up , and the heart is heardened at any time against his voice and counsel , and the ear open to the temptations of the enemy ; the redemption thereby goes backward , and the distress and captivity returns again . this is witnessed , known and experienced by every true traveller towards sion . therefore the main thing requisite , is to abide in the sence of the redeemers power , as also in waiting for his motions and appearances , and in the faith and obedience thereof . for sin gathers strength and is brought forth , by letting in and giving way to the motions thereof : and so also holiness and righteousness is brought forth and getteth ground in the mind , by hearkening and giving up to the stirrings and movings of gods holy spirit . therefore it is of great necessity to every true traveller , to come to a right ▪ understanding and distinguishing of these : and then that the heart be kept with all diligence , because out of it are the issues both of life and death . and most happy is he , who knows the issues of death stopped , and the issues of life opened , and whose spirit is naked and open before the lord , for life to spring up in him and issue forth through him at its pleasure . o it is a precious state to witness captivity let captive by life , and the power of life reigning over it . and truly , there is as real deliverance witnessed inwardly , by those that wait upon the lord and are faithfull to the leadings of his holy spirit , as ever there was by the jews outwardly , in their faithfull following moses and joshua : and christ is as truly an healer of his people , in this ministration of life to them by his holy spirit , as ever he was an healer of persons outwardly in the dayes of his flesh . that ( with the other miracles which he wrought then ) was but a shadow of what he would work and perform inwardly in the day of his spirit and holy power : and shall he or can he ( to those that faithfully wait upon him ) fall short in the one , of what he shadowed out in the other ? nay surely , it was the intent of his heart , and he will not fail to perform it , to save to the very utmost all that come to god by him and abide in his holy , pure , righteous , living covenant . here is the skill of christianity , to abide in him : and here the living vertue and pure power is felt , which overcometh all , but nothing can overcome it ; but victory , dominion , glory , majesty and power is sung unto him , who is king of saints , who reigns in righteousness , and who establisheth peace and truth within his borders . a few words concerning the principle of truth , what it is , how it may be discerned , and how it may be purchased and possessed . quest . . what is the principle of truth ? answ . it is the light which reproves and makes sin manifest . whatsoever doth make manifest is light. wherefore he saith , awake thou that sleepest , arise from the dead , &c. ephes . . , . there is no other way of awaking out of sleep and arising from the dead , but by the light which makes sin manifest . and o how precious is that light ! quest . . how may the principle of truth be discerned ? answ . by its piercing , quickning nature , which discovereth it self in its appearances and operations . for it appears and works , not like mans reason , or like motions of his mind which he takes into his understanding part : but it appears and works livingly , powerfully and effectually in the heart . mans reason is corrupt , dark , impure , since the fall ; and in the hand and under the power of the wicked one . it s nature is to hide and cover sin , not to discover it . now the light of the law , which discovers sin , ariseth not hence . who can bring the clean , pure light of the law , out of the unclean , impure reason of man ? the light indeed may shine in the darkness : but it is no part of it , but of another nature and descent . it is from gods spirit , and given to man in his love unto him , to lead him out of his dark wayes and spirit , into the pure spirit and way of holiness . for the light which discovers sin , is all holy and pure , like the fountain from whence it comes . now a man that is acquainted both with reason and with this light , he can distinguish the nature and operations of both . for there is a great difference between truth held in the reasoning part , and truth held in its own principle . it is very powerfull in the one : it effecteth little in the other . in the pure quicknings of life this distinction is perceived and also held . therefore our advice is to all men , to retire from all mortality , that they may come to feel the spring of life in themselves ( and something springing therefrom into them to quicken them ) and to wait to have their understandings opened and kept open by that ; that so they may receive , retain , and not again lose the capacity of understanding the things of gods king●●● . quest . . how may this principle ●●eed or pearl ) be purchased and possessed ? answ . by dying to a mans own wisdom and will. there is not another way . for the light is wholly contrary to man , as he stands in the alienation from god. it crosseth his spirit , his thoughts , his desires , his knowledge , his reason , his understanding ; even all that is of himself . he must therefore consult with none of these , but prefer the little , pure demonstration of the light of christs spirit above all these , and stand in the parting with and loss of them all for ever . o this is an hard saying , who can bear it ? surely none but those that are taught and learn of the father , can thus come to give up to and follow the light of the son. the law of the lord is perfect , converting ( or restoring ) the soul ( psal . . . ) what law was this , or what law is this ? was it the law of works in the hand of moses ? or is it the law of faith in the hand of christ ? doth not christ enlighten every man that cometh into the world ? would not god have all men to be saved ? and doth he not give to all , a proportion of the true light whereby they may be saved ? and is it not the property of this light to convert to god ? can any man receive this and be united to this , and it not change his nature ? so that he must needs have a new nature , and from that new nature do that naturally , which the jews by all their endeavours without this , could never do . can any thing convert fallen man to god , but christ ? hath any thing power to convert to god , but his pure law of life ? can christ and his light be separated ? can any man receive his light and be united thereto , and not receive him ? o that mens hearts and understandings were opened by the spirit and power of the lord ! for this is a direct riddle to all men , who have not gods heifer to plow with , to understand it by . and so for want of a true understanding , it is despised and rejected among the builders : but with us it is elect and precious , chosen of god , and precious in the eye of our souls . now this doth not exclude or make void any thing , that christ did in his body of flesh here on earth , or that he doth in heaven for his : but this brings unto a right , and into a possession and enjoyment of his purchase . for all that are in the darkness , and walk in the darkness , have nothing to do with christ in truth and reallity , what ever they may profess , and what hopes soever they may feed themselves with : but all that are in any measure of his light , and walk therein ; they are so far of him ▪ and have a right to and share in all that he did in and from the same light and spirit . and this i dare positively hold forth as a standing truth , which hath been sealed unto me by constant experience ; that no man can fall in with and obey the light wherewith he is enlightened , but he must deny himself , and take up a cross to his own wisdom and will , which cross is the cross of christ , which is the power of god to the salvation of the soul. and he that takes it up daily and waits upon the lord therein , shall witness the power of the lord jesus christ to the redeemption of his soul : yea then he shall be able in true understanding to say , this is light indeed , life indeed , power indeed . that powerfull arm which hath saved me from sin , and breaks the snares , devices and strength of the enemy before me ( delivering me daily when none else can , and when my own strength and wisdom is as nothing ) i cannot but call christ , the living power and wisdom of god revealed in me , who will not give his glory to another . for he is the lord god of pure power and life for evermore ; and beside him there is no such saviour . yea , blessed be the name of the lord for ever , the dayes of mourning after salvation are over with many , and the dayes of reaping and enjoying salvation are come , which shall endure with the israel of god for evermore , amen isaac penington . the end . some principles of the elect people of god in scorn called quakers penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) some principles of the elect people of god in scorn called quakers penington, isaac, - . fox, george, - . [ ], p. s.n.], [london? : . variously attributed to george fox and isaac penington. "conclusion" signed on p. : isaak penington. place of publication suggested by wing. imperfect: some pages faded with loss of print. reproduction of original in the bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng society of friends -- doctrines. theology, doctrinal -- early works to . - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - ali jakobson sampled and proofread - ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion some principles of the elect people of god in scorn called quakers . o send forth thy light and thy truth , let them lead me , let them bring me to thy holy hill , and to thy tabernacles , psal . . . for the commandement is a lamp , and the law is light , and the reproofs of instruction are the way of life . printed in the year , . the contents . concerning first , a breif account of what we are , and what our work is in the world : by i. pennington . page secondly , grounds and reasons why we deny the worlds teachers , pag. some principles of the elect people of god called quakers , p. worship . p. the church . ibid. the way . ibid. the cross . p. true communion . p. the gospel . ibid. faith. ibid. baptisme . p. persecution . ibid. scriptures . p. tyths . p. the higher power . p. the kingdom of christ , how held up , and how not . p. teachers , prophets , pastors , bishops , presbiters . ibid. an exhortation to all christendom , to mind the grace of god , to wit , the light. p. perfection . p. resurrection . p. election and reprobation . ibid. fear and trembling . p. the body of death . p. the word thou to a single person . p. putting off the hat , bowing the knee , cringings and complements . ibid. good manniers . p. objections of the world against the preaching of christ , p. bread , water and wine . p. the sabbath day . p. god-fathers god-mothers and sprinkling of infants , ibid. the word trinity , ibid. the ministry . p. dayes , times , meats and drinks . ibid. marriages . ibid. false prophets and antichrists . p. a generall objection of people . p. the jew inward and outward . p. christ the covenant of god. ibid. plots and conspiracies . p. original sin . p. oaths . p. the word of god and original sin , what it is . p. heathen idolaters naming dayes and moneth . p. singing psalms . p. a warning to all to keep out of the fashons of the world. p. some queries given forth to priests ahd people to answer if they can . by g. f. p. the scriptures . p. baptism . p. the lords supper . p. prayer . p. ministry . p. magistracy and government . p. superiority , honour , breeding , manners , and the word thee and thou to a single person . p. the word thou and thee . p. putting off the hat. p. perfection . by j. parnel . p. womens speaking in the church . by w. d. p. the sum or substance of our religion p. christ . coming to the father by him , &c. p. the gospel ministration . p. christ manifested without , and within , and how both are owned by them that know the truth , p. the principle of truth , what it is , and how in may be discerned , and how it may be purchased , and possessed . p. an invitation to professors seriously to consider , &c. p. a brief testimony for truth : by t. taylor , &c. p. the conclusion ; by i. penington . a brief account of what we are , and what our work is in the world . we are a people whom god hath converted to himself ; a people in whom god hath raised up the seed of his own life , and caused it to reign over the eartly part in our selves ; a people whom god hath divorced from the spirit of whordom , and joyned to his own spirit . we , many of us , sought truly and onely after god from our childhood ( our consciences bearing us witness in the sight of god ) but the honesty of our hearts was still betrayed , and we led aside by the whorish spirit , and knew not how to turn to that of god in us , which inclined us toward god. by this means we came to great distress and misery beyond all men , not but that all men were in as great a want of god ( his life , power and presence ) as we ; but the sence therof was not so quickened in others , as in us . now it pleased the lord at length to pitty us , and to inform our minds towards himself , to shew us where life lay , and where death lay , and how to turn from the one , and to the other ; and he gave us his helping hand to turn us . and by being turned to h●m , we have tasted of the truth , of the true wisdom , of the true power , of the true life , of the true righteousness , of the true redemption : and by receiving of this from god , and tasting and handling of it ; we come to know that that which the world hath set up in the stead of it , is not the thing it selfe . now mark , we are not persons that have shot up out of the old root into another appearance , as one sect hath done out of another till many are come up one after another , the ground still remaining the same out of which they all grew : but that ground hath been shaken & shaking , destroyed & destroying , removed and removing in us , and the old root of jesse hath been made manifest in us , and we have been transplanted by the everlasting power of life , and a real change brought forth in us out of that spirit , wherin the world lives and worships , into another spirit , into which no thing which is of the world can enter . and hear we have met with the call of god , the conversion to god , the regeneration in god , the justification , the sanctification , the wisdom , the redemption , the true life and power of god , which the world cannot so much as bear the name of . and what we are made of god in christ , we know to be truth and no lye : and when we testifie of this to the world , in the measure of the life of god in us , we speak truth and no lye ; though the world which knoweth not the truth , cannot hear our voice . now our work in the world is , to hold forth the virtues of him that hath called us to live like god ; not to own any thing in the world which god doth not own : to forget our country , our kindred , our fathers house ; and to live like persons of another country , of another kindred , of another family : not to do any thing of our selves , and which is pleasing to the old nature , but all our words , all our conversation , yea every thought in us to become new . whatever comes from us , is to come from the new principle of life in us , and to answer that in others , but we must not please the old nature at all in our selves , nor in any else . and walking faithfully thus with god , we have a reward at present , and a crown in the end , which doth and will countervaile all the reproches and hardships , we do or can meet with in the world. we are also to be witnesses for god , and to propagate his life in the world ; to be instruments in his hand , to bring others out of death and captivity unto true life and liberty : we are to fight against the powers of darkness every where , as the lord calleth us forth . and this we are to do in his wisdom , according to his will , in his power , and in his love , sweetness , and meakness . we are not to take wayes according to our own wisdom ( but there must be a strict watch , set in the life , least that get up again : ) nor must we speak such words , as mans wisdom would call wise : nor may we go in our own will to seek any , but the lord must go before : nor may we make use of our own strength , but feel his arm in our weakness : nor may we go forth in that love , sweetness , or meakness which is pleasing to the fleshly mind : but we must be true to god handling the sword skilfully and faithfully , judging and cutting down the transgressor in the power and authority of god ▪ and when the meek , the lowly , the humble thing is reached and raised , then the true love , the sweetness , the tenderness , the meekness must go forth to that . the lord god is rough with the transgressor , and all along the scripture heweth and judgeth him : and if we come forth in the same spirit , we shall find the same leadings , where we meet with the same thing : for the lord god will never be tender there ; nor can that which comes from him , lives in him , is lead by him , be tender there whe●e he is not . now the very root of this severity is good , and of god , and hath love and sweetness at the bottom of it : yea in pitty , love , and bowels do we use the sword . it is in pitty to the poor captived creature , that that might be cut down , which keeps it in bonds and captivity . and though we seem enemies to all sorts of men , for the lords sake : yet we are not enemies , nor could do the least hurt to them any way , but are true freinds to their soules and bodies also : and our only controversie is with that which captives and maks them miserable : for we fight not at all with flesh and bloud , but with the principallity and power which led from god , and rules in it against god , to the poor creatures ruine and distruction . yea if we had all the powers of the earth in our hands , we could not set up our own way , ( if , after the manner , of men i may so call it ) or so much as disturb others in their way thereby , but should wait in patience , till god gave us an entrance by his power . now let not men run on in heats against us , but let them seriously consider , whether we be of god or no : and let them consider ; not with the reason and understanding which is alienated from god , but with the witness which lies hid in the heart . there is one great palpable argument that we are of god , which , is this , all the world is against us , the worldly part every where lights with us , the worldly part in every sort and sect of men opposeth us , the rage of man every where riseth up against us ; but those that are so hot against us , if at any time they become but meek and calm , patiently considering our cause , and consulting there upon with the testimony that they , find in their own hearts concerning us , they soon become pacified , and see that we are no mans enemies , against no righteous law , not against relations , not against governments , not against any thing in the world that is good , but only against that which is evil and corrupt . and of a truth , the corruption of things god hath shewed unto us , and daily cals us forth after an immediate manner to witness against . therfore let men be sober , and take heed what they do , least they be found fighters against god : for the reproaches the scoffs , with other persecutions , which seem to be cast at us , light on him . it is not as we are men , but as we are obedient to him , as we stand witnesses for him , that we meet with these things . now , as it is not we our selves that do these things , but the life and power of god in us ; so it is not we that are struck at , but the life and power : if it were not for that , we might be as acceptable as other men . it is because we are not of the world , but god hath called us out of the world , that we are so hated of the world . this is the true cause , though the world will no more now acknowledge it , then it would in former ages . yet i do not speak this for my own sake , to avoid my share in the cross : for the reproach of christ is our riches , yea far greater treasure then is to be found in the pallace of egypt : yea the presence of god , the sweet power of life makes up all our losses , so that we have no cause to complain . it is very sweet , pleasant , and profitable for us to be found sufferers for god ; but we know it will not be profitable for you to be found persecutors : and this is told you in true love and good will , by one who wishes no evil to you , for all the evil that ye have exercised towards the dear and pretious people of god for these many years . o that god would open your eyes , that ye might see whom ye have opposed , and against whom ye have hardened and strengthened your selves , that ye might bow to him , and receive life from him , and not perish in your gainsaying and opposition . isaack penington . grounds and reasons why we deny the worlds teachers first , they are such shepheards that seek for their gain from their quart●rs , and can never have enough , which the lord sent isaiah to cry out against , who bid all come freely , without money and without price , and , was not hired , but spake freely ; and these make marchandise and a trade of his words ; and therfore we cry out against them , and deny them , isa . . . and . . they are such shepherds that seek after the fleece , and cloath with the wooll , and feed on the fat , which the lord sent ezekiel to cry wo against ; who made a prey upon us ; and the lord said , he would gather his sheep from their mouths , and that we should be a prey to them no longer ; and we do witness the promise of the lord fulfilled ; and therfore we deny them , ezek . . they are such priests as bear rule by their means , which was a horrible and filthy thing commited in the land , which the lord sent jeremiah to cry out against ; while we had eyes and did not see , we held up such priests , but the lord hath opened our eyes , and we see them now in the same estate that they were in , which jeremiah cryed out against , who did not bear rule by his means ; and therfore we deny them , jer. . . they are such prophets & priests that divine for money , and preach for hire , which the lord sent micah to cry against ; and whilst we put into their mouths , they preached peace to us , but now w● do not put into their mouths , they prepare war against us ; and therfore we deny them , micah . . they are such as are called of men masters , & call men masters , and have the chiefest place in the assemblies , and stand praying in the synagogues , and lay heavy burdens upon the people which jesus christ cryed wo against , and bid his disciples not to be so ; be ye not called of men mast●rs , for one is your master , even christ , and ye are all brethren ; so we do witness je●us christ our master , and see them to be in the steps of the pharisees ; and therfore we deny them , mat. . . mat. . . they are such teachers , that with fained words and th●ough covetousness , made merchandize of us , and do upon the people ; who by oppression maintain themselves and wives in pride and idleness , in hoods , veils , and changable suits of apparrel ; who go in the way of cain , to envy , murder , and persecute , and after the e●ror of balaam , who loved the wages of unrighteousness , following after gifts and rewards , which the apostles cryed against ; and therfo●e we deny them , pet. . jude . . they are such teachers as have told us , the steeple-house hath been the church , when as the scripture saith , the church is in god ; and the●fore we deny them . thes . . . they are such teachers that have told us , the letter was the word , when as the letter saith , god is the word ; therfore we deny th●m , joh. . . they are such teachers as have told us , the letter was the light , when as the letter saith , christ is the light ; therfore we deny them , joh. . . . and . ● . they are such teachers as sp●inkle infants , calling it an ordinance of christ , and baptizing into the faith , into the church , when as the scripture saith no such thing ; and therfore we deny them : but the baptism by one spirit , into one body we own , cor. . . they are such teachers as tell people of a sacrament , for which there is not one scripture , and so feed the people with their own inventions ; and therfore we deny them ; but the table and supper of the lord we own , cor. . they are such teachers as tell people , that mathew , mark , luke , and john , is the gospel , which are but the letter . the lamb of god which takes away the sins of the world , is glad tydings to poor captives : glad tidings we●e promised before the letter was written , the seed of the woman shall bruise the serp●nts head , and h● shall be a light unto the gentiles : the letter is a declaration of the gospel , and many have the letter , but not christ ; but we having received the gospel , know them to be no ministers of it ; and therfore we deny them , gen. . . luke . . . they are such ministers as go to oxford and cambridge , and call them the well-heads of divinity , and so deny the fountain of living mercies , and there they study , and read books , and old authors , and furnish themselves with philosophy , and fine words , and other mens matter ; and when they come again , they sell it to poor people ; when as the apostle saith , he was not made a minister by the will of man , and that the gospel which he preached was not of man , nor had he received it from man , neither was he taught it ; and denyed all his learning which he had got by the will of man at the feet of gamaliel ; and so finding them in the will of man , preaching by the will of man ; we cannot but deny them , gal. . they are such teachers , that tell people that hebrew and greek is the o●iginal , when as the apostle spake in the hebrew tongue to the hebrews , who heard him in their own language , and yet persecuted him ; and the greeks , who had the gospel in their own tongues , said , the cross of christ was foolishn●ss ; these who had the scripture , in their own language , were as ignorant of the life of them , as our naturall priests , who spend so much time in learning a natural language , to find out what those meant that spake forth the scripture ; who make poor people beleive that to know a natural tongue is the means to understand the original ; the vvord which is the original was before all languages were , the vvord was in the begining which vvord was made manifest in all the children of god , who spake forth the scriptures ; holy men of god spake as they were moved by the holy ghost . now all ye learned ones , where is your original ? he●e you and your original is razed out f●om the word , which is the original which the apostles preached amongst the hebrews and greeks , which was before tongues were and your original , which will break all your tongues and original to peices . pilate had your original of hebrew greek , and latine , who crucified christ ; he that draws back into many languages , as into hebrew , and greek , draws back into the naturals , and so draws into confusion ; but the ministers of god , who preach the everlasting gospel which endures for ever draw up into one language , and so the priests , and all that trade in natural languages we utterly deny ; act. . cor. . . john. ● . ● . they are such teachers as have told us , that the steeple-house is the temple , when as the apostle said , your bodies are the temples of the holy ghost ; and stephen was stoned to death for witnessing against the temple , who said , god that made the world dwells not in temples made with hands ; and here finding them in the generation that hold up the figu●es , and deny the substance , and to be ignorant of that spirit that gave forth the scriptures ; we cannot but deny them , cor. . . acts. . they are such priests that take tythes , the tenth of mens labours and estates ; and those that will not give them , they sue at law and hale before cou●ts and sessions , yea even those they call their own people , their own parishon●rs . levy according to the law receiv●d tythes , and he had a command to set open his gates that the st●angers and the fatherless should come within his gat●s , and be satisfied and filled ; but we find none more pittiless of the fatherless and widdows then they ; and the strangers they complain against to justices , and persecute , ( though they neither seek to them nor others for any outward thing ) as wanderers ; and he●e they walk contrary to the old law : and the apostle in his epistle to the hebrews said , the preisthood being changed , there must of necessity also be a change of the law , and we witness both the priesthood and the law changed ; but they that take tythes , and they that pay tythes , according to the old covenant , deny jesus christ the everlasting preist to be come in the flesh ; and he●e these priests sh●w themselves to be antichrist , that are entered into the world , and opp●ess the creation , when as jesus christ said , freely ye have received , freely give ; and the apostle said , was there a wise man amongst them that went to law one with another ? here they are evil examples to the people , to sue , w●angle and cont●●d , and walk out of the steps of christ , and all the holy men of god ; yea they exceed all the false prophets in wickedn●●s , for we do not read that ever any of them sued men at the law ; and therfore we cannot but utterly deny them , deut. . . heb. . . they ar● such priests as beside their tythe of corn , hay , beast , sheep , hens , pigs , geese , eggs , cherries , plumbs ; take ten shillings for preaching a funeral sermon , more or less , as they can get it , and ten shillings for the death of a man ; and money out of servants wages , and money for smoke passing up the chimneys , and easter reckonings , and midsummer dues , and money for churching of women , and thus by every device get money , ( and burthen poor people that labour very hard and can scarse get food and raiment , ) to maintain them in idleness and pride : these are they that have hearts exercised with covetousness , burthening the truth , and making the free gospel chargable : if the apostle was here , he would be ashamed of them , and so are we , and therefore turn from them , and deny them , pet. . . they are such priests as not only take tyths and money for many other things of their own hearers , and sue them at law for it ; but they take money of them they do no work for ; but only raile against them , and say , they that wayt at the alter , are pertakers with the alter , but live of them who are not of the alter , and say , the labourer is worthy of his hire ; but take wages of them that have not hired them , and if they will not give it them , cast them into prison , or take their goods by justices warrants ; these are they that christ cryed wo against , who lay heavy burthens upon the people , who oppress tender consciences , that own the everlasting high priest ; where do they find any of the ministers of christ bargaining for so much a year ? here they abide not in the doctrine of christ , but are hirelings , and therefore we deny them . mat. . . they are such preachers as have told us , they have been gifted men , and we find in the scriptures , that the gift of god is free , and not to be bought and sold for money ; and job said wisdom is not to be purchased for money nor gold ; but they will not sell their gift under l. l. l. or l. a year , more or less , as they can get it , here we find they have not received the gift of god , but are like simon magus , and therefore we deny them . acts . . job . they are babylons merchants that make a trade of scriptures , and the saints conditions , which the prophets and apostles spoke forth freely , without money , and without price , and bad all come freely . how many hundred thousand pounds in england is gained by the scripture , and humane authors joyned to it ? where is there a more profitable trade ? here they make scriptures their cloak and colour to get mnoey by , and so make an idol of it ; and if any come to witness it fulfiled , as it was in them that gave it forth , they cry out to the magistrates against them as blasphemers and deceivers : and if they answer , he that administers spiritual things ought to reap carnal , let him consider , the apostle wrote not that to the the world , but to those that they had gathered out of the world , to whom the ends of the world were come ; and let them gather people out of the world , and then they shall not need to bargain with them for things of the world ; but their trading is with the world , and therefore we deny them , isa . . . they are such teachers as take a text out of the saints conditions , and take a weeks time to study what they can raise out of it , adding to it their own wisdom , inventions , imaginations , and heathenish authors , and then on the first day of the week go amongst the people , having an hour glass to limit themselves by , and say , hear the word of the lord , and for money tell people what they have scraped together . these are they that speak a divination of their own heart , and not from the mouth of the lord , which the lord sent jeremiah to cry out against , jer. . these are they that use their tongues , and say , the lord saith , when as the scriptures say so , and the lord never spake to them , jer , . . these are they of whom the lord speaks , i am against all such as steal my word every one from his neighbour : and so we are against all such as jeremiah was sent to cry wo against , the pastors that now steal the words of the prophets , of christ , and the apostles ; the lord hath shaken his hand at their dishonest gain , and to them belong the plagues that are written in the book they make a trade on , for adding to it their own inventions , therefore do we come out from amongst them , and deny them . jer. . . these are they of whom the apostle speaks : that creep into houses leading silly women captive , which are led away with divers lusts , which be ever learning , and never able to come to the knowledg of the truth , though some have learned , , or years , covetous , proud , high-minded , self-willed , lovers of pleasures more then lovers of god , who have gotten a form of godliness , but deny the power thereof , from which the apostle bad turn away , and so do we , tim. . . they are such teachers as gave us , and give people , davids conditions in meeter , and when we had no understanding we sung after them , as ignorant people do now , his tremblings , his quakings , his weepings , fastings , prayers , prophesies ; and when we sung we put of our hats , and when they read them , we kept them on , and so they caused us to worship the works of their own hands ; here they shew the spirit of error , making wicked people to sing , o lord i am not puft in mind , i have no scornful eye , i do not exercise my self in things that are to high , when they are puft in mind , and have scornful eyes , and do exercise themselves in things that are to high , and are full of filth , pride and loftiness , and can scarce look at one another : here they make poor people to offer a sacrifice of lyes , and make them hypocrites , deceiving themselves , saying what they are not : but the singing with the spirit and with understanding we own , and therefore the priests that sing without understanding we deny , cor. . . they are such teachers as deny the conditions that the saints witnessed , viz. trembling and quaking : when as we find the holy men of god that gave forth the scriptures witnessed such things . moses who was judge over all israel , feared , quaked , and trembled exceedingly : and the son of man was to eat his bread with quaking ; and daniel the man of god trembled , and was sore astonished : and jeremiah the prophet of the lord reeled to and fro like a drunken man , and all his bones did shake ; and david who was a king trembled and quaked ; and ephraim when he trembled was exalted in israel ; and habakkuk who was a prophet trembled , and his belly shook , his lips quivered : and isaac in whom the seed was called , trembled exceedingly ; and paul a minister of christ trembled ; but they make a scorn of trembling and quaking , and shew themselves ignorant and strangers to the life and power of god , as their generation ever was , who still made a scorn and reproach of the holy men of god that trembled and quaked ; but the seed of god , and the prophets , and the servants of the lord we own , and their conditions we witness ; and therefore all the priests , and them that deny the holy men of god , we utterly deny , heb. . . ezek. . . dan. . . jer. . . psalm . . . hos . . ● habbak . . . acts . . gen. . . they are such teachers as tell the people that christ hath not enlightened every one that comes into the world , when as christ saith ; he doth enlighten every one that comes into the world : and hear they go about to make christ a lyer , and john baptist a false prophet , and deny the scriptures ; and they say , god hath not given every one a measure according to his ability when at christ saith , he hath done it , christ is the light of the world , and by him the world was made , and he came into the world , and the world received him not ; it is so now , light shines in darkness , and the darkness comprehends it not ; and this is the condemnation , that light is come into the world , the one he loves the light , and brings his deeds to it , that they may be made manifest , and walk in it , there is no occasion of stumbling in him ; the other , he hates the light because his deeds are evil , and this is his condemnation ; and we witness the light wherewith christ hath enlightened every one that comes into the world , and by obedience to the light , he is become our master , our teacher : and all who stumble at the light , and deny it are ignorant of the foundation stone , and know not the first principle , but are shut out from knowing any thing of god ; and therefore the priests and all their followers we deny , joh. . . and . , . mat. . . they are such teachers as walk out of the doctrine of the apostles , and practise of all the churches ▪ paul saith , if any thing be revealed to him that sits by , let the first hold his peace , for all may prophesie one by one , that god in all things may be glorified , and you edified : and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets : and god is the author of peace , and not of confusion : and this was in all the churches of the saints : but now if any man come among them , while they are speaking , or when they haue done , and be moved to speak any thing , them of their church , the rude multitude , fall upon him with staves , fists , and punches and knocks him down with stones , shewing themselves to be of that generation that stoned stephen to death , and the priests call to the officers to take him to the stocks , and to carry him before the magistrate , and from thence he is sent to prison , and called a disturber of the peace : here they shew themselves to be no ministers of christ , and their assembly to be no church , but in confusion , for that which was order among the saints , is disorder amongst them ; the church of christ was never fighters , nor quarrellers , nor scorners ; such churches are the fruits of the ministry of england , who were made by the will of man , and never sent of christ , and therefore they do not profit the people at all , but are persecutors of the messengers of christ , and therefore we deny them , cor. , . . acts . ver. . . they are such teachers as have told us , we should never be made free from sin while we are upon earth ; when as the apostle saith , they were made free from sin , he thanks god , and had put of th● body of sin ; so we find they had told us lyes contrary to the scripture , and the apostle saith , while we were servants of sin we were free from righteousness ; so in that state we find them ; and therefore we deny them , and they have told us , none shall ever be sanctified , nor the body of sin destroyed , nor cleansed from sin while they are upon earth , when as the apostle said , they were sanctified , and the blood of jesus christ cleanseth from all sin ; and the ministers of god said , they reigned as kings ; and here they deny the scriptures , and therefore we deny them . and they deny the begotten son of god , which sinneth not , and calleth it blasphemy for any to witness that born which sins not , when the scripture saith , he that is born of god sinneth not , neither can he sin , because he is born of god , and the seed of god remaines in him ; and he that commits sin is of the devil , and hereby are the children of god made manifest , and the children of the devil ; and as he is , so are we in this present world , and a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit ; if the root be holy so are the branches , and one fountain cannot send forth sweet water , and bitter : he that can receive it , let him ; but the cheif priests , and elders , and pharisees , and sadduces , and rulers , at this stumbled then , and so they stumble now at the light , from whence these words were given forth , which doth enlighten every one that comes into the world , and therefore we deny them , rom. . . and . . rom. . . cor. . . joh. . . joh. . , ; . joh. . . and they a●e such teachers that have told us , none shall ever be perfect while they are upon the earth , when as christ saith , be ye perfect as your father which is in heaven is perfect ; and the apostle saith , by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified . and the ministry of christ is for the perfecting of the saints , till they all come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of christ , to a perfect man. here we find them to deny the scriptures , and the everlasting offering , and all such we cannot but deny ; and we witness the everlasting offering , which perfects for ever them that are sanctified . praises to the lord for ever , who hath sent forth his son in the likeness of sinful flesh , to condemn sin in the flesh , that in him we might be made the righteousness of god ; and all that deny perfection and sanctification , deny this offering , and the gift of god , which is perfect , and the ministry of god , which is for perfecting the body ; and such ministers are not members of the body , nor can present any man perfect in christ jesus , and therefore we deny them , mar. . . heb. . . eph. . , . cor. . . james . . they are such teachers as deny the everlasting covenant , and the anointing , for if any come to witness that they are taught of god , and that he hath written his law in their hearts , and put his spirit within them , and that none need say to them , know the lord ; then they cry out to the magistrates , and ignorant people , these are the deceivers and false prophets that shall come in the last times , they deny the means ; and when any witness they have received an unction from the holy one , and need not that any man teach them , but as the anoynting teacheth them of all things ; then they cry out , these are seducers and seduced : and so here they deny the covenant of god , and the promise of god , and shew themselves to be the great seducers , that draw from the anointing , and finding their spirits contrary to the scriptures , we cannot but deny them , jer. . . heb . . joh. , , . they are such teachers , that say , revelations are ceased , and deny revelations and so deny the son , for , no man knows the father , but he to whom the son reveals him , and no man knows the things of god , but the spirit of god , and he to whom the spirit reveals them : and the apostle said , it pleased the father to reveale his son in him : and so he that denies revelations , denies both the father , and the son , and the spirit ; these are the priests who talk of religion , and have gotten a form to trade with , and have received things by traditon , but are ignorant of god , and of the spirit , by which all saints were ever guided ; and therefore we deny them , mat. . . cor. . . gal. . . phil. . . therefore all people , consider what you do , and hold up , and worship , for the worship is but one , and the word is but one , and the baptism is but one , and the church is but one , and the way is but one , and the light is but one , and the power is but one ; but they that are without have many teachers , many ways , many opinions and judgments , and many sects ; but we have but one priest , which is over the houshold of god , and therefore are all of one heart and soul . moved of the lord , written from the spirit of the lord for the cleansing of the land of all false teachers , seducers and deceivers , and witches , who beguile the people , and inchanters , and diviners , and sorcerers , and hirelings , and which is for the good of all people , that fear the lord , and own jesus christ to be their teacher . from them whom the world scornfully calls quakers ; but quaking and trembling we own , else we should deny the scriptures , and the holy men of god ; but the scriptures we own , and the holy men of god ; therefore we deny all them who deny quaking . if you say these things are frivolous things , which you have taught us , then we have been taught frivolous things all this while ; but we find all these things frivolous things , wind and air , and therefore we deny them . all people that read these things , never come ye more at the steeple-house nor pay your priests more tythes , till they have answered them , for if ye do ye uphold them in their sins , and must partake of their plagues , some principles of the elect people of god , scornfully called , quakers . by g. f. a salutation of salvation to all people throughout the christian world , that they may enter in by the door which is christ the light , by which every man is enlightened that cometh into the world , by christ the light , which is the way to god , and the door by which they must enter into the father , from the world , from darkness and death , and its power , into covenant with god , by christ the door . and this is the light , by which ye see all the evil actions which ye have evilly acted , and all the ungodly works which ye have ungodlyly commited , and all the ungodly thoughts which ye ungodlyly have thought , and all the hard speaches and ungodly words which ye have spoken . the light wherewith christ hath enlightened you ; is that which maketh manifest all that is contrary to it . the same light maketh manifest the saviour , from whence it comes : and it maketh manifest that christ is the covenant of light and life , by which you come to have peace with god. the same light maketh manifest to you ( if you love it ) that christ is the mediator between you and god. the same light maketh manifest that christ is the offering for your sins , and the sins of the whole world. the same light doth manifest that christ is the way , the truth and the life , and the word of god by which all things were made and created . and the same light manifests that christ is the wisdom of god , and power of god , and sanctification , and justification , and redemption . to sanctifie , justifie and redeem from that which the light manifests to be evil ; and that which lets , and keeps in the seperation from god. and this light is within , by which all these things are seen ; and you that love this light you will se all these things love mentioned : christ the mediator , christ the way , the life , the wisdom , the sanctifier , the redeemer , the offering for your sins , and the sins of the whole world. in this light ye will have his testimony ; and so he that believes shall have the testimony and witness in himself , and so ye all being enlightened with this light , receiving it , you receive christ , then you do not receive darkness , nor the prince of darkness . and as many of you as receive christ , he will give you power to become sons of god ( mark ) ye shall have power by which you shall know son-ship to stand against sin and evil , and become the sons of god. now if you hate this light , and go on in sin , and in evil thoughts , and evil words , works and actions , and do not come to the light which reproves you , but love darkness rather then light , it will be your condemnation . and this is the light which maketh manifest to every one of you what you have done , spoke , thought and acted amiss , and reproves you for it : and if you love the light , you love christ , and you love your saviour , redeemer , sanctifier and offering for sin. and you see him who puts an end to sin , and destroyes the devil who brought it in , and his works ; he that destroyeth ; and brings in everlasting righteousness in you . but ( as above mentioned ) if you hate this light , and go on in sin and evil , it will be your condemnation . this light is with you in your labours , and in your beds , and when you are about your business , trades and occupations ; shewing to you all your words , and all your thoughts , works and actions . which light ( if you love it ) will lead you from the old into the new life , and from the alienation and degeneration from god , his life and image . and with this light you will see christ a king to govern you , who hath all power in heaven and in earth given to him ; and with the light you will see him a prophet to open to you , and a priest to offer for you to the father ; and in this light you will see more light , the same shining in your hearts , it will give you the knowledge of the glory of god , in the face of christ jesus your saviour : and with the light you will see the kingdom of heaven within , which never gave consent to sin and evil , like to a grain of mustard-seed , and to a leaven which leaveneth into a new lump . and with the light you will see the field , which is the world , placed in your hearts , where the pearl is hid , and with what you must dig to find the pearl , the power of god ; and what you must sell for its sake , to purchase the field , and waiting in this light , you will receive the spirit of truth , the comforter , to to lead you into all truth , and to bring the words which christ hath spoken to your remembrance ; and it will shew you things to come ; and it shall receive of those which are christs , and give it unto you . so loving the light you love christ , and receiving it you receive christ , the first and the last ; for in the light christ is seen and handled , his voyce is heard and he is followed . so in the light you will see christ to be your teacher , who saith , learn of me , i am the way , the truth and the life ; by whom life eternal is given . and you are brought again to christ the shepherd , who draws you out of the fall to god , into his image , where the green pastures of life are known and fed upon . and no man commeth to the father ( saith christ ) but by me : who enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world , that by the light all may believe . and , saith christ , believe in the light whilst ye have the light , that you may be children of the light. so you being enlightned with the light , which if you believe in it , you come to be children of the light , and heirs of promise , and mercy , and of the power of a life that hath no end. and believing in the light , you pass from death to life , from darkness to light ; and you come to know a translation from darkness to light , and from satans power to the power of god ; and to know the begotten of god , into his own image , by his power , as you have been degenerated from god , and have lost his image , by the prince of darkness , and so translated from the image of god , into the image of satan , from the power of christ , into the power of darkness ; so you must come to the light , that ye may have another conversion , from satans power to god , from darkness to light , to be renewed into the image of god ; and this is felt within , and as you feel this within , you will know the word of god within in your hearts , which is the word of faith , which the apostles preached to the romans ; which they were to hear , obey , and do : and that is the word which seperates the pretious from the vile ; your pretious thoughts , affections , motions and words from your vile : so the word is in your hearts , and mouthes , to obey it , and to do it ; and it is quick and powerful , sharper than a two-edged sword : and you shall not need to say , who shall bring it from heaven , or who shall fetch it from beneath ? but it is in the heart and mouth ; and this is the word of faith which the apostles preached . and the same word is called a hammer , a sword , and a fire to beat down , to cut down , and to burn up whatsoever is contrary to it . so it is the same word which sanctifieth , and purifieth , and reconcileth to god , as beats down , and cuts down , that which is contrary to god and which seperates betwixt you and god. so you may hear , obey and do the word , for it is with you in all places , and in all your occasions , dividing good thoughts from bad , good words and motions from bad : for if all christendom would hear and obey the word in their hearts , which is pure , and lives , and remaines , and endures for ever , by which they would come to be born again of the immortal seed , this word would keep them from evil actions and words which are spoken and acted by them : and so by the word every one should be taught , and should know the engrafted word , which is able to save the soul , which beats down , and cuts down , and burns up that which wars against it , and keeps the soul from the enjoyment of god. and so in this word they should know the annointing in themselves to teach them , so that they should not need any man to teach them , but as the same annointing teacheth them , which teacheth truth in all things . and in this light and word , which is in the heart , they should know the new covenant of god , the law written in the heart , and put in their mindes , by which they should not have need to say one to another , know the lord ; for all should know him from the least even to the greatest . and those are true christians who come to witness this , as thousands in england do witness it in this his day ; among whom the pretious pearl is found , and the field is bought , among whom the law of the spirit of life , sets free from the law of sin and death : who witness the ages to come , of which the apostle spoke , in which the kindness and exceeding riches of the grace of god should be manifested again , which the lord in the primitive times made manifest amongst the apostles , who sat together in heavenly places in christ jesus . in which places ▪ thousands are now come to sit ; glory be to him for ever . i. concerning worship . the promise of redemption is from that state in which adam and eve , their sons and daughters are in the fall driven from god , into a state in which they were before they were driven from god , to the church in god. now they that sit down in a state driven from god , are people far off from the church in god. our worship is in spirit and in truth , in which the devil abode not , but is out of it , who is the author of strife and unrighteousness amongst people , which truth maketh the devil to bow , and cringe , yea , and destroys him ; and it is the spirit that mortifies sin , which makes the separation from god. now we say , that if all christendom had worshipped god in spirit and in truth , they had all been in him , out of which the devil is , and had been in the holy mountain , and had felt the spirit ruling them in their own particulars , and had felt the spirit of truth guiding and teaching them in them , in their own hearts . ii. concerning the church . our church is in god the father of our lord jesus christ , which he redeems with his own blood , without spot , or wrinkle , or deformity , or any such thing , which blood we feel in our hearts , purging us from all sin ; with which blood we feel our consciences cleansed from dead works to serve the living god. so this blood is witnessed in us , and the excellency thereof , by which we come to know the price of redemption . iii. concerning the way . we say that christ is our way , which is light , which enlighteneth you and every man that cometh into the world , that with this light you may see him , the way , and may come to walk in the way of peace and life , which is the way to god , and which is the new and living-way , in which the apostles were , out of which christendom is gone , erring from the light in their own particulars , into their own inventions and imaginations , which is the cause that there are set up so many wayes among them , changable wayes , and changable worships , among them ( i say ) who have erred from the new and living way . so whosoever comes to the light in themselves , they come to christ , they come to the new and living way , out of the old and dead wayes which are in the fall from god , out of his image and power ; so whosoever comes to his image and power , they must come to the light , wherewith christ the way hath enlightened them all in their own particulars , and hear his voyce and doctrine . so there is not another way to the father but christ the light , which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world , which is the way , yea , the new and living way . so , who love the light , they love the way , and they love christ ; but they who hate the light , they hate christ the way . iv. of the crosse . the cross of christ is the power of god , which is contrary to the world ; which cross of christ , the power of god , was among the apostles , which crucified them from all outward figures , types , shadows and inventions of men. so they who are gone from the power of god , since the dayes of the apostles , have set up many crosses , who have lost the true cross , which is the power of god. the cross of christ , which is the power of god , crucifies that state in which adam and eve , and all their posterity were in , in the degeneration , in which cross is the power of god ; by which cross they come to a state in which they were in before their fall. and in this power of god , the cross is the fellowship , which is a mystery , which brings to the beginning , in which is endless life ; and this mystery is in it . v. of the true communion . the true communion is in the gospel , which is among us , as it was among the apostles , in the spirit and light , by which we have fellowship with the father and with the son. vi. of the gospel . the gospel is the power of god to salvation ; for he that believeth receiveth power , receiveth the gospel , by which life and immortality is brought to light ; and the power of god expels that which keeps life and immortality from people , and captivates their soules spirits and mindes , and keeps them in bondage ; which power of god expells it all and sets them free , and gives them dominion over that , which burdens them and gives them to feel and to see before that was which hides life and immortality from them . and by this power of god , life and immortality comes to reign , in which is the saints fellowship , and church-fellowship , in which they come to be heires of the power of god , heirs of the gospel , heirs of the fellowship , membrs of the church , and membrs of one another ; in the power of god , the gospel wich was before the power of darkness was . and now the gospel must be preached again to all nations , kindreds , tongues and people , who dwell upon the earth ; that by this gospel , life and immortallity may be brought to light among them , and expel away that which hides it from them , by which power , the gospel , which is salvation , which frees the soules , spirits , and consciences from that which burdens them , and to them this is glad tydings . vii . of faith . the faith is one which purifieth the heart , which giveth victory , and which brings to have access to god , and which giveth victory over that which seperates from god ; in which faith was the unity of the saints in the primitive times , in which also stands our unity ; which faith is the gift of god. viii . of baptisme . there is one baptism , by one spirit , into one body , which plungeth under all the corruption which got up since transgression , which hath made the separation between man and god ; which spirit leads into one body from the many bodies , and into one head from the many heads of those many bodies , which are in the fall from god. so baptized with one spirit , into one body , which plungeth under all that which makes a separation from god. we are made to drink into one spirit , and this spirit is within , plunging under all the corruptions which are within ; and the cross of christ , which is the power of god , is within , crucifying the mind which did walk in those things which hides from god , and which keeps in the world , in the lust of the eyes , the pride of life , and the lust of the flesh which are not of the father . now they that mind earthly things , they go from the power of god within , and are enemies to his cross , which is the power of god ( as paul saith ) and so , many heads , many bodies , many baptisms , are among them , who are out of the power of god , the cross of christ , and out of the one baptisme with the spirit , into one body , into one head , christ jesus , the first and the last , the beginning and the end , and the head of his church , which is his body , and he is the saviour of it ; of which church we are . ix . of persecution . now concerning the divers faiths , and divers worships , which are in the world , and the persecution about them , such believers and worshipers are out of the one faith which giveth victory , and have lost the spiritual weapons and are run into the carnal , and so are out of the true worship which is in spirit and truth ; out of which ( as i said before ) the devil is . and here are all the carnall weaponed men , fighting for their worship , and for trifles . when as the spiritual weaponed men , who have the word of god , and the sword of the spirit , they strive not with flesh and blood , destroy not creatures by calling to the powers of the earth to help them . when as carnal minded men , who are out of the church , which was in the begining , and its weapon and spirit : who deform , kill and slay creatures about their invented worships , faiths , baptisms , churches , croses , and such like ; which were not the fruits , neither the works of the apostles , nor of the spiritual weaponed men . so all ye that persecute and kill about religion , church and worship , are not worshipers of god in spirit and truth : they are not in the fellowship of the gospel , the power of god , which was before the power of sathan was , and they are not in the true faith which giveth victory over that which seperates from god , neither are they in the cross of christ , the power of god , which was before sathan was , which crucifies the flesh , and the world , and their carnal weapons . so all ye who persecute and kill about religion , you are out of the new and living way , christ jesus , which saith , love enemies ; and commands to give the check● , back and hairs to the smiters : ye are in cains way who persecute and kill your brother christians , as cain did , and so in this you do not well , neither doth god respect your sacrifice for if you and cain had done well , neither you nor cain had killd your brothers about worship , church , sacrifice and religion , and then god would have had respect unto you , but you doing not well , sin lyeth at your door , as it did at cains , and it s gotten in your house ; so that now , neither his nor your sacrifice god accepts or regards , neither stand you in an acceptable state , where now you are , but in a way , in which together with cain you walk , which is not the new , nor the living way . for adam neglected to hear the voice of god , and cain neglected to hear the voice of god , and the jews they neglected to hear the voice of god , and you neglect to hear his voice , and the devil who went from the truth , lyeth at the door of such who neglect the voyce of god , and so sin entreth into the house and defiles them , and so their hearts are hardned , for which cause they turned against their brethren . so they neither do well , neither doth god accept their sacrifice , for they go from the path and the way where god respects and accepts people , and so becomes fugitives and vagabonds in the earth , and hath not an habitation in god , and in this fugitive state , those baptised nations are worse than the nations not baptized ; and many of them are much more children of the devil than before , like the jews proselites , killing and persecuting , doing the devils work , who is out of the truth . for both christ , his ministers and apostles came to save mens lives ; but the devils policy was to cloath his ministers , apostles and messengers with the sheeps cloathing , and keeps people always under them , that they may alwayes pay them , but destroys and persecutes such as refuse . and this is not according to christ the way , who destroyes the devil and his works , who led man from god , and maketh man unclean ; and christ , who destroyes the devil , maketh man clean again , and brings man to god , who is the justifier , sanctifier , redeemer , and the captain of their salvation ; and persecution is alwayes blind . so every religion , church , worship , ministry , maintenance , which is set up by carnal weapons , clubs and swords is from cain and judas , and from the jews , and from anti-christ , and is anti-christianism , and not from christ , neither in the way which is the way to life . for he is the life which saveth mens lives , but he is of the prince of death that destroyeth mens lives , and of the prince of darkness , out of the light , and out of christ the way , who was before he was , and his workes , and who lives and remaines when he is gone ( to wit , the devil ) and all his instruments and works : let the glory be to god alone for ever . and all the vain jangles and contentions , and disputes concerning the scriptures of truth , with the divers meanings and interpretations thereof , from whence they arise , because they are not in the power and spirit in which they were that gave them forth ; so they are not in fellowship with god , from whence they came , neither with the spirits of just men , who gave them forth , neither are in vnity one with another , for they are out of the spirit , in which spirit we are , by which spirit we know god , we know the spirits of just men , we know the scriptures , with which we have vnity one with another , and the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets ; and this is witnessed amongst us which god said , viz. that he would pour out of his spirit upon all flesh , and sons and daughters should prophesie . and now both sons and daughters do prophesie in our age , as formerly among the apostles . and now there are women-helpers and labourers in the gospel , and such who for its sake can lay down their lives . x. of the scriptures . now concerning the scriptures we say , that they were not given for this end that men should make a trade of them for a maintenance , neither to keep people alwayes learning , and alwayes teaching of them to get their money , this proceeds from the earthly wisdom , knowledge and vnderstanding , which shall perish , and be confounded , and brought to nothing ; and not in that wisdom which cometh down from above , which is pure and peaceable ; but in that wisdom which is from beneath , which is earthly , sensual and devilish , which will destroy them who are not of their opinions and judgments ; such are not in the spiritual understanding , which giveth dominion over sin , and which giveth a discerning by which they can discern one thing from another , and are out of that knowledge by which god is known , which is life eternal . so they who make a trade of the scriptures , and serve themselves by them , they are such as are out of the life , neither can they bring people to it , and so they keep people learning all their life time ; and this is the state of the merchants of babylon , who are building up and plucking down . now this is the end and right use of scripture , viz. for all to read them , and believe them , and to wait in the light , to feel the power and spirit which was in them , who gave them forth , by which they may know them , and have the revelation of them in themselves , and so feel christ who is the voyce and the corner-stone , by which they are fulfilled , and so to receive him , and live in him , who fulfills them , who is the end of the prophets , and of all types , figures and shadows . so ( i say ) the scriptures of truth were given forth to be believed , read , fulfilled , performed , and that people might enjoy that of which they spoke , to wit , christ jesus the substance . the scriptures of truth are the words of god , which comes from god the father of truth , and cannot be broken , but must be fulfilled , and he who fulfills them is christ , by whom all things were made and created ; who is called , the word of god. xi . concerning tythes . tythes have been held up among christians ( so called ) by force and violence since the dayes of the apostles , and christs incarnation , by whom not any example was given about tythes , for among them all things were done freely in charity and love. tythes before the law , by abraham , and tythes , &c. offerings , &c. under the law , were for the priests , widows , fatherless , and the poor ; which law of god commanded tythes by reason of the encrease to be offered for his service , but christ in gospel-times , redeems from the ninths , and puts an end to the law that gave the tenths , and to the priesthood that took them , and to the commandment that gave them , and puts an end to the offerings . and although abraham paid tythes to melchisedeck in time of war , those were only tythes of the spoil , and not by a command ; and christ was according to the order of melchisedeck , who puts an end to war , and destroyes the devil its author , and redeems out of the earth . and although we are many thousands , yet there is not a beggar among us , neither do we read there were any beggars in the primitive-times , which church denyed tythes , and said , the priesthood was changed that took them , together with the law by which they were set up , and also the commandment which gave them . so they who take tythes , and they who pay them , are both anti-christs , and deny christ to be come in the flesh . xii . of the higher power . moses , who had the law , saw over all transgression , and before it was ; he saw the state which adam had in the garden before he fell , he saw his state in the fall , and how death reigned from adam to moses , who received the law , which law passed over all transgression ; which law did answer to the witness of god in all , which was a command to people that they might not sin , and that they might be kept from sin , and so from death , which raigns from adam to moses , which law passeth over both sin and death . and this was the higher power ( higher than the transgression ) which answereth to the witness of god against the rebellions , which witness is true , holy , righteous , and equal , which law is just , holy , and good ; a true measure , and just weight ; this is called the higher power ; this was added untill the seed came , which is christ ; and this law they were to hear , even moses : to whom wisdom was given to make the pattern , and to set forth figures and shaddows under the law till christ should come . of which moses said , the lord will raise up a prophet like unto me , him shall ye hear in all things . and when christ himself came , he put an end to all those types , figures , and shaddows , and changable things ; for in him there is no shaddow , who is called gods righteousness . so the law was in use untill the seed came ; and moses who had it said , god shall raise up a prophet like unto him , and now he is come , which we hear , ( to wit , the seed ) who is the end of all the prophets , who prophesied of him ; and so he is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believe . so believers are members of the true church , of which christ is the head. so christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth . which christ purgeth his floor , and burneth up the chaffe , commeth with his fan , baptizeth with his holy spirit and fire , and bringeth his wheat into his garner . and christ is the end of all oaths which were under the law , and which was before the law , viz. of oaths which put an end to strife among men. xiii . of the kingdom of christ , how it is held up , and how not . the kingdom of christ is not held up by carnal weapons , for saith christ , my kingdom is not of this world , therefore his servants fight not . now all you that profess your selves to be christians , and bringers of glad tydings , yet ye are fighthers with clubs and swords about religion , you are not the servants of christ , who are fighting for an earthly kingdom ; for in christs kingdom we must fight with spiritual weapons in patience and long-suffering ; and christ said to his disciples , ( who would have had fire to come down from heaven to consume those that were contrary to them , as it was in the dayes of the prophet elias ) that they knew not what spirit they were of . so they who destroy mens lives , and doth not save them , they are not according to the mind of christ , nor the way of christ , but are under the condemnation of it , neither do they know what spirit they are of . and so they who are spiritually wise cannot commit their souls , bodies nor spirits into the hands of such . xiv . concerning teachers , prophets , pastors , bishops , presbyters , &c. teachers , prophets , pastors , presbyters and bishops , ought not to be such as are given to filthy lucre , nor covetous , nor given to wine , nor strikers , nor brawlers , nor covetous of earthly things , nor to teach for filthy lucre , nor to contend about words and fables , and vain phylosophy , and beggarly rudiments , and traditions and doctrines of men , nor their commandements , neither ought they to compel people to observe dayes , meats , and drinks , nor such like things , nor to bear rule by their means , nor they ought not to be such who seek their gain from their quarter , such were forbidden ; and such as teach for money and handfulls of barly , and pieces of bread , and such as teach for lucre , were forbidden and opposed by the true prophets , teachers and apostles , and such as wore long robes , and were called of men master , and followed and loved salutations in mark●ts , and the uppermost roomes at feasts , and such like , all such are out of christ , and against such christ himself cryed , woe , woe , who said , ye have one master , even christ , and ye are all brethren : and that it should not be so among them , as it was among the gentiles . and so all they who have the scriptures of christ , of the apostles and prophets , and not in the power and spirit that gave them forth , and do not obey it , which reproves them that they may come into it , but stop their ears , and shut their eyes against it , such are like the pharisees , these cannot worship god in the spirit , neither can they pray in the spirit , nor sing in the spirit , but quench it , and burthen it , and vex it . these are out of the fellowship of the spirit , and out of the fellowship of god the father of spirits . those erre , not knowing the scriptures nor the power of god. and such go hither and thither to change their way , and go from the spirit of god in their hearts , which would lead them to christ , the way , the truth , and the life . so all such who have the form of godliness , and are not in the power and spirit in which they were in who gave forth the words ; such are to be denyed . and the true praying is in the spirit , and the true worship , true praysing , and true singing must be in the spirit : so they who grieve and vex the spirit , and quench it , they cannot worship god in the spirit . xv. an exhortation to all christendom , to mind the grace of god , to wit , the light. all ye people in that part of the world which is called christendom , come to the light wherewith christ hath enlightned you , that with it you may see your salvation , and may know christ you teacher , the captain of your salvation , and the grace which comes by him , which brings your salvation ; which grace teacheth us , which grace is sufficient in weakness and temptations , which brings the salvation , and by it we are saved . and this grace teacheth us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts , and to live soberly and righteously ; and this is our teacher that brings salvation . so you may have all the loynes of your mind girded up , to wait for the grace which is to be brought to you at the revelation of jesus christ , according to peters exhortation . now they who turn from the grace , and walkes despightfully against the spirit of god , they set up teachers according to their own hearts lusts , and such makes merchandize of them , alwayes learning of them , but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth , but still remains in earthly mindedness , covetousness , and temptations , and weaknesses , where is mournings and complaints , and where there are very many mourners and complainers , among such as turn from the grace of god into wantonness , and set up teachers ( as aforementioned ) according to their own hearts lusts , &c. therefore come ye to the grace of god , and it will give you to see your ungodliness , your unrighteousness , and your worldly lusts and intemperance . this grace is your teacher continually , who brings salvation ; if you take heed , and have regard to it , and love it , but if you turn it into wantonness , the sudden judgement of god will come upon you . so take heed to the grace of god , your constant teacher , which brings salvation , by which grace you will see your salvation brought in ; for , the mighty day of the lord is coming upon all unrighteousness of men . the son of the lord god will appear against you , he who hath all power in heaven and in earth given to him , who is king of kings , and lord of lords . so take heed to the light and receive it , wherewith he hath enlightned , so you receive the lord himself . open ye your gates , that the king of glory may enter in , who stands at the door and knocketh , turn ye to the light , and then you open the door where the coming in of the king of glory is discerned . and come from all the barren mountains , who are in the fall , alienated from the image of god , life and power . come from all those wells without water , and clouds without rain , who are as vagabonds tossed up and down like a tempest . come to the light , and receive the light , that in the light ye may receive christ , and be his children , that by the same you may see the day-star appearing , where the sons of god sing together . for , woe is to the world that lyeth in iniquity , for the lord is coming to judge it , and to render to every one according to their works , whether they be good or evil . and with the light every one of you knows whether your works are good or evil , for what is to be known of god is manifest in you , ( for god hath manifested it to you ) when you do any thing that is naught , or unjust , or worthy of death , by that which is of god in you , you know it . and when you go from this , which is of god in you , you do not glorify god as god , but are alienated from his life , and strangers from the covenant of life and peace which is in christ , and so your foolish hearts are darkned , and filled with unrighteousness , and upon such comes the judgments and displeasure of god. now they who are delivered from the wrath to come , they come to that which is of god in themselves ( viz. ) to the light , and so they see christ the covenant of god ; so man is brought into peace with god , and saved from the wrath to come , and from all false wayes , false doctrines , false worships , and false churches , commandments , traditions , rudimenus , will-worships , inventions , and from hand-worship , and lip-service . so come to the light and spirit of god in your selves that by it you may be converted to god , and may worship him in spirit , and walk in the spirit , in christ jesus , who was before sin was . for since man fell from god , from his power and image , all the false wayes , false worships , false churches , have been set up ; and by that spirit , and power , and wisdom which is out of truth , from below , which leads men to kill one another about them . so the light is the way by which life is to be found , and this is the light which enlighteneth you . so come to the light and you come to the way , which was before the power of death was . and christ is called the way , and he is called the light , and who are out of the light they are out of him , the way , in the wayes of death , and darkness , and bondage . for as the jews outward were in bondage and captivity under pharaoh in egypt , so the jews inward in the spirit , are captivated in spiritual sodom and egypt . they who do not take to the directions of the spirit , and heareth what it saith , for every man ought to hearken and hear what the spirit saith to the churches , and not to mind nor hear any visible thing . and in it , ( viz. the spirit ) they edifie , build , and gather together , and meet together in vnity and fellowship . xvi . of perfection . he who leads man into imperfection is the devil , and his work who leads from god , for man was perfect before he fell , for all his works were perfect ; so christ who d●stroyeth the devil and his works , makes man perfect again ( destroying him who made him imperfect ) which the law could not do ; so by his blood he cleanseth from all sin , and by the one offering he perfecteth for ever them that are sanctified . and they who do not believe in the light which cometh from christ ( by which they see the offering , and receive the blood ) they are in unbeliefs concernig it . and the apostles who were in the light , christ jesus , who destroyes the devil and his works , they spoke wisdom among them that were perfect , although they could not do it among them that were carnal . and their work was to perfect the saints ( and for this end they had their ministry given them ) until they all came to the knowledge of the son of god , who destroyeth the devil and all his works , and who put an end to the prophets , and to the first covenant , types , figures and saddows . and the apostles work was to bring people to the vnity of the faith , which purified their hearts , which gave them victory over that which seperates them from god , in which they have access to god , by which faith they please him , by which they are justified , and so at last they come to a perfect man , to the measure of the statrue of the fulness of christ . and so the apostle saith , we preach christ in you , the hope of glory ; warning every man , that we may present every man perfect in christ jesus . xvii . of the resurrection . we say that christ is the resurrection and the life , to raise up that which adam lost , ( who hath all power in heaven and in earth given to him ) and to destroy him who deceived him ( viz. adam ) so christ is the resurrestion unto life , of body , soul , and spirit , and so renews man into the image of god , and brings man into an higher condition than that in which adam stood before the fall , even to himself , who never changed , and never fell , nor never will fall . and so they who forget god and do wickedly , they are to be turned into hell ; for they who forget god and do wickedly , they go from the life and power of god , into the seperation from him , and out of his acceptance ; for in the life is the acceptance ; and so the power , light and life , goeth over them , who go into sin and iniquity , which leades from god , who was before transgression was . xviii . concerning election and reprobation . reprobation is an alienation from the life , and from that which is of god within , and from his voice and command , as adam and the jews did ; and such who despise that which is of god within , they despise their birth-right ; such are concluded to be out of true vnderstanding , and true knowledge , and the witness of god within is grieved , and such are dead in their sences from the life and covenant of peace with god , and from the seed which is called the elect , in which the elect , and the election is known , in the seed christ , before the foundation of the world , which world slew him , and they who slew him , and now slayes him , they were and are reprobated from the life , who go from the command of god , and they have lost his image , they have lost his power , which keeps over , and above , and out of the reprobation . and so they who come into the election , the seed , they come out of the state in which adam was , in the fall , into the state in which he was in before he fell , and into an higher state than that , into christ , the seed , the elect. and so they in the seed , in the elect , in christ , the wisdom of god , they comprehend and see the state of election before the world was laid , and the state of adam before the fall , and the state of adam in the fall , in the reprobation , and the state of adam restored again out of the fall , and a state which is higher than that in which adam was in before he fell , into the election ( which is a thing beyond that ) and the state of the beloved of god is seen in the seed , the wisdom of god. cain was the first birth , esau was the first birth , ishmael was the first birth ; cain killed his brother about religion , ishmael was a scoffer , esau bore the sword , he despised his birth-right , he fought against his brother jacob. so christendom , read your reprobation , the first birth , which is born of the elesh , for the first birth will persecute him who is born of the spirit ; so the most part of christians are seen to be of the first birth , and to remain in the reprobation from god. cain departed from the voyce of god , and esau from his birth-right , and ishmael in his scoffing nature , they went from the good , and so from faithful abraham , who was in the election . and so they who are in cains , ishmaels and esaus nature , are in the first birth , which is not elected . now as to the love of god towards one , and his hatred to another , before either had done good or evil , all this consists in the first birth , who despised his birth-right , which god foresaw , which was not the seed , unto which the love of god is to for ever . therefore know thy self ( o christendom ) and thy birth , that that which hates the principle of god and his voice , is reprobated , he that rebells against gods command and his voyce , god turneth against such , neither doth he hear such who hates the election , and are in the reprobation from the seed , yea , even from the law it self , for the law keeps a man from sin ; but the law it self doth not say that it destroys the devil , but the seed , viz. christ , who is higher than the law , who is the election , and destroys the devil . so who knows the election , they must know the seed , they must know the birth born of the spirit . now if all christendom , know the election , they must know the birth born of the spirit , which will not persecute . for the nature of cain , ishmael , and esau , is one ( of which the apostle spoke in the primitive times ) which we now also say is one , and the election is one which standeth in the seed , which was before the foundation of the wicked world was . and the reprobation is one , which standeth in the unjust world , out of the truth and the life in disobedience to the command of god. therefore know the one reprobation , and the one election , then ye shall know the seed , in which is the wisdom of god , and ye shall know that which goes from his voyce , power and command , out of the wisdom of god ; so whom god loves , he loves for ever : know jacob , and know esau . esau , cain and ishmael were the first-born ; and is not christendom of the first-birth , who persecutes , who departs from the good , and despises the pure , and persecutes the birth born of the spirit , which god hates . and such act out of his life in the reprobation , out of his power and wisdom , and out of the election , christ , the seed , the second birth , who was before the carnal birth was , and remains when he will be gone , unto which the love of god is for ever , and unto whom is the promise , which goeth over the outward birth , and destroyes the devil and his works , who went from truth , and led man from god , by which the curse , wrath and woe came upon man , which christ the seed , brings the blessing , and gives man to see the blessed state of all things , how they were in the beginning , and how they were blessed in the beginning ; and through christ , man comes up into the power , which is his throne , where there 's blessing and no curse at all . xix . concerning fear and trembling . the strong man hath kept the house long , and his goods have been at peace , but now he is come who is stronger than he , christ jesus the stronger , who doth dis-inherit and cast him out , and spoil his goods , and makes man the temple of god ; that ●e himself may dwell in him , an holy temple , and an habitation for himself to dwell in ; who maketh the keepers of the house to tremble ; by which power of christ the salvation is wrought out with fear and trembling . and so we can say , that it is god that worke●h in us both to will and to do , according to his will and good pleasure . in the dayes of the prophets , the prophet he trembled and staggered like a drunkard , for the iniquity of the times , and because of the holiness of the word of the lord ; he trembled when he heard his voyce , and when the lord spake to him he feared grea●ly . this is the man whom god regards ( saith the prophet isayas ) who is of a broken and contr●ie spirit , and trembleth at his word : who have been cast out by their brethren , who said , let the lord be glorified : who will appear for those that tremble at his word , and for those that are of a contrite heart ; who were for signes and wonders to both the houses of israel , when they shall be confounded , ashamed and astonished . and before you know sin rooted out , and wasted out of your flesh , and the earth shaken and removed out of its place , and ye brought into that state which man was in before he fell , you must know the trembling and shaking of that which is to be shaken , and the removing of that which is to be removed , before christ the seed will appear , who is the foundation of many generations , and the rock of ages , who is the first and the last ; who cannot be shaken , neither can be changed . so that the whole unjust wicked world hath much to suffer before they come to this , they must know the devils to tremble , the heavens to be shaken , and the earth also , before he who cannot be shaken will appear ; by whom the world was made . xx. concerning the body of death . it s evident that they who plead for a body of death and sin , about which the world so earnestly jangle , and which they plead for as long as they live upon the earth , that they also plead for its author , viz : the divel , and this is not to plead for christ who destroyes him who is the author of sin , and the body of it . object . now if you object , that john hath said , if we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves , and the truth is not in us ▪ answ . john saith , if we say we have not sinned , we make him a lyar : ( mark ) but if we confess and forsake our sins , the blood of jesus christ , the son of god , cleanseth us from all sin . further he saith , he that is born of god sinneth not , neither can he : because the seed of god remains in him . because of which seed he cannot sin , for that seed keeps the holy ; so that the evill one cannot touch him : in this the children of god and the children of the divel are manifest : whose children of both kinds contends and pleads for his own ; so there is a time in which men may say that they have sinned , and have sin , and a time to confess and to forsake sin ; and then a time to know the blood which cleanseth from all sin ; and then the birth born , which doth not commit sin ; and the seed which remaines in him ; so that he cannot sin , for , ( as i said before ) it keeps the holy that the evil cannot touch him . and though paul cryed out of a body of death , and of a warfare , yet afterwards he gave thanks to god , that he had gotten victory , through jesus christ , over the body of death , and that the law of the spirit of life , had freed him from the law of sin and death . and afterwards the apostle never complained of a body of death , but he thanked god , that he had obtained victory through christ , who destroyes the devil the author of it , who destroys death and its body , and said that he was freed , and that there was no condemnation to them who were in christ jesus : and that the life that he now lived , was by the faith of the son of god ; which faith gives victory over sin , death and the devil ; which sin separates from god , by which man hath displeased him , by which faith man is purified , and hath victory , and pleaseth god , and hath access to him , and is justified and saved , amen . xxi . concerning the word thou to a single person . it is the manner among us to use the word [ thou ] to a single person , and [ you ] to more than one , as in the primitive times among the saints , according to scripture and the principle of god placed in every man , which distinguisheth many from one , and hath the proper word both to singular and plural ; to wit , the singular word to a single person , and the plural word to more than one , according to the true understanding and spirit of god in every man , and the testimony of all the prophets . but they are degenerated from the spirit of god , they are degenerated from the scriptures , and from their own translations , calling this manner of speaking ( thou , to one , and you , to many ) nonsence , and improper ; when they themselves are gone from the true understanding , which whosoever are in it , comprehends them who are degenerated from it . xxii . concerning putting of the hat , and bowing the knee , and cringings , and complements . to put off hatts , bowing knees , cringing and complements , are from below , and customes and manners of the world , which shall pass away , and never came from god , neither is that honour wherewith men ought to honour one another ; for if all men had honoured and esteemed one another , they had been of an higher spirit than the spirit of the world , and of a more noble and generous spirit : then neither man nor woman throughout all christendom had received wrong or injury if they had esteemed and honoured one another ; for he that honours men , will in no wise hurt them , in this consists breeding and civillity . and every knee shall bow to me ( saith the lord. ) for this is the cry , worship god , and fear him , and reverence him . and if you object , that some in times past bowed them-themselves to an angel , but in the time of the gospel , which is the power of god , which was before the fall , in the state of reformation and restauration , john was forbidden to bow to the angel , and the apostels reproved them that bowed to them . and although jacob bowed for a time to his brother esau ; yet it is not said , that he bowed to him all his life time . for it is written , the elder shall serve the younger ; so the elder shall bow among the cringers and knee-bowers , one to another , who will kill and envy one another ; and to them this is a mystery . xxiii . concerning good manners . evil words , and evil communications corrupts good manners ; and if christendom would learn good manners , they must all come to the light of christ jesus , to the spirit of god in themselves , and to the word of god in their hearts and months which will teach them to leave off evil words , and will lead them from them , and to deny them , and this is the way to come to good manners ; but they who live in high expressions and complements , and full of evil words , and flatteries , and dissimulations , and call such good manners ; their words and works testify and manifest that they are evil and corrupt , and such whose manners are evil and corrupt , they quench , grieve and vex the spirit of god in themselves , and hate the light , and will not come to it , because it reproves them of their evil words . such do love envy , wrath , vanity , pride , rashness , hastiness , and yet they are found in flattering expressions , and bowings one to another ; and they call it good manners , and honour , when all such things are altogether out of that honour that comes from above ; and are those things which the witness of god in themselves testifieth against , and testified in the name of the lord , that he will bring such honour in the dust , and that which he will condemn as unjust . the apostle saith , that women ought not to adorne themselves , with gould , silver , pearls , costly attire , platting of the hair , but to be adorned with a meek and a quiet spirit , which is in the sight of god of great price ; and the hidden man of the heart , &c. and if christendom had minded this , it had been more virtuous , and more sober , and less envious towards one about their manners . xxiv . concerning objections of the world against the preaching of christ . object . the world objests , and saith , that some preach christ of envy , and some of good-will , and some of strife and contention ; and that christ commanded to hear the pharisees : so we may hear ( say they ) our teachers although they be wicked . answ . he that hath the form of godliness and denyes the power , from such turn away . the apostle bid turn away from envious men , and contentious men , and men of strife : although there was a time when the name of christ was first spread abroad , in which time he permitted envious men to spread his name abroad . but when his name was spread abroad , then he forbad such envious and contentious men to preach , and exhorted timothy to withdraw from , and avoid such , for they could not bring people into the power . for envious and contentious men may preach the form , and have it , but they cannot bring people into the power . and so there came a time ( before the decease of the apostles ) to turn away from such . now as to the hearing of the pharisees , this was before christ was offered up , and before the fulfilling of the law ; for they were ministers of the law ; and so people ought to do as they said , but not as they did , but when christ was offered up , he commanded them to preach the gospel , and not to hear the pharisees , and it was the work of the apostles to bring people to the end of the law , to the seed , into gospel-fellowship , into the power of god , which was before the power of darkness was . xxv . concerning bread , water and wine . bread , water , and wine are earthly and perishing things ; for the bread and wine which christ gave at supper in the evening , which the world takes at noon , those things christ and the apostle gave for a shewing forth and a remembrance of his death until he should come . and after some of the disciples had receiv'd it , they doubted , whether he was the christ or not . and after the apostle had given the supper to the corinthians , in his first epistle , he bad then examine themselves , and so to eat in the remembrance of christ . but in the second epistle he bad them examine themselves , and try themselves , whether christ [ except they were reprobates ] were in them or not . now they may be reprobates , who have taken the bread and wine , and have had the water ; they were reprobates if christ was not in them ; for bread and wine is not the flesh and blood of christ , which came down from heaven , which flesh , whosoever eates , lives for ever . for people may eat of bread made of grain , and may drink wine make of grapes , and yet may dye reprobates . now they were to take it in remembrance of his death , this was one state , and than they were to come to dye with him and this was a nearer state than the taking of bread and wine in remembrance of his death , and then they were to arise with him , and then to seek those things which were above where christ sitteth at the right hand of god , but bread water and wine are all earthly things , and they are not christ , and they who have him , they are not reprobates , neither do they need outward things to put them in mind of his death ; whenas they are dead with him , and risen with him , to live with him . but they who will not dye , and suffer with him , such live in the old nature , and desire to have outward things , continually to put them in mind of his death , and such live in strife and contention about outward things and shaddows and do not come to christ the substance , who was before the world was made in whom there is no strife at all , but only life and peace . xxvi . of the sabbath day . the jews they kept the sabbath-day , a type and sign of rest , that both the man-servant , and maid-servant , and strangers , and all cattel should rest within their gates ; a sign of christ , who destroys the devil the author of oppression , and gives rest to man and beast , and to the whole creation , and brings it again into that blessed condition which it was in in the beginning before the fall. now as to the saints meeting together on the first day of the week , this practice is not denyed , but owned by us , for who are come to the first day , as they jews on the last day . but there is more in the word . xxvii . concerning god-fathers , and god-mothers and sprinkling of infants . concerning god-fathers , and god-mothers , and sprinkling of infants , and such like things , the scriptures make no mention , yet the scripture saith , repent , teach and baptize . xxviii . concerning the word trinity . of this word [ trinitas ] there is no mention made in scripture ; yet the scripture speaks of father , son and holy spirit , and of water , blood and spirit , and all these are , one among us , as in the primitive time among the apostles , who gave no such outward names to them as trinity , as the world now doth . xxix . concerning the ministry . they that receive from christ , they receive freely , and they give freely , they pray freely , and preach freely ; and the ministry is the gift of god , and is to be exercised freely ; and of a free people of their earthly things it is to be administred freely . heavenly men and bringers of glad tydings of a kingdom of which they are heirs , must minister to the eternal condition of people . and this is the highest love in the life . xxx . concerning dayes , and times , and meats and drinks . the kingdom of god consists not in dayes , times , meats and drinks , and such like things , but in power , righteousness faith and joy in the holy ghost ; and people ought not contend and persecute one another about such things , for the apostles gave not any commandment or example that any should do so , but on the contrary reproved them who did so , and keep people in such things . xxxi . concerning marriages . whom god hath joyned together let no man put asunder ; and those which he joynes he joynes with his power , even by his immortal power , with a band over and above the state which is in the fall , where men joyn and put asunder , about outward and earthly things , and jangle and fight about them , but this is all in the defiled bed , out of the honourable state which was in the beginning , where there was no hardness of heart . and marriage in it self is not condemned but owned , and among all them who are in the power , i say it is honourable . so forsake and come out of all vain words , and all vain customs , and all unprofitable and idle communications and talkings , for which you are judged and condemned with the light , viz. the light in your consciences which reproves you , and come into the the new life , in which god is served , that your words may be seasoned with grace , that by it your hearts may be established , that no corrupt communication may proceed out of your mouthes , for whatsoever is corrupt is contrary to the witness of god in your consciences , to christ the light which reproves you . therefore away with all the customes and fashions of the world which grieve and quench the spirit of god , and repent while ye have time , and spend not your time like a tale ; come to the light , and sleep not in sin , in darkness , in seperation from god ; but prize the time while you have it , lest in the end ye come to say , we have had time but now it is past ; but so mind the power of god , the light of christ jesus , by which you may redeem it . xxxii . concerning false prophets and antichrists . false prophets and antichrists are much condemned in this part of the world called christendom , and they bring the th , chapter , and the th chapter of matthew , and say , that they are but now come . to which i answer , that christ said , they should come , viz. antichrists , and false apostles ; he said to his disciples , that they shall come , i. e. to his disciples , and he gave them markes how they should know them ; a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit : nor a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit . — and if it were possible they should deceive the very elect , for they have the sheeps-cloathing . and he commanded his disciples that they should not follow them , for they were inwardly ravening wolves , having the sheeps cloathing . and those were antichrists and false prophets , false christs and deceivers who were inwardly ravend from the light , and so from the seed , viz. the true christ . and christ told his disciples those should come , and before the decease of his disciples they came ; as we may read in the first epistle of john , the second chapter , and fourth chapters , he saith , little children , ye have heard that antichrist should come , and even now there are many antichrists , and false prophets come into the world. so christ had spoken before that they should come , and his disciples said that they were already come ; who went out from them , inwardly ravend from the spirit ; and this was above sixteen hundred years since . and john who saw them already come , he directed the saints to this annointing in themselves , and said to them , that they had not need that any one should teach them , but as this annointing taught them , they should abide in the father and in the son. and so those anti-christs , false prophets , wolves , false christs , inwardly ravend , they bear pryars , thornes and thistles , which christ said , shall come , and his disciples said they were come , and who went out from them into the world. and in the revelations it is said , the whole world went after them . so they went out from the church , fellowship , gospel ; they went out from the fellowship of the spirit within , being ravend from it ; they went from the annointing within , which should teach them ; they went from the law in the heart , to wit , from the new covenant ; and they went from the kingdom within , and they went from the word which is in the the heart to obey it , and to do it ; they went out from the light in the heart , which gives the knowledge of god in the face of jesus christ , and so they lost the pearl hid in the field , viz. the world in their hearts . and so the false prophets went out from the disciples , and , as was said before in the revelations , it s said , the whole world went after them . so john wrote to the seven churches which erred , by permitting jezabel to teach , and to set up idols , and such who said they were jews , and were not , but were the synagogues of satan . so he goes on in the revelation till he comes to the eleventh chapter , where the witnesses are slain ; the two olives which carried the oyl to the annointing of the nations , the two candlesticks which holds the light. and in the th chapter , the woman , viz. the true church , fled into the wilderness , prepared for her of god , that there she should be nourished , for a time , times , and half a time . and in the th chapter , the dragon gives his power to the beast , and the beast with the dragons power makes war against the saints ▪ and killed them who were l●ft of that seed who kept the testimony of jesus , the spirit of prophesie ; who were in him , from whom the ravening wolves had departed . then all that dwelt upon the earth worshipped the beast , and worshipped the dragon , and both caused and compelled all , both small and great to fall down and worship . and from hence arose this compelling power to worship : then the false prophet and the whore , through the dragons power , got upon the beast , and caused all nations to drink of her cup. so thus the whore arose , which went from the apostles , and from their life , power and spirit , and committed fornication ; before the nations were married to christ , they took the cup of fornication of this whore. and she drank the blood of the saints and martyrs , who were not inwardly ravend , and who could not drink of her cup. yea , she drank the blood of the saints and prophets who kept the testimony of jesus , who were not inwardly ravend . and so such doings and works they have set up for the space of fifteen hundred years , viz. killing and murdering ; and they have dispersed themselves into all nations , as the apostles they were to go into all nations . and such works the wolves have wrought in the sheeps cloathing , yea those who are inwardly ravend from the spirit of god , whose fruits are brambles , bryars and thorns , and such like works those raveners have done since the dayes of the apostles , being ravend from their life and power ; having the words of the sheep , the scriptures , but not in the power and life which gave them forth ; therefore bryars and thorns appear : who devour and kill the lambs , and compels them to worship and use violence upon them and their outward things about religion , which was not the work of the apostles . and so john saith , again the beast and the dragon , and the false prophets ( which hath deceived the nations which christ said should come , and john said was come ; who went out from them ; from which time the world hath gone after them , for the space of fifteen hundred years ) is to be taken : which beast and false prophet shall be taken and cast into the lake of fire , and the nations shall be deceived no more , and the whore the great whore , which hath compelled the nations to drink the blood of the saints , is to be taken , and her flesh burnt with fire , and babylon shall be confounded , and all merchants which have merchandized with her , shall howle , and lament , and cry , alas , alas , how is this great city fallen ! for there hath been a merchandizing in this great city , which must be thrown down ; and all the merchants of this great city , have been those that inwardly ravend from the spirit of god , who have built up and plucked down . so unto this from which they have apostatized , you must all come before the sheeps life be known , and so the witnesses are raised , and shall be raised , who hold the light , and carries the oyl to enlighten the nations , and to annoint them ; yea , the spirit , and power , and fellowship , and worship in which the apostles were formerly in . and the cry is begun , fear god and give glory to him . — come out of her , my people , lest you be pertaker of her plagues . — and the mourners shall go forth , and the prophets prophesie . who witness the spirit of god fallen upon them , as formerly among the apostles . and the everlasting gospel shall be preached to all nations , kindreds and people . xxxiii . concerning an objection of people . objection . but many people speak after this manner . have not we had the gospel all this time till now ? answer . we say , no , you have had the sheeps-cloathing , while you are alienated from the spirit , and so not living in the power , which is the gospel ; and the bride , the lambs wife , is coming out of the wilderness , which hath been nourished of god for a time , and times , and dividing of times , preparing for her husband ; and the man-child is risen to rule all nations with a rod of iron . and the lamb and the saints shall have the victory , ( glory to the highest ) and people shall come into gospel-fellowship , and to the church of god , and church-fellowship in the gospel , the power of god , which was before the power of satan was ; which gospel was among the apostles , in which their fellowship was , and this is gospel-fellowship ; and in the power of god they are over all false prophets , false worshippers , over the dragon , over the false church and his worship , ( which are begotten betwixt us and the apostles ) and are gotten beyond them , and see their rise , who are inwardly ravend from the spirit , and are gone from the truth , as the devil and the whore heretofore , who set themselves against them who are in the truth , but here is the faith and patience of the saints , who seeth the destruction of the whore , the beast , the dragon , and the false prophet , by the hand and power of god , who know the seed of god to raign over all , viz. he who is the first and the last . xxxiv . of the jew inward and outward , and of a christian in the power and out of the power . the uncircumcised gentiles , which have not the law , and yet do those things contained in the law , are better than the circumcised jews which have the law , and are more sober and moderate ; and so the jew within in the spirit , is more excellent than the jew without in the flesh . and so a christan in the light , and power , and seed of god , is more excellent than a christan in the form of godliness , and yet out of the power ; and more moderate and patient . xxxv . concerning christ the covenant of god. christ , the covenant of god , was foretold by the prophet , who said , i will give him for a light and for a covenant to the gentiles , and he shall be my salvation to the ends of the earth : yea , the new covenant to the house of israel , and to the house of judah . so this covenant is made to all people , to them who were called the people of god , and to the gentiles also . and this is that covenant of light unto which john came to bear witnesse , which enlighteneth every one that cometh into the world ; which giveth power to all , who receive it , to become the sons of god , from him who hath all power in heaven and earth given to him , and this is the light in which people must believe , by which they become children of god , and this is the light which shineth in darkness , and out of the darkness , which is in the heart which giveth the knowledge of the glory of god in the face of christ jesus , from whence it comes ; and this is that light , which they who love darkness hate , and will not come to it , because it reproves them . and by this covenant of light to the gentiles , which is salvation to the ends of the earth . now we who are gentiles , are become christians , and we obtain salvation , and by faith in this covenant we become children of the light , and by receiving it , we receive power to become the sons of god : but they who hate this light and love darkness rather than the light , and do not come to it because it condemns them , even this light is their condemnation . xxxvi . concerning plots and conspiracies . plots , conspiracies , insurrections , tumultuous meetings , we utterly abhorre , who live peaceably , and seek the peace and good of all people upon earth . there were about thirty of the fifth monarchy men who made an insurrection in england , which insurrection was wickedly laid to the charge of the people of god called quakers , from which insurrection , the monarchy men themselves declared when they were to dye , that we were innocent ; yet nevertheless , the diurnals and news-books have joyned us together with the monarchy men , in that plot and insurrection , and have published us to the nations as plotters , though we are innocent . and we say , the lord forgive them for wronging of us . the lying priests and professors say , that we deny the scriptures , and that we deny the resurrestion , and christ and his body , and that we foame at the mouth , and that we bewitch men , and bind ribband about their armos ; which are altogether false and lies , and from their father the devil , the author of them , who is out of the truth , in which truth we are however scandalized by them , who are of the father of lyes . and what evil soever they may bring against us , yet we are in the truth , and can rejoyce ; praised be the lord , who lives for ever . xxxvii . concerning original sin. the devil is the original of sin , which christ destroyes ; god is the original of righteousness , and christ is gods righteousness , which endures for ever ; but the worlds original is the many languages ( whose original is babel ) which makes divines ( as they call them ) with many languages set a top of christ : and the whore sits upon the waters , ( as it s spoken in the revelation ) and john saith , the waters are nations , multitudes , people and tongues : which tongues they call their original . to which waters the gospel must be preached before they can be established . and ye are to be redeemed from tongues , and tongues shall cease , ( saith the apostle ) and so from this worlds original , the beginning of which is babel , and which keeps in babylon , the saints are redeemed . and this hath been set up as an original among them who are alienated from the spirit of god , in babel , where the original of tongues was in the dayes of nimrod , that heretick , who began to build babel . so tongues do not make any man a divine , neither a minister of christ , for that which makes a man divine ( as they say ) is the word ( which redeems out of tongues ) which was before babel was , and in the beginning before the fall , which knocks down all that which corrupts mans nature , and renews again into the divine nature . and whosoever are ministers of the word , and preachers of the gospel , they are in the power and in the word which was before tongues were ; this word brings into the church-felowship , which is in god , into which they are not brought by the worlds original , which they call the tongues , which shall cease , and out of whom we are redeemed ; neither do they bring into fellowship with god , neither into his worship , nor further than babel , where the tongues stop . but who comes to the word of god and the gospel , they come to that which was before many tongues were , and shall remain when they shall all pass away . xxxviii . concerning oathes . the spirit of christ , the spirit of the apostles , of the martyrs is risen again , which gives testimony against swearing and oathes . there were no oaths at all imposed upon man before the fall , but only since the fall , for under the law after the fall ; and among the jews ; oaths and commandments were given . to which christ ( by whom the world was made , which was before the fall , which is the oath of god , which oathes in the fall were types ) who put an end to strife , and brings into quietness and peace , and bindes to god without oathes , which christ put an end to . and , christ himself , the oath of god , puts an end to all oaths , and brings into the land of quietness and rest , the spiritaul canaan , and puts and end to strife , and destroyes the devil the author of strife , he who is the rest , the way , truth and the life , who brings again to god , and is the covenant of god in man , hath peace with god , which destroyes that which led from god and from christ ; and he himself said , swear not at all , neither by heaven , nor by the earth , nor by any other oath . he who restores man into that state in which he was in the beginning before the fall , who restores into the image of god. and so in the restauration there are no oathes to be used , nor swearing , according to his own doctrine ; but yea , yea , nay , nay , was to be used among men in all their communications , and what is more then this , is evil ; so that swearing now is evil . and this is the doctrine of him who restores people into that state in which man was in in the beginning ; who is the substance , who put an end to figures . and his disciple jeams in the th chapter of his epistle , who followed his counsel ( who is an everlasting counsellor ) saith , above all things , my brethren , swear not , neither by heaven , nor by earth , nor by any other oath , lest you fall into condemnation : but let your yea , be yea , and your nay , be nay . and this was the manner among them who followed the doctrine and command of christ in the restauration , who were built upon the true foundation , which was first laid in the primitive times among the true brethren ; and was publickly held forth which manner and custome , doctrine and command of christ jesus and the apostles in the primitive times , many of the martyrs followed , held forth , and practised among those who were degenerated and apostatized from the life and power of christ and the apostles , although they profess the words . and now the spirit of christ is risen again , and of the apostles , and saints as in the primitive times , and the spirit of the martyrs , who bear witness against all oathes and all sort of swearing whatsoevever , that were used among the heathens , jews , and apostatized christians , both privately and publickly , and bindes to yea , and nay , in all manner of communication , as christ and the apostles taught , and and the saints and martyrs practised , knowing , that whatsoever is more than yea , and nay , is evil ; and such who swear , are condemned according to christ and the apostles doctrine . so we say again , that the spirit of christ , the apostles , and martyrs is risen again , who hath been dead , and is dead , in and among the apostates , who have the form , but deny the power , from whom we have turned away . but now its ri●en again , and lives amongst us : glory and honour be given to god through jesus christ , who hath restored to the beginning , into the image of god in which man was in before he fell , before oathes were . for example . read the book of genesis , and there you may see that there was no command given to adam and eve before the fall , concerning swearing , neither from christ , who restores man again , and who puts an end to oathes , before the law , and under the law , and prophets both , whom the angels ( which sware ) worship , for christ saith , swear not at all , who is lord and master , so it is better to obey him than man , and in all your communication let your yea , be yea , and your nay , be nay ; for whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil , saith he who restores , even christ . and in the second example , consider the apostles , who did according to the command and doctrine of christ , who said , above all things , my brethren , swear not at all , lest ye fall into condemnation , jam. . but let your yea , be yea , and your nay , nay , in all your communication . and although there was swearing among the jews , and other nations and heathens , before the apostatized christians used to swear , nevertheless the apostles and the brethren obeyed , and they must obey the doctrine and the command of christ , for if christ command one thing , and man another , it is better to obey the lord jesus christ , the life , who is the restorer , saviour , and redeemer , than men . this is the word of the lord god to you all . concerning the word of god , and the original , what it is . blessed are all those whose mindes are staid upon the lord , for they shall be kept in perfect peace ; so where the mind is staid upon the lord , there is a perfect peace , for it is a whole peace which cannot be broken : so here is not only a perfect peace , but a blessing ; a perfect peace which comes from the god of all peace , that bruiseth the serpents head under your feet , ( the troubler ) and the blessings which comes from the blessed god. so all imperfect peace may be broken , that is when the mind is staid upon any creature , or in any creature ( and not upon the creator ) or in any outward things . goods , houses , lands or inventions of the vanities , in the foolish vain fashions , which the lust of the eye , and the pride of life go into , which will defile it and corrupt it , when any of these things fail , and are not according to your mind , it being in them , then your peace is broken , and you are cross , and brickle , and envy gets up ; so this is not a perfect peace , but is a broken peace , and then you have the trouble and not the blessing ; and the reason is , because your minds are in the creatures , and the outward things , and are not staid upon the creator , where the perfect peace is , and the blessing , where nothing can get betwixt you and the lord. and this is below job to have the mind in the creatures , and visible things , for when you are tried , and creatures fail you , you are crost , and troubled , that shews an imperfect state ; for god said , that job was a perfect man : and when that the lord suffered him to be tried , and when that his goods and houses were thrown down , and driven a way , and servents killed , he said , blessed be the name of the lord , for the lord gave and the lord taketh ; here his mind was stayed upon the lord , and he retained his peace . and when that his children were destroyed , and his wife said to him , what , dost thou continue in thy integrity still ? curse god and dye ; he rebukes her , and calls her , a foolish woman : and said unto her , shall i receive good of the lord and not evil ? naked came i out of my mothers womb , and naked i must return again . here job kept his integrity still , and did not all this while offend with his lips. now many of you who think your selves high , and above job , if that your goods and children should be after the same manner taken away ( whose mind is in them ) you would be found in a troubled brickle state , far below job . and when that jobs friends came to reason with him , who kept his integrity , and would no way yeeld to them , they called him an hypocrite , and said , he denyed prayer , and filled his belly with east-wind , and said , what shall mortal man be more pure than his maker ? shall man that is born of a woman be just ? god chargeth his angls with folly , and the heavens are not clear in his sight . and these are the scriptures the priests use to bring against friends ( who keep there integrity ) as jobs friends did against him ; but at the last the lord commanded job to offer a sacrifice for his friends , because they had sinned , and spoken not right , as job had , who was perfect and kept his integrity . and the apostle said to the saints , that he had learned in all conditions to be content . mark , in all conditions , but this was when he was paul , not when he was saul , running up and down with his packet of letters , halling the saints before the rulers like a paritor ; then he was not content , neither with his own condition , nor others : but when he came to learn of christ , which destroys the devil and his works , which teacheth to know all things , then in all things he learned to be content ; so that you know that there is learning , learneth , and learned ; as a child when he is learning , learneth , and learned is three stats ; so paul he had learned in all conditions to be content ; and who was his school-master but christ , by whom all things were made , not of man , nor by man ( out of the truth ; ) so while he learned of men , and by men , he was not content , neither are any others . therefore all are to learn of christ the light , the life , and the truth , that you may come to that condition , to have learned in all conditions to be content , and not to trust in uncertain riches , for they have wings and will flee away ; and so he is never counted a wise man that will put any confidence in that which will flee away from him : for those are the heirs of the earth and the world that l●ad themselves with thick clay , that they may set their nests on high ; but they that be heirs of christ , and of the power of an endless life , trust in the living god , and come to possess an everlasting inheritance of the power of an endless life , and come to increse in the riches of the everlasting inheritance , and there lay up riches that are everlasting , which will abide for ever . and so therefore mind every one gods word in your hearts , and in your mouthes , and obey it and do it ; and be not of them that are saying in their hearts , who shall ascend or descend to fetch him from above ? keep down that sayer under reproof , and then your eares will be open to that which the righteousness of faith saith , the word is nigh thee , in thy heart , and in thy mouth , so thou needest not to say , who shall ascend or descend , and that was the word which the messengers of god preached , and do preach , and rebuke the gainsayer . and so all people seeing the devil hath made the world like a wilderness , and there is so many wayes in it , that they do not know which way to come out , nor which to follow : therefore this is my answer to you all , take davids lanthorn and candle ; you may say , what is that , and where is it ? i say it is within you , the word of god : you may say , people do not use to carry lanthorns and candles in the day time , but in the night . i say , you be in the night of darkness , and therefore the word is called a lanthorn and candle to you , by which you may see the way of the lord which is perfect , from all mens wayes which are imperfect ; by which ye may see the path of the just to be a shining light , from all the unjust paths that be in the darkness ; for by this word did david come to outstrip his teachers , who was made wiser then them all , so it will you , if you obey it ; for by this word he saw christ , and called him lord : therefore he loved the word and hid it in his heart ; for by it he spake so many glorious expressions , which the world since hath turned into meeter , and made songs or ballads of them ; and this was the word that came to abraham , which made him forsake his national religion and worship , and obey the lord ; and this was the word that came to jacob the shepherd ; by which he saw christ , and prophesied of him to his sons on his death-bed , when he said to judah , the law should not depart from betwixt his feet till shilo came , ( meaning christ ) and the gathering of all nations should be to him , as it is at this day , the gathering is to christ , and this was the word that came to moses the shepherd , when he was keeping sheep , which he obeyed , and went to egypt , and brought the children of israel out of egypt ; by which word he was made a minister ; and when the children of israel were come out of egypt into the wilderness , told them , they need not go for the word beyond the seas , &c. for it was nigh them , in their hearts and mouths , to obey it and do it . and this was , the word that made moses a prophet , who prephesied of christ , and said , like unto him god would raise up a prophet , him should they hear in all things : mark , ( in all things ) we are to be ordered both inward and outward , for hearing christ , by whom all things were made ; and every one that would not hear this prophet ( christ ) should be cut off ; for how should they continue or reign ? and this was the word that came to samuel , and made him a prophet , who spake to ely the priest , and reproved his sons , and the children of israel : and this was the word that made saul to prophesie , and balaam , though they erred from it : and this was the word that made all the prophets to prophesie , and to reprove the kings of israel , and their priests , of their superstition and idolatrous ways , in seting up groves , and images in high places ; and reproved all their monthly prognostications , who spoke and acted from them , and not from the lord. and this was the word that came to isaiah , by which he prophesied of christ , and of his preaching , and of his sufferings , and by which word he reproved the shepherds , which were as greedy dumb dogs , could never have enough , seeking their gain from their quarter : and by this word he saw , that all the children of god should be taught of god , and established in righteousness and peace ; and though many tongues should rise up in judgment against them , yet those that were taught of god should condemn them all , this power should be given to his children . and many weapons formed against them should not prosper , god would restrain them : and also he saw them that were cast out , that trembled at gods word , to whom god would appear to their glory , and to the shame and to the confounding of them that cast them out for his names sake , as it is at this day . and this was the word of god that made jeremiah a prophet , by which he saw the new covenant , by which word he was said to reprove the people and princes , of the filthy and horrible thing commited in the land , that the priests preached for hire , and the prophets prophesied falsly : and for reproving them for their superstition and idollatry , they struck him , and put him in the stocks , and prison , and persecuted him in the dungeon , till his persecutors were carried into captivity . and by the word jeremiah saw the number of seventy yeares of his persecutors being in babylons captivity . elijah by the word was made a prophet , and by the word reproved ahab and jezebel for their idolatry , and worshiping of images . for which words sake they persecuted him , and the rest of the prophets ; and was not he fed of the ravens by the river ; and did not they seek to take away his life ; and did not he think all the lords prophets had been killed , and he left alone ? yet did not the lord say to him , he had reserved so many thousands that had not bowed the knee to baal ? and elisha the plowman by the word was made a prophet , and forsook his plough ; and by the word reproved the idollatry in his age of priests and people . and by the word was ezekiel made a prophet , by which word he reproved the shepherds of israel , that made a prey upon the people , and taught them for the fleece ; and by the word he saw that god would bring the people from them , that they should be made a pray upon no longer ; and would gather them from their mouths , and set one shepherd over them , christ , which is witnessed ; and by the word he reproved false prophets , that taught for handfuls of barly , and peices of bread , and daubed with untempered morter , and sewed pillows under the armholes ; and by the word he saw the patern of the temple , and the return of the jews . and by the word daniel was made a prophet , and saw christ and his kingdom , and how the saints should take his kingdom ; and by the word he saw such that should rise up against the people of god ; and by the word he numbred the yeares of christ to his time yeares , and of his , death and how he should end the sacrifices ; and how that christ should bring up everlasting righteousness , and put an end to sin and end the prophets , and seal up their visions . and by the word micah was made a prophet , by which he cryed against the priests that preached for hire , and the prophets that prophesied for money , and the judges that judged for rewards , and such as preached peace to the people , that put in their mouths , ( like the priests in these times ) and when they did not , they prepared war against them , and chopt their flesh and , gnawed their bones , ( as the priests in this day and time have done ) but micah saw by the word that the sun was gon down upon such prophets and priests , and they should have no vision nor answer from god ; therefore such are against revelations and visions , on whom the sun is set , and gon down upon , and then the night comes upon them . and by the word was amos the herdsman made a prophet , who was a gatherer of fruits , and likewise all the rest of the prophets , who spoke forth divine things and reproved the superstition and idolatry in their time and day . and by the word did all the prophets speak forth divine things , which word brought them into the divine nature and mind , which word hammered and cut down that which corrupted their natures ; and this was the word that made so many fisher-men preachers of the gospel , which is the power of god. and this was the word which made matthew the toll-gatherer , luke the physitian , and paul the tent-maker , ministers and preachers of the gospel and power of god. and this was the word which made peter to see joels prophesie , how that god would power out his spirit upon all flesh , and sons and daughters should prophesie , and young men should see visions , and old men dream dreams , and the powering forth of the spirit upon servants and hand-maids , that every one should have somthing to speak to the glory of god. and now the priests and proud prelates , and bishops , and popes , though you have made a trade of the saints words , and the apostles and prophets words , and gotten a deal of money by them , ( which were fishermen and shepherds words , from the word ) yet nevertheless if a company of shepherds , herdsmen , fishermen , tent-makers , and toll-gatherers should come amongst you to preach , you would say , away with these mechanick fellows , they have not served seaven yeares apprentiship at the colledges , which we have set up to make ministers ; therefore they are not to set up , because they have not served their apprentiships . what say the shepherds , tentmakers , physitians and tolegatheres ? do you make a trade of our friends words , who were of our occupation , that never served apprentiships in colledges , before they spake forth the words you make a trade of ? what , will you make a trade of our friends words , who were of our occupation ! away with you to work , and away with your colledges : for our brother paul the tent-maker said , if you will not work you must not eat . for , would you own christ if he had come in your day ? who was called , a carpenters son. you popes with your triple crowns , and you lord bishops with your coaches and fat horses , and gorgeous aparrel , with your black coats , and white coats , and girdles ; are you like to entertain him who is called , a carpenters son ? or to cast him and his mother into the manger in your stables ? this was the word by which john the evangelist saw christ , which did enlighten every man that came into the world , and saw how he became flesh , and came to his own , and his own did not receive him : but to as many as received christ the light , to them he gave power to become the sons of god ; which all they that are ministers of the letter , made by the seven years colledges , and not the word , hate the light. and by this word , the minister of the word preacheth christs word , life , death and resurrection : and therefore as john saith in his epistle , that which our eyes have seen , our hands have handled , and our ears have heard of the word of life , do we preach unto you ; that which was from the beginning , in the beginning was the word , though since the beginning were the words and letters : for the scriptures of truth are the words of god , and the words of christ ; and he that adds to these words ( saith john in the revelations ) god shall add unto him the plagues , that are written in this book . so the word was in the beginning , and christs name is called , the word of god , but christ is neither called scriptures nor writings , for scriptures signify writings . so , in the beginning was the word , since the beginning were writings and scriptures . in the beginning was the word , since the beginning were all false wayes , false churches , false teachers ; and in the word ye comprehend them all . the priest saith , that hebrew , greek and latine were the original , the many languages , and the many languages began at babel , which nimrod the hunter before the lord , ( began to build ) after god had destroyed the old world with water : then would he go build a tower which should reach to heaven ; then god came down and confounded them into many languages : so he hunted before the lord , but the lord followed him , and confounded him in all his work , as he will do all the builders that run before him ; and so all the priest that have gotten the many languages , which began at babel , they tell simple ignorant people , that they have the original , and are the orthodox men , and get in a different habit from them , and say the quakers are a simple people , and despise the learned orthodox men who have the original . give ear o people , if these languages which came up at the confounding of babel are the priests original that makes them orthodox and divine , then pilate that crucified christ was as good an orthodox divine as they : for when he crucified christ he writ a paper in hebrew , greek and latine , and set a top of him , he was as ignorant of scripture and of orthodox and divine matters as you , and you as he ; and the apostle saith , that tongues must cease , then that which makes orthodox men and divine , as you say , must cease , according to the apostles doctrine ; and so then tongues neither are the original , nor make orthodox nor divine : and john that gave forth the revelations saith , that the whore and the beast are set upon tongues , and the everlasting gospel must be preached again to all kindreds and tongues ; which were before babel was , who was the first beginner of tongues . now it is clear that the gospel must be preached to all nations and tongues , and that tongues are not the original , neither do they make divines or orthodox men ; but it is clear that it is the word which was in the beginning which makes divines ; yea , tradesmen , which are base and contemptible in the eyes of the proud , and them that have gotten babels tongues , who are confounded by the ministers of the word , which was in the beginning before babel was ; for all the earth was of one language and speech before babel . and you that call your selves orthodox men made by tongues , and say that is your original , who are so blind and cannot see that there was an original before babel was ; for did not enoch the prophet , the seventh from adam , who prophesied in the old world before it was destroyed , and long before babel was , concerning the coming of christ in ten thousand of his saints , as in jude ; and lamech prophesied in the old world concerning noah , and adam and others might be instanced , before your tongues which you call your original were : and so we say that the word of god is the original , which doth fulfil the scriptures , and the word is it which makes divines , which is called a hammer , but it is a living hammer , and a sword and fire , but a living sword and a fire , to hammer , cut , and burn up that which separated and kept man from god , by which word man is reconciled again to god , which is called the word of reconciliation ; by this word are men and women sanctified and made clean , and this is the word that makes both men and woman divines , and brings them into the divine nature , which hammers and cuts down that which corrupted their nature ; and by this word a●e they brought into a divine wisdom , understanding , knowledg , spirit and power . and this is the word that lives , and abides , and endures for ever , by which the saints are born again of the immortal seed and word of god , who feed upon the milk of the word , up into a divine life , wisdom and understanding , and divine nature ; and by this word they do see all flesh to be as grass , and as the flower of the field that fadeth ; and the word of god that lives , and abides , and endures for ever , which is christ , whose name is called , the word of god. and so to keep the word of patience , which is over all the impatient spirits , and then you will know the word of life , the word of patience and word of wisdom is everlasting , and abides and endures for ever ; which all they that be in the letter , out of the life and word , have neither patience to themselves nor others ; for the word of patience , and the word of life , which is to be kept in all tribulations was before death and impatient spirits were . concerning the heathen idolaters naming their dayes and moneths . the old pagan - saxons in their idolatry , were the first that brought in the names of the days , which those called christians , have retained to this day ; for they adored idols , and unto them offered sacrifices , and worshipped the planets . see vestigans antiq. and cambdens brit. as touching the idols which these saxons adored they were divers ; and though they had many , yet seven among the rest , they especially appropriated unto the seven dayes of the week . that day which is the first day of the week , they worshiped the idol of the sun , which was placed in a temple , and there sacrificed unto , and to the special adoration of which idol they gave the name of sunday . the second day of the week , they dedicated to the idol of the moon , and from whence , these called christians retain the name of monday instead of moonday . the next was the idol of the planets , was the idol of tuisco , who was the first and chiefest man of name among the germans , unto whom the name of tuesday was especially dedicated . the next was the idol woden , whom the saxons honoured for their god of battel ; and after this idol , these called christians do yet call the fourth day of the week . wednesday , instead of woddensday , the next was the idol thor , from whence the name thursday , is retained , instead of the fifth day of the week . the next idol was the goddess friga , to which idol they dedicated the sixth day of the week , and called it fryday ; which is retained to this day . the last was the idol seater , from whence is called the seventh day , satureay . and as these called christians , have followed the heathens examples in naming their days , so they follow them in nameing their months ; for the heathen they called mars the god of battel , and from thence they called the first month march. and venus they called the goddess of love and beauty , and from thence they called the second month april . and maja a heathen goddess called flora and cloris , were called the goddesses of flowers , unto maja the heathen idolaters used to sacifice ; from thence was the third month called may : and upon the first day of the same month , they used to keep floralia feasts to the two goddesses of flowers ( viz. ) flora and cloris ; and flora was a strumpet in rome , that used on the first day of that month , to set up a may-pole before her door to intice her lovers ; from whence came may-poles and may-day to be since observed , by these called christians . and juno whom the heathen called the gooddess of kingdoms and wealth , from this juno , the forth month was called june . and julius cesar a roman emperor , in honour to him , was the fifth month called july . and in honour to augustus cesar , an emperor , was the sixth month called august . and four of the other months are called after the latine names , as september for the seventh month , october for the eighth , november for the ninth , december for the tenth . and one janus a king of italy , was for his wisdom pictured with two faces , whom they honoured as god ; and from this name janus , was the elventh month called january . and saturnus , pluto , februs , were called the gods of hell , who the heathen said , had the rule of evil spirits there ; and from pluto februs , was the twelfth month called february . and by all these idolatrous names , do these called christians , call their days and months , to this day , which is contrary to the scriptures , the prophets and the apostles . the saxons also had a goddess , ( whom they sacrificed to in the month of april ) called eoster ; hence they called april , eoster month , and hence in process of time came easter . page . camb. brit. concerning singing of psalmes . psalms began to be sung about three hundred eighty three years after christ , brought in by damasins bishop , though not turned into meeter . benedistus an abbot of the monastery of peter and paul at wirr , brought with him from rome one john the arch-chanter , who first taught in england how to sing in the quire , after the manner of rome . act. & mon. vol. . page . anno , . laws made by the saxon kings in england , concerning singing psalms . in the year seven hundred forty seven , at the beginning of king edgberts reign , the synod of bishops disputed the profit of singing of psalms in the church , and made a decree , that with a modest voice , they should sing in the church so called . in the year nine hundred twenty four , king ethelston , alias , atelston , made a law that fifty psalms should be daily sung in the church , as he called it , for the king. beza being much diverted with poetry , made his pastime to become a part of the vulgar devotion ; hence they have been stiled by some geneva-jigs . these are the express words of the injunction , given to the clergy and laity by queen elizabeth . item , because in divers collegiate , and also some parish-churches heretofore , there hath been livings appointed for the maintenance of men and children , to use singing in the church , by means whereof , the laudable science of musick hath been had in estimation , and preserved in knowledge ; the queen willeth & commandeth , that first no alteration be made of such assignments of living , as heretofore hath been appointed to the use of singing or musick in the church , but that the same so remain , and that there be a modest and distinct song so used in all parts of the common prayer in the church , that the same may be as plainly understood , as if it were read without singing : and yet nevertheless , for the comforting of such as delight in musick , it may be permitted that in the begining or end of common prayers , either at morning or evening , there may be sung an hymn , or such like song , to the praise of almighty god , in the best sort of melody or musick , that may be conveniently devised . a warning to all to keep out of the fashions of the world , which lead them below the serious life ; and not to fashion themselves according to the world. friends keep out of the fashions of the world , let not your eyes , and minds , and spirits run after every fashion ( in apparel of the nations ) for that will lead you from the solid life , into a full stomack , with that spirit that leads to follow the fashions of the nations , every fashions of apparel that gets up ; but mind that which is sober and modest , and keep your fashions ; therein you may judge the world , whose minds and eyes are in that , what they shall put on , and what they shall eat ; and friends that see the world so often alter their fashions , and follow them , and run into them , in that they cannot judge the world , but the world , will rather judge them : therfore keep all in the modesty , and plainness , and fervency , and sincerity , and be circumspect ; for they that follow those things the worlds spirit invents daily , cannot be solid ; and many fashions might be instanced , both of hats and clothes of men and women , that daily are invented , which they that run into them , are near unto the worlds spirit , and their eyes are gazing after them , when they should be upon the lord , from whom they should receive judgment : therefore all keep down that spirit of the world that runs into so many fashions to please the lust of the eye , the lust of the flesh , and the pride of life : and fashion not your selves according to your former lust of ignorance ; and let the time past be sufficient , which you have lived according to the lusts of men and the course of the world , that the rest of your time you may live to the will of god , taking no though what you shall eat , what you shall drink or what you shall put on ; therein your lives may judge the heathens and that you may be as the lillies ; for nothing you brought into the world , neither any thing shall you take out : and therefore , while the eye is gazing after every new fashion , and the mind and desire is thirsting to get it , when it has it , it lifts up its mind , and so brings himself under the judgment of them that be in the sober life , and of the world also , and to be like one of them : therefore take heed of the worlds fashions , lest ye be moulded up into their spirit , and that will bring you to slight truth , and lift up the wrong eye , and wrong mind , and wrong spirit , and hurt and blind the pure eye , and pure mind , and quench the holy spirit ; and through such foolish toyes , and fashions , and fading things , you may lose your conditions : and therefore take heed of the world , and trust not in uncertain riches , neither covet the riches of this world , but seek the kingdom of god , and the righteousness thereof and all outward things will follow ; and let your minds be above the costly and vain fashions of attire , but mind the hidden man of the heart , which is a meek and quiet spirit , which is of great price with the lord , and keep to justice and truth in all your dealings , and tradings ; at a word , and the form of sound words , in the power of the lord , and equity in yea and nay in all your dealings , that your lives and conversations may be in heaven , and above the earth , that they may preach to all that you have to deal withal ; so that you may be as a city set on a hill that cannot be hid , and as lights of the world , answering the equal principle in all , that god in all things may be glorified ; so that you may pass your time here with fear , as pilgrims and strangers , and sojourners , as having an eye over all things that be uncertain , as cities , houses , lands , goods , so , as things below , they that possess , as if they did not ; and they tha● marry ▪ as if they did not ; yet as having a city whose maker and builder is god , and a possession of an inheritance that will never fade away , in which you have riches that will abide with you eternally . some queries given forth to the priests or people to answer if they can . . have any of you the same spirit and power as the prophets and apostles had ? . or have you the same revelation and inspiration , and spirit of prophesie , and pouring forth of the holy ghost ; or do you own the pouring forth of the spirit upon sons and daughters , and is not this the last time in which it should be poured out , and the sons and daughters should prophesie , and old men dream dreams , and young men see visions ? . or have you heard gods voice , and christs voice immediately fro● heaven , or are you some of them the lord never sent , nor spake unto ? answer me these queries . . do you own that christ that died at jerusalem to be the light that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world ; and are not all enlightened by him either to their salvation or condemnation ? . what and where is that which must give the knowledge of god , is it within people or without them ? answer me according to plain scripture . . do you teach or preach , that whilst a man is upon the earth , he may be freed from sin , and the body of death , and imperfection , and shall be perfect whilst he be upon earth ; or do you keep people in the state of your father adam and mother eve in the fall , or do you bring them to the state before they fell , and so to christ that shall never fall , which of these states do you bring them to , and keep your flock in , in adam and eve in the fall , or adam and eve before they fell , or in christ that shall never fall ; you must keep your flock in one of these three states , and which of them is it ? have you brought any of your flock whom you have driven to that condition and state , they need no man to teach them , that is to the anointing in them , the law in their hearts , whereby they need not say one to another , know the lord , that is to the light of christ that shines in their hearts to give them the light of the knowledge of the glory of god in the face of christ jesus , and how many have you brought hither ? . what is the mother of harlots , and what is the beast she rides upon , and what are the people , nations , and multitudes , and tongues the whore sits upon , and what is mystery babylon , and what is the woman that went into the wilderness , what was her time she was to be there , and what is the beast and dragons worship , and what is a will-worship , and what is it to worship angels , and what is that which leads nature into its course , and so to the glory of the first body , and what is the glory of the second body , and what is that which leads nature out of its course , and so sets the whole course of nature on fire ? . what is the ground of that which keeps in good manners , and what is that which corrupts them , and what is the righteousness the world is reproved off , and what are the judgments , and what is that which leads the saints into all truth , and hath every one the spirit of god ; and whether bowing , bending , dossing hats , scraping , cringing , saying you to one , be the honour that comes from above , or what is it , and whence comes it , and whether this before mentioned do not stand in that nature , part and principle , which is on fire , if it hath not these things , and therefore whether or no these things do proceed from that which leads nature into its course , or out of its course , and what is it that defaces the glory of the first body ? . whether or no you own trembling and quaking at the word of god ? . seeing you look upon your selves to differ from many , and to be above them , let us see wherein , and in what it is manifest ? . what is self-righteousness , and what is man's righteousness , and the righteousness that is as filthy rags , distinguish these one from another , or whether they be all one , for our righteousness is that which was before adam was , whom ye in scorn calls quakers ? . whether ever any came to see so far as balaams ass , who saw the angel of the lord ? . what are the graves , and the tombes , and the sepulchres , and the fowls of the air , and the nests they sit in , which christ spake of ? answer . . whether or no to pay tythes or receive tythes , is not to deny christ jesus to be come in the flesh , and to deny christ to be offered up , the offering once for all ; and was not theirs of the tythes a heave-offering , and was not that offering to be ended by christ offering up himself , and had not the priests a commandment to take tythes of the people , of their brethren , and do not you transgress the law of god which take them of those you do not call brethren ; and was not the widows , fatherless , and strangers to have a part of the tythes , and was every priest and levite , and them that was to have a part of them , to have a particular tythe-barn , and was tythes to be sold , and was there any impropriators , and whether they do not hold up the priests of the jews , and their law and commandments , that take tythes and give tythes , and so denyes christ the priest , in holding up the jews priests . . and whether or no melchisedeck did ta●e tythes of all other nations that were under him , or any other spoil , but once of abraham , and whether he had a command for doing it , or whether it was an example ? . and whether the jews did take tythes of the canaanites , or any of those nations that lived among them , or of any people where ever they came , that they had the power over , that was not of them ? . you that speak so much of christs reigning , whether or no your swords are beat into plowshares , and your spears into pruning-hooks , that you do not learn war any more ; that nation shall not lift up a sword against nation ; and whether or no this ministration should be amongst christians , seeing that it was christs doctrine , that they should love one another , and love enemies ; and he bad peter put up his sword : and the apostle said , their weapons were spiritual . secondly , doth not peter say , that the heavens must receive christ jesus until the time of restitution of all things , which god hath spoken by the mouth of his prophets since the world began , act. . now do you look at restoring of things , then by what doth christ restore , whether by his light and power within people or without them , seeing the sin is within them , and whether or no christ doth not remain in the heavens untill all things be restored ; and whether or no christ doth not now reign ; and whether or no he is not restoring ; and then by what ( as i said before ) doth he restore seeing he is in the heavens , and must remain in the heavens until all things be restored , and whether or no some was not restored , when they sate in the heavenly places in christ jesus , ephes . . and whether or no he that remaines in the heavens , be not also manifest in man , that is restored and lives , and walks , and reigns in him ? answer this you that talk of a personal reign . . what is that voice of christ which his sheep hears and knows from all false voices , and all that hear cannot endure any more to hear the voice of a stranger , hireling or thief ? . what or where is the word that people shall hear behind them , saying , this is the way , walk in it , when they turn to the right hand or the left ; or what the word of faith that none needs to say , who shall ascend to heaven , or into the depth to seek christ f●om above or below , but was nigh in their hearts ; and is not the same now ? answer in writing the thing queried . g. f. concerning the scriptures . we witness the life thereof , and by the same do we witness the scriptures to be truth , and serviceable in its place , and was written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world is come , cor. . . and to us it is given to know , but to the world in parables , luke . . and he that would go about to unfold the parables to the dark mindes , by the serpentine wit and imagination , he must be kept out of the scripture , and he who takes the scriptures and makes a trade of them , professing to interpret them , and so gets a living by them , which was spoken forth freely , he is a deceiver and must be shut out of the scripture ; and who reads or takes the scripture to talk or d●sco●rse of , and is ignorant of the life , must be kept out of the scripture ; for all those runs in with their scripture wit and imaginations , wresting them for their own ends , adding and diminishing to their own destruction , and so he must be shut out of the scripture ; for hence arises all these sects and opinions in the world , running into the scripture , with their wit , imaginations , and dark mindes , one imagining one way , and another , another way , and one of this opinion , and another of that opinion , but opinion , are no assurance , but are fallible , and every one out of the way , because they want the life which is the mystery ; and this is the difference between all sects and opinions , and the infallible truth ; and so they come not in by the door but are climbing up another way , and so are shut out of the kingdom ; but the same which gave them forth , the same can open them , and to it they are no mystery nor parable ; nor needs any meaning ; for they are of no private interpretation , nor came they in the old time by the will of man , but holy men of god spake as they were moved by the holy ghost , neither can the will of man open them , but the same which spake them forth , the same can open them , and speak them forth freely , so let him that hath a dream tell a dream , and he that hath my word , let him speak my word faithfully . what is the chaffe to the wheat saith the lord ? so he that hath the letter , let him speak the letter , and he that hath the life , let him speak the life : what is the husk to the kernel ? and what should swine do with pearls , whose life is in husks , and there they feed ? he that can receive , let him ; the same which gave it forth , the same can open it : and he who saith the letter is the word , is a deceiver , and erres , not knowing the scripture ; for the scripture saith , in the beginning was the word , and the word was god , john . . and the word of the lord came to the prophets , and they spake from the word of the lord , jer. . . and the word became flesh , and dwelt among the apostles , and they saw the glory thereof , as the glory of the only begotten son of the father , full of grace and truth : and the word is quick and powerfull , sharper than a two-edged sword ; and the word is immortal , and this , the apostles , in whom the word dwelt , bore witness of , and hath left it upon record and we witness the same the word is the same which was , is , and is to be for ever , and who putteth the letter for the word is blind , and putteth the shadow for the substance , and must be shut out of the scripture . and he who saith the letter is the light , is in darkness , and erres , not knowing the scripture , which declareth of the light , which john came to bear witness off , who was not the light , but testified of the light , which was the true light which enlighteneth every one that cometh into the world. he was in the world , and the world was made by him , and the world knew him not , nor knows him not ; and he came unto his own , and his own received him not , but as many as received him , to them he gives power to become the sons of god , john . , , , , , , . and this we witness , and by the same light do we discern and testifie against him to be in darkness and blindness , and is a deceiver , who putteth the letter for the light , and so draws peoples minds off from the light within them , to the letter without them , seeking the living among the dead , thinking to find life in the letter without them , as the pharisees did , and will not come unto christ that they might have life , john . , . and so they must be shut out of the scripture as the pharisees were ; and he also that saith the letter is the rule and guide of the people of god , is without , feeding upon the husk , and is ignorant of the true light which was before the letter was , which all the children of god were and are guided by , and spoke and speakes the letter from , which was before the letter was , and with this the letter witnesseth ; and who is guided by this cannot walk contrary to the letter , nor deny it , but they know how to use it in its place , and see in what condition it was spoken , and it witnesseth with them both in words and actions , and they that have this , have and need the mystery within , though they cannot read the letter without , nor ever learned , as it was with christ , which confounded the scribes and pharisees ; and they who are never so learned without , and can read and understand all tongues and languages without , and doth not read the scripture within , only feed upon the husk , and are ignorant of the life which is the mystery , which is hid from the wise and prudent , and revealed unto the ignorant , as it was from the scribes and pharisees , and high priests , and was revealed to those whom they counted ignorant , and cursed , and knew not the law , john . , ▪ and they who take the letter to be their rule , cannot walk according to it , because they are ignorant of the light , which opens and leads into the life which they who spake them forth lived in , but drunkards , and swearers , and proud , and wantonesse , and covetoues lustfull enveons ones , and all manner of unrighteous persons will take the letter to talk of and say it is their rule and guide , but are out of the life thereof , and so by it are condemned ; and those are the swine that are feeding upon the husk without , luke . , . and have gotten the form but are out of the life and power , and put the shadow for the substance , and so lives in darknesse , and knowes not whether he goeth , but they that read with the single-eye may understand , for the scripture is within , and was read within before it was read without . now , silence all the study and wisdom of man. concerning baptism . the baptism we own , which is the baptism of christ , with the holy ghost and with fire , but we deny all other , for there is but one lord , one faith , one baptism , one god and father of all , and they who would have one baptism outward , and another inward , would have two baptisms , when the scripture saith the baptism is but one , and whosoever hath the baptism outward , are the same they were before ; but the baptism of christ makes a new creature , and this i witness , for i received water upon my face , as my parents told me , which they called baptism , but i grew up an heathen , as all other children do , and no new creature , though my parents were counted believers among the world and their priests ; but now i wittess the baptism of christ , by one spirit , into on● body ; and now i witness a new creature , old things are past away , and all things become new. and now i see the other to be formal imitation , and the invention of man , and so a meer delusion , and all are heathens and no christians who cannot witness this baptism ; mat. . . who can witness this denies all other ; for the scripture saith , the baptism is but one , and who can witnesse this are believers , but who cannot witnesse this are no believers and so it is that water or no water availeth nothing but a new creature ; for all by nature are the children of wrath , and except they be born again they cannot enter ; and as for the baptism of water which the apostles used it being a figure for its time , the power went along with it , and the disciples received the holy ghost when they were baptized , but none can witness this , who sets themselves of acting or imitating the apostles , and so takes it up by imitation , and their ground is the letter , and are not guided to it by the same spirit which guided the apostles , and so they are the same after water as before , and so now wa●er or no water availeth any thing , but a new cereature ; for water was but for its time , though many in darkness have now got the form , and are groping in it for life , but wants the life and power , and so from such turn away . concerning the lords supper . the supper of the lord we own , which is the body and blood of christ , which the saints fed upon , and this is eternal food and life , and here they all feed upon one and are of one heart and one mind ; and here is pure and eternal union and communion , and this is not carnal but spiritual for saints are spiritual , and their communion is spiritual and eternall ; and this we witnesse , who are of one heart and one mind , who are in the new covenant , and herein we discern the lords body , and here all drunkards are shut out , and all lyars , adulterers , proud , covetous , lustfull , and envious ones , and all back-biters , revilers , extortioners , and all deceitfull and unrighteous persons are shut out of the new covenant , cor. . , . and are with-out feeding upon the husk and shadow , which is carnall , for the br●ad which the world breaks is carnall and naturall , and only feeds the outward carnall body , and goeth into the belly , and so passeth out into the dunghill ; and so likewise the cup which they drink , and so the communion and fellowship of the world passeth away ; but this is no nourishment to the soul , but still the soul lies in death , and here is no communion , but natural , outward and carnal , of several minds and hearts , full of filthiness , and uncleanness , which is the table of devils , eating and drinking their own damnation , not discerning the lords body , which is spiritual , which the natural man discerns not . and here stands the worlds communion and fellowship , which is carnal ; and cross but their carnal wills , and it is turned into envy , and for earthly triflles they will go to law , and cozen and cheat , and defraud one another for earthly trifles , and like people like priest ; but if they lye in wait for revenge of one another , then they will not take their sacrament , as they call it : and here the devil hath a great hold , for he that envies is a murderer ; and here is the difference betwixt the worlds communion , and the saints communion ; life and death . for to be carnally minded is death , but to be spiritually minded is life . and here they are without , feeding upon the husk and shadow without , and would destroy the life and substance , where it appears , both priest , people and rulers , and so have a form of godliness , and denies the life and power , from such turn away ; for it is meer delusion , to take the shadow for the substance . concerning prayer . the prayers of the wicked we deny , and god denies , for it is abominable , prov. . , for cain the wicked one , who was out of the comands of god , gen . , , . who was the first-birth , he offered up a sacrifice of the earth , but god had no respect to it ; but abel the second-birth , who was the righteous , his sacrifice god had respect to ; so the prayers of the faithful and righteous god doth accept , and they avail ; and what comes from his own , which is the second-birth , his own is pure , and what comes from it is pure , and god who is pure , doth receive that which is pure , but he receives nothing which is polluted or unclean , for he is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity . for his sacrifice must be without spot and blemish , and that which comes from an unclean heart is spotted and defiled and unclean , for nothing that is pure can come forth of an unclean vessel ; but who can witness the second-birth , and that the seed of the woman hath bruised the serpents head , which is the first promise , and faith which purifieth the heart , then that which comes out is pure , proceeding from a pure single heart , and this prayer god receives , and he hath respect to it , and this we owne and witnesse and this comes from the second birth , which is pure , for the first birth is unclean , and out of the command of god in the fall , in the wrath , in the peevishnesse , and perversenesse , cain-like , and the seed of the serpent is first in every one , and rules the head , but the promise is , the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpents head , so you who are not come to this are still in the fall , and are not come to the first promise ; so all your self-acting and imitating , thinking to merit with your prayers and praises , singings , and duties , and worships , and traditions , which are all in vain and you are sacrificing to an unknown god , a sacrifice of the earth from the first nature , which god hath no respect to , and the flaming sword is set against that to keep from the tree of life , for both drunkards , and swearers , lyars , proud , covetous , and all manner of unrighteous persons are offering up sacrifices , and are in their formal worships and duties , thinking that is sufficient to pascifie for their sins , and yet doth not repent , but saith the lord , bring no more vain oblations , away with your new moons and sabbaths , th●y are an abomination , and my soul loathes them . when you spread forth your hands i will hide mine eyes from you , yea when you make many prayers , i will not hearken ; your hands are full of blood : wash you , make you clean , put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes , cease to do evil learn to do well . so it is the heart the lord requireth , prov. . . jer. . , . and , where your treasure is , there your heart will be also , mat. . . and saith the apostle , we know not how to pray as we ought , but as the spirit maketh intercession with sighes and groans , rom. . . and this is more acceptable to god from an honest single heart , than the long prayer of the pharisees . concerning the ministry . the true ministry of christ we own and witness , and the ministers and messengers of christ we own and witness , but those who have gotten the letter and form to trade with , which was spoken forth freely , and denyes the life and power , those we deny , their ministry , and all those who go to get humane learning , and are certain years as it were serving a prentiship , pretending to study divinity , and when their time is expired , they go among ignorant blind people , and gets a certain place , and certain wages , and so sells that which they studied and got into the brain , and those which receive it , gets it into the brain , and ●o they live upon dust which is the serpents meat , feeding upon the tree of knowledge both priest and people , mic. . . death feeding death , and with the notion begets into the notion , and feeding the carnal mind with the carnal letter ; and this is the cause why drunkards , swearers , lyars , proud , covetous , envious , wrathful and contentious ones , and all unrighteous persons , hath gotten the letter to talk of , or discourse of , though in the ale-house , or tipling-house ; but this ministry works no reformation , only hath the form , and leads into the form , and denies the life and power , which is neither to be bought nor sould for money ; so from such we turn away , who come by the will of man , are approved by the will of man , and are upheld by the will of man , and not by the will of god : and their call and ministry we deny , which is mediate , and formal imitation , and the invention of man , and so meer delusion , and this is the cause why the land so overflowes with iniquity , and all manner of ungodliness , and no better reformation wrought amongst them , their ministry is so dark , and dead , and cold , and yet the land full of teachers , and yet the people lost for want of teaching , jer. . , , , . and so they spend their money for that which is not bread , and their labour for that which profiteth not , isa . . . but who can witness an immediate call by god , from their outward callings and countries , lands , livings and possessions , into several countries , to preach the free gospel as they had received it , by the immediate inspiration of the spirit , and speakes it forth as they are moved by the holy ghost , and as the spirit gives them utterance freely , as they have received it freely , by which ministry many are convinced , and as they abide in it are converted , as many in the nation can witness to the honour and glory of god , who are now new creatures ; and this call we own and witness , and this ministry we own and witness , which is immediate , and stands in the will of god , and such covets no mans silver nor gold , neither could be hired to a certain place , but travels from place to place , and hath no certain dwelling place ; and such are the true ministers of jesus christ , who make the gospel free and without charge ; and this we own and witness , and for the testimony of this true ministry , some of us are imprisoned , some stoned , some stocked , whipped and shamefully entreated , as vagabonds , and deluders , and wanderers , and raisers of sedition , and pestilent fellows , and esteemed not worthy to live in the nation , both by priest , and people , and rulers , who are out of the commands of god , and are vagabonds and fugitives from god , who go in the way of cain , to envy and murder the innocent ; and because we declare against all who come not in by the door , but see●s to climb up another way , by their study , inventions , and serpentine wisdom and knowledge , and so are thieves and robbers ; and those are they which are now so set up and extoll'd in england , with great augmentations and benefices , by the arm and will of flesh , now heads of england , and such ministers and their ministry we deny , for the hand of the lord is against such , john . . but this which we own is no new call , nor new ministry , but the same which was with the prophets and apostles : and all who god sent witnessed , and here is the difference of the ministers of the world and the ministers of christ , the one comes by the will of man , the other by the will of god ; and the one is upheld by the will of man , the other by the will of god , contrary to the will of man ; and the one of the letter , the other of the spirit ; the one hath the form and shadow , and the other the life and substance ; and the effects and fruits of their ministry makes them manifest ; but from such turn away , tim. . . who have the form , but not the life and power , for they are meer deceivers , and witches , bewitch people from the truth , holding forth the shadow instead of the substance ; and what is the shadow to the substance ? or what is the chaffe to the wheat ? he that hath an ear to hear , let him hear and understand . concerning magistracy and government . magistracy and government we own in its place , for while there is transgression there must be a law , john . . and while the devil hath power over man , there will be transgression , so the law was added , because of transgression , gal. . . and the devil was the cause of it ; so there must be a law without , to keep those who are without the fear of god in subjection , else they would destroy one another , and cain would destroy abel , for this is the devils work ; and so for this end was the law given forth , to curb evil doers , and to preserve and encourage them that do well , pet. . . and it was according to that in the conscience , just , holy , and good , according to the will of god , and serviceable in its place . and true government , according to the law of god , is serviceable in its place : and all magistrates who fear god , and hate covetousness , and are guided by the light of god in the conscience , and executes the law in its place , place , without partiallity or respect of persons , and such are serviceable in their place , and this we own , and honour , and are subject to for conscience sake ; but the righteous are from under the outward law , for they are a law unto themselves , neither is there need of any law amongst them who walk not after the flesh , but after the spirit ; for against such there is no law : but he that walkes after the flesh cannot please god , neither know how to rule nor govern , who cannot witness his own will , subjected by the law of god in the heart , but is guided by his own will , and stands in his own will , and such wink at deceit , and rule with partiality and respect of persons , and so transgresseth the law of god , which respects no mans person , and also gives forth lawes in his own will , which takes hold of the righteous , persecutes the righteous , and countenances and encourages the heathen , who know not god , so cain slayes abel within them , and they suffer cain to slay abel without them ; and the wicked and ungodly have more liberty in the nation than the righteous , and so the land abounds with iniquity , oppression and treachery , because such corrupt magistrates wink at deceits for carnal ends , and upholds iniquity and oppression , and tread truth under foot ; and this is the cause why the land so abounds with all manner of ungodliness , and deceit , falshood , tyranny , oppression and persecution , and yet full of magistrates and officers ; and corrupt magistrates put corrupt magistrates in office , and so they bear with , and wink at one another , and feeds and nourishes up deceit amongst them , unless they cross one anothers will , and then they are as much in deceit on the other side , seeking and perverting the law for revenge , and such as these upholds these corrupt ministers , and false prophets which the nation swarmes of ; and they can have a law to maintain their deceit , and uphold them in oppression , and so the beast upholds the false prophet , and they combine together against the simple ; and so the law is made a stalking-horse to deceive the simple , and they will pervert and wrest the law out of its place , and act contrary to their own law against the righteous ; and such magistrates and such government we honour not , but deny , and testifie against it as the prophet of god alwayes did , for by such magistrates and government did the righteous ever suffer , and for the same testimony of a pure conscience , i have and do suffer by such corrupt magistrates , and hundreds more in the nation , who are redeemed out of transgression , who walk not after the flesh , but after the spirit : and haman who stood in the corrupt will , would have destroyed mordecay , because he crossed his will , and could not bow to him ; and also pharaoh and nebuchadonozer , and herod who headed john who stood in their own wills , but the hands of the lord they did not escape . and so corrupt magistrates say we deny all magistracy and government , as haman did , but christ comes to fulfill and end all outward lawes and government of man , and he himself will reign ; for as truth and righteousness growes , the law is fulfilled , and passeth away , and the lyon and the lamb lye down together , and this is the cause why corrupt magistrates beat down the truth as much as they can , and so to uphold themselves ; but god will deliver his own , and pharaoh will he plague and confound ; but such magistrates as are guided by the light of god in the conscience , and rules and governs by it without partiality , or respect of persons , in singleness of heart , discharging their consciences before the lord , and executing the law in its place , and such magistrates , and such government , we own and honour in our hearts , for such are a terror to evil-doers , and for the praise and encouragement of those that do well : and such bear not the sword in vain , but stand in the will of god , which is cross to their own wills , and they rule for god and not for themselves ; and this government is of god and not of man , nor after the will of man , neither takes hold of any tender conscience , nor oppresses it , but stands in the place where it is set ; and some such magistrates there hath been in the northern parts of this nation , who witness the law of god set up in their hearts , and feared god and hated covetousness , and testified against those who did not ; and so corrupt magistrates sought to put them out , so let all who are single-hearted judge who are destructive to true magistracy and government . concerning superiority , and honour , breeding and manners , also of the word thou to any single person . in the beginning when god made , man , he made him to be lord over all creatures , gen. . , , . but not man to be lord over man : yet he was to be servant of god , and when he had disobeyed the command of god , god , spoke to adam , and adam spoke to him , and god thoued adam and adam thoued him , and here was the plain language betwixt god and adam . and when god appeared to moses in the bush , god thoued moses , and moses thoued him ; and this was the plain language which ever passed betwixt god and his people in all ages : and thou that disdains to be thoued , would exalt thy self above god , who thous god in thy formall prayers , and scornes to take it thy self ; therefore thou must come down as lucifer did : but it is lucifer in thee that is exalted , who must not be honoured , but must be cast down into the pit , and it is he who is head in man , who would be honoured , and would be superior , and would be above god , and calls this manners and breeding to bow to him and honour him , and he hath vented wayes whereby he is honoured and exalted a●d worshipped , and he calls this manners and breeding , and who can honour him the most , and exalt him the highest , those he saith is the best bred , and of the best breeding , and those he calls noblemen and gentilmen , and the other he calls yeomen and common people , and inferio●rs , though they all honour him , but they observe it not so much as the other ; but their mindes is more set upon the earth and ear●hly things , to get wealth and riches , and those he calls providen● carefull people ; but he that seeks preferment in the world , and would be exalted and set up , seek to get his breeding in as excellent manner as he can that so he may get in favour with lucifer that sits in the courts and high places ; and so long as he pleases lucifer he will set him up , but both he and lucifer must be cast down into the pit together obad. , . and here is the ground of the worlds superiority , nobility , gentility , honour , breeding and manners ; and here they lord over one another by their corrupt wills ; and here is the ground of all tyranny and oppression , rackings and taxings , and wars , and imprisonments , and envy , and murder , and the persecutions of the righteous ; all arises from proud lucifer , the lust in man , who would be honoured ; and all this is in the fall and under the curse ; but mordechai could not bow to him in haman , and therefore he sought to destroy him , and informed the king against him , and all the jewes in the nation , and said they were a scattered people , and ●heir lawes were diverse from all people , neither did they observe the law of the king ; then he set up a paire of gallows for mordechai , esth . . , . but haman was hanged on his own gallows , and is cast down to nothing , and mordechai is exalted in his stead : so there is a time that mordechai is despised and haman exalted ; and there is a time that haman is cast down and mordehcai exalted : and there is a time that esau reignes over jacob ; and there is a time that the elder serves the younger : gen . . and there is a time that pharoah rules and oppresses the israelites ; but there is a time of israels deliverance , and pharoah drowned in the sea , exod. . . so there is a time that antichrist sits in the temple of god as god and saith he is god , thes . . . and christ lyeth low in the manger : but there is a time that he must be cast into the pit , rev. . and christ alone exalted . he that can receive it let him . but in all ages the children of god could not bow to lucifer nor his image ; and this was the cause why shadrach , mesech , and abednego , was cast into the fiery furnace ; dan. . and this was the cause why daniel was cast into the lyons den , but by the hand of his god , whom he alone worshipped and honoured , he was delivered and exalted , and his adversaries cast down in his place : and this was the cause why the prophets were alwayes persecuted and imprisoned , and the apostles , acts . vers . . who came to turn the world upside down ; and this is the cause now why the ministers and messengers of jesus christ are imprisoned , stoned , stocked , whipped , and shamefully entreated , whom the lord is pleased immediately to call from their outward callings , and countries , and sends them abroad into seve●al countries to preach his name , no more after the flesh , but after the spirit ; and who knows him , must know him no more after the flesh , but after the spirit : and those come to turn the world upside down , being crucified to the world , and the world to them ; and these cannot honor lucifer , nor bow to lucifer , nor worship his image , though there was a time when they did , but that was done in egypt , when they knew not god , but now lucifer and his image is cast down , and christ alone exalted , and the pure and perfect law is witnessed , which respects no mans person , but god alone honoured and exalted , and this we witness : for amongst us there are no superiours after the flesh , but christ is the head , and all the rest fellow-servants : and he that would be the greatest should be the least , and he that respects persons commits sin : and the angel would not suffer john to bow to him , but said , he was his fellow-servant ; and this we witness , who are redeemed out of the kingdom of the devil , from amongst the children of this world into the kingdom of the son , who are crucified to the world , and the world to us , by the spiritual cross of christ in which we joy and glory , amongst whom there is no partiallity , nor respect of persons , but all in union in one , though ten thousand ; and here god alone is king , and he alone is honoured , exalted , and worshipped , no more after the flesh , but after the spirit ; for we have no other god in whom our hearts delight ; and here proud lucifer , and his image is cast out , and here all his honour is thrown down , and his breeding , and manners , and fashions , and customs , and words , and wayes , and worships , which are after the flesh , and not after the spirit , whereby he sets up himself , and causeth his image to be worshipped ; and this is the cause he rages in his kingdom , wheresoever we come , and saith we are destructive to all superiority , and magistracy , and ministry , and honour , and breeding , and manners , and turn the world upside down ; for he knowes where christ comes , he comes to take his kingdom from him , and cast him down into the pit , and there he must be tormented quick , and all who bears his image or his mark ; and these are some of his marks , which he calls nobility , gentility honour , breeding , manners , and civility . but true nobility we own , the seed of god is noble wheresoever it is born up , and who can witness to the head of the serpent bruised , and the seed of god born up to reign and rule , there is true nobility , there is true gentillity , no more after the flesh , but after the spirit : and this is to be honoured , for honour is due to this both in magistrate or minister , fisherman or plow-man , heards-man or shepherd , wheresoever it rules without respect of persons , and hear fear to whom fear , and honour to whom honour ; and this is no more after the flesh but after the spirit : and here all the true prophets of god were noblemen , and gentlemen , sprung of the noble seed , though of the nobles and great ones of the earth , they were disdaind and reproached , because according to the world , they were of lower degree , some of them plow-men , some heards-men , some shepherds , and therefore they persecuted them , and destroyed them , yet they were gentile and bore all . christ was noble , sprang of the noble seed , though of the great ones and nobles of the earth he was disdained , reproached , and scorned to be the king of the jewes , because , according to the world , he was of low degree , and supposed to be a carpenters son , so they spit upon him and disdained him , and crucified him , yet he was gentile and bore all . the apostles were noble , sprung of the noble seed , though of the nobles and great ones of the earth they were despised , and disdained , and reproached , because , according to the world , they were of low degree , some of them fisher-men , and the like , and came to turn the world upside down , so they were despised p●asecuted , and killed , yet they were gentile and bore all : but those were all noble , sprung of the noble seed , and so is all now who are of the same seed : and those were all gentile , sprung of the gentile seed , and those have the nature but not the name , and to those belong the true honour , not after the flesh but after the spirit : acts for they denyed the honour of the world ; and therefore christ said , i receive not honour from men ; and said to his apostles , be yee not called masters , neither call any master upon the earth ; and though the princes of this world exercise dominion one over another , yet it shall not be so amongst you , but he that would be the greatest amongst you , let him be your servant ; mat. . , , , . and said he , how can ye believe which receive honour one of another and seek not the honour that cometh from god onely ? john . . and here the true honour is no more after the flesh but after the spirit : and here you who are giving and receiving outside earthly honour , you are in the unbelief , out of the doctrine of christ , cringing , and bowing , and honouring , and exalting the devil , and worshipping the beast and his image , which all the world wonders after and worships , rev. . and as for manners and breeding , courtesie and civility , learn to do us you would have all to do to you , and speak every one truth to his neighbour : and let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth , but such us is good for the use of edifying : for evil communication corrupts good manners , but let your yea be yea , and nay be nay , for whatsoever is more is evil : mat. . . ezek. . . and breed your children so , and here is good manners and breeding , curtesie and civility : and who are of the right noble seed , hath this manners and this breeding , but the nobles and great ones of the earth want this manners and this breeding , and both priest and people of all sorts according to the world : and here is the ground of all true nobility gentility , majesty , honour , breeding , manners , courtesie , and civility , no more after the flesh but after the spirit ; for the natural man mindes natural things , and the spiritual man , spiritual things ; but the natural man receives not the things of god : and this we own and witness , and the time is coming , and now is , that before this seed every knee shall bow , and every tongue confess , and the kings and nobles of the earth shall be bound in chaines , and fetters of iron : and here is also the ground of the nobility , gentility , superiority , honour , breeding and manners of the world , which is after the flesh but not after the spirit , sprung from proud lucifer , the lust that reigns in man , and are not yea and nay , but calls it manners to say nay and take it , or do it : and so they have the name , but not the nature , and so are bastards and no sons , who are not sprung from the noble gentile seed ; and to those honour is not due , neither can we bow unto them , for if we should , we should set the devil in the room of god , and give unto him that which is due to god , which when we were in blindnesse through ignorance we did , and so worship the beast and his image , which all the world worships and wonders after ; for they that are proud and lofty , which is the image of the devil , for the devil is the father of pride , and in gay attire , those the world worships and wonders after , and extols and exalts into high places : but since the lord hath opened our eyes , this we cannot do , but testifies against it wheresoever we come both in words and actions , and so we are destructive to the worlds superiority , nobility , gentility , honour , breeding and manners , which is after the flesh , and not after the spirit , therefore the devil hates us in the nobles and great ones of the world , but we give unto caesar the things that are caesar and unto god that which is gods ; mat. . . but we cannot give unto caesar that which is gods , but fear to whom fear , honour to whom honour is due : he that hath an eare to hear , let him hear and understand : for , saith the lord , if i be a master , where is my fear ? if i be a father , where is my honor ? mal. . concerning the word thou or thee . first , concerning the word thou or thee , which all those which are their priests and teachers knows , that thou is the proper word to one particular person , and is so all along the scripture throughout to any one , without respect of persons ; yea to god himself : and the word you is the proper word to more then one , but not to one ; and it so is all along the scriptures throughout . as for example , at all times when the apostles spake to christ they used the word thou or thee unto him , and when he spoke to more then one of them , he used the word you or ye ; but if he spoke but to one , he used the word thou or thee , as in mat. . , , , . verses : and also paul thoued king agrippa , and king agrippa thoued him , as in acts . , . verses , and so all along the scripture : and so it is plain , that now it is an invention of proud lucifer in man to exalt himself , as it will plainly appear ; for amongst the great and rich ones of the earth , they will either thou or you one another if they be eqall in degree , as they call it ; but if a man of low degree in the earth come to speak to any of them , then he must you the rich man , but the rich man will thou him ; nay you shall find it so betwixt priest and people , if a poor labouring man come before one that you call a minister , though he be one of his hearers , and one who helps to maintaine him according to his ability , yet he must you the priest , and the priest thou him ; and here the heathen lord over one another by their corrupt wills : but this is contrary to the apostles and ministers of christ , who made themselves servants to all , and yet those will call themselves the ministers of christ ; and the word minister signifies a servant , and they are masters , and so they have gotten the name but not the nature , and so are bastards and no heires , who are not sprung from the gentle seed and yet they are hired as servants of men , and yet bears rule by their means as masters over those that maintaines them , so that he that hath an eye to see let him see the deceits of the professed ministers of england , jer. . , . concerning putting off the hat. this is another invention of proud lucifer , whereby he is honoured and worshipped , and exalted in man ; but the scripture doth not speak of any such fashon used in any age , but man hath found out many inventions since the scripture was recorded : and now it is so , that it is a fashon throughout the land , whereby one man is exalted above another ; for if a poor man come before a rich man , it may be the rich man will move his hat , that is called courtesie and humility ; but the poor man must stand with his hat off before him , and that is called honour and manners and due respect unto him ; but if the rich man doe bid him put it on , it is counted a great courtesie , and he gets honour to himself , there to be counted a courteous man. but this difference or respect of persons was never ordained by god but by the devil , whereby he exalts himself in man ; but james the apostle of jesus christ witnessed against it ; as in james . . , , , , . and so on , and said , he that respects persons committs sin , for there is no respest of persons with god : acts. . , , and therefore saith james , howl ye rich men : and here your professed ministers abide not in the doctrine of christ , and so hath not god but the devil , and his ministers they are whom they exalt , john . and now you shall see the partiality of the names in this your breeding and manners . first , from a poor man to a rich man it is called honour , and due respect , and manners ; from a rich man to a poor man it is called courtesie and humility ; but amongst the rich and nobles of the earth it is called court-like breeding , but of those of the lower degree it is called country breeding , and amongst the lower sort of the world it is called neighbourhood and civil respect one to another : and so the devil hath covers for all his deceit , and so he is honoured and exalted both in court and country , but the highest in the court , and therefore they have the highest title : but wo unto them that hides their sin , and covers with a covering , and not of the spirit of the lord : isa . . , but this is the riches of the world , and the devil that makes so many degrees , as between dives and lazarus , and haman and mordecai , for the lord hath made all the nations of the earth of one mold and one blood , but we who are redeemed out of his kingdome , he calls us clowns and fools , and saith our religon is built upon such small and frivilous things , and stumble at strawes , and leaps over blockes , this saith his wisdome , but it is even death to him to b●ar these strawes , especially where he is the highest exalted ; for it puls down all his honour , and therefore do rich men and great ones of the earth , and rulers , and priests , and pharisees , persecute and oppresse us , and draw us before judgement seats , and would root us out of the nation , as haman would have done by mordecai and the rest of the scattered jews , because they cannot bear those strawes : but i say , whatsoever it is that comes to be forbidd●n in the conscience , it becomes a weight and a burden , though it be never so small a thing in the eye of a pharisee , so let none despise the day of small things , ezek. . . but some will call it stubbornness , obstinacy , pride , and presumption , but the same nature would have called it so in mordechai , who could not bow to haman as the rest did that sate by ; and so let every one take heed of speaking evill of that you know not , least you call good evill and evill good ; for the woe is pronounced against such , but they that were after the flesh , alwayes , in all ages persecuted them that were after the spirit ; and so it is , not many mighty , nor many noble , nor many wise after the flesh are called , but god hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise , and the weak to confound those that are mighty , that no flesh should glory in his presence , cor. . , , . concerning perfection . man was perfect without sin before the fall , or else he could not have been the image of god ; for god is pure and perfect , and he made man after his own image pure and perfect without sin , but when he sinned he defaced his image , and lost his pure estate , and was drove out of paradice , and became the image of the devil , for sin is the image of the devil , and here all sin is in the fall , and who are in the fall are in the devils kingdome , which is impure and impefect , and unclean ; but god promised the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpents head , gen. . . and christ the seed said , he was come to preach deliverance to the captive , and to heal the broken hearted , and to seek that which was lost , and to bring again that which was driven away , and this was his work ▪ to redeem to man that which man had lost . now consider what man hath lost , and i shall leave this as querie with all both priests and people , who deny perfection from sin here , whether christ is but a part of redeemer , or a perfect and full redeemer , and which is the place betwixt heaven and earth , where man shall be made free or cleansed from sin , if not upon the earth , seeing that no unholy , nor unclean thing can enter the kingdom of god ? but who can witness this , hath passed through death , and that hath none who plead for sin , neither can they witnesse christ come ; but for some simple ones sake i shall speak more clearly of this for it is a great delusion of the devil , to keep people in sin to tell them , they shall never be made free from sin so long as they are upon the earth , and brings this scripture to maintaine it , he that saith he hath no sin deceiveth himselfe , and is a lyar ; but he tells them christ dyed for all , and if they can but lay hold on him by faith , he will not impute their sins unto them , though they sin dayly ; for the righteous man sins seven times a day , and all the holy men of god sinned ; and so he takes scripture to maintain his kingdome , and this he delivers by the mouth of his ministers , which he sends abroad to deceive the nations , leading people in blindnesse , full of sin and corruption , ever learning , and never comes to the knowledge of the truth , nor never shall doe for them , and here he carries them on an easie delight some way to the flesh , but the end is death , and so heals them up in their sin with a feigned formed faith which perisheth ; and here they settle upon the lees , and set up a rest in the devils kingdom , which is sin ; and here many are meerly blinded and hardened and all tendernesse of conscience is done away : but you shall finde that he that sooths you up in this faith is the greatest enemy of your souls and whosoever witnesseth christ their redeemer , shall witnesse that he is come to destroy the works of the devil , which is sin , and to redeem out of the fall , out of sin , and out of the devils kingdome , which is sin , and all sins in the devils kingdome , which is in the fall ; but for this end christ is manifested , to destroy the works of the devil , and to redeem out of the fall , out of the devils kingdome into his own kingdome , and no unclean thing can enter therein , rev. . . but none can witness this redemption but through the death , and through the cross which paul rejoyced in , by which he was crucified to the world and the world to him , rom. . . and had put off the body of sin , and was mad● free from the law of sin , which once warred against his mind , which once he complained of , which scripture the unlearned , which are strangers from his conditions , who reads them with the carnal eye , now wrest them to their own destruction . j. parnel . concerning womens speaking in the church . what woman is it that is not permitted to speak in in the church ? is it she that is come to have christ head in her ? or is it she that is not come that length , but is learning , and so is to learn in silence ? or , may not christ speak through the woman , when he is head over all ? if not , then why did paul ( that said , i suffer not a woman to speak in the church ) allow of women as his fellow-labourers and helpers in the gospel ? it appears that she was on her travel and he commended her to the church . what did they travel about , or help him in ? what was that labour and help ? rom. . , . . why did paul suffer phillips daughters to prophesie ? were not they prophetesses ? and had not they the spirit of prophesie ? and wherefore is the spirit of prophesie given but to edefie the church ? it is commended by paul above many other gifts , see cor. . . follow after charity , and desire after spiritual gifts , but rather that ye may prophesie . and see the d. verse , but he that prophesieth , speaketh unto men to edification , to exhortation and comfort . now seeing he that prophesieth hath the spirit of prophesie , and seeing it is through the spirit of prophesie that he speaketh to man to edification , exhortation and comfort ; why may not the same spirit of prophesie , being head in the woman , as in philips daughters , seeing women are made prophetesses thereby ; i say , why may not the same spirit of prophesie put forth the female to speak to men to edification , exhortation and comfort ? or else were not the gift received in vain , if it were not to be used ? and if it be to be used , then must it not be for the service of the church , for edification , exhortation and comfort ? is not the widdow without an husband ? was not israel that went from her spiritual husband , called an harlot , or a whorish woman ? and were not there many males and females to make up this woman that had forsaken her husband ? is not christ the husband ? is not his church the spouse of christ ? is not he as well the husband of the males as of the females , and of the females as of the males ? and are not the priests and bishops of that whorish woman , that is gon● from the husband christ , who are to be silent ? and also the woman that is in the church , which may be said to be in the church , and yet but in learning , and is not learned ; she is not fit to teach , but is to be silent , and learn in silence until she be learned ; and then christ the husband , in the male and female , the head in the male and female , is one ; and it is he the one in all , both in the male and female , that speakes ; and the male as well as the female , is that woman that is not to speak , who hath not learned christ , and is not made subject to him ; but such who have learned him , whether male or female , he may speak in them ; and then it is not the woman , but christ the man that speaketh in the male and in the female . and whoso denies this , disprove it if he can . and what will ye do with that in joel . ? if you will not suffer christ to speak in the females , then you will contradict joel's prophesie , and so will judge him a lying prophet , who spake in the name of the lord , saying , i will pour out my spirit upon all flesh ? yea , it is said that daughters shall prophesie as well as sons , no distinction made : vpon the hand-maids in those dayes will i pour out my spirit . and when was this fulfilled , if it was not among the apostles ? if paul had stopt women and maids that had learned christ , would not that have been against joel's prophesie ? but paul did not so ; for he cites the law and saith , as also saith the law. but the priests are blind , and cannot see what the woman is that was not permitted under the law , nor under the gospel to speak . for , the law did not forbid miriam , and those women that prophesied and were prophetesses , judg. . , , , . luke . . and was it not a woman that was sent by christ that first did preach his resurrection to his disciples ? they that would stop christ from sending women now , who are witnesses of his resurrection , they be of another spirit ; and also they are of another spirit then moses was of , who said , he would that all the lord's people were prophets ; and were all the lords people men and no women amongst them ? it appears that moses would not stop any , either male or female , among the lords people : but the priests and many more are of another mind : but that mind is not the mind of christ , and therefore we matter it not what it either leads to say or affirm , seeing they will be wilfull . and seeing it is written in the first language of greek ( out of which the english was translated ) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , which word signifies both man and woman ; and in latine , hic & haec homo , which doth signifie both man and woman : and in john . , . where it is said , the word which was with god , was the true light , which lighteth every man that cometh into the world ; which word man signifieth both man and woman and as it maketh no difference in the enlightening , neither doth it in their speaking . but that the simple may not be deceived by them , many things have been and are written for their sakes , more then for the sakes of such opposers , who go after their own deceived heart , and will not be warned , and so the lord lets many of them alone , to whose righteous judgments i leave them , who will plead with them for what they have done against him , who by their sophistry and subtil insinuations have turned aside the simple out of the way of truth . w. d. concerning the sum or substance of our religion , who are called quakers , and the exercise & travels of our spirits therein . this is the sum or substance of our religion , to wit , to feel and discern the two seeds : the seed of enmity , the seed of love ; the seed of the flesh , the seed of the spirit : the seed of hagar , the seed of sarah ; the seed of the egyptian womb , the holy seed of israel : and to feel the judgments of god administred to the one of these , till it be brought into bondage and death ; and the other raised up in the love and mercy of the lord to live in us , and our souls gathered into it , to live to god in it . now when the light of gods holy spirit breaketh in upon man , and his quickning vertue is felt ; then life enters into that which was slain , and there is a desire begotten in the heart to travel out of the egyptian state , into the good land ; that the soul which came from god , might return back again to him ( out of the sinfull , wandring , miserable , lost estate ) and might live and walk with him , in the purity , vertue and power of his own life and spirit . but then the other birth strives for its life , and pharoaoh ( the king of egypt ) takes part with his egyptians against israel ; and there is no help to the poor soul , but as god pours out his judgments upon that hard nature and spirit in man , which is of the birth of the flesh , and receives the influences and strength of its father , which harden it against the true seed . and now what a condition is this poor soul in ! the light of gods spirit giveth it the sence of its state , and the quicknings of life make it sensible of its bondage , there are also some desires and longings after deliverance : but this doth but provoke the enemy , and the soul being yet in his territories , and under his power , he dealeth the more hardly with it , increasing its burdens and oppressions daly . and o the out-cries of the soul in this state ! how is its spirit pained , anguished and vexed within it , so that it could almost many times chuse rather to lie still in egypt then undergo the heavy burdens , oppressions , fears and dangers , that it daily meets with in this state . yet there is a secret hope , springing up in the heart from the true seed , which often encourageth it to trust him , and wait upon him who hath visited , in his pure ministration of judgment . for this is felt many times ( as the soul is made truly sensible by the lord ) that the judgment is not to the seed , not to israel ; but to pharaoh and his egyptians : and by every stroke of gods wrath upon them , the seed is eased , and its deliverance working out . and so at last when the judment is finished in the land of egypt , the strength of pharaoh and his egyptians broken , their first-born slain , out comes israel , out of the dark land , out of the house of bondage , to travel towards its resting place . then the paschal lamb is known and fed on ; yea it is because of the blood of the lamb , sprinkled upon the door-posts , that israel is passed over and saved , in the day of egypts visitation . o who can read this truly , that hath not felt and been a living witness thereof ! but now , when the seed is come out of egypt , there is not the end , but rather the beginning of its travels . pharaoh and his egyptians ( with their horses a●d chariots ) may pursue again and even overtake ; and there may seem no way of escape or help to the soul but only to stand still , hope in the ●ord , and wait to see his salvation . then shall the sea be divided , which stopped israels course , and pharaoh with his egyptians , the enemies of the soul in this appearance of dreadful opprssieng power be destroyed and seen no more . yet in the willdernes in the passage through the entangelements to the holy land , there are many straits , trials and sore enemies to be met with , who will strive by open force and also with enchantements to betray israel : ye● there is a part yet unbrought down , yet unwrought out , at which they will be striving to enter the mind . and as israel forgets his god , walking out of his counsel , hearkning to that which his ear should be shut against , and so joyning to the contrary seed ; the plagues , the judgments , the indignation and wo will be felt by him , and many carkases may fall there . so that there may be a great outcry in the heart , who can stand before this holy lord god ? shall we be consuming with dying ? yes there is somewhat must be consumed with dying . yea , if a man came so far , as to witness dominion and victory over his souls enemies , the evil seed brought into death in him , and a possession and inheritance in the pure rest of life : yet if that part be not kept in the death , if there be not a praying and watching to the preserver of israel ( in the pure fear and humility ) the enemy will be sowing to the flesh again ; he will be getting some of his corrupt seed into the heart again ( if the soul do but sleep and become negligent ) and so corruption will take root again , and the contrary birth grow up again , and the foxes break into the vineyard and spoil the tender grapes . so that this is our religion , to witness the two seeds , with the power of the lord bringing down the one , and bringing up the other : and then to witness and experience daily the same power , keeping the one in death and the other in life , by the holy ministration of gods pure living covenant . and so , to know god in this covenant ( in this covenant which lives , gives life and keeps in life ) and to walk with god and worship and serve him therein , even in his son , in the light of his son , in the life of his son , in the vertue and ability which flows from his son into our spirits , this is our religion , which the lord our god in his tender mercy hath bestowed upon us : and indeed we find this to be a pure , living and undefiled religion before god , daily witnessing his acceptance of it in and through his son , whose name is here known and confessed , worshipped and honoured , according to the very heart of the father . this may be further illustrated , and perhaps made more manifest to some , by a scripture or two . the flesh lusteth against the spirit , and the spirit against the flesh , and these are contrary one to the other , saith the apostle , gal. . . here are the two seeds ( the seed of the serpent , the seed of the woman ) whose striving and fight is in man , when god awakens the soul , the one whereof hath a nature , a desire or lust contrary to the other . now as the one of these prevails in any heart ; so the other goes down . as the one gains life and power : so the other is brought into death and captivity : so that this is it every one is to wait for , after they once come to the sensible knowledge and experience of these two , to feel the flesh brought down , the lusts of it denied , the judgments of the lord administred to it ; that so the other may come up to live , thrive and prevail in the soul , and so the soul witness salvation and redemption under its shadow . thus sion is redeemed with judgment , and her converts with righteousness . isa . . . what is sion ? is it not the holy hill of god , whereon his son is set king to reign , whereon the holy city is to be built , and god to be worshipped in spirit . what condition is sion in , when god visits her to redeem her ? is she not laid wast , desolate , lying in the dust : ( as psal . . , . ) well : how will god redeem her ? zion shall be redeemed with judgement and her converts with righteousness . by bringing judgements upon that which keeps her under , upon her enemies the contrary seed , god redeems her : and by bringing forth righteousness , ( the righteous life and spirit of his own son ) in those whose minds are turned to her , whose faces are set sion-ward , thus god redeems her converts . yes , yes , it is truly felt and witnessed . the living righteousness of christ revealed in the heart , and having power there , sets free from all unrighteousness which was there before . and then , when the unrighteous one is cast out , and the righteous one is revealed , and the soul united to him , and receives virtue and power from him ; then he becomes a servant of righteousness , and doth not commit sin , but doth righteousness ; and he that doth righteousness is righteous , even as he is righteous , john. . . for how can it be otherwise , when the righteous life is revealed and brought up into dominion in him ? how can the same righteous spirit and life ( revealed in the members , as was in the head ) but live and act after the same manner in the members , as it did in the head ? ( o that men were turned to that , which would give them the certain knowledge and sensible experience of this ! ) now this is exceeding comfortable and precious to them that are in the true travel towards it : much more to them that enjoy it . this is the sum of all , even to know and experience what is to be brought down into death , and kept in death , what to be brought up out of the grave , to live to god and reign in his dominion , and what to be kept in subjection and obedience to him who is to reign . now to experience it thus done in the heart ; the flesh brought down , the seed of life raised , and the soul subject to the pure heavenly power , whose right it is to reign in the heart in and by the seed , this is a blessed state indeed , for here the work is done : here the throne of god is exalted , and his king reigns in righteousness and peace , and all his enemies are under his feet ; and this soul , this true israelite this redeemed one may wear the white robe , and serve god in righteousness and holiness without fear of his enemies ( keeping in and to the covenant , which ministers life and power abundantly ) all the dayes of his life . for that was to be the outward state of the outward israel , keeping to god in the outward covenant and it is to be the inward state of the inward israel , keeping to god in the inward covenant , which is a pure covenant of life and peace , of all inward and spiritual blessings and mercies in christ , wherewith the souls are blessed that are obedient to god , and walk humbly with him in this covenant . and i beseech you to consider ( o tender people , who are grieved because of sin and corruption in your hearts , and would fain witness victory and dominion over it , in the name and strength of the lord jesus christ ) whom did that prophesie of zachary ( luke . , , , . ) concern ? what was that holy covenant ? who were to be so redeemed ? who were the israel that was to inherit this promise ? all the promises are yea and amen in christ to the israel of god. why should not the israel of god hope to enjoy this ? even so to be acquainted with gods holy spirit , and to wait upon him , that they may witness it granted to them , that they being delivered out of the hands of their enemies , might serve him without fear , in holiness and righteousness before him ( whose eyes are piercing , and behold no iniquity ) all the dayes of their lives ? surely they who witness that promise ( mentioned isa . . . ) fulfilled to them , cannot fall short of this . and truly , the children of the new covenant can never come throughly to live to god , till they witness the inward circumcision of the heart , so as to love the lord with all the heart and soul , deut. . . now , where it is so , the devil or lust can find no place of entrance : and how then should they be able to sow their seed and bring forth sin ? out of the evil heart proceeds all evil : but out of that heart which is throughly circumcised , to love the lord god wholly , evil cannot proceed . if lust be not conceived , it cannot bring forth sin : and where the womb , which conceived it , is kept dry and barren , it cannot conceive again . and is not this the promise of the gospel , that the womb which was once barren , shall be very fruitful and bear abundantly ; but the other grow feeble , and be able to bear no more ? oh that people had experience of gods power , and did believe therein ! what should stand in the way of it ? it was israels sin of old , when they looked at their enemies , and saw their footing and strength in the land , which god had promised to abrahams seed for an inheritance , they could not believe that they should be overcome . o take heed of the same unbelief now . concerning christ , coming to the father by him , receiving him , walking in him ( not in the oldness of the letter , but in the newness of the spirit ) and concerning reading the scriptures aright . i am the way , the truth , and the life : no man cometh unto the father but by me , saith christ , john . . man in the corrupt degenerate estate is fallen from god , hath lost his image ( the holy , heavenly image of the father of spirits ) is driven out from his presence , dwels in the land of darkness and confusion , under the government of the prince of the power of the air , who rules in , and hath power over , all the children of disobedience . now this should be mans work , even to return to the father : to come back out of the prodigal lost state , to the fathers house , where there is sufficiency and fulness of true bread and water of life , to satisfie every hungry and thirsty soul. the way whereby a man must come , the truth wherein he must be renewed , and the life wherewith a man must be quickned , is christ , the son of the living god : and he must know him as the son of the living god , and feel him revealed in him , and received by him , and so walk in him the way , in him the truth , in him the life , if ever he come to the father . he must not rest in the description of things ; but feel and know , receive and walk in the thing , which by the spirit of the lord hath been often formerly , and is still described , in what words , and by what means the spirit pleaseth but to receive all the descriptions of him that were formerly given forth , or all the descriptions that are now given forth , that will not do ; but the soul that will live by him , must receive him and feel the ingrafting into him , the holy root , the living word of gods eternal power , and must feel this word ingrafted into his heart , so that there be a real becoming one in nature and spirit with him . and then he is truly in the vine , in the olive-tree , and partakes of the vertue and sap thereof , he abiding therein and walking in the spirit , life and power thereof . now hear a man walks not , nor cannot walk in the oldness of the letter ; but in the newness of the spirit only , paul , notwithstanding all his knowledge of the scriptures , walked but in the oldness of the letter , before christ was revealed in him . and those in the apostles dayes , who had got the form of godliness , but turned from and denied the power , they walked but in the oldness of the letter . yea , the church of sardis ( for the most part ) and the church of laodicea , who had received the right order and ordinances , and the true descriptions of things , and though they were full and rich and wanted nothing , they walked but according to the oldness of the letter , and not in the newness and power of the spirit of life , but alas , how far are many ( who pretend to christ in this day ) from this state ! who never came so far as to walk in the oldness of the letter , from a true understanding thereof ; but have only learned and continued to walk in the oldness of their own apprehensions and conceivings upon the letter . can these , in this state , possibly understand truth , or know the inward spiritual , precious appearances thereof , either in their own hearts or others ? surely no. why so ? why this is the reason ; because the measure the appearances of truth ( either in themselves or others ) by their own old apprehension and conceivings upon scriptures concerning truth , which is not the proper measure of it . now all such are yet in darkness , let them pretend what they will , and grow never so high in knowlerg , exercises and experiences after this manner : and so the best , zealousest and most knowing of them in this state , are but blind leaders of the blind , and ( thus going on ) shall most certainly fall into the ditch of perdition . o that men could feel that which makes rightly sensible , and might lay it to heart ! for no man can confess christ ( how then can he receive him and walk in him ? ) but by the holy spirit . and he that knoweth not the spirit rightly , knoweth not christ rightly : and he that doth not know him rightly , doth not confess him rightly : and none can know him rightly , but by the revelation of the father inwardly . the mistery must be opened within , or there is no true knowing . the mistery of deceit is discovered within ; and the mistery of life is discovered within also . and though the heart of man ( in the unregenerate estate ) is deceitfull above all things , and despeartely wicked , and no man of himself can search or know it : yet that is not the state of the true jsraelites whom god hath cleansed , and taught to deny themselves daily ; but they have boldness before that god who hath searched them , and removed from them the iniquities which he found therein . yea , whoever witnesseth christ revealed within , shall find him revealed within for this very end , to destroy the works of the devil there : and he is a powerfull saviour of the soul from sin , and a powerfull destroyer of the works of the devil within . now concerning reading the scriptures , mind this . it is said of the jews , that when they read moses ( or in reading the old testament ) the vail was upon their heart , which vail is done away in christ , cor. . , . o consider seriously , is the vail done away from thee ? dost thou read the scriptures with the unvailed eye ? dost thou read in the anointing , in christs spirit , in the pure heavenly wisdom of the divine birth ? it was promised of old , that god would take away the face of the covering cast over all people , and the vail spread over all nations . dost thou witness this promise fulfilled to thee ? dost thou know the difference between reading the scriptures with the vail on thee , and with the vail off ? are the scriptures opened and unlocked to thee by the key of david , so that thou readest and understandest them in the light and demonstration of gods holy spirit ; or is thy own understanding and will at work of it self , in searching into the scriptures ? if the wrong birth , the wrong wisdom , the wrong understanding be at work ; it can gather but that which will feed and strengthen it self : and if thou beest not in christ , and dost not read in christ , the vail is not taken away from thee : ( for the vail is only done away in him : ) but thou readest and walkest in the oldness of thy apprehensions upon the letter , and not in the newness of the spirit ; and so knowest neither the scriptures nor the power of god , what ever thou professest to men , or dreamest concernning thy self . for it is no other indeed : thy knowledge , thy apprehensions , thy faith , thy hope , thy peace , thy joy ( being out of the compass of the pure living truth , in which the substance , the vertue , the kernel of all is comprised and comprehended for ever ) are but as so many dreams . o that men that are any whit tender , and have any sincere desires in them towards the lord , could read that one scripture ( psal . . , . ) sensible and experimentally . o send out thy light and thy truth ; let them lead me , let them bring me unto thy holy hill , and to thy tabernacles . ( what , did not david know how to go to the hi●l and tabernacles of god , without a particular sending forth of light and truth from god to lead him thither ? ) then may men go unto the altar of god unto god their exceeding joy , and witness his hill and house their dwelling-place , when god by his light and truth , sent forth from him into them , leads them thither . the scriptures are words , whose chief end drift , and service is , to bring men to the word from which the scriptures came . and when men are there ; then they are in the life of the scriptures , and witness the fulfilling of the scriptures , even the executing of the righteous judgments of god upon that spirit , mind and nature in them , which is contrary to his image ; and the fulfilling of the promises and sure mercies , which belong to christ the seed , and to them who are gathered into , and abide in christ the seed . here 's the covenant , the new covenant , that which is said , or those things which are said concerning the covenant in the scriptures , are but descriptions of the new covenant : but christ within , the hope of glory , the spirit within , the fear within , the power of life within , breaking down and reigning over the power of sin and death ( so that the lord is served in the dominion and power of his own life , in righteousness and holiness before him , out of the fear of sin and death , all the dayes of our lives ; so that captivity can lead captive nor break the souls peace no more , nay not so much as make afraid those , that keep their habitation on gods holy mountain ) here is the covenant indeed : the strength and vertue whereof is witnessed in the soul , as the soul feels the power of life revealed in it , and is made subject by the power to christ who reigns in righteousness , love , mercy and peace , in the hearts of those whom he redeems out of the earthly nature and spirit , up to the mind and spirit of his father . and here the psalms , hymns and spiritual songs , the pure songs , ( the song of moses , the song of the lamb ) are sung to the father of spirits , to the redeemer of israel , which never were sung , nor can be sung in any part of babylon : but all those songs are but dreames of the night , which will be turned into howling and bitter lamentation , when the whore ( that which hath whored from god , and is not in the wisdom of his spirit , what ever she may pretend ) is stripped , and the nakedness of her profession and religion ( with all her duties and ordinances , as she calls them ) made manifest . concerning the gospel ministration . if the gospel be not a ministration of words or letters : but of the spirit , life and power ; and if it was the intent of god , that men should not stick in word , or testimonies concerning the things , but come to the thing it self , and live in the sons life and power , and feel the son living in them : then they are greatly mistaken , who think to gather a rule to themselves out of the testimonies and declarations of things in the scriptures , and do not wait upon the lord to receive the spirit it self to become their rule , guide and way . for these are all one ; the truth is the way , the truth , which lives and abides in the heart ( where it is received and entertained ) is the way : the rule is the guide . for god is one . there are many names , but the thing is one . the life , the power , the wisdom in the father , son and spirit , is all one : yea they themselves are one , perfectly one , not at all devided or separated but where the father is , the son is ; and where the son is , the spirit is ; and where the spirit is , there is both the father and the son , who tabernacle in man in the day of the gospel . and where these are , there that is which is to be preferred before all words , which was afore them , and is in nature , spirit and glory above them . he that hath the son , hath life , even the life eternal , which the words testifie of . he that hath the son , hath him which is true : and he that is in the son , is in him that is true ; and abiding there , cannot be deceived : but he that is not there , is deceived , let him apprehend and gather out of the scriptures what he can . o how is god glorified , and how is redemption and real salvation of the soul witnessed in this dispised dispensation of truth , which god hath held forth in these latter dayes ! blessed be the name of the lord , who hath hid this pure dispensation of life from the eye of the prudent , worldly wise part in every man , revealing it only to the babish simplicity which is of his son , and which lives in him and by him . concerning christs being manifested without , and his being also manifested within , and how both are owned by them that know the truth . it is objected against us , who are called quakers , that we deny christ ( and look not to be saved by him ) as he was manifested without us , but look only to be saved by christ in us . to which this is in my heart to answer to such as singly desire satisfaction therein . we do indeed expect to be saved ( yea and not only so , but do already in our several measures witness salvation ) by the revelation and operation of the life of christ , within us ; yet not without relation to what he did without us . for all that he did in that body of flesh , was of the father , and had its place and service in the will and according to the counsel of the father . but the knowledg and beliefe of that , since the dayes of the apostles , hath been very much held in the unrighteousness , and in the separation from the inward work of the power and life of christ in the heart : which , as so held , cannot save any . but whoever feels the light and life of christ revealed in him , and comes into union with god there-through ; he feels the work of regeneration , of sanctification , of justification , of life and redemption ; and so comes to reap benefit inwardly , and to partake of the blessed fruits of all that christ did outwardly . yea , he that is thus one with christ in the spirit , cannot exclude himself , nor is excluded by god from the advantage of any thing , nor every thing christ did in that body of flesh . this indeed is the main thing , to witness salvation wrought out in the heart : to witness the eternal power and arm of the lord , laying hold on the soul to save it ; and not only laying hold on it to save it , but to witness the working out and the effecting of the salvation , as really in the substance , as israel of old did in the shadow . for as they witnessed moses and joshua outwardly : so the true israelite ( the inward israelite , the spiritual israelite ) is to witness that which is the substance of these , even the son of god revealed inwardly . now they were not saved outwardly by a ba●e outward believing , that moses and joshua were sent of god to save them : but by following them , in faith and obedience to what from god they required . so to the inward israel christ is given for a leader and commander , who appears to the distressed , embondaged soul in egypt , brings out of egypt , and so leads on towards the good land and into it . now , as the soul followes ; as the soul believes in his appearances , and obeys his voice in the holy pure covenant of life ; so he works out the redemption thereof . but as unbelief and disobedience gets up , and the heart is heardened at any time against his voice and counsel , and the ear open to the temtaptions of the enemy ; the redemption thereby goes backward , and the distress and captivity returns again . this is witnessed , known and experienced by ever , true traveller towards sion . therefore the main thing requisite is to abide in the sence of the redeemers power , as also in waiting for his motions and apperances , and in the faith and obedince thereof . for sin gathers strength and is brought forth by letting in and giving way to the motions thereof : and so also holiness and righteousness is brought forth and getteth ground in the mind , by harkening and giving up to the stirrings and movings of gods holy spirit . therefore it is of great necessity to every true traveller , to come to a right understanding and distinguishing of these : and then that the heart be kept with all diligence , because out of it are the issues both of life and and death . and most happy is he , who knows the issues of death stopped and the issues of life opened , and whose spirit is naked and open before the lord , for life to spring up in him and issue forth through him at its pleasure . o it is a precious state to witness captivity led captive by life , and the power of life reigning over it . and truly , there is as real deliverance witnessed inwardly , by those that wait upon the lord and are faithfull to the leadings of his holy spirit , as ever there was by the jews outwardly , in their faithfull following moses and joshua : and christ is as truly an healer of his people , in this ministration of life to them by his holy spirit , as ever he was an healer of persons out wardly in the dayes of his fesh . that ( with the other miracles which he wrought then ) was but a shadow of what he would work and perform inwardly in the day of his spirit and holy power : and shall he or can he ( to those that faithfully wait upon him ) fall short in the one , of what he shadowed out in the other ? nay surely , it was the intent of his heart , and he will not fail to perform it , to save to the very utmost all that come to god by him and abide in his holy , pure , righteous , living covenant . here is the skill of christianity , to abide in him : and here the living virtue and pure power is felt , which overcometh all , but nothing can overcome it ; but victory , dominion , glory , majesty and power is sung unto him , who is king of saints , who reigns in righteousness , and who establisheth peace and truth within his borders . a few words concerning the the principle of truth , what it is , how it may be discerned , and how it may be purchased and possessed . quest . . what is the principle of truth ? answ . it is the light which reproves and makes sin manifest . whatsoever doth make manifest is light : wherefore he saith , awake thou that sleepest , arise from the dead , &c. eph. . . . there is no other way of awaking out of sleep and arising from the the dead , but by the light which makes sin manifest . and , o how pretious is that light ! quest . . how may the principle of truth be discerned ? answ . by its piercing , quickning nature , which discovereth it self in its appearances and operations . for it appears and works , not like mans reason , or like motions of his mind which he takes into his understanding part : but it appears and works livingly , powerfully and effectually in the heart . mans reason is corrupt , dark , impure since the fall ; and in the hand and under the power of the wicked one . it s nature is to hide and cover sin , not to discover it . now the light of the law which discovers sin , ariseth not hence . who can bring the clean pure light of the law , out of the unclean , impure reason of man ? the light indeed may shine in the darkness ; but it is no part of it , but of another nature and descent . it is from gods spirit , and given to man in his love unto him , to lead him out of his dark wayes and spirit , into the pure spirit and way of holiness . for the light which discovers sin , is all holy and pure , like the fountain from whence it comes . now a man that is acquainted both with reason and with this light , he can distenguish the nature and operations of both . for there is a great difference between truth held in the reasoning part , and truth held in its own principle . it is very powerful in the one : it effecteth little in the other . in the pure quickenings of life this distinction is perceived and also held . therefore our advice is to all men , to retire from all mortality , that they may come to feel the spring of life in themselves ( and something springing therefrom into them to quicken them ) and to wait to have their understandings opened and kept open by that ; that so they may receive , retain , and not again lose the capacity of understanding the things of gods kingdom . quest . how may this principle ( seed or pearl ) be purchased and possessed ? answ . by dying to a mans own wisdom and will. there is not another way . for the light is wholly contrary to man , as he stands , in the alienation from god. it crosseth his spirit , his thoughts , his desires , his knowledge , his reason , his understanding ; even all that is of himself . he must therefore con●ult with none of these , but prefer the little , pure demonstration of the light of christs spirit above all these , and stand in the parting with and loss of them all for ever . o this is an hard saying , who can bear it ? surely none but those that are taught and learn of the father , can thus come to give up to and follow the light of the son. the law of the lord is perfest , converting ( or restoring ) the soul ( psal . . . ) what law was this , or what law is this ? was it the law of workes in the hand of moses ? or is it the law of faith in the hand of christ ? doth not christ enlighten every man that cometh into the world ? would not god have all men to be saved ? and doth he not give to all , a proportion of the true light whereby they may be saved ? and it is not the property of this light to convert to god ? can any man receive this and be united to this , and it not change his nature : so that he must needs have a new nature , and from that new nature do that naturally , which the jews by all their endeavours with-out this , could never do ? can any thing convert fallen man to god , but christ ? hath any thing power to convert to god , but his pure law of life ? can christ and his light be seprated ? can any man receive his light and be united thereto , and not receive him ? o that mens hearts and understandings were opened by the spirit and power of the lord ! for this is a direct riddle to all men , who have not gods heifer to plow with , to understand it by . and so for want of a true understanding , it is despised and rejected among the builders : but with us it is elect and precious , chosen of god , and precious in the eye of our souls . now this doth not exclude or make void any thing , that christ did in his body of flesh here on earth , or that he doth in heaven for his : but this brings unto a right , and into a possession and enjoyment of his purchase . for all that are in the darkness , and walk in the darkness , have nothing to do with christ in truth and reallity , what ever they may profess , and what hopes soever they may feed themselves with : but all that are in any measure of his light , and walk therein , they are so far of him , and have a right to and share in all that he did in and from the same light and spirit . and this i dare positively hold forth as a standing truth , which hath been sealed unto me by constant experience : that no man can fall in with , and obey the light wherewith he is enlightened , but he must deny himself , and take up a cross to his own wisdom and will , which cross is the cross of christ , which is the power of god to the salvation of the soul. and he that takes it up daily and waits upon the lord therein , shall witness the power of the lord jesus christ to the redemption of his soul : ye then he shall be able in true understanding to say , this is light indeed , life indeed , power indeed . that powerfull arm which hath saved me from sin , and breaks the snares , devices and strength of the enemy before me ( delivering me daily when none else can , and when my own strength and wisdom is as nothing ) i cannot but call christ , the living power and wisdom of god revealed in me , who will not give his glory to another . for he is the lord god of pure power and life for evermore ; and beside him there is no such saviour . yea , blessed be the name of the lord for ever , the dayes of mourning after salvation are over with many , and the dayes of reaping and enjoying salvation are come , which shall endure with the israel of god for evermore , amen . isaac penington . an incitation to professors seriously to consider , whether they or we fail , in the true acknowledgment and owning of the christ which died at jerusalem . we , who are commonly called quakers , being a people whom the lord hath gathered ( out of the wandrings , out of the many professions , out of the several scattered estates and conditions , wherein his eye pittied us , and his love found us out ) into a measure of the eternal rest ; where we have found that life , that power , that manifestation of the eternal spirits and that redeeming virtue , which we never were before distinctly acquainted with ; i say , having tasted of this , haveing known this , having felt this , and come to a real enjoyment of it , in some degree , in our several measures ; we could not possibly conceal this treasure , but in bowels of love ( and in the movings of the life and power of the spirit ) have been drawn to testifie of it to them who were left behind , groveling under the burthen of corruption , and crying out because of the sin and bondage from the powers of darkness , who hath in a mist withheld their eyes from beholding that living virtue , which is able to save ( and doth save , blessed be his name ) therefrom . now this we have often found that this our testimony hath not been received in the same spirit and love , wherein it hath gone forth ; but the enemy ( by his subtilty ) hath raised up jealosies concerning us , and prejudices against us , as if we denyed the scriptures and ordinances of god , and that christ that died at jerusalem , professing him only in words ( to win upon others by ) but denying him in reallity and substance . to cleare this latter , ( for my heart is only at this present drawn out concerning that ) we have solemnly professed in the sight of the lord god ( who hath given us the knowledge of his ●on in life and power ) these two things . first , that we do really in our hearts own that christ , who came in the fulness of time , in that prepared body to do the fathers will ( his coming into the world , doctrine , miracles , sufferings , death , resurrection , &c. ) in plainness and simplicity of heart , according as it is expressed in the letter of the scriptures . secondly , that we own no other christ then that , nor hold forth no other-thing for christ , but him who then appeared and was made manifest in flesh . now it would be nakedly inquired into by professors , what is the reason that their jealousies still remain concerning us , and why they are still so ready to cast this upon us ? certainly if they did know and own the same thing with us , ( in the spirit , and in the power , in the life , and in the love which is of the truth ) this prejudice , and these hard thoughts could not remain . but if they themselves do not know christ in the spirit ( but only according to a relation of the letter ) no marvel though they miss both of the spirit , and of the true intent and meaning of the letter , and likewise be liable to clash against the truth , as it is made manifest in others . and indeed the lord hath shewen me in spirit several times , that they themselves are guilty of that very charge ( and that he will so implead them at his judgment seat ) which they cast upon us , even of denying that christ which died at jerusalem , to be the christ . for he that owneth the words of scripture , as he apprehends or conceives them in the reasonings of his mind , and doth not wait to have them revealed in the spirit , keeping out of his own reasonings and conceivings , and waiting patiently till the lord open the thing in the spirit ; he setteth up his own conceivings , or an image in his mind of the mind of the spirit , but misseth of the thing it self , which alone is known in the spirit , by them who wait upon the spirit there to receive it , and are not hasty to set up their own reasonings and imaginations concerning the thing in the mean time . no man can in truth call jesus the lord , but by the spirit . but any man , that is any thing serious , and weighs the scriptures in the natural part , may so learn to acknowledge his coming into the world , and that he is lord and king , &c. and may thus call him lord , yea , and kindle a great heat in his affections towards him ; but all this ( out of the life , out of the spirit ) is but mans image , which he forms in his mind , in his reading the scriptures , and observing things therefrom . but the true calling jesus lord , is from the feeling of his eternal virtue in the spirit , and finding the scriptures opened to him by the spirit , in a principle which is above the reason , comprehends the reason , and confounds and brings it to nothing . again , there is no true knowledge of christ , no living knowledge , no saving knowledge which hath the eternal virtue in it ; but that which is received and retained in a measure of light given by god to the creature , in the faith which is the gift , in the grace which is supernatural and spiritual , whereas the resoning part is but natural . and such as have received the spiritual understanding , know it to be distinct from the natural ; and we experimentally find a very clear distincttion , between scriptures searched out by the reasonings of the mind , ( and so practises drawn therefrom ) and scriptures opened by the spirit , and felt in the life . now that professors generally have not received their knowledge of christ from the spirit , or from scriptures opened it the spirit ( and so know not the thing , but only such a relation of the thing , as mans reasoning part may drink in from the letter of the scriptures ) is manifest by this , in that they are not able in spirit and understandind to distinguish the thing it self , from the garment wherewith it was cloathed , though the scriptures be very express therein . speak of christ according to a relation of the letter , there they can say somewhat : but come to the substance , come to the spirit of the thing , come to the thing it self ; there they stutter and stammer , and shew plainly that they know not what it is . now the scriptures do expresly distinguish between christ and the garment which he wore ; between him that came , and the body in which he came ; between the substance which was vailed , and the vail which vailed it . lo i come ; a body hast thou prepared me . there is plainly he , and the body in which he came . there was the outward vessel , and the inward life . this we certainly know , and can never call the bodily garment christ , but that which appeared and dwelt in the body . now if ye indeed know the christ of god , tell us plainly what that is which appeared in the body ? whether that was not the christ before it took up the body , after it took up the body , and for ever ? and then their confining of christ to that body , plainly manifesteth that they want the knowledge of him in spirit . for christ is the son of the father , he is the infinite eternal being , one with the father , and with the spirit , and cannot be divided from either ; cannot be any where , where they are not ; nor can be excluded from any place where they are . he may take up a body and appear in it , but cannot be confined to be no where else but there , no not at the very time while he is there . christ , while he was here on earth , yet was not excluded from being in heaven with the father at the very same time , as he himself said concerning himself , the son of man which is in heaven , john . . nor was the father excluded from being with him in the body , but the father was in him , and he in the father , whereupon he said to philip , he that hath seen me , hath seen the father . what , did every one that saw that body , see the father also ? nay not so , but he that saw christ the son of the living god , whom flesh and blood revealed not , but the father only ( mat , . , . ) he saw the father also . o frinds , look to your knowledge of christ , and to your faith and knowledge of the scriptures , and to your prayers also ; for it is easie missing of the living substance in all these , and meeting with a shaddow , which may please and make a great shew in the earthly part , in the natural understanding and affections , but satisfieth not the soul , or that which is born after the spirit , but still the cry there goes out ( where the soul is awakned ) after truth , substance , life , virtue , from gods spirit in the spirit , which it alone can feed upon . these four things following , i am certain of , which he that cometh into the true light , shall infallibly experience them there . first . that nothing can save but the knowledge of christ , even of that very christ and no other , who took upon him the prepared body , and offered it up at jerusalem . secondly , that no knowledge of christ can save , but the living knowledge , not a knowledge of him after , the letter , ( which the carnal part may get much of , and value it self much by ) but a knowledge of him in the spirit ; which is only given to that which is begotten and born of the spirit , and only retained by that which abides and remains in the spirit , and runs not out into the fleshly reasonings , imaginings and concevings , about the things mentioned in the scriptures . thirdly , that that man who knoweth not christ in spirit , nor keepeth close to him in spirit ; but ( through darkness and misguidance of the spirit of deceit ) called the shinings of his light ( his reproofs , his checks for that which is evil , and his secret motions to that which is good ) natural ; this man , though he seem to own christ never so much according to the letter , yet in truth denies him . fourthly , he that denies christ , ( in his knocking 's and visitations of him in his own heart , and before men in the truths which he holds forth by his servants and ministers of his spirit him will he deny before his father in heaven . o , i beseech you , do not trifle about these things ( for they are exceeding weighty ) lest ye perish from the way ; for missing of the saviour , ye must needs also miss of the salvation . o that ye knew your state , as god knows it to be , and as it is certainly known and felt in the measure of his life and holy spirit , by those whom god hath gathered together , and whose eyes he hath opened , and preserveth open there , glory be to his name therefore : yea , glory , glory , glory , and everlasting praises be sung to him throughout all the holy land , ye in the very heights of sion , by the souls of the redeemed , from henceforth , and for evermore , amen : whose mercy , love , grace , wisdom , power and rich goodness remaineth and endureth for ever ; by and in which the redeemed live to his praise , who have overcome by the blood of the lamb , whose blood they know what it is ; and none else knoweth it , but they who feel the sprinkling and virtue of it . lo this is our god , we have waited for him ; and how can we but be glad , and rejoyce in his salvation ! o let all that live by the breath of thy power , and drink of thy streams , sing praise unto thee , and exalt thy great and wonderful name for ever and ever . a brief testimony for truth , by tho. tayler . i shall add somewhat of the testimony which is written in my heart , by the finger of gods spirit , concerning the people called quakers . indeed they have met with many reproaches , and sore oppositions many wayes , since they were a people : but notwithstanding all , their bow abides in strength , and the hands of their arms have been made strong against the wicked one , with all his devices in his several kinds of instruments : and their light is still the same and their god the same , who blesseth them from day to day , even in the midst of all the revilings , slanders , persecutions and curses , which they have met with from men without , and in the midst of all the temptations , inward trials and afflictions also , which are often met with inwardly . yea we know him to be our god and cannot but trust him , having found him to be faithfull to us hitherto , and knowing his nature to be such , that he cannot but continue his loving-kindness and faithfulness , to all who are gathered by him in to his holy , inward , spiritual covenant of life and peace , and who dwells with him therein . and truly we are fully satisfied and at rest in him , and cannot desire another , then he who hath redeemed our souls from death , given us life , brought us out of the pit wherein was no water , into a large place , set our feet upon a rock ( a rock indeed ) and establisheth our goings in the path of holyness , working all our works in us and for us , by his spirit and power . yea , we have the witness in our hearts , even the witness which never erred nor can deceive , which testifieth to and with our spirits , our sonship : so that we do not imagine our selves sons from apprehensions upon scriptures , but we feel our selves sons in the true sensibleness , and know who david is , and reap and inherit the sure mercies of david daily , o blessed be our father , o blessed for ever be the father of life , who feeds , who nourishes , who waters , who refreshes ( with the bread of life and with the pure living water ) his lambs , his babes , his plants , his tender ones , of whom he is daily tender , and who are daily tender of his name and honour . and if any man preach another god , then he who creates anew in the true light , and therein puts forth his arm of salvation ; death , and destruction and the curse , are his portion from the hand of the lord. the conclusion . glorious was the estate of the church , before the apostacy , for purity of doctrine , for holy order and discipline , for love to god , one to another , and to all men ( even of enemies ) for faith in god , for the presence and power of his spirit among them ( insomuch as the unbeliever coming among them , might find his heart and state reached to , and be forced to confess and report that god was in them of a truth ) for singleness and uprightnesse of heart , meekness and innocency of spirit and conversation , for zeal for god and his truth , suffering the spoiling of their goods , imprisonments , stripes , and many other wayes , both from the heathen , and also from the professing jews , who had been the church once . o what shall i say concerning the beauty and loveliness of that state ! ye that would know it , o wait to feel it in that , which giveth the true sence of it . but over this glorious state , came a dark , thick , corrupt night , wherein the kernel was lost , and the shell defaced ; wherein the house , which had been swept and garnished , became again recovered and possessed by the wicked spirit . and how great hath this darkness been ! o what a kind of church hath appeared in the world , wherein the spirit of enmity hath dwelt and acted in men , under the name of christianity ! so that instead of loving and seeking the good of enemies , they are ready to rend and tear one another for every little difference , and will be lords over mens faith , requiring men to practice things in religeon , before the spirit of the lord teacheth them so to do , which the apostles did not . for though they had from god the express knowledge of what was truth , and could certainly instruct and build men up therein ; yet they were not lords over mens faith ; but if men were otherwise minded then according to what they knew and taught , they could wait and bear with them , bidding them walk so far as they had attained , and god in his due time would reveal the rest also . o that men were come to this spirit again ! then they would be christians indeed , and then they might be known to be christs disciples , by their loving the brethren and fellow-disciples . but without this love , mens religion is but as a tinkling cimbal , making a noise and sound of somewhat , but not having the true nature or virtue of religion in it . now will it not be a glorious day , when the spirit of the lord cleanseth away this thick darkness , and causeth the light of his pure truth to arise and appear again ? why there is such a day to be , wherein the true church ( which was reproached and driven into the wilderness ) is to come out of the wilderness again , and her witnesses stand on their feet again , and her seed to spring up in the power of life , following the lamb , who marcheth on fighting with the sword of the spirit ( the words of his mouth ) conquering and to conqeur thereby the corrupted antichristian world , even as he did at first the corrupt heathenish world. the lord will purifie his temple , and cleanse the world , by the plagues of his angels which he hath prepared , making way for the beauty of his truth , and the church of his gathering ; wherein he will bring forth his righteousness , wherein his power shall appear , wherein his presence shall be made manifest , wherein that which shined before in the primitive church , shall shine again in this new-reared building of his , insomuch as men shall be forced to say , this is the church of christ indeed , god is here of a truth ; this is the gosple-jerusalem indeed , which is built upon the holy hill of sion , in which innocency , righteousnesse , truth , love , sweetnesse , peaceablenesse , and the gentle nature and spirit of the lamb lives and reigns ; and the lord bless thee , o habitation of justice , and mountain of holiness . now of a truth this work is begun . the times of refreshment are come from the presence of the lord. the lord hath heard from heaven , pitiying the cries of his seed , and hath visited their souls , causing the light of life ( even the pure light of the everlasting covenant ) to shine upon their tabernacles . but whoever would know these things , and partake of them , must come in at the door , by the guidance of the spirit , through the light which is with him . and he that would enjoy the full light ( even the shinings forth of the sun at noon day ) must begin with its glimmerings , even that in the heart , which discovereth and draweth out of the corrupt state of the world , towards the father . o hear and live . do not dispute about it , but wait to feel it ; upon the feeling of it , despising the shame , and taking up , and enduring the cross , and so bearing the reproach and sufferings of christ in thy age and generation . and as thou obeyest , thou shalt know of its doctrine ; but out of the pure faith and obedience , there is no true , sound , deep-rooted knowledge ; but all of that kind must be parted with , for the knowledge which is of the faith , and which is made manifest and increased in the obedience ; which knowledge is of a far more excellent kind and nature . then that which thou art to part with for it . the lord guide thy mind , and stretch forth his hand to help thee , who from the least touch of a true nature and spirit , desirest after the pure truth and way of eternal life . amen . this testimony ( here held forth ) is faithful and true , and ( i know ) the witness of god in many hearts will answer to it ; and happy is he that maketh a right use of it . for , so doing , his soul will not fall short of the pure living truth , nor set up any thing else for truth which is not . isaack penington . the end . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a -e john . . pet. . , . jer. . . john . . jer. . , . ezek. . . john . . rev. . . heb. . , luke . , & . . john . . rom. . . mat. . . mat. . . mat. . . ephes . . , . rom. . . cor. . . cor. , . john . , , , . acts . . cor. . . cor. . cor. . . cor. . . john . . rom. . . tim. . . pet. . . jam. . , . pro. . , . ex. . , . luke . . hab. . . mat. . job . . gen. . . sam. . . sam. . . isa . . , , , , . mark . . amos , . am . , . gal. . , . cor. . , , , &c. chap. . pet. . . act. . . &c. acts . . thes . . . as in act. act. . . act. . . witness the town of cambridge , the wel-head . rom. . . rom. . . rom. . . gal. . . rom. . . sam. . . pro. . , . pro. . . pro. . . isa . . . james . . hos . . . hester . dan. . . isa . . isa . . , . psal . . , . zeph. . . hos . . . mar. . , &c hest . . . rom. . , . exod. . , , , . acts . , . thes . . . jam. . , , . cor. . , . gal. . . col. . . mat. . , , . cor. . , . acts . . rom. . , . rev. rom. . . kings . . am. . , deut. . . deut. . . mat. . , , . rom. . . phil. . , , . psal . . . rev. . rev. , . rev. . . mat. . . prov. . . cor. . . prov. . . prov. . . luke . . acts. . . james . . . esth . . pet. . . jude . . gen. . . gen. . . lvke . . . mat. . . rev. . . cor. . . john. . . an answer to that common objection against the quakers, that they condemn all but themselves with a loving and faithful advertisement to the nation and powers thereof. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) an answer to that common objection against the quakers, that they condemn all but themselves with a loving and faithful advertisement to the nation and powers thereof. penington, isaac, - . p. printed for robert wilson ..., [london : ] caption title. signed, on p. : isaac penington, the younger. imprint from colophon. reproduction of original in duke university library. eng society of friends -- controversial literature. a r (wing p ). civilwar no an ansvver to that common objection against the quakers, that they condemn all but themselves; with a loving and faithful advertisement to t penington, isaac a this text has no known defects that were recorded as gap elements at the time of transcription. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - mona logarbo sampled and proofread - mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion an ansvver to that common objection against the quakers , that they condemn all but themselves ; with a loving and faithful advertisement to the nation and powers thereof . objection . it is commonly objected against us , that we condemn all but our selves , all the protestant churches , martyrs , and worthies formerly ( many of whom were valiant champions against rome , and divers of them sealed their testimony with their blood ) and all sorts of christians and professors at present , who are not just of our stamp and way , though otherwise never so zealous and upright-hearted towards god . answer . the protestant churches ( as they are called in way of distinction from the church of rome ) the blessed martyrs , who suffered for the testimony of a pure conscience towards god , and all the worthies of the lord in their several generations , who fought against that scarlet whore , were accepted of god in their testimony against her , and are not disowned by us , but dearly owned and honoured therein : and for agreeing with them in their testimony in several things , as against deriving of a ministry from rome ( which luther wrote against , and iohn hus prophesied of another ministry to arise ) and against maintaining the gospel ministry by tythes , or any other way of forced maintenance , which ( till popery grew very strong and powerful ) was known to have been free , and against swearing , &c. ( walter brute said , the perfection of christian men is not to swear at all , because they are so commanded of christ , whose commandment must in no case be broken , although that the city of rome is contrary to this doctrine of christ , fox his acts and monuments , page , . and see also page . thorp's testimony both about tythes and swearing . ) for these very things and such like ( as for following of christ , in not receiving or giving that honour which is out of the faith , and for testifying against the hypocrisies and corruptions of our age ) do we suffer in this our day , even as they did in their day , from the same spirit that persecuted them ; which though it hath much changed its form and way of appearance , yet still retaineth the same nature . but all things were not discovered at once . the times were then dark , and the light small : yet they being faithfull according to what was discovered , were pretious in the lords eyes : and what through ignorance they erred in , the lord winked at and overlooked , being pleased with that sincerity and simplicity of heart , which he had stirred up in them towards himself . but if they were now alive in these our daies , and should depart from the sincerity which was then in them , and oppose the light of this age ; they would not then be accepted of the lord , but their former sincerity would be forgotten . for the light shineth more and more towards the perfect day : and it is not the owning of the light as it shone in the foregoing ages , which will now commend any man to god , but the knowing and subjecting to the light of the present age . even as in these our dayes , there was ( some years ago ) an honest zeal and true simplicity stirring in the puritans ( especially among the non-conformists of them ) which was of the lord , and was very dear to him : and had the generations of this age abode there , they would have been able to have followed the lord in every further step and leading of his spirit . but departing from that into some form or other , the true simplicity withered , and another thing began to live in them ; and so they setled upon their lees , magnifying the form they had chose to themselves , till at length their hearts became hardned from the pure fear , even to the contracting of a spirit of prophaneness , insomuch as they could mock at the next remove and discovery of the spirit as some new light : & so by degrees have grown persecutors of that spirit in its out-goings in the people of the lord , which they themselves had once some tast of , while they were reproached for puritans . and the god of this world , who at first tempted them aside into the form , hath at length prevailed so far to blind them therewith , that they can neither see what spirit they themselves are of , nor what spirit it is they persecute . let therefore people consider the truth of the thing , as it is before the lord : we do not cast dirt upon any , in whom the truth of god hath stirred and appeared in any measure in former ages , or in this our age : but this we testifie against , to wit , the setting up of any form without the life and power : for it is the erring spirit which still cryeth up the form , to keep down the power by the form , and so by the help of it to bewitch from the spirit , wherein is the life , and not in the form . this was the painted jezabel of the apostles age , false teachers finely dressed up themselves with the form of godliness , and then under this cover they could deny the power , and make head against it , tim. . . how easie is it for them who appear in the form of the doctrines of the gospel , in the form of zeal , in the form of holiness , to pass in a nation for the true church , and then to asperse them for heretickes , who ( appearing in the power ) cannot but deny that form which is without the power . this is the great witch of this age ( even that spirit of zeal and devotion , which is best clothed and decked with the form without the power ) which though men ( who judge of the things of god after the flesh ) justifie , admire , and much contend for in her several shapes and dresses ( some being for one , some for another ) yet the lord is searching after her , and will find her out with his eternal flames , which will make her manifest , and all her lovers shall dread her burning and bed of torment . now as all along the apostacy , this bewitching spirit ( this spirit which bewitcheth from the power ) hath crept up under a form of church worship and holiness : so the other spirit ( the pure spirit of life , the spirit of true zeal , and fear of the lord ) hath still appeared more and more out of the forms . who were the best preachers , and most eminent christians in the puritan daies ? were they not those who least minded the form then , nay indeed , who were most against the form , and persecuted for their conscientious stumbling at it ? & who were the greatest persecutors then , but they who were most zealous for the form , both of the government and worship of the church of england ? and where is the persecuting spirit next to be looked for , but in the forms which should next appear ? and where likewise is the appearance of the true spirit next to be looked for , but in those whom the lord should raise up to testifie against those forms , and to be the succeeding sufferers for their testimony , as the puritans had been foregoing sufferers for their testimony ? yet if there be any persons left , among any of the forms which have appeared ( whether former or later ) that have not lost their sincerity and true zeal towards god , them we own and have unity with , so far as they keep , or rather are kept thereto . if there be any among the episcopal sort , that in truth of heart desire to fear the lord , and look upon the common-prayer-book as an acceptable way of worshipping him ; we pitty their blindness , yet are tender towards them , and would not have the simplicity persecuted in them because of this , but rather cherished . if there be any among the presbyterians , independents , anabaptists , seekers , or any other sort , that in truth of heart wait upon the lord in those wayes , and do not find a deadness overgrown them , but a pure , fresh , lively zeal towards god , with an unfeigned love to his people , our hearts are one with this ; and we cannot fight against this good thing in any of them , though in love to them we testifie , that their form and way of worship is their present loss and hinderance yet we doubt not , but that the lord ( in his time ) will make manifest to such the light of this age , which is the very thing the people of god in many fore-going ages have been praying for . but this is our lamentation , that forms and wayes of worship abound , but the puritan-principle , the puritanspirit is lost and drowned in them all ; and that men are hardened against our testimony , not from the remainders of the simplicity in them , but because they are erred from the simplicity , and fallen in league with another spirit , which hath lain lurking in forms of knowledge and worship ( to tempt aside from the simplicity , and to hide the sight of the life and power from the panting soul ) all this night of the apostacy . now mark how easie and natural it is to that spirit to enter into a form , to cry up a form , to set up a form in a nation , city , or country , ( doubtless it had been done in this nation long ago , had not the mighty hand of the lord withstood it . ) when the evil and unclean spirit is detected and driven out of one form , if it doth not get another suddenly to appear in and tempt with , it must needs lose many of its subjects . the strumpet or false church is forced ( as god discovers her nakedness and lewdness ) to change her dresses and appearances , to new-trick and adorn her bed : and then , as if she also were changed , and were now no longer the same , she comes forth again with boldness , and tempteth the young man again to come in unto her , prov. . . and thus she casteth down many wounded , yea many strong men have been slain by her , vers. . who otherwise would have pondered the path of life , chap. . . had they not been ensnared by her flatteries , who forsaketh the guide of her youth , and forgetteth the covenant of her god , chap. . . there is no more certain and ready way to suppress truth , and to betray the honesty which is singly searching after it , than to present a form of godliness or worship , as the proper way of meeting with it : for hereby the soul is lulled asleep with a false hope , until the freshness of its desire begins to die , and its life to wither ; & then the fleshly part easily grows into unity with , and zeal for that form wch indeed is of the flesh , though it appeared and tempted as if it had been otherwise . and how many have gone a great way towards hell , & have bin deeply intangled and distressed in the chambers of death , by entring into this strumpets church or house which they then ( through the subtilty of her deceit ) took for the house or church of god ? pro. . . consider the thing a little seriously : when the evil spirit is driven out of his strong hold of grosse popery , whither should he run but into episcopacy ? when he is driven out of episcopacy , whither should he run but into presbytery ? when he is driven out of presbytery , whither should he run but into independency ? when he is driven but of independency , whither should he run but into anabaptism ? when he is driven out of anabaptism , whither should he run but into a way of seeking ? and what is his end of running into episcopacy , but to save alive that spirit which was hunted out of popery ( and could abide no longer there ) and so the better ( and the safer from being discerned ) to reproach and persecute the other spirit ( where ever it appeared ) under nick-names of puritans , separatists , brownists , round-heads , &c. and what is his end afterwards of running into presbytery , but to save that alive which was hunted out of episcopacy , and to persecute the former truly zealous spirit ( where it should further appear afterwards ) by means of that form ? thus the forms and appearances of things change , but the fight is still the same , the evil spirit still getting uppermost under a form of godliness , and from thence shooting forth its arrowes at those that seek after purity of heart , and cannot but testifie against those forms where the impure one lodgeth . this then is the sum of our answer in this respect : we are not against the true life and power of godliness ; wherever it hath appeared , or yet appears under the vail of any form whatsoever . nay all persons who singly wait upon the lord , in the simplicity and sincerity of their hearts , whether under any form , or out of forms ( that matters little to us ) are very dear unto us in the lord . but we are against all forms , images , imitations , and appearances , which betray the simplicity and sincerity of the heart , keep the life in bondage , and endanger the loss of the soul . and too many such now there are , which hold the immortal seed of life in captivity under death , over which we cannot but mourn , and wait for its breaking off the chains , and its rising out of all its graves into its own pure life , power , and fulness of liberty in the lord . a loving & faithful advertisement to the nation and powers thereof . o king , o parliament , o nation of england consider , before the decree come forth , before the ruine of the nation ( with the powers thereof ) be irrevocably sealed : for the lord hath a controversie with this nation , and he will plead with thee o england , who desirest not , nor canst not bear a government in righteousness , for the suppressing of the evil , and encouragement of the good , but the good is still suppressed in thee , and cannot grow as it ought , because of the lust of the nation against the purity of the life of god , and because of the corrupt wils , ends , and interests of those who still are in power . after king henry the th . had renounced and shaken off in part , the popes authority in this nation , he did not let it fall to the ground as an evil thing , but took upon himself the exercise of it , assuming to himself the headship and government under christ in all ecclesiastical causes , and matters in his dominions . the same course his successors followed , keeping the very title which the pope gave to him of defender of the faith . and so parliaments in their dayes ( as if the government of the church were a right and priviledge of the nation , and not peculiar to christ ) have taken upon them to make laws and orders , about the government of the church and people of god in spiritual things , as well as about matters of state . now it would fairly and honestly ( with the spirit of meekness and in the fear of the lord ) be enquired into , whether the popes power and authority in this nation , was a true church-power and authority ? that is , whether it was such a church-power and authority as christ had instituted , or of another nature , even of a nature contrary to christ , and to his inward government in the spirits of his people ? for if the popes power and authority was a true church power and authority , then it may be lawful in another hand , though not in the popes : but if it was an usurped kind of authority and government in it self , then it cannot be lawful in it self , nor serviceable to christ in any other hand , but will prove an instrument of war against him , in whose hands soever it be put . and let it be singly considered , whether the church-power in this nation , hath not been a curb to the rising of the purity of religion , even a sharp check upon the tender conscience , but such as the loose ( yea prophane spirit ) would take pleasure in and contend for ? the true church-power is onely the power of the spirit of christ . that converts men to god , and that alone is able to govern them ( in the affairs of his kingdom ; being converted . man medling with religion and church-government in his wisdom , is but a beast : and must govern like a beast ; namely , with force and cruelty over the spirit and conscience which is tender towards god . as the lord god of heaven and earth , never gave the converting power to any , so neither did he ever give this governing power to any , further than as they were endued with his spirit : for that is the scepter of his church and kingdom , which is a scepter of righteousness , which leads on in the love and gentleness of the spirit that which is to be dealt gently with , and spiritually cuts off by its severity and sharpness that which is to be cut off . and here are christs limits of government which that spirit and wisdom which exceeds , errs and does hurt both to it self and others . now if in the mist of darkness , wch hath long over-spread the earth , ( for though there brake out a little light to discover the thick blackness of popery , and to cause some reformation out of it , yet the mist was not expelled ) this nation hath erred , her princes , her teachers , her parliaments , and all sorts of persons , in laying hold on and establishing a wrong church-power , which power hath had a bad effect , namely , in suppressing the progress of the reforming spirit , and raising up a formal spirit ( if not a spirit of looseness and prophaness ) which ran backwards towards popery , and not forwards from it : yet let them not love error , and so strive against the light which shineth forth to discover the error to them . but let them humble themselves before christ the lord of all , and restore unto him that which is his due , least they provoke him to wrath , and cause him to take from them what they look upon as their due : for is it not just with christ to take that power from men , which they ( so long as they have it ) will not forbear mannaging and making use of to keep him from his power ? consider these things , o england , for they belong to thy peace , and toward the mitigation of thy sorrow and misery in the day of thy calamity . this is from one who hath mourned over thee , while thou hast been rejoycing . isaac penington the younger . o that thou couldst know , at least in this last hour of thy day , how to make thy peace with the lord , and not begin that controversie a fresh with him , which he hath already so much shattered and broken thee about , that the dregs of the cup ( whereof thou hast already so largly drunk ) might pass from thee . an explanatory post-script . we read of the getting up of another power than christs in the church , after the dayes of the apostles . thes. . . rev. . . which power was to last . months , even all the time of anti-christs reign ; by which power the beast should make war with , and overcome the saints in all kindreds , tongues , and nations , vers. , , . and all this wickedness and persecution of the saints should be committed , under a pretence of righteousness , as if it were for christ and the well-government of his church , from a true and rightly-derived , and well-ballanced power , thes. . . . now this power will last in one form or other , even till the very coming of christ : and then shall that wicked spirit ( in all his workings , in all his various appearings and transformings , as if he still were for god , and for the right and orderly government of his church and temple ) be discovered , by degrees consumed , and at last destroyed , vers. . and then the kings or powers of the earth , which give their power and strength to the beast ( helping him to cause men to worship , rev. . , . ) making war with the lamb and his suffering saints by their laws , whips , prisons , fines , &c. shall be overcome by him , who fighteth against them with the spirit of his mouth , and by his truth , meekness , and righteousness , which shines in the hearts and conversations of his called , faithful and chosen , rev. . , . psal. . , . the power of christ cannot hurt any of his lambs , ( it never forced the weak ones , the tender conscienced , but he carries the lambs in his bosome , and gently leads those that are with young , isa. . . ) he had rather have many hypocrites spared , than one ear of wheat plucked up , mat. . . that power therefore in the church which spares the hypocrites ( who can easily comply with an outward conformity in worship , without feeling an inward life or vertue ) but lights heavy on that which is tender and shie in matters of worship , ( knowing that it must give an account thereof to christ ) that is not the true church-power , but at best but a counterfeit of the true . the end . london , printed for robert wilson , and are to be sold at his shop at the sign of the black-spread eagle and wind-mill in martins le grand , . severall fresh inward openings, (concerning severall things) which the day will declare of what nature they are, to which judgment they appeal for justice, being contented either to stand or fall by it: and being likewise ready to kiss that condemnation, which they are likely to meet with in the mean time, from all sorts of men, whom they finde ready to deal hardly with them. / through isaac penington, (junior) esq; penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (thomason e _ ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p thomason e _ estc r this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (thomason tracts ; :e [ ]) severall fresh inward openings, (concerning severall things) which the day will declare of what nature they are, to which judgment they appeal for justice, being contented either to stand or fall by it: and being likewise ready to kiss that condemnation, which they are likely to meet with in the mean time, from all sorts of men, whom they finde ready to deal hardly with them. / through isaac penington, (junior) esq; penington, isaac, - . [ ], p. printed for giles calvert, london : m.dc.l. [ ] annotation on thomason copy: "july. th". reproduction of the original in the british library. eng spiritual life -- early works to . a r (thomason e _ ). civilwar no severall fresh inward openings, (concerning severall things) which the day will declare of what nature they are, to which judgment they appe penington, isaac b the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the b category of texts with fewer than defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images - judith siefring sampled and proofread - judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion severall fresh inward openings , ( concerning severall things ) which the day will declare of what nature they are , to which judgment they appeal for justice , being contented either to stand or fall by it : and being likewise ready to kiss that condemnation , which they are likely to meet with in the mean time , from all sorts of men , whom they finde ready to deal hardly with them . through isaac penington , ( junior ) esq ; london , printed for giles calvert . m.dc.l . the particular contents of the ensuing openings . . of reconciliation and vnion . . of true faith , true love , and true resignation . . a word to christians . . of prayer . . of sin , the being of sin , the blotting out of sin , and the difference between the creatures blotting out of sin , and gods blotting out of sin . . of the mysterie of god . . a parable translated out of jer. . , , . . a word to the mad folkes . . a letter . . silence . . a check to the judger of his brethren . . the true ground of mourning , with an invitation to it . . a touch more concerning sin , as also concerning the liberty and perfection of the creature , with an exhortatory close to such as are capable of it . to all persons , of all sorts . mine own dear flesh without ( or outwards , ) mine own life and spirit within ( or inwards , ) where-ever dispersed , however clouded . i am of kin unto you , of your flesh and of your bone ; my life , my spirit , my substance is one with yours ; why are we so strange one to another ? we are all begotten by one father , [ for we are all of his off-spring ] and therefore cannot but be brethren ; and who knoweth how sweetly and harmoniously we lay tumbling together in the same womb of eternity , before we were brought forth in these severall strange shapes , wherein we now appear ? what , shall a few momentany varieties and contrarieties ( fitted only for some present design ) make perpetuall inroads upon everlasting unity ? arise , awake , shake off your disguises , open your eyes , let us look one another in the face , let us look into one another and see , if we can then forbear knowing and owning one another ? but why do i thus speak ? dispensations , and the fight under dispensations , is not yet ended . we must contend and remain strange a while longer . there is a gulf yet between us , that we cannot meet . light and love hath not yet overcome us . ye cannot know me , if it were so , that i knew you . ye must prosecute me with hatred , though i should woo you with the greatest and entirest love . well ; let things be as they are , since they cannot be altered : the time is at hand , wherein time shall be no more ; and then whatever had a being in time , shall cease from so being any longer . we must all to the grave , to the dust ; we must all sleep an eternall sleep , when once the last night comes ; where we shall bury all our quarrels and contentions , and awake in perfect life and love : and then we shall be , both to our selves and to one another , what now we cannot so much as desire to be . in the mean time , farewel : for i must retire into my secret corner , to lament and bewail that misery and desolation , which is seizing upon all things , by those flames , which have already broken forth , and are ready more powerfully and universally to break forth upon the present state of things both outward and inward , to deface that beauty and lustre wherewith hitherto they have shined . and who can forbear weeping at the sight of this , who hath his eye opened to behold it , and hath any creaturely sense left in him ? certainly none but he , who hath another eye also opened , a more piercing eye , which is able to look through all this , and behold a truer , a greater , a more perfect , a more everlasting glory , sown in and springing up out of the ashes of these . and he , who indeed beholds this , may skip and leap in the flames , even while they are fastning upon and burning up himself . he , who thus knoweth god , may trust him with himself , and with every thing else , and cannot dis-relish him in his most hidden tracks of universall and most dreadfull destructions . he , who loves the true god vvith all his heart , vvill easily say ; burn up heaven and earth at the very roots ; let there be no reliques left of any thing that i have tasted , enjoyed , hoped for ; and then i shall be sure to meet vvith none but god , to love none but god , to desire none but god , vvhen there is no beauty left any vvhere else to be desired , nor nothing of that left in me , vvhich did desire any thing besides him . of reconciliation and vnion . ephes. . , , . for he is our peace , who hath made both one , and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us : having abolished in his flesh the enmity , the law of commandments in ordinances , for to make in himself , of twain , one new man , so making peace . and that he might reconcile both unto god in one body by the cross , having slain the enmity in himself . for he is our peace , there is nothing but offence and war ( both in the cause , and in the effect ) between god and the creature . every thing in god , as it is beheld by the creature , troubleth the creature , and inciteth and draweth forth the enmity of the creature against it . every thing in the creature , as it is beheld by god , provokes his jealousie and indignation likewise : so that there is nothing but a constant inveterate war between heaven and earth , which should and must be assistant and subservient one to another , or lose their own delights . but shall it always be thus ? shall god and the creature ever thwart and cross , and never please one another , nor be pleased in one another ? no , it shall not always be so : when the great peace-maker cometh to put forth his skill , he shall prevail to make peace between them . he will go through his undertaking , though he lose his life in it : and yet will he not lose his life in it , unless he be sure thereby to accomplish it . if he dye , the root of enmity in the creature , and in god too , must dye with him : ( for the opposition and enmity in both is equal , or if in either it be superior , it is in god ; and it is an harder task to reconcile god to the creature , then the creature to god ; and therefore in wisdom , that was first undertaken , and reconciliation never preached to the creature , until the foundation of pacification in him , was layd . ) he is our peace , there is no approach , no converse , no sweet intercourse between god and the creature , but in him , by him , through him . if he had not been the propitiatory sacrifice to reconcile god first , there should never have been any motion to the creature to be reconciled . but now he hath offered up that principle of life whereby he lived , and whereby the creature lives , freely giving it back into his hands from whom he received it , that now he himself can live no longer , nor the creature neither ( the root of its life being slain ) there is no foundation of offence or controversie left between god and him , or between god and the creature , so far as it is found dead or dying in him . so that we , who are dead in christ , who are dying into christ , who are filling up the remainders of his passion in our own spirits , are now at peace ; and he , by his death for us , by his death in us , by his blood which he poured out and pours out to death in us , is our peace ; which till he hath poured out perfectly , we shall never finde him perfect peace unto us . who hath made both one , there was but one at first : yet in this one was all manner of variety and distinction . as all was produced out of one , so all was in that one before it was produced . there was but one mass of earth , and yet what multitudes of things were brought forth out of it ? there was but one adam , and yet this one was made into two , and out of these two , what thousands of generations have proceeded ? and this great lump being brought forth , though they are all the same , all of one blood , yet they are cut out into two parcels , jews and gentiles : and they are as distinct as may be . distinct in their race , in their god , in their laws , ordinances , desires , ends , hopes . the jews must not be like the gentiles in any thing : the gentiles will not be like the jews in any thing . oh how diverse , how distinct , nay how contrary are they ! but this diversity , this distinction , this contrariety must not always last . when christ comes forth to give up that principle of life in himself , and to slay it in them , whereby they have thus lived , the leaves and fruit of variety and distinction will soon wither , and they will all shrink back into unity and harmony again . the jews and the gentiles were both one , but were made different : but there is a time for that difference to be unmade , to be taken away , and then they will become one again . but how can this be ? why the next words tell you . and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us : there is nothing hinders them from being one , but that which parts them ; if that be broken down , they must needs be one . if adam and eve had not been parted , they could never have become two : if that partition be taken away , they cannot but become one again . here are three things held forth . . what it is that maketh the difference between things , and that is a wall set up in the midst . it is by a wall set up betwixt them that they come to be severed and parted one from another . god and the creature are severed by a wall : man and woman severed by a wall : jew and gentile severed by a wall : beleever and vnbeleever severed by a wall . there is a wall set up ; on this side there 's vnrighteousness , on that side righteousness : on this side vnbelief , on that side faith : on this side vnholiness , on that side holiness : on this side darkness , on that side light : on this side evil , on that side good . there is not such an original and real difference between them , as we fools imagine , it is but a made difference , a difference which becomes so by the setting up of a wall , which is very vast and irreconcileable to that eye which seeth onely the difference , and cannot pierce into that original union and oneness that was between them , and could alone be discerned before this wall was set up . . how this difference shall be taken away ; and that is by the breaking down of this wall , by the laying this partition flat , by the taking away all those ordinances , laws , and considerations , which make either the one or the other so to be . that which makes righteousness and vnrighteousness , holiness and vnholiness , faith and vnbelief , as it had a time to be set up , so it shall be pulled down again , and where will then the difference between these things be ? there will be a difference and a vast difference , while the partition wall lasts , but when that is gone , there will remain not so much as a shadow of difference any longer : when that is wholly taken away , which did in any wise part them , they cannot but become perfectly one . . who it is that takes this difference away , that breaketh down this middle wall ; and that is christ the same who set it up . it was the letting forth , that life he received , into several varieties , that caused the distinction ; and it is the drawing back of that life again into its original , that brings all back into union . and this he doth by sacrificing his own flesh , ( as the following words hold forth ; ) by offering and giving up through the eternal spirit his own life , and , in it , the life of the whole creation ( which did flow from his life , and depended upon his life ) unto him from whom it first came . hereby all ordinances , laws , and constitutions , which take hold of the creature in its creaturely state , and follow it to death , fall to the ground ; and that difference and enmity which did arise between them from hence , fall with it also . a taste whereof was given upon sacrificing the head , in that visible and demonstrative reconciliation between jew and gentile , the foundation whereof was then made manifest : but the full fruits thereof cannot be reaped , until the whole body be burnt in the fire , by the same eternal spirit ; until every member likewise hath wholly returned back its life also ; and then there will remain no more offence in or from any part of the creation , when there is nothing left them wherewith they may offend . verse . having abolished in his flesh the enmity , the law of commandments in ordinances , that which nourisheth distance and division is enmity . there is an enmity sown throughout the whole creation , between god and the creature , between one creature and another . the life of one creature is made fit to feed another , and there is a desire in that other of that food , which nature hath made fit for it , and yet nature also teacheth the other to preserve its life and being : here is the seed of enmity in all this thus secretly sown in the nature of things , and so continually springing up throughout the whole creation . there is an enmity between the creatures themselves , one creature is an enemy to another : there is an enmity between man and them ; man is an enemy to them all : there is an enmity between man and man ; one man is an enemy to another : heaven and hell , holiness and sin , christ and belial , the temple of god and idols ; oh how high , how sharp , how intense is the enmity here ! that which causeth and continueth this enmity , is a law of commandments consisting in ordinances , which are appointed to all according to their make , which are written in the nature of all , by the contrariety whereof they come to fight and clash one with another . all things that are brought forth , are brought forth under some dispensation or other ; and according to the dispensation , they are subjected to ordinances of one kinde or other , suitable to the state wherein they are ; which are written both in the state it self , and in their own hearts , ( though neither are very legible now , there being a vail cast over both ; yet if man could once attain to read here , he would finde these more certain and satisfactory books , then those he usually applyeth himself unto . ) what makes the day and night so fly from one another , ( darkness and light cannot endure to be together ) but the several ordinances prescribed to each ? before which time light could lie still in the darkness ( for the light was caused to shine out of darkness ) and keep company with the darkness , as it could not but do , before they were separated . but when god separated the light from the darkness , and gave to each distinct natures , names and ordinances , they are henceforth debarred from any meeting together , or communion with each other . that which differenceth the several sorts of men , is the light and the darkness in them , and the ordinances thereupon . every dispensation under heaven hath its light and its darkness . there is a day and a night to man , in every state , whereinto he is cast : and all under every dispensation walk either in the light or dark part of that dispensation : and ordinances are suited to every dispensation . there is the law of light , and the law of darkness ; the law of the night , and the law of the day : and these are made contrary one to another hereby , so that they cannot meet together in love or peace , but in their neerest conjunction they keep their distance . there is no possibility of communion between light and darkness under any dispensation . indeed he that riseth out of a lower dispensation into an higher , may comprehend both the light and the darkness beneath himself , ( as god comprehends both the light and the darkness under all dispensations , the darkness and the light every where are both alike to him ) but there is no possibility of doing this in the dispensation . so he that riseth out of one dispensation into another ; as he riseth out of that enmity he was in before , so he riseth into a new enmity : and he that was a lamb , a dove , hunted , persecuted in a foregoing dispensation , may turn a wolf , a lion , a greedy , cruel persecuter , in an ensuing . he that was all love , all sweetness , meekness , patience , in a former dispensation , may be all wrath , fury , malice , in the following dispensation . it is now a quick time , and little will men beleeve , what changes will be made in them , now passage through dispensations is become more swift . that which caused , and so heightened the difference between the jews and the gentiles , what was it but their ordinances ? which the more strict and observant each were of , the greater was their enmity , and the fight the more sharp between them . the heathen cannot but look upon the jews as disturbers of the whole world , as persons who would engross both holiness and happiness , as a people who had written among them , in their rites and sacrifices , their own acceptation and salvation , and the rejection and condemnation of all others . the jews cannot but look upon the gentiles , as wicked , unclean persons , as persons serving idols at present , and such as could not but , in the issue , meet with vanity and a lye . the very laws , which god giveth the jews , will not suffer them to be , in any thing , like the nations . the laws that the heathen make , are likewise framed according to that root of enmity , which was in them against the jews . now when christ comes , he taketh upon himself both these , and abolisheth them both in his own flesh : he receiveth them into himself , giveth them full scope upon himself , that so he may terminate them in himself , and suffer them to pass no further . he suffereth no more the ordinances of either to remain , but throweth down the idolatry of the one , the worship of the other , causeth both the light and darkness of each to pass away by a new light and a new darkness . into his flesh he receiveth these , and in his flesh he causeth these to dye , and setteth up somewhat else , in and by his spirit , which will never suffer them to live more . now the end why christ did this , why he did abolish these ordinances , and consequently that enmity which flowed from them , was , for to make in himself , of twain , one new man , the reason why he pulled down this old dispensation , was , to set up another . the reason why he pulled down both these old houses , was , to make one new one of them both . he meant to cast both these old vessels into one new one , and therefore destroyeth the old shape in them both : to make of twain , one new man . he had two things in his eye , two intents in his heart : to make these twain one , to bring this vast diversity into unity ; nor did he like either of them so well , as to change one into the shape of the other ; therefore he casts them both over again , that he may make them new as well as one . and this fabrick he worketh in himself . he taketh the old building into himself , the laws and ordinances into himself , and abolisheth them in himself : he likewise frames the new building in himself , and brings it forth in himself . all things , though they seem to us never so outward ( and indeed are so ) yet they are also inward : they are within god , who is the life and substance of all ; and within christ , who is his immediate shadow and image . god and christ frame every thing within themselves , and also form themselves within every thing : and o how excellent a sight will it be , to see every thing giving up christ and god who are within them , and also taken into christ , and into god ; when the weakness of the outward part shall be swallowed up in the perfection of the inward part , and the perfection of the inward part shall break forth and appear in the weakness of the outward part ! so making peace . this is the way to make peace indeed , to make things one . peace flows from vnion : it is difference that is the root of enmity . how can things fall out with one another , that differ not from one another ? no man hateth his own flesh : man could not hate or afflict the flesh of any other , if he did indeed see and feel it to be his own . yet vnion will not make perfect peace in this old building : man hath the skill and subtilty to hate and fight with that in another , which he loves and cherishes in himself . therefore christ , that he may make sure work , makes a new man of both ; makes an union , not in the oldness of the letter of any old carnal commandment , but in the newness of the spirit . oh how compleat is this union ! how sweet is the harmony that flows from it ! there is as great an harmony between them as can be in any man , for they are made one ; yea far greater , for they are made new , and there no ingredient in this new make , that may cause the least dislike , dissent , or division ; so making peace . verse . and that he might reconcile both unto god in one body by the cross , having slain the enmity in himself . he had a further end in it , in breaking down the wall , in abolishing these ordinances , which was , that he might reconcile both unto god . they were not at so great an enmity one with another , as they both were at with god . the gentiles they were all worshippers of idols , but had nothing to do with the true god : and the jews professed they could not bear his presence , which they evidenced sufficiently all along , for they loved at heart the idols of the gentiles , and were still running after them , but from the waters of life , which flowed from the sanctuary . and god could endure neither of them , but still appeared with terror , as an affrighter and devourer of them . their ordinances set god at a distance with them both , as well as themselves at a distance one with another . but now christ brings them both into one , takes them both ( with all their differences ) into his own body , destroyeth all their differences , offers up all that god dislikes in them ( in his own body ) on the cross , new-makes them in himself , takes the enmity , in god towards them , and in them towards god , into himself ; slays in them all that god dislikes , and so changes and new-makes them , that they can dislike nothing in god any more . o the sweet fruit of the cross ! what pity it is christ should not dye , who maketh such an harmony between the jarring creatures , and so sweetly heals up the difference between god and the creatures , by his death ! of true faith , true love , and true resignation . to trust god with all one is , or hopes for for ever , this is true faith . to trust god with body , soul , spirit ; with his promises , with his covenant of grace , with his christ , with any thing whereby i might secure my self from being subject to his pleasure ; this is faith in good earnest , this is faith grounded upon true knowledg : he knoweth god indeed , who dareth thus trust him . let others trust god for salvation , but my spirit can never rest , till it dares trust god with salvation . to love god meerly for what he is , this is true love . to love god , not because of any appearance of his to us , not for the need we have of him , the good he does to us , or for that we hope for from him ; but for his own nature , for his own loveliness , this is true love . to love him and his motions in tormenting us , as well as in cheering and delighting us : to love him in making sin to estrange us from him , in making hell to cast us into , as well as in making holiness or heaven . this is a love , which no creature , no christian , can attain to , or comprehend ; but he alone knows what it is , and whence it came , who is possessed of it . to resign up all to god ; all outward things , all inward things ; all relations , ordinances , gifts , graces , desires , hopes , heaven , christ , every thing : to having nothing left to self , nothing left of self , but every thing gone . let it be so that i perish for ever , i had rather have it so , then have mine own will fulfilled . i know mine own will so well , that i desire to have it crossed , even in the things that nearest concern me . i would not be saved , as i have a minde to be saved . i have such a taste of the excellency of an hidden will , that i would not have it crossed , no not in the things that tend to my greatest prejudice . this may deserve the name of resignation . o what a stir there is with christians to resign up a few iusts to god , which they know and sensibly feel that 't is their happiness to part with , and yet how far are they from attaining this too ! but who durst resign up his righteousness in christ , and go and lie in the grave with the wicked ? it is no very easie task with christians to give up themselves to god at present , for him to do what he will with them , so he will bring them to heaven at last : but who durst say unto god , take me and throw me into hell , and let me lie there till i fall in love with it ; till i come to know and feel thee there , and fall in love with thee there , and become able to enjoy thee there . ah! miserable is that man that is afraid of hell , and is fain to court god to free him from hell , and to cross and deny himself for fear of being in danger of hell . that life deserveth not the name of life , that can lose any of its strength , vigour , pleasure , sweetness , enjoyment , in the midst of everlasting burnings . if sin could defile god , where were his holiness ? and if death could intrench upon his life anywhere , to damp or interrupt it , it would prove but a weak , a perishing life , obnoxious to intermixtures with death . thou canst trust god , o christian , in this present appearance of his to thee as a saviour of thee . thou canst love this sweetness , kindness , grace and goodness of his to thee . thou canst give up thy self to him , to do what he will with thee , so he will bring thee to this salvation . this thou hast attained to in some measure with much difficulty and striving . but canst thou measure the ways , thoughts or various appearances of that god whom thou thy self callest infinite and immeasurable ? art thou sure he can appear no otherwise then according to what thou expectest he will ? thou seest that the jews were cozened ( who were as confident , as thou canst be , that it should not be so ; ) is it impossible that thou shouldst ever be deceived in what thou further expectest , because thou hast gone a step or two beyond them ? is that which thou hast attained , and hoped for , of such an enduring nature , that it can never pass away ? cannot thy christ dye , and go away , in that which thou hast known , enjoyed , or hoped for of him ? look into thy religion , is it indeed pure and undefiled ? is it not self-ish at the very bottom ? is it from true and original light , that thou desirest and seekest for thine own salvation , or from a self-ish principle ? is thy faith , thy love , thy hope , thy joy , any thing that thou hast , spiritual ? are they not all self-ish ? do they not all rise , or sink , from self , and in reference to self ? o christian , if thou hast an ear to hear , hear . assuredly there is no staying here . this heaven , this hope , this life , this happiness , there is corruption , there is vanity writ in the very root of it . if thou couldst see into it , thou couldst not but see it to be of a perishing nature ; and if thou hadst thy senses about thee , thou couldst not but feel it passing away : and if thou hadst but the heart of a man , thou couldst not but desire and rejoyce at its dissolution . a word to christians . harken , o christians , such of you as have ears , for it neerly concerneth you . that excellency which ye set up , is indeed excellent . gospel-faith , gospel-love , gospel-obedience , patience , meekness , humility , heavenly-mindedness , &c. are glorious in their kinde , and far surpass any legal qualifications or performances whatsoever . but withall consider this . may not the glory of these fall before a greater glory ? may not this dispensation pass away ? and when it doth pass away , is not all the glory and excellency of it rouled up like a scrole , and cast aside with it ? every dispensation hath but its season wherein the light of it is to shine , but afterwards it must be put out , and be buried in the dark . the jews knew christ under the law , and it was an excellent knowledg compared with any thing the heathen had ; but what became of that knowledg ? christians have known christ under the gospel , and this kinde of knowledg did far excel that which was imparted to the jews ; but what shall , nay what is become of this ? and when this is out of date , persons are to be valued no more by it ; but the highest in this light , worship , faith , love , obedience , will be layd as even with the meanest , as the highest and strictest jews were ( when their dispensation fell ) with the lowest gentiles . thou mightest easily see , by the nature and course of the dispensation under which thou hast been , and because of which thou hast lifted up thy self above others , that it must fall , cannot but fall , hath still been falling , ( being not of a make to endure ; ) thou canst save neither it , nor thy self , by all thy strugling and contending . if thou beest wise , cease doting on this which is still sliding from thee , and look out after somewhat which will stick by thee , when thou and this come to part , which will be sooner then thou art aware of . this hath been evidently written in the signs of the times , and in the experience of many , but he that wants an eye cannot read , and he that thinks he hath an eye , cannot forbear mis-reading . little did the old israel think they could have been so deceived about the coming of the messiah : little did they think the messiah could have layd their laws and ordinances so flat , at his coming , as he did . it is impossible for that eye of wisdom to pierce into the various ways and appearances of god , which he greatly delights to hide them from . nothing is darker then the foregoing glory , when a new one succeeds . none are further from espying god in a new discovery , then those that had the clearest sight of him in the old . and there is ground in the nature of things for it , for they are hardliest drawn off from the old , which they must necessarily be , before they can be capable of entertaining the new . look to thy self in time , lest this strange catastrophe overtake thee unawares , lest thou , while thou art looking for most happiness from god , for greatest neerness to and intimacy with god , shouldst meet with most misery , by being cast behinde his back , when others ( whom thou much undervaluedst ) are admitted into his presence . of prayer . every creature hath some kinde of sense of its state : it feeleth its weakness , its wants , its misery . it hath some sense of that power from which it came , who provideth for it , who is leading it some whither : and it cannot but cry and complain to this power , according to what it feels and desires . the young ravens cry to it for food : the whole creation groaneth and panteth to it , to be delivered from its bondage . man , as he hath a clearer light then these , so he hath more clear addresses to it . there is a new-man , a new-born childe , begotten by the spirit of life , in an higher kind of life then this creation knows : and this childe hath a more spiritual , a more distinct , a more illuminated breathing towards this power ; which however it may for a season be interrupted , through the height of distemper , yet there will be a natural returning to it , when the new nature begins to strengthen again ; and then it will last , till it hath attained of that power , all that it is lead by him , to desire of him . christ , in the time of his agony , sent up strong cries and tears to him who was able to deliver him : and as his anguish increased , so he prayed more earnestly . by prayer , i do not mean any bodily exercise of the outward man ; but the going forth of the spirit of life ( in this state of weakness , whereunto it hath subjected it self ) towards the fountain of life , for fulness and satisfaction : the natural tendency of the poor , rent , derived spirit , towards the fountain of spirits . and this may be very vigorous in us , when it is untaken notice of by us . we can take notice of that , which we call the new birth , and the motions of it : but that is not the true birth , which is or can be taken notice of by the childe , which is always insensible when it is born , and of all its motions while it is a babe . the creatures , they cry to god , expressing their wants to him , as they are lead and taught by their nature ; but yet know not , either god , or that they pray . this childe may be lead as strongly in his kinde according to his nature , and yet be as ignorant either what he is , or what he does , as the other is . ah poor fleshly creatures ! how have we been buried in carnal forms and exercises , not knowing either god as a spirit , or any spiritual motion towards him ! indeed we have the outward part , an outward description of god as a spirit , and so of many other spiritual things , and a sense answerable thereunto , but not the inward sight of them . who knows either god , christ , faith , love , hope , prayer , or any thing else , spiritually ? we see these things with that eye which we call spiritual , but not with that eye which is truly spiritual : and so we have such a sight , such a spiritual sight of these things , as we call so ; but not such a sight as is indeed so . of sin : the being or existence of sin : the blotting out of sin ; and the difference between the creatures blotting out of sin , and gods blotting out of sin . sin is the transgression of a law ; which of what kinde and nature it is , of that nature the sin is . as the law is more gross and carnal , so is sin ; as the law is more inward and spiritual , so is sin likewise . it is from the law that sin hath its being and force , and according to the law which gives it its being , is its nature . it would be very offensive ( to weak blinde man ) to draw the pedigree of sin from god , who is holy and pure , who perfectly hates sin , and removes every thing from him that is tainted with it : yet for all that , god will not lose his honor , in giving that nature to the law , which gave to sin its nature . now sin hath the same reality in it , that the law , which maketh it , hath ; or the creature that commits it . sin is not a nothing , but as fully real as holiness , and as truly real as the creature it self . it hath such a kinde of reality and substance as other shadows have ; but truly substantial it is not , nor cannot be . if the creature it self be not substance , how can any thing else be so that comes from it ; that hath what it hath , in and throught it ? sin hath its part to act in every dispensation , and it is still the black engine of death , staining the beauty and glory that else would shine in every dispensation . but sin coming from the creature by force of a created law , is neither eternal in its rise , nor in its footing , and therefore cannot live to eternity , but as it had a being in time , so it must end in time . how can the spurious brat of the creature come to attain eternal life ? no , as it came in , so it must go out , it came in with the law , and it must go out with the law ; and as dispensations change , so the law changes ; and when all dispensations end , all laws end . there is a time to draw out the line of sin with a pencil prepared for it , and a time also to blot it out again . the blotting out of sin is the taking away the being of it , the striking it off from the score ; the destroying of it , that it is no more ; no more what it was , no more what it stood for , but is returned into the womb from whence it came , and is onely what it was there , before it came forth . it is sometimes expressed under this phrase of drowning in the bottom of the sea ; sin shall be drowned in the great sea , so as no eye shall be able to discern it , so as no creature shall be able to finde it out . iniquity may be sought for , but can no more be found , after it is perfectly bloted out . there is a double true blotting out of sin , which is effected , either by satisfying the law , or by breaking down the law and making it voyd . and this course god takes when he blots out sin : he satisfieth the law for the time past , and breaketh it down for the time to come , whereby all old debts are fairly absolved , and no new ones can possibly be incurred ; whereas the creature does it by changing its own imagination , which is of no true force and efficacy , but onely pleasing to the humor of the creature . it is a great vanity ( and that which now much abounds , ) the creature thinketh , that if it imagine sin to be no longer , that then it is no longer : but it shall at length finde , though sin be blotted out of its minde , to its view , yet it is not blotted out of gods mind . though they think him altogether such an one as themselves ; yet he will reprove them , and set their sins in order before their eyes . yet he hath a season himself also to blot out iniquity , and to remember sin no more . and he will effect his counsel when he sets about it , though man , in setting about it aforehand , fails , and makes himself a greater fool then he did in sinning . man thinks he can do it , and sets himself very confidently about it , and makes no question but to accomplish it ; he changeth his notion , and now all is changed , sin is gone , he doth , he can sin no more ; when , alass poor soul , sin and all the effects of sin ( which would also be gone , if sin were gone ) excepting such as flow from mans imagination concerning sin , stick close to him . there are multitudes of things ( as we call them ) which have onely a being in the imagination of the creature , and many sins there are of that kinde : now all such things fall wholly , when they are rased out of the imagination of the creature , which gave them their being . but besides these , there are things of another nature , and sins of another nature , which depend not upon the creatures imagining of them so to be , but upon their own frame and constitution : and sins of this nature have as great a reality ( for nature , though not in degree ) as the law which makes them so , and as the creaturely state it self ( they being all of the same stamp and kinde ) which abide the same that they are made , according to the wil of him who made them , being no whit changed in their frame and posture , how vast soever the changes in the apprehension of the creature be concerning them . this world hath a real existence in its kinde ( though indeed , in respect of inward truth , it is not , it hath no existence : ) and there is a general law of the whole creation , and a particular law of every creature in its peculiar state ; and there are fulfillings , and breakings of these laws : all which are so in themselves from their own nature ( and will one day be judged so ) and do not vary according to the imagination of the creature , but stand firm according to the rule whereunto they are set , and whereby they are made . and the creature is not bound or set free , by its own imagination , under any law ; but must answer for every thing it acts in that state wherein it is , according to that law which is prescribed to it , the force whereof it must feel and be subject unto , what ever it conceives concerning its present state , or freedom in it . so long as dispensations last , sin lasts . so far as the creature falls short of answering that dispensation , whereunder it is set , so far it sins : which sin is not measured by what the creature imagineth concerning it , but by the dispensation it self . an high and deep inspection , into the inward and spiritual state of things , may elevate the minde of the creature , but yet it cannot change the state of the creature , or lift it out of that dispensation , wherein it is , for its season , fixed . in this outward world , and outward state of things , the day and the night , summer and winter , and all things else in it , have their appointed times and seasons ; and are what they are appointed and made to be , what ever any one thinks of them . if man imagine summer to be winter , winter summer , day to be night , night to be day , or that both are one , or that there is neither one nor the other ; all this makes no alteration in the things themselves , but the natural man , with the eye of nature , can discern the person , who thus dreameth , to be defective and distempered in his naturals . and in the inward state , things remain the same also : sin is the same , christ the same , heaven , hell ; happiness , misery ; god , devil ; all the same they were , and vary not as we vary , thinking them one while to be thus , and another while thus . the spiritual man may have his sick fits , yea his fits of phrenzy , wherein he may imagine very strongly and confidently , yet this nothing alters the state of things , but they remain the same still both in themselves , and in their reference to him and others . he is never the further from sinning , by losing his fight and knowledg of sin . sin is of a deeper dye , then to be blotted out by notions of the brain . it was no mean piece of art to bring in sin ( the creature could never have done it of it self ) and it requires the same skill to blot it out again , which nothing but the blood of a living christ hath the least efficacy to do ; and that cannot but do it , for it contains in it both the things above mentioned , viz. both satisfaction to the law , and destruction of the law . yet , for all this , i must confess i cannot but think , that eternal life , love , power , and wisdom ( from whom all came , to whom all belongs , and in and for whom all is , what it is ) may take possession of whom it pleaseth , either of a particular person , or one sort of persons , and act them how it pleaseth , even contrary to all the laws and dipensations that himself hath set up , and this to be neither evil in him , nor in them . he who made the law , may by a power above the law act , in any he hath made , contrary to the law , when he pleaseth . the spirit of the lord is not bound by those laws , which he made to binde us with : nor are we bound , when he , by his almighty power and presence , looseth us . of the mystery of god . since this great fabrick of heaven and earth hath been made to appear , god hath ever been hiding himself : hiding himself in his life , being , motions , operations , so that no eye can see him , know what he does , or what he means , but that eye which is with him , where he is . there is no life but his , there is no power but his , there is no motion but his ( as all came from him , so all is and must be his own for ever ) and yet he , his life , his motions are so covered and kept so close within the vail , that it is impossible in any degree to discern them . we see the life of the creature , the motions of the creature , the intentions of the creature , the love or hatred of the creature ; and this we may see , for it is presented to our view : but that which is beneath these , that which is within these , with whom or before whom these are not , we cannot possibly see , until the scean be turned , and our eye changed . heaven and earth , at their first coming forth , were but a vail , behinde which god intended to hide himself , and did hide himself even from adam , in his highest and purest state . god indeed shewed himself to adam , as he appeared in the creature , as he shined through the vail ; but hid himself as he was in himself : so that adam could in no wise reach to the true vision , but onely to such an appearance as god pleased to dart forth of himself through the vail . when this state was broken , the vail was made thicker and the eye of flesh grosser ; so that now god hath more advantage to hide himself more deeply . the eye being so unapt to see , though there were no covering , and the covering being so condensated , that it were able to resist the nimbleness of almost any piercing eye ; god may lie still and act securely what he pleaseth , without the least jealousie of having his mystery discerned , or so much as suspected by flesh . after the breaking of this estate , there are assays to restore it . the whole creature is groaning , and panting , and striving after somewhat it hath lost . there is a light let out , both to discover the loss , and to guide to the recovery . there are several dispensations , both to the mass in general , and to some peculiar sorts picked out of it . now in all these motions , in every creature , under every dispensation , in all i say , whether direct motions or oblique motions , is god hidden , is the mystery of god hidden . god lies hid underneath in his secret shop : it is his head contrives all , it is his hand acts all . there is nothing , either in heaven or earth , acts of it self ; but as he moves , so it is moved by him . now when god hath done his whole work , when he hath accomplished all that is in his heart to do , when he hath acted all that he hath to act under board within the vail ; then he will rent the vail from himself , and rent the vail from the eye of the creature , and present his own workmanship to his own eye in the creature . then ye shall see what dispensations meant , what all his motions , ( under every dispensation ) both on the right hand and on the left hand , meant : then ye shall acknowledg , that not one motion that ever hath been throughout the whole creation , could have been spared in this workmanship , no not the most deformed ; but as it came equally from him with the most beautiful , so hath it its proper place and lustre in this his intricate piece of work . but before this , the creature must pass through all dispensations , and come to judgment ; every creature according to the dispensation it hath been under . and o how strict and exact will the judgment be ! according as it is found guilty must it be dealt with , and have death proportionable to its desert measured out unto it ; eternal death , it shall dye for ever and never live more , the smoak of its torment shall ascend for ever , and never be forgotten more . but the life which was in it , which was underneath it , shall not dye , but break forth and enjoy it self , and rejoyce in the destruction of its enemy . and though this death be not eternal as man hath imagined it ( for eternity consisteth not in duration of time , but hath a nature proper to it , whereby it is known and distinguished : eternal life liveth its own life , it s own eternal life , every moment , ) yet it is truly eternal , and the pain of it unutterable and lasting . this fire shall burn upon the flesh , till it hath quite consumed it ; the worm shall never dye nor leave gnawing , while there is any thing of flesh to be eaten up ; the prison doors shall not be opened , until the utmost farthing be payd . and then at last , when all is done , when it is wholly finished , then the meaning of all these things , the mystery of god , god in the mystery , the mystery in god , shall be opened : and then , eternal joy , everlasting life shall break forth . flesh shall grieve no more , feel no more , complain no more , when the fire hath spent its whole force upon it : the spirit shall suffer no more in flesh or because of flesh , when flesh is made a meet companion for it . when every thing in god appears , when every thing appears as it is in god , as it came forth from god , as it was managed by god , in that excellency , perfection , universal love and loveliness , that greater cannot be : when every creature shall see it was ever tendered , even when it seemed most neglected ; it was improved to the best advantage , when it seemed most cast off ; it could never have wished so well for it self , as it is provided for ; its death , life , misery , happiness , were all acted under a vail , and were none of them what it took them to be , but were all of them what it was best for it they should be : then shall glory shine round abound him , who is what none else is , who works as none else can . a parable translated out of jerem. . , , . moab hath been at ease from his youth , and he hath setled on his lees , and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel , neither hath he gone into captivity : therefore his taste remained in him , and his scent is not changed . therefore behold , the days come , saith the lord , that i will send unto him wanderers , that shall cause him to wander , and shall empty his vessels , and break their bottels . and moab shall be ashamed of chemosh , as the house of israel was ashamed of bethel their confidence . the moabites were bastard-israelites : not the children of abraham , but the children of lot ; nor the legitimate children of lot neither . they were of kin to israel , of the blood of israel , but not in a direct , but in a collateral line . now god , who orders all things towards all persons , acts very differently towards the israelites and these . he is very sharp and severe towards his own people , but very gentle towards these . israel was afflicted from his youth up , he is ever and anon scourging israel : moab hath been at ease from his youth ; moab meets with nothing to dissettle him , nothing to trouble him , nothing to disquiet him , but enjoys his portion , his habitation from his very youth : enjoys his god , his worship , hath plenty , prosperity , all goes well with moab . famine often befalls israel , that they are fain to run for relief into the land of moab : but moab meets with no such misery or distress , moab hath been at ease from his youth . israel hath been tossed and tumbled up and down , emptied from vessel to vessel , carryed up and down into several captivities one after another , never suffered to rest in his own land : but it hath not been so with moab , moab hath not been thus emptied , moab hath not thus gone into captivity . this is the different dispensation of god towards israel , and towards moab . now there followeth a different effect . moab setles upon his lees , enjoys , possesses his rest , and that strength which flows from rest , has that in his state which keeps it fresh , quick , living , which preserves his excellency , as the lees do the wine . therefore his taste remained in him , and his scent is not changed . there are two excellent properties in wine , the taste and the scent , both which are preserved by the vessel wherein it is kept . let a nation settle in peace , and it will gather and keep its sweetness , its freshness , its beauty , its glory : but toss and tumble it , remove it out of one place into another , it quickly loseth all . empty wine out of one vessel into another ; the taste , the scent quickly changeth . and this is the common lot of the people of god , his dearest his strictest ones ; by his continual tossing and tumbling of them , by his continued , sharp , vehement exercises upon their spirits , they come to lose their taste ; their taste changes , their scent changes ; that sweetness , that freshness , that vigor which was once in them , quickly wasteth and passeth away , after they have been a while emptied from vessel to vessel . o what a sweet taste is there in a true israelite , a lively israelite ! how lovely is the israel of god when it is new-made , when it comes newly out of the fingers of god! moab is not worthy to be compared to him , for taste , for scent . but how suddenly is this changed , by gods emptying him from vessel to vessel ? but now it is otherwise with moab , with the more bastardly fort : their excellency , their life , their beauty , their religion , their loveliness remains still the same . they are not thus emptied from vessel to vessel , and therefore they keep that taste and scent they had . but shall it always be thus ? no , there shall be a time for moab to be met with too . though judgment must begin at the house of god , yet it will not end there , but after he hath done with israel , he will begin with moab ; after he hath done emptying israel , he will empty moab , and then he shall lose his taste and scent also . and then he shall finde , that it was not for his excellency beyond israel , that he scaped all this while : his religion , his god , his worship , was not of so much value beyond israels , because he thrived in it , and kept up the life and vigor of it , when israels was falling , and a great degree fallen : but he shall be ashamed of that god that he framed to himself , as well as israel was of that god they framed to themselves . that which might carry the bell for excellency , o christians , is fallen , is smitten to death . that knowledg of god , that life , that zeal , that holiness , which did sparkle with lustre and heavenly beauty , hath not been spared : but that which is of a more degenerate birth , doth yet live ; but shall it live ? can god be just in making israel ashamed of bethel , and suffer moab to go on prosperously in worshipping chemosh ? no certainly , it cannot be thus ; but moab shall be made ashamed of chemosh , as the house of israel was ashamed of bethel their confidence . a word to the mad folks . ye have been very eminent ( many of you ) formerly in your generations , the springing up and sprouting forth of your religion , strictness of conversation , sweetness of deportment , hath yeelded an wholesom savor to all with whom ye have conversed . ye have sweetly enjoyed god ( though ye have now forgot it ) not onely at a distance in longing desires , but neerer at hand , even in close embraces : gifts , graces , ordinances , duties , spiritual exercises of all kindes ye have been well acquainted with ▪ and have known how to suck life through them , and ( if ye have been skilful indeed ) how to let them fall , and fasten upon the life it self but now ye are dead to all this . all this is gone and passed away : ye have been slain to this by him who was wont to convey life to you through it : he that built you , hath made you desolate . and as your frame and fabrick , was more beautiful and glorious , then was elsewhere to be found : so proportionable have been your ruine and desolations from the lord , who hath dealt so sharply with none , as with you : it hath not been done to any under heaven , so as hath been done to jerusalem . and it is not fit a book of lamentations should be written for you , because nothing that can be said is deep enough to express your misery . ye are so slain to your religion , that the very sweetness , life , vigor , power , purity of it stinks in your nostrils . that which , to others , carries the greatest excellency , carries to you the greatest abomination . thus far are ye dead indeed : and because ye have felt so great a power of death seizing upon you , ye think ye have felt all the pangs of it , and have nothing now to look for but the breakings forth of life , and are ready beforehand to name every thing so that passeth through you . the creature is passed away , and whatsoever now appears in you or to you , is god . sin is now gone , ye are not under any law , and therefore cannot sin . the creature is swallowed up , there is nothing left but the lord in being , the lord in motion and operation , in whom can be no evil , from whom can come no evil . all things , all actions are alike , there is no difference ; god is all and in all , who is every way full , every way like himself , in all he is , in all he does . how now sirs ? where are ye ? are ye dead ? are these the postures of death ? is there any such knowledg in the grave ? hath the dead man any such reasonings , such light , such principles in him ? this is a life of an higher nature , then that which ye had before . your bottles are not empty , but filled with new , with fresh wine . ye dissemble , if ye say ye are dead , who thus speak : ye can praise your own notions , your own principles , and condemn all others : ye have a new desire , a new hope , a new interest , a new strain of life in every kinde ! are ye dead sirs ? doth not the faine life live subtilly in you , as did before , under a strange disguise ? o that ye were indeed dead ! o that ye were as sober and silent as those that are in the grave ! if ye be dead , make it appear ; take your rest in the grave , stir not thence , till life quickens you . have no party , no interest , no principle , no desire , no end : but lie like the clay before the potter , free to be molded any way . but ye are very skilful ; ye can tell what ye shall never be more , and what ye must be next , what in the issue , and the way ye must pass to it : o depth , o height of wisdom ! here is wisdom in its very life and strength . how strangely do your hearts deceive you , to make you think , ye are dead ! i am sure , ye had need have life , to carry you through what ye undertake : for ye set about two of the greatest works , that ever were undertaken , viz. to pluck down , and to plant ; to destroy and to build ; to throw down the greatest glory of god that ever yet was discovered , and to set up a greater . christ , the spirit of christ , the life of christ , the salvation by christ , are all nothing before you ; these ye lay flat without any scruple : all manner of sin , wickedness , filthiness , abomination , these ye set up . ye magnifie what ever god expresseth himself to loath ; and ye loath what ever god sets a price upon . but harken , o mad souls ! ye have understanding to speak , to reason ; make use of a little to hear . are ye sure that sin shall be thus lovely ? nay are ye sure that it is so lovely at present , that ye make no bones of it in any kinde ? is not the whole creation under some law , which judgeth sin in what kinde soever it be , and hath proportioned smart unto it ? may not ye your selves sin , and be met with for sin , though ye can acknowledg neither ? that ye will live before your time , is not this your sin ? and that ye will be holding out eternal life before ye have received it , and d●clare how things are in the bosom of eternity , before ye know how they are in any creaturely dispensation ? and may ye not be met with for this ? may ye not be given over ( for a season ) to such a bastardly life as is far worse then death ; as falls short of your former life , even the life of your religion , which ye now so much despise , having no true excellency in it , but misery and vanity written so plainly in the face of it , that the very eye of the creature may read it ? and are ye sure that christ the life of christ , salvation by christ , are passed away ? if not , why do ye hold it forth ? if ye be , why do ye say ye are dead ? can ye consider what is now to be spoken ? ye are both dead , and alive : dead to principles , and alive to principles : dead to one poor weak shallow state , and alive to another inferior to it . ye are far yet from tasting of eternal death , and farther from tasting of eternal life . ye have been too hasty to conceive and bring forth , and therefore the birth must miscarry , and the womb be destroy●d . what ye have said must fall , as well as what others have said before you . your testimony , either for or against things , deserveth not to be received . indeed , that which eternal wisdom hath written upon your state and condition , deserves to be diligently read , and wo be to him who mis-reads it , or neglects to read it : but the words that ye speak in this state and in this condition , are of very little value , further then they make the state it self more clear and evident . come sirs , let us be ●●ill . we are broken , we are distressed , our life is slain , our eyes are put out , we cannot see ; let us not pretend to it . let us not say what shall be , nay not so much as what is : let us not say what shall not be , nay not so much as what is not . let us not be too forward to throw away christ , and salvation by christ , we may come , for ought we know , to stand in need of them . let not us be imagining a new christ , while we are blaming others for imagining an old . let not us come forth with a new imagination of god to be all things , and lay this down as a principle , and thereupon work it out in our reason , that all things must be alike , all good , &c. but stay till we see , and know what he is in his own light , and with his own eye : and then when any of these things appear to us certainly , infallibly , let us without fear hold them forth , so far as that light , that life , that power guideth us . till then , for mine own part , i am resolved to be very still and silent , and not to speak a word concerning these things , further then mine own spirit within presseth me : and if i be made a fool or mad ( for sure i am , i may be made any thing ) so long as i have so much ingenuity left in me , i will confess my self so to be , and ( if it be i that speak ) that i speak after that rate , and not wish any to regard any thing that comes from me , but to seek out a bottom on which they may safely build . yet as i cannot advise any , to receive any thing that passeth through me ; so neither can i advise them to neglect and slight it : because i know not what it is that speaks , nor what it is that is spoken , and therefore must needs be ignorant how it is to be entertained ; which i am not at all solicitous about , but very indifferent in my spirit concerning . a letter . dear heart , i have looked upon thee , as the captain of that generation , whom my soul loveth , whom , of all persons , my spirit ( through the strength of love ) turneth most vehemently towards , and most vehemently from . your life i love , though it be deeply hid and covered ; your covering i love likewise , because it is so fit to hide that life , which must not yet be seen : but that the thick , black , dark covering should exalt it self , as if it were the life , before it be swallowed up in the life , is very nau●eous and dis●el●shing to me . your brave resolute spirit , that dares trample upon heaven and earth , laying your levelling line to all things , is of much value and excellency with me ; yet your creaturely coming forth in weakness and darkness , your managing this from principles of reason and creaturely understanding , which hath deceived all men that have leaned upon it , and cannot but deceive at last , though it may give very firm ●ooting to some : in respect of others at present , this my throat cannot swallow , nor my stomack digest . and let me a little open my heart to you , and if in true light you finde it dark , send it back to me further opened by that light . ye hold out certain notions and principles , such as these , that god is all , that all things are good , that all things are alike , &c. understand ye what ye say ? speak ye these things wildly , or comprehensively ? can ye shew the several lines and gradations of good and evil , how far they go , on whom they take place , in what respect , and how long , and where , and when , and how , they come to be swallowed up ? otherwise , though ye may speak a truth ; yet from you and to you it is but a lye . in former days , and under former dispensations , ye could speak truth , yet not understanding it , ye found it a lye to you : ye are gone but one step further in that which must pass away as vanity , unless your feet be indeed fixed upon the onely bottom , not as it appears , but as it is . tell me , see ye these things in original light ? not in that light , which streamed forth in you , or to you ; but in that light which dwells in the fountain ? all the streamings forth of light have colours , which cannot but deceive every eye , which saw them not before they were coloured , and how they were coloured , and is not yet able to pierce into them , or through them , while they are coloured . things so refracted , as appearing all to be good and in god , what excellency is there in this , what certainty is there in this ? indeed in some respect it may excel other appearances , but in other respects it must fall beneath them . to look upon my self as god by virtue of a notion ( how ever conveyed or received ) and finde my self but a creature in life , in motion , in power , is very irksom to a noble spirit , which loves not to make a sound above what it is or feels . this i have felt , power enough to batter to confound me in every thing ; but no power to build any thing , or so much as to fix me in a state of confusion . but ye are differently acted : ye know , ye understand things : ye have principles to bottom upon : ye have received the light , and life , with certainty and satisfaction in that light . well let it prove so ; but my spirit is ready to say it cannot prove so , but that all that ye have received ( as yet ye have received ) must pass away and prove a lye : and that ye will be as sick of saying . god is all , all is good , all is alike , &c. as ever ye have been of any of your former notions . shall i tell you what my spirit in the dark saith concerning these things ? it speaketh thus : that it will be so one day , as ye say ; god will be all , all good , all alike , yet not so as you or i speak , or can understand it : and therefore though we knew these things , yet had we not whereof to boast , because our knowledg in this kinde will vanish and deceive us , as well as the knowledg of others in other kindes hath , and must deceive them . my spirit saith yet further : that it is so at present , to him who doth not vary , and to whom nothing else can vary ; and also to those who are one with him , and perfectly live in him . but , that it cannot be so to the creature in its creaturely state , while it remains under any dispensation , or hath any dispensation to pass through . it is not the changing of the imagination of the creature , that maketh any real change in things beheld by the creature , or in the state of the creature it self . and the present frame of these earthly moldering tabernacles seemeth to me suited onely to different administrations , but quite voyd of any capacity of entertaining and enjoying absolute perfection , though perfection cannot be hindred by them , from enjoying it self in them . silence . there is a time to speak , and a time to be silent . when the light of the day discovereth things as they are , it is then a time to utter and declare what they are : when darkness and confusion covereth them , it is not proper for the tongue to be uttering , what the eye cannot see . nothing is more beseeming , though nothing more difficult to the fool , then silence . the wise man can hold his tongue when he should not ; but the fool must be babling , though he himself cannot but confess , he hath nothing to say . o god , what a strange kinde of night is this , which affords no rest , which admits of no stilness ! what a noise the empty creature makes , talking as if it were filled with all the fulness of god , when as yet it is far from being emptied of it self ! where is the tongue of the learned , to speak a skilful word , a true word , a word in season ! vain man may easily trample upon christ and the apostles , and dash their glory out of countenance , as weak and fading ; but who can bold forth a glory beyond them ? nay , who can yet shew a glory equal with them ? who can speak , or act like them ? we have prophets who see great strange visions , wonderful visions and revelations , beyond all that yet hath been . we have spiritual men who see into the mysteries , into the depths of god , who can fathom every thing , and laugh all off from the stage that suiteth not with their measure . ah wise flesh , whither wilt thou go ? or whither art thou leading ? where wilt thou stop ? when wilt thou crouch , and take up that sentence of condemnation which thou hast layd upon others , which doth as properly appertain to thee , as unto any others ? no flesh shall glory or be justified in his presence , who is now breaking forth . the prophet is already a fool , the spiritual man is already mad . into the fool wisdom cannot enter , ( bray him never so much in the mortar , yet his folly will not depart from him : ) nor is the mad man capable of a right , sober , true understanding of things : nor is it possible for either to be silent , until they be cast as powerfully into it , as they were into this prophetical folly and spiritual madness ; and then they shall be as unable to speak , as now they are to forbear speaking . when their brains are weary of imagining , their tongues of expressing , and their hearts speak plainly , that all is vanity ; that which springs up from within , as well as that which is received in from without ; both head , heart and tongue will begin to fail , and at last faint , and cease from these kinde of motions : and then it will be time for him , who truly understands things , to speak , when every mouth else is stopped . a check to the judger of his brethren . from cor. . vers . . but with me it is a very small thing that i should be judged of you , or of mans judgment : yea , i judg not mine own self . how prone is man to be judging ! man hath an eye and light , in his day ; and he cannot forbear passing his judgment either upon things or persons . the natural man will be judging natural things ; and the spiritual man will be judging spiritual things . men will be judging men , and christians will be judging christians , yea both will be judging both . and as men grow in light and experience , so much the more confident are they in their judgment : and 't is so with christians too ; a church , a gifted church will not spare passing their sentence on the very prime of the apostles . in this place three things are held out . . the nature of this judgment . 't is but mans , 't is but in mans day , in mans light ; 't is a judgment passed by man . mark it well ; the judgment of the churches in the apostles times , when the spirit was poured out so abundantly , yet it was but mans judgment . that was not the day of god , it was but the day of man . there was not so much light even then broke out from god , as to make the day of god appear in man . . the invalidity or worthlessness of this judgment in pauls account . with me it is a very small thing that i should be judged of you , or of mans judgment . man cannot be more forward to judg me , then i am to slight him in that action . alass , what is man ! what value is he of ! wherein is he to be accounted of ! what is the judgment worth that he passeth upon things ? paul , though he had not seen the perfect light of god , yet he had seen enough to discover to him the shallowness of the light of man . the time is not yet come to judg , nor the light whereby the true state of things is to be discerned , and therefore a right judgment of things cannot be produced : and though man will be so forward as to judg aforehand by way of anticipation , yet it will stand for nothing then , nor is it of any true value now . it is a very small thing with me , a thing i make as light of as may be . though ye are a church of christ , though ye have the gifts of the spirit ; yet if ye will set about judging once , i do not regard you one rush ; it hath no manner of impression upon my spirit as a matter of any seriousness , as a matter worth regard : with me it is a very small thing that i should be judged of you . or of mans judgment . i do not onely speak of you , but any else , any other church : i see how blinde and ignorant the best of men are , and how unfit for any such undertaking , and can say to the best of ye all , who art thou that judgest another mans servant ? to his own master he standeth or falleth . i can except against the person who judgeth , be he what he will : who art thou ? pray how comest thou to be so exalted , as to come to judg another ? art thou his lord ? art thou master ; it belongs to the lord to be judg : thou hast no more right to judg thy fellow-servant , then he hath to judg thee . besides , 't is the day of man , and so but the light of man . the lord hath kept his own light for his own day , and so thou canst not discern the true nature and state of things , what they are in themselves , what force there was from without ; thou canst not see how they lie in the heart , nor how they come forth from the heart : all which must be throughly seen , and duly weighed , before righteous judgment can be passed . therefore the lord knowing how unfit man is for this work , hath forbid him it , hath bound him up very close , left him to judg nothing before the time , till the lord bring forth the hidden things of the heart , which is as necessary to judgment as any thing else . and man might easily discern , how unfit he is to judg , in this respect : for there is hardly any sort of persons judged by others , but this is their refuge , they run presently for shelter to the integrity of their own hearts ; and though at some times and in some cases it be very improbable , yet it is very hard fairly to overthrow them . were it not therefore better to stay till the appointed time , when all things shall be made clear , then to be passing an uncertain , and consequently an unrighteous judgment , and thereby to expose thy self to judgment ? wherein if thou shouldst come off for judging aright , yet thou wilt not come off in this respect , for judging afore the time : neither canst thou be justified in thy judging , though thou shouldst judg aright , because thou didst it but by ghess , and not in the clear and universal light of the day . . the apostles modesty upon the knowledg and sense of this ; yea i judg not mine own self - a man hath great advantage of judging himself . there is none can look into a mans heart so as himself may . the chief consideration in every action is the reference it hath to the heart . a mans heart may justifie him wherein all others condemn him , and a mans heart may condemn him wherein all others justifie him . and upon this ground a man may more safely judg himself , then he can judg any else , because he may observe the passages of things from his heart , and the influence they have upon his heart better then others can , or then he can observe in others . the apostle had greater advantage of judging himself then most men . he had that light which gave him a true insight into things , and a truer insight into his own heart , then others could attain to . yet saith the apostle , i judg not mine own self : i see clearly that there is a greater a more searching light to judg me , then as yet i have received , and how things will appear by that , i know not . and therefore i value not mine own justification of my self in any thing . if man condemn me , i regard not that condemnation ; and if mine own heart clear me , i set no great esteem on that neither . there is another judgment which i must stand or fall by , as like wise every motion within me , and every action that cometh from me : but what others think , or what i my self think in the mean time concerning these things , is not much material . o how sober doth true light , spiritual light , powerful light , make the person in whom it is ▪ he can enjoy it , and yet not be lifted up by it . he can use it , and go beyond any ; in the use of it , to whom it is not communicated in the same degree , and yet not stretch it beyond its line . he can judg beyond others ; more clearly , more truly ; more certainly ; and yet , in his own spirit , lay his own judgment lower and flatter then others can theirs , who judg weakly , foolishly , falsly . but who writes after this copy ? man , now-a-days , is as short of this sobriety , as he is of this light . where is the man that judgeth not himself , that judgeth not others ; that justifieth not himself , that condemneth not others ? look upon the natural man , upon the religious man , upon the inward and spiritual man : they are all able to judg , all able to justifie , all able to condemn . the natural man , he hath his principles of reason , whereby he judgeth . so far as he himself or others walk up to them , he justifieth himself and others ; so far as they differ or fall short ; he condemneth them . yea he is so bold that he will lay this very line to religion and religious persons , and condemn it , further then it suits with the rule of his reason . but how little doth he consider the weakness , the shallowness , the uncertainty of these principles ? and therefore is not drawn to set so low a rate upon this his judgment , as he ought to do . the religious man , he hath his light to judg by too . the turks ▪ their alcoran : the papists , their church ; or at best the scriptures interpreted by men of their own principles : we , the scriptures interpreted by men of our principles . ( indeed we go beyond them , in taking a further latitude to our selves then they allow of ; yet withall we cannot but see the inconveniency of that latitude , but know not where to pitch upon an infallible remedy , for want whereof we are often endevoring to set up one much like theirs . doth not every one almost see a necessity of deciding things in difference , and thereupon desire that the decision might be put to that sort of persons whom they most affect , and judg most able ? and what is this but an hood winking our selves for quietness sake , a running in a circle into the same foundation of error and deceit , for which we blame the papists ? ) now we all judg one another very confidently . the turks judg the papists , and us : the papists judg the turks , and us : we judg both turks and papists . so among our selves , there are several sorts and sects , different opinions about several things ; differences in points of government and worship , differences in matters of faith , in matters of practise , in interpretations of scripture in reference to all these . what do we all do ? why , every man thinketh and judgeth himself in the right , condemneth all others , making no bones of laying blame , of laying accusations of error and disturbance upon them . the inward or spiritual man , he will be judging too . all things without , he casts by without any scruple ; there is nothing can stand before him , but the light within : and all things within or from within , that vary from his track , that differ from his light , from his sense , from his experience , must come under his lash . and this is a great exception which hath been very strong in my spirit against all that hath appeared in this kinde ; that they break forth with a great vehemency of unbounded judging ; they come forth with a fleshly interest , and for that they fight very vigorously with all that stands in their way . now what shall become of thee , o man ! is it not high time for thee to be taken down ? thou , who hast ever been judging , dost thou think thou shalt never come to judgment ? thou , who hast still been judging the things of god in thy day , by thy light , without the light of god , must be judged for this in the day of the lord , and by the light of the lord . thou now justifiest thy self , that thou keepest within thy bounds , thou judgest no further then thou hast ground and warrant to do : we shall see what will become of this plea then . judg not , saith christ . and he himself forbare judging ( i judg no man , joh. . . ) though if he had judged , his judgment had been true , vers . . yet being not his time to judg , though he was to be judg , he could forbear his sentence , until the proper season of it . judg nothing before the time , saith paul , until the lord come , who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness , and will make manifest the counsels of the heart . and what he counselleth others , he practised himself : for notwitstanding the great advantage he had both of light and experience , yet he would not venture to judg so much as himself , either positively to condemn or justifie himself . if others accuse him , he can wipe off their accusation , and justifie himself in respect of any thing they can lay to his charge : but yet he does this as a fool , he cannot justifie himself understandingly , but even in this very thing may he be foiled , when he comes to a stricter tryal and judgment . and the apostle , knowing this , though he could tell how to clear himself from any blame men might fasten upon him , yet he did not value it at all , but suspended even his judgment concerning himself , until the time of tryal . how wilt thou hold up thy head , o thou self-justifier ( who art confident thou shalt stand in judgment , and art sure that in such and such particulars thou shalt not be cast ) and severe condemner of thy brethren ! if thou knewest but the pure and searching nature of that light , whereby thou shalt be judged , thou wouldst be of another minde then thou art ▪ and the less thou know●st it , the more strange will it be to thee when it comes , and thy judgment the more unexpectedly dreadful . the true ground of mourning , with an invitation to it . luk. . , . and he said unto them , can ye make the children of the bride-chamber fast while the bridegroom is with them ? but the days will come , when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them , and then shall they fast in those days . there are two great exceptions against christ , his ministry , and followers , a little before these words . . his keeping company with the looser sort . vers . . the scribes and pharisees murmured against his disciples , saying , why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners ? they expected , that the holy one ( when he once came ) should have picked out the most holy ones to have conversed and delighted himself with , and not have associated himself with the vile and profane sort . . their distance from that strictness and exactness wherein others walked , and wherein they expected him and his to exceed , and not to fall short . vers . . why do the disciples of john fast often , and make prayers , and likewise the disciples of the pha●irisees , but thine eat and drink ? men that are addicted to a kinde of devotion and strictness cannot relish any thing that comes out of that way : christ himself , his followers , his and their practises , cannot but be judged by them , if they fall short herein . christ gives them an account of both these . of the former , vers . , . they that are whole need not a physician , &c. where should a physician be but with his patients , with those that are sick , with such as need and desire his skill . of the latter here , in these , and , verses . can ye make the children of the bride-chamber fast , while , &c. why , says he , there is no possibility of it , no suitableness of it to their present state : ye cannot make them fast ; they cannot fast , if they would . can ye make the children of the bride-chamber fast while the bridegroom is with them ? &c. the children of the bride-chamber . in this great bulk of the earth , which hath been generally cast off since the fall of man , there hath still been some parcel which god hath picked out , in a more especial manner to own as his , to converse with , and to please himself in . some he hath still picked out for his children , for his spouse , for his own lot and inheritance . to these he is the bridegroom , they his bride ; he their god , they his people ; he the father , they his children , &c. thus he picked out abraham and his seed : then the whole people of the jews . thus he picked out the twelve apostles : then the whole spiritual seed that came , as it were , out of their loins . now particular persons in this body , they are members of the whole . the whole together , maketh up the society , or church , or bride : the particular persons are members , or children of the bride-chamber . this phrase , children of the bride-chamber , notes their weak state at present while they are under dispensations : they are not grown up to be a bride , they are but a bride in seed , in child-hood , under age . though they be in the bride-chamber , made much of by the bridegroom , yet this is not purely as a spouse , but as children . their society and sports together are but weak and childish , not grave and solid ; like such as are between the father and the child , not like such as are between the man and the wife . their very nuptial pleasure in the bride-chamber can be but suitable to their own state : they can yield delight to the bridegroom but according to what is in them , and they can receive from the bridegroom but according to their own capacity . fast or mourn . fasting is but an expression of grief or mourning ; an effect that cometh from it , a companion that accompanieth it , a means to give further scope to it . grief takes away the stomack from the meat : grief and fasting are companions : fasting giveth vent and scope to grief . therefore was fasting appointed to the jews , to further their mourning , that they might have full scope to grieve and mourn , that they might afflict their souls before the lord . now the season of fasting is in those days , when the bridegroom is taken from the church , from the spouse , from the children of the bride-chamber . obs. . when god is present with his people in any dispensation , communicating himself to them according to the nature of that dispensation , it is no proper season of grief . there is none can make them grieve then : they cannot grieve then , if they would . can ye make the children of the bride-chamber fast while the bridegroom is with them ? reas. all cause of joy is present , and all cause of grief is removed . what is the great cause of joy , indeed the whole cause of joy in and to the heart of the church ? why this . enjoying of god , and pleasing of god . this is all that the spouse desires ; to enjoy her husband , and to please her husband : and this is present . what ever is in god , all his sweetness , goodness , life , power , love , &c. is let out ( according to the nature and degree of the di●pensation ) into the heart of the spouse , by his presence : what ever the spouse woul● be to him , what ever the spouse can desire to be to him , what ever he would have her be to him , he makes her to be by his presence . this is the state of the bride in the b●ide-chamber : the soul hath , what it would ; from her husband ; the soul is , what she would be , to her husband , in her degree , and according to the dispensation . and then , there is no matter of grief . all enemies , all accusations , all troubles ; all fears , are damped by the presence of her husband . nay sh● cannot so much as star the loss of her husband ; for while he is so near her , that she can look into his heart , she seeth that it is impossible for him to part from her , further then she would have him : it is by mutual consent that they part for a time , that they may both dye in that present relation of weakness , wherein they cannot enjoy one another fully according to their hearts desire ; that they may meet again in perfection . they estrange themselves mutually from these weak , low , vanishing embraces , that they may attain to eternal and everlasting embraces . obs. . there is a season for the bridegroom and his spouse to part . in every dispensation there is a time of enjoyment , a time of life , a time of sweet solace and delight between god and his people in it ; and a time of death . god hath a time to leave the bride-chamber , and then the bride loseth his presence , and all that sweetness which she found in it . reas. it is necessary that god ( thus appearing , thus enjoyed ) should go away : both to make way for further dispensations , ( that every dispensation may have his course , ) and to put an end to all dispensations . if god did not pass away in one dispensation , how could he make way for the discovery of himself in another ? and if he did not cause all dispensations to wither and dye , how could he bring forth his own life and glory , which was before all dispensations , passes through all dispensations , and can alone discover it self by swallowing up all dispensations , and representing that vastness and incomprehensibleness which cannot appear in any dispensation whatsoever , but must have its own limits to discover it self in ? obs. . when the bridegroom and the bride ( or children of the bride-chamber ) are parted , there is true cause of grief . then is the proper season of grief : then there will be mourning and lamentation in the heart of the spouse . such a ground of grief , meeting with such a subject of grief , must needs cause it to swell within , and to spout forth abundantly . . this is the true cause of grief . there is no true cause of grief but the loss of god . there is no true cause of joy but the enjoyment of god . there is nothing the heart of the spouse doth truly hanker after , but god : and since it cannot taste immediate enjoyment , o how sweet it is to enjoy him in dispensations ! and the loss of this is very bitter , which appears in this . let the soul lose all things , and enjoy its god , it hardly misseth any thing : let the spouse have all manner of delights and contents , and miss god , it can take pleasure in nothing . since god hath wrapped up himself in his own absolute perfection , there is nothing worth seeking after , but him in a dispensation : and there is nothing worth lamenting , but the loss of him in that dispensation . . this is the true subject of grief , and that in divers respects . in respect of the tenderness of her spirit . the more tender the spirit is , the more capable is the person of grief . there is none so tender as the church : none like to christ for bowels , and the same bowels have his church . a little matter of grief will take great impression upon a tender spirit . oh how does a little unkindness from god wound and grieve his people ! what will then his total departure do ? and in respect of the largeness of her heart . by communion with god ; by knowing , tasting and enjoying of god , she comes to have a large heart , and so to be more capable of joy or sorrow . none can bear her joys , wherewith she is filled , in enjoying of god : and none can give entrance unto such wounds and sorrows as she receives upon his departure . and lastly in respect of her love . her love was wondrous great ; her whole heart was set upon him ; her life , her content , her very soul was bound up in him . this makes a loss very bitter ; when not onely the thing lost was very excellent , but the whole heart of the party was wrapped up in it . consider this , o ye who forget the afflictions of joseph ! the whole creation groaneth and mourneth , because they sensibly miss their creaturely perfection and happiness : but the spirit of the bride mourneth very bitterly , because she much more feeleth the want of her bridegroom . o how love-sick is the poor spouse ; her eyes full of tears , her heart full of grief , her thoughts restless , her desires endless , and she altogether uncapable of any comfort , while she misseth her beloved ! o mourn with jerusalem ye that truly love her : was ever sorrow like unto her sorrow ? was ever destruction and desolation like unto that which hath lighted on her ? let us press after vnity , so far as we may . we cannot all be one in enjoyments , one in dispensations ; because we do not all enjoy , nor are we all cast into one form and dispensation by him who delights to bring us forth in great variety : but we may be one in grief . there are none enjoy so much , but that they have still cause enough to mourn over what they want ; and if they can spare any grief in respect of themselves and their own condition , there are enough besides to expend it upon , which true love ( where it is lively and sympathizing ) will easily teach them how to do . but ye , who will by no m●ans be drawn off from beating your fellow-servants , and persecuting them whom the lord hath smitten ; go on , enjoy your pleasure , till the bridegroom be awakened by the spirit of the bride , which cryeth very vehemently , come , oh come , come ; how long ! when , when , oh when ! and then ye will not need to be put upon mourning , though that mourning which will then light upon you , is likely to be more chargeable , and less profitable , then that which ye are now invited to . a touch more concerning sin , as also concerning the liberty and perfection of the creature , with an exhortatory close to such as are capable of it . sin , is the deviation of the creature from that rule which is prescribed to it , by him who made it , according to its make , nature and state wherein it is set . the creature is not its own original , but was made by another ; and he who made it hath given it its nature , set it in its station , appointed it its course , and its compass or rule , whereby it should steer ; the deviation from which is sin , and layeth the creature open to his lash , who is its king and law-giver , and will call it to an account . poor weak man doth not make laws for nothing , but looketh to have them boundaries , and doth execution upon violation : and can you think the mighty , eternal , everlasting being , the great king , is more slight and trivial then man , in the laws he writes in the natures of all things and persons ? liberty is the freedom of the creature to walk up to this rule . it seeth its present happiness to lie in it , and therefore cannot but press towards it , which if it find no cumberance in , it may be said to be free . when it hath no inclination within , nor nothing from without can have any power upon it to draw it aside , but it goes on sweetly , vigorously , easily , according to its hearts desire , both in pursute and enjoyment , then it is free . while it is subject to contrary desires , to temptations to the contrary , it is in bondage : but when it is set free from these , and indued with full power to walk up to its rule , it is made free indeed . this was the freedom christ enjoyed , ( which of you convinceth me of sin ? there was no guile found in his mouth . ) this was the freedom christ preached ; this was the freedom christ promised , to set men free from sin . and this was the liberty the apostl●s likewise sought after , and pressed others to : they could do nothing against the truth , but for the truth ; nothing against god , but only for god . ( i know in one sence nothing can be done against god , but in another sence many things may be done against him , and as yet are , by all under all dispensations . ) not that they could do no evil ; that what ever they did was good : but the inward inclination of their spirits was otherwise , and they had power ( in a great measure ) to follow this inclination , and to resist and overcome what would set upon them to draw them to the contrary . they tasting of this , in a degree , tasted of true spiritual liberty , which the greatest freedom unto sin , is not . if i had never so much liberty within me to curse , swear , drink , whore , &c. ( let me speak a little broadly , as is now very usual , ) for my part , i profess , i could not look upon this as liberty ; but as a new strain of bondage , engaging me unto that which there is an impression in my mind and nature against , and which my very sense discovereth to me to be contrary to the sweetness and content of the creaturely state . i protest , for my part , i cannot desire any such freedom , nor conceive how there can be any true delight in any such goings forth , nor see how they can come from , or be accompanied with true freedom in any whatsoever transportations may attend them therein . when any shall indeed grow into perfect union with , and enjoyment of , the fulness of the godhead ; then shall they know how to do these things as god himself now doth them . but for the creature , in its weak , dark , shallow , empty state , to rise up and say , i will be like the most high , nay i am the most high ; there is no evil to me , nor to my eye ; darkness and light are the same to me in every kind , as well as to him . i must profess , this is , to my foolish apprehension , the purest piece of madness that ever yet brake forth , proceeding from a cup of very deeply intoxicating wine , which all that drink of cannot chuse but err in judgment . wine maketh a person strongly conceited , maketh him forget himself , his state , his sorrow , his misery , maketh him fool-hardy , and altogether voyd of fear in the midst of the most apparant and most eminent danger ; but maketh no real change in his state , or in other things about him , which he judges far different from what he did before , not from a true sight of the difference , but from the strength of the wine . the fumes of the wine now abroad may make a person forget sin , its reference to him , his danger by reason of it , &c. but when they are expelled , and he awakened out of these his drunken dreams , he will find himself but where he was , even in the clutches of sin , under the power , guilt , and condemnation of sin , which will not leave him , until he be more fairly quitted and delivered from it . o god , i have waited for thy salvation ! all the turnings and windings of the creaturely imagination cannot relieve me . a mighty power of misery , of death , hath seized upon my very soul , and nothing but a greater power of life can prevail to rescue me . perfection is the creatures full enjoyment of god in and according to its creaturely state : when god is married to it , and keepeth company with it compleatly , even as abundantly as may be , in that station wherein it is set : when the creature hath as much of god as it can desire , in that very way that it is taught and led to desire him . why may there not be a perfection in that very way , in that very kind , wherein imperfection hath hitherto appeared ? and why may there not be a season for that perfection to discover it self , and be set up , as well as there hath been for this imperfection ? there is an happiness to come forth before our being swallowed up into the fulness of god , which is , the letting forth of god into us in measure and degree proportionable to our creaturely state . well , to draw to an end , what shall we say to the present state of things ? let me freely shoot my bolt : which is this . god hath been throwing down ; but man ( not able to endure a state of desolation ) hath been building up again , as fast as he could . god hath thrown down power with power : but man hath reared up his new fabrick with weak , airy , empty notions . what is like to be the issue ? god will make good his throwing down , but mans re-building will come to nothing . there is a worm in the foundation , yea in all the materials ; which eats out the life , heart and strength of them , and so maketh them quickly discover their own weakness , creatureliness , and rottenness . yet do not boast over these , o man , but consider thy self , lest thou also be tempted . as yet thou standest ; but art thou able to stand before that power by which they have fallen , if it should as forcibly deal with thee , as it hath with them ? i will conclude all with an exhortation out of zephaniah , chap. . vers. . which shall be onely to such to whom the words themselves direct it . the words are these . seek ye the lord , all ye meek of the earth , which have wrought his judgment , seek righteousness , seek meekness : it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the lords anger . seek . it is a time of scarcity , of want , of loss ; seek . men have lost their light , their life , their excellency , their sight and knowledg of every spiritual thing : it is a very proper time for seeking . let those that have , make much of what they have , let them enjoy : but let those that are sick , that want the physician , that want their spiritual health and strength , let them seek . but what shall we seek ? seek what ye want : seek the lord . do not seek shadows , lyes , vanities , things that will pass away : but seek the lord , seek bread , seek life , seek substance , seek true riches , seek truth : seek that which your spirits most naturally gasp after , and can onely be satisfied with . who are those you would have seek ? all ye meek of the earth , which have wrought his judgment . the meek and righteous ones , they are onely fit to seek , they are the persons god would have seek him . those that are broken in their spirits , made tender by their breakings ; those that have had some taste of righteousness in their spirits , that have the relish of it still on their palates , and so cannot but hunger and thirst after it , these are fit to seek , these god onely desires to have seek him . the high , the lofty , the unrighteous ones ; let them alone ( saith god ) let me deal with them : but put the poor , tender , broken spirits out of the track of my indignation , as much as may be . but what should we seek in god ; what should we seek of god ? seek righteousness , seek meekness . do not seek god in his fulness , in his perfection ; your house is not yet large enough to entertain him ; ye are not able so either to receive him , or bear his presence : but seek him in such a way , in such an administration as is suitable to you ; seek righteousness , seek meekness , seek him to be in you a living power of righteousness and meekness . this is the way to be serviceable to god , to hold forth god , to enjoy god in dispensations , viz. to be righteous and meek . the righteous and meek one , he is a kinde of god to his fellow-creatures , he enjoyeth sweetness within in himself , and he hath god still flowing in more and more upon him . this is that every one should seek in every dispensation , namely righteousness and meekness in that dispensation . but what will this avail ? this is but momentany ; all this must pass away . when god comes forth in his perfection , this will be discovered to be but empty and creaturely , and will fall flat before him . the fire must fall upon this , and burn up as well the righteousness and meekness , as the unrighteousness and ruggedness of the creature . how know you that ? it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the lords anger . god is angry at the state wherein things have been yet brought forth ; ( i can say he is pleased with it too , yet he is also angry , and truly angry . in the creature there is but the shadow of anger , but in him there is anger in substance , in truth . ) he doth not like either the deviation of the creature , or the misery which that deviation leads into . he doth not like that vanity , misery , and corruption , which is rivetted into the creature . he doth not like the present constitution of the creature , the present motions and actions of the creature according to that constitution . he is offended at the whole state and course of things ; at every thing that thus is , at every thing that thus is done . and he hath a day for his anger , a day to give his anger scope in , a day wherein he will let the creature see and feel how angry he is with it . a day . it will be night with the creature , a very black time to the creature : but it will be the lords day . he will not let out his anger , as we commonly do , in confusion and darkness ; but in cleer light , and in perfect love . as anger came from love ; so anger shall be subservient unto love , and be guided and managed in and by the light of love . yet still it shall be anger , it shall retain its own nature , and make the creature sufficiently sensible of it , on whom it lights . now for all this , he hath an hiding place , wherein he can cover what and whom he pleaseth , in this time of indignation , from the heat and fury of it . and this ye may meet with , if ye be led by him to seek righteousness and meekness , ye may be hid by him from the scorching violence of it . if any thing scape , it is like to be righteousness and meekness , if any person scape , it will be he in whom these are found . the indignation will be so hot in that day , that the most righteous and meekest person breathing will hardly avoyd the danger of it , but there will be somewhat found even in them , for the fire to seize upon and torment to death : but this is the onely way to escape , and perhaps by this means ye may escape it . it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the lords anger . whatsoever shall become of righteousness afterwards , yet certainly it shall escape that brunt that is to light upon sin : righteousness shall be hid in that day of anger , and all persons so far as they are found righteous . and let men think and speak what they please at present , yet they shall one day see and say , verily there is a reward for the righteous , when they shall see god come to judg the earth , and putting a difference between things and things , persons and persons : for doubtless notwithstanding the present confusion and distraction whereinto things are cast , yet there is a time for the orderly bringing of them forth unto judgment , where they shall receive their doom ; not according to what they now take themselves to be , but according to what they are , and shall by clear light be then made appear to be . to shut up all . when the eyes of our spirits are opened in the inward and spiritual world , we shall then see the frame of inward and spiritual things : we shall see , in the spiritual creation , light and darkness , good and evil ; which is as real in its kinde , as that , which the eyes of our senses cannot but see and acknowledg in the outward world , is in its kinde . and though darkness and light are both alike to god , yet they are not so , nor cannot be so in the outward world to the sense of the creature : neither are they nor can they be so in the inward world to the sense of the spiritual man . 't is true they are so to god ; but neither i , nor you , nor any else can apprehend how they are so , while we are what we are , and therefore cannot speak truth in discovering how they are so . o how hath infinite wisdom entangled our reason in its going about to understand and fathom these things , catching it in the greatest and strongest bands of folly and madness , while it thinks it hath , and gloryeth as if it had taken possession of the deepest wisdom ! so let the glory of man fall for ever . so let the reason , vnderstanding and wisdom of the creature always prove a broken reed to run into it , pierce and wound it ; that none may ever come to know or enjoy god , or any thing of god ; but as he freely imparts himself , or of himself , unto them . finis . to the jews natural, and to the jews spiritual with a few words ro [sic] england my native country, &c. : some sensible, weighty queries, concerning some things very sweet and necessary to be experienced in the truly-christian state : whereunto is added a postscript, containing some queries on isa. , , ... / by isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) to the jews natural, and to the jews spiritual with a few words ro [sic] england my native country, &c. : some sensible, weighty queries, concerning some things very sweet and necessary to be experienced in the truly-christian state : whereunto is added a postscript, containing some queries on isa. , , ... / by isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . [ ], , [ ] p. [s.n.], [london] printed : . added extra t.p.: to the jews natural, and to the jews spiritual ... / written in traveling bowels by isaac penington. reproduction of original in the british library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng society of friends -- apologetic works. christianity -- essence, genius, nature. theology, doctrinal. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - taryn hakala sampled and proofread - taryn hakala text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion to the jews natvral , and to the jews spiritval ; with a few words to england my native country , &c. some sensible , weighty queries , concerning some things very sweet and necessary to be experienced in the truly-christian state. whereunto is added a postscript , containing some queries on isa . · , . a scripture of deep counsel & concern to the darkned and distressed states , of some among those that fear & obey the lord. by isaac penington . printed in the year , . to the jews natvral , and to the jews spiritval ; with a few words to england my native country . whereunto are added two or three queries touching the river and city of god , and the pure stilness , wherein god is known and exalted - as also some questions answered concerning the true church , ministry and maintenance under the gospel , & about the lamb's war. written in travelling bowels by isaac penington . truly god is good to israel , to such as are of a clean heart , psalm . . behold an isralite indeed , in whom is no guile , joh. . . for he is not a iew that is one outwardly , neither is that circumcision , which is outward in the flesh ; but he is a iew which is one inwardly , and circumcision is that of the heart , in the spirit and not in the letter , whose praise is not of men , but of god , rom. . , . behold , the dayes come saith the lord , that i will punish all them which are circumcised with the uncircumcised , egypt , and iudah , and edom , and the children of ammon , and moab , and all that are in the utmost corners , that dwell in the wilderness ; for all these nations are uncircumcised , and all the house of israel are uncircumcised in the heart , ier. . , . printed in the year , . the preface . what a day of distress , and revelation of the righteous judgment of god , is to come upon the wicked and ungodly world ( even upon man , who was created in the image of god , but is now fallen from it , and found out of it , and in another image very unlike it ) the eye which the god of this world hath blinded , and the heart which he hath hardened by sin and transgression , hath no sense of . what a day of distress and misery some in this nation ( and in other parts of the world ) have already met with ; how they have felt the weight of sin upon their spirits , and what a sore thing it hath been to them to feel their souls separated from that god that made them ( who is the husband and father , king and preserver of souls that are found in his image and nature ) how they have been inwardly captivated by a forreign power , and oppressed , and made to serve under sin , and could hear no effectual tidings of his appearance who was able to save , but their spirits were ready to sink , and their hope of redemption , from that which oppressed and captivated them , almost cut off ; this being an inward state and condition , hath been altogether hid from the eye which is outward . how the lord at length appeared unto these ( his bowels having long rowled over them , and he having long waited to be gracious to them , even till the fully acceptable and set time was come ) how his light hath shined in and upon them , how he gathered those dry bones together , and breathed life into them , and made them live ; this is also altogether an hidden thing from the eye of the world. how the lord , who appeared to them , hath exercised and tried them ; how he hath judged them , and how he hath saved them ; what desolations he hath made inwardly in them , and what he hath built up there ; what an hammer , a sword , a fire , &c. his pure word of life hath been in them ; how that birth which could live without god , without his inward life , or upon words and knowledge without life , hath been famished , until by the pain of the famine its very life and breath hath been taken from it , and it crucified with christ , by the pain of the cross of christ ; and what birth hath been raised and crowned afterwards , and beautified with the ornaments of righteousness and salvation , yea , with the endless love and mercy of its god ; and how the lord is with his people , and dwells and walks in them , and how he hath humbled them to walk with him ; and how in fear and humility they do walk with him in the light of the day everlasting , even as god is light , and walks in the light of his own day ; these are very strange and unknown things to the wisest and most prudent in religion at this day , who are not gathered into the mystery of godliness ( nor into the spirit , power and glory of the father ) where these things are revealed in and by the son. what faith the children of wisdom have , in the wisdom and power which hath appeared ; what confidence they have in the lord their god , that he will stand by them in all their exercises and trials , both inward and outward ; and what experiences they have had of the lords standing by them in both ; how his faithfulness doth not fail , and how their faith in him is upheld and preserved by him , that it doth not fail in the stormy time , or hour of greatest distress ; and how their eye is unto him , and their hearts with him in the calms , so that their god is all in all unto them continually ; ( and who knows this , but they that have it ! ) oh who can utter or declare the sweetness and certainty of this , where it is enjoyed ! what love also the lord sheds abroad in their hearts , and how he teacheth and causeth them to love , by often circumcising their hearts , and cutting off that which hindereth the pure love from springing in them ; and how they love others in the love wherewith god ( who is love ) hath loved them ; and how natural it is to them to pray for their enemies , and to bless them that curse them , and do good for evil , but cannot requite evil for evil , being transplanted into and growing up in the root that is good , and sends up good sap and virtue into them , which nourisheth all that is good in them , but is death and destruction to the remainders of evil , as the lord pursueth and findeth it out ; oh how impossible is it for the heart of man to conceive or understand ! now , i also having tasted of the mercy and goodness of the lord , and having been brought out of a state of great misery and sorrow of heart into the redemption and joy of god's chosen ; and having found the lord faithful to me , and giving me faith in the appearance of his spirit and power in me , and true love ( tender love ) not only to my brethren in the truth , but to all mankind springing in me , and divers fruits issuing forth from it , some of them at this time i cannot but publish , and the lord open the hearts of those whom it concerns , that they may find some help , benefit and furtherance by it ; for it is the joy of my heart to receive good from god , to be filled with his blessings , to have my cup overflow , and that others ●ay be helped , refreshed and gladed therewith , and by the sweet taste thereof led to wait for the opening of the same root and fountain of life in themselves , to yield living sap , and send forth living streams in them day by day ▪ somewhat in the love of god to the jews natural , or seed of abraham after the flesh . o the glory of your state outward , who were the people whom god once chose and loved , and manifested his power and presence among , above all people ! whose land was the glory of all lands , to which god brought you out of egypt by an out-stretched arm , through a dreadful vvilderness , wherein ye were tempted , tried and exercised , and the succeeding generation fitted to enter into . o what laws and statutes , and righteous judgments did god give you , such as no nation besides had ! vvhat a temple had ye to appear before god in , and the ark of the covenant , and holy priests , kings and prophets ! and how nigh was god to you , to be enquired of by you ; and how ready to hear your prayers , in all that you called upon him for ! the eternal god was thy refuge , and underneath were the everlasting arms ( the lord was thy rock , and thou wast built upon him ) and he did thrust out the enemy before thee , and did say . destroy . and when the arm of the lord did destroy them before thee , thou didst dwell in safety alone , and the lord was a fountain of living waters to thee , and his heavens did drop down fatness upon thee . happy wast thou o israel , who was like unto thee , o people saved by the lord , the shield of thy help , and who was the sword of thy excellency ! and thine enemies were sound lyars unto thee , and thou didst tread upon their high places : and it might have been still so with thee , hadst thou not been unmindful of the rock that begat thee , and forgotten god that formed thee : for thy glory should not have been taken from thee , but swallowed up in a higher glory , wherein thou mightest have had the first and chiefest share , hadst thou not , by thy almost constant rebellion and unbelief , provoked the lord against thee ; not only often to afflict , but at last utterly to cast thee off from being a people , and chose a people in thy stead , who should bring forth better fruits to the lord of the vine-yard , then thou in thy day hadst done . yet when thy state was thus glorious , it was not a state of the truly-substantial , lasting glory , but a shadowy state or representative thereof . thy day of glory was not the day of the messiah , the day of everlasting light inwardly , wherein the lord alone is exalted , inwardly in the hearts of all , in whom he b●eaks down all that is contrary to the light of his day . thy day was but the day of the outward shadows of the heavenly substance ; but when that day ( the day of the inward substance and glory ) shined , thy shadows or shadowy state was to fly away , and to be swallowed up in the pure substance and spiritual kingdom of the messiah . thy birth from abraham after the flesh ; was not the birth which was to inherit the promise in the kingdom of the messiah : but there is a birth inwatdly born of the spirit , born after abraham in his faith , who travels inwardly , as abraham did outwardly , and seek an inward country & city , whose builder and maker is god : to these the spiritual kingdom and promises belong . thy circumcision was but the circumcision outward , the circumcision of the flesh ; it was not the circumcision of the heart . that i● the circumcision of the inward jew , which indeed the scripture call'd for from you , because there was somewhat near you , which wold have so circumcised you , had ye hearkned and given up to it : but ye , as a people , were not so circumcised , but were a stiffnecked people ( as moses and the prophets were still complaining of you ) uncircumcised in heart and ears , resisting god's spirit , both in your own hearts and in the prophets , until the lord was provoked to take away both vision and prophet from you . the aegypt , in which your fathers were in bondage , and pharaoh who oppressed them , was but the aegypt outward , and pharaoh outward . there is an inward aegypt , wherein the spiritual seed , the inward man , the soul is in bondage ; and there is a spiritual pharaoh , that oppresseth the spiritual seed , in spiritual aegypt . and there is a stretching out the arm of the almighty inwardly , to break the strength of the inward pharaoh , to pierce leviathan the crooked serpent , and to deliver the soul from under his captivity . the wilderness also your fathers were led through , was but the outward wilderness ; where they were tempted & tried by the lord many wayes , that he might do them good in the latter end . but the inward israel , after they are led out of the inward egypt , are tried in the inward wilderness ; where they are judged after the flesh , and that wasted in them ▪ which is not to enter into & inherit the good land , where they are tried in the furnace of affliction , & their filth purged away by the spirit of judgment & burning , that the righteous nation , which hath received the holy inward law , & keeps the truth , may enter into the good land , city and kingdom of the messiah , and inherit the blessed promises of life and salvaton there . moses , your great prophet , was a type of the great , lasting , standing prophet , whom god would raise up like unto moses , who was to give his inward law ; as moses did the outward ; and to lead all the spiritual israel , as moses did the outward israel , and his word was to be heard & stand in all things whatsoever he shall say unto his people : and whosoever will not hear and obey this prophet , shall be cut off from among the holy , spiritual , and inwardly living people . joshuah , who succeeded moses , led but into he figurative rest ; he was but a figure of him , that inwardly leads into the inwad and spiritual rest ; which the true jews , which are inwardly created and formed by god , and made a willing people in the day of his power enter into . the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire in the wilderness , were but figures of the spiritual pillar of cloud and fire , by which the spiritual israel are led and defended in the glorious gospel-day of god's spirit and power , read isa . ch . which speaketh of the gospel-day , and the pillar of cloud and fire to be created therein , and of the defence which is to be on all the inward and spiritual glory . the land of canaan , the outward good land an● kingdom of israel , was but a figure of the inward land and kingdom of the inward israel , in the dayes of the messiah . this is the land of judah , in which the song is sung , because of the inward strong city , where god appoints salvation for walls and bulwarks , which the righteous nation which keepeth the truth enter into , isa . . their outward kings in that land , and particularly david , were but types of the spiritual king , the spiritual david , whom god would raise up to the spiritual people , who should seek the lord their god and david their king , who shall be their spiritual shepherd and ruler , whom god hath appointed to fed them in the integrity of his heart , and to guide them by the skilfulness of his hands , who is king of righteousness tnd peace inwardly , and who ministers righteousness and peace to the sheep and lambs of his pastures . their outward priests ( even their high-priests ) were but a representation of the great high-priest of god , who was to be a priest for ever , after the order of melchizedeck , psalm . their outward covenant ( made with them from the outward mount sinai , upon the giving of the law , and holy statutes and ordinances , by which they were to live and enjoy god in their outward state ) was but a shadow of the inward and spiritual covenant , the new and everlasting covenant , which god makes with his inward and spiritual people in the latter dayes . their outward law , as 〈◊〉 written & engrav'n in tables of stones , was but a shadow of the inward law , which god puts into the children of the new covenant , insomuch that they need not go outwardly to learn the knowledge of god , or his will or law ; but the inward israel find it inwardly written within . there the isles , who wait for the law of the spirit of life , for the law of the messiah ; receive the ministration of the law ( in the spirit and power of the messiah ) which they wait for . their outward mount zion , on which the outward temple was built , by solomon that wise king , that righteous king , that peaceable king , was a figure of the inward mountain , whereupon the inward house is built in the dayes of the gospel , in the dayes of the messiah . and to this mountain are the spiritual people to come up and worship . and this is the zion and jerusalem ( even inward and spiritual ) from which the law and word of the lord go forth in the dayes of the messiah . and the spiritual house of jacob combind or agree together , to walk in the light of the lord , who sends forth his light and truth , and leads them to his holy hill , and to his tabernacles . their outward tabernacle and temple , sanctified by god for him to dwell and appear in , was a shadow of god's inward dwelling-place in man , i will tabernacle in them . god dwelleth not in houses or temples made with hands , that is not the place of his rest , as saith the prophet isaiah ; but the high and lofty one , that inhabits eternity , whose throne is in heaven , and the earth his footstool , he dwelleth also with him that is of an humble and contrite spirit , to revive the spirit of the humble , and to revive the spirit of the contrite ones . their outward sabbaths were not the lasting sabbath or rest of the gospel , but given them for a sign ; but the day of redemption from sin , the day of resting from sin , the day of ceasing from the works of the flesh , the day wherein god is all , & doth all by his spirit & power inwardly , and wherein he alone is exalted ; this is the day of rest , which the lord hath made for the spiritual israel , and which they are glad of and rejoice in . so their incense and sacrifices were not the lasting incense and sacrifices , but shadows thereof . the prayers of the saints , when god pours out the spirit of prayer and supplication upon them , and they pray to him therein , that is the incense . let my prayer be directed before thee as incense , and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice . and this was the incense and a pure offering , whic● in every place was to be offered up to god's name among the gentiles , when his name should be great among them , as malachy foretels . and what said david of old when god's spirit and the holy vision was upon him ? sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire , mine ears hast thou opened : burnt offering and sin-offering hast thou not required . then said i , lo i come , in the volmn of the book it is written of me : i delight to do thy will , o my god : yea , thy law is in the midst of my bowels . the sacrifices of god are a broken spirit ( rent your hearts nd not your garments , and turn to the lord your god ) a broken and a contrite heart , o god , thou wilt not despise . the offering praise to god from a sincere heart , and the ordering of the conversation aright , these are the sacrifices well-pleasing to god ; for sacrifices were not the thing which god mainly required of outward israel : but this obey my voice : and obedienc is more acceptable then all other sacrifices , and to hearken then the fat of the choicest rams . besides , those outward sacrifices could not remove or take away sin from the conscience , but he that came to do the will , and to put and end to those sacrifices and oblations , which were but outward & imperfect , he doth both wash and take away sins from within , and also bring in everlasting righteousness , where his light shines , and his pure life springs inwardly in the heart . and this is the substance of all the shadows , even the light eternal , the word eternal , the son of the living god ( who is light , as the father is light ) the word nigh in the mouth and heart , the word of the new covenant , the which moses directed your fathers to , deut. . and by which the lord speaketh , and hath spoken throughout the world ( psalm . . ) and teacheth every man that hearkeneth to his voice , to do justly , love mercy and walk humbly with his god , as it is expressed by the prophet micah . now to you jews of the outward line of abraham , whose return to the lord my soul most earnestly desireth after , and for which i have most vehemently and wrestlingly prayed to the lord , are some few weighty queries upon my heart . query . how came david to pant so after the living god , like the hart or hind after the water-brooks ? was it not from the quickning virtue of this inward word , which moses the man of god had directed the mind to ? read psalm . and see how he breathed for quicknings from this word , on which all depends . and if ye come to experience this word , and the quickning virtue of it , and follow the lord on therein , ye will soon come to know the day of the messiah , and the glory of his kingdom , which is not outward , transitory and of a perishing nature ; but inward , spiritual and eerlasting ( as david well knew , and spake sensibly of , psalm . and elsewhere . qu. . what are the waters , which every thirsty soul is invited to ? are they not the waters of the messiah ? are they not waters that flow out of the wells of salvation ? isa . . do not the spiritual israel draw spiritual water out of the wells of the saviour , in the dayes of the messiah ? what is it to come to these waters ? o that ye experimentally knew ! but this i will tell you , from true and certain experience , that if ye come to take notice of this word of life , which god hath placed nigh in your mouths and hearts , to separate between the evil words and evil thoughts of the enemie's begetting and bringing forth , and the good words and good thoughts of god's begetting and bringing forth , and incline your ear to it , and come from that which it reproves in you , and draws you from to it self ; your souls shall soon come to live , and he that gives you life , will make an everlasting covenant with you , even the sure mercies of david : but ye must still mind him as a witness , and leader , and commander inwardly in your hearts , that ye may be preserved in the covenant , and enjoy the blessings of it . see isa . . qu. . did not the messiah come at the set time , at the time set by the holy spirit of prophecy ? did he not come in the prepared body to do the will ? and did he not do the will ? and after his obedience to his father , was he not cut off , though not for himself ? and after his cutting off , were not you made desolate ? why were ye made desolate ? why did such a stroke come upon you , as never before ? o consider it . read dan. . . to the end of the chapter , and let him that readeth understand . qu. . what was that curse , and on whom did it light , let their table become a snare to them , &c. psalm . was it not on those that gave gall and vinegar to the messiah to drink , whom david was a figure of , and spake in spirit concerning ? whose eyes are alwayes darkned ? doth not the vail lie still on your whole nation ? do ye know the inward mountain , where the vail or face of the covering is destroyed ? in the inward day and light of the messiah it is destroyed . there , that which vails the noble eye of the m●nd is known , and also that which destroyes and re●oveth it . to what purpose is it for you to read moses and the prophets , when the vail is so upon you , that ye cannot see what is to be abolished , and is abolished , by the dawning of the glorious day of the messiah , and what is to remain and never to be abolished ? there is a jewship , there is a circumcision , there is a sabbath , there is a rest , &c. for the inward and spiritual people , which is to remain , and never to be abolished . qu. . vvho were those that god would hide his face from , and see what their end should be ; because they were a froward generation , children in whom was no faith ? vvho were they that moved god to jealousie , and provoked him to anger ? and what was the people and foolish nation he would provoke them to jealousie and anger with ? deut. . was it not the spiritual , the holy nation inwardly , the true jews , whom god took from among the gentiles , whom he appeared among , and was a god and a father to , when he cast off and forsook the jews outward , and left them to be a desolation ? qu. . who are those that shall be hungry , when god's servants shall eat ? and thirsty , when god's servants shall drink ? and ashamed , when his servants shall rejoyce ? are not your souls hungry and parched for want of the spiritual sustenance , which the living god satisfieth his servants with , making 〈◊〉 feast of fat things to them on his inward holy mountain ? and are not ye ashamed of your expectations of the messiah , while the servants of the lord , rejoyce in him their prince and saviour , and witness him daily a leader and commander to them ? what is the people whom the lord hath slain and made desolate ( are not ye a slain people to god , alienated from his life , spirit and power , dead in your litteral notions and observations ? ) and what are the servants of the lord , whom the lord hath called by another name , even a name that ye never knew ? see isa . and consider , how all your day god spread out his hand to you and ye were rebellious and would not hear ; and now night is come upon you , and your visitation , as such a people , is and hath been long ended . qu. . did not god signifie by the prophet malachy , that he had no pleasure in you , nor would accept an offering at your hand ? and did not he also signifie the choosing of the gentiles in your stead , that the called among the gentiles should be his people , and his name , which ye had profaned , should be great among them , and their incense and pure offering in every place be accepted , even from the rising of the sun , to the going down of the same ? read mal. chap. . qu. . now the inward people , and the inward covenant , the new covenant are brought forth ; shall ye ever be owned or regarded as an outward people , according to your outward covenant any more ? will not all such expectations fail you for ever ? ye have looked , from generation to generation , for the coming and appearing of the messiah outwardly , after an outward manner : but his coming and appearance is inward ; and he setteth up his kingdom , his everlasting kingdom in his saints , and in their hearts he ruleth inwardly , and the messiah , the seed of the vvoman bruiseth the head of the serpent there . o that ye knew the substatce ! o that ye knew the vvord of life in the heart , and were turned to it , and daily faithful and obedient ! that ye might feel it crushing and dashing the power of sin and corruption in your hearts . this is the consolation , hope and joy of the inward and spiritual israel ! o that ye might be made partakers thereof ; and that your long outward captivity and desolation might at length end in inward freedom and redemption ! amen . somewhat of concern to the jews spiritual , who are of the seed of abraham spiritually , or according to the faith , and gathered , in this day of god's power , to the true and everlasting shiloh . the scepter shall not depart from judah , nor a law-giver from between his feet untill shiloh come , and unto him shall the gathering of the people be , gen. . . old jacob , in the spirit of prophecy , saw that judah was to have the scepter , the kingly power ; and it was not to depart from him , it was to be his right , and the law-giver was to be between his feet ; till shiloh came ; then the right was shiloh's , to reign and to give laws to his people , whom he should gather out of the kingdom of darkness , and from satan's power into his own inward , spiritual and everlasting kingdom . this was the true king , god's king , whom he would set up on the holy hill of spiritual zion ; and all the holy , inward , spiritual gatherings of all people , scattered from the holy , living power , must be to him . i will overturn , overturn , overturn it , and it shall be no more , until he come whose right it is , and i will give it him . and his dominion shall not pass away , or the scepter and law-giving power shall not pass away from him , as it did from judah , nor shall his kingdom ever be destroyed , dan. . . but god will give to him the throre of his father david , and he shall reign over the house of jacob forever ; and of his kingdom there shall be no end . qu. but who are the people that shall be gathered to him ? answ . the people that shall he●r his voice , and come at his call , that shall receive the instruction of wisdom , and feel the drawing power and virtue of the father , in the day of his power . it is written in the prophets , all thy children shall be taught of the lord. and every one that is taught and learneth of the father , cometh to the son , cometh to the messiah , cometh to the shiloh , to the word eternal , to the word of life in the heart . qu. was not the messiah promised to the jews , to come of them , and to be appropriated to them ? answ . he was promised to them , and to come of them , but not to be appropriated to them : but he was to be the universal saviour to all that should come under his ensign and banner . he shall set up an ensign for the nations , and he shall sprinkle many nations , &c. and god promised , that he would give his son ( his elect choice servant ) for a light to the gentiles . qu. were the jews then excluded ? answ . no : they were to be gathered to shiloh , as well as others ; nay , the lord had a special regard to them . the gospel was first preached to them . they had the first offer , or the first call to the spiritual glory . they were the children of the prophets , and of the covenant god made with their fathers ; unto whom god having raised up his son jesus , sent him to bless them , in turning away every one of them from their iniquities . and the whole nation , turning from their iniquities , should have been gathered by him , and should have enjoyed the blessing of his day and kingdom : yea , the first gathering was from among them , and the first glorious gospel-church was at jerusalem where the spirit and power of the lord jesus did most eminently and wonderfully break forth ; and great grace was upon them all . but the nation was not gathered to shiloh , nor did come under his scepter and government ; but only a remnant of the nation . so these being gathered , the rest were cast off ; and the ensign was carried among the gentiles , and the great gathering was there among them . qu. how is it manifest , that the great gathering to shiloh , was to be from among the gentiles ? answ . by many expess prophecies of scripture , and promises to the messiah , that he should have the gentiles for his inheritance and possession . vvhen god establisheth his king , the messiah , upon the holy hill of spiritual zion , notwithstanding all the heathens rage against him , and the people of the jews imagining a vain thing ( thinking to keep the body of him in the grave , who was the resurrection and the life ) what saith the lord to him ? ask of me , and i will give thee the heathen thine inheritance , and the uttermost parts of the earth thy possession , psalm . the lord said in another place , it is a light thing , that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of jacob , and to restore the preserved of israel ; i will also give thee for a light to the gentiles , that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth , isa . . . again the lord saith further , from the rising of the sun , even unto the going down of the same , my name shall be great among the gentiles ; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name , and a pure offering : for my name shall be great among the heathen ? saith the lord of hosts , mal. . . sing o barren , thou that didst not bear ; break forth into singing and cry aloud , thou that didst not travel with child ; for more are the children of the desolate th●n the children of the married wife , saith the lord , isa . . . who was the married wife , who was the mother in the dayes of the first covenant ? was it not the jerusalem below ; who was then desolate and barren ? was it not another jerusalem , which is free , and the mother of all the spiritual children ? why was she now to rejoyce and sing ? but because she was to break forth on the right hand and on the left , and her seed was to inherit the gentiles , and make the desolate cities to be inhabited , ver . . the covenant on mount sinai did bring forth a great people , whereof jerusulem that was below was the mother . the covenant afterwards made , besides that in horeb , whereof the word nigh in the heart and mouth is the foundation ( by which word god circumcifeth ) was , as yet barren , and did not bring forth a people to the lord. but this covenant was to have a time , the jerusalem above was to have a time , wherein her seed should inherit the gentiles ; and the maker the husband should be called the god of the whole earth , ver . . read gal. . and see how the apostle of the gentiles expounds this mystery , shewing which is the free woman and her free children ; and which is the bond woman , and which the bond children , who are cast out in the day of god , and in the shining of his heavenly light inwardly , and cannot inherit the glorious kingdom of the gospel , with the children of the free woman . and consider , who were the people in the time of the first covenant ? vvho obtained mercy then ? vvere they not the jews ? and who were not a people , and who did not ob●ain mercy , but were left out of the love and mercy of the first covenant ? vvere they not the gentiles ? and did not the lord promise , that he would have mercy on them that had not obtained mercy ; and that he would say to them that were not his people , thov art my people , and they shall say , my god , hos . . . compared vvith rom. . . vvas not this once gloriously fulfilled in the first visitation of the gentiles ? and is it not again gloriously fulfilled in his novv visiting them again vvith the fresh sound of the everlasting gospel , as vvas promised , rev. . . o vvhat a promise is that , concerning the day of god , that in that day there shall be a root of jesse , which shall stand for an ensign of the people , to it shall the gentiles seek , and his rest shall be glorious , isa . . . is not this the day wherein the holy mountain is known and that nothing can hurt or destroy there ? and doth not the knowledge of the lord cover his land , his earth , as the vvaters do the sea ? and doth not the root of jesse the rock of life and salvation , stand for an ensign , placed so by god , and who can displace it , or shake them that are built on the inward mount zion ? yea , is not the rest of the weary soul , when 〈◊〉 comes hither , found to be very glorious ? and when this ensign is more fully lifted up , shall not the gentiles more abundantly come unto god , from the ends of the earth , and bewail their dead and estranged estate from god ( saying , surely our fathers inherited vanity , and things wherein is no profit , jer. · . ) and shall they not turn from all their idols , to serve the living god ? thes . . . and concerning the messiah it vvas promised , that in his name should the gentiles trust , and the isles should vvait for his lavv , and he should bring forth judgment to the gentiles , isa . . . vvith mat. . . but vvhat should i mention any more scriptures unto you concerning this thing , vvhenas ye have so large , full , certain and daily experience of it , in that vvhich is pure and living of god , which never deceived nor can deceive any ; for ye are begotten , by his spirit , into his own image and nature , and have received the spirit of adoption , where●n ye cry abba , father , to the father of spirits . he found you , indeed , in a strange land , under great captivity and alienation ftom him . ye have been in egypt , in sodom , in babylon spiritually : but the mercy of the lord hath followed you thither , and the arm of the lord hath reached to you there , and hath cut rahab , and wounded the dragon : yea , he whom the lord hath given for a light to the gentiles , hath shined to you there , in the midst of your darkness . so that god sent among you the prophet like unto moses ( though far above moses ) and hearing him , he led you out of egypt , and by the rod of his power did signs and wonders and valiant acts there , breaking that power , which with a strong hand held you captive there , and oppressed you . and ye have known the travel , trials and temptations in the spiritual wilderness , and the falling of the carcases which were to fall there , and the holy leading by the pillar of cloud and fire through all the entanglements and dangers therein . yea , and the faithful among you , the tried and prepared among you , have passed over jordan ( the river of pure judgment into the good land , and come to witness david and solomon ( who are one in spirit ) your king , who rules in righteousnes , and ministers to you peace everlasting . and ye have an high-priest there , not after the order of aaron , but after the order of melchizedeck , who is made the everlasting high-priest of god , not after the law of a carnal commandment , but after the power of an endless life , whose lips preserve the knowledge of the law for you , in that endless power of life ; who ministers for you & to you in that endless power , and intercedes with power and efficacy , and sprinkles the blood of the covenant upon you , vvhich takes avvay sin from your hearts & consciences . so that ye knovv the invvard jew's state , the invvard holy land and kingdom , the inward circumcision , before ye enter into that land ; and the inward lamb , the inward passeover , the inward mount zion and jerusalem ; the inward sacrifices and incense , the inward tabernacle , temple and ark of the covenant , the inward table of shew-bread , the inward manna , the inward rod that buddeth , the inward candlestick , and the lamps , which are never to go out in god's temple . and what should i say more ? all that that people were to be outwardly , in an outvvard vvay and state , hath god made you invvardly in the substance : and what god would have been to them outvvardly , had they obeyed his voice , and kept his statutes and judgments ; that he is to you invvardly , vvho are the called , and chosen , and faithful followers of the lamb : and ye are the enjoyers of their b●essings and promises inwardly . o the glory of your state , to the eye that is opened to see it ! now somewhat doth remain on my heart unto you . o be daily sensible of the tender goodness and mercy of the lord , which is broke forth among you . what mercy , what love hath the father shewn unto you , that ye should be thus accounted the children of god! that they which were once nigh , should be removed so far off ; and ye whi●h were so far off , should be brought so nigh , and should forever inherit the sure mercies of david ! for , of a truth , the lord will never forsake you ; but his mercy endures forever towards you , and your stakes shall never be removed : but this inward building shall stand forever . this zion is the place of god's rest , where he will dwell forever , whereof the outward zion was but a figure . dly , remember what the lord promised himself concerning you . when he vvas vveary of that people , and continually complaining of them ; o vvhat did he promise himself concerning the people he vvould bring forth , by the spirit and povver of the messiah , in the latter dayes ! did he not promise himself , that they should be an holy people , an invvardly circumcised people , a people that should please him ; sheep that should hear the shepherd's voice , and be healed by him , gathered home to him , and so follovv and learn of him the shepherd ; that they should all know him , from the least to the greatest ; and that he would forgive their sins , and heal their backslidings , and they should not return to folly or backslide any more ; as the children after the flesh alwayes did ? is not this the people , whom indeed god hath formed for himself , who shall shew forth his praise ? dly , remember what a covenant god hath prepared to make with you , as ye incline your ears to him , and are led by him , into the holy agreement with him ; even a cevenant which is not weak , as the old covenant vvas , but is full of virtue and vigour , to enable you to do whatever god requires of you . mark what it contains , putting god's fear into you : not the fear which is taught by man's precepts , vvhich man may get into hi● carnal mind ; but vvhich god places as the trasury of life in the heart , as it is vvritten , the fear of the lord is his treasure , isa . . . and , o vvho knovvs the preciousness of this treasure ! hovv it cleanseth the heart and keepeth it clean , and will not suffer the mind that is seasoned with it and kept to it , to depart from the living god! it fenceth from unbelief , it fenceth from disobedience , it will not suffer the soul so much as to meddle with any appearance of evil. o precious , glorious , blessed treasure ! happy is the man● that feareth alwayes with this fear ! another precious thing this covenant contains , is . the law written in the heart , that it shall be as near yea , nearer then sin is , in the heart that is made tender , and hath the law of the spirit of life written in it . who knows what it is to have the law of love the law of life , the law of the spirit , the law of faith the law of new obedience livingly written by god in his heart ! surely none can , but they in whom god writes it ! and such cannot but desire to have it written in their hearts , by his blessed finger , daily more and more . but this covenant contains yet more , even the putting of his own spirit within them , to be a fountain of life there , a fountain of strength and wisdom there , to make them more and more willing in the day of his power , and to cause them to walk in his wayes , and keep his statutes and judgments and do them , that the lord their god may bless them and delight in them . o who would not long after , and take up the cross and shame , to enjoy the glory of this state ! o what hath god done for a poor despised remnant among the gentiles ! o who would not desire to keep this blessed covenant with the lord , that he might fully enjoy the lord that the marriage with the maker might be witnessed , in his loving-kindness & everlasting righteousness , and all unrigteousness and uncleanness might be put away , removed and separated from the heart forever . ah the virgin-spirit , which the lamb loves , and delights to marry with ! he that is joyned to the lord is one spirit , and he must part with all that is old , evil , unclean and corrupt in him , that would be joyned to the lord , and become one spirit with him . o who would lose the precious fear of the covenant , which is clean and endureth forever , and keepeth clean and chast to the lord forever ! and who vvould miss of one lavv , which god hath to write in the hearts of his children , when every law is a law of life , and changeth the mind into the nature of the law-giver ! and who would grieve god's spirit , which is our comforter ? or quench that which kindles the pure flame of love and life in our hearts ? much less can any of his dear and tender children be willing to vex him , by manifest carelesness and disobedience , who giveth us to drink of the river of his pleasures ! o my dear friends , ye do not know the great travail of my heart , that all the children of the lord might walk before him in all well-pleasing , that we might come all into covenant , into the full covenant , and walk fully with him in the covenant , that his anger might be forever turned away from us all , and he might never be wroth with nor rebuke any of us any more . it is written on my heart , the breaking forth of this glory would reach the jews . and though they be cast off , as to their outward state , and not so to be owned , or come into that glory any more , yet there is a day of mercy and love for them , as to that inward state of life and redemption , which their outward state typified : and the breaking forth of the full glory of the gentiles , and the manifestation of god's mighty power and presence with them ( they being made by god a people to him , and so walking with god , as none possibly can , but those , who are created anew and so made by him ) this might provoke the jews ( the poor scattered forsaken jews ) to seek after the lord their god , and david their king , inwardly to be revealed in them , and rule among them . the lord god of our life and tender mercies , carry on to perfection this blessed work of his , which he hath so mightily begun , and so mightily hitherto carried on ; and keep us in the sense of his good spirit , and in tender and holy subjection thereto , and in unity together in the life , wherein we have been gathered and preserved , and in pure judgment over all the workings of the enemy every where , and in the gospel-love one to another , and to all men , even our greatest enemies , that we may seek the good of all men , even the rescuing and preserving all out of sin and wrath , as much as in us is possible , that the pure light , wherewith our god and heavenly father hath enlightned us , may shine in us , and the life wherewith he hath ●uickned us , may live in us , and we may feed on nothing but life , and grow in nothing but life and truth , to the great glory of our heavenly father , and to the great joy of our hearts , amen . a few words to england my native country . o land of my nativity , o my dear country-men , the pure power of the lord is upon me , and the springs of life open in me ; and among many other things , i am melted in love and desires after your welfare : and this is in my heart to say to you . if i now testifie to you in truth , of a pearl , a heavenly pearl , an everlasting pearl ; will ye not hear me ? if i tell you , your heart is the field , or earth , wherein it is hid ; will ye not consider of it ? if the everlasting gospel be preached again , which contains true tidings of redemption from sin ; will ye not listen after it ? if the kingdom of god , and righteousness of christ , be to be revealed within ; would ye not willingly learn to wait for it there , and beg of god that the eye may be opened in you , which alone can see it , when it doth appear . indeed god's visitation is upon this nation , in an especial manner ; his light and power is breaking forth in it , against the darkness and power of the spirit of satan , which hath captivated and still captivateth many . ye desire outward liberty , and the enjoyment of your outward rights ; would ye not be free inwardly ? free from the base , earthly , selfish nature and spirit , which man fallen from god , and the glory wherein he created him , is degenerated into ? oh , is not the power of god , and life of christ able to restore man to this ? he that created man at first so glorious , in his own image ; is he not able to create him anew ? oh hear , my dear countrymen ; the power is revealed , which createth anew ; and they that receive it , and are as clay in the hands of the great potter , given up to be formed by it , are daily created ( by the operation of it ) anew , into an holy , heavenly , innocent , living , tender , righteous frame day by day ; and are made willing , daily more and more to be the lord's , in this day of his power ; and do receive power to become sons , and strength against their souls enemies : and the glorious work of redemption , which god hath begun in them , the arm of his strength mightily carrieth on in them , to their comfort , and his everlasting praise . there is a spiritual egypt and sodom , as well as there was an outward ; and there is a spiritual wilderness , and canaan also and the arm of god's power inwardly and spiritually hath been revealed in this spiritual egypt , wilderness and canaan , as really as ever it was in the outward . do ye not read of a jew-inward , and a circumcision-inward , and the leaven-inward , and keeping the feast of unleavened bread , even of bread that is not leavened with sin ? and he that eats of this unleavened bread , it unleavens him of sin , and leavens him with life and holiness : for it is an holy bread , and a living bread. this is the bread which comes down from heaven , which they that feed upon live , and they that live feed upon . and though they be many , yet feeding upon this bread , they become come one bread one living body . consisting of a living head , and living members ; for the same life and pure heavenly nature , which is in the head , is communicated by him to the members . but how shall we find this , may some say ? i will tell you how we found it , and here none can miss of it , that sweep the house and make a diligent and faithful search after it . that in the heart of man , which turns against sin , discovers sin , draws from sin , wherein god ministers help against sin , that is it . that is the pearl hid , that is the kingdom hid , in that is the righteousness of god revealed from faith to faith , in all that receive and give up to this holy leaven . this is of the nature of god and christ , this is a measure of his light , of his pure life , this is the law and commandment everlasting , which god writes in the hearts of the spiritual israel , for the inward jew hath inward tables , where the inward law is w●it , for the inward eye to read . o how nigh is god inwardly , to the inward people , in this our day ! o the pure glory is broke forth ! but , alas , men are in their several sorts of dreams , and take no notice of it . what shall the lord do to awaken this nation ? in what way shall his power appear , to bring down unrighteousness , and to bring up righteousness in the spirits of people ? do ye not think the lord hath been at work , and is still at work ? how could deceit be so wasted inwardly , and truth so grown inwardly , and overspread more and more , and gain ground in the nation , if the hand and power of the lord were not with it , blessing it . o take notice of the handy-work of the lord , ye children of men , and wait to feel truth near , and to partake of the living virtue and power of it ; that ye may feel your hearts creating anew , and the old heavens and earth may inwardly pass away , wherein dwells unrighteousness and the new heavens and the new earth may be inwardly witnessed , wherein dwells righteousness . o that this nation might become a paradise of god! o that every one might be sensible of his presence , and power , and kingdom , and righteous government inwardly in the heart , from the king that sits on the throne , to the begger on the dunghil . surely man was not made for himself ! surely he was not made such a creature as now he is ! but in the holy image of god , with love in his heart to god above all , and to his neighbour as to himself . o what are the religions and professions of several sorts , where this love is not found ! the lord is restoring his image , and bringing forth the true , pure religion again . the pearl , the truth contains & comprehends it . o buy the pearl , o buy the precious truth : sel all that is contrary to it for it ; take up the cross to all that is evil in thee , as the light in thee maketh it manifest , and thou shalt have the free possession of it in thy heart , and feel it a root of life , a treasure of life , a well of life , out of which the living water will be daily springing up in thee , unto life everlasting , amen . the d of the th mon. . three queries upon three verses of the th psalm . verse . there is a river , the streams whereof shall make glad the city of god ; the holy place of the tabernacles of the most high. query . which is the river , and what are the streams thereof , which make glad the city of god ? and which is the city of god which they make glad ? which are the tabernacles of the most high , and which is the holy place of those tabernacles ? o my dear country-men , that every one in this nation did understand and enjoy these thing ! for the lord is ready to beget a will , to beget a thirst in the hearts of the children of men : and whosoever thirsteth , whosoever will , is called to the waters , and may come to the waters , and take of the water of life freely , ( isa . . . rev. . . ) yea , to the full satisfaction of their souls . for indeed this is the day of god's power , wherein he doth make his people willing to come to him , and to abide with him the fountain of living waters : and those that do come to him , and abide with him , he abundantly satisfieth with the fatness of his house , and giveth them to drink of the river of his pleasures , psal . . , . mark , god is the fountain of living waters , with him is the fountain of life , a river of pleasures , a river whose streams make glad the whole city , even the holy place of all the tabernacles of the most high : and he giveth his citizens to drink of it ; and whoever drinketh of it , it maketh them glad , it refresheth their life . o that more knew what this means . ver. . god is in the midst of her ; she shall not be moved : god shall help her , and that right early , or when the morning appeareth , or from the morning appearing . qu. . how is god in the midst of this city ? ( is it not more gloriously , in an inward way , then ever he was in the temple in the outward jerusalem , in an outward way ? ) how is she built ? how is she founded and scituated ? how comes it about , that she shall not be moved ? how is god her refuge and strength , and present help in time of trouble ? after what manner doth god arise inwardly and scatter his enemies ? how doth the morning light help her ! after what manner , when the enemy cometh in like a flood , doth the spirit of the lord lift up a standard against him ? ah , blessed are they that know , and experience , and live in the enjoyment of these things . o that this whole nation did so . were it not worth the suffering of much , the denying of much , and the bearing of much judgment to come to this ? ver. . be still , and know that i am god : i will be exalted among ( or in ) the heathen : i will be exalted in the earth . qu. . what is that stilness , wherein god is known to be god ; not outwardly in notion , but inwardly in the heart ? vvhat is that silence of mind , wherein god teacheth his israel in the new covenant to know him as he is ; even all of them , from the greatest to the least ? how will god come to be exalted in the heathen , and in the earth ? is it not by the light of his day breaking forth and shining in them ? vvhere this day breaks forth in any heart , doth it not bteak down and destroy the kingdom of darkness inwardly ? and doth not the king of glory consume the man of sin , the wicked one that was exalted in the temple before ( which temple belonged of right to god ) with the spirit of his mouth , and destroy him with the brightness of his coming , or appearing , isa . . . thes . . . then is the day known , vvherein the lord alone is exalted . o that this day vvere more knovvn , and the lord , vvho is indeed vvorthy , vvere more exalted , and all flesh become his foot-stool forever ! concerning the true church and ministry under the gospel , and the maintenance thereof , some few questions answered in truth and plainness of heart , and left to the witness and testimony of god in other mens consciences . question . which is the true church , or the gospel-church , or he church , according to the new covenant ? for ●here was an old covenant , and a church according to that under the law : and there ●s a new covenant , and a church according to that under the gospel . answ . for the clearing of this , to the hearts and consciences of people , let us enquire and consider what the new covenant is , and then it will more easily appear , which is the church according to the new covenant . the new covenant according to plain scripture , and according to manifest experience , ●n this blessed day of the shining of the gospel-light in mens heatts , is a covenant o● god's putting his law in the inward parts o● people , and writing it in their hearts ; and of his becoming their god , & making ●hem hi● people , and of teaching th●m all to know him ( inwardly and experimentally ) from the least to the greatest , and of being merciful to their unrighteousness , and remembring thei● sins and iniquities no more , jer. . , ▪ heb. . , , . now if this be the new covenant , the covenant of the gospel-church , then they are the gospel-church , who are the people o● god according to this covenant ; who have the law put by god into their inward parts and writ in their hearts ; and so according to this law and covenant , have god to b● their god , and are his people , and are taugh● by him to know him ( as it is written , all th● children shall be taught of the lord , isa . . & john . ) and whose unrighteousnes● god hath been merciful to , and whose sins and iniquities he remembereth no more , being washed away from their consciences by the blood of the everlasting covenant , which th● blood of bulls and goats could never do . s● that this is the new testament-church ( o● gospel-church ) a church of jews inward a● the law-church was a church of jews outward : a church of inward worshippers , o● worshippers in spirit and in truth , john . . as the law-church was a church of worshippers outward : a church of inward circumcised ones , as the law-church was a church of outwardly circumcised ones , rom. . . a church of such as are inwardly holy , as the law-church was to be a church of such as were outwardly holy : a church of such as offer inward incense and sacrifices , as the law-church was a church of such as offered outward incense and sacrifices : a church of inwardly redeemed ones , from the inward , egypt , from the inward darkness and power of satan , as the law-church was a church of such as were redeemed from the outward egypt , and the povver of pharaoh outvvard : a church that hath the invvard ark , ( rev. . . ) the invvard presence , the invvard manna , &c. as the outvvard church of the jews had the outvvard . qu. . which is the true gospel-ministry , and who are the true gospel-ministers ? answ . those vvhom christ sends forth , in the spirit and povver of his father , to gather and build up this church . christ had all power in heaven and earth given him , even to ths very end , to gather , defend and build up his church . and he bid his apostles vvait for the same povver , and sends forth his ministers in the same povver ; that they may be able ministers of the gospel , vvhich is not vvords but povver , even the povver of god unto salvation , rom. . . the nevv covenant stands is not in letter , but in spirit and povver and they that are the ministers of it , must receive life , spirit and povver from christ ( the head ) and minister in that spirit , life and povver to the members ; or they cannot nourish and build them up : yea , they must preach and minister to the vvorld in it , or they are not able to gather out of the vvorld into it . christ the lord o● his church , the foundation of life in his church , the everlasting rock , is a living stone , and his church is built of lively stones : and hovv can any minister life unto them , or build them up in the life , spirit and power ; but who a●e in the life , spirit and power , and who receive life , spirit and power from the head , to furthe , quicken and build up the living members with ? the milk , which nourisheth the living babe , is living , which must come pure from the breast of life , and not be mixed with man's vvisdom or brain-inv●ntions , or it cannot yield pure nourishment . vvhat then must the bread and vvine , and vvater of the kingdom be , whereon the children and heirs of the kingdom must feed , or they cannot be satisfied ? and the ministers of the gospel are stewards of this heavenly life , this heavenly spirit , this heavenly power , this heavenly treasure , which they have in the earthen vessels , and which god enables them to bring forth , for the feeding of his lambs and sheep . christ said unto peter , lovest thou me more then these ? peter answered him , yea lord , thou knowest that i love thee . if it be so , feed my lambs , feed my sheep said christ to him . but how should he feed them ? in what should he feed them ? vvith what should he feed them ? all power , saith christ , is given me in heaven and in earth , and i am to ascend to my father , and to receive the fulness of his spirit ; and do ye wait , and ye shall receive abundantly of the same spirit and power , and then in that spirit and power ye shall be able to feed my lambs and sheep , that are begotten and gathered to me in it : but out of it none is able to feed and build them up ; for that is the very thing they are to be fed with , and built up in· indeed a man may be a minister of the letter , a minister of the law , without the spirit and power , but of he gospel he cannot possibly ; for that consists not in letter , but in spirit , cor. . and the faith that is to be begotten there , is not to stand in the vvisdom of man , but in the power of god. the gospel-state , the gospel-church , the gospel-building begins in the power , and is carried on in the power , and finished or perfected in the power , and the whole ministry of the gospel is to partake of this power , and minister in it , or they can do nothing in this work . christ jesus our lord begun it in this power , and none can carry it on without this power . the lord god of glory laid the foundation ; behold i lay in zion for a foundation , &c. isa . . . pet. . , , . and the quickning spirit alone is able to make living stones , and spiritual stones ; and the lord alone is able to build them up , by the operation of this spirit and power ; and they that are the true ministers of the gospel , minister in this : and are to wait for it daily from god , that they may minister in it . qu. . what is the maintenance of the ministers of christ , or what is to be the maintenance of the true ministers under the gospel ? answ . christ , who hath sent them forth to minister in his name , hath provided for them ; & they that are his true ministers , are satisfied with what he hath provided for them , mat. . . being careful not to make the gospel , which is to be an inward blessing , outwardly chargeable to any . the mind of the true ministers is about the service of christ , how they may be faithful to him , gather souls to him , feed them with the bread of life from him ; not what they shall have from men , for so doing ; for such covet no man's gold or silver , &c. some question answered concerning the lambs war. question who is the lamb ? answ . h● that takes away the sins of the world . the word which was in the beginning behold the lamb of god , said john , john . . & ver . . he ●hat was born of the virgin mary after the flesh ; and was also the man-child , born of ●he travelling-church , after the spirit . rev. . . qu. . who makes war with the lamb ? answ all that are in wickedness , in darkness , in sin and corruption , and under the power thereof , who strive to defend and maintain this kingdom against the appearance of his light , spirit and power in them . qu. . what strength have they on their side , that make war against the lamb ? answ . the strength of the great red dragon , who hath seven heads and ten horns : and in every one of his heads is wisdom , and in every one of his horns there is power . so that dreadful is the battel that is fought between them , either inwardly in the heart , or outwardly in the vvorld , when christ appears in his light , spirit and power to assault and break down the kingdom of darkness , and to set up his own kingdom , which must be set up , even in the vvorld , dan. . . . rev. , . qu. did the great red dragon and his army , never ( in no respect ) prevail in this battel ? answ . yes ; for even while the lamb , and his pure life and holy testimony have prevailed , so that the dragon and his army could get no ground over them inwardly ; but salvation ( the wall and bulwark of god's heritage ) and strength , and the kindom of god , and the power of his christ did prevail inwardly ; yet the dragon , even then hath prevailed over their goods , liberties and lives outwardly : and he drove the vvoman , the true church out of her place , as i may say , that she was forced to fly into the vvilderness , he so sorely assaulting her : yea , after that also , he made vvar with the remnant of her seed , and cast some of them into prison , and drunk the blood of those that would not drink his false church's cup , but keep the commandments of god , and have the testimony of jesus , rev. . & chap. . . yea the beast , to which he gave his power ( which had seven heads and ten horns like him , chap. . . ) made vvar with the saints , and over came them outwardly , though he could not overcome them inwardly ; for he could not make them to worship him , ver . , . nay , nor the second beast neither , though he had horns like a lamb , and spake like a dragon , and exercised all the power of the first beast , and did great wonders , and had power to give life unto the image of the former beast , and would kill all that would not worship the image of the beast ; and would suffer none to buy or sell , but such as had the mark or name of the beast : yet neither could this beast overcome the followers of the lamb , as to their inward life and testimony , though it had power to kill and suppress them outwardly , ver . . to the end , & chap. . . to ver . . which plainly shews the saints had patience , and kept the commandments of god and the faith of jesus , and would not worship the beast and his image , nor receive his mark , either in forehead or hand . qu. . what was the cry up and down nations , when the dragon and the beast thus prevailed , and when the false church carried her cup of fornications up and down through kingdoms and nations , and made the kings and inhabitants of the earth drink thereof ; and who would not drink thereof she would not let them buy nor sel , but impoverish , imprison them , and drink their blood ? rev. . . & . answ . the cry every where was , who is like unto the beast ? who is able to make war with the beast ? indeed , there appeared no power any where , able to withstand or resist this power , which the dragon had , who gave it both to the beast which arose out of the sea , and to the beast which arose out of the earth ; both which joyned together , to persecute all that would not drink of the false church its cup , which was golden without , but full of abomination , and filthiness of fornication ( fornicating from the holy life , spirit and power of the lamb inwardly who is the head of the true church , and true worshippers , rev. . . & chap. . . qu. . what is the time of the dragon 's , the beast's and false church thus prevailing against the true church , in reference to the outward , though they cannot prevail against its inward life and testimony ; but that ( through patience and suffering● ) prevails over and reigns inwardly , in the midst of all their cruelty and oppressing of the outward man ? answ . it is the time of antichrist's reign , and sitting in the temple as if he were god , and exalting himself over all that is called god , and which ought to be worshipped . it is the time of the true church its being in the vvilderness , and of the man-child's ( which the true church brought forth ) being caught up to god , which things were to last , according to scripture account , . dayes , or a time , times and half a time , thes . . . . rev. . . . qu. . what will the lamb do , when this time is out ? answ . he will come and make vvar again , he will come with his heavenly armies , armed with spiritual armour , and fight an heavenly battel ; yea , he will judge and make vvar in righteousness , against the unrighteousness of the dragon , and the beast , and the false prophet ; and his heavenly armies shall follow him their captain and leader , on white horses , clothed in fine linnen , white and clean ; who shall fight in his spirit and power , against all that he fighteth against : and out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword , that with it he should smite the nations ; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron , and make the spirits of all his opposers bow under him , and fly to shelter themselves from that vvrath which they cannot escape ▪ o who would not kiss the son , that he might not provoke the lamb to vvrath against him , whose vvrath is dreadful ! rev. . . to the end , psalm . . qu· . what shall the cry be , when god's spirit and power prevaileth over the dragon's spirit and ●nd power , when the lamb gets the victory , when he smites the earth with the rod of his mouth , and with the breath of his lips shall slay the wicked ; when he brings down the dragon , beast and false prophet , and the false church mother of harlots ( which hath drunk the blood of his saints ) with his vials , plagues , woes , thunders , & c ? when babylon the great city falls , which made all nations drunk with her spiritual wine of fornication ? answ . then the power , which doth this , shall be magnified . then it shall be said no more , who can make war with the beast ? but who can withstand this power ? who can make war with the innocent , righteous lamb ( who hath his sword in his mouth ) and with his tender-hearted , faithful followers , and prosper ? who shall not fear thee o lord , and glorifie thy name : for all nations shall come and worship before thee ; for thy judgments are made manifest . great and marvelous are thy works , lord god almighty , just and true are thy wayes , thou king of saints , rev. . , . yea , a great voice of much people in heaven shall say , allelujah , salvation , and glory , and honour , and power unto the lord our god : for true and righteous are his judgments ▪ for he hath judged the great whore , which did corrupt the earth with her fornication , and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her , hand , chap. . ver . . . now doth it not concern all people to consider , which is zion god's holy mountain , and which is the jerusalem of his building , the holy city of god , the holy church of god , the mother of all the truly living children ; for the jerusalem which is above and which is free , is the mother of them all , gal. . . and also which is babylon , the city built by man , and the spirit of antichrist , in a kind of likeness , but not in the real nature of the true church , that they may wait for and follow god's call to come out of her , and may not partake of her sins , of her sorceries ( rev. . . ) of her fornication from the pure life , spirit and power , and seting up worships , and compelling people to worship in her forms ( which are out of the life , and out of the power ) that they partake not of her plagues ; which will indeed be very dreadful , such as shall affright any from coming near her , or medling with her spiritual sorceries and fornications any more , rev. . . & ver . , . o therefore let every one consider what the beast is , what his image , what the mark in the forehead what in the right hand ; and take heed he be not found worshipping the beast and his image , or receiving his mark , either in his forehead or right hand ; lest god make him to drink of the wine of his wrath , which is poured out without mixture , into the cup of his indignation , and he be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels , and in the presence of the lamb , and have no rest day nor night , rev. . , , . i had rather run great hazards outwardly , and suffer much affliction and persecution from men , to keep my soul true to god ; in the spiritual worship and testimony , which he hath given me , against all false wayes and invented worships , then expose my soul to the hazard of drinking of this dreadful cup of god's indignation , which the lord god of tender mercies , teach men and give them true vvisdom to avoid and escape , amen . the conclusion . behold my servant shall deal prudently he shall be exalted and extolled , and be very high . as many were astonied at thee ; ( his visage was so marred more then any man , and his form more then the sons of men ) so shall he sprinkle many nations ; the kings shall shut their mouthes at him : for that which had not been told them , shall they see ; and that which they had not heard , shall they consider , isa . . , , ▪ thou art fairer then the children of men : grace is poured into thy lips ; therefore god hath blessed thee forever . gird thy sword upon thy thigh , o most mighty ; with thy glory and thy majesty . and in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth , and meekness , and righteousness , and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things . thine arrows are sharp in the hearts of the king's enemies , whereby the people shall fall under thee . thy throne o god is forever and ever : the scepter of thy kingdom is a right scepter . thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness , therefore god , thy god hoth anointed thee with the oyl of gladness above thy fellows , psalm . ver . . to . strengthen ye the weak hands , and confirm the feeble knees : say to them that are of a fearful heart , be strong , fear not ; behold , your god will come with vengeance , even god with a recompence , he will come and save you . then the eyes of the blind shall be opened , and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped . then shall the lame man leap as an hart , and the tongue of the dumb sing ; for in the wilderness shall waters break out , and streams in the desert . and the parched ground shall become a pool , and the thirsty land springs of water : in the habitation of dragons , where each lay , shall be grass with reeds and rushes . and an high-way shall be there , and a way , and it shall be called the way of holiness , the unclean shall not pass over it , but it shall be for those : the wayfaring men though fools , shall not err therein . no lyon shall be there , nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon , it shall not be found there : but the redeemed shall walk there . and the ransomed of the lord shall return and come to zion with songs , and everlasting joy upon their heads : they shall obtain joy and gladness , and sorrow and sighing shall flee away , isa . . ver . . to the end . blessed be the lord god of life forever , ●hese scriptures and many more , are sweet●y and preciously fulfilled in the hearts of a remnant , in this our day . they were once ▪ in a degree ) fulfilled , in the day of the ap●earance of the word of life , in the prepa●ed body of flesh . they were again mo●e ge●erally fulfilled , in the day of the pouring ●ut of his spirit , and gathering a people to ●im , both from among the jews and gentiles . ●hom he did sprinkle with his holy life , spi●it and power . and they are again fulfilled ●n the hearts of many , after the long night of darkness , and great and large apostacy from ●he spirit and power of the apostles . blessed , o blessed be the lord , the sun of righ●eousness hath again shone forth , and appeared inwardly in a glorious , living , powerful manner , to them that have feared his name ; and he hath been a god of vengeance to the man of sin , yea , to all that was dark , fleshly and corrupt in them ; and a god of mercy and tender bowels , to those which pan●●● after and waited for his salvation : and the healing virtue , from under the vvings of the saviour , and the holy anointing hath dropped upon the eyes of the blind the pu●e eye-salve , and they have been opened ; and the ears of the deaf , by the voice of the son of god , have been unstopped ; and the inwardly and spiriually lame have leaped as an hart ; and the tongue , which could not name god in truth and righteousness , but hath been dumb before him , and before men also , could not but sing , because of the breaking forth of the vvaters and streams of life upon the thirsty land and parched ground , making them a pool and springs of water : vvhich land , which thus is changed from its wilderness and parched state , into an holy , fresh and living state , the dragons do not lodge in , nor is it any more an habitation or cage for unclean & noisom birds ( as great professing - babylon the mother of harlots , with all her fleshly , professing-daughters is ) but life dwells there ; the holy one is in the midst of this land , & it brings forth the fruits of life and righteousness , to the righteous & holy one . and here the king of glory's high-way , even the way of holiness is known ; which none , but those whom he makes holy can walk in . let men profess what they will , yet being unclean in heart and coversation , they cannot pass over to come into this way ; but the holy , they which are made holy by god , and keep to , live in , and follow that which is holy , though way faring men , and though otherwise fools ; yet they shall not err here , but be preserved by the holy power , in the holy way , which is prepared and cast up for these . and as for that which would tear and destroy , it shall not be found on all that holy mountain , where these live and feed . yea , here is the house of god , and throne of god , and god the judge of all , and jesus the mediator of the new covenant , and the blood of sprinkling , where the ransomed of the lord enjoy the presence of the bridegroom , whom god hath set king , and who reigns on his holy hill of inward and spiritual zion , and causeth them to sing , who feel him reign ( even the everlasting seed of life to reign inwardly in the heart ) oh , everlasting joy is upon their heads ; they have obtained joy and gladness , and sorrow and sighing flees away , when the joy unspeakable and full of glory is felt springing in the heart , from the sense of the presence and enjoyment of the bridegroom ; for of a truth , the lord hath comforted zion , yea , he hath comforted many of her waste places ( he was angry with her daughters , before their filth was purged away by the spirit ●udgment and burning , since that time his anger hath been turned away , and he hath comforted them , isa . . . &c. ) and he hath made her wilderness , in many hear●s , like eden , and her desert like the garden of the lord ( even like the garden that he waters ) and how can joy and gladness but be found here , with thanksgiving and the voice of melody ? isa . . . & chap. . . thus it is with such of the gathered people and nation of the lord , that hearken and give ear to him , and have known the law of life to proceed out of his mouth , and his judgment to rest for a light , ver . . the end . the contents . first , a preface concerning god's visiting and appearing to his distressed people in this and other nations . ii. somewhat in the love of god to the iews natural , p. . iii. somewhat in the same love to the iews spiritual , p. . iv. a few words to england my native country , p. . v. three queries on three verses of psalm . p. . vi. some questions answered concerning the true church , ministry & maintenance , under the gospel , p. . vii . some questions answered touching the lamb's war. p. . viii . the conclusion , containing some precious scriptures concerning christ's inward appearance , and his powerful working against his enemies , and in and for his people , with some few words added thereupon . some considerations propounded to the jewes that they may hear and consider, and their hearts at length may be turned towards that which alone is able to convert them to god, that they may once more become his people, and enter into an everlasting covenant with him that may not be broken, that so they may abide in his love and covenant of life, and remain his people for ever. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) some considerations propounded to the jewes that they may hear and consider, and their hearts at length may be turned towards that which alone is able to convert them to god, that they may once more become his people, and enter into an everlasting covenant with him that may not be broken, that so they may abide in his love and covenant of life, and remain his people for ever. penington, isaac, - . p. s.n., [london? : ?] caption title. signed at end: j.p. attributed to isaac penington. cf. nuc pre- . imprint date from nuc pre- . imperfect: top of pages cropped. reproduction of original in huntington library. eng judaism -- controversial literature. a r (wing p ). civilwar no some considerations propounded to the jewes, that they may hear and consider, and their hearts at length may be turned towards that which al penington, isaac c the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the c category of texts with between and defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images - mona logarbo sampled and proofread - mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion some considerations propounded to the jewes , that they may hear and consider , and their hearts at length may be turned towards that which alone is able to convert them to god , that they may once more become his people , and enter into an everlasting covenant with him that may not be broken , that so they may abide in his love and covenant of life , and remain his people for ever . consideration i. what great love , mercy and kindness god shewed to that people , above all nations and peoples under heaven . of his own free love he set his heart upon them , chusing them to be a people to himself . he brought them out of egypt by a mighty hand and outstretched arm ; he mightily preserved them in , and led them through the wilderness . he entred into a covenant with them to become their god , and betrothed them unto himself for his own lot and inheritance . he gave them righteous laws , judgments , statutes and ordinances , both of worship towards him , and of an upright demeanour and conversation among themselves and towards all men . he drove out , the heathen from before them , and gave them a pleasant land to possess , even the glory of all lands , a land flowing with milk and honey . he built an habitation for himself among them , first a moving sanctuary or tabernacle , afterwards a more setled abiding place or temple ( which solomon built ) wherein was the ark of his presence , where he was to be sought unto and enquired of by them , and towards which their prayers were to be directed , and there was a mercy-seat , whereof they had large experience , and he ever and anon sent prophets among them , to reprove their errors and blackslidings , and to set them to rights again . he raised up judges likewise to defend them : and although they were weary of his government , desiring a king after the manner of the nations so vehemently , that they even forced a king from him , yet he took him away from them , and after him chose a man after his own heart , to feed jacob his people and israel his inheritance , who fed them according to the integrity of his heart , and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands . what should i say more ? what was wanting of love , of care , of goodness , of kindness , of mercy , of gentleness , of any thing that a people could desire of their god ? i say , what was wanting of all this on gods part ? what could he have done more for his vineyard , than he did do ? nay he emptied upon them all the goodness , all the mercy , love , favour , &c. that that covenant would hold to the full , yea and more too : for he bare with them more than that covenant required him to bear , and redeemed them oftner than that covenant engaged him , yea many time turned he his anger away , and did not stir up all his wrath , as he might often have done according to the tenour of that covenant . yea in all their afflictions he was afflicted , and the angel of his presence saved them : and he was still ready to say in his heart , surely they are my people , children that will not lie , at length they will see their error , repent and be true to me : insomuch as he was never weary of saviug them , of trying them again and again , of stirring up his bowels of love and pitty to redeem them , of sending his servants and prophets among them to warn and reclaim them , even till at last it was manifest that there was no remedy but he must cast them off , and provoke them to jealousie by a foolish nation ▪ ( deut. . , . ) drawing them nigh to him , who had been worshipping stocks and stones , making them become a people , who had long been no people , and casting these out of his sight , making them become no people , who had so long been his chosen peculiar people , in covenant with him , and nigh unto him above all the families of the earth . consid. ii. what constant rebellion and stiffness of spirit that people all along expressed towards the lord , what wild sowre grapes they still brought forth to him , sowre love , sowre obedience , sowre worship and sacrifices , such as the pure pallate of the lord could find no relish nor savour in : but as moses had told them , that it was not for their righteousness god chose them to give them the good land to possess , for they were a rebellious and stiff-necked people , deut. . , . so it was not for their goodness that god continued his love to them , for they were all along provoking him , jer. . . when god came to shew that great mercy to them of redeeming them out of egypt , and bid them cast away their idols , they would not cast away their idols , ezek. . , . neither did they regard that mercy of redemption from the house of bondage , and from the iron furnace , but said to moses it was better for them to stay in egypt and to serve the egyptians , exod. . . again in the wilderness , how did they provoke him all that forty years of mercy , how did they err in their hearts from his pure fear , and from love to him , and from faith and confidence in him ! how did they murmur against him , and against moses and aaron their leaders ! how did they forget his works and his wonders continually ! when they came near the land , and should have gone in to possess it , then they would not , but repined and rebelled because of the talness and strength of the enemy , and of their cities : and when they were forbid to go , then they would go and fight with them . what should i mention the time of the judges and of the kings , how often the lord made them smart by their enemies in their own land , how often he gave them up to captivity out of their land , even till at length that great captivity of babylon befel them , and since that a greater captivity and desolation than that of babylon ? consid. iii. whether god , having tryed this people even to the utmost , by that covenant which he made with them by moses in mount sinai , may ever please to try them so any more : or if there yet remain any mercy or love from god towards them , whether it is not to be expected another way , and upon another account ? this is very necessary and profitable for them to consider , that they may not be looking that way for mercy and favour from god , in which it is never to come , and so have their eyes and hearts diverted from that way according to which it is to come : for this must needs put them back exceedingly , if their eyes be looking out one way , and the love of god hath chosen another channel to run towards them in . this may make them refuse the very mercy , love and redemption when it comes , suspecting it not to be it , because it comes not in the way and after the manner that they look for it . now god hath expresly said , that when he shall be pacified towards them , and shall look again upon them with an eye of favour to do them good , it shall not be by their covenant ( which could never last , but was still broken on their parts ) but by his own everlasting covenant , which he would establish to them , ezek. . . &c. it would therefore diligently be enquired by them , what covenant it is which is called their covenant , vers. . and what covenant it is which is called gods covenant , vers. . that they may withdraw their eyes and hopes from the one , from whence their redemption , recovery and mercy cannot come , towards the other from whence it is to come ? to which query , for their sakes , it is in my heart to return this answer . answ. their covenant is that which they entred into with god , the covenant that their hearts chose to unite with god by : and that was to this effect , that if god would shew them his will , they would obey it . go thou near ( said they to moses ) and hear all that the lord our god shall say , and speak thou unto us all that the lord our god shall speak unto thee , and we will hear it and do it , deut. . . thus they thought , but the lord knew otherwise , for o saith the lord that there were such an heart in them , &c. vers. . and moses knew otherwise , he knew that they would corrupt themselves , and that evil would befal them in the latter dayes , deut. . . but gods covenant was the free covenant he made with abraham , isaac and jacob , the covenant of his grace , the covenant of his free love , whereby he was able to reach them in egypt , upon the cry of the seed in them ( in the midst of their idolatries , and to bring them out and do them good notwithstanding their stubbornness and stiff-neckedness ) even before the other covenant was made . this covenant of love was gods covenant . this is the covenant god remembred to them in the days of their youth , while they were young and tender , and not yet grown up to be a people under the other covenant : and this is the covenant which lasts for ever , which is not founded upon their obedience , but on god's free love to them for his own name sake , and for their fathers sake with whom he freely made it . quest . what doth this covenant contain ? answ. putting his fear in the heart , writing his laws in the mind , pouring of pure clear water upon them to wash away the pollutions of their inward parts , circumcising the filth of the heart , healing the backsliding nature by creating of a right spirit within , and keeping of the created spirit right by the presence of that spirit which created it : see jer. . , . ezek. . , &c. hosea . . this is god's covenant , this is the new covenant , which is to be made with the house of israel and judah when god redeems them : and they can never be redeemed but by this covenant , but are to remain desolate , until the spirit be poured out from on high upon them , isai. . . until their hearts be circumcised to love the lord their god , untill his fear be placed there , and they thereby caused to walk in his ways . as therefore they receive the spirit , are brought into the fear , have the law written in their minds and become subject thereto , so will they tast of this covenant , be brought into redemption by it , and become a glory inwardly , and outwardly also upon the earth . quest . what is the way for them to have the fear of god put in their hearts , to have their hearts circumcised , to receive the spirit and his laws into their minds , and so to come into this covenant ? answ. there is no other way but that to which moses himself directed them , after god had made the other covenant with them , and tryed them long by it , together with many temptations , signs and wonders both before and after it ; and seeing by all these they had not had an heart to perceive , nor eyes to see , nor ears to hear , moses at length directs them to another covenant , the word whereof would give them eyes to see , and ears to hear , and an heart to understand . which covenant was a covenant besides the former , deut. . . and was indeed the covenant concerning life or death eternal , chap. . . ( the other being but a covenant of their outward state , made with them after their coming out of aegypt , upon their deliverance there from , and according to their choise to become a people to god according to it . ) this word , moses tells them , was near them ( nearer then that which was spoken by god on the mount , and afterwards written in tables of stone . ) the voyce of this word and the commandment thereof was nearer , that they need not seek anywhere abroad for it , but only listen at home to hear its speech , obey it in the faith , and live for ever , deut. . , &c. this is the way for them and all men to come into this covenant , and there is no other ; there is a light shining in the darkness of mans heart , which springs up in him , and casts forth it's rayes to discover and draw him out of the darkness : now as this light is felt , loved , understood in spirit , hearkned and cleaved to in the pure faith , which it begets ; that which cleaves to it , is drawn out of the darkness by it , into the covenant of the pure eternal light , where god is , and whither all they are translated , who are drawn to him in and by this covenant , as they are kept , preserved , and continue in the faith , love and obedience of it . now i would yet put these few things more to them . first , whether that people of the jews , as they stood related to god in that covenant ( given by moses at mount horeb ) with the covenant it self and all things appertaining thereto , were not a shadow of some inward and spiritual thing afterwards to appear and be made manifest in its season . whether they themselves were not a shadow of a more inward and spiritual people , to be gathered to god by the inward and spiritual covenant ; and whether their outward covenant was not a shadow or visible representation of that covenant , and the laws of it a shadow or representation of the inward laws , which were to be written in the hearts of that spiritual people ? was not their tabernacle , or temple , a shadow of the true tabernacle or temple , seeing god dwelleth not in temples made with hands , but in a poor , humble , contrite spirit , and in the heart that trembles at his word , isai. . . and chap. . , . so was not their circumcision a shadow of the circumcision which is to pass upon the hearts of god's chosen ? were not their sacrifices types or representations of the sacrifices of praise and of a broken heart ? psal. . . and psal. . . was not their canaan , or holy-land , a type of the true holy spiritual rest which the faith gives entrance into ? their city jerusalem a tipe of the jehovah-shammah ? their priests and levites tipes of the spiritual priesthood , which was to offer the pure offering and spiritual sacrifices among the gentiles ? malac. . . mark that place , if it did not plainly foretel the casting off of the jews , with the rejecting of their offerings , priests and levites , and god's raising up a seed among the gentiles , where he would have a more acceptable people and worship , even a pure spiritual people , and a pure spiritual offering . secondly , if they were types , representations , or shadows of somwhat spiritual to come , then were they not to give place to that which is spiritual when it came , and so to be swallowed up in it ? is not the spiritual glory , the glory ? the inward jew , the jew indeed ? the circumcision of the heart , the choice circumcision ? the offering up of praise and of a broken heart , the acceptable sacrifice ? the land of life and righteousness , the true land of rest to the living by faith ? is not the spiritual city , house , or temple which god builds , the ierusalem or temple of the new covenant ? is not this the choice house to god ? and is not this spiritual glory to be expected in the days of the messiah , and all the tipes and shadows of moses , which pointed at him , to end in him , when once he comes to set up his true , inward , invisible , substantial glory among his inward and spiritual people ? when the day of messiah dawns , shall not moses his shadows fly away ? o that your eyes were opened to behold the inward glory of li●e , the good things of the new covenant , the great treasure and riches which are revealed and possessed in the spirit ; by the spirits that are redeemed unto god , that ye might partake thereof ; and then your eye would not be so much on that which is outward , which ifye had even to the utmost of your desires , are not comparable to the inward . lastly , search the prophets , see if the messiah is not first to come in a despiseable way as a man of sorrows , isai. . , . whose visage in that appearance was to be more marred then any mans , isai. . . and consider whether he was not to be cut off , though not for himself ▪ dan. ● . . and then to sit at the right hand of god , until his enemies be made his footstool ; psa. . ●● before he come in that glory wherein 〈…〉 . so that if he be not thus come already , then that coming of his is yet to be expected , and his hands and feet are yet to be pierced by you , and then afterwards ye may look upon him whom you have pierced ; zach. . . and all the families of israel mourn bitterly apart for it , ver. . when moses gave the law , the vail was over his face : your fathers were not able to bear the light wherein the law was given , nor the light wherein the prophecies of the prophets were given , and so they still erred from the law , were offended at the prophets while they were alive , & mis-understood their words after their death . now do not ye search into moses and the prophets , in the same spirit of error as your fathers did , being shut out from the light of them , even as they were ? if it be thus , if the vail be over your hearts , if ye be ignorant of the true light , of the true eternal power wherein the scriptures were given forth , ye must needs mis-understand them , mis-understand moses , mis-understand the prophets , mis-understand the things spoken concerning the messiah , & so not be able to see unto the end of those things ministred by moses , & of that ministration which was to pass away , nor into the beginning of the ministration of the messiah , which was to succeed it . o turn within to the word nigh in the heart , that the true jew may be begotten and formed in you , and his light may arise and overspread you , that in that light ye may see the light of moses , and the light of the prophets , and not gather false meanings from their words , but understand them a right in the same holy spirit , and injoy the blessedness they spake of and directed to , which lyes in the inward raising up of an inward seed , and not in an outward conformity of the outward man , while the heart and mind remains unchanged and unrenewed , which can never be made new by any ministry of the letter without the spirit , but alone by the ministry of the spirit , whether with or without the letter , as he pleaseth . j. p. the end . the new-covenant of the gospel distingnished [sic] from the old covenant of the law and the rest or sabbath of believers, from the rest or sabbath of the jews, which differ as much from each other, as the sign and shadow doth from the thing signified and shadowed out : in answer to some queries of w. salters, tending to enforce upon christians the observation of the jewish sabbath ... whereto are added some considerations propounded to the jews, tending towards their conversion to that which is the life and spirit of the law / by isaac penington ... penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) the new-covenant of the gospel distingnished [sic] from the old covenant of the law and the rest or sabbath of believers, from the rest or sabbath of the jews, which differ as much from each other, as the sign and shadow doth from the thing signified and shadowed out : in answer to some queries of w. salters, tending to enforce upon christians the observation of the jewish sabbath ... whereto are added some considerations propounded to the jews, tending towards their conversion to that which is the life and spirit of the law / by isaac penington ... penington, isaac, - . penington, isaac, - . some considerations propounded to the jewes. [ ], , [ ], p. printed for robert vvilson, and are to be sold at his shop ..., london : . reproduction of original in the harvard university library. eng salters, w. covenant theology. sabbath -- biblical teaching. a r (wing p ). civilwar no the new-covenant of the gospel distingnished [sic] from the old covenant of the law· and the rest or sabbath of believers, from the rest or penington, isaac c the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the c category of texts with between and defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - ali jakobson sampled and proofread - ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the new-covenant of the gospel distinguished from the old covenant of the law . and the rest or sabbath of believers , from the rest or sabbath of the jews ; which differ as much from each other , as the sign and shadow doth from the thing signified and shadowed out . in answer to some queries of w. salters , tending to enforce upon christians the observation of the jewish sabbath , which was given under the law to the jews for a sign . as also to some other queries sent in writing upon an occasion of an epistle directed to all such as observe the seventh day of the week for a sabbath now under the gospel . as likewise to some letters to the same purpose . with a brief explication of the mysterie of the six dayes labour , and seventh days sabbath . whereto are added some considerations propounded to the jews , tending towards their co●●ersion to that which is the life and spirit of the law . by isaac penington the younger . vve which have believed , do enter into rest , heb. . . let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink , or in respect of an holy day , or of the new moon , or sabbaths , which are a shadow of things to come ; but the body is christ , col. . , . london , printed for robert vvilson , and are to be sold at his shop at the black spredd-eagle and vvindmill in martins l' grand● ▪ the preface . the apostle paul saith , that god had made them able ministers of the new-testament , not of the letter , but of the spirit , cor . . after the dispensation of the law , which was a shadow of good things to come ; and after the dispensation of the prophets , who foretold of better days , and of a better state to come , then the days and state under the law was ; it pleased god first to send the fore-runner john the baptist , in the spirit and power of elias , to prepare the way for the king and his kingdom ; and then to send the king himself in the fulness of his spirit , to gather disciples to him , and to furnish them with a competent measure of the same spirit , to raise up a spiritual seed to him , in whom he would set up his kingdom , dwelling , walking , and reigning there , causing his light to shine from thence round about the earth , as from his holy city , founded upon his holy hill of sion . now those disciples or ministers whom he chose to raise up this holy seed unto him , he made fit and able to minister his new covenant , by which it was to be raised : yea he furnished them with such a power of his spirit , that they were able through him to minister , not in the letter ( as the old covenant was ministred , which left the people still dead : nay , because of the transgressing nature , made the offence abound , and so encreased death upon them ) but in the quickning spirit , which raiseth from death , and bringeth into the light of the living , to walk with the living god towards the land of eternal rest and peace . so that that which they ministred was spirit , and that which they ministred to , was spiritual . by the power of the spirit , in preaching the living word of faith , they reached through the vail to that which lay in death , they stirred up a living principle , and ministred life to it through the spirit , gal. . . and such as were born of this living principle , they taught to live in the spirit , to walk in the spirit , to be made perfect by the spirit , and not to run back to the ministration of the letter ( as was proper for the jews in their day ) after the manner of the former dispensation , but to keep in the living principle , to grow up in the seed , into the eternal life and immortality of the gospel . mark well , ( o ye christians , who desire eternal life ) the different way of ministration between the law and gospel . the law was a ministration of the letter , in which they were to wait for assistance from the spirit , by which they might be kept in the faith of , and be made obedient to the law , nehem. . . the gospel is a ministration of the spirit , wherein they are to begin with the spirit , and to go on with the spirit ; not to gather outward rules out of the letter , from what is written or spoken , but to keep to the living principle , and feel refreshment to that , in reading or hearing what is written or spoken by the spirit . and thus the scriptures being read , or any one speaking from god being heard , it is mingled with faith , and becomes profitable , feeding and refreshing the young tender plant , the living principle , and causing it to grow up into god : whereas whatever is understood , or received , or held out of this , feeds but the earthly , and doth but thicken the vail over the living seed , to which the kingdom belongs , and to which the gospel is sent to be preached to raise it , that it might live , and thrive , and grow up into its stature , that so it might inherit . the kingdom of heaven is at hand , said john the baptist ; mat. . . it is come unto you , said christ , mat. . . that power of life which was made manifest in him , was it : and this kingdom is also within you , saith christ to the pharisees , luk. . . the pharisees demanded of him when the kingdom of god should come ? it cometh not , saith he , with outward shew or observation , it cometh not that way you look for it , to wit , by the manifestation of an outward glorious king , to reign outwardly in the common-wealth of the outward israel : but the kingdom is within you . how was it within them ? christ explains to them in another place , it was in them like a grain of mustard-seed ; it was the least of all the seeds in their hearts . there were many great seeds of darkness there , but yet there was also one little seed of light . it was there , as well as the rest ( though less then them all ) and did sometimes cast some glimmerings of light , and of its shining in the darkness , though the darkness could not comprehend it . this seed was also likened to leaven , which being received by faith into the lump , would leaven the whole lump , and bring it into the savor and dominion of the kingdom . now the ministry of the apostles was to turn men from satan's kingdom to this kingdom , from his large compass of dominion in the heart , to this narrow seed ; from his great territories of darkness , to this little principle of light ; from his great power of death , to this little weak thing of god , wherein the eternal power and god-head is made manifest , as this comes to be opened and encreased by the spirit . here light is sown for the righteous , and joy for the upright in heart ; where it is to grow up , and from whence it is to be reaped after its growth to perfection . oh how long have christians ( so called ) wanted the spirit ! how have they wearyed themselves , in running to and fro about the letter , to find out the mind of god , and are still unsatisfied concerning it , and even drowned in fleshly imaginations and contentions about it ! they seek to have that satisfied , which is not to be satisfied : they seek to have that know , which is not to know : they offer to god the service , faith , and obedience of that , which he will not accept ; & keep that from him which he calls for . they seek for the spirit in the letter , according to the manner of the law ; but wait not to feel it in the seed , quickening the seed , raising up the seed , and dwelling in the seed , whither christ and his apostles directed to wait for it . they looke for that knowledge , that faith , that life , that spirit from words written , which the apostle preached was to be waited for from the word in the heart . and by this means they raise up several buildings , and get various kinds of knowledge , each according to his understanding and apprehensions of the letter , every sort being very confident concerning their own apprehensions that they are the right : and thus they wander from the city of the living god , and from the living knowledge , building up images , some outwardly , some in their minds ; some more gross , some more refined ; but all more or less who are not acquainted with the living knowledge and truths of god , but have gathered apprehensions with the wrong tool from the letter , have set up somewhat else instead of the true life and power . ( the knowledge of the true god , which is life eternal ) the knowledge of the true christ ( whom no man can indeed call lord , but by the spirit ) the knowledge of the everlasting gospel ( which alone is read in the spirit ) the knowledge of the spirit ( which alone is read in the seed ) these are strange things to the several generations of the christians of this age , who commonly know no more of them , then according to the apprehensions they have taken in concerning them , even from that wisdom and understanding which hath not a capacity in it to receive them , but must be destroyed before these things can be understood aright , cor. . . o that ye could read in the eternal light of life ! o christians , christians , o that ye could see how your understandings , and knowledge from the letter stand as much in your way , as ever the jews did in theirs , and must be broken down as flat as ever theirs was , before the foundation of the kingdom can be laid , and the building of eternal life reared up in your hearts . be not offended at my zeal for the lord my god , and for your souls . it hath cost me very dear , what i testifie to you in the simplicity and integrity of my heart ; and this i know to be most certainly true , that that spirit of man which without the leadings of the eternal light , hath nestled it self in the letter ▪ got a seat of wisdom and knowledge there , raised up a building from thence , either of inward or outward worship , will be dissetled & driven thence , even by that very spirit which gave forth the letter . and when this is done , and god's spirit again openeth the letter , o how sweet , how profitable , how clear , how refreshing will it be , being read in the light of the spirit , & in the faith which is in christ jesus , which is begotten in the heart by the word of faith , which is nigh there ▪ from that light , from that spring ( as the lord pleased to open , enlarge and fill the vessel ) all the words of the holy men of god came ; and in that alone they have their sweetness , freshness , vertue and fulness : but how to read the words outwardly written , keeping to that , and understanding them in that ( and how to keep out the natural man with his natural understanding , which knoweth not the things of the spirit , nor can know or receive them , cor. . . ) is a mystery to them who have not been turned inwards to this word , nor have known or heard his voice . the lord is recovering the mysterie of life : and as that appears , the mysterie of death under all its paint ( under all its painted faith , painted love , painted knowledge , painted obedience , painted duties , ordinances , and worship ) will be made manifest . happy is he , whose inward building will stand , whose gold will abide the fire and everlasting burnings of the jealous god , whose eye-salve was bought of the true spirit , whose raiment is right spun : but exceeding hard wil it go with that man , whom the lord ( when he cometh to search him ) shall not find a right inward jew , as he took himself to be , nor truly circumcised by the lords eternal spirit with the light thereof ; but onely by such a circumcising knife as he himself had formed out of the letter of the scriptures . this is the great misery of christians , the vail lies over their hearts , even the same vail which covered the letter of moses from the jews ; and they are groping after the mind of god in the letter , but the life is hid from them , even as it was from the jews : & because they also say they see , & that they have the life & the spirit , therefore the vail remains , & the caul of iniquity surrounds them , so that they cannot see into that which makes free from it , but remain yet in captivity and bondage to the enemy . some queries of w , salters , tending to inforce upon christians the observation of the jewish sabbath , answered . query . whether the fourth commandement , exprest , exod. . be not morall and perpetuall , as well as the other nine be , yea or no ? answer . that covenant , which god made with the jews at mount horeb , when they came out of the land of egypt , was not to be perpetuall , but to make way for that covenant , priesthood , law-giver and law which was to be perpetuall . that law , so given forth , made nothing perfect , but was a continuall hand-writing of ordinances against the jews , and the very salvation of the jews was by another covenant and by the laws thereof , deut. . by which covenant and by which law they might be made perfect , and come to the better hope . which other covenant is the covenant of grace , or the law of the spirit of life in christ jesus , or the word which is nigh in the mouth and in the heart , and speaks life to them that can hear and believe the joyfull sound of it . now that this former covenant was not to abide , but to give place to the other , see heb. . which treateth of the new covenant . for god's speaking of a new covenant , importeth that he himself hath made the first old , ver. . it had had a long continuance among that people of the jews ; but now against the coming of christ , who was to be mediator of a better covenant , v. . even of a new covenant , v. . as it had been long decaying and waxing old , so now it was ready to vanish away , as v. . and indeed it was necessary it should pass away , for it was not faultless . how not faultless ? was there any sin in the holy law & ministration of god by moses ? can there any just blame be found in any thing that proceeded from the lord ? nay surely , the ministration of moses was holy and without blame : but it was weak through the flesh , ( rom. . . ) and therefore god would lay that aside , so far as it was weak , and suited to the weakness of a fleshly people , and bring instead thereof a ministration of the law in the spirit , which should be lively , and powerfull , and effectuall in the spirits of his people . that which god aimed at in a covenant , was to keep him and his people together : now this covenant was weak on the peoples part , they continued not in it , and so , according to that covenant , god dis-regarded them , v. . now god finding this covenant not able to effect his purpose of love towards his people , he finds fault with it , bringing forth another or second , which this gives place to , v. . and this other covenant , or new covenant is not according to that . how not according to that ? why thus : it was not written outwardly , as that was : not according to that which i made with their fathers , when i took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of egypt , ver. . for i will put my laws in their mind , and write them in their hearts , ver. . and here they shall learn the knowledge of god every one from the least to the greatest , v. . so that all the children of this covenant shall be taught of the lord , and learn the law from his mouth ; not as it was given at mount sinai ( which ministration was to the children of the old covenant ) but as it goes forth out of sion , and from the jerusalem which is above , which is the mother of all the children of this covenant , and nourisheth them not with the law of moses , but with the milk of her own breasts . now if any think to restrain this to the types and shadows of the law , they therein err : for the main covenant was the law of commandements , which they still broke , worshipping other gods , making images and likenesses , taking his name in vain , prophaning his sabbaths , and so of the rest . it is true , the first covenant had a worldly sanctuary , a tabernacle wherein was the candlestick , &c. but the chief matter of the covenant was the ten words , therefore the tables wherein it was written were called the tables of the covenant , or the tables wherein the covenant was contained , heb. . . yea the ten words are expresly called the covenant it self , deut. . . observe therefore diligently these few things following in the fear of the lord . first , the ten commandements , given by moses from mount horeb , was the covenant which god made with the jevvs , when he took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of egypt . secondly , that covenant god found fault vvith , because it was not able ( through the weakness of the flesh in their parts ) to keep them to god . thirdly , against christ's coming god provideth a new covenant , a better covenant for him to be mediator of , which covenant was not outvvard like the former , but invvard , put in the mind , vvrit in the heart . as the people was invvard , the sanctury inward , the ark invvard , the tables of the covenant invvard , so the covenant it self and the writing of it was invvard also . and this covenant , as it is onely written in the spirit , and in that which is spirituall ; so it cannot be read in the letter . fourthly , that where-ever this new covenant cometh , the other waxeth old , whether to a person or people . where ever the lavv of the spirit of life is made manifest , the law of the letter is svvallovved up in it , and is knovvn no more , but as it is comprehended , appeareth and is brought forth in it . and he that is in the spirit , and hath received the law of life from the spirit , knovveth not christ after the flesh , hovv much less moses ? but taking the vvhole ministration of moses in the spirit , not onely the ten commandements , but all the sacrifices and other types also , here they are ovvned and received , even in christ the substance : but the ten commandements , so far as they vvere a shadovv , pass avvay before the son of righteousness , as vvell as the other types and shadovvs of the lavv . obj. but was there any thing of the ten words a shadow ? do they not all command abiding things ? ans. moses his whole ministration ( as it stood in the letter without ) was but a shadow of the fulness and perfection of that ministry of the spirit , which was to come , and to be set up by the son in his house , hebr. . , . moses his people but a shadow of the spiritual people , moses his priests and sacrifices , but a shadow of the spiritual priests and sacrifices . moses his law in the letter ministred from mount sinai , but a shadow of christs law in the spirit to be ministred from mount sion , ( cor. . , . ) the law it self which was given by him , but a shadow of the grace and truth which came by jesus christ , joh. . . of whose fulness every believer receives a portion of the same grace , even grace for grace , v. . which grace is to be his teacher , both of what he should deny and turn from , and how he should live and carry himself both towards god and man , tit. . , . look particularly on the commandments , and see if there will not appear something of a shadow in them . the first commandment to that people , that they should have none other gods ( like the heathen ) but him onely whose powerful arm had brought them out of aegypt , this is a shadow of the subjection of the spiritual israel singly in spirit , to the lord of spirits , who by his mighty arm redeemeth them out of spiritual aegypt . now must they bow to other lords no more , ( isa. . . ) as they did bow in the land of aegypt , ( oh , who can read this ! ) but bow alone at the name of jesus , and be subject to the arm of his power in their spirits alone for ever . the second commandment , that they should not make any images or likenesses of things in heaven or earth , or bow down to them , is a shadow of what god requires of spiritual israel in the inward , where all likenesses , inventions , imitations , resemblances of what they have seen in the spirit above , or beneath in the earthly nature , they must not make themselves , nor bow to such as any others make . and they must not take the name ( of the lord their redeemer ) in vain , pretending to the living power , when it manifests not it self in them , pretending to meet in the living name , and to worship in the spirit , when they are gone a whoring from it , and become strangers to it . what should i mention any more ? it is easie to observe , how the other commandments were shadows of the inward innocency and purity , which the believer receives inwardly into his heart , from the powerful operation of the law of the spirit of life in him . obj. but may any of these laws be broken ? if they may not be broken , then they are perpetual . ans. the reason why they may not be broken , is not because that the dispensation of them is still in force , but because the dispensation of the law of the spirit , comprehends all the righteousness of moses his law : and the end of christs dissolving that covenant , was not that any man might have liberty to do any thing which is there manifested to be unrighteous ; but that the righteousness of it might be fulfilled in them who receive his law in the spirit , which never could be fulfilled by receiving of moses his law in the letter , rom . . and mark this diligently , ye that have been exercised in spirit towards god , the law of sin is nearer to us , then any law of the letter can come ; the covenant of death and hell ( with the laws thereof ) are written within by the finger of satan ; and that which blots them out must be as near , even an inward covenant , an inward writing from the eternal word in the heart , by the law of his eternal spirit of life . this then is my answer ; moses his law in substance remains , as it is taken in by christ and administred by him in spirit ; but not as it was given in the letter to the jews ; for so it was a shadow , making nothing perfect , but making way for the better hope , for the covenant established upon better promises , for the inward law of the spirit of life in christ jesus ; which effects that in the spirits of his people , which moses his law could by no means do . quest . but what is the substance of the law which abides ? ans. the substance of the law is love : to love god above all ( above all without , above all within ) and to love one's neighbor as ones self . to receive this love from god , and to bring it forth in his spirit ; this is the substance of the law , this is the thing which the law drove at in a shadow . the law is fulfilled in this one word love : but that love must be received from god which fulfils the law . a man may strive to love abundantly , and strive to obey in love , and yet fall short of the covenant ; but the lord must circumcise the heart afore that love can spring up , which fulfils the law , deuter. . obj. but doth not the apostle paul say , that by the law is the knowledge of sin , and that he had not known lust , except the law had said , thou shalt not covet ; plainly referring to the tenth commandment , which saith , thou shalt not covet ? ans. by the law outwardly was the knowledge of sin outwardly to the people of the jews ; by the law inwardly is the knowledge of sin inwardly to the spirits of disciples . now a little consider and wait on the lord to know , what administration of the law it was that paul knew sin by : whether it was by moses his administration of the law in the letter , or by christ's ministration of his law to him in the spirit ? it is rendred in our last translation , thou shalt not covet : but it might more properly be rendred , thou shalt not lust : for if {non-roman} {non-roman} {non-roman} {non-roman} {non-roman} be properly rendered lust , then {non-roman} {non-roman} {non-roman} {non-roman} {non-roman} may as properly be rendred , thou shalt not lust . and he that hath received the administration of the law in the spirit , knoweth it thus to issue forth from the word of life , into his spirit . it discovers the lusts and affections of the flesh , which draw from the yoke and subjection to the spirit ; and then by a command from the living spirit , it hedgeth up the way after the other lovers , saying , thou shalt not lust . and as the law of the flesh ariseth , kindling desires after vanity , and after fleshly ease and delight : so the law of the spirit arises in the inner man , forbidding , pricking , stopping , and limiting that which would be at liberty out of the life and purity of the holy law . and here begin the bitter fights , and terrible battels and conflicts between the two seeds , wherein all the powers of heaven , earth and hell are engaged . now because this interpretation of paul's words may seem strange and uncouth , to persons who have drunk in another apprehension , and have taken it for granted that paul there refers to the tenth commandment ; consider the place yet further , and perhaps the lord may please to open it to you from the very letter , even as he hath opened it to others immediately by his spirit , by causing them to feel the thing which paul felt , and to receive the law as he received it . paul in that seventh of the romans speakes of three states vvhich he had known . first , a state of life before the law ; i was alive without the law once , v. . secondly , a state of death after the commandment came ; then sin revived and he dyed . when the word of life came with its living commandment , to set upon sin indeed , then sinne would dally no longer , it would no longer lye as dead , and let paul live in his zeal and worship as he had done before ; but it slew him , it shewed its power in him , sometimes deceiving him , and sometimes forcing him from that which was holy , spiritual , just and good , and to that which was unholy , insomuch as he did do what he hated , and could not do what he loved ; and found himself a wretched man , and in miserable captivity , because of the body of death , and the law of sin in his members , v. , . dly . a state of life , after the commandment had done its work in throughly slaying of him . when that was removed which the law came against then , then he was marryed to another husband , then he could bring forth fruit unto god , rom. . . then he could walk freely with god , not after the flesh , but after the spirit , ch. . . and rejoice in the life , and the peace , instead of roaring out because of the death , which came from the carnal mind , v. . now when was the time when paul was alive without the law ? was it not when he was righteous , when he was whole ? then he had no need of the phisician , then he had not received the wound , even the terrible wound which christ then gives the soul when he calleth to it by his spirit , and giveth forth the commandment , thou shalt not lust . when he had confidence in the flesh , being circumcised the eighth day , of the stock of israel , of the tribe of benjamin , an hebrew of the hebrews , as touching the law a pharisee , concerning zeal persecuting the church ; touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless , phil. . , , . here was a living man : and his exact receiving the ministration of the law in the letter , was part of his life : yea but he had not received the commandment yet that slew him . paul was alive yet , and could flourish in the freshness of his life , zeal , and abundant knowledge under this administration of the law . but when god , who caused the light to shine out of darkness , shined in his heart , when god begun the work of the new creation in him by his living light , when the commandment came fresh from the spirit ( the commandment which was ordained to life , rom. . . which the ministration of the law in the letter was not , no not to the jews , but another , deut. . , . ) then paul began to feel the sting of death , and the power of sin , which now arose up in its strength to retain one of its subjects , and to keep the stronger man then he , from dispossessing him , if he could . and now , how was poor paul rent and torn , and harrased by the enemy , and made to see and feel his miserable captivity , until he had passed through the death , and was redeemed from under sin , and consequently from under this bitter ministration of the spirit , by his holy , pure , and severe law against sin ! for the man being dead , the law hath no force against the seed , nor against that which is one with , and lives in the seed : and this is it he speaks to the romans concerning , who also were acquainted with this ministration of the law , as v. . of this seventh chap. now is it not very manifest , that paul knew not sin spiritually by the ministration of the law in the letter , but was alive without it , until he felt the ministry of it from christ in the spirit ? and that soon struck at his life , and by degrees slew it , killing the body of sin in him , with its members , and so preparing him for the marriage to another husband . object . but by this then , a man is not only freed from the law of the letter , but also from the law of the spirit : for if this law be ministred to him til death pass upon him , & til he be married to christ ; then after death is passed upon him , and he is baptized into death and risen with christ , and married to him , then this law passeth away likewise . answ. there is a double ministration of the law of the spirit : a sharp ministration against sin , and a sweet ministration in the renewed spirit . the ministration against sin passeth away , as the sin is wrought out : but then the sweet spirituall current and law of its holy and pure life in the renewed spirit , is more vigorous and full . so that the law of the spirit remaineth for ever , but its convictions , its reproofs , its chastisements towards the worldly part , diminish and pass away , as the worldly part is wasted : and its sweet comforting presence , pure peace , fresh joy and life increase , as the new man grows and flourishes . quer. whether the scope and drif● of that fourth precept , be not to perswade us to lay by the works of our calling one day in seven , that we may on that day wholly give up our selves to wait on the lord , in the performance of duties of piety and mercy , for our attaining of , and growing in sanctificaion and holiness ? answ. the scope and drift of the fourth commandement was to injoin the jews to keep the sabbath strictly as a sign , by forbearing all works , and sanctifying it as a day of rest to the lord , according to the law , ezek. . . but the substance being come ( christ , who is the body , col. . . ) the day and rest of the spirit being known , the sign is at an end , and the thing signifyed taketh place . so that the rest is now in christ , through the faith , by his spirit , where the worship is . and this in the gospel comprehends the time of worship , the place of worship , and the worship it self ( which are spiritual ) where in substance all is known , injoyed and solemnized , which was figured out in shadows under the law . the sanctification being come , the rest being come , the lord of the sabbath being come , shall not the sign of the sanctification , the sign of the rest , ( which rest the lord of the sabbath was to give , & lead the spirits of his people into ) pass away ? ex . quer. . whether the fourth precept , do not as strictly bind us to keep holy the seventh day , of or from the creation , as it bindeth us to the observation of a seventh day ? answ , the fourth commandement did not require the observation of a seventh day in general , but of the seventh day in particular , of those of whom it required it : for what the law required , it required of those who were under the law , and not of others , rom. . . quer. . if the seventh days sabbath , be not morall and perpetuall , then how comes it to pass that it was instituted , or appointed from the first creation , when man by guilt stood in no need of a saviour , nor yet of such a ceremony , gen. . . answ. that it was instituted or appointed from the first creation , or that god intended to require of man the observation of it had he abided in innocency , is not manifest in the scriptures : but that god did then bless and sanctifie it ( in relation to the service he had for it ) that is expressed in scripture ; gen. . , . and that this was one end for which he did sanctifie it , namely that it might be for a sign unto that people of the jews ( which was the people he chose to set up his signs and figures of the invisible things among ) the scripture also testifies , exod. . but what further meaning there is in it , and what relation it hath to all the redeemed of the lord , in whom , god brings about the new creation , with the rest thereof , ( as he did the old ) it is better to wait to know and feel in the spirit , then to be prying into with the curious , searching , fleshly understanding . quer. . if the seventh days sabbath be not morall , and belonging both to jews and gentiles : then how comes it to pass that it was given to all men in adam , when there was no difference between jew and gentile ? and was observed by command from the beginning , as appears by comparing together , gen. . . and exod. . . to . answ. that it was given to adam in innocency , or to all men in adam , i do not find , nor do these places quoted make it manifest . but its being practised before the giving of the law , doth not prove its perpetuity , or that it was not given for a sign : for circumcision was instituted and observed long before the giving of the law , ( gen. . ) & sacrificing long before that , ( gen. . ) both which were signs of the inward , and not perpetuall , as to the outward observation of them . quer. . if when our lord jesus saith , mat. . . that till heaven and earth pass , one jot or tittle should in no wise pass from the law . if he there meant not the law of the ten commandements , expressed in exod. . then what law did he mean ? answ. by the law is meant the whole ministration of moses , as by the prophets , ver. . the whole ministration of the prophets : and that it is not to be restrained to the ten commandements , is manifest by the instances which christ gives , more of which relate to other parts of the law , then to the commandements : for there are but two instances out of the ten commandements , but there are four instances out of other parts of the law , as may be seen , ver. , , . and . of that chapter . so that christ doth not onely take in the ten commandements , but he takes in the rest of moses his ministry in the spirit , not one jot or tittle whereof is to pass , till it be all fulfilled ; but was to stand in the letter to the jews its full season , and then in the spirit till all be finished there also . the law and the prophets were untill john , from that time the kingdom of god began to be preached , luk. . . and both the law , prophets , and john himself were to decrease and christ and his kingdom to increase . christ in this of matth. had been preaching the kingdom , declaring to whom it apperteined , and the blessedness of such : now this his manner of preaching might seem to derogate from the law of moses , and from the prophets , whose doctrine and dispensation hereby he might seem to destroy . but christ taketh away the occasion of such a mis-apprehension , bidding them not think he came to destroy the law or the prophets ; for he was not come for that end , but to fulfill . wherein he doth these two things , first , he establisheth that ministration of the law and prophets for its season , till it should be fulfilled by him the substance , who was to fulfill all the righteousness of it . it should last out its whole day , and should not fail in the least tittle of it ( as he himself explaineth it , luk. . . ) til the heaven and earth of the jews passed away , heb. . . . secondly , he taketh in the substance of it into his own ministration , and layeth it more inwardly , and closely , and largely upon the spirits of his disciples , then moses had done in the letter upon his disciples . but he doth not give it out in full , but onely giveth a tast to his disciples how straitly he would minister it to them by his spirit , as they came under his yoke , matth. . . which yoke is his spirit or the law thereof , as moses his yoke was the law of the letter . now mark yet further , christ doth not give out the letter for his law , as it was delivered by moses : but requireth somewhat of his disciples , which comprehends the letter . as now when he administers the law against revenge , from whence murther proceeds , he doth not say , thou shalt not kil , as moses had said to them of old time , but saith , thou shalt not be angry without a cause , nor give thy brother any provoking language , ver. . nor does he say , thou shalt not commit adultery ; but thou shalt not let out a lustfull look , nor let in a lustfull thought , v , . and had he spoken here about the sabbath , would he have administred it in the letter , or would he have commanded the observation of the true sabbath , where no work is done , no fire kindled ( nor so much as any sticks gathered to make a fire with ) nor no burthen born ; but the man-servant , the maid-servant , the oxe , the ass , and every creature rests in the seed . the son of man is lord of the sabbath . it is true he subjected himself under the law , but yet he was still lord : and he maketh all his , kings and priests to god , who being once baptised into his death , know also his resurrection and reign . ob●ect . but all the other commandements are to be kept according to the letter ; for although it should prove so , that believers are not bound to observe them by vertue of moses's ministration in the letter , but by vertue of the ministration of the spirit , yet the commandements themselves are kept : but take away the outward observation of the sabbath , and this commandement hath no fulfilling at all according to the letter . answ. this ariseth from the different nature of the thing : for the other commandements require or forbid that which is either good or evill in its own nature ; but this is but good or evill by institution or command . to keep a day , or not to keep a day , is not good or evill in it self , but as it is commanded , or forbidden , or left at liberty in the lord , and according as it is done or forborn by him , who receiveth the command or prohibition , or is let into the liberty of the gospel , rom. . so that if the nature of the thing required in this commandement , had been alike with the nature of the things required or forbidden in the other commandements , it would have been as durable after the dissolution of that covenant , as the other things therein contained were , which vanish not in themselves upon the dissolution of that covenant , but only pass into an higher way of dispensation , where they retain their full vertue and strength , even according to the letter , though not by vertue of the administration of the letter , another higher and fuller administration of a better covenant challenging and taking its own place . qu. . if the seventh days sabbath be not morall , but an abrogated ceremony now since the death of christ ; then wherefore should our saviour instruct his beloved apostles , that must instruct christian churches to pray , mat. . . that they might not flie on the sabbath , knowing that their flight would fall out more then thirty yeares after his death ? answ. great was the hardship the jews under went in the siege of jerusalem , by that apprehension of theirs that they ought not to do any work ( not so much as of defending themselves ) on the sabbath , which hardship such disciples of christs among the jews , as could not easily be drawn of from the law and jewish observations , but still were for circumcision and keeping of an outward sabbath , might be liable to : now christ and the apostles after him , were not hasty to draw them from such things , but for a time bore with them therein , insomuch that paul circumcised timothy , and became to the jews as a jew and to them that were under the law as under the law himself also . but the strength of the query seems to lye in this , that it should bear the name of sabbath from christ's own mouth , in relation to somewhat which should happen on it more then thirty years after it should cease to be a sabbath . to which my answer is plain , that that may as well bear the name of sabbath , as jerusalem or the temple bear the name of the holy place , ver. . of the same chap. for jerusalem and the temple did as much cease to be the holy place above thirty years after those words were spoken , as the jewish sabbath could cease to be the sabbath . now for the sakes of such as have been truly exercised in their spirits by the spirit of the lord ( and have felt the powerfull work of his grace , & a building raised up by him ) & may yet be further exercised , i shall add this . jerusalem was a type of an inward building in the spirits of gods people , both in its rearing up , in its scituation , in its standing , in gods dealing with it all the time of its standing , and lastly in its downfall and utter desolation . there is an appearance and building of god in the spirits of his people , which is to give way to , and be swallowed up in a fuller and higher appearance . but the fleshly spirit , getting into this building , will not give way to the further and more inward & spirituall appearance of the spirit , but will have the first building stand as the building , and will entertain no further appearance of god , then as it can comprehend it , subject it , and afford it a place in the first building : hereupon god distresseth ariel , even the city which david built ( saying within his heart , surely that which i have built will i break down , and that which i have planted will i pluck up , even this whole land : so he causeth the overflowing scourge to pass , even over thy whole land , o immanuel ) now when the enemy enters within the holy city and within the holy temple , it is time to fly , and exceeding great distress will befall that disciple , whose flight is either on the winter or on the sabbath day . do not imagine at this , but if the lord open it not at present , wait his season : for the thing is true and sealed , both by the openings of the light eternall , and by sensible exercises and experiences from that light . thus i have answered such of the queries as concern the seventh days sabbath . such as seem to argue the unwarrantableness of observing the first day of the week for a sabbath , i leave to those to whom they are tendred ( and of whom an answer seems so conscienciously & zealously desired , as i do not see how it can be reasonably neglected or denied ) that by weighty evidence of scripture he may be reduced , if he hath erred : but if not , but it be truth vvhich he hath therein held forth , the lord may be honored in mens bovving and subjecting to every truth of his , by vvhat instruments soever it pleaseth him to make it manifest . some queries sent in writing ( upon occasion of an epistle directed to all such as observe the seventh day of the week for a sabbath ) answered . query . if the whole law of moses , the law of the ten commandments , as well as the law of sacrifices , were both added upon one and the same account for transgressions ; then why doth the holy spirit in the scriptures lay forth such an antiphitical use of them ( i suppose he means anti-tipical ) the one that sin might abound , rom. . . the other sacrificing for sin ? heb. . , , . ans. that the lavv of moses vvas added because of transgression , is manifest from that scripture quoted by me in my epistle , as vvel as from other scriptures : and one end , vvhy it vvas added in relation to transgression vvas , that the offence might abound , vvhich vvould make the sacrifice or propitiation for sin appear more necessary and more acceptable . and the sacrifices also relate to the sinner , some referring to the sin committed , others to the thankfulness and acknovvledgement due for the peace , mercy and blessings of god tovvards his poor , sinful , erring creatures ; both vvhich vvere to last till the time of reformation from the sin , heb. . . & gal. . . ( but that they vvere both added upon one and the same account , that i did not affirm , that is vvrongfully put upon me . ) now though both these were added because of transgression , yet they had not both the same use and service in relation to transgression , but the one was added to discover sin , and to make it appear exceeding sinful , rom. . . the other to blot it out , to take it away , to make atonement for it , which the sacrifices did , making the sinner upright and perfect as relating to that outward state and capacity , though they could not as pertaining to the conscience , heb. . . qu. . if the whole law , the ten commandments as well as the sacrifices , were representations , figures , or shadows of somewhat relating to christ the seed : then what did they in general , or either of them in particular represent , figure , or shadow forth , before they were written in tables of stone , or since they were written in tables of stone , more of christ then , then now . answ. that the ten words were some of the precepts of moses , and appertaining to the first testament or covenant , all which precepts were sprinkled with blood , cannot be denied : and the apostle distinguisheth the precepts of moses under the law , which were sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifices under the law , heb. . . from the precepts of christ which he writes in other tables , ch. . . which also are sprinkled with blood , but not with the blood of bulls and goats , but with his own blood : and he that receives any of these precepts out of the blood of christ , cannot truly and spiritually obey them , though he may strive much to form his spirit into the obedience thereof . now the time and season of their signification , was the time which god allotted them under the law , wherein was the use of signs : but the gospel is a state of substance , of bringing the life and immortality into the heart , and into the possession of believers , which the state of the law shadowed . so that they are not signs since the gospel , since christ put an end to the law-signs , shadows and figures , not yet before the law to believers , so far as they were in the new covenant : ( for as the thing signified cometh ▪ so that which signifieth it passeth away ) though that was a mixed state , wherein god gave a taste of both covenants , before his perfect dispensing or bringing forth of either . qu. . if the whole dispensation of the law was given to the jews , and not to the gentiles , and so the gentiles not bound to that law , but another way for them to know the mind of god then whether that law cited rom . which the gentiles shewed ( the work of in their hearts ) be another law contrary to that law that was given to the jews , even the ten commandments . ans. the law which is the substance , is not contrary to the law which is the shadow , but is the comprehending and fulfilling of it . the law in the spirit ( written by god's power and presence in the heart and mind ) is not contrary to the law in the letter , but is an higher and more glorious ministration of it . the one commandment which god gave by moses to the jews , deut. . . which was the commandment of life and death , as relating to their inward and eternal state , ver. . was not contrary to the ten commandments , which god had commanded them before by another covenant , which he had made vvith them as an outward people , and which was to be their rule as to their outward state : for they were chosen by god to be an holy people outwardly , and so an outward rule of holiness and obedience was prescribed them : but by all their obedience thereto , they could not be justified , but only by hearing , believing and obeying christ the word nigh in the heart , and by feeling in the spirit the blood of that one offering . qu. . if the gentiles were not bound ( under that law that the jews were ) which carryed the curse with it : then which way have the gentiles redemption by jesus christ : seeing all that are redeemed , are redeemed from the law and the curse thereof , gal. . . & . : ans. as they were under the curse outwardly by transgressing that outward law or covenant , and so m●ssed of the outward happiness of the holy land , and still met with wrath and judgements , and at last utter cutting off , as to their outward state , and as to all their hope from that covenant : so he that comes to receive the ministration of the law of the spirit ▪ will find the curse as abundantly inwardly , even till that be cut down by the sword of the spirit , which the curse is to , and that brought into dominion , to which is the promise and blessing . so that the gentiles find as great need to be redeemed from the curse inwardly , which the inward law brings upon the transgressor , as the jews did outwardly ; yea and find a more heavy burthen and load then ever the jews did outwardly . paul when he was alive in the outward administration of the law , not being acquainted with the inward , he knew little of the curse , he was according to it blameless , phil. . . but when he came to receive the living light of the spiritual administration of it into his spirit , then he felt the burthen , and weight , and misery of sin and the curse indeed , and cryed out , o wretched man , who shall deliver ! qu. . if the duration of the dispensation of moses law in the letter was till christ the seed should come and fulfil it , and the dispensation of moses law ( so stated without distinction ) between that that was perpetual , and that that was ceremonially vanishing , and so in the fulfilling of it besides : then what law or commandments that or they were , which while moses dispensation was in full force , is said to be perpetually sure to stand fast for ever and for ever , as psal. . . , . and when christ the seed was come , and had fulfilled all that the father had appointed him to do , was established , rom. . . and not one jot or tittle of it to pass so long as heaven and earth remain ? mat. . . & luke . ans. that distinction between something in moses law being perpetual , and something ceremonial , is not sound and proper in this place : for all that was under moses law was but a shadow , as in that dispensation , and that testament was dedicated with blood ( with the blood which was a shadow ) which related to every precept , heb. . , . and it was all substantiall and perpetuall in what it signified and related to . the sacrifices were substantiall in that sacrifice which they signified , as well as the law and precepts were substantiall , in the law and precepts which they signified . and as the first covenant pointed at a second covenant , so the laws of the first covenant pointed at the law of the second covenant , the ministration whereof is from the mediator of that covenant , and they come into the heart sprinkled with his blood . now the law or commandement , which even under that dispensation was to be perpetuall and last for ever , was the word in the heart , and the laws thereof , deut. . . which moses by especiall order from god , and according to the tenor of an other covenant directed the jews to v. . for the law , as administred by moses in the letter is not perpetuall or eternall ; but as it comes from the spirit , and is administred in the spirit , so it is spirituall and eternall . that administration was fitted to that people : and ( we knovv ) the lord , if he had pleased , could have given a fuller administration of his law in the letter then that was , as christ plainly intimates divers times , mat. . but if it had been never so full , yet the administration of it in the letter , is to give place to the administration of it in the spirit : so that the administration of it in the letter is not perpetuall , but for the time which god allotted it : but the administration of it in the spirit is eternal and perpetual , and there it remains an eternall light , witness , and sword against sin and the transgressor . and thus it is established in the hands of the spirit , after the season of that ministration of it in the letter was ended ; and thus not one jot or tittle of it was to pass away , after the other ministration with every jot and tittle of it was ended . qu. . if the coming of christ in the flesh : and his fulfilling all the righteousness of the law : and being foretold by moses to be that prophet , that was to be heard in all things which is not denyed by us : but if by these he put an end to the law of the ten commandements and gave forth an other law to his house or family : then what law that is . and whether it be contrary to that law that he with the father gave forth as deut. . . with psal. . . which now is in gospel ministration holy just good as rom. . . and spirituall ver. . answ. it is the law of the spirit , or the light of the spirit in the heart , which discovers sin ( not only in the outward acts , but in its principle , rise , first motions and inward nature ) giving forth his living commands against it . this is the law now , in which the believer is to begin , gal. . . and according to which he is to go on to perfection . for as the believer is begotten of the spirit , and born of the spirit , so he is to receive the ministration of his law from the spirit , and in the spirit , hee receives a gift of faith , a measure of faith from the eternall spring of life , and that 's his law . his law is the law of faith . the light of life , which receives in the faith , opens the mind and will of christ to him in the spirit , shewing him both sin and also the things of god more fully , then the law of moses could , though opened by the spirit : for it is a fuller , a deeper kind of ministration ; and so opens the things which it ministers , more fully then a ministration of an inferiour nature can . yet it is not contrary to moses law , but comprehends all the substance , all the righteousness and equity of it , ( as i said before ) which it , as a shadow , represented and commanded to that outward or shadowie people , the jews . but the law which paul spake of , rom. . was the law of the spirit , or such a ministration of the law as paul knew not , all the while he was under the ministration of moses's law blameless : but this law found out sufficient blame in him , ver. . &c. qu. . if jesus christ as he is the son gave forth another law to his house or family : and that law contrary to that that the father gave forth : then whether there is not two law-givers , when the scriptures say there is but one , jam. . . answ. the substance , when it is shadowed out , or when it is nakedly dispensed , is one and the same thing ; so that when ever it comes , it cannot be an other thing , then what the shadow represented it to be . moses his dispensation and christs are one in spirit : and when he cometh in spirit , he doth not destroy either moses or the prophets , but comprehends them . so that the law is but one , although the dispensations of it have been various : but the proper dispensation of the law now to christians is christ's dispensation , not moses his dispensation ; & christians are now to look for the light and knowledge of it , in the tables where christ writes it , according to his covenant . so that there have not been two laws given out , but the one law of god hath been variously dispensed : in and according to the letter by moses to the jews , in and according to the spirit by christ to his discipes . quer· . if the tables of stone : the writing of the law of the ten commandements in the tables : and the law of the ten commandements it self which was written ( were figures or representations ) then whether the finger of gods spirit doth write the law of god ( two ways in the inward tables ) so called namely in the heart of christs family : in one way whilst moses dispensation was on foot , psal. . . for the psalmist speaks in the present tense ( which was under that dispensation ) : now is it another way in this latter dispensation expressed , cor. . . qu. . if two wayes then how doth the finger of gods spirit write them those ways . answ. the eternall covenant was the same under the law , as under the gospell ; and its tables were the heart then , as well as now , and its way of writing the same then as now , even by the finger of god's power or eternall spirit : and thither the jews were even then referred for the inward writing of the law , deut. . . so that they that truly hearkned , even to moses , were to wait on this word , vvhich vvas nigh in the heart , for the vvriting of his laws there . and they that hearkned to this lavv vvhich endureth for ever , knevv the writings thereof in their hearts ; whereas the jews , vvho vvere very diligent to get the law into their hearts from the letter , could never thereby attain the writing of it there , but vvere still found breakers of it , and under that curse vvhich belonged to the breach . abraham , isaac , and jacob , david and the prophets knevv the invvard jew , who becomes so by the invvard covenant , and by the inward dispensation of the lavv in that covenant and the law vvhich vvas after the promise , could not disannul the promise vvhich vvas before it , but it stood good and firm to the children , even to all the spirituall seed , the vvhole time of that outvvard dispensation of the lavv . qu , . if not . then how doth the writing of the law in tables of stone : represent the writing of the law in the tables of the heart : seeing the tables of the heart were writ upon by the finger of gods spirit whilst the tables of stone were in full force and the dispensation had not ceased . answ. though the tables of stone , or law thereof was in force to that outvvard people of god the jews , yet this did not destroy his inward people , nor his inward tables in their hearts nor hinder him from vvriting his invvard lavv there ; but the invvard and eternall covenant ran underneath to them invvardly ( even all the time of that outvvard dispensation ) whereby they were made invvardly righteous and obedient to god . and as god had perticularly directed by moses , to the word and commandement of that covenant : so hee would not fail to write it thereby in the hearts of such , as turned to that word and commandement . so that this was the law vvhich god vvrote in the heart , even then , and vvas alvvays the invvard substance , while as moses his dispensation was but an outward sign thereof . qu. . if the law of the ten commandements it self : which enjoined love and duty to god : and love and duty to man as matth. . , , , . was , or is a figure of an other : then what law that is , that 's the antitipe of this law which in succeeding of it enjoyns not love and duty to god : and not love and duty to man . ans. this query ariseth from a great mistake , as if the law in the letter and the lavv in the spirit could not require the same thing , vvhereas they do require the very same thing in substance , but severall vvays , according to the difference of each administration , to vvit , the one litterally of a litterall or outvvard people , the other spiritually of a spiritual or invvard people . the one requires love according to the tenor of the letter , the other according to the spirit . qu. if the owning of the ten commandements as they are plainly laid down in the letter , be a breaking of them in the spirit and especially those contained in the first table : then how doth the truth of god written which is life and truth , act. . . and eccl. . . and the spirit which is given forth meet together , seeing the spirit leads and guides into all truth . ans. i do not know any , who hath said , that the owning of the ten commandements at they are plainly laid down in the letter , is a breaking of them in the spirit , but he that hath the spirit , owneth the dispensation of the letter in its place and season : but the spirit doth not teach him to run from his own dispensation ( where it is livingly administred to such , as wait on the eternall word in his covenant of life for it ) to that dispensation which was appointed for , and given forth to others . but that the truth , as it is written ( outwardly ) is life , i do not read , but otherwise ▪ cor. . . where paul saith , the letter killeth ( speaking of the letter of the new testament . ) the spirit indeed guides into all truth , but it is the living soul whom hee so guides , and it is the living truth into which he guides in the new covenant , though it was he also who gave forth , required , and was able to lead into the letter of the old covenant . qu. . whether when jehovah gave forth the ten commandements plainly as a law in the letter he did intend by the observation according to the letter : the breach of them by the spirit . ans. the spirit doth not teach to break the commands in the letter , but such as are under the ministration of the letter , to observe them according to the letter ; and such as are under the ministration of the spirit , to fulfill the righteosness of them in the spirit . ( yet the son of man is lord of the sabbath : and if he bid a man take up his bed and walk , which was bearing a burthen and doing of work on the sabbath day , it is no breach of the sabbath . ) now this is most righteous , that as the son's rest should be entred into under the gospel , so his day of rest should be kept by his disciples and family . qu. whether to say : the keeping the law of god according to the letter is a breaking of it in the spirit : be not a charging of god that gave it forth to be kept : and the holy spirit that incites ( us so to do now in this administration jam. . . and says they do well that do so ) and yet thou saist they break it in spirit : but tell us by any one scripture , how a man assisted by the spirit to own jehovah alone to be his god according to the letter of the first commandement doth break that command in the spirit . or so the like of any other of them . ans. this query is altogether from a mistake ; for it was not said by me , that the keeping the law of god acccording to the letter , is a breaking of it in the spirit ; but that he that runs back to the law in the letter , to take up any command as hold forth in it , will be found a breaker thereof in spirit . and for this , the jews in general , and paul in particular may be my instances , who was exceeding strict according to the letter of the law , but yet was a grievous breaker of it in spirit , and did not love his neighbor as himself , but in a blind zeal was a bitter persecutor : and if the jews had taken that direction of moses , deut. . . the observation of the law in the letter might have been more easie to them . so that the turning towards , and receiving the word in the heart , from whence the letter came , is the onely way to fulfll the letter ; and the law is not so much as to be known , much less fulfilled , by running to the letter of it in the first place . and this i certainly know , that there is no coming to the lord of life , nor no keeping chast to him , but in the new-covenant , and in the light of the lord , as it is there dispensed : and till then , the mind cannot forbear making of images and false representations of him to it self , though being from the light of this covenant , it cannot discern that it doth so , no more then paul by the letter of the law could discern how he was a breaker thereof in his violent persecutions . qu. . whether the prophets , jesus christ or the apostles , their keeping the law according to the letter : that they did do so , is evident , did break the law in the spirit ? ans. the prophets were under the law as to their outward state , though inwardly not without feeling the vertue of the new-covenant . christ also was made under the law , and took upon him the fulfilling of that dispensation of moses , that he might bring the believing jews from under it , into the liberty of the spirit , that they might receive the adoption of sons , and the free ministration which was appointed for the sons , and might not be held under that ministration of bondage , which was appointed for the servants . and the apostle bids believers to stand fast in the liberty wherewith christ had made them free , not making themselves debtors to the law , gal. . . for they were children of the promise , children of new jerusalem , the free woman , children of the new-covenant , and not children of mount sinai , the old covenant the law in the letter , c. . , . qu. . if there be but one day of rest holy to the lord and all the sabbaths of the law were but signs of it . that is said to be the day of redemption : that the lord hath made : then whether that day be a day natural , one of the seven days of the week which either respect the day on which our redeemer suffered , or that on which he rose again from the dead , or any other ? ans. as the gospel is not natural , but spiritual : so its day of rest is not natural , but spiritual likewise . yea i may add this also , the six days work in the new creation are not natural neither . qu. . if not so , but that it should he intended applicable to the day or time of the gospel administration from the time that christ suffered in the flesh , unto the end of the world . then whether this day that is intended as a sabbath , is one with that day that the scriptures intend and call a sabbath , which christ himself gave his disciples charge to have respect unto in their flight , matt. . . answ. the supposition here put , demonstrateth that those that put it , have no acquaintance with the gospel-sabbath , but propose another outward time for it , even the time from christs suffering in the flesh to the end of the world . now if any should so affirm , it were as justly to be excepted against , as pressing the observation of the jews sabbath is ▪ that which signifieth is outward or natural , and signifieth to that part which is without : that which is signified , is inward and spiritual , and is known , entred into , kept and enjoyed in the spirit . it is a spiritual sabbath , not a natural , which god hath instituted for his spiritual people , after he hath led them out of spiritual aegyt , into the spiritual wilderness , where he administreth to them the law in the spirit , and teacheth them to worship him in spirit and truth . qu. . if they intend one and the same sabbath day , then how impossible was it for the disciples of christ to escape flying on that sabbath day , though never so fervent in prayer , in regard that this sabbath spoken of begun when christ had suffered and put an end to the dispensation of moses law : and the flight spoken of by christ , which respect the lords sabbath , was not until many years after his sufferings . supposed-sabbath being before denied , the foundation of this query fails . an. christs sabbath is not an outward time or day in the flesh , but a day in the spirit , even a day of rest from all the labours of the fleshly part ▪ but this was spoken to before in the answer to the last of w. salters queries , whereto i may add this ▪ christ spake to his disciples of things , as they were able to bear them . now as they understood not his death : so then they understood not the abolishing of those things , which were to pass away after his death : so that christ might very well call jerusalem the holy place , and the seventh day the sabbath , speaking to them in that state . qu. . if they intend not one and the same sabbath day , then which are the disciples of christ to have respect unto , whether that that jesus christ injoined his disciples to have respect unto , or that that isaac penington would injoyn the disciples of christ to have respect unto . ans. this querie hath very little in it , save to shew the unsavouriness of the spirits of them that put it , and their want of acquaintance with the ministration of the spirit . they that know the gospell sabbath ( which is the substance of the law sabbath ) can tell who injoin'd it them , and can also tell , that he hath not required of them the observation of the jews sabbath . but they that are born after the letter , have been always subject to revile and reproach the truths of the spirit , and those that testifie thereto . qu . if the lords holy sabbath be that day which we may suppose is intended by this paper sent unto us : to be the day that containes the time of gospell-administration : then whether that sabbath doth prohibit outward labour as well as abstaining from sin , if not then which way must this sabbath be kept . seeing , that they that did and doth observe the weekly sabbath did and doth it in the spirit . and rest by faith in christ worshipping the father in spirit and in truth . answ. the gospell-sabbath begins not in the observation of outward time : but as it is spirituall , so it hath a spirituall beginning , increase , and persecting , wherein there is a rest to the spirit from sin and from the creaturely works , & a worshipping in the spirit , even as on the outward sabbath there was a bodily ceasing from labours , and an outward worshipping . and he that heareth the joyfull sound of deliverance from sin and self-working , and entreth into the faith ( beginning to cease from his own works and working , and to wait in the spirit on the power for its working in him ) hath a tast of the gospel-sabbath , and beginneth to see that day , which the type pointed to and ends in . qu. . if that that was ministred to paul , rom. . thou shalt keep the sabbath or believe in the light , follow the light and the observing of either of these in the spirit to be a keeping the whole law . then how are the scriptures observed if the keeping of one commandement be a keeping the whole law when the holy spirit in scriptures says that he that offends in one point is guilty of all , jam. . . ans. i did not say , that the keeping of one commandement is the keeping of the whole law ; but that the observing in spirit of any one of those there mentioned by me , is the keeping of the law : which was not barely said , but demonstrated , because no part of the law can be broken , but every one of these must be broken . he that commits any sin , breaks the gospel-sabbath , which is a resting from all sin and self-works ; errs from the law of love received in the spirit , which shuts out all enmity and transgression both against god and man ; departs from the fear , which keeps from departing from god by any iniquity ; and enters into the lust , which is the womb of sin , out of the compass of which womb sin cannot be conceived , much less committed . so that paul , in that law received from the spirit , thou shalt not lust , saw the whole body of sin struck at , whereas before , under the ministration of moses in the letter ( according to which he said he was blameless ) there was not so much as the life of one sin struck at , but for all his exact answering of the law according to that ministration , he was alive still . to decide this controversie , let it be put to tryall , let any one singly wait on the lord for the administration of his law in the spirit , and if the lord give forth that command to him , thou shalt not lust , in the clearness of the light of his eternall spirit , let him try , if continuing in obedience and subjection thereto , he can commit any one sin whatsoever . i do not say , that a mans proposing to himself that he will not lust , or his striving of himself to love and fear the lord or his applying himself to keep the sabbath or rest from sin to the lord will do this . ( nay this is but an administration in the letter , and will prove weak against the inward strength of the enemy ) but receiving the law in its pure living administration in the spirit , and from the spirit , here comes strength against the enemy , which is too hard for him , while it is abode in . and this the apostle paul taught the galatians , who were running backward towards the law , and not forwards in the spirit : he bids them walk in the spirit , gal , . . and so doing as they should not be under the law , ver. . so neither should they be breakers of the law : for within those bounds sin enters not , but is kept out , not so much as a lust against the law being there known , much less any open transgression against it : and against such as thus keep within the bounds of the spirit there is no law , ver. . . but against all that make themselves debtors to the law of the letter , there stands in force both the law of the letter & of the spirit also ; & they cannot in that state be free from the condemnation and curse thereof , whatsoever they may imagine concerning themselves , and their own state , from a mis-understanding and mis-application of the scriptures . the first letter answered . there is a double ministration of the law : a ministration in the letter , and a ministration in the spirit . the ministration of the letter was by moses , from mount sinai , in tables of stone , to that outward people the jews : the ministration of the spirit is by christ , from mount sion , in tables of flesh , to believers or his disciples . now this is it which the lord hath made manifest to me , that the disciples of christ , or believers , are to have recourse to their administration for the receiving of the law from the spirit , and not to run back to that ministration which was litterall and outward , and fitted to a litterall and outward people . this was more fully set down in my epistle in severall particulars . now in opposition to this , it is said f●rst that all written in that epistle , makes no more at all against a gospel spiritual observing in love the seventh day sabbath to the lord , then they make against a gospell spirituall observing of the other nine comandements . ans. my epistle striketh not at a gospel spirituall observation of any thing : but he that will obey spiritually , must receive his command from the spirit in that way which the spirit hath chosen to dispense it to him in . now the same spirit , which wrote his law in the letter under the old covenant , writeth his law in the hearts of believers under the new covenant , heb. . . which is a better covenant , and of which covenant christ is the mediator , ver. . and christ is as faithfull to give forth the laws of his spirit in the hearts of his people , as their condition requires them , as moses was to give the law written in the tables of stone to his house , heb. . . . and as moses pointed his disciples to christ coming in the flesh , so christ pointed believers or his disciples to the comforter , the spirit of truth , first to wait for him , and then to receive light or his law of life from him : and this is gospel or new covenant , even that which the spirit speaks or writes in the heart ; and this hath power in it and saveth , whereas the letter killeth . now consider seriously , whither should a believer go for this laws ? to which covenant ? to moses his covenant , or to christ's covenant . secondly , that all these commands being holy and good , are to be loved , and in love to be observed , &c. ans. all the statutes , and judgements , and ordinances , and precepts of the lord are holy and good , and are to be loved : but each is to be obedient to that which god requires of him , and to have recourse to that ministration for the law of god to him , under which god hath set him . he that believes , he that hath received the spirit , is to have recourse to the law of faith , and to the spirit for his light or law : he who was under the law of moses , was to have recourse to the law of moses : for the law of moses spake to them who were under it in his family , giving forth the precepts or commandements of that dispensation , to them who were under his testament , heb. . . and christ speaks to his family by his spirit , whom his disciples are to hearken unto , and not to grieve him , or quench his motions , or despise his prophesyings , but give diligent heed thereto , untill the day dawn and the day-star arise in their hearts . now to obey in love , doth not make the distinction of the ministrations : for love belongeth to each ministration . the jews in their day were to obey the law in love , and to have it in their hearts , deut. . , . but this makes the difference , the jews were to seek to the letter for it , the disciple is to receive it from the spirit : for he is to begin in the spirit , gal. . . whereas the jews beginning was in the letter . and this is obedience in the newness of the spirit , when the law is received fresh from the spirit , who both writes new things and brings to remembrance old things livingly and powerfully : but to go to moses ministration and learn it there , and get it into the heart from thence , that 's according to the old ministration or covenant , which was given in the letter to the jews ; as may appear in that place last cited , deut. . . . thirdly that in the same spirit and love , that we have the lord for our god , &c. in the same we are to remember the sabbath day to keep it holy . ans. the lord teacheth believers to know him to be the only true god , &c. by the law of the covenant of life in christ jesus , which he ministers to their spirits in the spirit ; whereby he teacheth them so clearly and effectually , that they need not run back to the tables of moses his covenant , from thence to teach one another to know the lord , but they shall all know him from this teaching from the least to the greatest : yea , and i may add this , this covenant by its ministration teacheth more clearly , then the ministration of moses his law in the letter could teach , heb. . , . they that have been with moses , and have learned the law of him , under the ministration of his covenant , have yet need of coming to christ : but they that have been with christ , and have learned the law of his spirit , by the teachings of the new covenant in their hearts , have not need of being sent back to moses . moses pointeth forward to christ , but christ ( even in the flesh ) sendeth not his disciples from his own dispensation back to moses ( though he also established the dispensation of moses for its season ) but pointeth them forward to the comforter , or to his appearance in the spirit . and this is the mark of a christian , which it is the intent of the letter to direct him to , and not for him to fix in the letter , as men have done since the apostacy from the spirit . this argument is further inforced thus , because he that said the other , said this , in the same law and spirit . ans. it is true , he that said the other by moses to the jews , said this also to them , and they were strictly bound thereto : but that which binds the disciple is the ministration of the new covenant , where christ writes this law in the minds and spirits of his people , by which they are bound , and such as as are out of that the lord when he cometh to examine them concerning their faith and obedience , will say to them , who hath required this at your hands ? were ye children of the new covenant ? did ye receive the spirit ? had ye a measure of faith given you ? were ye new creatures ? why did ye not keep to your rule ? why did ye not wait on the spirit , and receive the law from the new jerusalem , from whence it issues forth to the family of believers ? the jews were to be taught by precepts and judgments from moses , but all thy children shall be taught of the lord . it is said yet further , so that if thou keepest the other , and not this , thou art a transgressor of the royal law of liberty . ans. what is the royall law ? what is the law of liberty ? was the law as it was administred by moses , the royall law ? or is it the royall law as it is administred by the son , who is the king of saints , and writes his law in their hearts as their king ? again , was the law , which moses administred to the jews , a law of liberty , or a law of bondage ? did not the ministration on mount sinai gender to bondage , gal. . ? but in the ministration of the law by the spirit is life and liberty , ver. . and cor. . . and this very law , thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self is royall , and a law of pure liberty , and there is no bondage in it thus administred : but let any man now read it in the letter , and strive to obey it to the utmost he can , he shall find it weak through the flesh , accusing and in bondaging him . and this is the reason that christians so mourn in their prayers , even as persons in bonds , because they know not the royall law of liberty , because they feel not the love which the spirit begets , but strive to get the letter into their hearts , and to answer the commands in the letter with what love and obedience they can come at ; and this ( through not seeing into the true covenant and ministry of christ ) they call obeying in the spirit . the testimony of jesus , rev. . . is the spirit of prophecy , chap. . . and his commandements come fresh from that spirit of prophecy , which are to be taken heed to , till the day dawn and the day-star arise , and then a fuller ministration is witnessed then that of prophecy , even the shining and appearing of that which was prophesied of , which every believer is to wait for in the prophesies of the spirit , and in obedience to those commands , which come livingly into his heart from the spirit of prophesie . fourthly . that the fourth command is to be in love kept by all believers . ans. all the commands of christs covenant are to be kept by believers , according as he pleaseth to dispence them , under his administration in the new covenant : but the laws of the old covenant are not the laws of the new covenant , as so dispensed , but only as they are comprehended in the righteousness , which is taught and required by the spirit , which is fuller , stricter , and exacter , then that which the law of moses required . nor do i hereby go about to teach any to break the least of christ's commands , but the way to fulfill them , which is , by keeping to the certain knowledg and obedience of them , in that ministration , where christ hath promised to dispense and make them known to believers , which is , under the ministry of his own covenant , writing them in their hearts and minds by his spirit . and here the keeping of all christs commands is possible , yea this is the onely way to have the righteousness of the law fulfilled in us : for he that keeps the eye which the spirit hath opened in him , close to the spirit , shall not be able to break any law of righteousness , but the righteousness even of moses his law shall be fulfilled in him . christ is the rest of the gospel ( as he is also the holy land ) believing is the entring into this rest : here 's his sabbath , and the keeping of it . keep in the faith , the gospel rest is kept . parting with every lust that he makes manifest , observing every thing that this king calls for by his spirit , and waiting for the further manifestation or shining of the light of his spirit in the heart , here 's the obedience of the faith , and the holy and spirituall life and subjection of the living soul to its living king . here 's the beginning of a true christian , his growth , his perfection . but as for times , places , persons , &c. these are of another nature , to another part , even to that part in man which is to be done away , as hee comes into the faith , and into the rest . let that which is invisible , whose habitation is out of the reasoning part , feel and read me in that which is invisible : for i do not make void the law by faith , or through publishing the ministry of the spirit , but establish it in its ministration in the spirit to the disciples of christ ; who , keeping to the spirit , cannot transgress the righteousness of it , though they may there learn not to esteem one day above another , but to esteem every day no days having ever had any reall holiness in them one above another , but only a figurative or representative , which the substance , christ and his gospel swallow up : for as his day dawns , those things which were the shadows of it fly away . the second letter answered . object . . it is said to be dangerous , so to hold forth the spirituall sabbatism , as to deny the weekly sabbath , wherein our lord jesus christ rested , &c. and which he blessed and sanctified to adam and his posterity , &c. ans. the gospell is a state of substance , of fulfilling the types and shadows of the law , by bringing believers into the possession of that which they signified of . canaan was a type of christ , who is the land of the living , in whom every believer hath an habitation at present , according to the proportion of his faith : and the sabbath is the day of rest , which every believer is to celebrate to christ in this holy land , which he doth by believing and obeying his spirit in the faith , which keepeth him out of the sin , the unbelief , the unrest . but that the sabbath of the law the rest thereof , which pointed to the faith , is still to be held up in the times of the gospel , i know no scripture which so teacheth , and i know somewhat which teacheth me otherwise . the day is dawned , blessed be the lord god almighty , the everlasting day is dawned , and the shadows of the law are flown away . object . . it is said , that heb. . speaks of three rests , the seventh day or sabbath rest , israels rest in canaan , and a remaining rest whereof david speaks , psalm . . ans. i grant it , there were two rests under the law , which were signs of the one rest under the gospel . the two under the law were outward and natural , the one under the gospel inward and spiritual , answerable to the state of the gospel· david was not only acquainted with the law-state , but with the free spirit , ( psalm , . ) and the eternal law thereof . he knew the new creation , the creating of a new spirit , ( with its travell through the law ) & also the new rest . he knew the circumcision of the heart , the spirituall sacrifices of a broken heart and of praise , he could take the cup of salvation , and sing the song of praise to the lord , which none can do in the strange land , nor on any other day but the day of rest . and he incites israel to this rest , that they might not harden their hearts against it , but in the day of their visitation enter into it , by hearkning to the word which was nigh them , which gives the entrance through the faith . to day if ye will hear his voyce , harden not your hearts , &c. there is a rest ye are now called to enter into , as your fathers were called to enter into the land of canaan : harden not your hearts as they did , but hear the voice , hear the word which calls to this rest , believe and enter . this rest remains , says the apostle , the others were types of it under the law-state , which was to pass away . object . . it is said , ceremoniall signs are done away , but the ten commands under the mercy-seat are of an other nature : and that there are signs which are not yet abolished ( as the rainbow , sun , moon , and stars ) but still remain for us to make good use of . answ. the mercy-seat under the law is done away , and the substance thereof is come , and will ye not give him leave to write his law in the tables which he shall choose , where his disciples may read it with the eye which hee gives ? is his law now to be read in the shadow , or with the outward eye , or to be looked for under the old mercy-seat of the outward tabernacle ? or is it to be read with the eye of the new creature , with the eye of faith , with the eye of the spirit , in the everlasting gospel , where the life it self is read , and in other books or writings without , but tidings or relations of the life ? here christ , here the spirit , here the eternall life , here the love , the joy , the peace , the rest , the purity , which is eternall , is seen , is felt , is handled , is injoyed : for the true faith is indeed the substance of the things hoped for , giving victory over the enemies which disturb , and a quiet habitation in him who is the rest . and as touching signs , i do not say that signs are so done away , as that there is now no good use to be made of them ; but in reading the law and shadows thereof , the lord may please by his spirit to enlighten the spirit of him , who reads in his fear , to see through them : but this i do not find , that so much as any one sign or shadow under the law , was to be continued in that way of service under the gospel ( for indeed to what end should it ? when that is come , which it signified , is not its work at an end ? ) and that that sabbath was given for a sign ( as well as any other sabbaths of the law ) i find expresly , exod. . . to . object . . it is said , that though christ's law be a new law , yet it is also old , given of old to the jews . answ. yea , it is older then so : for it was written in abels and the other holy mens hearts , long before this covenant of the law in writing was made with the jews . and consider wel which is now to stand in the times of the gospel , the writing of the law by the spirit in the hearts of believers , as it was written by vertue of the promise before the law was given , or the outward and visible writing under the law , which was done for the sake of , and as a suitable dispensation for that outward people . it was not thus from the beginning , but after a long time : for when god chose an outward people , he chose also this way of writing to signifie somewhat by , which signification is concerning another state ; in which state , that which was signified is to be set up and advanced , and not the shadows which were significant of it . it is further said , that the lord writes these things new in his peoples hearts , to know the lord , as their god , and as the god and father of jesus christ , and as their father in him : and to love their brethren as christ loved them . and he writes this law also in their hearts , thou shalt have no other gods but me , make no image , exalt my name , keep holy the sabbath , &c. ans. if god write these things in the heart , are they not to be read there ? if god write them in the new covenant , and in the new tables , shal not i read them there ? and if i can read there in this living book , what god writes in it by his spirit , is not this nearer to me and clearer , and read by a more certain eye , then what i can read with my outward eye in tables of stone ? oh , do not turn the believer out of his way : do not hinder him from reading in the book , which is clear and infallible , the clear and infallible things of god . will god write in my heart , and will he not give me an eye to read ? shall he give me an eye to read , and shall i not read therewith ? thou hast here confessed this to be the new writing , and the new writing belongs to the new covenant , both which are proper to the gospel-state and to christs meditation , who is mediatour of the new covenant , heb. . . and in that he saith , a new , he hath made the first old . now that which decayeth and waxeth old , is ready to vanish away , ver. . object . . it is said , that love being the sum and substance of the law of the spirit , makes no more against the fourth commandement , then against the rest . ans. love is the substance of them all , & they are all fulfilled in it : but they are not after this manner fulfilled , to wit , that a man should strive perticularly to keep them in his eye , and so labour to fulfill them in love ; but rather thus , in waiting on the lord to receive love from him , and to be kept by him in the love , in this love received they are all fulfilled and cannot be broken , and this is an easie yoke . this is the new birth , and the path thereof , the other is but the old creature , with its striving after the path and inheritance of life . and as this love is the fulfilling of the law , so the heart are the tables of this love , wherein god writeth both the whole and all the parts of his law . now i am not against any man , who in singleness of heart applies himself to the letter ; but it is but the old way , and a conversing with christ after the manner of moses's his dispensation : but i must confess that i am for the new covenant and for the ministry of the spirit , which is far beyond the letter , and though i have known christ , and the lavvs of his life after the flesh , yet henceforth my desire is not after knowing him so any more , but to know him in the eternall life of his spirit , and to drink of the fruit of the vine , new vvith him in his fathers kingdome . a brief explication of the mistery of the six days labour and seventh days sabbath , for such to behold , the eye of whose spirit is opened by the pure anointing , and who are not so drowned in their conceivings and reasonings about the sence of the letter , as most of the professors of this age are . mat. . , , . come unto me all ye that labour , and are heavy laden , and i will give you rest . take my yoke upon you , and learn of me , for i am meek and lowly in heart , and ye shall find rest unto your souls . for my yoke is easie , and my burden is light . he that hears the joyfull sound of the everliving power , calling him by the voice of his eternall light out of the darkness , out of the death , out of the misery , out of the dominions , territories and deep slavery of satan unto himself , and cometh unto him in the vertue and power of that life which calleth , he hath a tast given him of the eternall rest , and a promise of entring into it . but the entrance into the fulness thereof is not presently , but he hath a long journey to take from egypt the dark land , from sodom the filthy land , from babilon , where all the vessells and holy things of god have been defiled , through the wilderness , unto canaan ; and many battles are to be fought with enemies by the way , & also with the enemies which possess the holy land , and many hardships to be undergone in following the captain , who also leadeth his israel by a pillar of cloud by day , and by a pillar of fire by night ; and there must be a circumcision & a baptism in the cloud & in the sea , and the falling of all those carcasses in the wilderness which are not to enter , nor so much as see the good land , before the entrance be ministred to the seed , and to that which passeth through the water and through the fire with the seed . in plain terms , there must be a taking up of the yoke , and a learning of christ under the yoke , till the proud , the stiff , the stubborn , the wise , the wilful , the selfish spirit , the hard stony heart be wasted and worn out by the cross , and nothing left but what becomes one with the seed , and so is fit to be married to it , and to enter with it into the everlasting kingdom . now this bearing the yoke , this taking up of the cross , this following of christ in the wilderness , through the corrections of the father , through the buffettings and temptations of the enemie , in the midst of all the weaknesses & frailties of the flesh , going when he bids go , standing still where he stops , fighting when hee prepares to the warfare , bearing the repulse , when he suffers the enemy to prevail , and hoping even beyond hope for his relief and victory in due season ; here 's the labour , here 's the travell , here 's the working under the life , with the measure of grace and power received from the life . so that first the day-spring from on high visits : from that visitation there is light entred into the heart : by closing with that light there is grace received : with this grace received there is work to bee done for god , his talent is to be improved all the six days , by all that will rest with him on the seventh , and that desire to cease from their labours in the fruition of the faith , the life , the power ; the faith , the life , the power living , becoming and performing all in them . and he that doth not improve the talent , he that doth not follow on in the pure light , but either sits down by the way , or is deceived with an image of what once vvas true in him , he can never arrive at the land of rest ( though perhaps he may arrive at that which he may call so ) but , when the eternall witness awakes in him , he will find the want of it , and bitterly bewail his grievous mistake . novv in this hard travel , and grievous labour under the close lavvs and spirituall commandements of the life ( hard i mean , yea , very hard to the unrenewed part , though easie and natural to that which is renewed and born of god ) it pleaseth the lord novv and then to give a day of refreshment , causing his life so powerfully to spring up , that it even sensibly is , and doth all in the heart . this is a sabbath , wherein the soul rests in the povverfull movings and operations of the life , and doth not find any stress of trouble , or hardship or labour upon it , but sits still in the povver , is at ease in the life , in the etertal vertue , vvhich lives , and moves and is all in it : and no pain , no trouble , no grievousness of any command is felt ; but to it all is easie , all is natural , all is purely pleasant , the life ( to vvhich all its own lavvs , statutes , ordinances , judgements , ways and paths are easie ) performing all it calls for , even as fast as it calls for it . and here not only a sabbath of days , but also a sabbath of vveeks , yea sometimes a sabbath of years ( besides the everlasting jubilee or year of perfect redemption it selfe ) are known & vvitnessed by such as have vvaited on the lord , in singleness of heart under the yoke of his spirit , for the bringing down of the rough and untovvard nature , and for the raising up of the meek and lovvly heart . but here it is exceeding easie , running out and starting aside : it is easie running out from under the yoke to avoid the bitterness of the hardship to the earthly part ; it is much easier running out on the day of rest , and so loosing the truth in a joy and rejoicing , even such an one as might have a true ground . oh who can but think the bitterness of death is past , when all enemies are vanished , and there is nothing left but the lord and the soul imbracing each other ! and who can but be unwilling to come back again to his labour , and to the residue of his hard travel afterwards ! and yet it is far better to return to the work in the vineyard , and to suffer again with the seed , then to keep up the rest in a notion , and so to lose the life and pure presence and vertue of the seed , when it returns unto and cals back to the labour . oh how many have perished here , suffering a divource from that which led them into the rest , not being willing to go back again with it to fill up the residue of its sufferings , which were yet behind , and so have kept up a false , dead , notional rest , after the true sabbath was ended . now there is no way for such , but to wait to feel the living breath , the quickning vertue , the day-spring from on high , which by the brightness of its rising can discover this false rest , this dead rest , this notionall rest , this ease in the earthly , in the fleshly , in the understanding part , which they uphold by things they have formerly gathered from the scriptures , or from their own ( perhaps once living ) experiences ; but now hold , out of the feeling and possession of the life , in the dead part . but that it is thus with them , they can never see , untill the light , from which they have erred , spring up and discover it to them : and when the light doth arise and discover it , they will find the way of return and the path of redemption much more difficult to them , then it was at first . yet it is better to part which the ease of the flesh , and to undergo the pangs of a new birth , then to miss of the inheritance in the good land . there are three steps or degrees of the blessed estate : first there are desires , thirstings and breathings begotten after the life . secondly , there is a labouring in the service ( under the yoke ) by the vertue which springs from the life . thirdly , there is a rest , or sitting down at ease in the life . by the stirring of life in the soul , desires after life are kindled : he , in whom the desires are kindled , and who feeleth the eternall vertue , cannot but be running the race : he whom the spirit of the lord findeth faithfull in running the race , it pleaseth the lord ever and anon to be giving him a tast of the rest . thus the spring stirring , the soul cannot but move towards its center : and as it entreth into , and fixeth in its center , it partaketh of the rest . n●w to know the leadings of the spirit forward and backward into these ( into desires , when he pleaseth , into the labour and service of the life , when he pleaseth ; into the sweet rest and perfect repose in the life , when he pleaseth ; ) here is the safety and sweet progress of the renewed spirit . that man who is born of the spirit , is to wait for the movings , breathings and kindlings of the spirit in him : and when the sun ariseth , he is to go forth to his labour in the light thereof , and in the night and withdrawing of the sun , to retire : and when his seventh day of rest comes , he is to receive it from , and enjoy it in the spirit ; and afterwards to be willing to begin his week again , even till his whole race and the full course of his pilgrimage be finished . yet if it were possible for man after he is come to christ , to abide perfectly with him , to cease from lust , to keep within the faith , to draw naturally in the yoke , to bow in the spirit continually to the father of spirits , there would be a continuall sabbath kept in the passage , even before the great , full and perfect sabbath in the end . the hardness , and unease of the labour , is because of a part contrary to the life , which when it is worn out , there will be no more labour , but the yoke will become the rest , and all the motions and operations of life will flow forth naturally in the rest . and here is the patience and faith of the saints , to wait under the yoke , under the daily cross to that part which is to be brought and kept under , till all the bonds of captivity be broke through by the life , and the vail of flesh rent from the to the bottome ( the remaining of which , is that which stops the free current of life ) and then shall the soul enter into the holy of hol●es , obtaining the full possession of the everlasting inheritance and of the eternall redemption , and know sorrovv , tears , bonds , sickness , death , captivity ( no nor so much as grapling with them , or travelling out of them ) no more , but the enjoyment of the plenty and fulness of the life reaping all the pleasant fruits of life , in the rich land of life for evermore . some considerations propounded to the jewes , that they may hear and consider , and their hearts at length may be turned towards that which alone is able to convert them to god , that they may once more become his people , and enter into an everlasting covenant with him that may not be broken , that so they may abide in his love and covenant of life , and remain his people for ever . consideration i. what great love , mercy and kindness god shewed to that people , above all nations and peoples under heaven . of his own free love he set his heart upon them , chusing them to be a people to himself . he brought them out of egypt by a mighty hand and outstretched arm ; he mightily preserved them in , and led them through the wilderness . he entred into a covenant with them to become their god , and betrothed them unto himself for his own lot and inheritance . he gave them righteous laws , judgments , statutes and ordinances , both of worship towards him , and of an upright demeanour and conversation among themselves and towards all men . he drove out the heathen from before them , and gave them a pleasant land to possess , even the glory of all lands , a land flowing with milk and honey . he built an habitation for himself among them , first a moving sanctuary or tabernacle , afterwards a more setled abiding place or temple ( which solomon built ) wherein was the ark of his presence , where he was to be sought unto and enquired of by them , and towards which their prayers were to be directed , and there was a mercy-seat , whereof they had large experience , and he ever and anon sent prophets among them , to reprove their errors and blackslidings , and to set them to rights again . he raised up judges likewise to defend them : and although they were weary of his government , desiring a king after the manner of the nations so vehemently , that they even forced a king from him , yet he took him away from them , and after him chose a man after his own heart , to feed jacob his people and israel his inheritance , who fed them according to the integrity of his heart , and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands . what should i say more ? what was wanting of love , of care , of goodness , of kindness , of mercy , of gentleness , of any thing that a people could desire of their god ? i say , what was wanting of all this on gods part ? what could he have done more for his vineyard , than he did do ? nay he emptied upon them all the goodness , all the mercy , love , favour , &c. that that covenant would hold to the full , yea and more too : for he bare with them more than that covenant required him to bear , and redeemed them oftner than that covenant engaged him , yea many time turned he his anger away , and did not stir up all his wrath , as he might often have done according to the tenour of that covenant . yea in all their afflictions he was afflicted , and the angel of his presence saved them : and he was still ready to say in his heart , surely they are my people , children that will not lie , at length they will see their error , repent and be true to me : insomuch as he was never weary of saving them , of trying them again and again , of stirring up his bowels of love and pitty to redeem them , of sending his servants and prophets among them to warn and reclaim them , even till at last it was manifest that there was no remedy but he must cast them off , and provoke them to jealousie by a foolish nation ( deut. . , . ) drawing them nigh to him , who had been worshipping stocks and stones , making them become a people , who had long been no people , and casting these out of his sight , making them become no people , who had so long been his chosen peculiar people , in covenant with him , and nigh unto him above all the families of the earth . consid. ii. what constant rebellion and stiffness of spirit that people all along expressed towards the lord , what wild sowre grapes they still brought forth to him , sowre love , sowre obedience , sowre worship and sacrifices , such as the pure pallate of the lord could find no relish nor savour in : but as moses had told them , that it was not for their righteousness god chose them to give them the good land to possess , for they were a rebellious and stiff-necked people , deut. . , . so it was not for their goodness that god continued his love to them , for they were all along provoking him , jer. . . when god came to shew that great mercy to them of redeeming them out of egypt , and bid them cast away their idols , they would not cast away their idols , ezek. . , . neither did they regard that mercy of redemption from the house of bondage , and from the iron furnace , but said to moses it was better for them to stay in egypt and to serve the egyptians , exod. . . again in the wilderness , how did they provoke him all that forty years of mercy , how did they err in their hearts from his pure fear , and from love to him , and from faith and confidence in him ! how did they murmur against him , and against moses and aaron their leaders ! how did they forget his works and his wonders continually ! when they came near the land , and should have gone in to possess it , then they would not , but repined and rebelled because of the talness and strength of the enemy , and of their cities : and when they were forbid to go , then they would go and fight with them . what should i mention the time of the judges and of the kings , how often the lord made them smart by their enemies in their own land , how often he gave them up to captivity out of their land , even till at length that great captivity of babylon befel them , and since that a greater captivity and desolation than that of babylon ? consid. iii. whether god , having tryed this people even to the utmost , by that covenant which he made with them by moses in mount sinai , may ever please to try them so any more : or if there yet remain any mercy or love from god towards them , whether it is not to be expected another way , and upon another account ? this is very necessary and profitatble for them to consider , that they may not be looking that way for mercy and favour from god , in which it is never to come , and so have their eyes and hearts diverted from that way according to which it is to come : for this must needs put them back exceedingly , if their eyes be looking out one way , and the love of god hath chosen another channel to run towards them in . this may make them refuse the very mercy , love and redemption when it comes , suspecting it not to be it , because it comes not in the way and after the manner that they look for it . now god hath expresly said , that when he shall be pacified towards them ▪ and shall look again upon them with an eye of favour to do them good , it shall not be by their covenant ( which could never last , but was still broken on their parts ) but by his own everlasting covenant , which he would establish to them , ezek. . . &c , it would therefore diligently be enquired by them , what covenant it is which is called their covenant , vers. . and what covenant it is which is called gods covenant , vers. . that they may withdraw their eyes and hopes from the one , from whence their redemption , recovery and mercy cannot come , towards the other from whence it is to come ? to which query , for their sakes , it is in my heart to return this answer . answ. their covenant is that which they entred into with god , the covenant that their hearts chose to unite with god by : and that was to this effect , that if god would shew them his will , they would obey it . go thou near ( said they to moses ) and hear all that the lord our god shall say , and speak thou unto us all that the lord our god shall speak unto thee , and we will hear it and do it , deut. . . thus they thought , but the lord knew otherwise , for o saith the lord that there were such an heart in them , &c. vers. . and moses knew otherwise , he knew that they would corrupt themselves , and that evil would befal them in the latter dayes , deut. . . but gods covenant was the free covenant he made with abraham , isaac and jacob , the covenant of his grace , the covenant of his free love , whereby he was able to reach them in egypt , upon the cry of the seed in them ( in the midst of their idolatries , and to bring them out and do them good notwithstanding their stubbornness and stiff-neckedness ) even before the other covenant was made . this covenant of love was gods covenant . this is the covenant god remembred to them in the days of their youth , while they were young and tender , and not yet grown up to be a people under the other covenant : and this is the covenant which lasts for ever , which is not founded upon their obedience , but on god's free love to them for his own name sake , and for their fathers sake with whom he freely made it . quest . what doth this covenant contain ? answ. putting his fear in the heart , writing his laws in the mind , pouring of pure clear water upon them to wash away the pollutions of their inward parts , circumcising the filth of the heart , healing the backsliding nature by creating of a right spirit within , and keeping of the created spirit right by the presence of that spirit which created it : see jer. . , . ezek. . , &c. hosea . . this is god's covenant , this is the new covenant , which is to be made with the house of israel and judah when god redeems them : and they can never be redeemed but by this covenant , but are to remain desolate , until the spirit be poured out from on high upon them , isai. . . until their hearts be circumcised to love the lord their god , untill his fear be placed there , and they thereby caused to walk in his ways . as therefore they receive the spirit , are brought into the fear , have the law written in their minds and become subject thereto , so will they tast of this covenant , be brought into redemption by it , and become a glory inwardly , and outwardly also upon the earth . quest . what is the way for them to have the fear of god put in their hearts , to have their hearts circumcised , to receive the spirit and his laws into their minds , and so to come into this covenant ? answ. there is no other way but that to which moses himself directed them , after god had made the other covenant with them , and tryed them long by it , together with many temptations , signs and wonders both before and after it ; and seeing by all these they had not had an heart to perceive , nor eyes to see , nor ears to hear , moses at length directs them to another covenant , the word whereof would give them eyes to see , and ears to hear , and an heart to understand . which covenant was a covenant besides the former , deut. . . and was indeed the covenant concerning life or death eternal , chap. . . ( the other being but a covenant of their outward state , made with them after their coming out of aegypt , upon their deliverance there from , and according to their choise to become a people to god according to it . ) this word , moses tells them , was near them ( nearer then that which was spoken by god on the mount , and afterwards written in tables of stone . ) the voyce of this word and the commandment thereof was nearer , that they need not seek anywhere abroad for it , but only listen at home to hear its speech , obey it in the faith , and live for ever , deut. . , &c. this is the way for them and all men to come into this covenant , and there is no other ; there is a light shining in the darkness of mans heart , which springs up in him , and casts forth it's rayes to discover and draw him out of the darkness : now as this light is felt , loved , understood in spirit , hearkned and cleaved to in the pure faith , which it begets ; that which cleaves to it , is drawn out of the darkness by it , into the covenant of the pure eternal light , where god is , and whither all they are translated , who are drawn to him in and by this covenant , as they are kept , preserved , and continue in the faith , love and obedience of it . now i would yet put these few things more to them . first , whether that people of the jews , as they stood related to god in that covenant ( given by moses at mount horeb ) with the covenant it self and all things appertaining thereto , were not a shadow of some inward and spiritual thing afterwards to appear and be made manifest in its season . whether they themselves were not a shadow of a more inward and spiritual people , to be gathered to god by the inward and spiritual covenant ; and whether their outward covenant was not a shadow or visible representation of that covenant , and the laws of it a shadow or representation of the inward laws ▪ which were to be written in the hearts of that spiritual people ? was not their tabernacle , or temple , a shadow of the true tabernacle or temple , seeing god dwelleth not in temples made with hands , but in a poor , humble , contrite spirit , and in the heart that trembles at his word , isai. . . and chap. . , . so was not their circumcision a shadow of the circumcision which is to pass upon the hearts of god's chosen ? were not their sacrifices types or representations of the sacrifices of praise and of a broken heart ? psal. . . and psal. . . was not their canaan , or holy-land , a type of the true holy spiritual rest which the faith gives entrance into ? their city jerusalem a tipe of the jehovah-shammah ? their priests and levites tipes of the spiritual priesthood , which was to offer the pure offering and spiritual sacrifices among the gentiles ? malac. . . mark that place , if it did not plainly foretel the casting off of the jews , with the rejecting of their offerings , priests and levites , and god's raising up a seed among the gentiles , where he would have a more acceptable people and worship , even a pure spiritual people , and a pure spiritual offering . secondly , if they were types , representations , or shadows of somwhat spiritual to come , then were they not to give place to that which is spiritual when it came , and so to be swallowed up in it ? is not the spiritual glory , the glory ? the inward jew , the jew indeed ? the circumcision of the heart , the choice circumcision ? the offering up of praise and of a broken heart , the acceptable sacrifice ? the land of life and righteousness , the true land of rest to the living by faith ? is not the spiritual city , house , or temple which god builds , the ierusalem or temple of the new covenant ? is not this the choice house to god ? and is not this spiritual glory to be expected in the days of the messiah , and all the tipes and shadows of moses , which pointed at him , to end in him , when once he comes to set up his true , inward , invisible , substantial glory among his inward and spiritual people ? when the day of messiah dawns , shall not moses his shadows fly away ? o that your eyes were opened to behold the inward glory of life , the good things of the new covenant , the great treasure and riches which are revealed and possessed in the spirit ; by the spirits that are redeemed unto god , that ye might partake thereof ; and then your eye would not be so much on that which is outward , which if ye had even to the utmost of your desires , are not comparable to the inward . lastly , search the prophets , see if the messiah is not first to come in a despiseable way , as a man of sorrows , isai. . , . whose visage in that appearance was to be more marred then any mans , isai. . . and consider whether he was not to be cut off , though not for himself , dan. . . and then to sit at the right hand of god , until his enemies be made his footstool ; psa. . . before he come in that glory wherein ye expect him . so that if he be not thus come already , then that coming of his is yet to be expected , and his hands and feet are yet to be pierced by you , and then afterwards ye may look upon him whom you have pierced , zach. . . and all the families of israel mourn bitterly apart for it , ver. . when moses gave the law , the vail was over his face : your fathers were not able to bear the light wherein the law was given , nor the light wherein the prophecies of the prophets were given , and so they still erred from the law , were offended at the prophets while they were alive , & mis-understood their words after their death . now do not ye search into moses and the prophets , in the same spirit of error as your fathers did , being shut out from the light of them , even as they were ? if it be thus , if the vail be over your hearts , if ye be ignorant of the true light ▪ of the true eternal power wherein the scriptures were given forth , ye must needs mis-understand them mis-understand moses , mis-understand the prophets , mis-understand the things spoken concerning the messiah , & so not be able to see unto the end of those things ministred by moses , & of that ministration which was to pass away , nor into the beginning of the ministration of the messiah , which was to succeed it . o turn within to the word nigh in the heart , that the true jew may be begotten and formed in you , and his light may arise and overspread you , that in that light ye may see the light of moses , and the light of the prophets , and not gather false meanings from their words , but understand them a right in the same holy spirit , and injoy the blessedness they spake of and directed to , which lyes in the inward raising up of an inward seed , and not in an outward conformity of the outward man , while the heart and mind remains unchanged and unrenewed , which can never be made new by any ministry of the letter without the spirit , but alone by the ministry of the spirit , whether with or without the letter , as he pleaseth . j. p. the end . observations on some passages of lodowick muggleton, in his interpretation of the th chapter of the revelations as also on some passages in that book of his stiled, the neck of the quakers broken, and in his letter to thomas taylor : whereby it may appear what spirit he is of, and what god his commission is from : whereunto is added a brief account of my souls travel towards the holy land, with a few words concerning the way of knowing and receiving the truth / written ... by isaac pennington. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) observations on some passages of lodowick muggleton, in his interpretation of the th chapter of the revelations as also on some passages in that book of his stiled, the neck of the quakers broken, and in his letter to thomas taylor : whereby it may appear what spirit he is of, and what god his commission is from : whereunto is added a brief account of my souls travel towards the holy land, with a few words concerning the way of knowing and receiving the truth / written ... by isaac pennington. penington, isaac, - . 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ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng muggleton, lodowick, - . -- true interpretation of the eleventh chapter of the revelations. muggleton, lodowick, - . -- neck of the quakers broken. muggleton, lodowick, - . -- letter sent to thomas taylor. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - john latta sampled and proofread - john latta text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion observations on some passages of lodowick muggleton , in his interpretation of the th chapter of the revelations . as also on some passages in that book of his , stiled , the neck of the quakers broken , and in his letter to thomas taylor . whereby it may appear what spirit he is of , and what god his commission is from . whereunto is added a brief account of my souls travel towards the holy land , with a few words concerning the way of knowing and receiving the truth . written in tender love to souls , in true sense and understanding received from the lord , and with reverence to his holy spirit and power , by isaac pennington . printed in the year , . the preface to the reader . having bad a book of lodowick muggleton's sent me to peruse , and having been earnestly pressed thereunto by some , who had let in his spirit and doctrines , to their great hurt : in the fear of the lord , and in the sense of his holy spirit of truth , and in tender love to them who had requested this of me , i cast my eye thereupon ; wherein i observed very many things contrary to the spirit of 〈◊〉 lord , the testimony of the holy scriptures , and the nature of truth ; some whereof ( for the service of others ) are here communicated . to which , there arose somewhat in my heart to add concerning my self , in reference to my wearisom seekings , journeys and travels after the lord. indeed it came upon me very freshly and livingly : and the lord may please to make it usefull to others , even to help to stay the minds and quicken the hopes of such that are fainting , as i deeply was . now if so be any shall reap any benefit thereby , let them give glory to the lord alone , who alone is worthy thereof . for i seek not esteem of men ; but all my desire is , that men might know the lord and the power of his truth , and by him be gathered into and preserved in that which is pure of him it is the day of the gospel , even of gods eternal power , which is risen in many hearts : for indeed the light of the everlasting day of god shines gloriously , and doth conquer and shall conquer the darkness and corruption in mens minds daily more and more . o that more might partake of its vertue , and not stumble at that stumbling stone , which the builders out of the life and power , in every age and generation , have first dispised and rejected . o that men might seek after christ , the wisdom of god aright : not in that spirit and wisdom which shall never find him . for it is easie to seek amiss , but none can seek aright , save only those that are led and taught of god so to do . observations on some passages of lodowick muggleton , in his interpretation of the th chapter of the revelations . in page . he saith , [ the law is not written in the seed of faiths nature at all , but in the seed of reasons nature only . ( reason , or the spirit of reason , he saith , is the devil , p. . ) ] observ . the sum of the law is love : even to love god above all , and ones neighbour as ones self . and this love , which is the sum of the law , and fulfils the law , god writeth in the hearts of his spiritual seed . in p. . he affirmeth , [ that that saying of the devil was true which he laid to christ , all the kingdoms of the earth are mine . ] observ . the earth is the lords , and the fulness thereof . the devil hath no right to it . god never gave it him : but god himself is judge , who throweth down one and setteth up another , disposing of the kingdoms of men according to his pleasure , psal . . . dan. . . in p. . he saith , [ there never was no enmity between the person of the serpent and the person of the woman : but the enmity which lay between them was in the two seeds . ] observ . is not the enmity as expessly placed by god between the serpent and the woman , as between their seeds ? i will put enmity between thee and the woman , and between thy seed and her seed , gen. . . in p. . he saith , [ so that now god himself is not capable to dissolve himself into seed or nature , as he was before . ] observ . is god changable ? is he one thing to day , and another thing tomorrow ? and can he never be any more what he was yesterday ? his god may be so : but the true god is not so . ( i the lord change not . ) his nature , his seed , his life , his spirit , his power is the same for ever . further in p. . he saith , [ these two seeds were those two spiritual bodies which are called by the revelation of moses two trees . yet they were in forms of men , and was capable as they were spiritual bodies to dissolve into seed or nature , and so become capable to suffer the paine of death . ] observ . o the depth of imagination from that spirit , which giveth imaginations to them that will receive them ! he that is taught of god never learned thus ; but learneth much otherwise : and in the feeling sense and experience knoweth the two seeds , and is born of the one and separated from the other from the very womb , i mean , from his birth of the jerusalem which is above , which is free ( from the spirit of deceit and all its imaginary knowledge ) which is the mother of all that are born of the spirit . in p. . he saith , [ knowledge proceedeth from life that hath wisdom in it . ] observ . living knowledge doth . but there is a knowledge which comes not from the true wisdom ; nor doth convey life but death . and such is the knowledge which he hath from his god , and holdeth forth to others : it poysons and corrup● the mind , and leads out of the capacity of receiving and obeying the truth , as it is in jesus . in p. . he saith , [ reason can feed on nothing but what it can see with this visible eye . ] observ . that is not reasons food only , which is seen with this visible eye : but reason is in the mind , and feeds chiefly on thing which the mind gathers and comprehends inwardly . in p. . he saith , [ i declare by revelation from the holy spirit , that out of these two spiritual trees came forth these two commissions , namely the commission of moses and the prophets , and the commission of jesus and the apostles . ] observ . he had said before , p. . one of these trees was the tree of knowledge of good and evil ( in the form of a man , p. . ) that tempted adam . was that which tempted adam , the tree out of which moses his commission came ? doth not he call this tree the serpent ? ( p. . ) had moses his commission from the serpent ? surely every one that is of god will say , no. in p. . he saith , [ these two olive-trees and candlesticks here spoken of , i declare are those two commissions which came forth of these two spiritual trees . ] observ . one of these trees he said was the very person of god himself , p. . that the other was the tree that tempted adam : whereas the tree did not tempt adam , but the serpent tempted eve to eat of the fruit of the tree . again p. . he saith , [ moses acted as a god in the person of the angel or tree of knowledge of good and evil . ] observ . moses was faithfull in all his house as a servant . nor did he act in the person of the serpent ; for the serpent was the devil , and was out of truth long before moses time , and spake of his own : but moses spake and ministred from the pure holy spirit of life . was not the devil defiled , a corrupt tree , an angel fallen from his habitation , before he tempted eve and adam to sin and fall ? and who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? or an holy commission out of the devil ? in p. . he saith , [ the law ( speaking of moses law ) which is just and good , doth enlighten reason to do as he is done unto , not as he would be done unto . ] observ . if christ may be believed , he saith otherwise : for he saith , all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you , do ye even so to them : for this is the law and the prophets , matth. . . so that the law and the prophets did teach and require this , not only for a man to do as he is done unto , but as he would be done to . in p. . he saith , [ the law of reason is called a law of sin and death , it being given unto reason , because reason is sin ; for there is nothing doth break the law but reason ] observ . those that are delivered by the powerfull appearance of christ from the law of sin and death , knows it to be another law then the law of reason , even a law contrary not only to the life of christ , but to the reason and understanding of a man , bringing him below the state of reason , even into bruitish captivity and sensuality . doth reason teach a man to mannage his body destructively and unreasonably , as the corrupt and unreasonable law of sin and death teacheth many men ? reason is not sin : but a deviating from that from which reason came , is sin . god did not create man in sin ; or make a sinful creature : but he gave him reason , and thereby made him reasonable . in p. . he saith , [ the moon ( rev. . ) did signifie the law of moses , which must now be trod underfoot by the sun-shine light of the gospel . ] observ . no not so : the law is not trod underfoot by the light and power of life , when it appeareth ; but its righteousness is fulfilled in them that walk not after the flesh , but after the spirit , rom. . . christ did not teach men to tread moses and his law underfoot ; but brings forth that life and bestows that spirit , which leads through and beyond the law , even to the righteousness of faith , ( which the apostle paul said ) they did not make the law void by , rom. . . therefore not trod underfoot through faith in the gospel . in p. . he saith , [ there was none of the prophets that were commissionated to write scripture . ] observ . they spake and wrot as they were moved by the holy spirit , and is not that a sufficient commission ? in his book called the neck of the quakers broken , he had scoffingly cast away the writings of solomon from being scripture ; and now he casts away the writings of all the prophets too , as being written without commission ? in p. . he argueth against gods being an infinite , incomprehensible spirit , saying , [ such a great vast spirit doth not know it self , neither can this vast spirit tell where to find or see it self : and if it cannot know or see it self , how should his creature be able to know or see his maker , when as he cannot know or see himself ? then also that would be a vain thing which is spoken of in holy writ , where it is said , it is life eternal to know the true god. ] observ . here is dark imaginations indeed . he that cannot read in the spirit , let him read that place , isa . . . according to the plainness of the letter , and see if god can be less then infinite and incomprehensible . he that knoweth the nature and spirit of god , knoweth god , though he be not able to measure or discern the utmost extent of his beeing , which who can ? for he is a sea of life , a sea of love , a sea of purity and righteousness , a sea of power and wisdom , &c. but in a measure of the same life , received from him , we know him so to be ; and worship him in the spirit and life which is of him ; not making likenesses of him in our minds , but bowing to him and worshipping him in his own appearances . in p. . he saith , [ the holy ghost sate upon none like as of fire , but the twelve apostles ; neither could any other speak with tongues by inspiration , but the twelve apostles . ] observ . this is directly contrary to the testimony held forth in scripture . for , said peter , the holy ghost fell on them , as on in at the beginning , acts . . and they of the circumcision which believed were astonished , because that on the gentiles also was poured out the gift of the holy ghost . for they heard them speak with tongues and magnifie god , chap. . , . in p. . he saith , [ christ's apostles could do no miracles , neither could they cast out devils until he was ascended . ] observ . did they not cast out devils and do miracles , while he was on earth ? did not he give them power so to do ? see mat. . . in p. . and . he speaking of the wild olive-tree , and the good olive-tree . [ the wild olive-tree , he saith , is the state of nature or reason , the devil which is wild by nature . the good olive-tree , he saith , was the very person of christ , which the gentiles were ingrafted into by faith. but the commission of mises and the prophets proceeded from the tree of knowledge of good and evil , he acting his part in that seed , &c. ] which he afore said was the serpent . observ . is the wild olive-tree ( the devil which is wild by nature ) one of gods witnesses , or the head or root from whence any of the commissions of gods spirit came ? did the law of god , which was against sin and the devil , come from the devil ? is not the law holy , just and good ? and did it come from an unholy root ? what was the olive-tree the jews were broken off from ? read their state , rom. . , . and . , . was this holy root they were broken from a wild olive-tree ? what interpretation of scripture is here ? surely from a spirit quite contrary to that which wrot it . in p. . he saith , [ the great and high wall about the new jerusalem , was all that visible and external worship , which was set up by moses , which did belong to that tabernacle , &c. ] observ . is this the defence about the glory of the new jerusalem ? is this the wall and bulwark ? nay , nay : the power of gods salvation is the wall and bulwark , isa . . . which is a sure defence upon all the glory of this building , isa . . . in p. . he saith , [ the apostles should be equal in the kingdom of glory , as they were equal here in the kingdom of grace . and again , p. . as there should be no preheminence with the apostles here in the kingdom of grace , neither should there be any preheminence in the kingdom of glory . yet p. . he saith , peter was the head of the apostles . ] observ . hath the head no preheminence in the body ? are the rest of the members equal with the head ? is not this an absolute contradiction ? in p . he saith , [ the commission of the apostles was not the commission of the spirit . ] observ . paul saith , they were made able ministers of the new testament , not of the letter , but of the spirit , cor. . . what is to be desired more then the new covenant ? wherein life , spirit and power is received . now the apostles were made by god able ministers thereof : and the glory of this covenant and ministration remaineth , verse . in p. . he saith , [ death being the first-born of the law , it went forth as a conqueror of all life both in god and man. ] observ . the law is holy just and good , and bringeth forth only that which is holy . sin is not of the law , but against the law ; and the wages of sin is death . yet neither sin nor death could ever conquer the life of god , but the unconquerable life and power have ever reigned over them . gods kingdom is an everlasting kingdom , and his dominion endureth throughout all ages , which sin , nor death , nor hell could ever conquer . that life which christ did give up , none took from him as a conqueror , but he laid it down freely , at the requiring of the father , knowing his glorious power was able to restore and raise it up again . in p. . he saith , [ the body of man is that tophet that was ordained of old , and the spirit of reason is that king , which must abide in this tophet . ] observ . the body of man was gods temple before it was defiled with sin ; and is gods temple again , when it is purified and purged from sin . now him that defileth this temple of god , him will god destroy . and christ said , fear him who after he hath killed , hath power to cast into hell , luk. . . what is he able to cast into hell ? why , both body and soul , mat. . . then the body of man is not the tophet or hell : but tophet is that whereinto the souls and bodies of the wicked are to be cast . in p. . he saith , [ eternity did become time , and time shall become eternity again . ] observ . eternity did never become time , but is unchangable in its nature , spirit , life and beeing for evermore : but it brought forth natural and changable things in time , which time shall have an end . observations on some passages in a book of lodowick muggleton 's , stiled by him , the neck of the quakers broken. in p. . he affirmeth , [ that adam had no part in the begetting of cain . ] observ , the scripture saith , adam knew eve his wife ; and she conceived and bare cain , and said , i have gotten a man from the lord , gen. . . here the holy spirit of god attributeth the begetting of cain to adam's knowing his wife eve : but l. m. saith otherwise . in p. . he saith , [ whoever is partaker of the seed of adam , may be said to have the spirit of christ in them , and their spirits to be in him , that is christ dwells in their hearts by faith. ] observ . the scriptures distinguish between the first and second adam . none have the spirit of christ from or in the first adam , but only from and in the second . and the old adam's seed , spirit and nature is to be put off by him that puts on the new ; and he must be born again of the immortal seed of life , who receives the spirit of life . in p. . [ he calls reason the devil , and p. . saith , this devil so much spoken of in scripture , is no other but the spirit of reason . ] observ . indeed corrupted reason is of the devil : but pure reason is of god. man , by his fall , had his reason corrupted , and so became bruitish and unreasonable : but by faith in the redeeming power he is brought out of the fall , raised from death to life , and in the new life hath the true , holy , righteous reason restored to him again , thes . . . which reason is neither the devil , nor of the devil . in p. . he saith , [ if god be a person in the form of a man , as i am sure he is ( for i do acknowledge no other god but the man christ jesus , who is a distinct body of flesh and bone of his own ) how then can he fill heaven and earth with his presence , and get in-the quakers bodies &c. ] observ . solomon said in prayer to god , chron. . . ( which prayer god testified his acceptance of , as being from his own spirit , chap. . ) behold heaven , and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee , how much less this house which i have built ? again , thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity ( what is eternity ? ) whose name is holy , i dwell in the high and holy , with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit &c. isa . . . yet again it is said , ye are the temple of the living god , as god hath said , i will dwell in them and walk in them , cor. . . is it such a strange thing that god should be in heaven and in earth also ? is not the earth his footstool ? and are not the feet present in the place on which they tread ? was not christ in heaven while he was hear on earth , according to his own words ? no man ( saith he ) hath ascendded up to heaven , but he that came down from heaven , the son of man which is in heaven , john . . and cannot god be in heaven and in earth too , and also by his spirit in the hearts of his people ? in p. . he saith , [ to say that christ according to the flesh was of abraham is blasphemy . ] observ . the apostle said concerning the jews ( whom he calls his brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh , rom. . . ) of whom as concerning the flesh christ came , who is over all , god blessed for ever , amen , verse . did christ come of the jews according to the flesh , and did he not come of abraham according to the flesh ? now lest any should apprehend there may be some difference between according in verse , and concerning in verse , i shall add this , they are both the same in the greek . it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in both . in p. , . he saith , [ none can interpret scriptures truely , but himself . ] observ . all that are children , to them god giveth of his spirit : ( gal. . . ) and they that have the spirit , have that which interprets scriptures truly ; which they keeping to , cannot be deceived about the interpretation of them . but they that keep not to the anointing within , but receive interpretations from men without , may easily be deceived . in p. . he saith , [ god hath made him the judge of the scriptures . ] observ . let him that readeth , wait to feel the spirit which is of god , and the light wherein god dwells , and that will open scriptures and the mysteries of the kingdom to him ( he abiding in unity therewith , through the pure subjection thereto ) and manifest to him who is the judge in spiritual matters in gods israel . again p. . he saith further , [ we the witnesses of the spirit do know more then moses , the prophets and apostles did , things of more higher concernment . ] observ . the apostles were not the least in the kingdom , but in the glory of the day ( pet. . . ) in the eternal life , in him that was true ( john . . ) and they had the whole counsel of god , even a ministry sufficient to perfect the work of god in the saints ( ephes . . . ) that so they might present men perfect in christ jesus , col. . . and happy is he that receiveth their testimony , and cometh into and walketh in that light which their message was concerning , john . . & verse , & . yet again , p. . he saith , [ the quakers have only the dead letter of other mens words , whose light was but dark in comparison of the light that comes by this commission of the spirit . ] observ . yes , they have much more then the dead letter of other mens words ; for they witness the living spirit , and are taught thereby and subject thereto , blessed be the lord , who is become the shepherd and teacher of his people himself , according to his promise . [ and as for the apostles light being dark in comparison &c. ] observ . we all with open face , beholding as in a glass the glory of the lord , are changed into the same image , from glory to glory , even of the lord the spirit , cor. . . again , god who commanded the light to shine out of darkness , hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of god , in the face of jesus christ , chap. . . in that day the woman was clothed with the sun ( for as many as are truly baptised into christ , have put on christ , gal. . . ) had the moon under her feet , and was crowned with a crown of twelve stars , and not only travelling to bring forth , but brought forth the man-child which was to rule all nations . they who are indeed in the spirit , know that the light which is now broke forth , is but the light of the same day which shined then very gloriously in them , who were the glory of christ , cor. . . they had the spirit of god plentifully poured upon them , which opened to them the mysteries of the kingdom and the deep things of god , cor. . , . and how highly soever he think or speak of himself , yet this is known concerning him , that he hath a very great journey to travel , before he can come to that measure of light that they were in , or to receive that proportion of the true spirit that they received : for he is yet quite out of it . in p. . he affirmeth , [ that it was the very god-head life that suffered death . ] observ . if the god-head life suffered death , what power was left to raise it up again ? i am the resurrection and the life , said christ ; but he spake concerning that which raised lazarus , which was of an immortal nature and could not die : not concerning the body ; but the life and power of the father , which dwelt in and was revealed through the body ; which died not with the body , but remained alive to raise the body . what kind of doctrine is this , that the very god-head life suffered death , and so to make the creator mortal like the creature ? in p. . he saith , [ god the king of heaven is not in this world at all . ] observ . whether shall i go from thy spirit ? or whether shall i flee from thy presence ? said david ( who had the spirit of god ) if i ascend up into heaven thou art there : if i make my bed in hell , thou art there &c. psal . . , . and do not i fill heaven and earth saith the lord , jer. . . but l. m. hath affirmed contrary to these testimonies , that god is not in this world at all . in p. . he saith , [ i am the only and alone judge what shall become of men and women after death ; neither shall those that are damned by me , see any other god or judge but me , or that sentence which i have passed upon them . ] observ . is he god ? is he christ ? is he the only one ? is there not another god another judge ? ( yes we know there is another , who judgeth otherwise then he hath judged : who judgeth that to death which he judgeth to life , and that to life which he judgeth to death . ) and in the resurrection of the just and the unjust , shall not both the just and unjust see him who is the judge ? read matth. . , &c. again , p. . he saith , [ no man upon the earth can or ought to judge of the doctrine of a prophet , that hath a commission from god. ] observ . cannot he judge , who hath the anointing ? doth not he that is a child of god receive his spirit ? and is not the spirit of god able to judge in them that receive it ? judge not according to the appearance , ( saith christ ) but judge righteous judgment , joh. . . did christ absolutely forbid men from judging concerning him , or his doctrine and miracles , or did he not rather direct them how they might judge aright ? i speak as to wise men , judge ye what i say , cor. . . the apostle had a commission from god , & yet he did not barrmen from judging of his words , but bid them judge : and the same apostle saith , let the prophets speak two or three , and let the others judge , cor. . . is the spirit of god given to and received of the believer , and shall he not therewith judge concerning spirits and doctrines and commissions which pretend to be of him , and apostles and angels , whether they be angels of light indeed , or only such as would so appear ? believe not every spirit , but try the spirits whether they are of god , john . . and they which are of god , love to come to the light which tries and makes manifest ; but they that are not of god refuse to be tried by it . thou hast tried them that say they are apostle and are not , and hast found them lyars , rev. . . god giveth that light , that spirit , that anointing to his which hath in it ability to try , and they ought to try therewith doctrines , spirits , prophets , apostles , and certainly find thereby that they are of him before they receive them , or else they may easily be deceived ? despise not prophesyings , saith the apostle , thes . . . but yet withal though a man may not despise them , yet neither may he receive them without due trial : therefore the apostle in the next words adds , prove all things , hold fast that which is good , verse . further p. . he saith , [ who do you blind quakers think should be judge of a prophet that hath a commission from god ? ] observ . what saith the apostle ? cor. . . the spirit searcheth all things , yea the deep things of god. and again verse . the spiritual man discerneth ( or judgeth ) all things , yet he himself is discerned of no man. yet again p. . he saith , [ is not a true prophet the law-giver ? and ought not every one to submit unto his law ? ] observ . there is but one law-giver , but one king , but one lord , but one master . all prophets and ministers from him , are but his messengers and servants , not law-givers . the law cometh forth from the king himself , from the great prophet and shepherd of the soul , to every lamb and sheep in the covenant , as it is written , all thy children shall be taught of the lord ( and i will write my law in their hearts ) and so taught by this prophet ( in the new and living covenant ) as that they shall need no other teacher . this was once fulfilled before the apostacy ( as is faithfully testified , john . . the anointing which ye have received of him , abideth in you ; and ye need not that any man teach you , but as the same anointing teacheth you of all thing &c. ) and it is again fulfilled after it , blessed be the name of the holy one of israel . but mind reader , what is the reason that he reviles us above all others , calling us blind , and the darkest pieces to interpret scriptures , and the cursedst of all sects , and the like ; but because we stand most in his way , because we cannot receive him as a law-giver , because we have received the true light , the true spirit and anointing from god , which discovereth and denieth him in his very root and ground . in p. . [ he makes himself the judge , and the day of judgement but a day of general execution , wherein christ shall say , come you blessed and go you cursed . he saith there shall be no more pleading with god , but this will be all that god will say in the resurrection , come you blessed and go you cursed . ] observ . yes , there will be more said . there will be the reason given publickly why men are blessed or cursed , as was testified by christ himself , while he was here on earth , matth. . , &c. and men shall have liberty to plead as is there expressed , verse . so that christ , the great judge , is not so bound up , as he would bind him up : nor are persons , to be judged by him , absolutely bound up from considering of their sentence and pleading their cause with him ; but if they have any thing to say on their own behalfs , they shall be equally heard . in p. . he saith , [ god doth not come down from heaven upon this earth to interpret scriptures to men , but this was alwayes gods practise to commissionate particular men , and furnish them with gifts for that purpose , and what interpretations of scriptures they give , it is owned of god as if he had done it himself . ] observ . the apostle saith , every man is to stand or fall to his own master , and bids every man be fully perswaded or assured in his own mind , and affirms , that whatsoever is not of faith is sin , rom. . , . and verse . nor did christ deal thus , with his disciples , requiring them to receive what ever interpretation of scripture he would give them , but he opened their understanding that they might understand the scriptures themselves , and saith the spirit of truth should lead them into all truth . nor did the apostles thus deal with men , but they waited for gods opening of the true capacity in others , and were not lords over mens faith , but demonstrators of the truth of god to mens consciences by his spirit , and as in his sight . again he saith , [ christ doth not teach every particular man neither by his spirit , nor by voice of words . ] observ . every man that is truly begotten and new-born to god , is born of his spirit , john . ( there is not another begetter and bringer forth of life in the heart . ) and the spirit of the lord , in the new covenant , teacheth all its children . it was written so of old , all thy children shall be taught of god. how taught ? why , they shall hear and learn of the father , john . . thus the scriptures speak : and thus it is witnessed , felt and known in the heart , blessed be the name of the lord. for the children of the lord are anointed with the holy anointing , with the oyl of the same spirit ( the same oyl of gladness , psal . . . and hebr. . . wherewith christ was anointed ; which maketh them also of quick understanding in the fear of the lord , and of deep insight into the mysteries of his kingdom , as they grow up in his life , and sweet innocent holy nature . yet again in that page he saith , [ the true and right interpretation of the scriptures , it lieth in those men that god hath chosen , anointed and sealed for that purpose , and men cannot come to the knowledge of god , nor the true meaning of the scriptures , no other way . ] observ . the gospel is a ministration of the spirit and power of the endless life : and it consists not in receiving words , but in receiving the spirit from which the good words and precious knowledge comes . and he that receives the spirit and hath the spirit , receiveth and hath that which openeth and giveth entrance , not only into words concerning the kingdom , but into the kingdom it self . and the apostle who had a true commission from god , was not sent to limit men to his interpretation of scriptures ; but to turn men to the light and to the power which gives to see the scriptures and spiritual things , acts . . and the church of laodecea was counselled not only to buy gold and raiment , but also eye-salve of christ , that therewith they might be enabled to see , rev. . . they had words from those that were sent by god , and much knowledge ( insomuch as they seemed to themselves to be rich and full ) but yet they wanted the eye-salve , which they were to buy themselves : for no man is to offer any thing , but at his own cost . yet again in p. . he saith , [ the opening of the scriptures belongs unto commissionated men , and not unto christ himself . ] observ . in the new covenant god himself is the shepherd , the king , the prophet , the teacher . ( this is not known only from words left upon record by holy men of god ; but also inwardly felt and witnessed . ) the eternal word is nigh ; nigher then words from commissionated men ; and teacheth more inwardly and fully , then words from men can . the same god who creates the heart anew , puts his law into the mind and heart , yea his spirit within . now to this the gospel ministers formerly did ( and still do ) direct and turn men ; but did not limit them to words from themselves , or to their interpretations of scriptures , as was said before . and as under the law men were to hear moses : so under the gospel men are to hear christ in all things ; and he that doth not hear him is to be cut of , as acts . . in p. . he saith , [ though the prophets and apostles were anointed and sealed of god for that great work , will it follow therefore that you quakers , because you read their writings , that you are anointed and sealed of god for the work of the ministry ? ] observ . where was this ever affirmed by them ? but this they certainly know and faithfully testifie , that they have received the very same spirit in measure which the prophets and the apostles had , and minister in its name and authority and demonstration , and have the true and living seal of their ministry in many hearts . in p. . he saith , [ as for my mouth being full of cursing , that is my commission . and p. . god hath ordained me the chief judge in the world at this day to give sentence upon men and womens spiritual and eternal state what will become of them after death . full of this cursing i confess my mouth is , and i do rejoyce in it too &c. ] observ . when christ pronounced judgment upon jerusalem , he did it weeping , matth. . , . and luke . , &c. and the true apostle knew that those that watched for the soul , when they gave up the account concerning such as did not submit to and obey the truth , but rebelled against it and perished , they could not do it with joy , but with grief , hebr. . . in p. . [ he teacheth his disciples to curse men to eternity , despsing spirits he calls them , such he means as do not own his commission , but know it not to be of god , and faithfully testifie against it . ] observ . christ taught his disciples to bless , saying to them , bless them that curse you , matth , . . and the apostles said , bless and curse not , rom. . . and christ is the same at this day , and teacheth his disciples so now . yea i and many others can faithfully witness it , that since we felt the seed of blessing in our hearts , we never learned of it to curse any man , but rather to pity them and pray to the lord for them , and direct them to the holy light , spirit and power , whereby they might be turned from their iniquities and come into the blessing , as acts . . and though he pretends that those whom he curses , have sinned the sin against the holy ghost , and are devils ; yet that is but the judgment of his spirit , not of gods spirit : for they are in that which keeps from grieving gods spirit ; much more from sinning the great and unpardonable sin against it . in p. . he saith , [ neither do i curse any , until he judge me first . ] observ . feel , ye that have true sense and understanding , what moves him to curse . in p . he saith , [ if the witness that informed me did not witness truth , then the sentence which i have passed upon them shall be of no value . observ . how often hath he affirmed his judgment to be infallible and such as god himself could not reverse ? but here , it seems , it is such as may be passed by hearsay , and depend upon the witnesses words : so that if the witness that informed him spake truth it shall stand ; but if the witness did not speak truth , then the sentence which he hath passed shall be of no value . what , shall a man be commissionated and receive authority from god to judge irreversibly , so as god himself cannot pardon that man he hath judgeth ( as he affirmeth ) and yet that man not receive true sense , wisdom and understanding from god to preserve him from misplacing it but it may be a true judgment or a false judgement , according as the witnesses information was ? ah cease deceit , and for shame be silent : thy covering is manifestly too narrow . in p. . he saith , ( speaking of the penalty or punishment of the laws ) [ if my innocency nor money will not deliver me , i must and will suffer under it . ] observ . he hath took scope enough to avoid the cross or suffering by any laws , which might lay hold on him for conscience sake . the apostles never saved themselves by money from their sufferings for their testimony . in p. . he saith , [ every man that reads the scriptures doth think to find eternal life in them , as christ said to the jews , and as you quakers and others do now adayes . ] observ . do the quakers think to find eternal life in the scriptures ? did they ever teach men so ? have they not very often faithfully testified otherwise ? not in words concerning the thing , but in the thing it self , in the word which was in the beginning and from the beginning ; do they look to find eternal life . yea and there they have found it , and do live in the life which is eternal , and the life which is eternal lives in them . this testimony hath the living seal to it ( whereby it may be known by those that are truly living ) and cannot be shaken . but he hath manifestly in this thing ( as in several others also ) discovered himself to be a false witness : and a false witness can never be a true judge . nay alas his judgment is of and like his spirit , which manifestly is not of god ; and his knowledge which he holds forth leads not to god not to life , but to the chambers of hell and death . observations on some passages in his letter to thomas tayler . in page . he saith , [ i marvel what satisfaction any man can have in his mind in believing in a quakers god , to tell a man that god abides in himself and is what he is . ] observ . doth not god say to moses concerning himself , i am that i am . when moses desired to know how he should answer the israelites , when they should enquire who sent him to them , god bid him tell them that i am had sent him , exod. . . how could the israelites understand what god was by this ? what satisfaction could they find in this answer of moses , would this spirit say ? but god is not to be known by the description of words of the earthly wisdom , but in his own feeling spirit and life . in p. . he saith , concerning the quakers , [ that which purifies your hearts is the law written in your seed or nature , even the same as was written in the angel-serpents nature before his fall , which is no other but the nature of reason . ] observ . this is not a true testimony : for the light wherewith christ enlightneth the soul ( to redeem and bring it back out of the fall ) is not of the nature of reason , but confounds corrupt reason and brings it into the dust , begetting the soul into the divine wisdom and giving it to pertake of the divine nature . yea that which we are born of and purified by ( as we sensible feel and truly understand ) is not the nature of the serpents reason , but the immortal word of gods eternal power , which doth that in us and for us , which the nature of reason never did nor can do in any . again in p. . he saith very slightingly and as untruly concerning the quakers , thus . [ as for the sins your hearts are clensed from , they are no other but such like as these , that is to say , to keep the hat on the head before a magistrate , and to find fault with gold-lace and a piece of ribbon , a bandstring and a gold button , and to rend and tear gold-lace , and other lace off their clothes and burn it , and to use the language of thee and thou . he or she that gets thee or thou perfectly , is a very good quaker , they are gotten half way to the quakers heaven . these and such like righteousness is the quakers perfection , and all the cleansing of heart they have &c. ] observ . o thou despiser , reproacher and belyar of the work of god in the hearts of his children . nay , nay , there are thousands , who in gods presence can testifie against thee , that they have waited for and received the inward clensing from the filthiness of flesh and spirit , from the inward lusts and motions of sin in the mind , having felt the ax of the lord and the two-edged sword , which cutteth up sin at the very roots . but thou art so far from having thy heart cleansed , that thou art not yet clensed from lying lips , but bringest forth thy false reproachfull , slanderous testimony against the heritage of god in the sight of the sun. in p. . he saith further of the quakers , [ that they own no other death of christ , but what is within them , what ever they pretend by using the words of scripture &c. ] observ . they sincerely and in plainness of heart , own and acknowledge the death of that body which the father prepared for his son , in which he did the fathers will in his suffering without the gate of jerusalem . therefore in this , he is a very false witness , and therein hath grosly belyed the quakers . in p. . he saith , [ you quakers are the darkest pieces to interpret scripture , of any other opinions in the world , for you will name places of scripture , but never interpret any &c. ] observ . it is better to bring men to that , which opens the mind to understand the scriptures , then to give men interpretations of words or things beyond their capacity . yet the spirit of the lord , in and through many called quakers , doth often open many scriptures in clearness and demonstration to others . ( read the book , called gospel-liberty or the royal law of love , and see if many scriptures be not therein opened to the lowest capacity . ) but the lord hath given them the true skill and understanding , and they are not to open to and feed that in men , which the lord hath appointto be famished . yet if they did not open scriptures , the scriptures are plain to him that hath an understanding . now for a close , i shall add somewhat of the testimony which is written in my heart , by the finger of gods spirit , concerning the people called quakers . indeed they have met with many reproaches , and sore oppositions many wayes , since they were a people : but notwithstanding all , their bow abides in strength , and the hands of their arms have been made strong against the wicked one , with all his devices in his several kinds of instruments : and their light is still the same and their god the same , who blesseth them from day to day , even in the midst of all the revilings , slanders , persecutions and curses , which they have met with from men without , and in the midst of all the temptations , inward trials and afflictions also , which are often met with inwardly . yea we know him to be our god and cannot but trust him , having found him to be faithfull to us hitherto , and knowing his nature to be such , that he cannot but continue his loving-kindness and faithfulness , to all who are gathered by him into his holy inward , spiritual covenant of life and peace , and who dwells with him therein . and truly we are fully satisfied and at rest in him , and cannot desire another , then he who hath redeemed our souls from death , given us life , brought us out of the pit wherein was no water , into a large place , set our feet upon a rock ( a rock indeed ) and establisheth our goings in the path of holiness , working all our works in us and for us , by his spirit and power . yea , we have the witness in our hearts , even the witness which never erred nor can deceive , which testifieth to and with our spirits our sonship : so that we do not imagine our selves sons from apprehensions upon scriptures , but we feel our selves sons in the true sensibleness , and know who david is , and reap and inherit the sure mercies of david daily , o blessed be our father , o blessed for ever be the father of life , who feeds , who nourishes , who waters , who refreshes ( with the bread of life and with the pure living water ) his lambs , his babes , his plants , his tender ones , of whom he is daily tender , and who are daily tender of his name and honour . and if any man preach another god , then he who creates anew in the true light , and therein puts forth his arm of salvation , death and destruction and the curse are his portion from the hand of the lord. now , o people , any of you that reads this mans writings and admire them ; what spirit are ye of ! what is it in you that relisheth them ? what do they feed in you ? not the true birth , i am sure : but that in you which must perish , and come into death and destruction , if ever your souls be saved . i speak sensibly , and from the true understanding and experience which god hath given me : yea i certainly know , that the knowledge and notions which he holds forth are not pure nor able to cleanse the heart of any that receives them and all people , that truly love your souls and desire the salvation thereof , o wait on god that ye may be enabled by him rightly to distinguish , between receiving notions concerning god and christ , and feeling and receiving the power which effectually redeems from sin and death : for deceit may enter in at the one , but cannot at the other . the enemy hath all deceivableness of unrighteousness , to paint as if it were righteousness and appear in , and to enter and possess the mind by : but he is excluded the redeeming power . he that feels that which renews his heart to god , and breaks the power and strength of lusts and temptations in him , and brings him into subjection to the truth , which from god lives in the hearts of those that receive it in the vertue , life and power of it : here his devices and deceits are at an end , and here the elect sheep feel the hand of the father , which is stronger then all , which none can pluck out of . here is the fold , here is the safe dwelling place , whither the lord leadeth and where he preserveth his lambs and children , and there is not another . now as for him ( notwithstanding all that he hath done against the lord and against his dear people ) so far am i from wishing any harm unto him , that i could wish with all my heart , that it were possible for him to come to a true sense of the true light of gods holy spirit , that by it he might examine , wherein he hath provoked and sinned against the lord , that the lord should thus leave him , not only to be deceived himself , but to become an head or root of deceit to others , and so to bring the blood of many souls upon him , which will be his bitter burthen and misery in the day of the lord upon him , when the lord shall rebuke him for blaspheming his name , his light , his spirit , and shall justifie ( in the sight of men and angels ) those to be his heritage and everlastingly dear unto him , whom he hath reproached , misrepresented and cursed unto eternity : but they are gathered by god into the blessed seed ( which he knoweth not , nor in this spirit nor by this commission shall ever know ) where he cannot curse , nor can his curse reach or touch them , but they therein are blessed for evermore , amen . a brief account of my souls travel towards the holy land , and how at length it pleased the lord to joyn my heart to his pure , holy , living truth ( wherein i have witnessed the new covenant , and peace with the lord therein ) with a few words concerning the way of knowing and receiving the truth : which is not done by disputes and reasonings of the mind about it ; but in waiting aright for the demonstration and power of gods spirit to open the heart and vnderstanding , and by submissive obedience to it , even in its lowest appearances , in the inward parts . my heart from my childhood , was pointed towards the lord , whom i feared and longed after from my tender years ; wherein i felt , that i could not be satisfied with ( nor indeed seek after ) the things of this perishing world , which naturally pass away ; but i desired true sense of and unity with that which abideth for ever . there was somewhat indeed then still with me ( even the seed of eternity ) which leavened and ballanced my spirit almost continually : but i knew it un●●distinctly , so as to turn to it and give up to it , entirely and understandingly . in this temper of mind i earnestly sought after the lord applying my self to hear sermons and read the best books i could meet with , but especially the scriptures , which were very sweet and savory to me : yea i very earnestly desired and pressed after the knowledge of the scriptures , but was much afraid of receiving mens interpretations of them , or of fastning any interpretation upon them my self ; but waited much and prayed much , that from the spirit of the lord i might receive the true understanding of them and that he would chiefly endue me with that knowledge , which i might feel sanctifying and saving . and indeed i did sensibly receive of his love , of his mercy and of his grace , which i felt still freely to move towards me , and at seasons when i was most filled with the sense of my own unworthiness , and had least expectations of the manifestation of them . but i was exceedingly entangled about election and reprobation ( having drunk in that doctrine , according as it was then held forth by the strictest of those that were termed puritans , and as then seemed to me very manifest and positive from rom. . &c. ) fearing , lest notwithstanding all my desires and seekings after the lord , he might in his decree have passed me by : and i felt it would be bitter to me to bear his wrath and be separated from his love for evermore ; yet , if he had so decreed , it would be , and i should ( notwithstanding these fair beginnings and hopes ) fall away and perish at the last . in this great trouble and grief ( which was much added to by not finding the spirit of god so in me and with me , as i had read and believed the former christians had it ) and in mourning over and grapling with secret corruptions and temptations , i spent many years , and fell into great weakness of body ; and often casting my self upon my bed , did wring my hands and weep bitterly , begging earnestly of the lord , daily , that i might be pitied by him and helped against my enemies , and be made conformable to the image of his son , by his own renewing power . and indeed at last ( when my nature was almost spent , and the pit of dispair was even closing its mouth upon me ) mercy sprang and deliverance came , and the lord my god owned me and sealed his love unto me , and light sprang within me , which made not only the scriptures , but the very outward creatures glorious in my eye , so that every thing was sweet and pleasant and lightsom round about me . but i soon felt , that this estate was too high and glorious for me , and i was not able to abide in it , it so overcame my natural spirits : wherefore , blessing the name of the lord for his great goodness to me , i prayed unto him to take that from me which i was not able to bear , and to give me such a proportion of his light and presence , as was sutable to my present state , and might fit me for his service . whereupon this was presently removed from me , yet a savour remained with me , wherein i had sweetness and comfort and refreshment for a long season . but my mind did not then know , how to turn to and dwell with that which gave me the savour , nor rightly to read what god did daily write in my heart , which sufficiently manifested it self to be of him , by its living vertue and pure opperation upon me : but i looked upon the scriptures to be my rule , and so would weigh the inward appearances of god to me , by what was outwardly written , and durst not receive any thing from god immediately , as it sprang from the fountain , but only in that mediate way . herein did i limit the holy one of israel , and exceedingly hurt my own soul , and i afterwards felt and came to understand . yet the lord was tender to me and condescended exceedingly , opening scriptures to me freshly every day , teaching and instructing , warming and comforting my heart thereby : and truly he did help me to pray , and to believe , and to love him and his appearances in any , yea to love all the sons of men and all his creatures , with a true love . but that in me which knew not the appearances of the lord in my spirit , but would limit him to words of scripture formerly written , that proceeded yet further , and would be raising a fabrick of knowledge out of the scriptures , and gathering a perfect rule ( as i thought ) concerning my heart , my words , my ways , my worship : and according to what i thus drank in ( after this manner , from the scriptures ) i practised , and with much seriousness of spirit and prayer to god fell a helping to build up an independent congregation , wherein the savour of life and the presence of god was fresh with me , as ( i believe ) there are yet some alive of that congregation can testifie . this was my state , when i was smitten , broken and distressed by the lord , confounded in my worship , confounded in my knowledge , stripped of all in one day , ( which it is hard to utter ) and was matter of amazement to all that beheld me . i lay open and naked to all that would enquire of me and strive to search out , what might be the cause the lord should deal so with me . they would at first be jealous that i had sinned and provoked him so to do : but when they had scanned things throughly , and i had opened my heart nakedly to them , i do not remember any one that ever retained that sence concerning me . my soul remembreth the woomwood and gall , the exceeding bitterness of that state , and is still humbled in me in the remembrance of it before the lord. o how did i wish with job , that i might come before him and bowingly plead with him : for indeed i had no sense of any guilt upon me , but was sick of love towards him , and as one violently rent from the bosom of his beloved ! o how gladly would i have met with death ! for i was weary all the day long and afraid of the night , and weary also of the night-season and afraid of the ensuing day . i remember my grievous and bitter mournings to the lord ; how often did i say , o lord , why hast thou forsaken me ? why hast thou broken me to pieces ? i had no delight but thee , no desire after any but thee . my heart was bent wholly to serve thee , and thou hadst even fitted me ( as appeared to my sense ) by many deep exercises and experiences , for thy service , why dost thou make me thus miserable ! sometimes i would cast mine eye upon a scripture , and my heart would even mel● within me : at other times i would desire to pray to my god , as i had formerly done ; but i found i knew him not , and i could not tell how to pray or in any wise to come neer him , as i had formerly done . in this condition i wandered up and down from mountain to hill , from one sort to another , with a cry in my spirit , can ye tell news of my beloved ? where doth he dwell ? where doth he appear ? but their voices were still strange to me , and i should retire sad and oppressed and bowed down in spirit from them . now surely all serious , sober , sensible people will be ready to enquire , how i came satisfyingly to know the lord at length : or whether i do yet certainly know him , and am yet truly satisfied ? yes indeed , i am satisfied at my very heart . truly my heart is united to him whom i longed after , in an everlasting covenant of pure life and peace . well then , how came this about ? will some say . why thus , the lord opened my spirit , the lord gave me the certain and sensible feeling of the pure seed , which had been with me from the beginning ; the lord caused his holy power to fall upon me , and gave me such an inward demonstration and feeling of the seed of life , that i cried out in my spirit , this is he , this is he ; there is not another , there never was another . he was always near me , though i knew him not ( not so sensibly , not so distinctly , as now he was revealed in me and to me by the father ) o that i might now be joyned to him , and he alone might live in me . and so in the willingness , which god had wrought in me ( in this day of his power to my soul ) i gave up to be instructed , exercised and led by him , in the waiting for and feeling of his holy seed , that all might be wrought out of me which could not live with the seed , but would be hindring the dwelling and reigning of the feed in me , while it remained and had power . and so i have gone through a fore travel , and fight of afflictions and temptations , of many kinds ; wherein the lord hath been merciful to me , in helping me and preserving the spark of life in me , in the midst of many things which have befallen me , whose nature tended to quench and extinguish it . now thus having met with the true way , and walked with the lord therein , wherein daily-certainty , yea and full assurance of faith and of understanding is at length obtained ; i cannot be silent ( true love and pure life stirring in me and moving me ) but am necessitated to testifie of it to others : and this is it , to retire inwardly and wait to feel somewhat of the lord , somewhat of his holy spirit and power , discovering and drawing from that which is contrary to him , and into his holy nature and heavenly image . and then , as that mind is joyned to this , somewhat is received ; some true life , some true light , some true discerning ; which the creature not exceeding ( but abiding in the measure of ) is safe : but it is easie erring from this , but hard abiding with it and not going before its leadings but he that feels life and begins in life , doth he not begin safely ? and he that waits , and fears , and goes on no further then his captain goes before him , doth he not proceed safely ? yea very safely , even till he cometh to be so setled and established in the vertue , demonstration and power of truth , as nothing can prevail to make him . now , blessed be the lord , there are many at this day , who can truly and faithfully witness , that they have been brought by the lord to this state . and thus have we learned of the lord , to wit , not by the high striving , aspiring mind : but by lying low and being contented with a little . if but a crum of bread ( yet if bread ) if but a drop of water ( yet if water ) we have been contented with it , and also thankfull to the lord for it . nor by thoughtfulness , and wise searching and deep considering with our own wisdom and reason have we obtained but in the still meek and humble waiting , have we found that brought into the death , which is not to know the mysteries of gods kingdom , and that which is to live , made alive and increase in life . therefore he that would truly know the lord , let him take heed of his own reason and understanding i tried this way very far : for i considered most seriously and uprightly , i prayed , i read the scriptures , i earnestly desired to understand and find out , whether that which this people ( called quakers ) testified of , was the only way and truth of god ( as they seemed to me but to pretend : ) but for all this , prejudices multiplied upon me and strong reasonings against them , which appeared to me as unanswerable . but when the lord revealed his seed in me and touched my heart therewith , which administred true life and vertue to me , i presently felt them there the children of the most high , and so grown up in his life , power and holy dominion ( as the inward eye being opened by the lord , sees ) as drew forth from me great reverence of heart and praises to the lord , who had so appeared among men in these latter dayes . and as god draweth , in any respect , o give up in faithfulness to him . despise the shame , take up the cross : for indeed it is a way which is very cross to man , and which his wisdom will exceedingly be ashamed of ; but that must be denied and turned from , & the secret sensible drawings of gods spirit waited for and given up to . mind people ; he that will come into the new covenant , must come into the obedience of it . the light of life , which god hath hid in the heart , is the covenant : and from this covenant god doth not give knowledg to satisfie the vast aspiring , comprehending wisdom of man ; but living knowledge to feed that which is quickned by him : which knowledge is given in the obedience , and is very sweet and precious to the taste of him , that knows how to feed upon it . yea truly , this is a very excellent , pure , precious nature , and a little of it weighs down that great , vast knowledge in the comprehending part , which the mans spirit and nature so much prizeth and presseth after . and truly , friends , i witness at this day , a great difference between the sweetness of comprehending the knowledge of things as expressed in the scriptures ( this i sed much on formerly ) and tasting the hidden life , the hidden manna in the heart ( which is my food now , blessed for ever be the lord my god and saviour . ) o that others had a true , certain , and sensible taste of the life , vertue and goodness of the lord , as it is revealed there : surely it could not but kindle the true hunger and enflame the true thirst , which can never be satisfied but by the true bread and by water from the living fountain . this the lord ( in the tenderness of his love and in the riches of his grace and mercy ) hath brought us to , and this we earnestly and uprightly desire and endeavour that others may be brought to also , that they may rightly ( in the true silence of flesh , and in the pure stilness of spirit ) wait for , and in the lords due time receive that , which answers the desire of the awakened mind and soul , and satisfies it with the true precious substance for evermore . amen . the end . the way of life and death made manifest and set before men whereby the many paths of death are impleaded, and the one path of life propounded and pleaded for in some positions concerning the apostacy from the christian spirit and life, with some principles guiding out of it : as also in answers to some objections whereby the simplicity in some may be entangled : held forth in tender good will both papists and protestants who have generally erred from the faith for these many generations, since the dayes of the apostles, and with that which they have erred from are they comprehended / by isac pennington the younger. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) the way of life and death made manifest and set before men whereby the many paths of death are impleaded, and the one path of life propounded and pleaded for in some positions concerning the apostacy from the christian spirit and life, with some principles guiding out of it : as also in answers to some objections whereby the simplicity in some may be entangled : held forth in tender good will both papists and protestants who have generally erred from the faith for these many generations, since the dayes of the apostles, and with that which they have erred from are they comprehended / by isac pennington the younger. penington, isaac, - . fox, george, - . cause of all error. burrough, edward, - . here follows the testimony concerning the estate of the true church. [ ], , [ ] p. printed by j.m. for lodowick lloyd ..., london : . errata: prelim. p. [ ]. includes: here follows the testimony concerning the estate of the true church (p. - , signed e[dward]. b[urrough].) and the cause of all error (p. - , signed g[eorge]. f[ox].). reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng society of friends -- doctrines. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - john latta sampled and proofread - john latta text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my soul hath stil in remembrance the grievous shakings and rendings that have been in this nation , which entred deep into the bowels of it , and made every heart ake , and every mind astonished . this nation was setled in religion and outward peace , in such a way as was pleasing to most : but yet there was a spirit within , which had been long groaning under oppression , whose sighs and cryes entred into the ears of the lord ; and he arose up in his fury and jealousie , and rent the heavens , and rent the earth , so breaking the very foundations of both , that men generally were amazed , and wondred what would become of all . the former religion was almost buried in confusion , and in danger of being utterly lost : a long-spun corroding war were we entangled in , which administred no hopes nor likelihood of peace . the hand of the lord reacheth through all these dominions ; mastracy , ministry , the common people , the people of god ( both such as were accounted so , and such as were indeed so ) the line of confusion was stretched over them all ; they did all reel and totter like a drunken man , as if they had been so to fal , as to rise up no more : but behold how suddainly and unexpectedly was there a settlement of al again ! the nation setled in peace , magistracy setled , ministry setled , the common people setled ; and those which were shaken in their spirits , got into their several waies in religion and setled again . thus there was a general healing of all again save onely of a few , whose spirits god had so reached , that their wound was incurable : and unless somewhat of god had been brought forth , which the world cannot know ( nay the religions spirit of man which is below , can no more reach it , then the common spirit of the world ) they had remained miserable , lost , scattered , and confounded to this day . but the lord hath in infinitemercy visited them , in the season of distress ; and there hath a little foolish thing broke forth ( at which all the wise , and religious in the spirit of this world cannot but stumble ) which hath administred relief , and discovered the foundation whereupon they also can settle . so that now there is as it were an universal settlement , as every creature is gathered into that center , which is proper and sutable to its spirit to bottom on . now this i have to say to all ; let every one look to his foundation , for the lord can arise again , yea and will arise again and shake once more ; and then the heavens and the earth which have not a true foundation , cannot but fall . if the earth be not founded upon and settled in righteousness , its present establishment will not stand : if the heavens be not founded upon and setled in truth , they will melt and pass away before the fire of the lord. there is a spirit that mourneth deeply to the lord , groaning inwardly , and his ears are open to it , and he will plead the cause of his seed : and the churches and religions , wherein the seed of the serpent can live and flourish , shall wither and come to an end . dust is already become the serpents food ; the spirt of man in all his exercises of religion , knoweth not the bread of life : but the dead feed upon the dead , and the dead spirit of man loves to have it so . but this cannot continue , for the lord hath been at work all this while , and when he brings forth the people which he hath been forming , and their religion , the religion of man will appear what it is ; and shame and sorrow will be the portion of all who have pleased themselves therein , and trifled away the day of their visitation . be wise now therefore , o ye wise ones ; be religious , o religious ones ! open the eye and ear that hath been shut , shut the eye and ear that hath been open : stumble no longer , least ye fall and rise no more . i know ye cannot see , for the wrong eye is open , and the lord hath designed to hide his wisdom from that eye . if it be possible for you , become poor in spirit , least ye at last prove to be the rich , whom the lord will send empty away . sell all apace , that ye may have wherewith to buy the pearl . ye have not known the appearance of the lord , but in your wisdom have disdained it , and he hath disdained to make use of you in this great work ; but it hath been pleasant to him to lay stumbling blocks before you , that ye might fall and be broken . the children , the fools , the blind can see the way , and enter into life : but ye that are men , that are wise , that have both your eys , that can judge in religion , and determine what is orthodox and what erroneous , yet cannot . o hear , that your souls may live ! ye know not how short your time is , the day of your visitation passeth away faster then ye are aware . the cry hath long gone forth , behold the bridegroom cometh , and his spouse hath been preparing for his bed . ye must off with your old garments , and have the new garment on , ye must have the true oyl in your lamps , or the door of the kingdom will be shut upon you , and there will be no entrance for you . in plain terms , ye must part with all your religion which ye have gathered in your own wisdom , which hath grown up in the apostacy , and which onely can make a fair show in the dark , but cannot endure the searching light of the day of the lord ; and ye must purchase the true religion , the true righteousness , the true innocency and purity of christ : the old must be done away , truly done away , and the new come in the place ; so that flesh and self may be quite destroyed , and nothing but christ found in you , and you found no where but in christ , if you enter into his kingdom : for no unclean thing can enter . therefore put away pride , and passion , and enmity , and fleshly reasonings ; and seek out that which is pure , and enter into it , and take up the cross against all that is contrary , that so you may be wrought into it , and found in it . and turn from all imaginings , and conceivings about the meanings of scripture , in the uncertain and erring mind , and come to that which is infallible . and know the silencing of the fleshly part , that the spiritual part may grow in the wisdom , that so ye may learn in the spirit , and know the word of god , and be able to speak it . my bowels are toward you , and in bowels hath this been writ●● : not to anger or shame you , but to provoke you to jealousie against that dark and evil spirit , which leads you to destruction , under the guise and appearance of a light and good spirit . nor is it to glory over you , for my soul lyeth down in shame and sorrow before the lord , and the reproach of my own apostacy and seeking relief from the world ( turning from th● lord , who had wounded me , to earthly vanities for ease ) will not easily be covered . the lord had been kind to me in breaking of me in my religion , and in visiting me with sweet and precious light from his own spirit , but i knew it not . i felt , and could not but acknowledge a power upon me , and might have known what it was , by its purifying of my heart , and begetting me into the image of god : but i confind it to appear ●● a way of demonstration to my reason and earthly wisedom , and for want of satisfaction therein , denyed it and rebelled against it ; and so , after all my former misery , lost my entrance , and sowed seeds of new misery and sorrow to my own soul , which since i have reaped . so that i have no cause to boast over others , but to lie low in abasement of spirit . and what i write , is not in any dominion or authority of my own , but to bring others unto that dominion and authority , which it is good for me , and for every one else to be subject to . the lord strip us of our own understanding , and of that righteousness which is but ours ( though we have called it his ) that so we may be gathered into , and receive his understanding , and be cloathed with his righeousness , and feel his rest and peace . and happy is he that loseth all to gain this ; but he that keepeth what he hath too long , shall in the end lose all , and yet not gain this neither . therefore be no longer wise in the eye of flesh , or according to what man calleth wisdom , but be truly wise . if the reader ( before he peruse this book ) would be perswaded to amend with his pen these errors and mistakes of the press ( some whereof make the sense difficult , some wholly pervert it ) it may prove for his own ease and benefit . smaller errors , as of adding or substracting letters , or mistaking the stops , the sence may somewhat help him in . page , l. . r. and , l. . r. it : p. . l. . r. when . l. . r. man. p. . l. ● . r. light . p l . r. is profitable . p. . l . r. moving . p. . l. . r. known . p. . l. . r. enjoyed . l. . r. cherished . p. . l. . r. found . p. . l. . for this , r. the. p. . l. . r. of help . p. . l. . r. to light , p. . l. . r. pant . p. . l. . . r. in simplicity . l. . r. and then . p. . l. . is , dele . p. . l. . got . p. . l. . if ye . p. . l. . thou that . l. . were formed . p. . l. . . would reach . p. . l. . knew . l. . he . p. . slighted . p. . l. . and witnesses . p. . l. last , answ . p. . l. . one of . p. . . for the , r. thee , where the sence requires . p. . l. . these , l. . the , delc . p. . l. . as he doth . p. . l. . as . l. . betrayers of the life . and so p. . l. . bringing forth . p. . l. . world . p. . l. last , r. this . p. . l. . seat . p. . l. . this day . l. . that scripture . l. . then they . some positions concerning the apostacy from the christian spirit and life . position i. that ther hath been a great apostacy from the spirit of christ , and from the true light and life of christianity ; which apostacy began in the apostles dayes , and ripened apace afterwards . that the apostles , and christians in their days , had the true spirit , the true light , the true life , i think will not be denyed . we know that we are of god , and that the son of god is come , and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true : and we are in him that is true , in his son jesus christ . this is the true god and eternall life , joh. . . . they wer truly born of god , and knew the son of god come , receiving from him a true understanding , and the true light and knowledge in that understanding , and both the understanding and knowledge was rooted and seated in him that is true , wher their scituation & abiding was ( we are in him that is true ) wher they met with the true spirit , the true god , the true life , even life eternal . that they had the true spirit from god , ( because ye are sons , god hath sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts , gal. . . ) that they had the true light from god ( god who commanded the light to shine out of darknesse , hath shined in our hearts , &c. cor. . . ) that they had the true life from and in the spirit ( if we live in the spirit , let us also walk in the spirit , gal. . . ) is generally acknowledged concerning them . now of an apostacy from this , beginning even in their dayes , and to be compleated not long after , the scriptures also make mention . the apostle paul speaks expresly of the thing , that ther must come a falling away , and a revealing of the man of sinne , the son of perdition , thes . . . christ the man of salvation had shewed and declared the path of life , had discovered the true church , which was the pillar and ground of truth , against which the gates of he i could not prevail ; had sent the true spirit , which could lead into all truth , and preserve in the truth : but ther must spring up a man of sinne , a son of perdition , who in a mystery should work against this , and cause a falling from this to another thing . and this the apostle did not onely give a touch of here in writing , but he had likewise told them of these things by word of mouth , to which he refers them , vers . . this wer enough to an ey opened ; but for further illustration to the thick understanding of man , which is surrounded with fogs and mists of darknesse , some more evidences from scriptures may be given . christ foretold of false prophets , mat. . . beware of false prophets , which come to you in sheeps clothing , but inwardly they are ravening wolves . the lord sent true prophets under the law , and gave them true visions to declare : christ sent true apostles and ministers under the gospel , and gave them the truth which they should preach and propagate . but then ther wer false prophets , false apostles and ministers to come after , who never wer sent by christ , nor never received the truth from his spirit . now these do not come to gather into the life and truth of christ , but to scatter from it ; and so either to begin , or uphold an apostacy . and , saith christ , beware of them , for they come very subtilly , they come in the sheeps clothing : they get the garment of the sheep upon their backs , even that very garment which the sheep did wear ; but they have not the nature of the sheep , but the nature of the wolfe , which is ravenous after the life of the sheep . mark wher ther is the garment without , but not the nature within ; wher ther is the form of godlinesse , but not the power ; wher ther are scripture-words and practises , but not the spirit of life from which they came , ther 's the false prophet , ther 's the wolf , ther 's the apostate , ther 's the seducer from christ . aagin , christ fore-tells of many false prophets , mat. . . and many false prophets shal rise , and shal deceive many : and vers . . for ther shal arise false christs , and false prophets , and shall shew great signs and wonders : insomuch that ( if it were possible ) they shal deceive the very elect. and as christ himself , so his apostles also after him , by the same spirit , foretel of the same thing . the apostle paul speaks of seducing spirits in the latter times , and of doctrines of devils , which should prevail to cause a departure in some from the faith , tim. . . and if in those days the power of seducers was so great , as to draw from the truth , which was then so manifest and living , how easie would it be to keep from the truth afterward , when it had been long lost and out of remembrance , and thereby deceit got into the place and name of it . the apostle peter also foretold of false teachers , who should privily bring in damnable heresies , even denying the lord that bought them : and that they should so prevail , that their pernitious wayes should be followed by many , and the way of truth evil spoken of , pet. . , . again , paul in his d epist . to tim. speaks of the last days , that the times therin should be perillous , chap , . christ had said , the love of many should wax cold , and iniquity abound , mat. . . and paul showes how the times would prove very perillous by the abounding of iniquity . in the last dayes perillous times shall come ; for men shall be lovers of their owne selves , covetous , boasters , proud , blasphemers , disobedient to parents , unthankeful , unholy , without natural affection , truce-breakers , false accusers , incontinent , fierce despisers of those that are good , traytors , heady , high-minded , lovers of pleasure more then lovers of god , . tim. . vers . . , , . behold what kind of fruit sprung up from the false doctrine of the false teachers in the apostacy from the truth . and yet al this under a form of godlinesse , having a form of godlinesse , but denying the power therof , vers . . christ sent the power of godlinesse into the world , to subdue the root from whence al this springs , to kil the evil nature inwardly : but in the agostacy the evill nature is not killed , but the power denyed which should kil it , and the form kept up to cover the evil nature with . the inwardly ravening nature , which devours and destroyes the stirrings and shootings forth of the just one in the heart , that gets the sheeps clothing , the form of godlinesse to cover it selfe with . look any wher among the apostates from the apostles spirit and doctrine , and see ; is selfe-love killed ? is covetousnesse killed ? is boasting and pride killed ? is the love of pleasures killed ? are persecutors and oppressors killed ? and is your honour and glory laid in the dust ? nay they are but covered with the form , there life is stil in them ; the power wherewith they should be killed was at first denyed , and now is lost and not known , wher there is the life , ther is the power ; and wher ther is the power , the evil nature is killed : but wher the evil nature is not killed , ther is onely a form of godlinesse , a covering , a painted sepulchre , but rottennesse within . now those last dayes and last times were not far off , but begun then : for the apostle exhorts timothy to turn away from such , vers . . from such turn away ; intimating that even then there wer such to be turnedaway from . and he saith , vers . . that they did then resist the truth like jannes and jambres , who with a likenesse of what moses wrought , but without life , did strive to resist the life and power that was in moses . ( and this is the work of all deceivers , to get their own spirit into the likeness , and then to make use of the likenesse to oppose and suppresse the true life and power . ) so that they were come even then , when the apostle wrote this epistle to timothy . and jude saith , that ungodly men , turning the grace of god into lasciviousnesse , and denying the onely lord god , and our lord jesus christ , were crept in already , vers . . of his epistle . and the apostle john speaks very expresly , . joh. . , . little children , it is the last time , and as ye have heard that antichrist shal come , even now are ther many antichists , wherby we know that it is the last time . , they went out from us , &c. christ instructing his disciples concerning the last times , tells them ther shall arise false christs , with great power of deceit , mat. . v. . now saith john here , ther are come many antichrists , wherby we know it is the last time , mark , ther wer many antichrists to begin and lay the foundation of the apostacy , and make way for the great antichrist ( who was to be their successor in the apostacy . , and not the successor of the apostles in the truth : ) and these did not . abide in the doctrine of the apostles , who preached the everlasting gospel , nor in the spirit and principle which they were in ; but went out from them , from theit spirit ( from the anointing to which they kept , and by which they were kept ) into another spirit , and preached another gospel ; a gospel which was not the power of god to kil the earthly , but consisted in such a dead literal knowledge of things , as the earthly might be fed and kept alive by . and as the great antichrist was to come , so there antichrists who were to make way for him , were already come , and were already laying the foundation of , and beginning the apostacy . so that the spirit of antichrist ( that very spirit wherein antichrist succeeded , and in which he grew up , and perfected the apostacy ) was then in the world , as this apostle saith yet more manifestly , joh. . . this is that spirit of antichrist , wherof ye have heard that it should come , ànd even now already is it in the world . nor was it idle , but it was at work , working it selfe into the form of godlinesse , that it might eat out the power , drive out the true spirit , and make a prey of the life . the mystery of iniquity , saith the apostle paul , doth already work , thes . . . this spirit did work in a mystery of iniquity to eat out the mystery of godlinesse , and to set up this mystery of iniquity in the world instead of the mystery of godliness . and it did prevail to wind it self into the form , & get possession of the form , and also to trample upon & keep under the life . it gained the outward court , ( for when that spirit had corrupted it , the lord did not regard it , but gave it up to it ) and it trod down the holy city , rev. . . and this mystery of iniquity did not begin to work many ages after the apostles , but even then , in their dayes , already : the mystery of iniquity doth already work . and look now into the estate of the churches then , according to what the scripture records of them , and the symptoms of its working will plainly appear . the church of ephesus ( among whom some of the grievous wolves had encred , act. . . ) had left their first love , rev. . . the churches of galatia wer bewitched from the gospel , gal , . . the church at coloss was entangled and made subject to the rudiments of the world , and ordinances ( which perish with the using ) after the commandements and doctrines of men , col . v. , . ( mark. when once one comes to be subject to the commandments and doctrines of men , to perishing ordinances and worldly rudiments which men teach and command , the true state is lost , and the apostacy is entred into . here the wrong teacher is teaching , and he teacheth the wrong thing , the wrong doctrines , the wrong commandments ; and the wrong ear is hearing , which hears the wrong voice , and knoweth not the true : and so the more it heareth and practiseth , and the hotter its zeal groweth , the deeper it stil runs into the apostacy . ) the church at corinth also was haunted with false apostles , cor. . v. , . insomuch as the apostle was afraid lest that church should be corrupted by them , vers . . the church in pergamus had them that held the doctrine of balaam , rev. . . the church in thyatira suffered the woman jezebel , which called her selfe a prophetess , to seduce and bring forth children in the apostacy , rev. . v. . and . the church in sardis had a name to live , but was dead , rev. . . having defiled her garments , vers . . the church in laodicea , looked upon her self as rich , and increased with goods , & as having need of nothing : but was wretched , miserable , poor , blind , ( so then the ey was put out ) and naked , wanting the gold , wanting the rayment , wanting the eye-salve , rev. . . . and lastly all the gentiles were warned by paul , in his epistle to the church at rome , ( whereby that church might look upon her selfe as more particularly concerned therein ) to look to their standing , lest they falling from the faith , from the truth , from the life into the apostacy ( as the jewes had done ) might also feel the severity of god , as the jewes had , chap. . ver . , , . thus it is evident that the apostacy had got footing , and began to spread in the apostles dayes : and the apostle john in the spirit beholding the future state of things , sees it overspread and over-run al , al nations drunk with the cup of fornication , rev. . . the way of truth had been evil spoken of long before , pet. . , and the rock of ages , which alone can establish in the truth , had been forsaken , and al became as a sea , and up gets the beast ( which could not rise while the power of truth stood ) and the woman upon the beast , with the cup of deceit , and of errour from the life , in her hand ; and this she gives all the nations to drink , and they drink and are drunk with it , so that al nations have been intoxicated with the doctrines and practises of apostacy . they have took that for truth , which the whore told them was truth , and they have observed those things as the commands of god , which the whore told them were the commands of god. and by this means they have never come to be married to christ , to be in union with him , to receive the law of life from his spirit , and to know the liberty from the bondage of corruption , but have been in the bed of fornication with the whore , and have pleased , glutted , and satisfied the whorish principle in themselves with this fornication . and thus corruption did over-spread al the earth : for taking in a corrupt thing in stead of the truth , it cannot purifie the heart , but corrupt it more . a corrupt profession , corrupt doctrines may paint , and make a man to himselfe seem changed , but the corruption still lodges within , which a spiritual ey can easily discern , though he that is in the corruption cannot . the pharisees did seem glorious to themselves , but christ saw through them . and every sort of people now , in their several strains and forms of apostacy , seem glorious to themselves , but the spirit of christ sees through them al , to that which lies underneath ( in whom it raigns ) and ther it finds corruption increased and strengthned in its nature by the form ; though outwardly painted with it . doth not fornication defile , corrupt ? so doth the fornication of the whorish spirit : the earth was corrupted with it , rev. . . so that this hath been the universal state of christendom since the apostacy , the errour , the deceit , the fornication of the whore hath corrupted them , and withheld their eys from the sight of that life and truth which hath power in it to purifie them . peoples , multitudes , nations , tongues , have been al waters ; weak , unstable , without any foundation in religion , but fit to be swayed and tossed up and down with every wind or breath of the whore , of whose cup they had al drunk , and by whose spirit they were all guided : for the whore sate upon them , rev. . . the whore , which had whored from god , and so was not the true church , sate upon peoples , multitudes , nations and tongues . she sate upon them , she had them under her , she ruled and guided them by her cup of fornication , and with her spirit of fornication , as a man would guide the beast whereupon he rides . so that al that the nations do from henceforth , in religion is under the whore , according to her guidance , by virtue of the wine that they have drunk out of her cup. and though god reserved to himselfe a remnant to worship him , and give so ne testimony to his truth al this time , yet the beast ( which was managed by the whore ) had power over them : power to make war with them , power to overcome them , rev. . . the beast had power over all kindreds , tongues and nations , every wher to overcome the saints , and suppresse the truth they at any time were moved to give testimony to , and to set up the worship of the beast , and make al the earth fal down before that , rev. . . . and the second beast had and exercised al the power of the first beast , and set up his image , and gave it life , and caused men generally to worship it , rev. . . and he caused al both smal and great , rich and poor , free and bond to receive his mark , some way or other , either in their right hand or in their forehead , vers . . and such as would not receive his mark , nor worship him , he had power to persecute and kil , and he did kil them , vers . . and the whore drunk their blood , chap. . . and god required it at her hand , chap. . . though she made the hand of the beast execute it , and would seem to wash her own hands of it . so that now since the dayes of the apostles , even al this time of the apostacy , since the man child hath been caught up to god , and was not to be found in the earth ( which makes it seem such a strange thing for people to say christ is in them ) and the woman hath been in the wilderness , and not in the habitable part of the world , rev. . . . if al this time , any one wil look for the true religon , for the true church , for the true knowledg and worship of god , he must not look on any nation , or any people , or among the tongues , which are cried up in nations and people , for the original , and as the chief interpreters of the original ; for they are al drunk with the whores cup ; they are under the power , dominion , authority and service of the whore , who rides upon the beast , to whom power was given over al kindreds , tongues and nations . but look among the nations who was persecuted , whose blood was drunk , whom the powers of the nations made war against , ther alone the testimony of jesus is to be found , rev. . . ther alone are the witnesses against the present idolatry and corruption , and to some truths or other of christs which god enlightned them with , and wherto he , stirred them up to give their testimony , though with the loss of their estates , liberties or lives . now by what hath been expressed , is it not manifest to every ey , that hath room but to let in the letter of the scripture , in simplicity and plainness , that there hath been a great apostacy from the true knowledge of christ , and an universal corruption & power of death sprung up , instead of the power of his life and grace ? the grace of god which bringeth salvation , hath disappeared ; and the abomination of desolation hath took up its place , and filled it with deadly venome against the truth and against the life , so that enmity against god , under a pretense of love and zeal to him , hath reigned generally in the hearts of men , from the times of the apostles to this present day . and as the light breaks forth , and their eys come to be opened , they wil see that they have been and are haters of god , and of his life and spirit , but lovers of the world , and of such a religion as suits the worldly spirit . position ii. that in this great apostacy , the true state of christianity hath been lost . this must needs be : for if ther was an apostacy from the thing , ther could not be a retaining of the thing , about which the apostacy was . if they apostatised from the spirit , from the light , from the life ; then they wer gone from it , they lost it . now it may be instanced in every particular , how the state of christianity was lost , but that would be too vast and tedious : it may suffice therfore to instance in some considerables ones , which may lead into the discovery of the rest . . the true rule of christianity , or the rule of a christian , which is to direct , guid and order him in his whole course , was apostatized from and lost . what is a christians rule , whereby he is to steer and order his course ? a christian is to be a follower of christ , and consequently must have the same rule to walk by , as christ had . a christian proceeds from christ , hath the same life in him , and needs the same rule . christ had the fulnesse of life , and of his fulnesse we al receive a measure of the same life . we are members of his body , of his flesh , and of his bones , ephes . . . yea we came out of the same spring of life , from whence he came : for both he that sanctifieth , and they who are sanctified , are al of one : for which cause he is not ashamed to cal them brethren , ebr. . . now what was his rule ? was it not the fulness of life which he received ? and what is their rule ? is it not the measure of life which they receive ? was not christs rule the law of the spirit , the law which the spirit wrote in his heart ? and is not their rule the law of the spirit , the law which the spirit writes in their hearts ? how was christ made a king and a priest ? was it by the law of a carnal commandment ? or by the power of an endles life ? and how are they made kings and priests to god ? rev. . . is it by the law of a carnal commandment ? or is it by the power of the same endles life ? lo i come to do thy will , o god , saith christ , when he cometh into the world , ebr. . ver . . & . but by what rule ? by what law ? thy law is within my heart , psal . . . and the same spirit who wrote it ther , is also to write the new covenant with al the laws of it , in the heart of every christian from the least to the greatest , ebr. . . . yea the same spirit that dwelt in christs heart , is to dwel in their hearts , according to the promise of the covenant , ezek. . . this was pauls rule , after which he walked , the law of the spirit of life in christ jesus , rom. . , . this made him free from the law of sinne and death . wher is the law of sin writ ? wher is the law of death writ ? is it not writ in the heart ? and must not the law of righteousness and life be writ ther also , if it be able to deal with sin and death ? the spirit forms the heart anew , forms christ in the heart , begets a new creature ther , which cannot sin ( he that is born of god sins not ) and this is the rule unto righteousnes , the new creature , or the spirit of life in the new creature , gal . . . in christ jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision , but a new creature . and as many as walk according to this rule , peace be on them . mark , ther 's the rule , the new creature which is begotten in every one that 's born of god. if any man be in christ , he is a new creature ; and this new creature is to be his rule . and as any man walks according to this rule , according to the new creature , according to the law of light and life that the spirit continually breathes into the new creature , he hath peace : but as he transgresses that , and walks not after the spirit , but after the flesh , he walks out of the light , out of the life , out of the peace , into the sea , into the death , into the trouble , into the condemnation . here then is the law of the converted man , the new creature ; and the law of the new creature is the spirit of life which begat him , which lives and breathes & gives forth his law continually in him . here 's a christian , here 's his rule : he that hath not the new creature formed in him , is no christian : and he that hath the new creature , hath the rule in himselfe . ye have an unction from the holy one , and ye know al things , joh. . . how came they to know al things ? doth not john say , it was by the unction ? the anointing was in them , a foundation or wel-spring of light and life , issuing forth continually such rivers and streams of life within , as they needed no other teacher in the truth and way of life , ver . . the comforter did refresh their hearts sufficiently , and lead them into all truth . search the apostles epistles , and ye shall find them testifying of the lords sending his spirit into the hearts of christians , and exhortations to them not to grieve or quench the spirit , but to follow as they were lead . they were to live in the spirit , and to walke in the spirit , gal. . . and the spirit was to walk , and live , and bring forth his own life and power in them , cor. . . and what can be the proper and full rule of gods sons and daughters , but the light of the spirit of life , which they receive from their father ? thus god did advance the state of a believer , above the state of the jews under the law : for they had the law , though written with the singer of god , yet but in tables of stone ; but these have the law , writ by the finger of god in the tables of their hearts . their's was a law without , at a distance from them , and the priests lips were to preserve the knowledg of it , and to instruct them in it : but here is a law within , nigh at hand , the immediate light of the spirit of life shining so immediatly in the heart , that they need no man to teach them , but have the spirit of prophesy in themselves , and quick living teachings from him continually , and are made such kings and priests to god , as the state of the law did but represent . the gospel is the substance of al the shadowes contained in the law ; a christian is he that comes into this substance , and lives in this substance , and in whom this substance lives , and his rule is the substance it self , in which he lives , & which lives in him . christ is the substance who lives in the christian , and he in crhist : christ lives in him by his spirit , and he in christ by the same spirit : ther he lives , and hath fellowship with the father and the son , in the light wherin they live , and not by any outward rule , joh. . . . but what is the rule now in the apostacy ? among the papists the rule is the scripture , interpreted by the church ( as they cal themselves ) with a mixture of their own precepts and traditions . among the protestants the rule is the scriptures , according as they can understand them by their own study , or according as they can receive the understanding of them from such men as they account orthodox . and hence arise continual differences , and heaps , and sects , one following this interpretation , another that . an this is a grievous apostacy , and the root , spring and foundation of al the rest : for he that misseth in his beginning , he that begins his religion without the true rule , how can he proceed aright in any thing afterwards ? object . but are not the scriptures the word of god ? and is not the word of god to be a christians rule ? if every one should be left to his own spirit , what confusion and uncertainty would this produce ? answ . the scriptures are not that living word , which is appointed by god to be the rule of a christian ; but they contain words , spoken by the spirit of god , testifying of that word , and pointing to that word which is to be the rule . search the scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal life , and they are they which testifie of me : and ye will not come to me that ye might have life , joh. . . . the scriptures are to be searched , for the testimony which they give of christ ; and when that testimony is received , christ is to be come to , and life received from him . but the pharisees formerly , and christians since ( i mean christians in name ) search the scriptures , but do not come to christ for the life ; but stick in the letter of the scriptures , and oppose the life with the letter , keeping themselves from the life by their wisdome and knowledg in the letter . thus they put the scriptures into the place of christ , & so honor neither christ nor the scriptures . i had been no honour to john to have been taken for the light , his honour was to point to it : nor is it any honour to the scriptures to be called the word of god , but their honour is to discover and testifie of the word . now hear what the scriptures cal the word : in the beginning was the word , and the word was with god , and the word was god , jho . . . and the word was made flesh , vers . . this was the name of christ , when he came into the world in the flesh , to sow his life in the world . and when he comes again into the world , out of a far country , to fight with the beast and false prophets , and to clense the earth of the whores fornication and idols , wherewith she had corrupted it , he shal have the same name again his name is called , the word of god , rev. . . so peter calleth that the word of god , which liveth and abideth for ever , pet. . . and this word that liveth and abideth for ever , was the word that they preached , ver . . and they that believed , did not cry up the words that the apostles spake , for the word ; but received the thing they spake of , the ingrafted word , which being received with a meek , quiet , and submissive spirit , is able to save the soul , jam. . . this is the word of faith that is nigh , , in the heart and in the mouth , rom. . . this is the word that stands at the door of the heart , and speaks to be let in ( behold i stand at the door and knock : ) and when it is let in , it speaks in the heart , what is to be heard and done . it is nigh , it is in the heart and in the mouth , to what end ? that thou mightest hear it , and do it . the living word , which is quick and powerful , and sharper then any two edged sword , divides in the mouth , and divides in the heart the vile from the precious , yea it reacheth to the very inmost of the heart , and cuts between the roots , ebr. . . and this thou art to hear and do . thou art to part with al the vile words , the vile conversation , the vile course and worship of the world outwardly , and the vile thoughts and course of sin inwardly , as fast as the word discovers them to thee , and to exercise thy selfe in that which is folly and madnesse to the ey of the world , and a grievous cross to thine own worldly nature ; yea when the word reaches to the very nature , life , and spirit within , from whence al that comes ; that strong wise root of the fleshly life in the heart , must not he spared , nor that foolish weak thing ( to mans wise ey ) which is brought in stead thereof , be rejected : which when it it received , is but like a little seed , even the least of all seeds ; and when it growes up , it is a long while but like a child : and yet keeping in that childishness , out of the wisdom , it enters into that kingdom , which the greatest wisdom of man ( in al his zealous waies and forms of religion ) fels short , and is shut out of . this is the word of life , this is the true living rule , and way to eternal life ; and this is the obedience , this is the hearing and doing of the word . he that hath an ear , let him hear . examine your selves whether ye be in the faith : prove your own selves . know ye not your own selves , how that jesus christ is in you , except ye be reprobates ? cor. . . are ye in the faith ? then christ is in you . is not christ in you ? then ye are in the reprobate state , out of the faith . is christ in you , and shal he not hold the reins , and rule ? shal the living word be in the heart , and not the rule of the heart ? shal he speak in the heart , and the man or woman in whom he speaks , run to words of scripture formerly spoken , to know whether these be his words or no ? nay , nay , his sheep know his voice better then so . did the apostle john , who had seen , and tasted , and handled , and preached the word of life , send christians to his epistles , or any other part of scriptures , to be their rule ? nay , he directed them to the anointing , as a sufficient teacher , joh. . . he that believeth on me , as the scriptuce hath said , out of his belly shal flow rivers of living water , joh. . . he that hath the fountain of life in him , issuing up rivers of living water continually , hath he need to go forth to fetch in water ? the kingdom of heaven is within you , saith christ , and he bids seek the kingdom . light the candle , sweep thine own house , seek diligently for the kingdom ; there it is , if thou canst find it . now he that hath found the kingdom within , shal he look without , into words spoken concerning the kingdom , to find the lawes of the kingdom ? are not the lawes of the kingdom to be found within the kingdom . shal the kingdom be in the heart , and the laws of the kingdom written without , in a book ? is not the gospel the ministration of the spirit ? and shal he who hath received the spirit , run back to the letter to be his guid ? shal the living spirit , that gave forth scriptures , be present , and not have preheminence above his own words ? what is the proper intent of the letter ? is it not to testifie of the spirit , and to end in the spirit ; the law , the prophets , john led to christ in the flesh , and he was to be the increasing light , when they should decrease . christ words in the flesh , the apostles words afterwards , and al words since are but to lead to christ in the spirit , to the eternal living substance ; and then the words of christ , of the apostles , or any words spoken from the same spirit in these dayes , have brought to the spirit , to the feeling and setling of the soul in the living foundation , and to the building and perfecting of the man of god therein , they have attained their end and glory . but to cry up these , not understanding their voice , but keeping at a distance from the thing that they invite to ; the words hereby are put out oftheir place , out of their proper use and service , and so attain neither their end nor their glory . and though men put that upon them which seems to be a greater glory , namely to make them his rule and guid , yet it being not a true glory , it is no glory , but a dishonour both to them , and to the spirit who gave them to another end . now for the other part of the objection , that if men should be lest to their own spirits , and should follow the guidance of their own spirits , it would produce confusion and uncertainty : i do acknowledge it , it would do so . but here is no leaving of a man to his own spirit , spoken of or intended , but the directing and guiding of a man to the word and spirit of life ; to know and hear the voice of christ which gathers and translates man out of his own spirit into his spirit : and here is no confusion or uncertainty , but order , certainty and stability . the light of gods spirit is a certain and infallible rule , ( and the ey that sees that , is a certain ey ) whereas mans understanding of the scriptures is uncertain and fallible ; he having not the true ear , receiveth such a literal uncertain knowledg of things , into his uncertain understanding , as deceives his soul . and here man in the midst of his wisdom and knowledg of the scriptures , is lost in his own erring and uncertain mind , and his soul deceived , for want of a true root and foundation of certainty in himself . but he that is come to the true shepherd , and knows his voice , he cannot be deceived . yea he can read the scriptures safely , and taste the true sweetnesse of them : for he being in the life , can taste the sweetnesse of the words that came from the life ; but man who is out of the life , feeds on the husks , and can receive no more . he hath gathered a dead , dry , literal , husky knowledg out of the scripture , and that he can relish : but should the life of the words , and things there spoken of be opened to him , he could not receive them , he himself being out of that wherewith they were wrote , and wherein alone they can be understood . but poor man having lost the life , what should he do ? he can do no other , but cry up the letter , and make as good shift with it as he can , though his soul the mean while is starved , and lies in famine and death for want of the bread of life , and a wrong thing is fed . the scribes and pharisees made a great noise about the law and ordinances of moses , exclaiming against christ and his disciples as breakers and profaners of them ; yet they themselves did not truly honor the law and ordinances of moses , but their own doctrines , commandements and traditions . so these now who make a great noise about the scriptures , and about the institutions of the apostles , do not honor the scriptures , or the institutions of the apostles ; but their own meanings , their own conceivings , their own inventions and imaginations thereupon . they run to the scriptures with that understanding which is out of the truth , and which never shall be let into the truth ; and so being not able to reach and comprehend the truth as it is , they study , they invent , they imagine a meaning ; they form a likeness , a similitude of the truth as neer as they can , and this must go for the truth : and this they honor , and bow before as the will of god ; which being not the will of god , but a likeness of their own inventing and forming , they worship not god , they honor not the scriptures , but they honor and worship the work of their own brain . and every scripture which man hath thus formed a meaning out of , and hath not read in the true and living lights of gods eternal spirit , he hath made an image by , he hath made an idol of : and the respect and honor he gives this meaning , is not a respect and honor given to god but to his own image , to his own idol . oh how many are your idols , ye christians of england ( as ye think your selves to be ! ) how many are your idols , ye gathered churches ! how full of images and idols are ye , ye spiritual notionists , who have run from one thing to another , with the same mind and spirit wherewith ye began at first ! but the founder of images hath never been discovered and destroyed in you , and so he is still at work among you all : and great will your sorrow and distress be , when the lords quick eye searcheth him out , and revealeth his just wrath against him . in my heart and soul i honor the scriptures , and long to read them throughout with the pure eye , and in the pure light of the living spirit of god : but the lord preserve me from reading one line of them in my own-will , or interpreting any part of them according to my own understanding but only as i am guided , led and enlightened by him , in the will and understanding which comes from him . and here all scripture , every writing of gods spirit , which is from the breath of his life , profitable to build up and perfect the man of god : but the instructions , the reproofs , the observations , the rules , the grounds of hope and comfort , ( or whatever else ) which man gathers out of the scriptures , ( he himself being out of the life ) have not the true profit , nor build not up the true thing ; but both the gatherings and the gatherer are for destruction . and the lord will ease the scripture of the burthen of mans formings and inventions from it , and recover its honor again , by the living presence and power of that spirit that wrote it : and then it shall be no longer abused and wrested by mans earthly and unlearned mind , but in the hand of the spirit , come to its true use and service to the seed , and to the world . . the true worship was lost . the true worship of god in the gospel , is in the spirit . the hour cometh , and now is , when the true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit , and in truth ; for the father seeketh such to worship him , joh. . . the true worship is in the spirit , and in the truth , and the true worshippers worship there , and such worshippers the father seeks , and such worship he accepts : but all other worship is false worship , and all other worshippers are false worshippers , such worshippers as god seeks not , nor can accept their worship . did god refuse cains sacrifice formerly , and can he accept any sacrifice , or worship now that 's offered in that nature ? why , he that worships out of the spirit , he worships in that nature . but he that worships aright , must have his nature changed , and must worship in that thing wherein he is changed in that faith , in that life , in that nature , in that spirit whereby and whereto he is changed . for without being in this , and keeping in this , it is impossible to please god in any thing . he that is the true worshipper is a believer , and in his worship he must keep to his rule , the law of faith , the law of the spirit of life in him , the law which he receives by faith fresh from the spirit of life continually . he must heat and observe the voice of the living word in all his worship , and worship in the presence and power and guidance of that , as that moves and as that carries on , or it is not worship in the spirit . i shall instance only in prayer . praying alwaies with all prayer and supplication in the spirit , ephes . . . mark , all prayer and supplication must be in the spirit , yea it must be alwaies in the spirit , which speaks in the heart to god , and makes the intercession , or is is no prayer . if a man speak never so much from his own spirit , with never so much earnestness and affection , yet it is no prayer , no true prayer , but only so far as the spirit moves to it , and so farr as the spirit leads and guids in it . if a man begin without the spirit , or go on without the spirit , this is out of the worship ; this is in his own will ( and so will-worship ) and according to his own understanding ( and so fleshly worship ) both which are to be crucified , and not to be followed in any thing under the gospel . wee are the circumcision , which worship god in the spirit , ( here are the true worshippers , the circumcision ; and here 's the true worship , in the spirit ; and they have no bounds and limits in the flesh , wherein their strength and confidence is broke ) and have no confidence in the flesh . if a man address himself to any worship of god without his spirit , hath he not confidence in the flesh ? if he begin without the ving of his spirit , doth he not begin in the flesh ? if he go on , without the spirits carrying on , doth he not proceed in the strength and confidence of the flesh ? but the worship of the spirit , is in its will , and in its time , and is carried on by its light and power , and keeps down the understanding and affectionate part of man , wherein all the world worship , and offer up the unaccepted sacrifices , even the lame and the blinde , which gods soul hates . now this worship , as it is out of mans will and time , and in that which continueth , so it is continual . there is a continual praying unto god. there is a continual blessing and praising of his name , in eating , or drinking , or what ever else is done . there is a continual bowing to the majesty of the lord in every thought , in every word , in every action , though it be in worldly things and occasions , yet the spirit of the lord is seen there , and the tongue confesseth him there , and the knee boweth to him there : this is the true worship . and this is the rest or sabbath wherein the true worshippers worship . when the creation of god is finished , when the child is formed in the light ; and the life breathed into him , then god brings him forth into his holy land , where he keeps his sabbath . they that are in the faith , which is the substance of the things hoped for under the law , are come from all the shadows and types of the law , and from all heathenish observation of dayes and times in the spirit of this world , where the spirit of man is hard at work , into the true sabbath , into the true rest , where they have no more to work , but god works all in them in his owntime , and according to his own pleasure . we which have believed , do enter into rest , ebr. . . and he that is entred into his rest , hath ceased from his works , as god from his , vers . . he that hath the least taste of faith , knows a measure of rest finding the life working in him , and his soul daily led further and further into life by the working of the life , and the heavy yoke of his own labouring after life taken of from his shoulders . now here 's the truth , here 's the life , here 's the sabbath , here 's the worship of the soul that 's led into the truth , and preserved in the truth . but what is the worship now in the apostacy ? among the papists a very grosse worship , a worship more carnal then ever the worship of the law was : for that though in its nature it was outward and carnal , yet it was taught and prescribed by the wisdom of god , and was profitable in its place , and to its end : but this was invented by the corrupt wisdom , and set up in the corrupt wil of man , and hath no true profit , but keeps from the life , from the power , from the spirit in fleshly observations , which feed and please the fleshly nature . look upon their daies consecrated to saints , and their canonical hours of prayer , and their praying in an unknown tongue , with their fastings , feastings , saying of ave-maries , pater-nosters , creeds , &c. are not all these from the life , out of the spirit , and after the invention , and in the wil of the flesh ? ah their stink is greater then the flesh-pots of egypt . and the worship of the protestants comes too near them : for their worship is also from a fleshly principle , and in their own times , and wils , and according to their own understanding and apprehension of things , and not from the rising up and guidance of the infallible life of the spirit in them ( for that they will quench . ) they also observe dayes , and times , and perishing ordinances , and are not come out of the flesh into that spirit , where the worship is to be know and to be in . . the faith , the true faith was lost . the faith which gives victory over the world ; the faith which feeds the life of the just , and slayes the unjust ; the faith which is pure , the mystery whereof is held in a pure conscience ; the faith which gives entrance into the rest of god ; the faith which is the substance of things hoped for , and the evidence of things not seen ; this hath been lost , and is not yet to be found among those who go for christians . for those who challenge the name of christians , and say they believe in christ , and have faith in him , cannot with their faith overcome the world , but are daily overcome by the world . where is there a christian , but he is either in the honours , or in the fashion , or in the customes , or in the worships of the world , if not in them all ? he is so farre from overcoming these , that he is overcome with them : yea so overcome , so drunk therewith , that he hath even lost his senses , and thinks he may be a christian , and in a good state , while he is there . and the life of the just is not fed by their faith , but the unjust nature is fed , and the righteous witnesse ( which is raised up and lives by the true faith ) is kept down , and cannot bring forth his life in them , because of their unbelife : for that is the proper name of their faith ; for being not true faith , it is not faith , but unbelief . and the faith of christians ( so called ) is not a mystery , ( they know not the mystery of it , which is held in a pure conscience ) but consists in believing an historical relation , and in a fleshly improving of that , and can be held in an impure conscience . neither are they entered into rest by their faith : for they know not the sabbath in the lord , but are still in a shadowy sabbarh . neither is it the substance of what they hope for , but the substance of what they hope for is strange to them . they are not come to mount sion , to the city of the living god , the heavenly jerusalem , to the innumerable company of augels , to the general assembly and church of the first born , to god the judge , christ the mediator , and the blood of sprinkling , and so to unity and certainty in the life : but are in opinions , waies and practises suitable to the earthly spirit which may easily be shaken , and must be shaken down to the ground , if ever they know the building of god , and the true faith . . the love , the true love ; the innocent love , which think no il , nor wishes no ill , much lesse can do any il to any ; but suffereth long , and is kind , meek , humble , not seeking its own , but the good of others , this love is lost . the love unfained is banished , and a fained love , such a love as enmity and violence proceeds from , is got in the place of it . the true love loves the enemy , and cannot return enmity for enmity , but seeks the good of them who hate it : but this love can persecute and hate that which it calls the friend , nay the brother , because of some difference in opinion or practice . the love that was in christ , taught him to lay down his life for his sheep : and he that hath the same love , can lay down his life for his brother . but the love that is now among christians , tends rather to the taking away of life . what is the love among the papists ? see their inquisitions , their wraths , their fire and fagot , &c. what is their love in new-england ? is it not a love that can imprison or banish their brother , if he differ but a little from them in judgement or practise about their worship ? yea they can whip , burn in the hand , cut off ears , just like the bishops of old england . if one had told them , when they fled from the persecution of the bishops here , that they themselves should have done such things , they would have been apt to reply with hazael , what , are we dogs ? but they fled from the cross , which would have crucified that persecuting spirit , and so carried it alive with them ; and being alive , it grew by degrees to as great an head there , as it did in the bishops here . and what is the love here in old england ? is it not a love that whips , stocks , imprisons , stones , jeeres ? yea the very teachers ( which should be patterns of love to others ) they will cast into prison , and distrein the goods of their brother , even almost to his undoing for maintenance , according to a law of the land made in the apostacy . see the record of sufferings for tythes in england , which may make any tender heart bleed to read it , and is like to lie as a brand of infamy on the magistracy and ministry of england to succeeding generations . is this the love of the righteous seed ? or is it cains love which is in profession , in word , in shew ; but not in deed and in truth ? and how can these love god ? nay if the true love of god were in them , this enmity could not stand , nor such fruits of it shoot forth . but they have not seen the father or the son , and that life of them which appears in the earth , the evill spirit in man seeks to destroy , that he may keep up his own image and shadow of life , which the nature of the true life ( in its appearance ) fights against . by this shall all men know that ye are my disciple , if ye love one another . and by this may all men know , that those that now go for christians are not christs disciples , in that they do not love one another . they are not in unity in the light , and so cannot love one another there ; but are onely in unity in forms , in opinions , in professions , in practises ; so any difference there stirs up the enmity , causing risings in the heart against them at least , if it proceed not further . the true love grows from true union and fellowship in the light , where that is not known , there cannot be true love in the spirit , but a fained love in the flesh . . the true hope , joy , and peace is lost . the true ground of hope , is christ in the heart , and the true hope is that hope which ariseth from this ground , from the feeling of christ there , christ in you the hope of glory , col. . . what is the true christians hope ? it is christ in him , he hath eternal life abiding in him , and he knows that cannot but lead to glory . but what is the common christians hope ? he fastens his hope upon the relation and his beliefe of an history . he that believeth shall be saved : i believe , therefore i shall be saved . and thus as he hath got up a wrong faith , and a wrong love , so he gets up a wrong hope . and this hope will perish : for this is the hope of the hypocrite , or an hope in the hypocritical nature , which complies with scripture-words , but is not in union with god , nor with the life of the scriptures ; and so being without the anchor is tossed in the waves of the sea. and the true joy is in he spirit , from what is felt , and injoyned , and hoped for there . but the common christians joy is from things which he gathers into , and comprehends in his understanding , or from flashes which he feels in his affectionate part , from a fire and sparkes of his own kindling , from whence he fetches his warmth and comfort . and the true peace stands in the reconciliation with god , by having that broken down which causeth the wrath , and to which the wrath is , where ever it is found . the lambe of god breaks down the wall of separation in the heart , the blood of jesus ( wherein is the life ) clenseth away the sin there , maketh the heart pure , uniteth the pure heart to the pure god : here 's union , here 's fellowship , here 's peace . but the common christians peace is from a mis-understanding of scriptures , while the wall of separation is standing , while wickednesse lodges in the heart . they reason themselves ( from scripture words ) into an apprehension that god is at peace with them , and that they are in union with him , while that of god which is in them witnesseth against them , and checks them , and wars with them : and they are not one with it , nor cannot be in that nature and understanding wherein their life lies , to which belongs no peace . . the true repentance , conversion , and regeneration hath been lost . the true repentance is from dead works , and from the dead principle whence all the dead works proceed : but these have not been repented of ; but perished in the apostacy . the praying , the striving , the worshipping , the fighting hath been from the dead principle . the building up , and whole exercise of religion in the apostacy , hath been in that understanding which is to be destroyed : and the will , which should have been crucified , hath been pleased and fed with its religion . the true conversion is from the power of satan to god , from the darknesse to the light . but in the apostacy men have not known god or satan , the light or the darknesse , but have mistook , taking the one for the other , worshipping the devil in stead of god , rev. . . and following the dark conceivings of their own and other mens minds concerning scripture , and calling them light . regeneration is a changing of man , whereby the birth is born of the spirit : the stripping of the creature of its own nature , of its own understanding , of its own will , and forming it anew in the wombe of the spirit : so that the old creature is passed away , and there comes forth a new thing , which growes up daily in the new life towards the fulnesse of christ . but men have been so far from being born of the spirit , that they have not so much as known the gift of the spirit in them ; but to this day are enemies , and at a distance from that of god in them which is pure . and if they could but open their eyes , they would see that their birth is fleshly , and consists ( at best ) but in such a conformity to the letter , as the old nature may imitate and attain : but the immortal seed is not sprung up in them , nor they dead to the mortal , or alive to the immortal . . the true wisdome , righteousnesse , sanctification and redemption is lost . the true wisdom stands in the fear of god and departing from evil : this , those that are taught of god learn , and thereby are made wise unto salvation . but most that are called christians , are not come to the fear of god , and many are got above it , looking upon it as legall , and not appertaining to the gospel ; but the gospel state is love , which casteth out fear . doth the love of god refuse , or cast out the fear of god ? nay it casts out the fear that , brings bondage , the fear that came in by transgression , which fear is stirred up and discovered by the law. and this is a fear of sin , or a fear arising from sin , through the law 's manifestation of it , and the wrath against it , which causeth both the fear , and much bondage from the fear : and this the gospel ( which discovers the love , the mercy , the grace , the power , and unites to them ) frees from and casts out . but then there is a fear of god , a fear wrought in the heart by his spirit , a fear which is part of the new covenant , ( i will put my fear in their hearts , and they shall not depart from me ) a fear which is part of the everlasting gospel , rev. . , . and endureth for ever , psal . . . and this fear is not bondage , but liberty ; it is indeed bondage to the unjust , but liberty to the just : for where this fear is , sin is departed from ; it sets free , it delivers the feet out of the snare of iniquity : there 's true liberty . can sin prevail in that heart , where the pure clean fear of god is placed by god to keep it down ? the love of god doth not cast out this fear , but keeps in this fear : and this fear keeps the heart clean from the evil which defiles , and preserves the love from the enmity , which springs up where this fear is not . now this fear in the apostacy was lost , or else what needed there an especial ministry to be raised up to preach it again , rev. . . ? and the estate of christians every where doth manifest this loss , for their hearts are not kept clean , which sheweth that the fear , ( which doth keep clean , where it is ) is wanting in them . there 's pollution , there 's filth , there 's deceit , there 's high-mindedness , self-conceitedness , and love of the world and worldly vanities , and many other evils to be found in the hearts of those that go for christians ; and the purity of heart ( which comes from the fear , and stands in the wisdom ) is not known they are wise to do evil , but want the knowledge to avoid the evil , and do the good : they are wise to get and enjoy the world , but know not the true riches : they are wise to gather together many scripture-words against sin , and yet still keep the nature and life of it in the heart , and it as a sweet morsel under the tongue : they are wise to apply promises to comfort themselves with ( when sometimes they receive a just wound in their hearts from the righteous one ) but know not that nature , or that estate and condition to which all the promises are made , but are yet in that nature , and in that estate and condition to which the curse appertains . the true righeousnesse stands in the faith , in hearing and obeying the word of faith . how comes the righteousnesse of the law , but by hearing and obeying the voice of the law ? and how comes the righteousnesse of the gospel , but by hearing and obeying the word of faith , who is preached , and the preacher of righteousnesse in the heart ? the apostle paul makes this comparison , rom. . the righteousnesse of the law speaketh on this wise , the man that doth those things , shall live in them : but how speaketh the word of faith ? the word is nigh thee , in thy mouth , and in thy heart , he that doth that , he that heareth that , shall live in that . the hour is coming , and now is , when the dead shall hear the voyce of the son of god : and they that hear shall live . disobedience to the law is unrighteousnesse , and brings death ; and disobedience to the living word is unrighteousnesse , and cannot be justified , but condemned : and obedience to it cannot be condemned , but justified : so that when the soul hears , believes , and obeyes , then it is justified : then its former sins are forgotten , and this is imputed to it unto righteousnesse . but when the soul will not hear , will not believe , will not obey ; this unbelief is judged in him , and his sins retained , and not remitted . now is not this a just and equall way of justification , o ye sons of men ? is not your way unequal ? shall a man continue in the unbelief and rebellion against christ , against the light , against the faith ; and yet be justified by christ , by the light , by the faith ? this cannot be , gods way of imputation will stand ; but mans invented way of imputation , which sprung up in the apostacy , will not stand . if we walk in the light , as he is in the light ; the blood clenseth , but not otherwise . if we walk after the spirit , and not after the flesh , there is no condemnation , and not otherwise . the true baptism is the plunging down of the old thing , with all its filth ; and the raising up of a new thing : and it is the new thing , the circumcision , the baptism which is justified . god justifieth his son , and man onely so far as he is bound in his son. the true sanctification consists in the growth of the seed , and its spreading ( like a leaven ) over the heart , and over the whole man. by faith christ is formed in the heart , the hidden man in the mistery is formed there : and as this seed , this leaven , this man growes ; so he makes the man holy in whom he grows . the seed of life , the kingdom of heaven is an holy thing ; and as it grows and spreads , it purgeth out the old leaven , and makes the lump new . but now , in christians that have grown up in the apostacy , this seed is not known , this leaven is not so much as discerned ; but their holinesse consists in a conformity to rules of scripture , received into the old heart and understanding . and what a noise hath this made in the world , all this night of the apostacy , as if this were the heir , and should inherit the kingdom : nay , nay , the heir hath appeared ( by whose presence it is seen , that this is not the heir ) and ye shall not be able to kill him , but he shall live to enjoy his inheritance , and the inheritance shall not be yours . redemption consists in being bought , by the price of the life , out of sin , out of death , out of the earth , out of the power of the devil . it is a casting off the strong man out of the heart ( with all that he brought in ) and a delivering from his power . it is a dissolving of the work of sin , which the devil hath wrought in the heart , and a setting the soul ( which is immortal ) at liberty ; free from sin , and free unto righteousnesse : this is the true redemption . but this redemption in the apostacy is a fained redemption ; wherein salvation from sin , and the devil , and his power , is not felt : but the strong man is still in the heart , and keeps the soul in death , and brings forth fruits of death daily . the christians formerly ( in the first day of the breaking forth of gods power ) had christ in them , the living word ; opened their hearts to him , received him in , felt him there , sound him made of god to them their wisdom , their righteousnesse , their sanctification , their redemption , cor. . . they had the thing that these words signifie , and speak of , and knew the meaning of the words by feeling of the thing . but christians now , in the apostacy , have got several apprehensions from the words , without feeling the thing the words speak of , and ther lies their religion . and now the true heir being come , holding forth the thing they have been all talking of , all sects upon the earth are mad against him , and would fain kill him . they would not have the living substance ( which is the heir ) live , and nothing be esteemed life but that ; but they would have their dead apprehensions from the words live , and their dead forms and practises owned : and the heir of life must come in their way , in the way that they have hoped and waited for him , or they will not own him . awake , awake , o ye sons of the apostacy , and of the night , rise up out of the fleshly wisdom , out of the dead fleshly interpretations of scriptures , out of the dead invented forms of worship , and bow to the heir , kiss the son , lest ye feel the force of that dreadful sentence , those mine enemies , which would not that i should reign over them , bring hither , and slay them before me . for of a truth the great prophet is arisen , and speaks in the heart , and his sheep hear his voice ( there are many faithful witnesses thereof ) and he that will not hear his voice , must be cut off ; there is no avoiding of it : for the two-edged sword is in his hand , and he will cut down the transgressor . . the church , the true church was lost . the true church was a company gathered out of the world into god , begotten of and gathered into his life , by the living word , and so had a true place and habitation in god. the apostle paul writing to the thessalonians , stiles them a church in god. a church under the gospel is made up of true israelites , gathered out of their own spirits and natures , into the measure of the spirit of god in them , as christ was into the fulnesse . they are such as are begotten of god , born of his spirit , led by him out of egypt , through the wildernesse to sion the holy mount , there they meet with the elect precious corner stone which is laid in sion , and they being living stones are built upon it into jerusalem the holy city , pet . , . ebr. . . this is the true church . every one that believes in christ , is a living stone , and being a living stone , he is laid upon the living foundation , and so is a part of the building in the temple of the living god. yea his body and and spirit being clensed , he himself is a temple wherein god dwels , appears , and is worshipped . and the gathering of any of these together at any time in the life , in the name of christ , is a larger temple , and such a temple as christ never fails to be in the midst of . but the great temple , the ful church is the general assembly of the first-born . this is the unerring pillar and ground of truth . this alwaies bare up truth , truth never failed here ; but when it was at any time lost in the world , it might from hence be recovered again when god pleased , and as far as he pleased . indeed the law of the lord hath alwaies gone forth from this sion , and the living word from this jerusalem : but what hath the church been in the apostacy ? a building of stone , say some : and that not onely among papists , but here in england also , many have called the old mass-house a church , a temple , the house of god , pleading for it to be a holy place ; and have showed it by their practises , keeping off their hats while they were in it . others say , not the stone building , but the people that meet there , is the church : whereof many are openly prophane , yea so far from being gathered into the spirit , and so ignorant of his motions , that they are ready to scoffe , if they hear a man speak of being moved by the spirit . what are these ? are these living stones , whereupon the true church alone can be built ? are these children of the day ? nay these are children of the night , children brought up in the apostacy from the true light , the true life , the true rule of christianity , the true worship , the true faith , the true love , &c. and so are dead stones in that building , but not true living stones in gods building . other sorts separate from these , and gather congregations out of these ; but still in the same spirit , in the same nature , being not themselves gathered out of the apostacy from the spirit , into the spirit again ; and so they build but with the same stones as were in the old building , and not with the new and living stones , and so are but a more refined appearance of a church , but not a true church . not a church in god , and by the gathering of his spirit ; but of their own gathering , after a form , according as they have imagined from their reading and studying of the scriptures , . ( which may be the last instance ) the ministry , the true ministry hath been lost . the true ministry was a ministry made and appointed by the spirit , by the gift of the spirit bestowed on them , and by the spirit sending of them , and appointing them to their work . christ bid his apostles and disciples wait at jerusalem for the promise of the spirit ; and when he had given them the spirit , he gave them to the church for the work of the ministry , ephes . . . . act. . . and if none can be a member of the true church , but by being begotten out of death into life by the spirit , surely none can be able to minister to him who is so begotten , but by the same spirit . so these receiving their ministry of the lord jesus , act. . . and the gift of the spirit from him , they were made able ministers of the new testament , not of the letter , but of the spirit , cor. . . they were able in god , to minister from his spirit to the spirits of his people . and they did not minister a literal knowledg of things to the understanding of man : but they led men to the spirit of god , and ministred spiritual things to that spiritual understanding which was given them of god. neither did they make use of their own wisdom and art , to tickle the natural ear ; but spake to the conscience , with the demonstration of the spirit , in the sight of god , as it pleased the spirit to give them utterance . but how have ministers been made in the apostacy ; by orders from men , set up in their own wils , after their own inventions . and how have they been qualified , but by humane arts and languages , which have been of high esteem in that which men call the church , since the language and skill of the spirit of god hath been lost ; god ( who chose in his own church ) doth not chuse here , who shall be his ministers ; but any man can appoint his son to be a minister , if he will but educate him in learning , and send him to the university , and so bring him into that way of order wherein men make ministers : and then he is able to minister unto man , the things of man , according to human skil . and this in the dark night of apostacy , must go for a true call to the ministery of god. indeed they are as true ministers , as the church is to which they minister : but they never were , nor never can be thus made ministers of the church of god : but as god alone can form and build his church , so he alone can fit and appoint the ministers thereof . and though others , having seen the grossenes of this , make their ministers by a call in their church , yet neither is that out of the apostacy , but onely a striving of man to get out of it , which man cannot possibly do , till he meet with the spirit of god to lead out of it . so that that ministry also is but an invention of man made by man , and comes not from the spirit , nor is able to minister spirit to the spirit . object . but hath there been no true religion since the daies of the apostes ? no true rule , no true worship , no true faith , no true love , no true hope joy or peace , no true repentance , conversion & regeneration , no true wisdom , righteousnes , sanctification and redemption , no true church , no true ministry ? what hath become of all our fore-fathers ? did they all perish ? and hath not this ministry converted many to god ? were not yee your selves converted by it ? nay have not many of them been martyrs , and witnessed to the truth of god ? and though some of them are bad , yet are not many of them zealous and conscientious preachers of the word at this day ? by such reasonings as these , the wisdom of man much strengthens and hardens it selfe against the truth . answ . the rule in nations , the worship in nations , the faith , love , hope , joy , peace , repentance , conversion , regeneration , &c. which have been cried up in nations for the truth , the churches in nations , the ministry in nations ; all these have been corrupted , and never recovered their true state to this day . there have been changes from one thing to another , but the restauration hath not been known . the whorish spirit hath been hunted & puriued , and so run out of one form into another , traversing her way , and changing her ground and garments , but hath not been taken and judged to the death : and the true spirit hath not been able to find the bed of her husband , but hath wandered from mountain to hil , all the time of this cloudy and dark day , forgetting her resting place . yet , though the whole earth was corrupted , and false doctrine and worship set up every where among the nations , which continued the fornication and whoredom from the spirit of life in the publick wayes and national worships ; notwithstanding this , even all this while god reserved a seed to himselfe , which he caused to spring up in a remnant , and which he moved and carried on to witnesse against somewhat of these corruptions , in their several ages and generations . and as fast as the beast killed and knocked down these , god raised up more : yea though the whorish spirit , in some nations , painted her self curioussy , leaving some of the grosse doctrines and worships of popery , and got into a more refined way : yet god raised up witnesses against her there also , and still doth into what form soever she gets : for though of late she hath decked her self very pleasingly , as she think , and covered her selfe round with scripture-words and professions , and practises as like as ever she can form them to the practises of former saints , yet quick and lively is the spirit of god that searcheth after her , who hath found her out , and raised up witnesses against her there also . now this seed , this remnant , though they were not able to recover the possession of the life and power that was lost , yet they had a true taste of it , and their testimony which they gave out from that taste , was true : and so far as they kept to this testimony , in the faith and in the patience which they had learned and received from god , ( though but in a low measure ) they were accepted of him . so that all were not lost in this night of darkness , but such as feared god , and knew and hearkned to his voice , had the testimony of his presence with them , and tasted of his life and power in measure : god was not an hard master to them , but tender and gentle , and contented to reap what he sowed . but the appearance of god , in this dark time was weak , and low , and easie to be made a prey of . and this is very observable , that so long as the simplicity ran pure it was preserved , but so soon as ever the spirit of man was tempted either into any old , or into any new invented form , the wisdom of the flesh got in with it , grew up more than it , and when it had gathered strength , corrupted the vessel , betrayed the simplicity , and lost the life . thus many pretious beginnings and buddings forth of life , have been betrayed in these late daies . there was a pretious thing stirring in queen maries dayes , the life whereof was more hurt , and suppressed , by that dead form of episcopacy , succeeding afterwards , then by the foregoing persecution . the persecution did clear and brighten it , but the fleshly form of episcopacy brought death over it . and the forms of presbytery , independency , anabaptism , have been little lesse then graves to bury and keep down the life . how many spirits , that had a precious savour in them at their entrance into those forms , did soon become fleshly , earthly , and very unsavory , loosing the quicknesse and freshness that was in them before , and falling into the deadness of the form , withering with it . and as touching the ministry , though in it self it was evill , being in the degeneration from the true ministry , all this time of the apostacy ; and the persons therein for the most very corrupt , being brought up to it as to a trade , and making use of it as a trade : yet i do believe that there was a simplicity of heart in some persons among them , which did cause them in some degree of faithfulnesse , to seek the lord , his service , and the good of souls . and in the time of ignorance and darkness , it pleased god to wink at , and over-look the evill ; and to cause good to passe from the good in them to the good in others , through the evil that hung about both . and this was the great tenderness of the lord , in pitty to his poor creatures ( who were very destitute to help in the thick night of darkness ) and should not now be made use of to justifie and keep up the evil . do ye thus requite the lord , o foolish people and unkind ? because his mercy and goodness extended to you notwithstanding the evil ( which might have hindered ) will ye make that an argument to keep up the evill , and to oppose the light which discovers it ? because god causeth light to shine through the darkness , and visiteth man in the dark , wil ye therfore set up the darkness as his proper way of ministration ? the corrupt way , call , and exercise of the corrupt ministry , could not keep out the tender love of god , but he had respect to the simplicity of some who were found in it , and to the simplicity of others who waited on him for instruction there , and did please to give some answer to both . and will ye make this uningenious use of it , to interpret it as his approbation of that ministry , which sprung up in the apostacy from him , among those that were apostatised , and is a great dishonour to him , and the abhorring of his soul ? a ministry of christ , a ministry set up by his spirit is precious ; but a ministry made by man , according to his will , and ministring in his wisdom , the soul of the lord beareth as a burthen , and is pressed with it ; and as he raiseth up his own life , wil ease himself of it . and what do they minister from , but the literal part of the scriptures , which killeth and cannot give life ? and what do they minister with , but their own understanding part ? what meanings they can invent , what deductions the wisdom can draw from the scriptures , but do not see the true meaning in the infallible and unerring light : and what do they minister to , but the understanding part in you ? whereas there is somewhat else to be ministred to by the true minister ; and what do they minister to you , but food for the understanding , food for the serpentine wisdom , which alwaies fed upon knowledge , but never upon the true bread ? and hereby another thing is fed in you , and not your souls , but they are kept in leanness and barrenness , under death and the bondage of corruption ( which paul cryed out upon as a wretched state , and could find no ease , rest , or freedom from condemnation there ) and without the true life and redemption . i do do not deny but ye may there meet with some kind of warmth in the affectionate part , which may be heated by a fire and sparks of mans kindling and blowing up , and this may go for life with you now : but in the presence of the truth , where the eye is opened , it vanisheth : yea the spirit of the lord hath so blown upon it , that it is even withered in the sight of a more inferiour eye in many people . position iii. that there is to be a recovery , a true recovery out of this state of apostacy , into the true state of christianity again . god will not let the desolations of sion remain for ever , but he will again build up sion , and appear in his glory . he will set his king upon his holy hill of sion . the new jerusalem shall again come down from heaven . the man-childe which was taken up , shall come down again conquering and to conquer , & the lamb shal get the victory over the whore , and over all her apostatized nations and churches , that have a name and not the life ; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron , and make them a desolation which have made his holy city desolate , and trample them down which have trampled upon it . the lofty city he will lay low , he wil lay it low , even to the ground , he wil bring it even to the dust : the foot shall tread it down , the feet of the poor , the steps of the needy . the whore shall be judged , with the beast whereupon she rode : the life , which they trod upon , shall rise up in the mighty power of the lord , and over-turn them . the everlasting gospel shall be again preached to them that dwel on the earth , and to every nation , and kindred , and tongue , and people , rev. . . mark , the gospel that was preached to the nations , all the time of the apostacy , was not the everlasting gospel , that gospel did not bring life and immortality to life , but they were hid from mens eyes , and men had only a sound of words in stead of the thing : and thus poor nations , kindreds , people , tongues , were every where bewitched with a form of things , with an outward knowledg , a perishing knowledg in the perishing part , a vain traditional invented worship , which stands in the wisdom and will of man , but had no union and fellowship with that which is everlasting . and thus all the nations in the smoke of the bottomlesse pit , run into the pit from whence the smoke came . but the lord hath a time to pitty the poor nations , and to send forth his true everlasting gospel again , to deliver the nations from that witchery , and sorcery , and spiritual inchantment which got up in the dark . and as this everlasting light springs up , then down goes babylon , down go all invented doctrines , all invented forms , all invented worships , and that wisdom and evill spirit that raised them up . babylon is fallen , is fallen , that great city , because she made all nations drunk of the wine of the cup of her fornication , rev. . , and now the new wine of the kingdom , which is tasted of in the everlasting gospel , purges out the old wine ; and the drunkennesse , which thereby came upon the nations , wasts . and they that have tasted of this life , and know this life , can never be bewitched back again , by the whorish spirit , to dead forms ●nd likenesses without life : nay , when babylon falls , she can rise no more . though the life fall often , it can rise again ; but when the witchery from the life is discovered and cast into the pit , it can get out no more . indeed the beast hath had all the strength of the nations , and the whore hath had all the wisdom , all the esteem , all the honor : who can make war with the beast ? who can shew miracles and wonders like the false prophets ? who can teach but the wise , learned , orthodox men , that have the arts , and know the original ? yea there 's another that can make war , and a prophet , that can preach better then them , one that can preach life , one that can preach the everlasting gospel , and knows the original of it , one that is wiser and stronger then the whore , and by his wisdom and strength is able to judge her , and cast her out of the nations , though she hath got very strong possession , rev. . . now learn wisdom , know the parable of the fig-tree , come to the life that is arisen , and abide not in the death , that is passed , and passing away . ye have heard the voice of the whore , ye have drunk of her cup , ye have been bewitched , ye have set up her inventions , but have wanted the thing which cannot be invented , and which the inventing understanding cannot comprehend . but if the force of the wine still remain upon you , so that ye cannot hearken after , or let in that which is everlasting , assure your selves , as the life rises , ye will meet with plagues and wrath from it , in stead of the refreshments it brins to others , and know what it is to sit down under a dead talk of , without feeling the living power of redemption . therefore be wise , and know the times and seasons . that will not be born with now , which was born with formerly : but as the love and power of god to salvation hath more appeared , so the severity against those who now resist , will appear more also : and death shall have its sting , which they that will love darknesse and hate the light , shall feel , position iv. that they that are in those things which have been set up in the times of the apostacy , are not yet come to the recovery from the apostacy . they that are in the doctrines , and bodies of divinity , which have been formed since , are not in the true doctrine . they that are in the rules of life which wise church-men , or synods , or councils have given , or which they themselves have gathered by their industry out of the scriptures , are not in the true , living and everlasting rule . they that are in the worship , or under the ministry , or of any church which hath been set up since by the power of man , or from the inventing wisdom ( though this wisdom hath founded its inventions upon the scriptures ) are not in the true worship , in the true church , or under the true ministry . they that are in the faith , which hath since been gathered into the understanding , and did not spring up from the mystery of life , in the heart , are not in the true faith . the same may be said of love , hope , joy , peace , and all the rest mentioned before , yea and all other things in religion , for all hath been corrupted , even the inward part . and while here hath been a great contention about forms of worship , and church-government , the power of godlinesse , and the government of christ in the heart hath been lost . observe diligently what i have now to say . when the apostles , who had the true ministry , preached the gospel , they stirred and raised up the power of god in the heart , and the power of sin , corruption and deceit sunk down , and was under foot , and trampled upon by the power . but when antichrist and the false prophets arose , they raised up the corruption again , and fed it with doctrines of deceit , but the power sunk down , and was not felt , but buried all that time of the prevailing of the corruption and deceit . now the power was not lost all this while in it self , but onely lost to man , so that he knew not where to find it . yet this power in this time of loss did stir and move , and make men in some degree sensible of the losse , causing them to part and seek after the living truth . and this was good , this was of god. but then there was an evil spirit , which was neer to the good , and lay lurking in the serpentine wisdom of the heart , and that drew the mind ( which was bent toward the seeking of a right thing ) a wrong way , that cryed loe here , loe there ; look into the scriptures , the church was so and so ; go get into such a thing : the christians there did so and so , go do such a thing : there 's the way , there thou shall meet with the life and the power . and thus it drew from that which stirred within , into an imitation of a form without , and there they came to a losse . i dare appeal to all honest hearts , was there not a good thing stirring in you , when ye went into your church forms ? were ye not led into simplicity , hoping to meet with life and power there ? did ye find it so ? did ye meet with the life and power there ? nay did ye not lose it there , and become deader ? i know , if ye have not forgotten the taste of life , ye will confesse to me , that that which now ye have is not life , but far short of that which ye had , when ye entred into your form . ah poor hearts , the whore betwitched you , the harlot in your bosomes , and the false prophets without , helped to increase the witchery , crying lo here and lo there , but ye knew no that the kingdom of heaven was within , from whence that stirring of life was in you , where ye should have kept , and not have gone forth . but now ye are dead and buried in your graves , lying there without sense and are now got into the spirit of the world , and into the enmity against that life in others , which was then your own life . and do ye know where ye are , and what ye are doing ? can ye bear to hear it ? of a truth ye are in the snare of the enemy , in the inchantment from the life , in the whores bed , in the strumpets bosome , and not in the bosome of your beloved . and your practises are branches of the sornication , parcels of the whoredom , inventions which have been gathered in by that understanding , and set up by that will which whored from god. they are the effects and products of the whores cup , which gets new dresses , new habits , new forms , new wayes to cosen and deceive the simple with ; but still she remains the whore , and those who are seduced by her , are led into her whoredom . for when god discovers and hunts her out of one form , then she decks her self with another , perhaps more seemingly spiritual , more scripture like , and so more likely to take with the simple heart : and then she lies in wait for the young man to entrap him again , saying , come in hither , this is the true way of god without doubt ; did not the saints meet with life here formerly ? come thou hither also , here 's the bed of thy beloved , take thy fil of life , thy fill of love . and thus the poor honest simple heart followes her , going like a fool to the correction of the stocks not knowing that it is for his life , until he come to feel the loss of life . and there if she find she cannot keep him there , but fresh stirrings of life spring up in him again , and withdraw him from that which had deceived him , then she paints again , and lies in wait for him again , to catch him in some more refined appearance , or in some elevated notion , or at least in the shadow of that which was true : for the whore hath not onely art and power to invent forms and likenesses of that which is true , and make idols and images of them : but it hath power also given it over the outward court , so that that which is found there , it can make idols and images of . that which is corruptible , it can get into and corrupt , and make an enemy to that life , which lived in it before it was corrupted : and when it is corrupted , then there is no more truth or life to be found there , but the idol , and the idolatry . the apostle john who fore-warned of antichrist , and gave a mark whereby he might be known , namely by his not confessing christ come in the flesh , joh. . . ( which he that setteth up any thing of the old covenant , or any invention or imitation of any thing therein , doth not ) he bids also beware of idols . little children , keep your selves from idols , joh. . . now what is an idol ? the apostle paul saith , an idol is nothing in the world . an idol is no true thing in its place , but a false thing set up in stead of the true . a false conception of god in the mind , is an idol . a false church or temple , is an idol : a false minister , who is not made according to the appointment of god , and by the gift of his spirit , but came in another way , by the appointment of men , is an idol-shepherd : and the worship in this church , and by this ministry , is publique idolatry ; and all the worship in families , which hath been erected after the same maner , is without the guidance of the spirit of god , is private idolatry . were the heathens temples , altars , priests , sacrifices , and other inventions of theirs ( in imitation of the jews ) idolatrous ? and are not the inventions of the heathenish spirit , or antichristian nature in man , are not they also idolatrous ? object . but is praying idolatry , preaching idolatry , singing idolatry , baptising of infants idolatry , breaking of bread idolatry ? answ . the praying which god appointed is not idolatry . praying in the spirit of god , when he moves , and according to the will of god , which is onely known in the spitit , is not idolatry ; but thy praying in thine own spirit , and at thine own times , and according to thine own wil ( perhaps in way of imitation of the jewish morning and evening sacrifices ) this is idolatry . this is that which thou hást set up , in stead of that which god set up , and so it is not the true thing which god set up , but an idol of thine own making : and so thou worshippest not god therein , but that spirit which helped thee to invent and set up the idol . the same might be said concerning preaching , singing , washing with water , breaking of bread , and what ever else is practised in religion upon these terms . object . but doth not the scripture mention these things ? and did not the saints practise these things ? surely they were not idolaters . can i be an idolater in practising that which they practised ? answ . nay , thou art mistaken ; they are not the things which they practised . the stress of their religion lay in the life of it , in the presence of the spirit of god in it : it was his breath made it the truth . now if thou couldst have the same things that they had , yet without the same living breath , they would be but dead things , but idols . but thou hast not the true form of things neither , thou hast not the true church , the true ministry , the true ordinances according to the form , but things set up in their stead , by the invention of man , in the time of the apostacy from the true things , and what can these be , but idols ; the world wondered after the beast , and they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast , and they worshipped the beast , rev. . , . behold what was worshipped at the time of the apostacy ! that which arose from the beastly invention of man , and not from the true spirit of life . and the inventing and setting up of these , and worshipping according to these inventions , is worshipping the dragon , ( for he getteth in and lodgeth in mans inventions ) and not the living god. and therfore god , at the end of this apostacy , raiseth up a new ministry to recal the nations from worshipping the dragon , to the worship of god again , ver . . . of that chapter , what the gentiles sacrificed of old , they sacrificed to devils , and not to god , cor. . . and what the late gentiles sacrifice , ( i mean christians in the heathenish nature , christians to whom the outward court was given , rev. . . and who have not a profession of the saints words and practises , but without life ) they sacrifice not to god neither , but to that spirit that helped them to invent , and form a likenesse or image of the truth . transgressing the principle of god within , they go from god , and from his worship ; and the devil ( who went out from the truth ) gets in , and they go into his power , and whatever they perform , in worship there , is to him : for when they go from the principle of god in them , the devil gets into their hearts , and god goes out , and his true life , power and worship is not known , but an image or likeness which the devil sets up in stead of the true thing . so then , in that state , let men consider what they worship : for there they cry up ordinancies and duties , and kill one another about them , thinking that they worship and honour god thereby ; but know not , nor are come to that wherein god alone can be worshipped and honoured . i know the blasphemy of them which say they are jews , and are not , saith the spirit , rev. . . is this blasphemy ? for a man to call himself a christian , who is not , what is that ? to call that a church which is not , what is that ? to call him a minister of christ , who is not , what is that ? to call those the ordinances of christ which are not , what is that ? to call that faith which is not , that justification which is not , &c. what is that ? can ye spy out the blasphemer ? ye have made a great out-cry against him long , are ye willing now he should be put to death ? the lord hath lighted his candle , he is searching for him , and he will find him out : and as he have desired , so it shall be ; the lord will not spare him . o be awakened , be awakened , ye heathenish christians ; open the eye that can see , and behold where ye are , and what ye are doing , and how fast ye are running into the pit . ye have forgotten god , ye have lost the true line of judgement , ye have lost the key of knowledg , and the light that is in you is darkness , and leads to darkness , though ye cannot possibly believe it . oh come back to the remembrance of god , and and to true holinesse ( without which no man shall see him : for the wicked shall be turned into hel , and all the nations that forget god , and ye have forgotten him days without number . position v. that the onely way of recovery out of the apostacy , is by returning to , and keeping in that spirit , from which the apostacy was . the apostacy came by leaving the spirit of god , and running after another spirit : and the recovery must be by leaving that other spirit , and returning to the spirit of god again . how did christians formerly begin their religion ? they began in the spirit , gal , . . and so they were to go on to perfection , and not intermix any thing of the flesh . and had the anointing been kept to , antichrist and the mystery of iniquity had been kept out ; and where that is returned to , the antichristian spirit is purged out by degrees , and the wayes thereof discovered and forsaken . therefore know the whorish spirit in thy self , which is busy to form likenesses in thy mind to seduce thee , and to make thee fall in love with the likenesses which she hath formed in other mens minds : and let her not deceive thee with her paint and gawdy appearances : but know likewise the little seed of life , from which truth springs up in thee , and in which the spirit of truth dwels , and is to be found ; and take heed least the serpentine wisdom teach thee to despise and turn from it . from this spring it was that truth sprung up in the witnesses , all the time of the apostacy : for they had their testimony from the spirit of prophesie , rev. . . so far as they kept to that , they gave a true testimony : so far as their own spirits mixed with it , they corrupted it . but to abide in that was very hard , and there was need of much affliction and persecution to keep the flesh down , and to preserve the life pure . but as the life springs up more strongly , and overcomes that spirit inwardly , ( i mean the wise , fleshly spirit ) there wil be less need of outward afflictions or persecutions , yea or inward either ; but there will be a safe entrance into , and abiding in the joy , the rest , the peace , where the whore within ( which seduced from the life , where the power is , into some form , where the power is not ) is burnt . learn then , and know in thy self that spirit of prophesy , which spake in all the martyrs . hear that , come to that , keep to that : feel the union , the fellowship , the spreading of that in thee . when that bids thee go , go ▪ when that bids thee come , come : when that bids thee do this , do it . but the flesh is grown strong , and strongly resisteth this spirit , both inwardly and outwardly ; and will not suffer him to rise up in the heart , or to rise up in the nation : but at any time when he stirreth , and offers to speak , or lead to god ; there 's a reason rises up in the fleshly wisdom , that knocks him down , and denies his voice , and hearkens to another voice in stead of his . thus they first give way to the fleshly wisdom , and suppress the truth in themselves , and then they would go forth and suppress it in others : and they think them mad , and their rage riseth against them , where the truth is suffered to grow , and mans reason or fleshly wisedom denyed . and thus is the lord of glory evil intreated , and slain at this day by this generation of christians , as he was by the jewes slain formerly in the prophets , in that his appearance in a fleshly form , and in his apostles : and his blood will be required ; for the earth shall not alwaies drink it up and cover it , nor the adulterous woman be alwaies able to wipe her mouth , and say she hath done no wickedness . ye have saved alive the unjust , and killed the just . the murthering nature is alive in you , o ye christians , but the holy one is slain , and lies buried in your graves : and ye have painted your graves , and speak good words of him , but still keep him down , and let another rise up and live in you . ye cry up that appearance of christ in the flesh , and the words he then spake , and the words of his apostles , and think that if he had lived in those dayes , ye would not have killed either him or his apostles , and yet ye resist and oppose the same life in your selves and in others , with such a kind of wisdom in the letter , as the pharisees had . o what will ye do ! the uncircumcised ear is got up in you , and ye cannot hear ; and the uncumcised heart , and ye cannot understand ; but when this is told you , ye despise , and wonder , and go on in the perishing state . my bowels , my bowels , i am pained at my bowels ! o england , england , thou that killedst the martyrs in queen maries dayes , thou that persecutedst the non-conformists afterwards , that thou wouldst not suffer the people of god to meet together , to seek him with an honest heart , but wouldst confine them , to thy gross formal wayes of worship ? though the lord hath appeared and broken the horns of the oppressors , yet the persecuting spirit is not broken in thee , but thou still huntest after the precious life of the seed , and wouldst not let it spring up in the nation . the spirit of enmity is still up in thee , which knows not the lord of life , but by a natural instinct opposeth him , and would fain keep up some grave or other , it cares not what , so it might but thereby keep down the life : for thou canst now bear with any form , and cherish it : and thy onely enmity is against those , who are sent by the lord , to gather out of all forms into the life . how often would the lord have gathered thee , but thou wouldst not ! and yet seeks to gather thee , but still thou wilt not ; but as if the former laws , made in queen maries dayes , were not sufficient , desirest new laws to ensnare and entangle the innocent ! what wil become of thee ! or what wil thou say to the lord , when he ariseth to plead the cause of the innocent ? for that spirit , which he raised up to witness against the whorish spirit , ( which lies hid in thy forms of worship and religion , & appears in all thy laws , councils and waies of government , so far as they formed , and so far as they are guided by the wisdom of the flesh ) is innocent : even as that spirit , which witnessed formerly against popety and episopacy , was innocent before the lord , though accused by them as guilty of error in it self , and of disturbance to the publique peace , as this is now by thee . some principles guiding out of the apostacy to the christian spirit , and life again . . that there is no salvation but by the true knowledg of christ . the jews had received the ordinances of god , and knew of the messiah to come , and believed it , and were very zealous in their worship , in observation of circumcision , the passeover , new moons and sabbaths , &c. ( wherewith shall i come before the lord , and bow my self before the high god ? ) and yet god complains of them by his prophet , my people perish for lack of knowledg . and the state is the same under the anti-christian apostacy , wherein the whore hath made all nations , kindreds , tongues and languages drunk with the cup of her fornication , the true knowledg and worship hath been lost , though the eyes of them that have been in the apostacy , and drunk with the cup could not see it , no more then the jews could in their day . but to come close to the thing . the knowledge of christ is not litteral , traditional , or fleshly ; nor can it be received by the natural understanding : but it is spiritual , and the understanding must be given by god which receives it . he hath given us an understanding , that we may know him that is true , john . . a man may read scriptures , hear sermons , &c. and thereby gather a knowledge into the old understanding : but neither this understanding into which the knowledge is gathered , nor the knowledge it self which is gathered is spiritual , but fleshly , and so cannot save . he that comes once to receive an understanding from christ , and to have the knowledge of christ powred forth from christ into his heart , knowes the difference between that , and the understanding into which he gathers things . the knowledge of christ after the letter ( and a faith in him answerable to such knowledge ) will not save : but a man must know him in that spirit , life and power wherein he lived , if he groundedly hope to be saved by him , cor. . . . . that christ saves by the new covenant : not by any thing got into the minde by the oldness of the letter , but by a life begotten which is new . there are two covenants made mention of in scripture , one whereof is called the old , the other the new . the old belonged to the jewes , which is done away with their ceremonies , state and polity : the new , which is better then the former christ is the mediator of , heb. . . by mediating between god and the creature , or by bringing them together in and according to this covenant , he saves . man by his disunion and distance from god , he perisheth : by being brought again to god , he lives again ; which thing christ effecteth by the new covenant . so then , he that is not lead by christ into that covenant , is not in the state of salvation . . that the new covenant is written in the heart , or there is no other way of coming into the new covenant , whereof christ is the high-priest and mediator , but by having the laws of god written in the heart . this is the covenant , &c. i will put my laws into their minde , and write them in their hearts , &c. they shall not teach every man his neighbour , and every man his brother , saying , know the lord : for all shall know me , from the least to the greatest . heb. . . . he is speaking of the covenant whereof christ is mediator , ver . . which he cals a new covenant , ver . . and saith it is not like the old ver . . instancing in two main particulars , wherein it is very unlike . . the old was writ outwardly in letters , to be read by the outward ey : but this is writ inwardly in the heart and minde , and so can only be read by a spiritual ey . . under the old they needed teaching from men , the priests lips were to preserve knowledge , and they were to seek the law at his mouth ; but now they should have the law so neer them , so cleerly written in them , that they should need none to teach them . from the law is the knowledge of god ; the law is in the heart ; and from the law in the heart springs up the knowledge of god in the least , and in the greatest that are within this covenant , that they need not say know the lord. this is the state of the new covenant , which the christians came to in those dayes . joh. . ver . . but it hath been a strange thing in this dark night of apostacy , and is yet a strange thing to many . but let such consider , can a man be a christian , and be out of that covenant , whereof christ is the mediator ? can a man be brought back again to god by christ , and yet be out of ▪ that covenant whereby christ brings men back to god ? o how hath satan deluded poor souls in this thick night of darkness , to make men believe they have faith in christ , and shall be saved thereby ; while they are quite ignorant of , and strangers to that covenant , whereby christ the mediat or saves . they shall all know me , from the least to the greatest . marke , there is not the least in this covenant , but hath the law so written in his heart , that he need not seek out for knowledge . . that the spirit of god alone can write the covenant in the heart , or that christ writes the covenant by his spirit . man by all his wisdom cannot attain it . man is driven out from god , and cannot finde the way back again to him , without the teachings and leadings of gods own spirit . it is not the being educated in any way of religion from ones childhood , or the leaving of that , and running into any sect afterwards , that will avail any thing hereto ; but the alone hearkening to the true voice of the true spirit . it is written in the prophets concerning the children of this covenant , that they shall be all taught of god , and all thy children shall be taught of the lord. it is the lord alone , who by his spirit teacheth them to come to christ , and to receive the new covenant into their hearts from christ : for man is in an incapacity to know or receive christ or his covenant , until the spirit hath fitted and taught him : john . . but when he hath prepared and fitted his heart , then with his own finger he writeth the pure law of the nature and life of christ therein , by the receit where of he cometh out of his old dark spirit and nature into the true knowledge of god , and union with him . i will put my spirit within you , ezek. . . this is part of the covenant , and indeed that part whereby all the rest is wrought . . therefore the first proper step in religion , is to know how to meet with gods spirit . there is no progress ( no true progress ) to be made in the true religion , till a man comes into the covenant : and there is no coming into the covenant , but by the spirit : therefore the first thing that is absolutely necessary to be known in religion is the spirit , his writing , or at least his motions and stirrings in the heart . it may further be evidenced thus , all things in religion , acceptable to god , flow from the spirit : all knowledge is to come from him ; for he alone hath revealed and can reveal truth , and is appointed by christ to lead into all truth : all worship is to be offered up in him they that worship the father , must worship him in the spirit , and in the truth , for the father seeketh such to worship him , but rejecteth all other worshippers and worship , how glorious soever their worship may seem to them : particularly praying is alwayes to be in the spirit , ephes . . . jude . so singing , &c. yea the whole life and conversation is to be in the spirit , galath . . . the mortifying of all corruption is to be done by the spirit , if ye through the spirit mortify the deeds of the body , ye shall live , rom. . . indeed a christian is nothing , and can do nothing without the power and presence of the spirit of god in him . so then , if nothing in religion can be done ( with acceptance to god ) without the spirit , then the spirit is the first thing to be looked after , by him who would be truly and well-groundedly religious . . the first way of meeting with the spirit of god , is as a convincer of sin . ( here is the true enterance , this is the key that opens into life eternal ; he that can receive it , let him . it is not by soring alost into high imaginations and forms of worship , but by coming down to this low thing . ) this is the first and most proper work of the spirit of god toward fallen man ( whereby he makes way toward the writing of gods law in the heart ) namely to convince of sin . and where should man look first to meet with him , but in his first work upon him ? when christ promised the comforter , the spirit of truth , he said this concerning him , that he should convince the world of sin , john . . they who are created a new in christ , and become his disciples , receive comfort from the spirit : but what is he to the world ? or how may they feel any operation of him ? why he is to them a convincer of sin , and they may finde him checking them for , and convincing them of their sins . so that the great work for man , while he lies in the darkness ( for when he is translated into the light , it will be easy ) is to know how to distinguish the movings and stirrings of the spirit of god : and this is the best way for man in this state to know them by : that which discovers that which is evill , that is good : that which discovers that which is spiritually evill , that must needs be spiritually good : for evll is darkness and cannot make it self manifest . that which discovers that which is undoubtedly pure , and inclines to it , that must needs be of god. now to know this , and be joyned unto it , is a joyning of the creature unto god , by some what of him that comes from his spirit , and so is a true beginning of life eternal . . that whereby the spirit of god convinceth of sin , is his light shining in the conscience . fallen man is darkness ; the light shines in the darkness , and shews man the evill which otherwise would ly covered in him . man fel from god , lost the image of god , and became wholly darkness : but the spirit of god is light , and shines in the darkness , and strives with man to reduce him back again to that light from which he fel. god who commanded the light to shine out of darkness , hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of god , &c. . cor. . . where did the apostles , and christians in those dayes , meet with the light of the knowledge of the glory of god in christ ? god shined it in their hearts . he that made the light to shine out of the dark deep , genes . . . by his spirit , he by the same spirit made the light of the knowledge of life shine in their dark hearts : and there it is also that the work of conviction is wrought by the same spirit . he that perfects the good work in the heart , the same is he that begins it there ; and his beginning is by reproving and convincing of sin , and so turning the heart from it unto god , and unto the obedience of that righteousness which he makes manifest . and he that meeteth not with the spirit in the beginning of his work , or slinketh back and goeth not on with him , but smothereth his reproofes , not forbearing that , or parting with that , for which he is reproved , is never like to meet with him in the end . and then it will be too late for him to blame that religion wherein there was only a dead form , but not the living power of god. he that will come to life eternal , must be translated out of his dead understanding , and all his dead wayes and worships ( which please that understanding ) into a living principle and keep in that principle and then he shall know life indeed , and the true food of that life , and the true worship and service from that life , and the reward belonging to all . . that this light convincing of sin , shineth in every conscience . he hath shewed thee , o man , what is good , micah . . . the life , which was in christ , was the light of men , joh. . . christ is the light of the world , joh. . . god as he loved the world , so he manifested his love to the world , by sending his light into it to enlighten every man that cometh into the world , that with the light they might see his son , and as many as receive him , to them he gives power to become the sons of god. as god would have all men to be saved , and come to the knowledge of the truth : so he hath given that light to all , which may bring to the knowledge of the truth which saveth . he is the true light , which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world , joh. . . the grace of god , which bringeth salvation , hath appeared to all men , &c. as the enemy got possession of every mans heart , by filling it with darkness : so christ pursueth , and seeketh to dispossess the enemy , by the light which he sendeth after him into every man. and this is the condemnation of man , not that he wants a light to witness against , and draw him from the enemy : but that he loves the enemy , and chuseth to be one with the enemy ; but hates the light and turns from it , joh. . . . he hearkens to the reasonings of his minde against the light , and so smothers and choaks it ; but does not turn to the light , to have all the reasonings and strength of his minde subdued by it , and subjected to it . . the true way to life eternal , is by believing in the light of the spirit , which shineth in the conscience . man is in darkness , which keeps him in death : and there is no way to come out of the death , but by coming out of the darkness : and there is no way to come out of the darkness , but by following that light which discovers it , and cals forth from it : and he that doth follow that , cannot remain in the darkness , but must needs come out . there is an evil principle in man , calling for evil ; and there is a good principle , calling from the evil to the good : now he that follows the good , cannot follow the evil , but departs from it . i am the light of the world ( saith christ ) he that followeth me , shall not walk in darkness , but shall have the light of life , joh. . . but this is that which undoes man , he loves the darkness , he loves the world , the course of the world the worships of the world ; he loves his own understanding , and his own will , and so hates that light which crosseth these , & which teach would him ( by the denial of them ) to crucify that nature from whence they spring , and to which they are sutable ▪ and from hence it comes to pass ( the love to sin within being strong ; and satan , the strong man , keeping the house ) that the motions of gods spirit are easily overborn , either by reasonings of the understanding , or by perversnes of the will : but if man durst trust himself to them he would quickly finde of what nature they were , by the strong opposition of the strong man against them . it is indeed a strait and narrow way , into which no flesh can enter and walk . and yet it is the only way : for there is no life in god , no peace with god while the enemy lives in the heart . but when the light is received and turned to , then the power begins to work which slayes the enemy in the heart ; and that being done , there is no more war , but peace . then the true peace , which passeth understanding , fills and refreshes the heart ; where as the peace which was in the soul before , was but the peace of the enemy , and will abide no longer then the enemy is suffered to keep possession quietly . . that believing in the light of the spirit , which shines in the conscience , unites the soul to god , and opens the springs of life to it . belief in darkness ( which is unbelief towards god ) disunited the soul , and closed up the springs of life from it ; belief in the light , which is sent to lead from the darkness , unites again , and opens the springs again . god is light he dwels in the light , and there enjoyes the fulness of life ; and he gives a measure of his own light to draw from the darkness ; and he who believes and follows this , is led by it unto god from whom it came : and being come out of the darkness unto him , he begins again to feel the springs of life ( the fresh springs of life ) which are in him . he that believeth , is come to the well of salvation , and draws living water out of it , and drinks of the living water continually , so that he can thirst no more ; yea out of his belly flow rivers of living water . this is the fruit of the true faith , but this is not the fruit of the faith of the apostacy , but there the soul remains stil disunited to god , and united to the darkness , and drinks not of the living streams , but drinks dead water : the fountain of pure life is not open to it , but the fountain of iniquity : and that blood which clenseth , and taketh away the sin , is not known . there is onely a dream of these things in the dark night of apostacy , by which dream the conscience is a little quieted for the present ; but when the witnes awakes , and the light of the day shines , the soul ( which is lean ) wil find it self in the hands of the enemy , in the bonds of sin , and feel that it never new that power that could redeem it , but the subtil serpent deceived it with a name in stead of the thing . this is the true way , the narrow way ( i can , in the presence of the living god , set my seal to the truth of it ) which it hath pleased god to discover and make manifest again , after the long dark night of apostacy . and we come not to it , by hearing or receiving of any new notions or apprehensions of things , but by feeling that which puts an end to all creaturely notions and apprehensions : and we grow in it , by the increase of that thing in us . the seed to which the promise was made , the seed which was before abraham was is felt , and his day is seen and rejoyced in , and by the light thereof the darkness is discovered and the kingdom of darkness is assaulted . and as it dayly fals , in many particulars , so it shall at length fal in the general , and the kingdoms of this world shal become the kingdoms of the lord and of his christ , and ye shal reign upon the earth , where sin and antichrist have long reigned and kept him down . and though there be a great rage and out-cry among the people and heathenish professors , yet the decree is gone forth , and sions king shal reign upon the holy hill of sion , and the hills and mountains shal melt before him , and the earth shal shake round about him . therefore gather your selves together , muster up your strong forces , o ye several sorts of carnal professors . let all your differences one against another fal , and joyn together against him , who is against you all : improve the serpents wisdom , and form arguments out of the scripture thereby , with the utmost of the skil and understanding of flesh ; get the kings , rulers , and magistrates of the earth on your side too , handle all the weapons of the flesh , skilfully ; dispute ; reproach , revile , whip , stock , imprison , starve , nay put to death . see if you can uphold your kingdom : for there is a mighty one come forth against you , who will take the vineyard , the kingdom , the inheritance from you , and give it to another ; and on you shall come that death and darkness , that misery and destruction which ye have put far from you , and preached as the portion of others . therefore consider your condition in the fear of the lord : and if ye feel not your selves able to fight it out , make your peace betimes , and let your greatest crowns ( your choisest wisdom and strength in the flesh ) be laid down at the feet of christ , at the lowest appearance of his light in the conscience . let not the least check of his spirit be spighted there , but esteemed above the highest notions of light that ye have gathered in , or can gather with your fleshly understandings . and indeed it is no less then its due : for this which runs fresh from the spirit , is more living in it self , and more proper to that mans present estate to whom it comes , then whatever he himself by his understanding can gather from the letter . there hath been a precious seed of god long stirring in this nation , but it hath been oppressed , and kept in bondage by the spirit of pharoah and his wise egyptians , who would subject it to their laws and worships , and not let israel go out of egypt at gods cal , to worship him in spirit and truth , but would keep him in forms and waies of mans invention . the lord hath poured out his plagues upon this spirit , and more and more wrought out the liberty of his people : but as the plagues cease , this spirit hardens it self , and assaies the reducing of israel into bondage again . and as pharoah renews the bondage of israel , so god renews the plagues on pharoah and his egyptians . pharoah hath a stubborn wil , and a great wisdom and power , and is loth to let israel go : but the lord also is wise and strong , and hath a wil more righteous then pharoahs , and by his wisdom and strength will he effect his will , and pharoahs shal not stand . who is such a stranger in israel , that hath not observed , that as god began to raise up the seed in this nation , and cal it into liberty , so the spirit of the wise egyptians rose up against it , exclaiming of error , heresy , blasphemy , new waies , new lights , & c ? and doubtless many tares have sprung up , but the aime of the enemy was not so much to pluck up these tares , as to destroy the one good seed of wheat . herod did not aime at killing all the infants in bethlehem , but he would rather kill them all , then have christ live . what preaching on the one hand ? what running to the magistrate on the other hand ? and all to destroy this young babe . when any different way of worship did appear , as of independency , anabaptism , or of seeking and waiting for the truth ; how did they make an head against them , and cry out against them , for fear the young child should be born and appear there ? and now they see their own image brought forth there , they are at peace with them : and having discovered that , where no part of the image or mark can be received , but there is another nature in life and truth brought forth , and no form without life wil down ? now they know where to shoot all their darts , now they know against whom to invent , and speak all manner of evil , and against whom to direct all their envy , rage and out-cryes , and to prepossess all sorts of persons every where , with all manner of prejudices , that the truth may not spread any where , but be opposed every , where and all persons minds there , are so filled before hand with the venome of the serpent , that truth cannot come any where , but it finds the enmity already stirred up , and prepared to withstand it . this is a new way , a new light , saies one : we know a religion before this came up , and we wil keep to that , let who wil run after these new sects and ways . a natural light , the old light of nature , saith another , or the corrupted light of adam which hath run along through all his posterity . another out-cry is , that it makes the scriptures void and useless . others cry out that it teacheth things contrary to the scriptures , that it sets up free-wil , that it leads to a covenant of works , that it breaks down relations , laws , governments , takes away due respect from magistracy and superiours , and turns the world upside down . thus the worldly spirit is every where up in arms , and a zeal kindled every where , to keep it out of every heart , and out of every place and country . now these are not real things , but such kind of slanders and reproaches , as alwaies have attended truth . the prophets of god , christ , and his apostles , though they have been spoken wel of afterwards , yet they have ever been hated , spoken il of , and persecuted by the generation of professors of their age . the scribes and pharisees could not with so great advantage have persecuted christ and his apostles , without a seeming zeal for the law and prophets : and yet it was the same spirit that so vehemently cryed up the law , the prophets , the ordinances of moses , that persecuted the spirit and life in christ and his apostles , from whence the law , the prophets , and ordinances came . and thus it is at this day , though that spirit is as blind now as it was then , and cannot see through its own cover , though it be as weak and narrow as theirs was . the guilty chargeth the innocent , that it might hide its own guilt , and keep its covering . the guilty jewes , and the guilty scribes and pharisees , charged the prophets , christ and his apostles , that they might not be found guilty by them , and their formal covering rent from them . and thus it is at this day , truth is risen to make manifest mens false coverings , and the guilt and hypocrisy that lies hid underneath : now to save themselves , they are prepared before hand to lay that charge against truth , which truth hath against them . search thine heart , resist not the light , thou that haste charged the truth with any of these things , and thou wilt find it thine own condition , the truth is no new light , or new way ; and they that hold it forth , do not hold forth any new way , or new light : but it is thou that hast left the good old light , the good old way which was before the apostacy , and hast fallen in with some new light , some new way invented and set up since the apostacy . it is thou again that settest up the natural light , the fallen wisdom , the wisdom which is out of the life , and in enmity with the life ; with this thou feedest that understanding which is to be brought to naught : and when thou hast done this thy selfe , then thou callest the spiritual light , wherewith god hath pursued it in all ages , a natural light . it is thou , that with this wisdom searching into the scriptures , and gathering the oldness of the letter into the old understanding , makest the scriptures void and useless to thy soul , and canst not meet with that life and power which they speak of , but stil art alive in thy sins , and dead unto god : and then thou cryest out against that which comes to discover this to thee , and to bring thee out of this dead knowledg into the life of the scriptures , thou cryest out against this , as if this made the scriptures useless . and when thou hast set up an whole body of knowledge , religion , and worship quite contrary to the scriptures , which the truth comes to make manifest , then cains nature riseth up in thee , and thou takest up cains weapons , and fain wouldest thou kill thy brother , because his sacrifice in the faith testifies against thine , which is out of the faith , and contrary to the true testimony of the scriptures . again , for free-wil and a covenant of works , thou hast set up a religion in the old will , and works , not according to the new covenant of life , but according to the old covenant of death : and by this thou preachest that wil to be free , which is in bonds , and settest up the works of mans righteousness and conformity to the letter , for the works of the new covenant . and for governments and laws , that which is according to god , which is a terror to the evil , and a praise to them that do wel , that which is liberty to the just , and a curb to the unjust ; this thou art against , and cryest out daily for the turning of the magistrates sword against the innocent , because they are a light to discover thy deeds of darkness ( which be out of the light ) and disturb thy peace and thy settlement in that which is fleshly , and of man , and not of god. so for relations , and honour to magistrates , the transgressing nature hath brought up a wrong thing , a fleshly thing , an honour , a duty which is of the flesh , and pleaseth the flesh , and is not according to god. and this is not honour indeed , not an honour that wil stand , not an honour that will be justified in the sight of god , but is a shame to them that give it , and a shame to them that receive it , discovering that they are servants to the flesh , giving to and receiving from the fleshly part , that which the fleshly part ( which crucifies the life ) cals for , and is pleased with . all that the light doth to these things , is to discover and condemn them : and the end of its discovery is that they might be removed , and truth and righteousness brought in the stead of them . but mans evil heart , which is the cause of them , cries out against the light , as if the light brought them ; whereas if man could but be quiet and stil , and suffer the work of the light upon him , he would find that the same light which discovereth them , would also purge them away , and leave neither root nor branch of iniquity either in mens hearts , or in relations , or families , or towns , or cities , or laws , or governments ; and there would be no want of honour . now though the serpents wisdom is irreconcilable , & that understanding which stands there cannot be satisfied , but must be confounded and brought to nought , cor. . . yet because underneath all this , there is a simplicity in some which is betrayed ; for the relief of that , somewhat further may be spoken in answer to these things . object . . to the first objection that this is a new way , or new light , i answer . answ . it is new indeed to them who have lain long in the apostacy , and set up another light , but it is not new in it self , but the same that was in the beginning , yea and before the beginning also . christ was the same yesterday , to day , and for ever ▪ and the light that comes from him is like him , that also is the same yesterday , to day , and for ever . it was the same under the law , the same before the law , the same since the lavv . as the darkness all along hath been the same : so the light all along hath been the same also . it vvas the same in the jews , and the same in the gentiles . it vvas this god expected obedience to from the jews , and the prophet ( in the name of the lord ) disdains their sacrifices , and brings them to this , micah . . he hath shewed thee , o man , what is good ; and what doth the lord require of thee , but to do justly , and to love mercy , and to walk humbly with thy god ? their eye vvas upon sacrifices and oyl ; the prophet points them to that vvhich vvould bring them to the right sacrifice , and to the true oyl . and the gentiles , so far as they vvere obedient to this , vvere accepted , and excused in their ovvn consciences , the faithful vvitness vvhereof is of god , and vvil stand in the day of christ , ro. . . . that which was from the beginning , saith the apostle john , declare we unto you , joh. . . and this is the message which we have heard of him , and declare unto you , that god is light , and in him is no darkness at al , ver . . and the end of preaching this message , is to dravv out of the darkness into the light : to bring men to the feeling of the light of god in them , and so to union vvith it ; vvhich being turned to , dravvs out of the darkness . god vvho is light , is nigh to every man , vvho is darkness , though mans sense is very thick , and can hardly see or feel him : and a light from him shines in mans darkness , but mans darkness comprehends it not . so that this light is not nevv in it self , but onely nevv to the old spirit , vvhich hath long lain hid in the region of darkness and death , & hath not known the light of life . object . . that this is a natural light , or the light of old adams nature . answ . it is in one sense a natural light , it is of the nature of him from whom it comes , of the nature of god and of his christ , whom it appears for : but it is not of the nature of corrupt adam , whom it always reproved , and against whom it stil stands a witness , and condemns all corruption . man is darkness , and when christ comes to redeem him , he finds him darkness : and christ finds no light in him to help him to discover sin to him , but all the disoveries of sin that are made in the heart , are by the light of christ , and not by any light of mans nature . the lord is the searcher of the heart , and he searcheth it with his own candle , and not with any left in mans nature . man fel into darkness , & knew not wher he was , but the lord cometh after him with his candle , & discovereth his state to him . it is the light from which man fel , and against which he sins , that is alone able to make his disobedience manifest to him . we know , saith the apostle , that the law is spiritual , but i an carnal , rom. . . the law is the lowest part of the light , and yet that is spiritual , and of christs nature , and not of adams nature ; we know it , saith the apostle . such as know the nature of that which manifests sin , know it to be spiritual . it is the fallen man from the light , the man in the darkness , that cals the light darkness : but that which discovers the darkness , and reproves the darkness , and warrs against the darkness , is not darkness , but the light of life . and those who are spiritual , and feel the nature and power of it in their spirits , know it to be so . but man hath set up a light of his own , hath raised up a light by his study and invention , in the strength of the fallen wisdom : and now setting up this for light , he must needs call the true light darkness , as the pharisees did christ . object . . that it makes the scriptures void and useless . answ . it came from the spirit that gave forth the scriptures , it is of the same nature with the light that shone in them that gave forth scriptures , it speaks the same thing with scriptures , it leads to the same thing , and it opens witnesses to the words which the scriptures speak ; and so it brings the scriptures , which have been long abused , into their true use . indeed it puts an end to the corrupt use of scriptures , to mans inventing and forming things out of them , but brings them into their true use and service . it takes the scriptures out of mans hand , who hath slain the life by them , and puts them into the hands of the spirit , who makes the words again pure , and quick , and living , purging away mans defiled and dead conceivings and interpretations of them . a man must know the spirit , come to the spirit , be joyned to and be in union with the spirit , before he can have the true understanding of the scriptures . the scriptures of truth are the words of god , or various expressions of his mind , which he that searcheth into , afore he hath his spirit , cannot know : and so man in this state can onely guess and imagine at things , but cannot see the truth . and from hence it is , that so many sects and heaps are sprung up in the world , according to the variety of their imaginations . one sort of men cry this is the way , this is the truth , this is the church , this is the worship : another sort cry that is not it , that is superstition and error , but this is it : and so a third , and fourth &c. so about scriptures , one saith this is the meaning ; another saith it is not so , but this is the meaning . the papists say the church must judge of the meaning of scriptures ; and the protestants who take more scope , how do they doubt , and differ , and oppose one another about the interpretation of scriptures ? which plainly showes , that they do not plow with the right heifer , for then there would be unity and certainty . they let their own reasonings and imaginations loose , and there is no foundation of certainty : but had they waited for the spirit to begin with , and gone on no farther then he opened to them , all these doubts and dissentions would have been choked in the birth , or womb , or not have come so far as either birth or womb . yet do i not altogether deny the reading of scriptures , even in this state , if men read with fear and trembling , not setting up his own understanding , or the understanding of any man else , but waiting for the spirit , which can alone give him an understanding to receive the true knowledg . but this i dare boldly affirm , that mens reading of the scriptures in their own wisdom and self-confidence ( or confidence of what interpretation others have given ) doth them no good at all , but much harm , tending to the building up of that which god will again destroy . but he that begins with the spirit of god , giving himself up to that light which comes from him , comes to true union with god , and to the feeling of his life , and so to a true growth , and knowledg of the spirit of god , whereby he comes to know and understand the scriptures which came from the same spirit ; and hereby also he comes to be able to measure the deceit of his own spirit , which formerly led him aside , and also to see and measure the spirits of deceivers . but he that is in the deceit , in the imagination , out of the true knowledg ; he cannot know the deceit of his own spirit , or the spirits of deceivers , but cals the truth deceit , and the deceit truth . object . . that this light teaches things contrary to the scriptures . answ . that light , which comes from the same spirit which the scriptures came from , cannot teach things contrary to the scriptures . but man , who hath took the tools of his understanding , and formed images and likenesses out of the scriptures , ( i mean invented meanings and senses ) and judged these agreeable to the scriptures : he must needs judge that which is contrary to these , as contrary to the scriptures : whereas the truth is one in it self , and agreeth with whatsoever is true in this age , or in former ages ; and differs onely from that which is not true . and we know that there is that true unity with that spirit from which the scriptures came , and with the scriptures , and with one another in that light which the wisdom of man cannot but despise , as hath not been in any age since the apostacy til now . object . . that this sets up free-wil . when persons are exhorted to embrace the light , to let in the light , and told that condemnation comes for not believing or receiving the light : then they cry out , can man believe ? can man receive the light ? hath man free-wil ? the wil of man is bound ; but there is liberty , power , and freedom in the light which visits man , and comes to unbind and save him . and man feels this power , tasts of this liberty , feels somewhat disengaging him from the evil , and drawing him from it : but he , being in love with the evil , draws back from the drawing , shutting his ears against the wisdom of the light , and opening his ears to the reasonings of the serpent ; and then the liberty and power , which was in the light , withdraws with the light , and the bonds are strengthned upon him ; and this is the condemnation , not that there was a want of power from god , but that he chose the power of the enemy , not loving the light , wherein the power of life lay . god knows the state of man in the fall , and knows the strength of the enemy ; and the saviour that he sends hath sufficient power against him , and the light that the saviour sends is stronger then the darkness , and can overcome the darkness , and cannot be overcome by the darkness ; and if thou joyn with the darkness , and wilt not yeeld to the drawings of the father , but yeeld up thy self to the drawings and reasonings of the darkness ; yet the strength of the light remains in it self : and though for the present , thou hast struck it down and slain it , yet it will rise up a strong and living witness against thee , and the darkness to which thou hast joyned . when a man goes from the light , he goes into the wil , voluntarily ; then take and choose in the flesh . when a man follows the light , the will of the flesh dyeth in him , another wil riseth up and chooseth for him , there is the true liberty . but as for your speaking of free-wil , ye do not know what ye speak of : for the will , ( with the freedom of it ) either stands in the image and power of him that made it , or in a contrary image and power . while it is in the image and power of him that made it , it is free unto good , and not to evil : while it is in the image and power of him who corrupted it , it is free unto evil , and not to good . the wil is not of it self , but stands in another , and is servant to that in whom it stands , and there its freedom is bounded and comprehended . for there is no middle state between both , wherein the wil stands of it self , and is free to both equally ; but it is a servant , and under the command of one of these powers . if it be under the command of sin , of the power of darkness , it is free from righteousness ; and if it be under the command and power of righteousness , it is free from sin : but such a free will , as men commonly speak of , is a meer imagination , and hath no foundation in the true state of things . and this may answer another objection , which lies as a great block in the way of many , who feel a conviction , but are withheld from obedience , under a pretence of wanting power : whereas the power lies in that light which convinceth , and is received in the obedience , and in the cross . as the power of the enemy crept in , in hearkning to him : so the power of truth is received in hearkning to , and receiving the reproofs of truth . that which checks the evil , that which stands against the minde , smiting it in its course of vanity and pleasure in the fallen state ; in that is the power . that comes from the power , goes forth in the power , and the power is in it , and cannot be severed from it . so he that lets that in , le ts in the power ; and he that shuts that out , shuts out the power . and in this state , a man may complain all his dayes for want of power , and not meet with it : for how can he , when he refuses it in the way wherein the power seeks him , and waits for it in a way wherein it is not to be found ? the appearance of the power at first is smal , and contemptible to the eye of the fleshly wisdom ; and it is not received in any such great overpowring way ( though that also is known afterward ) as man is apt to expect ; but all lies in one little seed , where the day of smal things is known : the light , the life , the power , the purity , the wisdom , &c. lies hid there : and in receiving that little thing , all is received : and in the groweth of that , all grows up . but by being tempted by the enemy to neglect this , and wait for some great power and appearance of god , the soul is held in the bonds of iniquity , and kept from the life as strongly , as by the grossest form . object . . that this sets up a covenant of works : for a man is bid to do , bid to obey the light : and when he does , when he obeys , he has peace ; and when he obeys not , he has not peace . answ . this sets not up the works of the law , but it leads through the works of the law , to the righteousness of faith . when the commandement came , sin revived , and i dyed , rom. . the apostle was alive in his worship and jewish state , till the law came : but when the law came , it flew that life that he had there , and he became dead , both to that life by which he lived before , and to the law that flew him , and then there arose up a life in him which answered the law , and could fulfil it , and lead to a righteousness beyond it and then his life and his righteousness were not any works of the law , but of faith , and in the faith , gal. . , . but yet there is no passing to this ; but through the administration of the law in the heart , in the hand of the mediatour . and when the life is risen and received , yet even then there is no peace but in obedience to the life . the peace lies in that which brings the peace ; and if there be a departing from that , there is a departing from the peace . any fleshly thought , any fleshly motion , as it is out of the life , so it is out of the peace ; and the minde joyning to it , feels the death and trouble of it . thus saith the apostle , gal. . , . neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth , but a new creature : and as many as walk according to this rule , peace be on them . the peace comes to the new creature , and to man walking according to the rule of the new creature : and the condemnation is not to them , that walk not after the flesh , but after the spirit , rom. . . but if there be an hearkning to the flesh , and a fulfilling the unrighteousness thereof in any thing , god is righteous , and he cannot speak peace to the wicked , or to him that joyns with the wicked . therefore where there is true peace , there must be a coming from the wicked nature , and a living out of the wicked nature in him who is the life , the righteousness , the peace . i know there have been curious fabricks in mens minds about the covenant of grace , but they have not known the nature of it , and of the works that flow from it , and so are apt to call the works of the new life , springing from the covenant of life , the works of the old covenant . but wisdom is justified of her children , and they know her birth ; and in the true light the true nature of things is seen , and the true name and description given , which he that is out of the light cannot receive , but stumbles at : and the wiser he is , in his own devised way and knowledge of things , the more stumbling blocks he has , and the more he stumbles . object . . and last . that it breaks down relations , laws , government , takes away due respect from magistracy and superiours , and turns the world upside down . answ . iniquity hath reigned , unrighteousness hath winded it self into , and twisted about every thing . and now the truth comes to discover and purg out the iniquity , the strong man , who hither to hath kept possession of the house , cries out as if the destruction of the thing were aimed at . nay , it is onely the evil that is aimed at , but the thing it self is not to be destroyed , but to be set free from the evil , and preserved . relations are good , laws are good , governments are good , of god ; but the unrighteousness of flesh , the pleasing of the flesh by the pretence of these , the giving liberty to the unjust , this is not good . and is it not in relations , in governments , in the execution of laws ? if a man will be fleshly , and walk in them according to the flesh , the law takes not hold of him , his relations are not offended at him : but if he come once to feel the power of god , and withdraw from the evil , and stand a witnesse for god against it ; then relations , and powers of the earth , and laws , all strike at him : and the reason is , because they are in union with the evil , and so cannot bear the rending of the evil from the thing . and from hence it is , that wherever the gospel comes in power , it kindles a flame round about , setting father against son and son against father , husband against wife and wife against husband , &c. yea it goes closer then so , it sets one part in man against another : and the fight is very bitter and sharp , till one of these be subdued , and then there is peace : fleshly peace , if the wise fleshly part prevail , spiritual peace , if the weak foolish thing ( to the world ) in the heart , which is of god , prevaile . and for honour to magistrates and superiours , it is not denied : but fleshly honour , corrupt honour , honour from the fleshly part , and to the fleshly part , this cannot but be denied by them which are of god. that which is born of god is not of this world , nor can it give honour to that which is of this world : but it honours all men in the lord. what ever is of god in magistracy it honours , what ever is in superiority according to god ( as a father , an husband , a master is ) it honours with true honour . christ , the onely begotten of god , could not receive honour of man , nor could he give honour to man : and he saith to the jews how can ye believe which receive honour one another , and seek not the honour that cometh from god onely ? the receiving of honour from man , cannot stand with the true faith ( when ye know the faith , ye will know it . ) he that repecteth persons , committeth sin ; and is a transgressor against the law of faith , which leads to the life which stands in god , out of the worlds honours , worships , customes , and whatever else which is not of faith , but of the world. mordecai did not bow to haman , nay he sate in the kings gate , where haman was to passe , and yet did not stand up , move , or bow to him : what an affront was this to that high , proud , lofty spirit ? and yet it was of the lord. this was a type ( as the jewish state in general was typical ) of what god would do in the world , and is now doing . the lord hath raised up mordecais nature , and he hath discovered hamans nature , and hath given the command to mordecai , that he shall not bow to haman . and if ye could search your hearts , ye would finde , that it is not that of god in you , which is offended for want of that which ye call honour , but the hamanish spirit , the fleshly pride and loftines , which the lord will lay low , and he alone will be exalted in this day of his mighty power , and man shall only be honoured as he comes from him , and as he is found in him : but the honour which the fleshly part hath sought , and gained in the transgression , shall fall with the transgressor , whom the lord hath furbished his sword to smite . and for turning the world upside down , it is acknowledged : the power of the lord is come forth to do it . that which is high , that which is wise , that which is strong , that which is rich , that which is full ; that which is fat ; the lord will lay low , make foolish , weak , poor , empty , lean ; for it lies in wickedness . he will feed the fat and strong cattle with that judgment , which shall make them lean and weak . and the humble , the foolish , the weak , the poor , the empty , the lean he will raise up , and make wise , and strong , and rich , and full , and fat with the true honour , the true wisdom , the true strength , the true riches , the sure and living mercies of david , who sets his feet on top of the high places of the earth , of whom christ came according to the flesh . thus i have in plainnes of heart , and with plainnes of speech , set the truth and the error before you , and lent my hand toward the removing of some blocks which lay in your way , in love and pitty to your souls . now if any , in the reading of this , feel a secret touch upon their hearts , startling them , and giving some testimony to the truth , though very smal , and through a thick dark covering : there is that to which i speak , there is my witness within the vail , and there is the testimony rising up which leads to life , if given heed to . keep to this , and this will prick and wound , judge and condemn the contrary nature , though never so strong . and when it doth prick and wound , keep the wound fresh and open , as thou lovest thy life , till thou meet with the t●ue healer . for the false prophet will rise up in thee , and fill thee with reasonings , and perhaps multitudes of promises and comforts from scripture , skinning over the wound , and crying peace , peace , when there is no peace . and when thou hast thus got over the trouble , then the false prophet , which brought thee this peace , will stir thee up against the witness , exalting the wisdom and reasonings of the flesh , and making merry with thee over the witness , which witnessed against thee and him , and over the trouble which came thereby : and this wil bring thee to that hardness of heart , which is for destruction . and then , when thou hast slain the witness in thy self , and exalted thy fleshly reason and understanding over it , then the false prophet which seduced thee , will kindle a zeal in thee against the witness in others , and thou wilt prove a persecutor of the life under the name of deceit , error , heresy and blasphemy , whereas thou thy self art fallen into the deceit , into the error from the life , and into the blasphemy against it , and art in cains nature , and wouldst fain be handling of cains weapons to destroy it . therefore take heed of the fleshly wisdom , take heed of thine own understanding , take heed of thy reasoning or disputing , for these are the weapons where with the witness is slain . that wisdom must be destroyed , and that understanding brought to nought , and thou become a child , and learn as a child , if ever thou know the things of god. where is the wise ? where is the scribe ? where is the disputer of this world ? did they ever from the beginning of the world to this day , attain the knowledge of the things of god ? where are the councils ? where are the great convocations ? where are the synods ? where are the assemblies of divines ? what is become of them all ? what have they done ? have they been ever able to lead out of the apostacy from the truth , into the truth again ? nay , that wisdom is cursed ; it is of the earth , and fixeth in the earth , and is the grand enemy to the wisdom that is from above . and where that wisdom stands , there is no entrance for the other . this made it so hard for this sort of persons , in all ages , to own truth . thy wisdom and thy knowledge , it hath perverted the. this made the whorish spirit so able to use sorceries , and inchantments from the life in all ages . and it is easier for publicans , harlots , drunkards , swearers , all sorts of sinners to own truth , and enter into life , then for these . for it is easier to empty them of their profanenes , then it is to empty these of their setled conceited religion and devotion : and yet this with their religion and devotion cannot enter , no more then the other with their profanenes . ye have a knowledge , a righteousnesse , an hope , a faith , &c. founded by your pretence to scriptures , who can shake down these , say you ? and yet these must fall , before ye can build upon , and grow up in the life that the scriptures came from . for the scriptures were not given for men to gather the meanings out of , and lay a foundation of faith there , by their own wils : but to discover and testifie of the foundation . and he that comes thither , & is built there , knows the truth , not because the scriptures say so , but because he feels the thing , is founded upon the thing , grows up in the thing , and the thing in him whereof the scripture speaks . and this knowledge shall abide , and this faith , and this righteousness , and this holiness , and this redemption ; whereas the other is but a name , put upon that which is not the thing . these are precious & faithful words ( though through a vessel weakned , and weak beyond measure ) and happy is he that hath an ear to hear them : but woe from the lord to that eye that is closed , to that ear that is shut , to that heart that is hardned , in the inventions and imaginations of mans fleshly mind , against the truth of god. let the witness of god in thee stir and speak , it shall answer me now : but if thou , through the strength of the flesh , and the vain imaginations which thou huggest in thy heart , stifle the voice of it now , yet i know it shall answer me one day : but then it will be too late for thee to hear it . the lord is now gentle and tender , pursuing thee with his love , and following thee up and dovvn with his light ; and though thou run from him into sin and transgression , and hearken to the wisdom of the flesh , yet his voice comes after thee to reclaim thee : and if thou wilt hear , and but yeeld thy self to him , he vvil not put thee to do any thing ▪ but subdue all thy enemies for thee ; yea he vvil slay the serpentine vvisdom in thee , vvith all its inventions , and dash all she children of babylon against the stones , vvithout pitty to them , though vvith great pitty to thee . but if thou refuse , and choose the pleasure of the flesh , and the gross flesh-pots of egypt , and turn thine ear from his voice , giving vvay to the reasonings of the flesh , and keeping dovvn the vvitness ; that day of vvrath and severity , vvhich all the scriptures have spoke of vvil come , and thou vvilt have thy portion vvith hypocrites , vvho in all ages have covered themselves vvith a form of religion , pleasing to the flesh and the vvorld , but have vvith-held their hearts from the povver of life , therefore prize the love of god to thee in giving thee this warning , and be not uncircumcised in heart and ears , as this generation of professors have alvvaies been : but let christ reign in the heart , and let him trample all mans invented forms of knovvledg and vvorship under his feet ; and give up thy self to be led by him , into the true knovvledg and vvorship , in the spirit and in the truth . and now you , who find your hearts touched and convinced of the truth , and find any desire kindled in you after the living god , and an hungring and thirsting after his righteousness : take notice of these three things , which i have upon my heart to say to you , by way of advice . . know and take up thy cross , the cross of christ , the daily cross of christ . the cross of christ is that which crosseth the natural , and this is the power of god to deliver from the natural . how should the earthly understanding , the earthly wil , the earthly affections , with the elementary nature ( which have had their swinge in the earth ) be crucified and slain , but by the cross of christ ? he therefore that wil have a religion to please himself in any thing , must not come hither : and he who after he is come hither , admitteth of any thing pleasing to the earthly , and starteth from the cross , which would deny and turn from it ; so far as it doth so , he goeth backward and not forward . it is no wonder that there is such an enmity in all sorts against the truth , for it striketh at their life , yea at the very root of their life . if there were any new way or form of religion held forth , mens understandings and affections might by degrees be wrought of to it , and find pleasure in it : but this is direct death to that nature and spirit that hath lived in any form of religion , and to the whole course of that nature and spirit : yet through this death the true life springs up , in those who receive the strokes of it . therefore be willing and learn to die dayly , and bring every thing which is contrary to christ , to the cross . deny self in every thing , take up the cross in every thing , follow christ in every thing , this is the way which christ himself prescribes to become his disciples by . if any man wil come after me , let him deny himself , take up his cross daily , and follow me , seek not ease in the flesh , no not in the least , but take up the cross every day , in every thing , till the earthly be slain , til the wisdom and strength of the flesh be wholly subdued , and then the wisdom and power of god will become natural . . keep to the sence , keep to the feeling : beware of the understanding , beware of the imagining , conceiving mind : these cannot be for god , not bring forth any thing for god , until they be new cast and new moulded . the one seed of life lies in the invisible , in the hidden man of the heart , among multitudes of seeds of death , all which have their growth up into , and strength in the corrupted natural . so that this seed cannot shoot up into any part of the natural , but the other seeds shoot up with it , and endeavour to choak it . now the other seeds spring up two wayes ? either in a way of opposition against the the true seed , or in a way of similitude . there cannot a good thought , or desire , or beam of light enter into the understanding or will , but multitudes of evil thoughts , evil desire , or fleshly reasonings against it wil spring up with it , and strives to over bear it . and if the enemy be at length overcome , by the power of god fighting with him and vanquishing him , then he hath his garments of light , then he brings in thoughts , and desires , and motions like gods , which easily pass for good , if the soul keep not close upon the watch . the forward understanding is apt presently to own them , and the forward will to embrace , and the forward affections to let themselves forth into them , until the soul come to feel a loss in life , and miss the power and presence of god , and find the enemy strong again . yea the enemy hath yet a more subtil way , namely , to raise motions like the motions of gods spirit , and suddainly , before the light hath given the discerning of them to raise opposition and reasonings against them ; that so by the opposition , which is manifestly evil , the motion it self , which is also evil , ( though good in appearance ) might be the less suspected and swallowed . now the onely way of safety is to keep out of the natural , whereof the enemy hath possession , and where his strength lies , and to keep in the sence and feeling of the invisible seed ? and onely to come forth with him into the natural , in that sence and feeling . and when he comes , he wil come with strength , above the strength that the enemy hath in the natural , and by degrees conquer him . but by no means rest or abide in the natural , but retire with the lord ( who will not dwel there , until it be clensed ) into the resting place . these words may be hard to you at present , but hereafter ( as you come into the exercise ) you will feel them . and this is the reason , why the formal and outward part of religion doth so commonly eat out the life , because things there are sutable to , and exercise that part wherein the strength of the enemy lies : and there can never be perfect freedom and safety , until that part be subdued , and all that belongs to that part removed . the lord is risen to shake what may be shaken , that the kingdom which cannot be shaken may appear : and happy are they , who are shaken by his hand in all that is outward , and established in the inward life , power , and rest , which remaineth for ever and cannot be shaken . . wait patiently the lords leasure . be not hasty after life and salvation in the wil of the flesh , but leave the lord to chuse his own season , for the showring down of his mercy and blessing . the lord will not presently entertain that spirit , which hath adulterated from him ( prostituting it self to strangers , and defiling it self ) into his bosom : but there must be a time of sorrow , a time of purifying and clensing . the soul must know and feel , that it hath been an evil thing and bitter , that it hath forsaken the lord , the living fountain of living mercies , and hath sought life from vanities , and among dead idols . and all the idols must be thrown away , and the heart washed from that nature that ran after them , and become a pure virgin , to bear and bring forth the living seed ; and by faithfulness to that seed , and waiting in that seed , in the lords season it shall receive the mercy , and the blessing , and the inheritance which belongs to that seed . the husbandman doth not presently reap , but waits long , even till the seed be grown up to maturity . jacob , the type of the seed , said , o lord , i have waited for thy salvation . it is the election that obtains : it is to the seed , and for the seeds sake that the mercy is bestowed : and there must be a waiting , till the seed be gown up to age , and able to defend his portion from his elder brother , who otherwise would be ready to seize on it , and waste it upon harlots again . therefore lie stil , and bear the indignation of the lord against that which hath transgressed , til he judg it , and deliver from it , and lead into the innocency and righteousness : and then he wil find a time to arise , and plead the cause of the innocent , and give the crown of immortal life to that which he hath prepared for it . therefore think not the race long , nor the battel hard , nor be weary of the afflictions and chastisements in the way : but follow the captain , the guid , the leader , whose light , strength , courage , and wisdom wil overcome all , and bring the soul , which abides in it , into his own throne . now as you thus wait , taking up the cross , and keeping in the feeling ; so the corrupt natural , the mortal , wherein satans throne and power hath been , wil wither , decay , and grow weak daily ; and the tender plant of god , the immortal seed will shoot up , and gather strength daily : and you will come to a will in god , and an understanding in god , and that which is of god wil manifest it self , and you wil come to know , and desire , and take delight in the things of god : then the soul , which is immortal , wil come to hear , and receive , and feed on the immortal word , which is the bread of life , and which alone is able to preserve and nourish up to eternal life . then ye wil know what it is to tremble at this word , and to have all the powers of nature melt and fail before it . then ye will know the faith which gives the victory , and the knowledg which lets into life , and the fear which keeps the hearts clean , and the hope which anchors the soul immortal in the immortal god , and the patience which wins the crown . and so ye wil come to witness the several conditions of the saints in scripture , at ye grow up into them , & wil not need men to give you meanings of scriptures , from their brain-studies and acquired arts and understandings , but wil know the meaning from the thing felt in your own hearts , and hear the words from the living voice of that spirit that first spake them , who alone is able to interpret his own mind , and open the words which he himself spake . and then ye wil know and love life , and need , no more exhortations to depart from all dead , corrupted , and corrupting forms , which ever were , and ever wil be enemies to , and be traytors of the life . and to the peace of god , the rest of god , the true sabbath of god , the everlasting light and life of god wil come to be your own , and enjoyed by you , past all gain-saying or dispute in you , while the natural understanding in others is reasoning , contending , and disputing about them , but can never know ( while they are from the thing within ? ) for that mind is not the heir , nor must not inherit the kingdom of god. a postscript . to those who have had a seriousness and depth in their religion , who could not sit down in empty forms and shadows of things , but have been pressing after the living substance , and missing of that , through error of judgment , the true eye being not fixed in the head , have come to a loss ; and so are returned to , overgrown with , and hardned in the old nature , and have taken up a pittiful rest and centre in the earth , having let fal the pursuit of their spirits after the true center of rest in the life : a word to such from the love in the life . there was a spirit , soul , or image of god brought forth , and standing in his life before the fall . this soul was brought into death , under the burthen and bondage of corruption , out of its proper centre and resting place , by the fal . now as there is in this state a true loss , so there is in this spirit a sensibleness , a groaning under the burthen , a feeling the bitterness of the captivity , and a panting after redemption and restoration to its former state . now though the whorish part , which seduced from the life , make a great noise in the flesh about saints words , and tempt to pleasures of the outward part , and pleasures in the mind , and draw into forms and religious worships , and frame deep centres of satisfaction in the understanding ( perhaps from true openings of the life , quenching it ) and so seek to quiet the soul , and stil the cry : yet the lost state remaining , the soul being not truely redeemed , but a false rest taken up by the way , in the false part ; this wil fail , and the sense be again renewed in the day of tryal and sore trouble . for the soul by any imagination , or notion , or feeling of a centre in the corrupt mind , cannot be healed or restored ; but onely by having the true life raised up again in it , and it brought into its proper place and mansion in the fountain of life . there have been in the shakings of this nation great stirrings , the seed springing up , and great openings to the seed ; the spirit of prophesy hath been enlarged in us , above what many of our fore-fathers felt : but the way into the spring of life hath not been known , where the preservation is : so the whorish part , the corrupt part , the understanding which was not purified & brought into subjection unto the truth , this harlot caught the openings and prophestes of the true spirit , conceived with them , and brought forth children to the flesh ; bringing for a more inward apprehension of things , a more spiritual kind of knowledg , as of god to be all , all to be good , and in god , and all sin and evil done away there , &c. and so such a centre for the fleshly mind ( as it were ) in him , as was not known before . and now the redemption is forgotten , the pantings after life slain , and the flesh can lie down quiet in the un-redeemed estate , and say it is his wil , it is good , and it can rest satisfied there in that wil of his which is good . thus the great abomination from the subtle flesh sprung up , which made many hearts desolate of very precious springings up , and buddings forth of the true life and power of god. but after this great loss and betraying of the life in them , it hath pleased god to raise it up in others , and to discover the hammer , the sword , the fire , which can knock down , cut down , burn up this whorish part : and thither the whore is brought , when she comes to betray again ; and the springings up of life shrink back , and lie safe in the centre , while the whore is burning . and as the whore is burnt , the heir comes up , and the spirit ( which is the portion of his inheritance ) descends and rests upon him : and by this he is known : and that which is in union with him knows him . therefore if you will live , come to that hammer , that sword , that fire which flesh dreads ; and let the flesh be delivered up to it : and do not despise the day of smal things , waiting for some great appearance , but know it in its lowest knock ; for its power of redemption is as truly there , as in its greatest appearance . he that hath an ear , let him hear , and his soul shal live . let those therefore whom this concerns , consider their waies ( as the grace that appeared to me , hath taught me to do ) and try their foundation , upon what they stand : and that they do not kill what is opened , and live in the slain openings and so in the end become dark , airy , dry , withered , wheeling about and turning into the earth , it becoming their rest and foundation again , and so loosing the joyes which formerly the opener did open . this , with me , many of you may witness : for whom my desire is , that they may also witness the return to that which then opened , and live in the opener , and be preserved by him from abusing his precious openings any more . for though i had a true taste of life and power from god , yet not knowing the foundation , there could be no true building with it : and so the spirit was quenched , the life wasted , the portion spent upon harlots , the true bread lost , and chaff and husks fed upon , without the least satisfaction to the soul ; the sense whereof , when the spirit of the lord awakened me , did almost over-whelm me . yea the bands of death were so strengthned upon me , and the spirit of the word had taken such hold of me , that i found my return very difficult : yea when living words of hope were mentioned to me ; to draw me back to that principle of life from which i had gone out , i could receive nothing , but cry out impossible , impossible , impossible . i felt my self like a tree twice dead , plucked up by the roots , without the capacity of life , sence , or motion in the eternal being any more . but at length it pleased life to move in a low way , in the midst of the powers of darkness in my heart : and by sinking low out of the wisdom , out of the reason , out of all high imaginations , and trusting my self to it , though dreadful stroaks and oppositions were felt from the powers of darkness , yet at length there was some appearance of the deliverer , in such a poor , low , weak , despicable way , as could never have been welcomed , had not the soul been first brought to distress , and the loftiness of the imaginary part brought down . and then coming out of that into the feeling , in another part ; there was a seed sprung up into a child : and as that child grows , and feeds on the milk of the immortal word , i live , & am strengthened in him , and daily weakned in that part which lived before . these are true words , from an honest heart , for the relief of those who may have been entangled in the same snare . here follows the testimony concerning the estate of the true church ; what she hath been , and what she is ; and it was given forth , as being the motion of the spirit of the father , and left with me ; and is judged sutable and servicable to be here inserted ; and it may be for the edification of many . concerning the true state of the church , what she hath been , and what she is at this day ; and concerning her increase and decrease thorough ages and generations past , and her present state is this ; returning again out of the wilderness , where she hath long been fed , having a place prepared of god. now the apostle saw her a woman clothed with the sun , covered with the light of heaven , and with the glory of god , having the moon under her feet , the light which was ordained to rule the night . thus she was , and this was her state in the dayes of the apostles , when many were converted out of darknesse , and renewed to be members of this church , for her glory shone through the world , and she flourished through nations , and this was her estate in the apostles dayes ; and she travelled to bring forth the man-child christ jesus , which is the child and husband of this woman , which was clothed with the brightness of the glory of god , the elected spouse of christ , the lambs wife , and his body , of his flesh and of his bones , having power and dominion and treading under all contrary . and thus was it with her in generations past , whose seed spring forth as branches fruitful and glorious . but in process of time it came to pass , that this woman the spouse of christ , his body , the wife and mother of thi● man-child , she was bereaved of her beauty , and her garments were taken away , her seed was made war against , and was smitten and overcome and she fled into the wilderness , and there hath sat desolate as a widow , lamenting the losse of her children , and being deprived of her husband , and the man child , which should have ruled the nations : for she hath been fled into the wilderness , and her former beauty hath not appeared to be , and her former glory hath seemed to be gone , and she hath been driven away from her head , from her husband , and from her seed . behold all people the estate of such a woman , and read this parable who can , a woman most glorious and fair , having her husband ruler of the whole earth , and having an heir born to rule over heaven and earth , being covered with the light of heaven , and of the everlasting day , and having the light of the night under her feet : yet hath this woman been deprived of her glory , and sate desolate in the wilderness a mournfull place , seperated from her husband , and made childless and without seed : and what ey that sees this a right , but must mourn ; and what heart that truly perceives it , but must lament : a woman so great and so glorious , and so fruitful as to bring forth the heir of heaven and earth yet hath she been left as a mourner , as without husband , and without issue for many generations ; this hath been her estate and condition for ages , since the dayes of the apostle , which john saw ( in a vision ) would shortly come to pass after him , and we see it hath been come to pass within this sixteen hundred years ; and this hath been the estate of the true church for many ages , a woman childless , whose heir hath been taken from her , and whose seed hath been made war against and killed for many generations . but her time was decreed , and she should but be thus for so many dayes : and now are the dayes expired , and she again shall receive her heir that hath been caught up from her , and her seed shall spring forth , and her slain shall live , and her beauty shall be given her , and her first glory shall be increased , and she shall feed no longer in the mourning . wilderness , but she shall be fed upon the mountain of gods house , which is to be established upon the top of all mountains ; and her seed shall spring forth numberless , and her heir shall rule with an iron rod , and her marriage day is come , and the approach thereof nigh , and life shall be revealed . thus she hath been and thus she shall be , the lord hath said it . now as for all those multitudes of sects , and peoples that have professed religion , and as for all those churches so called , that hath gone under that name , which hath professed christ to be their head , and made a shew of him in appearance , the papists church , the protestants church , and all the sects that hath risen out of both of them , they have not been the true spouse , the lambs wife , but children of fornication , and not of the seed of that woman that was once clothed with the sun , and they are come up ; and their original begun , while this true woman , this spouse of christ hath been childless : none of these are clothed with the sun , nor none of them have brought forth the heir of salvation . come let 's reason with you : who was your mother ? who brought you forth ? and in what womb was you bred ? you that have appeared in the world , and for many ages , for the true spouse ? the mother of the heir hath been childless , and as a widow banished from her husband , and her heirs seperated from her , and her seed killed and made war against . she hath not born you nor brought you forth ; then of what womb did you spring , all ye of the papists and protestants church , and all the sects that came out of you , answer me this ? none of you hath been fled into the wilderness , for you have appeared in the world. none of you have been as a widow mourning ; for you have been practising ordinances , and rejoycing in the world. none of you have been without issue , nor your seed made war against : for you have been fruitful in the world , and one sect brought forth another , and one church brought forth another , therefore none of you hath been that woman which john saw : for never none of you , from the least to the greatest of you , was ever clothed with the sun , nor had the moon under your feet , nor ruled the nations with the rod of iron : therefore none of you are the true spouse , the lambs wife ; he is not husband to any of you , nor is he your , child , nor heir . and this is the word of the lord god to you all ; you churches and sects , your beginning and springing forth was from another womb , while this woman lodged in the wilderness , and while she was childless and without seed ; and the mother of harlots brought you forth , the great whore whose superscription is mistery of babylon , and her character is mother of all abominations . for while this other woman hath been fled into the wilderness , which john saw was fled thither , this woman the mother of harlots , which brought you fotth , hath been fruitful and flourishing , and hath had an husband and many children ; for john speaks of two women , of a whore , and of a virgin : of one , the bloud of whose seed was drunk , and the other drunk the bloud : yea , one that was made war with and against , for the saints were killed and their blood drunk , and that other killed the saints , and was made drunk with their bloud : the one was fled into the wilderness he saw , of which i have spoken , and the other making all nations drunk with her fornication , and ruling over all the nations of the earth as a queen ; and while the one of those , the virgin , the lambs wife , hath been fled into the wilderness , and left childless without seed ; the other , the whore hath been fruitful , and brought forth many children , taken great pleasure in the world , and committed fornication with the kings of the earth : and these things john saw was to come to pass , and we see ( that have john's spirit ) is come to pass already . and come all ye sects upon the earth , and churches so called , that have been in the world for many ages , which of those two women are you of ? and the seed of whether of them are ye ? who of these two was it that brought you forth ? answer me , and make it appear . but i have said already the virgin brought you not forth , the lambs wife did not bear you , nor you are not of her : for you were brought forth while she was banished , and deprived of her heir , and without her husband ; and you are of the seed of that whore , the product of her fornications , generated by the seed of adulterers : and though you have been warring , and fighting and striving one against another , yet you were bred in one womb , and are of one seed : and though some of you in one appearance of the whores beauty brought forth have made war against them , brought forth in another appearance of her , and burned her flesh ; yet have ye given your power to the beast , and john saw that also , which we see is fulfilled , some that should hate the whore , and make war against her , yet should they also give their power to the beast . this have we seen fulfild amongst you sects and false churches , and your beginning we know , and the first beginning of whordom , and when the whore began with her fornications , since which time all nations have drunk her cup , and her sent hass been upon nations , and multitudes , and peoples . her first whoredom john speaks of in his epistle , and her beginning , they went out from the body , from the spouse , and from the virgin ; they went out from the true church being false members , not as ever being of the body of christ , nor of the true church , but such as had been amongst the members of the true church and were once convinced which had got the form , and put on sheeps cloathing upon the wolvish nature , and here was the beginning of her whordom she went from the spouse , and went into the world , and the world heard her and received her , and they drunk of her cup , and committed fornication with her , and she played the whore in the unbelieving world , after she departed from the saints . she went out from them , and they denied her , and it was manifest she was not of them : and this was the beginning of whoredoms : and she was but young yet in her whordoms , and little in the world , and had not yet deceived many : but in process of time it came to pass , she increased so mightily , that she made all nations drunk , and overcame them , kings and rulers , bondmen and freemen , they all drunk of her cup , and she became so great , that nations , kindreds , multitudes and peoples was her seat , her place of goverment , where she sate ruler and queen having dominion over all , and all was bewitched by her , and made drunk with her cup : and of this woman came ye , all ye sects upon earth , and you are the multitudes , kindreds , and peoples upon , which her seat hath been , and over whom she hass had government . and this is she that hass drunk the bloud of the saints , and overcome them , and the heir and seed of the other woman , the virgin , hath long been made war against , and killed and slain by this woman and her seed , and this hath been the state of the church for many ages , since the dayes of the apostles she hass been fled , and her seed made war against and killed , and her heir caught up to god , and the nations which should have been ruled by her heir , the whore hass set upon them , and the peoples , and the multitudes which he should have governed , hath been the seat of the harlot , the mother of all abominations : and was it not like to be so , and how should it be otherwise , when the manchild , the womans heir , hass been caught up to god , and he hass been as prevailed against , and the remnant of the womans seed made war against and killed , and this hath been since the dayes of the apostles ? and so all you churches and sects , by what name soever you are known in the world , you are the seed of the great whore , and she hath brought you forth , while the other woman hass lodged in the wilderness , and remains childless , if any man have an ear to hear , let him hear . now it may be objected to me , and thus may it be said , by this accompt the church , the lambs wife , hass been prevailed against by the whore , because it is said she hath killed the saints , the members of jesus and of the church ; this seems to shew , as if the church of christ had been prevailed against , but christ sayes the gates of hel shall not prevail against them , but she should remain for ever , and the gates of hel should not prevail against her , and how doth these two things agree ? it seems doubtful to us , may some say . answ . to all this i do answer , the true church , the spouse of christ in her self was never prevailed against , so as not to be in being , or that she was not , but in her self hass remained in being , and not prevailed against , so , as not to have a place or being , and christs words are true , she hass had a place and being , to wit in the desert wilderness , which place was prepared her of god , there to be fed for , such a time . so she hass a place and has a being , though in the wilderness , a place desolate and of mourning . so she hass not been prevailed against , as that she hass not had a being ; but the lambs wife , the mother of the heir , that which is perfectly so ; which was and is to be joyned to christ , which is of his flesh and bones taken out of him that cannot be prevailed against , never was , nor never shall be , for the divel nor satan hath nothing in him , of whose flesh and bones she is ; which is taken out of him , and it is as possible for to prevail against him , as to prevail against her , for she is of him , as eve was of adam , if any have an ear to hear they may hear . but her off-spring hass been overcome her seed made war against , and her heir taken away , and caught up from her : so she not prevailed against nor overcome , though banished into the wilderness , fled thither , and there hass she fed and had a place , and hass been left childless , as i have said . so the mother and the lambs wife , hath had a being , and in her selfe never prevailed against nor overcome , and christ's words are true : yet hath her seed been killed , and made war against , and overcome , as john said ; and both these are true , and this is my answer , and if any have an ear to hear they may hear , though a parable to the world , yet plain to the seed , which now god hath raised and is raising : for the woman again is returning , and her seed again is springing , and she is becoming as fruitful as ever , and her glory shal be as great , the light of heaven shal cloath her , and the light of the night shal be under her feet as perfectly , when she is restored , as it was before the apostacy , though people cannot believe this in the apostacy . no revevelation , nor immediate teaching , nor miracles now to be expected , cry the professors , and these false sects and churches : it was extraordinary times , and extraordinary manifestations were amongst the apostles and churches of old , say they , but the same now is not to be expected , nor never to be looked for , but thus they are in blindness and ignorance , and unbelief . but we believe the glory of this woman , that hath been long fled into the wilderness , and hath been long without issue while she hath been fled , shal have the same fruit and issue , and the same clothing that she had before she fled . when the whore and her seed is removed from the face of the earth , the glory of the lambs wife shal be as great , her beauty as fair , her fruit as plenteous as before the whore was : and they that believe it not , believes not the scriptures : for that testifies of the glory of the church to be the greatest in the last dayes , as we are sure and certainly know it shal come to pass , when the waters are dried up , which hath been the seat of the great whore . now though all those churches and sects of people are said to be , and known to be the seed of the whore , and not of the virgin , as i have declared : and though nations , and peoples , and multitudes have been all running to sornication , and been deceived , and made drunk , yet this i have to say , in all sorts of people , and amongst all those sects , amongst papists and protestants , and all sects risen out of them , in thousands of people , notwithstanding the darkness and all the apostacy that has ruled in the general ; yet in some of all sorts and sects there hath been a sincerity , and simplicity , and a desire and zeal for god , and of god in them and amongst them : yet the sincerity , simplicity , and desire which hath stirred in some of all sects , it hath no soonet appeared , but it hath been smitten , and betrayed by the wicked without , and so by the error of judgement within : for even amongst the worst of sects , we know there is some in whom there is simplicity , and sincerity and zeal ; and yet erre in judgment , for this is possible : and we know it is so with thousands , and ten thousands at this day , there may be a simplicity , and zeal , and sincerity of heart , and yet err in judgement , & the judgment not truly guided , by the spirit of the lord ; but a false spirit , and a false thing , even the spirit of whoredom it self ruling the judgment , and be chief there : and this destroyes , & murders , and betrayes the zeal and simplicity ; and this is , and hath been ever since the dayes of the apostles , great error in judgment , and the judgement of all those sects have been mis-guided and misted , and a false thing , and not the spirit of the lord has guided the judgment , and thereby the true sincerity , zeal and simplicity hath been enslaved and held under , by reason of the erring in judgment : and the state of such are truly to be lamented , where simplicity is devoured , and sincerity betrayed , and held captive by the whorish spirit that sits ruler in judgment . i do not speak of all people of all sects , that they have zeal and simplicity ; but of some people in all sects , and through all these false churches , and so the spirit which has guided the judgment , that has abased the zeal , and abused the sincerity , and betrayed it ; so people have been a running , running after the form , and blind in judgement , and lost sincerity , and simplicity that has been betrayed in them , though sometime appearing and stirring , and so the wrong part in people has fed upon the form and appearance , and the seed starved , and the sincerity eaten out , and so one sect hath made this the rule of their judgment , and another sect another thing , the rule of their judgment , one cries tradition , another scriptures another cries the practice of saints before us , & none of all have been guided in judgment by the spirit of the lord ; and where the spirit of the lord is not the onely rule of judgment , guiding the judgment in all things , that people and that man , are in error , and the sincerity in them hath not its free course , but bound under with a spirit which is bondage , and leads into bondage ; and when people comes to be turned to the light of christ in them , and receive a measure of the spirit of the lord to guide the judgment , then the sincerity and simplicity and zeal wil grow , and thrive , and be increased : but til then the good is eaten out , that lies under and is oppressed , and ever and alwaies , the desire quenched the sincerity lost , the simplicity betrayed by the spirit of whoredom which rules the judgment ; and these things are manifest in our age , therefore all people come out of your sects and false churches , for the woman is returned , and returning out of the wilderness , and the seed shal spring forth as in the dayes of old . e. b. a testimony of great concernment to all that call themselves christians , but have not known the true church , of which alone the true christian can be born . there hath been a great war between the woman and her seed , and the harlot and her seed , from the beginning to this day ; and they have each had their prevailings in the war. the woman and her seed have been made strong in god , to conquer some of the territories of death , and to set up their life in the world . thus in the jewish state , god prepared an heaven and an earth for the woman and her seed : and when that heaven and earth was shaken , he prepared a more glorious heaven and earth in the christian state . now no sooner was the church and her seed seated in either of these , but the dragon made made war against her , and in the war had power given him , to recover her seat from her . thus the devil gat possession of the jewish state , so that there was no room for the true church there , but all was in idolatry and corruption ; and the lord was not served by their ceremonies , by their sacrifices , by their sabbaths , by their new moons , by their temple-worship , &c. but the devil . and the devil also got possession of the heaven and earth in the christian state , so that in their ordinances , in their worships , in their duties , in that which they call their churches , god hath not been worshipped in truth , but the devil for this many ages . for mark , who was it that got into the temple of god ? was it not antichrist ? was it not the spirit of satan ? thes . . . and who was it that was worshipped in all the world , that had power given him over all kindreds , and tongues and nations ? and whom all that dwel upon the earth , worship ? was it not the dragon ? rev. . , . did not all the world wonder after the beast , and worship the dragon which gave power unto the beast , ver . . . of that chap. the woman was assaulted here , her strong holds taken from her , so that she could not stay safe in that heaven and earth , which god had made for her : therefore there was another place prepared for her by god in the wilderness , and she had wings of an eagle given her to fly thither , but the dragon got into , and held possession of that heaven where she was before , rev. . so that none hath known the church all this time , but he that hath been born of her in the wilderness , which was a place the world never dreamed of , but looked for her in the heaven and the earth which the devil had got possession of . and here they cry up the ordidinances , the ordinances , duties , the church , the ministry , &c. ( as the jews did the temple of the lord , the temple of the lord ) not knowing in whose hands these were , and whom they worshipped hereby . now consider this o ye christians , i speak what i assuredly know , that god could not be truly worshipped in any of these , while they were in the devils hands ; but the whorish spirit , and her seed worship here ; and the worship of the church and her seed : was a wildernessworship , or a worship which she learned of god in the wilderness . mark now and consider my testimony , o ye christians . i deny all the worship , all the ordinances which were taught the christians of old , now practised by the whorish spirit : for the devil had gained it , and corrupted it , and having corrupted it , god could not be any more worshipped in it ; but the antichristian spirit sate there , giving forth those things as his laws ; he sate in the temple of god , and there made use of the vessels and ordinances , which he had carried captive into his babylon ; and i deny it to be possible to have any true use of these , til the time of the recovery . and now the time of the recovery is come , and the restitution begun , people know it not ; but cry up the old heaven and the old earth , which satan had corrupted , setting it up in opposition against the new , which god hath new formed , and is bringing forth in true beauty and glory . now in this war , though the devil , though the harlot and her seed gat the womans seat from her , and banished her seed as it were out of the earth ; yet they were not able to touch the woman , nor to over-come the life of god in her seed , but onely to kil their bodies ; but the life was stil conqueror over them , and not subjected to them . they could raise up churches , and ordinances , and ministers and duties , and cause all that dwel on the earth to worship , in some part or other of this babylon : but they could never make the seed bow to any of their images , nor could they hurt the woman hereby who was in the wilderness , out of the reach of all these : and there she did eat the bread of life with tears , mourning over her desolate estate , and her loss of children : and here alone was the true bread of life , which was not to be known or tasted of , in any of the ordinances of the apostacy : ye wil all one day acknowledge this to be a true testimony , held forth to you in true love : it were good for you that ye could see it now . j. p. a brief account of what we are , and what our work is in the world. we are a people whom god hath converted to himself , a people in whom god hath raised up the seed of his own life , and caused it to reign over the earthly part in our selves , a people whom god hath divorced from the spirit of whordom , and joyned to his own spirit . we , many of us , sought truly and only after god from our child hood ( our consciences bear us witness in the sight of god ) but the honesty of our hearts was stil betrayed , and we led aside by the whorish spirit , and knew not how to turn to that of god in us , which inclined us towards god. by this means we came to great distress and misery , beyond all men . not but that all men were in as great a want of god ( his life , power , and presence ) as we ; but the sence thereof was not so quickned in others , as in us . now it pleased the lord at length to pitty us , and to inform our minds towards himself , to shew us where life lay , and where death lay , and how to turn from the one , and to the other , and he gave us his helping hand to turn us . and by being turned to him , we have tasted of the truth , of the true wisdom , of the true power , of the true life , of the true righteousness , of the true redemption : and by receiving of this from god , and tasting and handling of it , we come to know that that which the world hath set up in the stead of it , is not the thing it self . now mark , we are not persons that have shot up out of the old root into another appearance , as one sect hath done out of another till many are come up one after another , the ground stil remaining the same out of which they all grew : but that ground hath been shaken and shaking , destroyed and destroying , removed and removing in us , and the old root of jesse hath been made manifest in us , and we have been transplanted by the everlasting power of life , and a real change brought forth in us out of that spirit , wherein the world lives and worships , into another spirit , into which nothing which is of the world can enter . and here we have met with the cal of god , the conversion to god , the regeneration in god , the justification , the sanctification , the wisdom , the redemption , the true life and power of god , which the world cannot so much as bear the name of . and what we are made of god in christ , we know to be truth , and no lie : and when we testifie of this to the world , in the measure of the life of god in us , we speak truth and no lie ; though the world , which knoweth not the truth , cannot hear our voice . now our work in the world , is to hold forth the vertues of him that hath called us , to live like god ; not to own any thing in the world which god doth not own : to forget our country , our kindred , our fathers house ; and to live like persons of another country , of another kindred , of another family : not to do any thing of our selves , and which is pleasing to the old nature , but all our words , all our conversation , yea every thought in us is to be come new . whatever comes from us , is to come from the new principle of life in us , and to answer that in others , but we must not please the old nature at all in our selves , nor in any else . and walking faithfully thus with god , we have a reward at present , and a crown in the end , which doth and will countervaile all the reproches and hardships , we do or can meet with in the world. we are also to be witnesses for god , and to propagate his life in the world ; to be instruments in his hand , to bring others out of death and captivity unto true life and liberty : we are to fight against the powers of darkness every where , as the lord calleth us forth . and this we are to do in his wisdom , according to his will , in his power , and in his love , sweetness , and meekness . we are not to take wayes according to our own wisdom ( but there must be a strict watch , set in the life , least that get up again : ) nor must we speak such words , as mans wisdom would call wise : nor may we go in our own will to seek any , but the lord must go before : nor may we make use of our own strength , but feel his arme in our weakness : nor may we go forth in that love , sweetness , or meekness vvhich is pleasing to the fleshly minde : but vve must be true to god , handling the svvord skilfully and faithfully , judging and cutting down the transgressor in the power and authority of god , and when the meek , the lowly , the humble thing is reached and raised , then the true love , the sweetness the tendernesse , the meekness must go forth to that . the lord god is tough with the transgressor , and all a long the scripture heweth and judgeth him : and if we come forth in the same spirit , we shall finde the same leadings , where we meet with the same thing : for the lord god will never be tender there ; nor can that which comes from him , lives in him , is lead by him , be tender there where he is not . now the very root of this severity is good , and of god , and hath love and sweetness at the bottom of it : yea in pittie , love , and bowels do we use the sword . it is in pitty to the poor captived creature , that that might be cut down , which keeps it in bonds and captivity . and though we seem enemies to all sorts of men , for the lords sake : yet we are not enemies , nor could do the least hurt to them any way , but are true friends to their souls , and bodies also : and our only controversie is with that which captives and makes them miserable : for we fight not at all with flesh and bloud , but with the principality and power which led from god , and rules in it against god , to the poor creatures ruine and destruction . yea if we had all the powers of the earth in our hands , we could not set up our own way , ( if , after the manner of men , i may so call it ) or so much as disturb others in their way thereby , but should waite in patience , till god gave us an entrance by his power . now let not men run on in heats against us , but let them seriously consider , whether we be of god or no : and let them consider , not with the reason and understanding which is alienated from god , but with the witness which lies hid in the heart . there is one great palpable argument that we are of god , which is this , all the world is against us , the wordly part every where fights with us , the wordly part in every sort and sect of men opposeth us , the rage of man every where riseth up against us ; but those that are so hot against us , if at any time they become but meek and calme , patiently considering our cause , and consulting there upon with the testimony that they finde in their own hearts concerning us , they soon become pacisied , and see that we are no mans enemies , against no righteous law , not against relations , not against governments , not against any thing in the world that is good , but only against that which is evil and corrupt . and of a truth , the corruption of things god hath shewed unto us , and daily cals us forth after an immediate manner , to witness against . therefore let men be sober , and take heed what they do , least they be found fighters against god : for the reproaches , the scoffs , with other presecutions , which seem to be cast at us , light on him . it is not as we are men , but as we are obedient to him , as we stand witnesses for him , that we meet vvith these things . novv , as it is not vve our selves that do these things , but the life and povver of god in us ; so it is not vve that are struck at , but that life and povver : if it vvere not for that , vve might be as acceptable as other men . it is because vve are not of the world , but god hath called us out of the world , that vve are so hated of the world. this is the true cause , though the world vvill no more novv acknovvledge it , than it vvould in former ages . yet i do not speak this for my ovvn sake , to avoid my share in the cross : for the reproach of christ is our riches , yea far greater treasure , then is to be found in the palace of egypt . yea the presence of god , the svveet povver of life makes up all our losses , so that vve have no cause to complain . it is very svveet , pleasant , and profitable for us to be found sufferers for god ; but vve knovv it vvill not be profitable for you to be found persecutors : and this is told you in true love and good vvill , by one vvho vvishes no evill to you , for all the evill that ye have exercised tovvard the dear and precious people of god for these many years . o that god vvould open your eyes , that ye might see vvhom yee have opposed , and against vvhom ye have hardened and strengthned your selves , that ye might bovv to him , and receive life from him , and not perish in your gainsaying and opposition . i. p. the cause of all error from the truth , and the universall call out of it , into the low voice and beginnings , of the true eternal light , which is the only leader to eternall life and to followship in it . now is the calling in of the jews , of the papists , of the christians of all sects upon the earth , to the lord , into the fould , into the covenant of god , into the end of the prophets , the end of moses , the end of abrahams words , the end of the apostles preaching , into the substance christ , who is come to gather together in one , and reconcile in one , things in heaven and things in earth into covenant with god : and this is the age ; the call is gone out , the voice is gone out , and the trumpet sounding for all to come in , and the spirit bids come , and he that hears may come , and the bride and the lamb saith come , who raigns , and the great war is begun , and the slaughter shall be till the tenth of the spoile shall be offered up ; and the gathering of all nations is come , and the war among all nations shall be , and all shal be on heaps , before the light of the son of god be risen in the hearts of all people , with which he must be seen , and receive his government upon his shoulders . now is he come to raigh , who doth enlighten every man that comes into the world , jews , gentiles , papists , christians , independents , baptists , heathens , and all the sects upon the earth whatsoever , and all in the light are to be gathered into one minde , and heart , and soule , and spirit concerning god and the scriptures , concerning the prophets , concerning christ and the apostles , and concerning the types and parables and the figures , with the light they shall see all , and have unity with all ; who being out of the light , they see not one another , nor the prophets , nor christ , nor parables , nor types , nor figures , and so have not unity with their words , and so out of covenant with god and one another , in the earthly nature , in lusts , strife , and pride which causeth the wars , which must be all burnt up ; and the cause of all peoples upon the earth setting up images and idols , is , because they are gone from the light which christ hath enlightned them with all , and so bows down to them , but to the light should every one bow , to christ , and to confesse him to the glory of god ; the cause of all them that are called christians in christendom , setting up and making images , crosses and idols , likenesses and pictures , names and worshipping names , 〈…〉 hath enlightned them withall , and so they set up likenesses , images and idols , and fals down to them , to put them in minde of christ , which coming to the light which christ hath enlightned them withall , every knee shall bow to him who is immanuel , and confess him to the glory of god , and receive his minde , and they need not have any outward thing to put him in their minde , and the cause of all high notions of god , christ and scriptures , that are making images and likenesses of things in heaven and setting up their imaginations of the prophets , christs and the saints words and falling out about them is , because they be from the light which christ hath enlightned them withall ; and t is the cause why the jews rest in the types in the outward letter , preist , tythes , temples , shadows , is , because they be from the light which christ hath enlightned them withall , in which all people should have unity one with another , with god , and with scriptures , jews and gentiles to be gathered together in one with god , with one another , with scriptures ; in which light people should have peace with god , and one with another , which is the covenant of god with man ; in which covenant , people being in covenant one with another , shall shake all nations saith the lord , that that may appear that cannot be shaken , and such an earth-quake shall be upon the world ; and the cause of all heresy , and sects , and opinions , judgments , and errors , and false prophets , and deceiving men is going from the light which christ hath inlightned them withall , and the devil going out of truth , which truth destroyes him and his works , and death ( who being the power of it ) who hath blinded the minds of all the transgressors upon the earth , who went out of the truth . so this is the true light , who hath inlightned every one that cometh into the world , that all through the light might believe : and he that believes , hath the witness in himself ; and he that believes , sets to his seale that god is true , who hath sent his son to inlighten him , him by whom the world was made , in whom was life , and his life was the light of men ; and this is it which shines in darkness , and the darkness cannot comprehend it ; and there is the state of all confusion , and sects , and opinions upon the earth , the darkness professing christs , the prophets , the apostles , davids , abrahams , and the saints words , and yet the darkness cannot comprehend the light which christ hath inlightned them withall ; so the darkness is not in unity with abrahams , davids , christs and the apostles words , but be all on heaps about them . therefore as light shines out of darkness , shining in the heart , giving the knowledge of the glory of god in the face of jesus christ the end of the prophets , abrahams ; moses , davids , and the apostles words , christ jesus is known , in whom is the unity and reconciliation , and no darkness at all , but unity with god , and with his prophets words , and his apostles and servants before abraham was ; & in this unity all come into life and light , to the spirits of just men made perfect . and to you this is the word of the lord god , and to your age and generation , the cause of all deceit and strife upon the earth , is , because men have been in transgression , heathens , jews , and gentiles from christ the light , under the devils power , out of truth ; the cause of all christians being on heaps one with another , and their bad conversation , that the heathen cries shame of them , hath been because they have been out of the light which they have professed , in which they should have served god , and had unity with scriptures , and one with another , and with god , and with that answer the principle of god in all upon the the earth , and not by serving jdols , because of the vanities of their minds and unconverted state ; so all upon the earth that sets up likenesses and jmages , are under vanities , because of the corruption of their own minds , and the vanity of them : but the day of restauration is come into christ the light and covenant of god , and all upon the earth that sets up jmages and jdols , liknesses , and serves dead works , and hath a dead faith , and not the faith of abraham , the faith of the elect , that gives every one to see christ , and have accesse to god , and such need not to have any dead thing to put them in minde of him , so all that set up such things , whatsoever likenesses and jmages , doth the light which christ hath inlightned them withall , bring them off from into light and covenant with god ( loving it ) unto salvation , and to see it and to covenant with god , there is every ones teacher , loving it ; there is every ones condemnation , hating it ; and they there with the light , that every one is inlightned withall , shall come to see the prophet raised up , and there none shall be cut of that do hear this prophet , and there every one shall have his reward according to his works , from the son who hath inlightned them , who is come to judge the world in righteousness , who is now set down upon his throne . so all nations are called , are commanded to come in and to hear the son of god , and learn of the son of god , hear the beloved son of god , and cease from all them that are made of men , and by men , that they may come to hear the son of god themselves , and receive the son of god ; and receiving him , they receive life by whom the world was made , coming into the light that he is enlightned withall , then every one may freely declare what he sees , and hears , and handels , and every one sees him by whom , the world was made , who is the light , and life , and resurrection ; and wisdom , and sanctification , and justification from all things in which light the covenant of god , you have peace with god , that you may see him to the beginning . g. f. an addition concerning the doctrine of justification . because the doctrine of justification is of great concernment , and the enemy of mankind hath exceedingly endeavoured to corrupt it , and in the apostacy hath greatly prevailed , and the darkness which springs up in the fleshly wisdom , is exceeding thick at the day concerning this thing ; therefore in true love to souls it is laid upon me , to search into the scriptures , which chiefly speaks thereof , and from thence to clear it up to such , who are not yet come to the life that gave forth the scriptures . the apostle paul doth largely and fully treat of it , in his epistle to the romans , and lays down several things concerning it , which if wel heeded , may dash mens present apprehensions about it , and bring them to wait for the opening of those scriptures to them , in another light then you have yet known . . he affirms that justification is not by the deeds of the law , ro. . . if a man could say with the young man , all these things have i done from my youth ; or as paul , that he was as touching the law blameless , yet could he not be justified thereby : and the apostle gives a mighty reason ; for by the law is the knowledg of sin . now justification is not by the making of sinne known , but by that which saves and delivers from it . the knowledg of sin may put a man upon seeking out for justification , but it cannot justifie him , but rather condemn him ; but that which delivers him from the sin , which the law makes known , that justifies him . . he affirms that the righteousness of god ( which is the justification ) is manifested without the law , v. . the law makes sin known , and shews the sinner the need of justification , but the justification it self is not thereby , but is manifested without it . the law commands the nature to act that pertains to similitudes , figures , and types , and shadows , to the obedience of them , but the seed takes away the nature that pertains to similitudes , and shadows , and the works of the law : so to the obedience of those things the law commands there is justification by the law , in the obedience to the works it commands : but the justification , christ , removes the nature , that pertains to those things the law commands : so that justification , the law , ends in christ . . that this righteousness or justification is witnessed by the law and the prophets , v. . the law , though it is not the justification , nor can the justification be by obedience to it , or by the deeds of it , yet it gives testimony to the justification : for the substance of what the law and all the prophets witness , is , that nothing can justifie but the righteousness of god. . that this righteousness or justification is by the faith of christ , v. . by believing or entring into that which justifies . as condemnation was by unbelier , by joyning unto and entring into the spirit of enmity : so justification , is by joyning unto & entring into the spirit of love , by true union with christ in the spirit , which union is by the faith which comes from christ . . that this justification or righteousness is upon all that believe , v. . he that receiveth the faith , believeth ; and he that believeth hath the righteousness : and he that believeth not , cannot have the righteousness , but the condemnation & wrath abideth on him . . that this justification is freely by the grace , v. . there is no way to come to this righteousness but by the gift of grace , which gift is given freely . therefore if ever man wil be justified , he must know the grace , and the gift which comes from the grace , and receive it : & receiving it , he cannot miss of justification , and not receiving it , ( but either being ignorant of it , or resisting of it ) he cannot possibly be justified . . that this justification is by the redemption in christ , v. . christ is redeemer , the redemption ( wherein is the justification ) is in him , and there is no way of meeting with the justification , or redemption , but by receiving of him in whom it is ; and he who hath him , hath the justification , and is made partaker of the redemption ; and he who hath not him , hath it not . mark then , the justification or redemption , is not by believing of a thing done without man ( though that also is to be believed ) but by receiving of him into the heart . for the virtue of all christ did without , is within him : & i cannot be made partaker by believing that he did such a thing without , or that he did it for me , but by receiving the virtue of it into me , and feeling the virtue of it in me . this is that which saves me , and makes that which was done without , to be mine . . that christ is the propitiation , v. . or that which pacifies and makes way for sinners to god , so that he that truly receiveth christ , hath the atonement ; but he that hath not received him , only dreameth of peace with god , but stil remaineth in the enmity , and is liable to the wrath , having the bond of iniquity over him , and is in the night . . that this propitiation is by faith in the blood , v. . there is nothing pacifies god , but the blood of his son ; and thre is nothing feels the blood , but the faith , and that which is in the faith . a man may read scriptures , and gather notions about justification , and think he believes , a right , and shal be justified ; but he never comes to feel the blood , nor the life which is in the blood , till he receive the faith , and then he knoweth the true propitiation , and the true peace , which before he did but talk of . . that this faith is the righteousness ; faith is the gift of god , and this gift justifies ; this gift is the justification , this is that which god imputeth for righteousness , ch . v. . & . the faith is in the blood , and the blood is in the son , and in the true receiving of the son , both the faith and the blood are known , and felt . these are true words , though hard to the fleshly ear ; do not stumble in the wisdom , but calmly wait for the revelation of the spirit , and then thou wilt say , the price of this knowledg is not to be valued ; & if once thou come to tast truth here , all thy knowledg in the letter wil be but dross with thee . ye are come to the blood of sprinkling ▪ o do not rest in an outward way of believing an outward thing , but seek out the way of coming to the blood of sprinkling . . that the justification is of the ungodly , v. . he whom god maketh righteous , was ungodly before he made him righteous . there was nothing but unrighteousness could be imputed to him in transgression before he gave him his son , and made him righteous in his son ; for nothing is righteous with god but christ , and man only as he taken into his righteousnes ; which is done , not by a believing from the bare leter , but by a receiving of faith in the life . . that the justification of the ungodly , is by believing in him that justifieth , v. . the gift of faith goes forth from him , is received into the heart : now both by the gift it self , and by the exercise of it , is the justification : by receiving of the gift is the person justified , by the exercise of the gift are all his actions justified . christ being let in to the heart , justifies the heart into which he is received ; and christ being in the heart , justifies every motion and action that comes from his life ; and any other motion or action is not justified , for it is out of that which is justified , and is in and from that which is condemned . abraham believed god , and it was counted anto him for righteousness , v. ● . god promised him a seed , he believed god , god bid him sacrifice this type , he believed . this was it was imputed to him for righteousness . now if he had not believed , if he had not received the gift , or not exercised the gift , could he have been righteous ? so that abraham was not justified by any work he did or could do , but by receiving and exercising the faith in the seed : by going out of his country kindred and fathers house , not of himself but by faith , and by living to god , and obeying his voice in that land to which he was led , not in his own wil or power , but in the faith . and by hearing the call of god , and receiving the faith , and living out of self out of a mans own understanding , wil and power , in the faith and living power and wisdom of god is the justification now : and they that do thus are the children of abraham , born of the free woman , when as they that take up practises from the letter , without being ingraffed into the life , are but children of the bond woman , but such children of abraham as the jews were , ( if so much ) and can not inherit that promise which belongs to the spiritual seed , while they live in that state . . that wher the faith which is imputed unto righteousness is found , there sin is not imputed , but covered , which is a blessed state , v. , , . sin cuts off from god , who is life & blessedness ; sin laies open to the wrath of the creator , which is too great for the creator to bear : woe and misery wil be his portion , to whom god imputes sin . but happy is he who has his sin covered : this is an happy condition , life and immortality will soon be opened to him . now this blessedness cometh not by the works of the law , for they cannot remove the sin , but by the righteousness of faith , which is able to cover the sin even from the pure ey of god. o christians , christians , do not imagine your selves covered from sin , but know it , feel it ; never rest till ye are so made partakers of the true righteousness , that by its virtue in you , ye may be past all doubt that it is it . believing from the letter without you , that ye are justified , may easily deceive you ; but if once ye come truly to feel in your selves , the thing which justifies , and so find the power and life of it in you , above the power of all that which condemns , casting out the condemned thing , and the condemner with all his works out of your hearts , this cannot deceive . the virtue of life was lost in the apostacy , and that which was living did not so much enjoy life , as mourn after it : and the power and safety of life did then appear most in mourning : but now the apostacy draws towards an end , and the virtue begins to shoot up again : and he that wil be a christian now , must be so , not by retaining his old notions , but by feeling this new virtue , and by growing up in this new-sprung life and power of the lord , whose appearance is new to us , who have not been acquainted with it , but have been brought up in the darkness of the apostacy , and lived in the waters , where great leviathan ruled , and who was able to make war with him there ? but he that seeketh , is joyned with , and keepeth to that power which drieth up the waters , and putteth an hook into the nostrils of the leviathan , shall find the world with the whole course of it , ending in himself , and the beginning and growth of an endless life : and in whom that life lives , they shall live also ; but wher death keeps the power of life down , such shal not live , or know the blessing , but abide under the curse of misery and death , and under the powers of darkness . therefore look about you , and make a wise choice ; for his servants ye are whom ye obey , whether the prince of darkness in his invented forms of godliness , or the prince of light it the living power : and your reward shall be , according to your choice and work , either death in the death , if ye chuse and joyn to that , or life in the life , if ye joyn to that . he that hath an ear to hear , let him hear . j. p. a table of the contents . an apostacy from the truth fore-told of , page that this apostacy began in the dayes of the apostles , p. the poyson of it infecting the churches then , p. the general overspreading of the apostacy over the whole earth , p. witnesses raised up against the apostates , but still persecuted and slain by the apostates in all ages since the apostacy , p. where the true religion and church hath been to be sought for all the time of the apostacy , the general corrupting of the doctrine of the gospel , and of the whole state of christianity by the apostacy , the rule of christianity lost in the apostacy , an objection concerning the rule answered , the true rule ( which was before the apostacy ) infallible , a dishonor put upon the scriptures under pretence of honour , the scriptures honor to be again recovered , the true worship lost in the apostacy , the true faith lost in the apostacy , the true unfeigned love lost in the apostacy , and a feigned love got up since among professors of all sorts , the true hope lost in the apostacy , the true joy lost in the apostacy , the true peace lost in the apostacy , the true repentance lost in the apostacy , the true conversion lost in the apostacy . the true regeneration , lost in the apostacy the true wisdom lost in the apostacy , the true righeousness or justification lost in the apostacy , the true sanctification lost in the apostacy , the true redemption lost in the apostacy , the difference between christians before the apostacy , and christians since , in the very substance of christianity , the true church lost in the apostacy , the true ministry lost in the apostacy , witnesses raised up in all nations to testifie against the apostacy , and some sparks of truth ( such as god saw fit for them to testifie to the present age ) revived in them , as the whorish spirit changed her dresses to keep up her deceit , and to with-hold the honest hearted from the truth , so witnesses still raised up against her , to discover her , and witnesse against her in all her new forms and shapes , affliction and persecution good for the witnesses , to keep down the flesh , and keep the life pure , in its weak appearance in them , in the time of the apostacy , the tender kindness of god to the simple and honest hearted in the time of the apostacy , the ill use that the carnal mind now makes of it , the ministry of the apostacy wrong in its nature , and whole course , feeding the fleshly part , but not able to raise up and feed the soul , of a recovery from the apostacy , the lamb and the saints again ruling , the preaching of the gospel again in the world the fall of inventions , traditions , and false worship , with that whorish spirit which invented them , and bewitched all nations with them , plagues to come upon them that abide in any part of babylon , who are still in some part or other of the apostacy , and not recovered from it , what the spirit that ruleth in the apostacy raiseth up in men , and what it suppresseth , how this spirit intangled the simple hearted , and held them in her snares , even when there were pure stirrings of life to get loose from her , what the worship of men is in the apostacy , and whom they worship , the onely way of recovery out of the apostacy , the enmity of this nation against that spirit which would recover it out of the apostacy , the danger of this enmity to the nation , salvation onely by the true knowledge of christ , by the new covenant , the laws whereof are to be written in the heart , which can be done by none but the spirit , therefore the first thing to be known in religion is the spirit , the spirit is first known as a convincer of sin , he convinceth by his light in the conscience , the light of conviction shineth in every conscience believing in this light is the true way to life , believing in this light unites to god , and opens the springs of life , how we came to the knowledg of the way to life , the true heirs comfidence in god against all the powers of flesh , the springing up of the seed of god in this nation , with the great opposition against it , the spirit of error chargeth truth , with those things which belong to it self , truth would take away the error , with that from whence it springs , and wherein it lodges , but that it is opposed and withstood at the very first , even when it doth but begin to discover , object . that this is a new way , answered , obj. that this light is natural , answered , obj. that it makes the scriptures void , answered , obj. that it teaches things contrary to the scripture , answered . obj. that it sets up free-will , answered , obj. about wanting power , answered . obj. that this sets up a covenant of works , answered , obj. that it breaks down relations , laws , governments , takes away due respect from magistrates , &c. answered . a false healing of a true wound , is the cause of error from the spirit of life in ones self , and of persecuting it in others . the wisdom , which hath been gathering knowledg from the scriptures in the apostacy , must fall , and all that knowledge come to naught , before the truth can be received , gods love in discovering the apostacy , and calling from it , and the fundamental right, safety and liberty of the people (which is radically in themselves, derivatively in the parliament, their substitutes or representatives) briefly asserted. wherein is discovered the great good or harm which may accrue unto the people by parliaments, according to their different temperature and motions. together with some proposals conducing towards an equal and just settlement of the distracted state of this nation. as likewise a touch at some especial properties of a supream good governor or governors. / by isaac penington (junior) esq; the safety of the people is the supream, most natural and most righteous law, being both the most proper end and most adequate rule of government. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text in the english short title catalog (thomason e _ ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p thomason e _ this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (thomason tracts ; :e [ ]) the fundamental right, safety and liberty of the people (which is radically in themselves, derivatively in the parliament, their substitutes or representatives) briefly asserted. wherein is discovered the great good or harm which may accrue unto the people by parliaments, according to their different temperature and motions. together with some proposals conducing towards an equal and just settlement of the distracted state of this nation. as likewise a touch at some especial properties of a supream good governor or governors. / by isaac penington (junior) esq; the safety of the people is the supream, most natural and most righteous law, being both the most proper end and most adequate rule of government. penington, isaac, - . [ ], p. printed by john macock, and are to be sold by giles calvert at the west end of pauls, london : . annotation on thomason copy: "may. th". reproduction of the original in the british library. eng england and wales. -- parliament -- rules and practices -- early works to . great britain -- history -- politics and government -- - -- early works to . a (thomason e _ ). civilwar no the fundamental right, safety and liberty of the people (which is radically in themselves, derivatively in the parliament, their substitutes penington, isaac b the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the b category of texts with fewer than defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images - judith siefring sampled and proofread - judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the fundamental right , safety and liberty of the people ( which is radically in themselves , derivatively in the parliament , their substitutes or representatives ) briefly asserted . wherein is discovered the great good or harm which may accrue unto the people by parliaments , according to their different temperature and motions . together with some proposals conducing towards an equal and just settlement of the distracted state of this nation . as likewise a touch at some especial properties of a supream good governor or governors . by isaac penington ( junior ) esq ; the safety of the people is the supream , most natural and most righteous law , being both the most proper end and most adequate rule of government . london , printed by john macock , and are to be sold by giles calvert at the west end of pauls . . to the present parliament of england . the righteous god loveth righteousness , and he alone rightly weigheth , measureth and administreth in judgment and truth . man hath a selfish principle within , which secretly blindeth and draweth him aside in his purest aims and intentions . man knoweth not his own heart , how much he is engaged for himself , what little truth of love , mercy and justice there is in him towards others . every man thinks he minds the publique good and interest , little seeing or suspecting how straitly he is bound up within the narrow compass of himself . every man pretendeth to be just , and very ready to amend the wilful or negligent miscarriages of others : but where are the men , who once attaining to greatness and power , slide not by degrees into the same paths of injustice , which they condemned others for walking in ? man cannot observe his own errors , nor indeed can he bear to hear of them : he loveth himself so well , that he cannot discern that evil which is in himself , nor endure to be told of it by others ; but thinks they deal injuriously with him if they take notice of it , or warn him against it : for it is not evil in him , but an evil eye in them , which makes them look upon it as so . the powers of this world being so apt to err ( and their errors being so like themselves , powerful ) have great need of faithful monitors and plain dealers , but seldom meet with them , and their condition makes them little able to bear them . their condition hath commonly this double bad influence upon them , it maketh them able to do ill , able to do harm ; but unable to bear the sight or representation of them . it blindeth their own eyes , in reference to themselves and their actions ; and maketh them enemies to him who is not equally blinded with them . nor can it be otherwise , man cannot take it well to have others telling him of that evil , which he upon search cannot find in himself ; or to have them still blaming him for that as evil , which he himself accounteth as good . o ye present great ones ( i speak it not in disrespect , but in honor , acknowledging that god , by his providence and dispose of things , hath made you great ) look upon that snare , which hardly ever man , in your condition , avoyded ! consider this poor nation , its great cost , its great danger , your great promises to it , and let its right and liberty be precious in your eyes . consider ( if it be possible ) impartially its right , and lead it into the possession of it . if ye walk in the way of man , ye will come to the end of man : if ye be successors in unrighteousness , ye will end in ruine . ye have an harder peece of self-denyal to practise then yet ye have met with , if ye will be safe . ( your danger is greatest when ye seem most out of danger . ) as there have been hitherto many cries for you , so there are now many cries to you , and cries against you dayly . complaints have seldom been greater , it behoves you to look thorowly that it be without a cause on your part . if the poor fatherless people be destitute of help , and have none to cry to but the righteous one ( being wearied out with crying to man ) it may make him the more regardful of their cries , and the more speedy and strict in exacting an account of your stewardship from you . the fundamental right , liberty and safety of the people is here presented to your view in general with others ( to whom also it appertaineth . ) it concerneth you most particularly to take notice of it , and to use industry and fidelity , answerable to your power and trust , to instate them in it ; which how ever they may abuse , yet they ought to enjoy : and if ye cannot make them happy ▪ yet putting things into their due order according to right , this will be a comfort unto you , that they are only made miserable by themselves : whereas if ye detain their right from them , though with never so good an intent , that will not excuse you at present , nor afford you comfort at the last . ye have expressed a great sense of the injuries which the people have suffered by being deprived of their rights and liberties , and have undertaken to restore them to the possession of them again ; do it in truth . let not jealousies , of what may happen , cause you to turn aside from the direct path of righteousness . put them , as well as ye can , into a way of minding and prosecuting their own good ; but take heed of overthrowing their right and liberty , though from never so great a desire to do them good . i am exceeding-jealous over you , lest ye should unwittingly be deceived by your own hearts , and unawares deceive the people : forgive me this jealousie . it ariseth both from love to you and the people : because my desire is so great , on the one hand , to have the people free and happy ; and on the other hand , to have you the instruments of it . for as my desire was towards those which went before you , while their day lasted , that they might rather have found the way of administring righteousness to others , then of occasioning ruine to themselves : so is my desire now towards you , while your day remains ; and o that ye could see , at least in this your day , the things that concern your peace , and the good of this nation . every thing is bounded , but few things know their bounds ; and so , passing beyond them , both give and receive wounds , which always smart and afflict , be they never so slight ; but if they be very deep , tend to death . kingly power did pass its limits , we may now speak it . doth parliamentary power keep within its limits ? how shall we resolve this fairly and clearly ( resolve it indeed we may in our own judgments and consciences ) when the limits of it are not determined ? and if things should yet devolve lower , into the great and confused body of the people , is it likely they would keep their limits ? o god , how is man entangled ! so far from attaining true , inward , spiritual liberty ; that he cannot reach the shadow , the outward part , the earthly part , the liberty of man ! so far are we from enjoying liberty under any government ; that we can , at best , but groan and pant under it after liberty . man cannot be free in himself , not free from himself ( while self is in him , it will make him selfish , ) and while it is so , others under his power or within his reach cannot be free . o that the time of man were come to an end ; that he who is righteous , and cannot but be righteous , would put unrighteous man out of place , and administer righteousness himself . till then i expect no satisfaction , not only not in spiritual affairs , but not so much as in the government of this world . yet it behoveth you , who are in place and power , to remove as far from your selves , and press on as near towards righteousness , as possibly ye may : for which end , to provoke you somewhat towards it , this ensuing discourse is partly intended by him who exceedingly thirsteth to approve himself an unfeigned servant to the lord of all , to your selves , and to his country , isaac penington ( junior . ) to the sorrowful people of this sick nation . poor people , i pity your condition , and in the midst of my own weights and pressures , have not learned wholly to forget yours . i cannot but bewail your miseries , which it is hard extricating out of . ye have been long tossed in a sea of trouble , and are not yet come to the sight of land . the necessities whereinto ye are cast , cannot but make your burthens heavy : yet this might somewhat ease them , if ye could but once discern the approach of a long expected end . ye are far from attaining your desires , and yet that may not be very ill for you , because ye your selves are so apt to mistake in your desires , not truly understanding what may tend to make you happy . there is no safe retreating , how ever ye may think , and very hard to espy how to go forward comfortably . ye may easily run into confusion and prove workers of your own ruine , but ye know not how to step one step aright towards rest , peace , liberty . if i should tell you , that it were better to lie stil and suffer then seek after a disorderly remedy ( for that is likely still to be worse then the disease ) it cannot but sound very harshly in your ears . man is not very willing to suffer , yea hardly can he be cast into such a condition , but he finds or at least fancies some door of hope , at which he thinks he might escape . it is not often changing either backward or forward , or various kinds of changes , which will administer relief ; but an orderly , a rational change , a change fitly suited to the condition of that which changeth . if ye would move aright , nay so much as desire aright ; ye must come to a true understanding of your condition . do ye understand your selves ? do ye act like men ? or are ye led and driven up and down like brute creatures ? have ye took notice what , this long season , hath been doing among you ? can ye tell me , whence ye came , whither ye are going , where ye now are ? shall i put you in minde ? ye came from slavery , from such bonds and burthens as ye were very weary of . ye are marching towards liberty , thither is your intent to go , into a free state and condition where ye may have cause to complain no more of oppression or burthens . but where are ye ? who knoweth that ? why surely ye are in an entangled estate and condition , wherein ye have lost your way , or at least the sight of it : ye would fain return back or turn aside , but ye have no minde to go forward . thus is it often in cases of this nature ; the wilderness , the way , the passage to canaan ( the land of rest ) is many times so grievous , that egypt , even the land of bondage , seemeth more tolerable . that people was ready to stone moses for leading them into such a perplexed condition , though moses guided them faithfully . i do not compare your leaders with moses ( yet it becometh you to remember , how strangely they were raised up to appear for you , when ye groaned under sharp and heavy pressures ) i do not think them so weighty in the ballance : yet i doubt ye wrong them , when ye weigh them , your ballance not being right , nor you affording them their due allowances . they have met with real difficulties and straits , which hath made their way very uneven and hard to walk in : yea such a continued series of distracting occurrences and affairs may have tended to put them quite out of their way . do ye consider this ? i will tell you what i have much observed : man is very prone to do evil , to be unjust in every state and condition , to bend his trust aside , to neglect seeking and serving those whom he ought to seek and serve , improving that very advantage for the further seeking and serving of himself . this is usually the state of man , look on him where you will you shall finde him in this posture : but he that accuseth is commonly as unjust , if not more , in the accusation , then the other was in the transgression . the common people are most subject to this of any , who receive things by rumors and common reports , without examining or scanning whether things be so or no . this is the common miscarriage between superiors and inferiors : the one doth not govern righteously , the other doth not obey righteously : and yet they are both unjust in their complaints of each other ; the superior complaining in an unjust maner of the inferiors obedience , the inferior complaining in as unjust a maner of the superiors government . if every man could once espy and grow most weary of his own faults , there might be some hope of amendment . this world is a strange mystery of iniquity in the whole course of it , in every piece and parcel of it ; every one being offended with each other , for adulterating in their intentions , motions and actions , and yet the mean while , as deeply , in the very same way , they themselves adulterating . if ye should encline to entertain this as a melancholly apprehension from my pen ( for man is very difficult to hear the sound of ill concerning himself , and ready to throw dirt into the face of him from whom it comes ) look into the scripture , see if that do not speak expresly to the same purpose . particularly into that rom. . . where the words run thus . therefore thou art inexcusable , o man , whosoever thou art that judgest : for wherein thou judgest another , thou condemnest thy self , for thou that judgest dost the same things . when this scripture is opened in that light which penned it , who will be able to stand before it ! what man is it that judgeth not another ? and he that judgeth another thinketh himself free , at least in that respect wherein he judgeth another : but what is said here ? o man , thou that judgest art inexcusable . yes , will man say , such as judg rashly , such as judg unjustly : nay but the words here carry it further , whosoever thou art that judgest . why what ground is there for this ? are not such and such things evil ? doth not the person deserve to be judged for them ? yes , but not by thee , who art guilty with him of the same things , though thou seest it not , and so in judging him thou doft but condemn thy self ; for wherein thou judgest another , thou condemnest thy self . how can that be ? i condemn onely those that do such and such things , but thanks be to god , though i have my failings , yet i am free from those things : i should not think my self worthy to live upon the face of the earth , nay i should think my self fit for nothing but hell if i were guilty of those things mentioned in the latter of the former chapter . thus thou sayst , this is thy testimony concerning thy self : but he who knoweth thee ( he who searcheth the heart and tryeth the reins ) accuseth thee for thy judging , telling thee that in so doing thou condemnest thy self , giving in this as the reason of it , because thou dost the same things : for thou that judgest dost the same things : if he cannot make this good against thee , thou shalt escape . ah poor man , how art thou hid from thy self ! thou knowest not what is written in thine heart ( even all that which is mentioned in the latter end of the foregoing chapter ; ) thou knowest not the way thy heart hath to bring forth these things ; thou dost not know how or when thou dost them . when thy heart shall be opened by him who knoweth it , and these things plainly discovered to have been in thee , and drawn forth into act by thee ; when both the root and the fruit shall be made as manifest as the day , what wilt thou say ! surely then o man , thou who hast been so confident and abundant in clearing thy self and accusing others , wilt grow speechless , and sink under thy treble condemnation , first for being and doing evil , then for justifying thy self , and lastly for condemning others . i must contract my self in what remains . dear country-men , if i were able to speak a word in season , i would commend a little advice to you , but my condition maketh me unwilling to do it , yet your condition overswayeth me again , and extorteth it from me . it may perhaps , where it taketh root and springeth up , tend towards the setling of some spirits , and towards a sweet and orderly guiding of them in publique acting . for clearness sake , i shall branch it into a few heads . . apply your selves to be sensible what true freedom is , wherein it lies , and of what value it is . it is of more worth then your estates , yea then your lives ; and therefore deserves to be higher prized . it consists not in licentiousness , to do what ye will , nor in having no taxes layd upon you ( this may be necessary for your safety ) but in these four things . first , in having good laws , suited to your state and condition . secondly , in a good method of government , whereby ye may come to enjoy the benefit of all those laws , and whereby your remedies of redress may be easie and cheap , not so hard to be come at , nor so costly , as commonly they are . thirdly , in having a good governor or governors , who may faithfully oversee the execution of these laws according to this method . fourthly , in having a setled way of parliaments , to amend , alter or add to in any kinde ( as need shall require ) these laws , this method of government , these governors . and , which i might name of fifth , to have such a clear way , for these parliaments to proceed in , as they might not easily miss : for otherwise , if the way be not very plain , such a body of the common sort , who are not supposed either to be very skilful or experienced in government , are likely to do a great deal more hurt then good . . be not weary of the pursuit after liberty , because of the many difficulties and expences which it occasions . vndergo the pains of cure . what charge will a man be at , in a suit of law , to recover a peece of estate ? is it not worth more to recover the liberty of a man ? the nations of the earth have still layn under slavery , have not ye your selves felt it ? would ye not creep out , and do ye think to creep out with ease ? the very casting of so great a burthen will make the earth shake under you : besides the opposition of such who finde advantage by riding upon your backs will heighten the difficulty of it . if ye will be cured of your sickness by physique , ye must suffer that sickness which comes with physique . o do not run into slavery to avoyd a few present burthens , but pursue your freedom , what ever it cost you . if ever ye come to enjoy it , ye will not think much of what ye have layd out for the purchase of it . . eye not man , no not in those things wherein he appears as the main agent . consider who it is that doth all , especially in such great changes . it is not the wit of man , the will of man , which manageth these things , but one above man . he speaketh peace and settlement to a nation , and who then can speak trouble or disturbance ? he also stirreth the mud in a nation , and who then can settle it ? he throweth down the mighty from their seat , exalting them of low degree ; and he doth not give liberty to man to finde fault with him either for throwing down the mighty because he liked them , or for setting up them of low degree because he disliketh them . read and consider that place psal. . . ( and shew in practice , as well as in profession , that ye reverence scripture ) god is the judg , he putteth down one , and setteth up another . take heed what ye do : if ye had only man to deal with , ye might make your party good ; but it is hard kicking against the pricks . it may be his design at present ( whose counsel shall stand , and who will fulfil all his pleasure ) as it was once concerning nebuchadnezzar , to make you also sensible , that the most high ruleth among the children of men , disposing of kingdoms , powers and governments , as and to whom he pleaseth . . expect not help or satisfaction from man . man hath no worth in him , and for this end may he be made use of , by god , to shew how vile and empty he is , how unable and unfit to produce any thing of value . truly i have often thought , that the powers and governments of this world are intended , rather to make us weary of them , then to yeeld us satisfaction in them . this whole creation is a meer peece of vanity , and ( in all the changes of it ) can yeeld but vanity : what do ye mean to raise such expectations , concerning any thing or from any thing in it ? it may be the intent of god to discover to you ( by multiplyed sense and experience ) that man cannot help you : while your expectations are from man , or upon this or that change , ye are far from learning this lesson . i know means are appointed and made use of by god in the producing of effects , but sometimes he withers them , to divert our eyes from them , and to make us feel what empty , barren , imperfect things they are . while ye cry out so much against any means or instruments , on the one hand , or so much magnifie any , on the other hand ( as every one almost doth according to his different esteem of them ) ye cannot so fully be taken up with observing the principal agent . if god intend himself to bestow what ye desire upon you , he may hold his hand while ye expect it from man : if god intend at last to put forth an excellent peece of strength and wisdom for your rescue , he may defer till he hath tired out yours : and if that should be his intention , ye are out of the way while your expectation is fastened elsewhere . . and lastly ; groan and pant , unto him who is skilful to save , after your own deliverance and after the deliverance of his people . he who wanteth deliverance , and knoweth not where to obtain it ; what is more proper for him , then to groan and pant after it ? the whole creation is continually in a condition of groaning and travelling after deliverance , not of enjoying it . bear a part with the creation , as ye are a part of it ; yea the higher your extremities grow , the greater let your groans be . be content with your travelling pangs , which is the common track and rode unto bringing forth . and groan likewise for the liberty of the sons of god : for what do ye know but your liberty may spring up with theirs ? israel is in bonds , the lord hath smitten him , the lord hath hid his face from him ( yea the lord hath made him a reproach and by-word among all the heathen ) and while he frowns upon him , he knows not how to smile upon any else . the people of god have ever had hard usage in this world , and particularly in this nation . can ye expect that god , who disposeth of all things , should be forward to give you your liberti●s , while ye are not willing they should enjoy theirs ? can they submit to the laws , ordinances and constitutions of man concerning their god , while an higher light is set up in them ? no they cannot , though they were in the dark . if ye can be content and desire to do so , do so quietly , live your selves in egypt if ye like it ( and ye may better do it , for it will not be a land of bondage to you ) but let my people go that they may serve me , said god , concerning his people , when alass they knew not how to serve him . this is a ticklish point , and of more consequence to the welfare of nations then they are aware of . therefore if ye love your selves , your own peace , 〈◊〉 own liberties , your own happiness , beware of this ; take heed of enthralling them in spiritual things , who were never in that respect ( but only in outward , in things common to man ) put under your yoke . but , in stead thereof , wish after their liberty : and though ye cannot heartily desire it in respect to them , yet do it in reference to the enjoyment of your own your selves , because , for ought ye know , yours may lie wrapped up in it . all this have i spoken unto you , not from any design in me in reference to any thing or person : but truly and faithfully from my very heart commending unto you , what to me ( in this my state of weakness ) appears best for you . which having done , i now take my leave of you , wishing you the best benefit this can afford , or rather the full fruition of that which this doth but weakly and imperfectly drive at , viz. the quietest enjoyment of your selves in your present condition , and the safest and swiftest passage to a better . this is the heart of him towards you , who earnestly desireth to be yours in true love and faithful service , isaac penington ( junior . ) the right , liberty and safety of the people briefly asserted . the right , liberty and safety of the people lieth chiefly in these three things ; in the choyce of their government and governors , in the establishment of that government and those governors which they shall chuse , and in the alteration of either as they find cause . this belongs to every people ( though few , if any , are in possession of it , ) and that people , which enjoyeth these , enjoyeth its right , is indeed free and safe while it so remaineth . . the right , liberty and safety of the people consists in the choyce of their government and governors . it is their right : for in civil societies nature hath not cut out the body into form and shape , but hath left it to be done by the will and wisdom of man , having imprinted in him a sense of and desire after the enjoyment of justice , order , love , peace ( and whatsoever else is good and profitable for him ) both particularly in himself and in common with others ; which desire throughly kindled in man , and guided by the true light of reason , will lead man to chuse that which is properly good both for himself and others . and though man may possibly or probably abuse this , yet that is no sufficient ground for depriving him of his right . their liberty lies in it too . they only are a free people who have their government of their own choyce . such upon whom others do intrude , or upon whom other laws or regents are imposed then what themselves judg meet and necessary , and besides that which they themselves voluntarily and by free consent submit unto for their good and welfare , are so far under slavery and such a miserable subjection as nature never appointed them unto . their safety likewise lies in it : for to be sure they will chuse nothing but what in probability will conduce to their own good and happiness ; whereas others , making laws for them , or setting governors over them , may respect their own particular benefit and advantage , and not so much the good of the people , which is the main end why laws , governments and governors are appointed , and to which they should in a direct line be guided . and upon this ground i conceive it very requisite , that men who are chosen to sit in parliament to make or alter laws , to set up or alter governments or governors for and in behalf of the people , should , as soon as any , lie open to the force of all the laws they make , or of any thing they do in that kind ; that no law they make should take effect till they be dissolved , and come to lie as liable to it as any , otherwise they will not be sensible enough of the peoples condition , and consequently not fit to stand in their stead , or to act for them in cases that concern them so nearly . the greatest security the people have concerning their parliaments is that they chuse persons whose condition will keep them from injurying them , for if they prejudice them they prejudice themselves , if they neglect their good they neglect their own good : this security is good while the people chuse them that are of their own rank , and while these make no laws for them which shall have any life or vertue to do good or hurt till they come also to be exposed to them , but otherwise it is very invalid , if not wholly lost . they who are to govern by laws should have little or no hand in making the laws they are to govern by : for man respects himself in what he does ; ( the governor will respect himself , his own ease , advantage and honour in government , and lay loads upon the people , but make his own burthen light : ) therefore things should be so o●dered , in the behalf and for the security of the people , that such as are chosen and appointed to act in this kind should lay no load upon the people , but what their own backs may come as soon and as fully , in their degree and station , to bear , as any of the peoples . . the right , liberty and safety of the people consists in the establishment of their government and governors . as they have right to chuse , so they have right to confirm what they chuse , to establish that government and such kind of governors as they judg or find most convenient and necessary for them . without this the people can be neither free nor safe no more then without the other , nay without this their right to chuse would be to little purpose , the end of choyce in things of this nature being for the duration of its appointed season . . their right , liberty and safety lieth also in enjoying and exercising ( as need requires ) the power of altering their government or governors : that when they find either burdensom or inconvenient they may lay it aside , and place what else they shall judg lighter , fitter or better in the stead of it . nature still teacheth every thing , as it groweth , to reach further and further towards perfection . no man is bound to that which he chuseth or establisheth further then he findeth it suitable to the end for which he chose and established it : now several states and conditions of things and persons changing , there must of necessity be an answerable change in laws , orders , governments or governors also , or man will be instrumental to introduce slavery , misery and tyranny upon himself , which nature teacheth every thing both to abhor , and as much as may be to avoyd . it is the desire of most men both in reference to church and state ( as men commonly speak ) to have laws and ordinances , after the manner of the medes and persians , which cannot be altered : i cannot but approve the desire , since it is written in mans nature . it is natural to man , and a stamp of the divine image upon him , to press after unchangeableness both in himself and in the things which appertain unto him : but yet it is not suitable to his present condition which will in no wise admit of it , because it is continually subject to change and alteration : and as it still changeth , so do his needs and desires , as also his experience and wisdom , and so must the laws and orders which he prescribes to himself and others , or he will be grievously cruel to himself and others . ages have their growth as well as particular persons , and must change their garments , their customs , their courses , &c. for those which are still suitable to their present state and growth . laws are but temporary ; and as they are founded upon reason , so they are no longer to last then the reason of them lasteth , to which they ought to give place , and admit of such a succession as it appoints . only herein hath nature provided well for the people , if they could fairly come to their right , and had wisdom to use it ( which sense and experience is continually instructing them how to do ) in that she doth allot them to make and alter their own clothes , to shape out their own burdens , to form , renew or alter that yoke of government which is most necessary and convenient for their necks . all this , or any part of this ( either the chusing , establishing or altering governments , laws or governors ) the people cannot do in a body ; an whole nation is too unweildy to act together themselves : therefore nature hath taught them to do it by substitutes , whom they themselves chuse to stand in their stead to do any of these things for them as their present condition and need requires , which body of persons is with us called a parliament , who are picked out by the whole to be the representative of the whole , to do that for the whole which they would have to be done , and would do themselves if they were a body in a capacity to act . and from this first rise of things may best be discovered the nature , ends , proper use and limits of parliaments , all which are necessary to be known , both that they may move according to their nature , pursue their ends , be rightly used , keep within their compass , and that the people may clearly discern that they so do , whereby they will come to rest satisfied in their proceedings , and in their expectations of good thereby . we see here of what kind of persons the parliament is to consist , viz. of the common people , that they may be fit to represent their burdens and desires . we see here of what use and for what end they are , viz. to relieve the people , to redress any occasion of grief or burden to them , to make laws , alter laws , set laws in a due way of administration , set up or alter governments and governors , dispose of every thing in such a way as the people may freely enjoy their rights in peace and safety . we see also their bounds in general , viz. the exercising the power of the people in such ways as were proper for the people to exercise it in were they capable of joynt and orderly acting . we see likewise their nature or constitution , what they are . they are the elective power , the constitvtive power , the alterative power . what lies confused and unuseful in the people is treasured up in them in order , and in a fitting way for use . is there a government wanting ? the people cannot orderly or wisely debate or chuse that which is likely to be most commodious and safe . are there any laws wanting ? the people cannot well set about making laws . are there any laws , customs , or encroachments burdensom ? the people cannot rightly scan how far they are so , or proceed to a regular alteration of them . so that the whole right , freedom , welfare and safety of the people consists in parliaments rightly and duly called , constituted and ordered towards acting faithfully in the discharge of the trust reposed in them . yea lastly , here we may see in a direct line the proper course and way of parliaments , which speaks out it self , and would easily be discerned by us , if our eyes were kept fixed here , and not entangled with other intermixtures , which are apt to seize upon every thing , and interweave with every thing , hardly any thing keeping its own pure nature or proper current . take it thus , ( with a little kind of circuit for the better illustration of it , yet very briefly . ) all governments ( though intended for and directed towards common good ) are still declining and contracting private , selfish and corrupt interests , whereby the people come to feel burdens under them , and find want of fences to guard them from the insolencies and assaults of such as are above them , which are very usual every where , for every man ( i think i need not add , almost ) though he be unwilling to have any tyrannize over him , yet he is too prone to tyrannize over such as are under him . who would not , when he feels oppression , if he were able , thrust the oppressor out of his seat ? and yet who sees how ready he himself would be , so soon as he hath done it , to seat himself in the same throne of oppression ; and that he will as certainly do the one as the other , if he be not hindered by outwards force , or ( which is better ) by an inward principle ? indeed man can by no means come to see this concerning himself , but the people still come too soon to feel it . now the people , who wear their government , finding by experience where it sitteth easie or pincheth , what present loads they groan most under , what future fences they stand in need of to shelter them from the injurious assaults of powers above them ; accordingly chuse persons , who lie under the same sense with them , to represent , consult about , and redress these their grievances , by punishing offenders for misdemeanors past , by opening the course of law for time to come , as also by adding thereto , or detracting therefrom , as the condition and need of the people requires , &c. these persons thus chosen are to come with the sense and desires of the particular counties , cities or boroughs for which they serve , mutually to represent these , and to consult together how all burthens may be taken off , and all desires satisfied in such a way as may stand with the good of the whole . after full debate had how these things may be done , to come to an agreement of full setling them accordingly in the firmest way that can be , which having done to dissolve , and leave the people experimentally to try and reap the benefit of their care , pains and fidelity , and to return immediately into their former condition , to lie with them sensibly again under the benefit or inconvenience of what they have done . and this to be done with as much speed , as the motion of such a kind of body , in affairs so weighty , can permit ; that if they chance to fail in effecting what is desired and expected from them , the people may quiet themselves with the expectation of another remedy in its season approaching . the reason why parliaments should with all possible speed dispatch their work , is for avoyding of that corruption which standing pools are subject to , and which is most dangerous in them ; for what shall rectifie the last remedy , if that be out of order , and grow so corrupt , that it hath more need of a physician it self , then to act the part of a physician ? all things by degrees gather corruption , the governing power by degrees declineth from its first purity , and so also doth the rectifying and reforming power , its deviation is as easie as the others , and of far greater consequence ; more destructive , less curable . therefore better were it for parliaments to leave part of their work undone , then to sit so long as to contract corruption : it is better to want somewhat of the full application of a remedy , then to have it poysoned . but of this more by and by under a distinct head by it self . now the whole right , liberty , welfare and safety of the people consisting in parliaments ; the right constitution and orderly motion of them is of the greatest consequence that can be , there being so much embarqued in this vessel , where , if it miscarry , it is irreparably lost , unless it can be recovered again out of the sea of confusion . wherefore it becometh every one ( both in reference to himself and the whole ) to contribute his utmost towards the right steering of this vessel , towards the preserving of it pure both in its state and motions , lest both the good and welfare of the whole and of every particular miscarry , for want of due care and observation . towards which work , the further to incite and provoke others , i cast in this present offering , making mention of those dangers which lie open to my eye in reference to parliaments , whereby the true and genuine fruit of them may either be hindered from growth , or come to be corrupted , whereby the people at least cannot but miss of the proper use and benefit , which it ought to reap from them . there are , in reference to parliaments , six cases or considerations , evident to me , whereby the hazard of the people may be very great , which i shall set down distinctly that they may be the better taken notice of , weighed and judged . . want of parliaments . parliaments are the proper remedy to relieve the grieved people from their burdens and oppressions ; from any kind or the several kinds of oppressions that may befall them ; from the oppressions of any government , any governors , any laws , any incroachments &c. ( for by several ways , means and instruments the people may be oppressed ) now if parliaments be wanting , that is to say , be not duly called according to the need of the people ( it being their proper engine whereby alone they can duly , orderly and safely act ) their right , liberty and safety is much hazarded , and they obnoxious to lie under the burden of oppression without remedy . if diseases grow , and a due course of physique be not to be had , the body cannot but suffer damage and hazard . there are two things essentially necessary to the health and well-being of a nation , as well as of other bodies both natural and politique , which are , the cutting off of exuberances , and the supplying of defects , both which in the principal and most weighty part of them , are peculiar to parliaments ; so that where there is want of them , the radical life and vertue of the people must needs be obstructed , languish and decay . this is a very ill disease , how ever those who never knew or experimented the sweetness of enjoying their right and liberty , may not be considerably sensible of it . . want of fair elections , as thus , if the people be by any means drawn from minding their own good , from bending themselves to chuse persons who may be fit to act for them . how easily may parl●aments warp aside from easing and relieving the people unto further burthening and grieving of them , if such persons be chosen to appear in their behalf , who are friends to their oppressors , and have a particular advantage of sharing with them in the benefit of that which is the burden and cause of grief to the people ? and here is a great danger the people are very obnoxious to : their burdens commonly arise from the miscarriage of the still present governors , and these governors cannot but have great advantages , by their power over them , to have an influence upon their choyce . therefore if the people be not so much the more wary , that which was intended for their greatest relief may turn to their greatest prejudice . o how miserable is man , whose remedies against multitudes of dangers are so few , and even those few all along so subject to miscarry ! a parliament may be prevented , that it may not be to be had when there is most need of it : a parliament may be corrupt before it hath a being , it may be so ill constituted in respect of the materials of it , that it may be a fitter engine of slavery and misery then of freedom and happiness to a poor enthralled people . and yet this is not all the danger that parliaments are exposed unto , as also the people , in relation to that good they hope for by parliaments . . short continuance of parliaments . suppose the people have parliaments , have a fair and free choyce without being over-powered therein , or swayed aside ; nay suppose yet more , that they chuse well for themselves ; yet the power they are to deal with may overbear them , and ( if they cannot bend them aside ) enforce their dissolution . and hereby the people must needs be deprived of reaping that good they desired and hoped for by their endeavors . parliaments are great bodies , and consequently flow in motion , which is their proper pace and advantage , for they can hardly do any thing well but what they do slowly ; for motions that require swiftness nature hath cut out other kind of bodies . again , parliaments are to act very warily , ( as the things they are to do , are of great concernment , and require much circumspection and consideration , ) and therefore in both these respects must have time convenient to act accurately in the discharge of so great a trust , and in the managing of so weighty affairs , which if it be not answerably allotted them , they must of necessity be defective in . . want of power to parliaments . parliaments have a difficult piece of work , viz. to chastise the greatest oppressors , and to strike at the very root and foundation of oppression in any kind , and unless they have power answerable they cannot possibly go through with it . oppositions and interruptions from other powers they must expect to meet with , which if they be not able to graple with and overcome , they cannot exercise the full right and liberty of the people , either in punishing offenders against the people , or in chusing , establishing or altering governments , laws or governors for the people . this must necessarily much hinder , if not put a stop to their work : for if any fall short of those means which are proper to an end , they cannot possibly attain that end : if the hand which imposeth and would keep burthens upon the back , be stronger then that which would remove them ; if the hand which would supply defects , be weaker then that which stands in its way to stop it in its course , vain and fruitless will all its endeavors be . ( the power that relieveth from oppression must of necessity be greater then the power that oppresseth . ) and this was the condition of this present parliament , there was visibly such a power over them as they could do nothing to purpose for the good of the people ; this doubtless they had great reason to strive to get loose from , and the people had great reason to stick to them in it , as also to expect from them their own freedom after they were made free , the freedom of the people being the end ( theirs but the means , ) and therefore most to be eyed . 't is to no purpose at all to have never so free a parliament , unless we have also a people put into the possession of their freedoms by the parliament . . over-long-duration of parliaments . this was glanced at before , but yet it will be requisite to consider of it further , because after those many changes which of late we have been much driven and necessitated into , we may at present lie more open to the ill influence of this , then of any of the former : and it should be the especial wisdom and care of man to take most heed of that danger which he lieth most open to . every thing hath its appointed seasons , bounds and proper way of operation , within which it is very beautiful and profitable , but beyond it very uncomely and dangerous . parliaments , in their season , may bring forth a most sweet and excellent kind of fruit , which may vigorously refresh the spirits , and recover the decaying liberties of a dying nation ; but continuing longer then its season , the root it self may easily grow corrupt , and the fruit prove sowre , harsh , and deadly , yea may tend to a more bitter death then it was ordained to prevent . many dangers parliaments are exposed to by long continuance , whereby their nature and constitution may be depraved , or they induced to act after a different nature , or in other ways then is proper for them , or good for the people . those dangers which more principally in this respect represent themselves to my eye , i shall here make mention of . . parliaments , by long continuance , will be subject to fall into factions , which is the foundation of so many breaches and divisions in the whole , upon which they cannot but have an influence to conform them unto themselves , the eye of the people being still upon the fountain-head . we have had sufficient experience to evidence the truth of this , for still as the parliament hath been divided , there have also been divisions throughout the whole nation . persons who act joyntly and uniformly at first , ( having one and the same sense upon their spirits , one and the same end in their eye , one and the same desire in their hearts ) may in process of time lose this sense , this desire , this end , and be drawn aside to another sense , desire , end , and differ also in their new choyce , which may insensibly creep in upon them ; and according to this difference , there will ensue a division among them both in their motions and actions . now how dangerous this is to have a breach in the root , to have a seed of division in the heart , working there , springing forth from thence , and diffusing it self throughout the whole body , i think it will be needless to express . . parliament men , by the long continuance of a parliament , will be exposed to the temptation of seeking themselves , of minding and prosecuting their several particular ends and interests . a parliament man , as he is chosen to be , so he should set himself to be a publique person , as it were forgetting himself , and giving up himself to be taken up only with the publique good , for the season of this work . this a good patriot may find somewhat easie to do for a while , but if the parliament last long , self which is very strong in him , and may challenge a right to be looked after , will revive its right , pleading both reason and necessity in its own behalf . that man , that could be content to lay all aside , and bend himself wholly for the publique for a short time , cannot hold out in doing so , but will be enforced to look after himself , his own affairs , his own profit and thriving in the world , &c. and when he comes to manage these and the other together , it will be very difficult for him to avoyd making use of that advantage , which both his power and the long continuance of it affords him , towards his own particular benefit . and self , having thus crept in , will grow more and more upon him , and will be continually , secretly and subtilly drawing him more and more towards himself , and more and more from the publique : and killing those affections in him ( which are too apt of themselves to do ) which were very lively at first for the publique , and consequently much unfit him for his work . . parliaments by long continuance are in danger of contracting a particular interest ( an interest distinct from that interest which they have as a part of and in common with the people ) in the publique government . every man hath an allowable interest in common with the whole , so that if it goeth well with the whole , every one shares in it : this is a good , a profitable interest , no way prejudicial to any else . but then there is a particular interest , whereby it may go well with some , though ill with the generality ; nay the welfare of some may arise out of the incommodity of the generality ; that wind which bloweth ill upon the publique , may blow profit to some . this interest all powers do readily contract to themselves , partly by their own strength , and partly by their advantage to winde into other powers , the greater still bringing the less into subjection , which must be at its command and use , or be broken by it . this snare which other powers by their continuation are still running into , the parliament is to redeem and purge them from ; but to take heed lest their own continuance should be so long , as to bring them into the same snare ; which may both unfit them for their proper work , which is to be judges on the behalf of the commonwealth , which how can they truly execute , who have a particular interest and share of their own ( besides that which they have in common with the people ) in the present government , whom as it favours , so they must again favour it ? as also it may engage them in an improper work , viz. in becoming administrators in the present government , which is no way proper for such as are appointed to be the judges of administrators and administrations . a parliament have an interest in the government with the rest of the people , yea a right and power conferred upon them by the people to order , settle , amend , or ( if need be ) new-make the government for themselves and the people ; but not to meddle with the administration of it , or to endeavor to bend it aside , in the administration of it , for any particular end or advantage of their own ; which their power may easily do , and which their over-long-duration may too much intice them to assay to do . . parliaments , by long continuance , may incur the danger of interrupting , if not of swallowing up the ordinary course of the peoples enjoying their right in obtaining speedy , free and impartial justice by the administration and execution of the laws . the greater doth commonly weaken , if not devour the less . extraordinary remedies are apt to thrust into the place of the ordinary , especially when by long duration they may seem to challenge to themselves the right of becoming ordinary . . ( which is worst of all ) parliaments , by over-long-duration , may slip into danger of depriving the people of the proper use and benefit of parliaments . the proper use of parliaments is to be a curb to the extravagancy of power , of the highest standing power : but if they themselves become the standing power , how can they be a fit curb for it ? a parliament is to be such a body as may have the sense of the people upon them , that so they may be led by that sense to ease , relieve and safeguard the people : but if once they become governors , they will lose that sense , and have a sense of a different nature upon them : they will ( like other governors ) have a sense of the duty of the people which they owe to their governors , but lose ( by degrees , still more and more ) their sense of the burthens and grievances of the people . so that if parliaments succeed in the place of the supream-administring-power , there will be as much need of somewhat else to stand between the people and them , as there was of them to stand between the people and kingly power : for they coming into that place and authority , the people are in as much danger of them , as they were of the power of kings : for it is not the person simply , but the power , wherein the danger or benefit lieth . and this doubtless is the right and liberty of the people , and herein lieth their safety , viz. to have an extraordinary , legislative , alterative , corrective power above the ordinary standing power ; and this power , as to consist of the body of the people , so likewise to be kept altogether free from having any particular hand in government , ( but to keep within the bounds of their own extraordinary work , which is not so much in as about government , ) that so they may both have and retain the sense of the people , being engaged by their state and condition to do nothing which may prejudice the people , because in case they do , they themselves will suddenly feel the smart of it . . the last danger , which i shall at this time mention in reference to parliaments , is this . the assuming a power of a different nature from them , not proper to them ; and intermedling with a work which they are not fitted for , entrusted with , or appointed to . powers , like other things ( and somewhat more advantagiously then other things , having stronger hands ) are still gathering in to themselves . the rich man will be gathering riches , the wise man will be gathering wisdom , and the powerful man will be gathering power : and in attracting to himself ( especially where he is the sole judg ) it is very difficult for him to be moderate or innocent . he who hath a right power in some things , it is hard for him to keep there , and not to seek after and lay hold on , if he can , that power which he ought not to have , and in those other kind of things wherein he ought not to have power . that a parliament , as well as other powers , is subject to this temptation , cannot be denyed . this is dangerous every where . ( to have things endowed with a different , if not contrary nature , to have things employed about a different , if not a contrary work to neglect their own work for which they are fit , to which they are appointed , and execute another work for which they are not fit , to which they are not appointed ; this , let it be never so carefully and faithfully managed , must needs bring disorder , confusion , nay greater inconveniences . ) but the greater the power is , the greater is the danger : because as the greatest power may do most good in its own way , so it may do most harm in a wrong way . powers that are great , bring forth great effects either of peace or trouble , order or confusion , salvation or destruction . no remedy so soveraign , so restorative as a parliament rightly constituted , rightly applyed , and rightly acting : no disease more deadly , more consuming the very heart-life of the rights and liberties of a nation , then a parliament misconstituted , misapplyed , misacting . but every one here will be ready to say , what is that power which is proper to parliaments ? what is their proper work ? what is that power of a different nature , which will be so dangerous for them to assume ? and what is that work , which they are not fitted for , entrusted with , or appointed to ? to satisfie the desire of such as may greedily enquire after this , i shall answer somewhat , according to that insight which is afforded me into the nature of things , shewing ( from the principles foregoing ) both what their proper power and work is , and then what power and work is improper for them . and it is a clearer and far safer way , to search out and discover things from their first rise in nature , then from succeeding principles or practises , which may easily decline awry and cover the true knowledg and intent of things . now concerning their proper power and work , i shall not undertake to define the particular limits of it , it will suffice to my purpose , to express the general nature of it , which to me appeareth thus . it is a natvral ( humane or civil ) extraordinary , constitvtive , corrective , alterative power . i shall speak chiefly of their power , which will of it self discover their work , therefore that will not need so particularly to be opened . first , i say it is natvral : such a power as is sown in man , in the nature of man . man hath a power over himself , to dispose of himself , according to that wisdom and righteousness which is seated in him , grows up with him ( if it be not blasted or kept under , ) which he further attains to , or is in a further degree bestowed upon him . of this common kinde is this , with all other earthly powers . but this expresseth onely the kinde of it , we are yet far from the particular nature , end , or use of it . therefore to describe it further , i term it extraordinary , which it discovers it self to be , being a thing not for common and constant use , but for extraordinary ends and purposes ; and the nature of things must be suited to their end , for thither it is to direct them . then more particularly there is expressed what kinde of extraordinary power it is , namely , constitvtive , corrective , alterative : it is a power of seting up or establishing laws , governments , governors ; of correcting them , of altering them . this is the nature of their power , which pointeth out their work so plainly , as it will not need more particularly to be specified in this place . now by this there are two sorts of power cut off from them , one whole kinde of power , and one main branch of another kinde . . spiritual power , which claimeth its descent from christ as the head of his church , and is appropriated by its nature , end and use , unto his body the church , which is his city or kingdom , to be governed by him , even by that power of his spirit which he pleaseth to exercise upon them , whether immediately by himself , or mediately by such as he substituteth under him . this power , as it is spiritual , so it is fit to be managed onely by spiritual hands : not by men , but by christians ; nor by every christian , but by such onely as can clear the derivacy of it from christ to them , such as are fitted and appointed by him to be under him in his own seat and place of government . nor are christians to exercise this government over other men , but onely over christians , whom alone it is suited to . nor are they to govern as men ; by outward force ; but as christians , by spiritual vertue and efficacy upon the conscience , the seat of christ in man , so that it may appear that not they , but the spirit of christ , the spirit in christ , doth rule and govern . o how sweet would this government be ! how pleasant to a christian the strictest execution of the sharpest laws in it ! christs yoke is easie , and his burthen is light , even in the sharpest and weightiest part of it . but this power belongeth not to any nation or people under heaven , there being not any nation or people which can evidence the fair and clear derivacy of this power from christ to them : ( as it was not intended for any nation or people , save onely his own nation , his own people . ) therefore not to any parliament , who are but the people in a representative body , in a body contracted into a narrower compass for the use and service of the people ; who as they stand in their stead , so they have onely their power . the people being the stock or root from whence their power and authority doth spring , it can rise no higher , not be of any other nature , then that which is in the people . . in civil power , the administrative or governing part of it appeareth from hence not to appertain to them . in civil societies , as well as in natural , nature hath cut out the proportion ( in general , though not in particular . ) there is the head and the members , having each their several innate properties , motions , laws and priviledges , which cannot be transgressed without violence to nature , or without danger to that body or society which breaketh the bounds limited by nature . in every society which is orderly , there is the head and the members , part to govern , and part to be governed ; to each of which appertain their particular rights : to the one such as they may be advantaged for and in government by , to the other such as they may be advantaged under government by ; that the yoke may be gently , orderly , and sweetly managed by the one , and sweetly born by the other . now this is most evident , that the people are the body , the people are to be governed ; not to be the head , not to govern . the legislative power indeed belongs to them , that their yoke might be the more easie : but the administrative power doth in no wise belong to them , but to those who are to govern . and though the people might be flattered and encouraged , from sense of the misuse of this power , to take it into their own hands , yet it can never thrive there : and though they should set themselves to rest content , nay to please themselves with it ; yet you must needs grow weary of it , and that very quickly , the inconveniences will multiply so fast , and grow so unavoydable . parliaments are the body of the people , chosen by the people to stand for them , to represent them , to act in their stead : answerably , they have that power which is proper to the people , the legislative , the supremely-judicative ; but not that power which belongs not to the people , viz. the administrative . in like maner this discovers a double kinde of work improper for them . the one is , medling with spiritual affairs . the constituting of these , the amending of these , the altering of these is onely proper to such as are invested with spiritual power and authority . the laws of christ were never appointed to be set up by the power of man , but by the power of his spirit in the conscience . it is accounted profane , and much startled at , to touch that which man hath made holy , which man hath separated and consecrated to divine use ; and yet how propense are , almost all persons , to be laying hands on that , which god hath made holy and set a part for himself ! how sad an effect we have seen and felt from undertakings in this kinde , cannot but be fresh in our memories ; what a sad breach and disunion it hath occasioned throughout the whole nation , and particularly in the parliament . nor can i conceive readily , how it could be otherwise ; the closest bond of union mistaken and misapplyed must needs become the greatest instrument of division ( to let pass gods interest to blast men , when they will be venturing upon that work which he hath not appointed them unto , but reserved for himself . ) the wound thus made may prove incurable . men differing in their judgments , and consequently in their desires ; differing in the apprehension of their duties ; their motions and endevors must needs run cross and become irreconcilable , while the foundation of this difference remains . while a man is strongly perswaded , that this or this is the way and will of god , that it is his duty to use the utmost of his abilities , opportunies and advantages for the promoting of it , that this is the main end for which power is put into his hands , the chief thing god expects from him , and will call him to a very strict account about the improving of all his power and interest unto the advancing of this ; i say while things stand thus , how can he with the quiet of his conscience neglect acting accordingly ? the presbyterian is now engaged indissolubly , to use his utmost strength and endevor towards the advancing of presbytery , which is gods instituted way of worship in his eye ; and so the independent of independency , which is christ institution in his eye . now having tasted so much of this , and smarted so much by this , men should be very wary of intermedling in things of this nature , further then their ground is clear . the other is , the taking upon them the administration of government , or intermixing with the administration of government . this is the most pernicious thing to a parliament that can be , for it both diverteth them from their own work , and out of their own way , into one of another nature ; and so thrusteth them into a necessity of doing disservice , and into an incapacity of doing service . this may make useless , nay may make burthensom , the best constituted parliament . suppose a parliament of never such entirehearted-honest-men , most studiously bent and applying themselves to publique service ; yet if they be over-full of another kind of business then their own , or intermix another kinde of business with their own , they can neither well dispatch that other kinde of business which they are so over-full of , or which they so intermix ; nor ther own neither . and it is the ready way to turn the hearts of the people from parliaments : for finding things go so grievously amiss ( as by this means they needs must , ) and in the hands too of such men , as they can hardly hope for better , they will begin to look on a parliament no longer as a remedy , but as a worse disease , then that which they addressed themselves to it for cure of . o consider your snare , ye who are in danger of it ! how prone was the administrative power to intrench upon the bounds of the legislative , and how afflictive did it become thereby ! is not the legislative power as prone to intrench upon the administrative ? and in so doing , is it not likely to prove as afflictive ? look into nature , see if ever this kinde of body was cut out , fitted or appointed by it to govern . it hath not a fit form or shape for it ; it is unweildy for such a kinde of motion . again , look into the tenor of your call and trust : were ye ever entrusted herewith by the people ? is it , or ever was it , the minde of the people ? did they chuse you for this end ? have ye a commission from them , i mean not formally , but so much as vertually , intentionally ? they called you to rectifie government , that is clear enough ; but did they call you to govern ? o remember , remember , when any such motions arise in you , when any such temptations beset you ; ye are not fitted to it by nature : your motion is slow , but the work and way of government requires speed and swiftness ; and if ye should from a desire , from an apprehension of advantage , from sense of present need , or any other never so good an intent , alter your own slow pace and strive to act swiftly ; it will quickly appear how uncomely it is in you , and how unsafe for the people . remember also , that ye are not called to it by the people : and if ye will yet be venturing upon it , doubtless ye will run the hazard of ruining both your selves and the people . these are some of the dangers which parliaments ( and through them the people ) are obnoxious to . how far this present parliament hath been overtaken with any of them , or how far the people hath suffered thereby , i shall not take upon me to determine . only thus much i cannot but express , that the present state of affairs is ( to my eye ) much entangled , and that the true foundations of right and freedom ( so far as i can discern ) are not yet layd ; and i could earnestly desire and much entreat those in whose power it is , to do the main work , and to do it throughly : to let fall all desire of power or supremacy ( whose sweetness will be tempting the best ) to strike at the root of all particular interests which stand in the way of publique good , and to set upon such ways of publique good , so evidently and directly tending thereto , as might be forcible to convince very enemies to them by their clearness in reason , and by the sweet benefit which they should not be able to avoyd tasting and reaping from them . having such advantage of power in their hands , what is it which might not be done for publique good , if men had hearts , and were in a right way ? it is commonly said , that a stander by may see more then a gamester : which if it be true , i may assume unto my self some freedom of speech more then ordinary , my condition interessing me in it . for i have been long taken off from being an actor in any kinde , to become only a spectator ; yea and i think i may say safely , not an engaged but a free spectator . i have not been interessed in the designs of any party whatsoever , nor so much as in desire to have any party thrive , further then they have been guided by principles of reason and righteousness unto common good . there is not one sort of men upon the face of the earth , to whom i bear any enmity in my spirit ( though in some respect i must confess my self an enemy to every sort of men ) but wish , with all my heart , they might all attain and enjoy as much peace , prosperity , and happiness , as their state and condition will bear . there are not any to whom i should envy government , but , who ever they are , they should have my vote on their behalf , whom i saw fitted for it and called to it . indeed i am offended , very much offended with most persons and things , and i have a deep charge against them , which at present i keep secret , not intending to bring it forth till i come upon that stage where i may have fair play . yet thus much i will say , which toucheth a little upon it . i am offended both with light and darkness , or rather with that which pretends to be light , and that which is acknowledged to be darkness . i am offended with that which pretends to be light , because it doth not more fairly overcome darkness ; but while it blames it for its dark paths of tyranny , cruelty and oppression , it self seeks ( not by the pure vertue and power of light , but ) by the same weapons , viz. of dark violence to conquer it ; and if it ever prevail this way to do it effectually , i shall be much mistaken . i am also offended with darkness ; because it is not true to it self , not just to it self , not at peace with it self , nor keeps within the sphere of its own dark principles ( even those which it doth acknowledg ) in its own motions , or in its opposing either light or darkness christians dishonour themselves and their principles ; they speak indeed of the light of god , of the life of god , of the power of god , of the great name of god , but are fallen short of the true vertue and glory of all these , both in religion , and in their course in the world . men dishonor themselves and their principles , falling short of that common love , good will and righteousness which very nature would teach them to observe , notwithstanding its depravation , were their ears open . but i delight neither to complain nor accuse , onely i cannot but wish that all cause and occasion of complaint and accusation were taken away from him who doth delight in either . all the liberty i shall now make use of , is onely freely to express what i conceive necessary , in the present confused state of things , to reduce them into some certain safe and well-grounded order , according to plain principles of reason and righteousness , without aiming either at the throwing down or setting up of any person or thing : which , what interpretation soever of weakness , folly or disaffection may be put upon it , i finde not my self very prone to value . this temper hath long attended my spirit , not much to regard , what account either i my self or any else put upon things , but rather to expect what things will then appear to be , when they shal be made manifest by that light , which doth discover them as they are , and will pass such a judgment upon them as they deserve , and shall not be able to gainsay or avoyd . it is a kinde office and a commendable peece of service to help out of the mire , or to offer so to do , yet can hardly be so esteemed by him who observeth not himself to be in the mire , and consequently hath no sense of any need of help : he will rather entertain it with disdain then acceptation , it implying him to be in such a condition as he is unwilling to own or acknowledg . but how ever , as i have on the one hand expressed my sence ( though very sparingly ) of our present entangled condition , wherein we finde our selves at a loss in our very remedy : so i shall on the other hand offer what help my reason and judgment presents to me as proper and necessary to dis-involve us and bring us into a right course . to come then to what i drive at , first i shall speak a word in general towards setling , and then propound more particularly , what things are needful ( considering our present state ) towards the setling of affairs in order , justice and safety , both to dis-engage us from fundamental miscarriages and dangers ( which it is very easie to slip into , and very hard to wade out of , especially after our so long treading in such an unusual track , as of late we have been much driven into ) and to set us straight . towards setling in general i should say three things . first , that we should look well to our setling , look well how we settle . secondly , that we should be careful of avoyding arbitrariness of government in our setling . thirdly , that we should have regard to the rights of the people , and especially to their rectifying right , that it have its free current . . we should look well to our setling . shakings generally tend to setling ; and setlings frequently make way for future shakings . shakings are sudden and violent most commonly , not flowing so much from deliberation as from force : but setlings require great wariness and circumspection , lest that corruption which caused our disturbance ( and should be shaken out ) put on a new guise , and settle again on our new foundation ; whereby there are not onely new seed plots strown of fresh ensuing miseries , but also preparation made for a new earthquake . therefore it behoveth us to look well about us , and to settle warily , that we may settle surely . . we should be careful to avoyd arbitrariness of government in our setling . if arbitrariness of power , and a government by will , not law , was our burthen , and that which we so strongly desired and endevored to throw off from our backs : then surely they to whom it appertaineth , and who have engaged themselves to free us from it , ought to be exceeding careful and watchful against involving us again in it . if it hath already miscarryed in one hand , it may also do in another : however , in reason we are not to be tyed to run the venture . it is not the change of the hand , but the change of the rule , which we expect as our foundation of safety . he that doth us good in an arbitrary way , and by an arbitrary power to day , may by the same way and power do us harm to morrow . . in our setling regard should be had to the rights of the people , and especially to their rectifying right , that it have its free current . the rights of the people were the main thing presented to view in this great conflict , and therefore in equity should be mainly prosecuted ▪ and most principally those which are their most needful and useful rights . our laws are our rights , and we should be loth to be deprived of any of them ( whose reason was both good at first , and remaineth still in force : ) but there are some rights and liberties which are the root and foundation of our laws , and our ultimate refuge for succour and safety ; and therefore much nearer to us , and more essential to our happiness , then others are . these are especially to be regarded . and this so much the rather , because the people are so fit a body to be subjected and trampled upon , that it is very hard for those which are great in power , to keep their feet from off their necks . alas , the people have no way to avoyd danger but by running upon the rocks ; they have no way to shun ruine , but by hasting into ruine . those they chuse to govern them gently , to defend them , may fit hard upon their backs , yea themselves may make a prize of them : and if they can in length of time , through many difficulties , obtain and appoint trustees to rectifie these miscarriages , yet how many temptations they have to mismanage it , they think not of , and how they will manage it , they know not . experience doth still shew how difficult it is throughly to mind the good of the people . one half of the work is sometimes done ( sometimes very often ) viz. the crushing of oppressors : but the other half , viz. the breaking the yoke of oppression , is very rare and hard even for them to do who have prevailed to shake the oppressors out of their seats . thus much in general . now more particularly , there are four things appear to me as necessary , unto a fair and firm setling . . a clear distinction between the administrative or executive power , and the legislative or judicative : that as they have in themselves , so they may retain in their course , their clear and distinct natures , the one not intermixing or intermedling with the other : that the administrative may not intermingle it self , or meddle with the legislative , but leave it to its own free course ; nor the legislative with the administrative by any extemporary precepts , directions or injunctions , but only by set and known laws . things which are severed in their nature must likewise be severed in their use and application , or else we cannot but fail of reaping those fruits and effects which we desire from them , and which otherwise they might bear , and we enjoy . . a prescription of clear and distinct rules and bounds to each . that the trust , power , priviledges and duty of each , which flow from the common light of man , and are intended for the common good of man , may be made evident to that common light ; that the people may know hereby what they are to expect from each , what they are to expect from the parliament , what they are to expect from their supream governor or governors , and so may be understandingly sensible of good or ill usage . there is nothing ( among that nature of things we now treat of ) of it self unlimited : and the more clearly the limits of any thing are set and known , the greater advantage hath it both to move safely , and to vindicate the integrity and righteousness of its motions . if the limits of power be not described and made known , it will be left too loose in its actings , and the people also will be left too loose in the interpretation of its actings ( neither of them being groundedly able to justifie themselves in either unto the other ) neither of which is safe . if the parliament hath one apprehension of its limits , and the people another , they can neither be satisfied in the other ; but the people must needs disrelish the actions of the parliament , and the parliament cannot but think themselves injuried by the people , which may occasion the laying of a dangerous foundation of discontent and division between them . yea hereby the parliaments best friends may be forced to become its enemies , and it may be forced to deal most sharply with its best friends , and so weaken its best strength , and the best strength of the nation . those that are friends to things are not friends to persons , any further then they are subservient to things . it is as hateful to true-bred-spirits to idolize the name of a parliament any more then of a king : it is righteousness , rightly administred in its own proper way and channel , by persons in place and power , which alone can make them lovely to such as love not men , but righteousness . it was the error of the foregoing governing power to esteem it self more at liberty , then in right it was ; it may also be the error of the present legislative power , yea their condition exposeth them more unto it ( their liberty being larger , or of a larger kind ; ) and therefore they ought the more abundantly to beware of it , and to apply themselves to produce , or cause to be produced , a true and fair discovery of those bounds and limits wherein they are ( by the nature of things ) circumscribed : for if they do not know them , it will be impossible for them to keep within them ; and if the people do not know them , it may be difficult ( in many considerable cases ) to them to believe that they do keep within them . . an unquestionably free and equal parliament . it is not every cause which will produce a true and genuine effect , but the cause must be rightly tempered to bring forth kindly fruit . it is not every parliament which can heal or settle a nation , or that the people have just cause to rest satisfied in ; but a parliament fairly chosen , equally representing the people , and freely acting for the people . now every man knoweth force to be opposite to freedom . that which is free is not forced , and that which is forced is not free . this parliament hath , visibly to every common eye , been more then once forced ; and it is not very easie after violence to break forth again into perfect liberty : the sense and remembrance of the former force , together with an inward fear of the like again ( if the like occasion shall happen ) may be a secret , though not so apparant a bond upon their spirits , which may in some particulars incline them both to do what they would not , and to neglect the doing of what they would . besides , it may be considered how far that visible force , which caused so great an alteration in the parliament , and such a change in affairs , did intrench upon the freedom of parliament . for though every detention of some or many members may not disanul the freedom of a parliament , yet some kind of detention , so and so qualified , necessarily doth . an occasional or accidental detention is not of so great force as an intentional : yet if such an accidental detention of some of the members should happen , whereby the state and course of the parliament should be changed , it might well be disputed , whether the rest ( still sitting and acting contrary to what was done before those members were detained ) might be accounted a free parliament , ( when such a force was visibly upon some part of it , as changed the whole state of affairs in it : ) for this were plainly an accidental bending of the parliament from its intended course , from its free current , and so far as it is bent it is not free . but in the case in hand there was yet more , there was an intentional bending of the parliament , ( as was expresly declared by them who were the instruments to bend it ) there was a culling out of those who stood in the way of what the army thought just , safe and necessary to be done . and this was done purposely that the parliament might be put into another posture , and act other things different from what , as they were then constituted , they could be drawn unto . now though there should be a violent detention of divers members of the parliament from doing that service , which they ought and desire to do according to their judgments and consciences ; yet if the parliament be not bent hereby , but go on in the same path it was walking in before , it hath the greater advantage thereby to argue and to make good its freedom : but if by this force it be visibly and apparantly bent , put into another posture , and into contrary ways and motions , the evidencing of its freedom will , in this case , be more difficult . there might yet be further added the judgment of the army concerning this action of their own , who were likely to look favorably upon it being their own , but i purposely wave it : for i do not go about to make the most of these things , but desire only the granting of thus much to me , that this parliament is not unquestionably free , and so the people , who are sensible thereof , cannot rest fully satisfied in their spirits , that this present engine is their evidently-genuine and proper engine . and as this present parliament is not unquestionably free , no more is it an unquestionably equal representative of the people , neither in respect of the number of the persons , nor in respect of the qualification of the persons . first , for the number of the persons . every county , city , borough , having their stock going , their right and interest concerned in the whole , their particular advantage or disadvantage while parliaments sit ; so they ought to have their proper substitutes or representers to appear for them , to stand in their stead , to have an influence in the managing of their particular cases , and their right in the whole , which , as the case now stands , many do want . secondly , for the qualification of the persons . for it is not a number of persons ( though chosen by the people ) simply considered , that do or can represent the people : they are but shadows , not the true representatives of the people ( though designed by the people to that end ) unless they be rightly qualified . how is that ? why thus : by understanding the condition and desires of those they stand for , and by representing those desires seasonably in their stead : for they are chosen to be common persons , and therefore ought to have the common sense of the rights , liberties , safeties , needs , desires of those they stand for . if a man undertake to appear for me , and doth not know or care to know what i need or desire , he doth me a double injury ; both putting me to the loss of that which i might obtain , and depriving me of the means i might otherwise have attained it by . now there is a great exception against these present representers in this respect , the state of things , and consequently burthens being much changed , since they were chosen to represent them . it is a long while since the first sitting of this parliament , and the change of power , with other things , may have caused many new burthens , which they , being in power , cannot so fully feel , nor seem so fit to be judges of . the burthens of the people still arise from the present power , that power from which they did formerly arise is removed , another hath succeeded : now they who are the greatest in the succeeding power seem no way fit to represent the burthens of the people under that power : but such of the common people as lie most under them , and most feel them , are likely to be most fit to represent the sense of them . these indeed might be fit , when they were chosen , to be judges of former burthens and oppressions , but they seem not now so fit to be judges concerning present burthens and oppressions : not that which manageth the power can so fairly , clearly and sensibly judg whether it be easie or grievous , but that which lieth under it . and here i may not unfitly add one thing concerning the way of managing affairs in parliament so much in use , viz. by votes ; the necessity whereof in some cases , and the multitude of transactions , may have been an occasion to draw into more common use then is either fit or safe . my ground of excepting against it is this . the actions of the people ( and so of the parliament , who are the collective body of the people ) should be very clear and evident to the eye of common sense , so as to bear down all opposition or gainsaying . the people should desire the removal of nothing but what is evidently burthensom , the addition of no law but what is evidently good , the punishment of none but him who hath evidently been an offender . but the putting things to vote is an argument against this clearness and evidence , and doth seem to whisper , if not to speak out , that things are doubtful , and that the determination is also doubtful , arising not necessarily from the strength of reason , but perhaps from the number of voyces . i confess it is impossible for such a body to manage many affairs without this course : but i cannot conceive that ever nature cut out such a body for the managing of many affairs . it is a body of the common people , who are not supposed to be skilful in administring government , nor intended to meddle in managing of affairs , but only to set them in a right posture , and in a fair way of administration . a few , easie , necessary things , such as common sense , reason and experience instructeth the common sort of men in , are the fittest things for them to apply themselves unto . indeed the people should have no more hand in or rather about government , then necessity requires for their own preservation , safety and welfare ; and dispatch quickly what they have to do ( as a few plain things may quickly be done ) and so return into subjection unto government again , whereby alone they will be able to know whether they have done well or ill in what they have done . again , as it is a body of the common people , so it is of a great bulk ( it cannot be otherwise formed , ) and therefore not fited for many motions , but only for such as are flow and sure . yet their slowness of motion ( the right order of nature being observed ) will be neither burdensom to themselves nor others , being recompenced by the fewness of those things which nature ( i mean the nature of their end , call and trust ) hath appointed for them to do . . a regular way of elections : that the people might be put into a fair , clear , understanding way of managing this : that they might not be urged from favour to the present administring power to make their choyce according to their desires , but might be left free therein , and might be incited to wariness by being instructed of what concernment their choyce is : that if they chuse amiss they contribute towards the laying a foundation of enslaving themselves and the whole nation . the people have a sense of their own good , as well as a desire to please their superiors , and if that sense were by suitable means quickened in them at the time or season when they chuse , they would be so much the more careful to make choyce of such as were fittest to represent that sense . in such a great and extraordinary remedy there should be extraordinary care about every step and degree of the framing and constituting of it , that we may be sure ( as sure as possibly we can ) to have it right and fit for its appointed end and use : for one error here is as it were a womb of danger and misery , which hereby it is in a way to bring forth . now that the people might put themselves , or rather be put ( for they can hardly do any thing themselves orderly ) into such a posture as they might chuse most advantagiously to their own good ; and that those whom they chuse might the better understand the end , work , &c. for which they are chosen , and the better apply themselves thereto ; that both these might be more commodiously done , i shall propound these three things . ( and here i desire free scope in the ballance of every ones judgment , for i propose not these things from any conceit of them , but meerly from the strength of that reason which representeth it self to me in them , having no desire they should take place , so much as in any ones mind , any further then the reason in them makes way there for them , and it will be my delight and joy to see them give place to any thing which is better or more solid . ) . that the counties , cities or boroughs meet together ( as they were wont to do to chuse their knights , citizens or burgesses ) to chuse a convenient number of their commonalty as a committee to chuse their knights , citizens or burgesses for them for that one time . i speak now in general concerning a convenient way of chusing , but if i were to speak concerning a sudden new choyce , i should add this . that none should be admitted either to be chosen or to vote in this choyce , but such as have been faithful to their country in the late great defection : for which end , that exceptions should be drawn up , and great penalties annexed to them , to be inflicted on such as should venture to give their vote , who are excepted from chusing ; or such as shall accept of the choyce , who are excepted from being chosen . ( only these exceptions should be so plain , as there may be no cause of doubt or scruple concerning the interpretation of any of them , lest they prove a snare to any to deprive them of the exercise of their just right and liberty herein . ) it is undeniably just and rational , that the people having fought for their rights and liberties , and purchased them with the expence of their blood , should now enjoy them , and not permit such a participation of those among them , who endeavored and fought against them , as may cause a new hazard of the return of that into their hands , which hath been thus difficultly and costlily recovered from them . . that this committee immediately upon their being chosen ( before or at their first sitting ) may have an oath administred unto them , to this intent . that without partiality , regard to friendship , or any other by-respect , they shall chuse ( either from among themselves or elsewhere ) him whom they shall judg most fit , both for ability and fidelity , to serve his country in general , and that county , city , or borough in particular . . that this cōmittee , immediately after they have finished their choyce , consult about and draw up ( and that an oath be administred for this end likewise , or a clause for it inserted in the former oath ) a copy of what , according to their consciences , they conceive them to be entrusted with by the people ; with what kind of power , in what sphere , and to what end ; which might be before them as a light and rule unto them , though not absolute , yet it might be very helpful : whereas otherwise ( without some such help ) persons called to that employment may be ignorant what their work is , and from this ignorance ( and their own modesty together ) may joyn with others in the way they find them in ( if a parliament be sitting ) or in the way some , who are most looked upon , may propose ; in the mean while they themselves not understanding where they are , to what direct end , or upon what ground they act . and i must confess this hath ever made me unwilling to venture upon that employment , not having clear and certain instruction how or what to act therein : and i must confess my self somewhat unsatisfied to undertake a trust , the nature whereof is not clearly manifested unto me . i am content to serve my country with all my poor strength , but withall cannot but be shy of such a snare of doing them disservice in stead of service , as my own remediless ignorance herein may necessarily expose me to . and perhaps there may be some others who may stand in need of this help as well as i : however , a clear and plain way of knowledg , methinks , should be burdensom to none . such kind of things as these are proper transactions for a parliament , for there may be errors or defects in this kind which the people cannot come together to consult about and heal , yet it is requisite such things , in this kind amiss , should be healed , who therefore fitter to do it then their representatives ? and what might not be done in this nature , and entertained thankfully by the people , if it were so managed , upon such plain grounds of reason and principles of justice , and in such a plain clear way , as might carry conviction , that it was not done from any selfish respects , but for common good . it is a jealousie in the people , that their substitutes neglect them , and mind themselves , which makes them interpret their actions so ill , which jealousie by this means would easily be rooted out of the people , nay it would fall of it self . these are the things which to me seem necessary to set us right . and if it were once thus , that powers were rightly distinguished according to their own natures , rightly bounded within their own spheres , ranks , orders and places ; if there were also a parliament in every respect fairly chosen , set right in its constitution , and rightly acting according to its own nature , end and work within its own bounds , there might be some ground of hope both towards the well setling of things at present , and the easie further amending of what should be found amiss afterwards . but i dare confidently affirm it , that until the true way , course and end of nature be discovered and observed , let there be never so many other advantages ; a parliament never so wise , never so industrious , never so faithful ; a people never so pliable and thankeful , never so quiet and patient , both in submitting unto the pains of their cure , and in continual renewing of their expectations when it will once be ; yet the desired end will never be effected by the parliament , nor enjoyed by the people . if a parliament will produce such or such effects , it must become such or such a cause as is proper to produce those effects , ( and operate like that cause ) otherwise it will be impossible . there is one thing more i desire to mention , of no small importance , ( with the same freedom which i have used hitherto ) which hath been acted publiquely in the sight of the world , and will one day be examined more publiquely . that which is well done will endure a review ; and that which is ill done doth deserve a review , that it might be amended : yea that which is of very great consequence may in equity require a review . the thing is this , that there might be a revisal of this present government ( whether by this present parliament , or an ensuing , or by both , i determine not ) wherein it might be taken into full consideration ( more full perhaps then that present exigence of affairs , when it was first pitched upon , would permit ; ) first , the necessity of a change ; and secondly , the commodiousness of this change , or certainty of advantage by this change : for changes are never good but when they are necessary , and when the change is certainly , or at least very probably , for the better . now as there is at some times need of a change , so there is at other times an itching humour in man after change , when there is no need : yet a man who hath a mind to change , will take it for granted that there is a need of change , and run greedily into it though he suffer loss thereby , changing for that which is ten times worse , even in that very respect , because of which he changeth , only his eye being blinded by his present desire and interest , he cannot discern it . there ought to be much circumspection in all weighty changes : this , being the most weighty and of most concernment to the people , deserves the greater wariness and the more thorow scanning . it doth not become wise men to take a prejudice against a thing because they have smarted by it , or to conceive well of another thing because it is different from that , or because it appeareth plausible at first view , or because they have not yet had experience of the incommodiousness , evil or danger of it ; but narrowly to pierce into the ground and nature of things , and from a clear sight thereof to bottom their change . in changing either governments or governors , it is very incident to man to be unjust . man ordinarily doth that unjustly which is just to be done . because of his sense of smart , he is become an enemy ( and so far an unfit judg ) to that and them which he smarted by ; and can very hardly afford them a fair hearing of what they can say for themselves . yet this is the due of every thing which is layd aside . and for my part , though i shall not plead for the resettlement of kingly government ( for i am not so far engaged in my affections to it , as it yet hath been ) yet i would have a fair and friendly shaking hands with it , and not any blame layd upon it beyond its desert : for doubtless it is both proper , good and useful in its kinde , and hath its advantages above any other government on the one hand , as it hath also its disadvantages on the other hand . now since i have waded thus far herein , i will proceed a little further , propounding what way i should judg most convenient for my self to take , if i were to have an hand in this particular , so as i might discharge it with most justice in reference to the thing it self , and with most satisfaction in reference to my own spirit . ( every man must be master of what he doth in his own understanding , or he cannot act justly ; and his heart is poor and weak , if it can be satisfied in managing things beyond his strength . ) in the first place ( supposing i had power ) i would require such learned lawyers , as i should judg most fit , to give me a plain and full description of kingly government ; of the duty , power , prerogatives of it , with all the several bounds of it , according to the laws of this land . secondly , i would consider , whether any of these were defective ; and particularly since the prerogative part was so encroaching , what bonds might be layd upon it for the future , and how far they might be able to binde it fast from intrenching upon the rights and liberties of the people . thirdly , i would consider , what security or certainty might be had of a setled course of parliaments in fitting seasons and with sufficient power for remedying any grievances which might arise to the people from this government , or from any governors which might be employed in it : for in every government there are ( besides the supreme ) sub-governors , who are usually the greatest oppressors . having done this , fully and fairly , to the satisfaction ( not of my will or desire , but ) of my understanding unbyassed ; i would as fairly propound , to my view , the other government , which might seem fit to succeed in the stead of this . i would take a full draught of it ; the duty , power , prerogatives ( for such it ought to have ; its work being hard , in equity it should have priviledges to sweeten it ) and several limits of it . i would consider again and again , how it could be bound faster then the other : how the convention and session of parliaments in season , with full power and freedom , might be more certain under this . and after full and thorow consideration of every thing needful to be considered , if it did indeed appear that errors in the former kinde of government could not safely or easily be amended , nor the dangers thereof well prevented , but might with much more safety and ease be both amended and prevented in the latter ; then would i abolish the former , and settle the latter . this , in my apprehension , would be a fair and just way , and would not expose me to drink in prejudices ( which become not a judg ) against the government which is to be called into question ; or to lay that as a particular objection to it , which other governments are as liable unto . neglecting of duty , grasping of extraordinary power , enlarging of priviledges and prerogatives , trampling upon them that are low , that are as it were the earth under them , riding in pomp upon the backs of the people , &c. these are common to every government , and will be growing up under every government further then they are powerfully suppressed . as for that great objection of the enmity of kingly government to parliaments , any other government may be as liable to it . no ordinary supreme power loveth an extraordinary supreme power ; and what power soever be set up , it will go neer ( if much care be not used to prevent it ) to have an influence upon the choyce of parliament men , and will be molding the parliament to it self , which if it cannot do , it will hardly look upon it as its friend . i must confess the changing of the form of government is not so considerable in my eye , but the fixing of so strong and safe bounds and limits , as a good governor or governors may delight to keep within , and a bad or bad ones may not be able to break through : which may be much helped by the frequent use of parliaments , if they can be kept within their bounds , or else that will be worst of all according to that known maxim , corruptio optimi pessima , the best thing being corrupted proveth worst . when this is done ( for i do not look upon it as yet done , till all reviews , which in reason and equity can be desired , are first over ) and the supreme governor or governors fully agreed upon : then it will be seasonable , just and requisite to restore to them those rights and priviledges which belong unto them , and which it is the minde of the people they should have : as particularly his or their consent in making laws . it is great reason the people should make their own laws ; and it is as agreeable to reason , that he who is to govern by them should consent unto them . as the people ( so far as they understand themselves ) cannot but be unwilling to be made slaves by their governor , to be governed by such laws as he should make at his pleasure : so neither should they desire to make him a slave , by putting what laws they please into his hand , requiring him to take care of the observation of them : but a mutual agreement & transaction in things of this nature is fairest and most just . yea this would be most advantagious to the people , for he who constantly weilds the scepter is in likelyhood best able to give advice concerning laws , and may put them into a better way ( by vertue of his experience ) of attaining their ends and desires then they of themselves can light upon . if the chief governor or governors shall refuse to assent to such laws as are evidently good and necessary , a better remedy may be found out then the depriving of him from this liberty . the true way of curing is difficult , requiring much skill , care and pains ; the common way of man is by running out of one extream into another , which he is apt to please himself much in , because he observeth himself at such a distance from that which he found so inconvenient and perhaps so mischievous before . but this is neither just in it self , nor can prove either easie or safe in the issue . to draw to a conclusion ; i shall onely mention some few properties of a good governor , to which the people should have respect in their choyce , and to which he who is chosen by the people to that degree and honor , should have respect in his acting . there are two properties or proper ways of motion ( which contain in them several properties ) of a good governor , which , if he will be furnished unto , will make him very useful and serviceable in his place . . to manage his trust with all care and fidelity . to neglect himself , his own particular ease , pleasure , advantage ; and apply himself to the good of the whole . to minister justice equally , fairly , freely , speedily ; and mercy tenderly . to punish meerly for necessity sake , but to relieve from his heart . . to settle the foundations ( so far as lies in his way and within his reach ) of the peoples liberty , peace and welfare , that it may be in a thriving condition growing still more and more : for the welfare of the people doth not so much consist in a quiet , prosperous , setled state at present , as in a good seed for future growth , whereby alone the government can come to yeeld the good fruit of a present good setling . it may cost much at present to manure the ground and plant a good government , the benefit is to be reaped afterwards , which will lie much in the governor , who may help much to cherish or blast it . the main thing in a governor ( which will much fit him unto both these ) is to keep within his bounds : not to think or undertake to do all the good which is needful to be done , but that good which belongs to his place and office : not to avoyd bonds , but to desire to be bound as fast as may be . he who is indeed unwilling to transgress , to do evil ; is willing to be tyed up , as fast and close as can be , from all temptations and advantages thereunto . good honest plain-dealing-hearts are too apt to desire scope , thinking onely to improve it for good ; and others are too apt to trust them , little suspecting that they will do otherwise , till at length on a sudden so evident snares and temptations overtake them , as give too plain a proof of the contrary . this experience is so deep , that it may well be questioned , whether it were better to have a bad governor being fast bound , or a good governor being at liberty ; which would be very difficult to resolve , because on the one hand it is so hard to finde bonds to binde a bad governor fast enough , and so difficult on the other hand for a good governor being left at liberty , to act well . he who hath had experience what he is , when he is left at liberty , and what others are when they are left at liberty ( how easily his or their judgment , will and affections are perverted ) will neither desire to be left at liberty himself , nor to have others left at liberty . a good governor might do great service in this respect , namely both by a ready compliance with his bonds ( for the good and necessary use of them ) which is very rare ; as also by seeking further bonds , where he can discover starting holes , which is yet more rare . man naturally seeketh liberty from bonds , desireth to avoyd them : he would binde others , but be without bonds himself : others need bonds , but he can act well without them , yea he can do more good without them then with them : they may be a fit curb for others , but they will be but a clog to him in the pursuit of the peoples happiness , whereby he shall be hindered from doing that good service which he would and otherwise might : thus the best men , many times , come to do most hurt , least suspecting themselves , and being least mistrusted by others . ( who would not beleeve his own heart , that if he were in place and power he would not do thus or thus , but amend this and that and the other thing ; and the more scope he had , the better and more swiftly would he do it ? ) but to seek bonds , to desire to be hedged up from every thing that is unlawful or unfit ; to seek where one might evade and prepare before-hand strength to resist it , engines to oppose and keep it back , this is as unusual an undertaking in governors , as needful and profitable for the people . there would one great advantage from this arrive unto posterity , besides that which the people themselves might enjoy under it at present : for it would make the fruit of a good governors government extend it self to future generations , in this respect , because by this means there would be bonds prepared to tie up such as should afterwards succeed , who might be more inclinable to break forth into unjust and by-ways , then a present governor or governors . there are none who have such advantage to espy starting-holes , as those who are penned up : and if they be careful in espying and faithful in stopping up those holes ( by putting the parliament upon setting such fences of laws so made about them , as may best secure the people in this respect ) the administration will soon prove both regular and safe , as also in a thriving condition , in so much as that the liberty , safety , and sound prosperity of the people will grow more and more upon them . finis . a salutation of love and tender good-vvill to the commissioners of the peace for the county of bucks, and such others in that county, and also throughout the nation, as are concerned in the contents hereof. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) a salutation of love and tender good-vvill to the commissioners of the peace for the county of bucks, and such others in that county, and also throughout the nation, as are concerned in the contents hereof. penington, isaac, - . sheet ([ ] p.) s.n., [london? : ] caption title. suggested place of publication and imprint date from wing. reproduction of the original in the british library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng society of friends -- apologetic works -- early works to . - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - judith siefring sampled and proofread - judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a salutation of love and tender good-vvill to the commissioners of the peace , for the county of bucks , and such others in that county , and also throughout the nation , as are concerned in the contents hereof . if i should warn you of the day of the lord ( which is a day of terrible wrath to the transgressing nature , but of peace , love , and tender mercy to the righteous , innocent , suffering seed ) if i should tell you that this day is hastening upon this nation , and upon the whole earth ; and if this should affright you , and cause you to cry unto the lord to deliver you from that nature , and from those sinful courses , which make you but as fit fuel for his fire , in the day of its hot burning : i say , if by this means ye should be thus prepared for this day , and yet this day come not so suddenly as ye might expect , yet that would be no loss , or cause of grief unto you . but if this day should suddenly come , and find you in your sins , and so the fierce wrath of the lord break forth upon , and afflict your souls , and the day of your mercy and redemption be wholly passed over by you , this would be matter of unutterable grief and sorrow to you , and the remembrance of your former ease and pleasures , would but encrease the sense and anguish of your misery . certain i am , there is a day of giving account for sinning against god , and for oppressing that in your consciences , which discovers to you , and checks you for your sins ; and this will as certainly come , as the day of sinning now is : and then every man must receive from god according to his works , and reap the fruit of the deeds done in the body : then every soul must inherit according to its nature , and every vessel be filled , with what it is fitted to receive ; that which is fitted for mercy , with mercy ; that which is fitted for wrath and misery , with wrath and misery : and then the distressed sinner will wish , o that i had an hour to escape ; o that god would once more give me a moment of repentance , and of turning from sin . o consider , is it a slight thing with you , that the infinite god , who is little concern'd in you ( being perfectly blessed and happy for ever without you , but as his love , mercy , and tender nature maketh him concern himself about the salvation of your souls ) should give you so large a time of repentance , and so many discoveries of the evils of your wayes ( when at any time ye are retired and serious ) and so many checks and warnings in your hearts , as the vilest of sinners , at times , have more or less from him ? can ye lengthen out the day of mercy ? can ye limit god how long he should strive with you ? o why do ye harden your hearts ? why do ye hearken to the lusts , desires , temptations and counsels of the earthly mind , which in all ages hath undone all that have listened thereunto ? there is no way of avoyding the eternal , insupportable wrath of god , but by travelling out of that nature , spirit , and course , which it is to . him that sowed to sin and corruption under the law , the sacrifices would not save then ; nor him that soweth to sin and corruption under the gospel , the sacrifice of christ will not save now : but he that is saved by christ , must be sanctified and redeemed from sin and corruption by him ; which , christ worketh by his principle of life sown in the heart ; which principle turneth against the contrary principle , discovering its nature , and evil dark wayes , and drawing from , and leading out of them . o therefore , let me in love entreat you , all my dear country-men ( indeed i have no end in it , but your good ) to mind that in your hearts , which discovers your evils to you , that therein ye may feel the power of life drawing you from them , and helping you against them : greater is the power in this , than the power that is in the contrary principle , as those that hearken to it , and become subject , by experience feel . and what if ye lose a few fond pleasures for the present ( which indeed are beneath the true state of a man ) ye will lose a great deal of misery too , and your gain at last will be exceeding great . if ye would know , whether i speak truth in these things , come to the true ballance , and wait on the lord , till by him ye be made able to weigh . my meaning is , joyn to the good spirit of the lord , when ye sind it stirring in your own hearts : give up unto it , let in its strength upon you ; in its warmth and drawing vertue , give up to forsake the evil and pursue the good : fear not the multitude of evils in the heart , nor the long accustomedness unto evil , the lord will help the willing soul out of them . and in this obedience to the good spirit of the lord , there will be an understanding received to know the things of god , and to try words and sayings , whether they be of him , or of man. and he that tryes in this ballance , cannot be deceived ( the measure being equal and just , and proper to the things which are therewith to be measured ) whereas the wisest of men , trusting either to their own understandings and judgments , or to the judgments and understandings of others , are liable to be deceived : and then ye will acknowledge what love this sprang from , and what light and life it sprang up in , though through a weak and contemptible vessel . isaac penington . concerning peace & good-will . the true peace is in the new nature , which puts an end to the warring and fighting spirit inwardly , and turns the whole strength of the battel against the enemies of the soul . in the old nature there are lusts after dominion , and after liberty to the flesh , and fulfilling the self-will of the earthly mind : but these are all brought down in the renewed spirit , by the power , love , and sweetness of the gospel of peace . here is indeed uprightness of heart to the lord , quietness of spirit under whatever the lord suffers to be , and good-will towards all men , waiting on the lord for his seasons of tender bowels , with strong cries and tears , even for those , who , to the eye of man , may seem so hardened against god and his truth , as to be out of the reach of mercy . the ancient principle of truth, or, the light within asserted and held forth according to true experience and the faithful testimony of the scriptures also an appeal to the witness of god in all consciences which is the more sure word of prophesie, the testimony of the scriptures without, or the voice and testimony of the light and spirit of god within in the heart / by isaac pennington. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) the ancient principle of truth, or, the light within asserted and held forth according to true experience and the faithful testimony of the scriptures also an appeal to the witness of god in all consciences which is the more sure word of prophesie, the testimony of the scriptures without, or the voice and testimony of the light and spirit of god within in the heart / by isaac pennington. penington, isaac, - . p. s.n.], [london? : . reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng society of friends -- doctrines. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - judith siefring sampled and proofread - judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the ancient principle of truth ; or the light within asserted and held forth , according to true experience , and the faithful testimony of the scriptures . also , an appeal to the witness of god in all consciences , which is the more sure word of prophesie , the testimony of the scriptures without , or the voice and testimony of the light and spirit of god within in the heart . by one once greatly distressed , but now at length in the tender mercy of the lord , effectually visited and redeemed , by the light and power of truth , isaac pennington . printed in the year , . the preface . the true ministers of the gospel , the ministers of the new covenant , were ordained and appointed by god to be ministers of light , ministers of righteousness , ministers of the spirit , mat. . . cor. . . and chap. . . and this was their work and service , even to preach the light , to deliver their message concerning the light , which they heard of christ and were sent by him 〈◊〉 preach , as is recorded , john . . 〈◊〉 that they were to tell men what the light was , and where it was to be found , and to turn men from darkness to light , from sin and unrighteousness to purity and righteousness , from the spirit and power of satan to the spirit and power of the living god ( dan. . . act. . . ) that so they might come from under satans authority , power and kingdom of darkness , into the light , wherein christ reigns as king , priest and prophet , unto and over all his : who is faithful in all his house , as son and lord of all , distributing life , righteousness , mercy and peace to his whole family , as they abide in him and walk in subjection to his spirit . so that there is no condemnation to them that are gathered unto christ , engrafted into him , and who abide in him ( walking not after the flesh , but after the spirit ) who is the quickener , guide and rule of all the children of the new covenant . for christ is the way , the truth and the life in and to them all , and is made by god all in all unto them . he is their shepherd , their king , their captain , their vine , their olive tree , their leader , their door , their path , their rule , their righteousness , their holiness , their wisdom , their redemption , their altar , their sacrifice , their priest , their prophet , their sabboth , their light , their day-spring , their bright and morning star , their son , their shield , their rock , and their high tower. what shall i say ! god hath gathered together all things into one , even in him , whose spirit , life and light eternal is the one substance , which answers all the figures and shadows of the law ; and they are all comprehended and fulfilled and end in him . so that he is the end of the law for righteousness , to all that believe in him . and he ministers righteousness , he ministers truth , he ministers life , he ministers salvation , he ministers power , he ministers pure heavenly wisdom , and no good thing will he with-hold , from them that come unto him in the drawings of his father , and follow him whithersoever he leads , and obey his gospel , which is everlastingly new and living . now this precious ministry hath been withdrawn and hid from ages and generations , in the long night of the great apostacy and thick darkness . and how could it be otherwise ? for men being in the dark , and having erred from the true spirit , and let in a wrong spirit , and built up wrong churches , and having not known the true wilderness ( nor being willing to flee into it ) whither the true church fled , and was nourished by god with the true food , even with the true living vertue and nourishment , all this dark night of the apostacy : i say , how could they come at the true light , the true spirit , the true power ( from which the true ministry is ) which did not visibly now appear , but was with the true church in the wilderness ? so that there hath been a true church all this while , which the gates of hell have not been able to prevail against , as to her inward temple and altar ( nor over the worshippers which have worship'd therein ) although they have gained the outward court , god having severed it from his inward building , and given it to the gentiles in spirit , who are not true jews , who are not worshippers in the spirit and in the truth rev. . , . but now at length , blessed be the lord , the long night of darkness araws towards an end , yea is come to an end in many spirits , and the true light is broken forth again ( and shineth again inwardly in many ) and the true mninstry is revived again , and the everlasting gospel ( the everlasting covenant of life , mercy and salvation , in and through christ jesus the light and life of men ) preached again . for now , it is not only outwardly read that god is light : but the message hath been received , and persons chosen and sent forth by god to publish it , and to turn men from darkness to light , and from satans power to god. and , blessed be the lord , the publishing of this precious testimony ( in the power and authority of the most high ) hath not been in vain : but the captivity of many hath been broken by the power of light , and the power and strength of darkness ( inwardly ) overturned by it . o how hath the strong man which kept the house , before the stronger then he appeared in the name and authority of his father , i s●y , how hath he trembled at the inward and spiritual appearance of him that was stronger than he ? and how have the pillars of the old building been shaken ? how hath the witness of god been reached to in mens spirits ? how have the dead been raised , the blind eye opened , the deaf ear unstopped , the dumb tongue loosed , the lame caused to leap as an hart and the tongue of the dumb to sing , the inward spiritual leprosie cleansed and done away forever , the wounded healed , the broken-hearted bound up : and what hath not the lord done inwardly and spiritually for his people , who have been sensible of his appearance , and gathered by his spirit and power to the true shiloh , who is the true shepherd , the land of the living , the holy city and temple , the light of the city , the life of the city , the gates and wall of the city , the king and kingdom both : for his life , his nature , his spirit is all and in all . ah what do we desire to have , but christ the seed , and this seed sown in our hearts and abiding in us , and his life righteousness and glory , his holy power dominion and kingdom springing up in it ! and as , in the apostles days , there was the seal to their testimony in peoples hearts , where their ministry was ordered by the lord and was received : even so it is now . o how doth the witness answer in mens hearts and consciences ! and they that keep to the witness and its testimony , not hearkening after words to the wisdom of the flesh , how do they become living epistles to be seen and read of all men , as the lord pleaseth to open that eye in any , which can see and read . now to be often testifying of this light ( which the lord hath visited us with , and wherein we experience the knowledg of his son , and redemption by him ) to us it is not grievous , and it is good and safe for others . therefore , it arising in my heart in the springings of life , and lying upon me ( as in the sight of the lord ) to give forth this further ( short ) testimony , for the sakes of such as have any desire to know and experience the truth as it is in jesus ; i am given up in spirit to serve my god therein , and do give it forth in humility , in fear , in tenderness of spirit , in true love , with breathings to my god , that he would please to open the hearts of those that shall be inclin'd to read it , that they may feel somewhat of that in themselves from which the testimony came , & so there-from may hear , in true sense and understanding , the true and good report of the sound of life and salvation in this our age , and may learn so to turn inwardly from the darkness to the light ; from the power of satan to gods spirit and appearance inwardly , that the ●rm of the lord may be revealed in them and powerfully stretched out for them . and this is the precious knowledge of christ indeed , even to know christ the power of god , christ the wisdom of god inwardly revealed and working in the heart , destroying sin there , and building up the holy building , wherein he himself will dwell and reign . o that all that truly breath after him , might not be with-held from him ( and his living testimony & inward appearance ) by the power of darkness & deceit , which works subtilly in the heart against the appearance , power and work of the lord there : but might thus come to know him , amen . the ancient principle of truth , or the light within asserted and held forth , according to true experience and the faithful testimony of the scriptures , in the answers to four questions . . what this light is , which we testifie of , and what is the nature of it ? . what it doth inw●rdly in the heart ? . how it cometh to be lighted , set up and and increased there ? . how it cometh to be diminished or exstinguished in any ? quest . . what is this light which we so earnestly testifie of , and whereof we affirm , that all men are ( or have been ) in some measure enlightened by it ? and what is the nature of it ? answ . it is that which shineth from god in the heart , wherein god is neer to men , and wherein and whereby men may seek after god and find him . god is a spirit : and his spirit and presence is neer to all men . whither shall i go from thy spirit ? or whither shall i flee from thy presence ? ( psal . . . &c. ) it is impossible for any so to do . for god , who is a spirit ( and the father of spirits ) is nigh to every spirit . every spirit depends upon him the fountain of spirits , and hath its being , life and motion from him and in him , after a sence , though not after such a sence , as they who are quickened by him experience . now god , who is light , being so neer every man : doth he never shine upon them ? they are darkness : but doth he never appear in the darkness ? he who is light loveth mankind : doth he never visit them with his love ? he knoweth what and how great inward and spiritual enemies man-kind hath : doth he never make any discoveries of their enemies to them ? yes ; the light is neer all man-kind to discover to them and help them against the darkness : and the love is neer to help them against the enmity which destroyeth , and so to save them . for whosoever joyneth to the light of gods spirit , cannot but witness salvation thereby : for it is of a saving nature , and bringeth salvation with it to all that receive it . christ is in it , and is known by it ( inwardly , spiritually , livingly known ) and he is not nor can be known without it . he that knoweth the light of gods spirit , knoweth christ ; and he that believeth in it , believeth in him : and he that knoweth not nor believeth therein , neither knoweth nor believeth in christ . so that as the jews circumcision outward , and their knowledge and thinking to be justified by the righteousness and works of the law ( which most of them brake and were transgressors of , though paul said , he was touching the righteousness which is in the law , blameless ) i say , as this was disowned and denyed by christ and his apostles , and the circumcision and work of god on the hearts of the gentiles set over it , and exalted above it : ( as rom. . ) so is it now also . the knowledge of those , and belief of those who own the light and believe in the light , is owned by god's spirit ( in this our day ) for the true believing in the lord jesus christ , and for that knowledge which is life eternal : and the knowing and believing on him , as men account it , according to their apprehensions of the letter , without this , is reckoned with god for ignorance and unbelief . so that , in this is god known , in this is christ believed in . here god draws nigh to every man , and is a god not afar off , but nigh at hand ; and his salvation is nigh , and his righteousness ready to be revealed here : and here every man may seek after and obtain the knowledge of him , the saving knowledge , the knowledge of the grace , of the gift of grace which brings salvation . in this is the son kissed , in this is he drawn nigh to , and come to by the soul , and not out of it . here are the drawings of the father felt . let any man feel this , he feels that which begets to god : he feels that which comes from the son , is of the nature of the son , wherein the father draws ( the heart of the child whom he begets ) to the son. and in this the soul comes : it comes out of the darkness wherein christ is not nor dwels , into the light wherein christ is with the father : and so in this the soul is ever neer , and out of it still afar off . in this is the holy root witnessed , and the ingrafting thereinto : out of this the holy root is not known , nor can men understand what it is to be ingrafted into him , and how he is an olive tree , a vine , a door , a shepherd , a leader , a captain , a redeemer . nor can men possibly know the voice of the true shepherd , from the voice of a stranger , till they come hither ; nor how the true shepherd walks before his sheep , and what it is to follow him out of that which destroys , into that which regenerates , makes new and living , till they come hither . now this inward light is abundantly testified of in the scriptures . as first by moses , who speaking of the other covenant , the new covenant , the covenant of circumcising the heart , turneth or directeth the mind to this word or commandment nigh , whereby alone it can be done , as deut. . and this was the reason , why god so often commanded the jews to circumcise their hearts , and to wash them and make them clean , from their wicked wayes and vain thoughts , because moses had directed their minds to that , and that was near to them , wherein and whereby it might be done . in another place , he bids them make them a new heart , ezek. . . how could that be done ? why , by turning to gods spirit which strove with them , his power would effect it in them : and men are said to purifie their hearts , through the spirit , in loving and obeying the truth which doth it , pet. . . joh. . . dly , by job , who speaks of gods candle shining upon his head , and of walking through darkness by his light , chap. . . he speaks likewise of those that rebel against the light , that know not the wayes thereof , nor abide in the paths thereof , chap. . . dly , by david , who by it saw through the tipes and shadows to the substance , and grew wiser then his teachers , he knowing the word within , and having his candle lighted by it , so that he knew the inward law which converts the soul , and was led by gods light and truth shining in his inward parts , psal . . . thly , by solomon , the commandment is a lamp , and the law light , and the reproofs of instruction the way of life , prov. . . every one that experienceth the light , the law , the commandment within , knoweth it to be thus . again , saith he , the path of the just is as the shining light , that shineth more and more unto the perfect day , chap. . . just as a light , which shines outwardly , is to the outward man : such is the inward light to the inward man ; ye more : for inwardly , the light and the way is all one . christ is the way , the truth and the life , which are three names of one and the same thing . and he that walks in the light , walks in the way of life and holiness ; which he that walks in the darkness , walks out of . i shall mention but one place more , which is very differently rendred , it is chap. . . the new translation renders it thus , the spirit of man is the candle of the lord , searching all the inward parts of the belly . the old thus , the light of the lord is the breath of man , and searcheth all the bowels of the belly . the heart of man , ( the unregenerate mind , the unregenerate spirit ) is deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked : that whereby god searcheth it , is his light , his candle , his own holy spirit . thly , by the prophets , as jsaiah , jeremy , ezekiel , micah , &c. who said , he hath shewed thee , o man , what is good ; and what doth the lord require of thee , but to do justly , and to love mercy , and to humble thy self to walk with thy god ? chap. . . how doth god shew this to mankind , but by the inward light of his spirit . thly , by john baptist , who was the fore-runner , and testified of christ as of the inward and spiritual baptizer who had his fan in his hand : what is that ? what doth christ fan with ? what doth he fan , and with what ? the light within is a fan , the spirit within , is a spirit of judgment and burning : it scatters the darkness , ye● it consumes and burns up the dross and stubble there . thly , by christ himself , who said , this is the condemnation , that light is come into the world , and men loved darkness rather then light , because their deeds were evil , john . . mark how christ preached the light ( the seed , the kingdom , the leaven ) and bid men bring their deeds to it , and blamed them that did not , ver . . . how can there be an inward jew , an inward circumcision , without an inward law , inward light , an inward testimony ? and to this inward law and testimony , must the inward jew daily have recourse , and bring his deeds thither , to be judged and scanned there . again , christ saith , i am the light of the world : he that followeth me , shall not walk in darkness , but shall have the light of life , chap. . . how is christ the light of the world , or how was christ the light of the world ? was he only so , as he appeared in that body of flesh ? is he not so in his inward and spiritual appearance ? is he not the universal light , the son of righteousness , which enlighteneth the whole dark world ? yet again he saith , yet a little while is the light with you ; walk while ye have the light , lest darkness come upon you : for he that walketh in darkness , knoweth not whither he goeth . while ye have the light , believe in the light , that ye may be the children of light , chap. . . . this is christs direction to men how they may become true believers , to wit , by believing in the light. the light shines in the darkness ( ye were darkness ) and by believing in it , men become children of it . thly , by the apostles , and evangelists . they were sent to turn men from darkness to light , acts. . . and they testified of the light they were to turn men to : delivered their message that god was light , and that in him was no darkness at all . they preached christ the light , the life , the way , the truth . they turned men from satans spirit which is darkness , to gods spirit which is light. john the evangelist testified of the word which was in the beginning , and said , in him was life , and the life was the light of men . and the light shineth in darkness , and the darkness comprehended it not , chap. . , . and again saith , speaking of him , that was the true light , which lighteth every man that cometh into the world , vers . . paul saith , whatsoever doth make manifest is light , ehes . . . wherefore awake thou that sleepest , and arise from the dead ( vers . . ) for god hath sent forth the light of his son to rouse thee . again , he professedly averreth , that the word nigh in the mouth and heart , was that word of faith which he preached , rom. . . if so , then that is the word of faith which is to be believed in , if men would believe in christ and be saved by him . james speaketh of god as the father of lights , from whom every good and perfect gift proceedeth , chap. . . then surely from him is the grace , and the gift ( the free gift ) by grace , which is upon all to justification of life , that receive it and follow the teachings of it . peter speaks of the more sure word of prophesie , to which men should take heed ; and wait , in taking heed to that , for the dawning of the day , and the arising of the day-star in the heart , pet. . . indeed , all men ought to wait for , and give heed to the light of god's holy spirit , and the holy prophesies , warnings and directions thereof in their hearts . and john , at last as i may say , in that book of the revelation ( closing up the testimony of that age and generation ) speaks of walking in the light of the lamb , chap. . , . ( which every one that comes to witness the true light , ought to do , else there is no true fellowship with god , nor with his sanctified ones , who are gathered into and walk in the light , even as god is in the light , john . . ) and the angel that opened the prophesies and mysteries of that book to john , said , that the testimony of jesus is the spirit of prophesie , chap. . . so then , he that hath this spirit of prophesie , he that hath this inward light , hath the testimony of jesus : but he that hath it not , hath not the testimony it self , but only words concerning the testimony . for this is the distinction between the true believer and the false : the true believer hath the spirit of prophesie , the witness in himself , ( john . . ) the false believer hath but the outward testimony or relation of things , but not the inward substance , the covenant and law of life within . quest . . what doth this light do inwardly in the hearts of those that receive it , believe in it and give up to it ? ans . it doth all that is requisite to be done , from the souls coming out of spiritual egypt into the land of rest ; and all that is needful for its growth and preservation there . first , it enlighteneth . it sheweth what is evil , and also what is good , according to the measure and proportion of it , and according to gods causing it to shine in the heart . it discovers the mystery of darkness , the mystery of ungodliness , the mystery of iniquity , the mystery of deceit in all its mysterious workings : for nothing is hid from the light of him with whom we have to do . and it also discovers the mystery of godliness , the mystery of holiness , the pure way and commandment of life ; and gives all the believers ( the true believers in christ ) this experience , that his commandment is life everlasting . there is nothing the heart needs desire to know of god , but this makes it manifest , in the due season . it opens the very mystery of the scriptures , gives the right understanding and application of the promises , and fulfils the prophesies thereof in the heart . dly , it doth not only manifest the good and evil , but likewise inclines the mind to chuse the good and refuse the evil . it draws from the evil and towards the good : yea , and the soul is made willing in the day of him who is light , and who appears in the light , and reveals his power there . there is a way , an high way spoken of jsa . . . called the way of holiness , which the unclean can neither discern nor pass over to : but the light of the lord jesus christ , the measure of grace and truth wherewith he enlightens men , so manifests and leads into this way , that they that are taught and guided by him shall walk therein and not err . dly , it scatters the darkness , breaks the power of the enemy ; it makes one with him who is all power , and giveth ●o partake thereof , so that power is given to become sons , in the light , to the children of the light : power given to become kings and priests to god : power given to reign in the dominion of his life , in the dominion of his truth , over sin , over death , over deceit ; and to offer up the holy living sacrifices to god. what shall i say ? it is one with christ , it is of his heavenly spirit and nature , it makes way for him , it leads to him , it fills with him , it brings into unity and fellowship both with the father and the son , where the peace which passeth understanding , and the joy unspeakable and full of glory abounds . this is the gospel-message , that god is light : and they that are gathered into and abide in this light , they are gathered into and abide in unity and fellowship , both with the father and the son. david had great sense , and great experience of this light of gods holy spirit , & of his truth sent forth , manifested and revealed in his inward parts , as is signified , psal . . . and again in that vehement prayer of his , psal . . . o send out thy light and thy truth ; let them lead me , let them bring me unto thy holy hill , and to thy tabernacles . then will i go unto the altar of god , unto god the gladness of my joy : yea , upon the harp will i praise thee , o god , my god. indeed when the light shines and the truth springs up in the heart , it leads to him that is true , it leads to the holy hill and mountain of the lord and to the inward altar which they have no right to who serve and and worship at the outward ; and the harp is known whereon the most high is praised , even that inward harp , whereof davids outward harp was but the figure . therefore they that come to the holy hill of god , to the mountain of the lord's house , and to that holy building which is reared there , they invite and incourage others ●o walk in that light which led them thither , wherein communion with god and one with another , and the blessings of life and peace are enjoyed , isa . . . but what should i speak of the sufficiency of the light and grace of the spirit of our lord jesus christ , or of what it is able to do , and of what he is pleased to work by it ? i shall only say this : that as the fulness was enough for christ , and to fit him for the work which he had to do : so the measure of grace and truth which he bestows , is enough for every man. my grace is sufficient for thee , said god to paul : and so it is for every man. there is no want of sufficiency in the grace of god , in the seed of the kingdom , in the pearl of price , in the holy leaven , in the heavenly salt ; but the vertue and strength of it is greater , then the enemy is able to withstand : and he that keeps 〈◊〉 and departs not from it , shall feel life and power springing up in it , to quicken him and carry him through all that god requires of him . for the water which christ gives is a well , springing up ( in him to whom it is given ) unto life eternal : and this water is able to wash , able to nourish , able to fill the soul with living vertue , which waiteth for it and partaketh of it . and all the nations of them that are saved , are to walk in the light of god's spirit . to this men are to be turned , unto this they are to be gathered , into this they are to be translated ( even from the kingdom of darkness , into the sons marvellous light ) and being changed by it ( into its nature ) become light in the lord , and ought to walk in the light , as god is in the light. john . . quest . . how doth the mind come to be enlighted , and the candle of the lord come to be set iup in the soul ? answ . by god's causing it to shine there , and the minds being turned to it and given up to be exercised by it , as it pleaseth the lord to cause it to shine . the power of the lord reacheth to the pure principle of life and light in the heart , in the seasons of his good pleasure . this being reached to and touched by the lord , answers his touch , his visit , his call : and the mind being turned to it , sensible of it , and willing to let it into its nature and spirit , and to become one with it , ( suffering with it and bearing its cross ; ) the seed cometh to grow there , the light which was hid and overwhelmed under the earth ( under the earthly wisdom , the earthly will , the earthly knowledge , the earthly desires , the earthly delights , &c. ) cometh to be lighted up there , yea the life cometh to be quickened more and more , and the holy leaven to spread more and more there . and this sensible plant of god's renown being thus entertained , and being not afterwards grieved , dispised , quenched or hurt , by the giving way to and letting in of that which is contrary to it , it shooteth up into a kingdom of righteousness , into a tree of righteousness , within the compass whereof and under the shadow whereof the soul sitteth down in peace and rest , and is defended and nourished with that which is pure and living , and full of the pure sap and vertue ; and so becomes strong in the lord , and in the power of his might , against the power and strength of darkness . now this all men may experience , ( at first in some low measure and degree , and afterwards more and more ) as they come to feel after , and have a sense of that which is of god and good in the heart , and come to joyn and give up to it . for then it will be working against and purging out that which is of a contrary nature , and overspreading the heart with its own nature : insomuch as , that which was the least , will become the greatest ; and that which was the lowest of all ( and indeed trampled under foot ) will rise up into dominion and power over all , and bring all under . so that the lofty city , the lofty building of fleshly wisdom , and of sin and iniquity in the heart , will be laid low ; and the feet of the seed shall tread it down , even the feet of that which was once poor and needy , until it was anointed , and its horn exalted by the lord. quest . . how is the light or candle of the lord diminished , and at length extinguished or put out in some ? or how cometh that about ? answ . by their neglecting , despising , quenching it , hearkening and giving way to the contrary spirit in its motions and temptations . for as the good , let in , stops and works out the evil : so the evil let in stops and works out the good. so the philistine-nature , given way to , stops the inward well , which jacob had digged and opened . there is a time wherein life is a mystery , a fountain sealed ; and there is a time wherein god unseals the fountain and opens the mystery in the heart . o then great care is to be had , and the soul is to lie very low in the pure fear , that it may continue in his goodness , and walk worthy of his love , that the fountain may be kept open , and the pure springs of the holy land flow , and not be sealed and shut up again . for there are some that rebel against the light , and they dwell in a dry land. there were some that did alwayes resist , and vex god's spirit , and the lord's spirit ceased striving with them , and gave them up to a reprobate sense and judgement concerning the things of god. there are some that do not improve god's good talent , and from them that which was once given , is again taken away . yea the candle of the wicked shall one time or other be put out , and they shall be silent in darkness , and their mouth stopped from having any thing to say against god , his truth and people for evermore . and all men had need to take heed , how they be wanton with the grace of god , or despise the day of their visitation by the holy light of god's spirit : for if god take away the talent , if god put out the inward candle , who can light it again ? o how did poor david , the man after god's own heart suffer , by letting the enemy's temptations in upon him , cast me not away from thy presence , said he , and take not thy holy spirit from me . indeed he did lose his condition at the present , and he speaks as a man in danger of being quite undone ; though afterwards he came to comfort and assurance , that god would restore to him the joy of his salvation , and light his candle and enlighten his darkness again . but i am not insensible of what doubts and disputes there are in mens minds , about this testimony which we give ( from certain knowledge and true experience ) concerning the light , wherewith god enlighteneth souls . at first , when the testimony first came forth , men would not grant such a thing , as a light from god in men , which convinced of and reproved for sin. but now there are many will assent to that , who yet cannot believe it to be a measure of the grace and truth which comes by jesus christ , and that in it the sufficiency and power of god is revealed against the strength and power of satan . but let such seriously consider . first , who they are that have testified and testifie of this light ? they are persons who , generally , have been deeply exercised in religion : persons , who have read the scriptures very diligently , with much praying and waiting upon god for the true , certain and clear understanding of them : persons , who ( several of them ) have had experience of most ( if not all other ) separated wayes ; but could never meet with the answer of the cry of their souls , nor with satisfaction to that birth , which breathed in them after the lord , night and day . dly , what their testimony is , which is manifold , as first , that they were by the lord ( even by his holy spirit , and the shinings and springings of his precious seed in them ) turned to this light , and shewn it to be of god. dly , that in turning to it , they still met with the presence , appearance , and power of the lord working in their hearts . dly , that it did not only discover sin to them , but also powerfully resist it , fight against it and bring it under ; which no light and power , besides the light and power of god's spirit can do . thly , that the life of the son is manifested and revealed in it , and they come therein truly to see , and taste and handle the word of eternal life . thly , that in this light they come to witness cleansing by the blood of the lamb , and the everlasting covenant made with them ( even the sure mercies of david ) and the holy and precious promises fulfilled in them , whereby they are made partakers of the divine nature , and come to witness an enterance into the holy city , and drink of the streams of the pure chrystal river , which refresh and make glad the city of our god , and all the tabernacles wherein he dwels . lastly , to mention no more , the lord hath shewn them , how this had been formerly with them , even in the dayes of their former profession ; and how god had wrought by this in them in former times , though they then knew it not ; and that all their ability then to understand any thing of god aright , or to pray unto him , or reap any true benefit from the scriptures , was through the stirring of this in them , whereby god even then in some measure enlightened and quickened their minds . for , there being such a principle in man , it works variously , and many times when he is not aware of it : and he hath benefit thereby , if he resist it not , but receive its influence and operation , though he hath not the distinct knowledge and discerning of it . dly , again consider , whether the light of christs spirit , or the grace and truth which is by jesus christ , hath not this property of discovering , convincing and reproving for sin ? doubtless the law of the spirit of life in christ jesus , in the lowest ministration of it , is of that nature that it discovereth , and fighteth against the law of sin and death , wherever it finds it . and whether the comforter , the holy spirit of truth , who leads out of all error and falshood and into all truth , is not as well to be known by this , even by his convincing the world of sin , and inwardly reproving for sin , as by his comforting of the saints , in their holy travels out of sin and battels against sin ? consider thly , whether any thing can convince of sin , but the light of god's holy spirit shining in the heart ? there may be an outward declaration of sin by the law outward ; but it never reacheth the heart and conscience , but by the shining of the light inward : nay , it cannot so much as reach to the understanding , but as god opens the heart , and brings home the conviction by his light and power . this we have experience of in the jews , who though the prophets came with certain evidence and demonstration from god's spirit , yet they were not convinced thereby , but stood it out against the prophets , and justified themselves against the voice and word of the lord , their eyes being closed , their ears shut and hearts hardened against that of god in them , as may be read in jeremiah , chap. . and in divers other places , even to admiration . and what wickedness is so great , which the hardened man will not plead for , and be defending and justifying himself in ? yea , if god do open mens understandings in some measure , so that they cannot but confess such and such things to be evil in general ( as pride , covetousness , drunkenness , riotousness , excess in apparel , lying , swearing , &c. ) yet they are not able to see the evil and danger of these things in and to themselves , but have covers and excuses to hide them , unless the inward light and spirit of the lord search their hearts , and make them manifest to them . thly , consider the weight and proper tendency of these two scriptures , and do not form another meaning , and so put off the drift and intent of god's holy spirit in them . the first is that of the apostle , ephes . . . . but all things that are reproved , are made manifest by the light : for whatsoever doth make manifest , is light. wherefore he saith , awake thou that sheepest , &c. every man is bid to awake , because every man hath some proportion of that in him , which ( if hearkened to ) will reprove , rouse up and awaken him , and lead him from among the dead , to him who gives the light and causeth it to shine in him , even in the midst of his darkness and corruption , that it might awaken him out of it . the other scripture is that of gal. . ● . where the apostle speaks of the flesh its lusting against the spirit , and the spirit against the flesh , and that these two are contrary . did not god's spirit strive with the old world ? not only with the sons of god , who had corrupted themselves , but with the rest also ? and what is it that hath striven with wicked men since , and that doth strive with wicked men still ? is it not the same good spirit ? what is it also that inwardly resists and lusts against the will and strivings of god's spirit ? is it not flesh ? so here are the two seeds , the two principles ( which are contrary one to the other ) near man. for there is the creature man ( which of right is the lords ) into whom the destroyer hath gained enterance , and in whom he rules by the law of sin and death . now , he who made man seeketh after him , and findeth out his enemy in man , and giveth forth a law against him inwardly in the heart : which so far as any man gives ear to , believes and receives , there ariseth presently a fight and striving between these two contrary principles in him , so that this man cannot do the things that he would . now that which thus strives against sin in any man , and troubles him because of sin , reproving and condemning him for it ; that is of another nature then the flesh , ( which harbours sin ) and contrary to it . lastly , consider the great love of god to mankind , and the great care he hath of them . first , as touching their bodies . how doth he provide for the bodies of all mankind ! he would have none hurt , none destroyed , but feedeth all , nourisheth all , making plentiful provision and giving fruitful seasons , causing his sun to shine and his rain to descend on all . then , as to their souls : he knoweth the preciousness thereof , and what the loss of a soul is : yea he knoweth how eager the devourer is to destroy , and setteth himself against him . he is the father of spirits , and his son the shepherd and bishop of souls , whose nature it is to gather and save ; and it is said expresly of god , by the testimony of the spirit of truth , that he would ●ave all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth . and whereas it was said to the jews , that god was as the potter , and they as the clay ; and he could make them vessels either of honour or dishonour at his pleasure , jer. . . yet it was said to this end , even to invite and incourage them to be subject to him , that they might be made vessels of honour by him , as appears ver . . now consider ; if god be as tender of souls , as of the bodies of men ; doth he not make provision for the soul , as well as for the body ? would he not have the soul live , and would he not have the soul fed , as well as the body ? if so : then needs must the light of his holy spirit shine inwardly throughout all nations , and the saving grace and power be manifest everywhere , even in every heart , in some measure , and the flesh and blood of the son of god ( which is the souls food ) be distributed to all . and truly , the lord is not an hard master to any , ( as the unprofitable servant , in every dispensation , is ready to account of him : ) for the times of ignorance and darkness god winketh at or passeth over , being very tender towards men in that estate : yea , a little that is of him , turned to and heeded , according to the measure of understanding that god gives , will be owned and accepted , even in the midst of a great deal of darkness and evil-working against it . there was a time before the law ( for the law was given by moses ) what saved then ? was it any thing but the saving grace , the saving light , the saving spirit , the holy anointing ? could any be saved , but thereby ? what saved under the law ? did the shadows then save , or the substance of life vailed under them ? did not the spirit then work inwardly , redeem inwardly , save inwardly ? did not the word or commandments nigh in the mouth and heart ( to which moses by gods direction had turned their minds ) enlighten and save inwardly ? and any of the gentiles , as this word or spirit of life did work in them , did it not circumcise inwardly and save them also ? so that though they had not the law or ministration of moses outward , yet they had the inward writing from god on their hearts , and shewed the work and efficacy of it there , and shall at last be justified by and according to the everlasting gospel , which justifieth all whatsoever , so far as in any measure they receive and are subject to the light and law of gods pure spirit , which the carnal mind cannot receive nor be subject to . o that men could dye to themselves , even to their own wisdom and prudency , and not lean to their own understandings , nor idolize their own apprehensions and conceivings , but wait to receive understanding from god , who giveth liberally of the true wisdom , to those that ask and wait a right ! and how doth god give true wisdom and understanding ? is it not by the shining of his light in the heart ? o that men were turned inwardly thither , and inwardly dead to that wisdom and prudency from which god ever hid things and ever will. he that will be truly wise , must first become a fool , that he may be wise : that is , he must not strive to learn in the comprehensive way of mans wisdom and prudency the things of gods kingdom , but feel the begettings of life in his heart , and in that receive somewhat of the new & heavenly understanding , and so dye to the other , & know no more the things of god after the flesh , that is , as a wise man , as a learned scribe , as a great disputant ( for where is the wise ? where is the scribe ? where is the disputer of this world ? can they find out the mystery of life , the mystery of gods kingdom in this age , any more then they could in former ages ? ) but become a babe , a fool , and so receive and bow to that which his own wisdom will call foolishness , and account weakness , but the other birth which is begotten and born of god , will know and daily experience to be the wisdom and power of god unto salvation . an appeal to the witness of god in all consciences ; which is the more sure word of prophesie , the testimony of the scriptures without , or the voice and testimony of the light and spirit of god within in the heart . the apostle peter speaks of a more sure word of prophesie ( or of a more sure prophetical word , as the greek hath it ) then that voice which came from heaven , which they heard , when they were with christ in the holy mount , pet. . , . now what this more sure word is , which ought to be given heed to in the most especial manner , more then to such an eminent voice and testimony from heaven , even from the excellent glory , it is a very great and weighty question . now some affirm that it is the word and testimony of the scriptures without , others affirm that its the voice , sound and testimony of the word of life within . i do not know a scripture that my heart hath been more tenderly sollicitous about , desiring to give due honour both to the spirit of god and to the holy scriptures , and also to understand what the lord would have me in the most especial manner give heed to , until the season came from him , in which he should cause the day to dawn and the day-star to arise in my heart . and now that others might come to the same understanding and satisfaction also , are these following considerations proposed in the weight of my spirit to them . first , consider how sure the word of prophesie was , how sure the voice and testimony from heaven was , then which the apostle directs them to somewhat as more sure . this i may clearly say of it , it was undoubtedly from god , and that in a very extraordinary manner , even in christs presence , when moses and elias were with him , and god bestowing upon him honour and glory , transfiguring him before his disciples , causing his face to shine as the sun , and making his raiment white as the light , mat. . . and the intent of it was to give the disciples full evidence and satisfaction ( for the voice was not for his sake , but for theirs ) or rather that they might have a full ground , after his death and resurrection , to testifie for the satisfaction and confirmation of others : for till then , they were to keep it secret , ver . . now that which was thus provided for this end , doubtless it was very sure , testified by them who were chosen to be faithful witnesses in this respect . dly , consider , whether the testimonies of the prophets concerning christ were surer , then this immediate voice from god himself ? were they surer to those that lived in those dayes , or to those that should come after , then this testimony was to the apostles and to those they did communicate it in the will and counsel of the lord ? the prophets did testifie from gods holy , unerring spirit : but they that lived in those dayes , did not alwayes believe and receive their prophesies , but sometimes doubted of them and questioned them ; yea their prophesies were not alwayes evident and clearly understood by those who desired to understand , but their visions were many times a book sealed , both to the learned and unlearned . but this testimony , this word of prophesie , this voice from the excellent glory ( this is my beloved son , hear him ) is a very plain , evident , full testimony , easie to be understood by any in that present or in after ages : and i must confess , as to my self , the reading of it did alwayes deeply affect and satisfie my heart . dly , consider the manner of gods appearing to the prophets , and compare it with the manner of this appearance . god appeared to them sometimes in visions , sometimes in dreams . moses saw a bush burning , and heard a voice . the vision of isaiah the son of amos , isa . . . and ezekiel saw visions , chap. . . and daniel had a dream and visions on his bed , dan. . . and jeremiah had that sweet prophesie ( of gods satiating the weary soul , and replenishing every sorrowful soul ) in his sleep , jer. . . now here , to these blessed apostles , was a vision given of the glory of christ , and of moses and elias with him ; not in the mind or head , as daniels visions were , dan. . . but the excellent glory did appear , and christ , moses and elias were really there together on the mount ( which is more then a prophetick vision of a thing ) and christ was cloathed with and swallowed up in the glory . for god the father did set himself to honour and glorifie him so , as never man was glorified before ; and the voice came ( the certain voice : what voice could be more certain ? ) from the excellent glory , this is my beloved son , in whom i am well-pleased , pet. . . and this pure vision of glory ( even of gods thus appearing , and christs thus transfiguring ) they saw , and heard the voice which came from heaven , when they were with him in the holy mount. now were ●he prophesies of the prophets that christ should be born in bethlehem , and ●hat he should be thus and thus , &c. equal to this in evidence and demonstration . why was john greater then the rest of the prophets ? was it not in that he was chosen to be the immediate fore-runner and preparer of the way , and could point with his finger to the messiah ? and yet , is not this immediate testimony from the excellent glory , greater then the testimony of john ? thly , consider , whether christs own words , in the flesh , to his disciples , were surer then this voice from the excellent glory ? if i should extol the words of christ in the flesh , above the words of the prophets which testified of him , should i therein do the words and testimonies of the prophets any wrong ? he was the son , he had the fulness of life , the fulness of the spirit , the great authority and vertue of god his father . god ( saith the apostle ) who at sundry times , and in divers manners , spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets , hath in these last dayes spoken unto us by his son. ( hebr. . , . ) seeming to exalt and magnifie gods speaking by his son , and the way of this ministration above the ministraon of the prophets ( which ministration was first by him in flesh , afterwards in spirit , which is properly called the ministration of the spirit , cor. . . ) now consider , whether this sure word of prophesie from the excellent glory , so immediately from the majesty on high , was not intended by him as a seal to the faith of the disciples , as a seal to christ's appearance in flesh , and to what he had taught them ( which was sometimes in parables , and not so fully understood by them ; ) and whether this was not more bright , more ravishing , more certain , more establishing , then his common presence and appearance among them , and then the words which he from the father , not the father so immediately himself spake to them ? for that which is given to confirm a thing , is ( in order of nature and for evidence sake ) more certain and clear , then that which it is given to confirm . thly , consider , whether the voice of gods spirit and light within , in the heart , be not more clear and certain to him that hears it , then any word or testimony from without ? is it not a surer word of prophesie , then this relation or testimony of the apostles , of what they heard from the excellent glory ? yea is it not surer then any testimony of the scriptures , or then all outward testimonies put together . thly , consider , whether they who are turned from darkness to the light , even to the inward manifestation of gods holy spirit , ought not to give diligent heed unto it , until the day dawn and the day-star arise in their hearts . lastly , consider , what is the difference between this light shining ( as a word of prophesie ) in the dark place , and the day dawning and the day-star arising in the heart ? is it not the same light , only further revealed and shining in it's glory , in the holy and pure place ? the apostle paul excellently openeth the thing , coloss . . . , . first he speaketh of the word in general , which he was to fulfil , or fully to preach . then he sheweth how this word is a mystery , hid in the gentiles ( for so the greek vers . . is ) even in them that believe not ; the word is nigh there , the instruction and commandment of life nigh there . but , in those that receive the grace , and believe in the light , and so become children of the light , and walk in the light as god is in the light ; in them christ is risen , and they are risen together with him , and he is in them the hope of glory . so that the day hath dawned , there the day-star hath arisen ; and they know not only a measure of grace from christ , but christ himself arisen , dwelling , living , acting , walking in them , and they in him . let these things be duly considered of and equally weighed in the holy ballance , and then i dare appeal to every serious and sober heart and mind , whether the inward light , the inward word , the word nigh in the mouth and heart , and the holy living testimony thereof , the voice of the witness within , of the prophesie within , be not surer to that man that hath it , and hears and knows the voice of it , then any outward voice or testimony whatsoever ? object . but some may object thus , or after this manner . i am satisfied that there is a word nigh in the mouth and heart ( to which moses did direct the jews , and the apostles the christians ) and that this word doth enlighten the mind , and doth separate in the mouth between words and words , and is a swift witness against the bad words , and a justifier of the good words , which come from the truth and uprightness of the heart , and are seasoned with grace . i also believe that this word is quick and powerful in the heart , separating and dividing between the thoughts and intents there , and that the testimony thereof is surer and clearer ( as to the hearts in which it shines , and to them whose spiritual ears are opened to hear its voice ) then any words and testimonies from without . and i am satisfied also , that they who are the sheep of christ , do thus hear the shepherds voice , and do know both the voice behind them , when it comes after them to reprove their wandrings and direct their minds into the true way , and also the voice before them , when the shepherd ( who is the leader ) putteth forth his sheep , and goeth before them and they follow him , for they knew his voice , john . . yea , i have had the experience hereof in my own heart : for i have felt that work within , and that living sweet testimony of gods spirit in my own heart , which hath been more to me , then all that ever i heard or read , from without : so that i can truly say ( with the samaritans , john . . ) now i believe , not because of the testimonies or words i have heard from without , but from the evidence and demonstration of life and of gods holy spirit in my own heart . nor can i see , how the apostle peter in this place , can prefer the testimonies of the prophets ( for that which is called the new testament , was not yet written and added to the old ) before this glorious immediate testimony from god almighty , which christ was honoured with , and they were greatly honoured in being admitted to be beholders and witnesses of . yet somewhat sticks with me , namely those words of the apostle , ver . . . wherein he plainly seems to me to speak of the scriptures or writings of the prophets , as if that had been the more sure word of prophesie , which in this place he had directed to . for why should he say thus , knowing this first , &c. unless he had intended the same word of prophesie , which he had been speaking of before , and directing their minds how they might make use of that word of prophesie ? answ . peter was the minister of the circumcision , and he was to deal with people who were great admirers and studiers of the letter . therefore though he , as well as paul and john and the other apostles ( rom. . and acts . . and john . ) was to direct men to the word within and light within : yet he knew it was of great concernment to them , rightly to read and be able to understand the letter without . therefore having first directed them to the word of prophesie , to the path of the just , which is the inward shining light , to the light which shines more and more in the dark place , to them that give heed to it : in the next place it was very proper , useful and necessary , to direct them how to read the scriptures aright . for indeed , the oracles of god were given to them , rom. . . and they ought to be diligent in the reading of them , that they might understand the holy prophesies and precious promises , &c. and reap the hope and comfort of them , and be made partakers of the divine nature , which is the thing promised . and not only to the jews , but to the christians gathered from among the gentiles in that age , were the scriptures greatly useful : and so they are also to such as are gathered by the holy spirit and power of god in this age. the prophesies , the judgments , the promises , the mercies , the experience , &c. are all useful and profitable , to those that read and understand them in the light of gods holy spirit . but the first thing needful is to turn a mans mind to the light , that he may have somewhat to guide him , somwhat to stay his mind upon in reading the scriptures , somwhat to open and unseal the holy and divine words and mysteries to him . for no man can truly and rightly understand the scriptures , but as his mind is opened by the lord , and the understanding of words and things given him . so that this is exceeding necessary to be known ( after a man is turned to the light and word of prophesie within , and comes to read the outward oracles and testmonies of the holy spirit ) that all holy men spake not in their own wills ; not in the will of the flesh , not in the will of man ; but as the spirit of god gave them words and moved them to speak . and those words , spoken by gods spirit , knoweth none but that spirit which spake them . so that no man ought to venture by his private spirit , to undertake to open and interpret those words ; but he must first receive the same word of life , the same spirit of prophesie within , and wait upon him and learn to know his voice , who openeth what and when he pleaseth to the sons of men , either of what he spake formerly , or of what he pleaseth to speak now . and so , when the same word of life speaks in a mans heart now , shewing things to come , either concerning a mans self or others , that man must be careful to retire and lie very low before the lord , waiting upon him for the true understanding and right interpreting of his own words , else a man may easily mis-understand and mis-apply what was truly and rightly spoken . so that this is the right way of understanding the words of prophesie from the holy men of god in former ages , and the instructions of the word of life in the heart . the secrets of the lord are with them that fear him . in the true fear the ear is opened and the right understanding given : but in the wisdom of the flesh , and in the confidence thereof , it is easie erring at any time from the true sense and right use of that , which was opened and given by god , either for the souls own good , or for the good of others . to conclude this appeal : there is one consideration on my heart to propose to the serious and sober minded ; and oh that they might rightly consider and understand it . david was a man after gods own heart , a wise man , an inwardly exercised man , an experienced man , an holy , spiritual , heavenly man ; a man who knew the inward , everlasting kingdom , and had the spirit of god , and witnessed his truth in the inward parts . can ye think that david did not know the word and commandment of life within ? did not god write his law in his heart ? how else could he become a man after gods own heart ? did not he witness the everlasting covenant and the law thereof , the new law , the living law , even the law of the spirit of life in christ jesus ? now when david said , the law of the lord is perfect , converting the soul : what law did he mean ? what is the law , which converts the soul to god ? can any thing less then an inward power , an inward light , an inward law , an inward life , then the inward drawings and teachings of gods spirit , convert the soul to god ? and what testimony is that , which makes wise the simple ? is it not the inward testimony ? what made him wiser then the ancients , and then his teachers , who knew and could teach the law outward ? were they not the inward teachings and inward precepts of gods holy spirit from the word of life within , which doubtless was very nigh him , he being a man so exercised by gods spirit , and so formed after his heart ? and what are those right statutes , which rejoyce the heart ? and the pure commandment , which enlightens the eyes ? and the clean fear , and the righteous judgments ? are not these all things known within , and received within ? doth not god put his fear within , in the heart ? doth not god reveal his righteous judgements within , against sin and iniquity ? o how did david cry out , because of gods dreadful judgements upon him for sin , and said , his sore ran in the night , and he watered his couch with his tears ? and in another place , my flesh trembleth for fear of thee , and i am afraid of thy judgements . and when he speaketh so much ( as in psal . . of gods word , gods law , his testimonies , precepts , statutes , judgements , &c. what doth he speak of ? doth he speak of the outward , or inward ministration of the word in the heart ? doth he not speak of the inward writing ? of the law in the heart ? of the commandment in the heart ? of the testimony of life there ? for he had the testimony within , the spirit within , the law within , the light within , the inward and spiritual kingdom ( wherein the holy dominion of god is revealed ) he knew within : and so , believing , could speak of the power and glory thereof , and of gods wonderous works , psal . . and when he said , thy word is a lamp unto my feet , and a light unto my path : what word did he mean ? did he mean the letter or law outward ? or the word nigh in the mouth and heart , which moses had testified of and directed the jews to , and he himself had been very well acquainted with ? when , again , he saith , wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way ? and immediately giveth the answer , by taking heed according to thy word . doth he mean the letter without , or the word within ? what is it , that cleanseth the heart ? that cleanseth the way ? is it any less then the water of life , then the blood of the everlasting covenant , then the word and life of truth within ? sanctifie them by thy truth , thy word is truth . in the sense of that inwardly and obedience to it , is the renewing and sanctification felt . and so this brings to be undefiled in the way , and to keep the testimonies of life , and preserves from doing iniquity . blessed are the undefiled in the way , saith he , who walk in the law of the lord. blessed are they that keep his testimonies , that seek him with the whole heart . they also do no iniquity , &c. had he no experience of these things himself ? yea surely . he knew the holy heart , the pure heart , the new and heavenly image , the heart after gods own heart : and he knew what it was to walk in innocency , and to be kept out of sin : hear what he himself saith , psal . . . &c. for i have kept the wayes of the lord , and have not wickedly departed from my god. for all his judgements were before me , and i did not put away his statutes from me . i was also upright before him : and i kept my self from mine iniquity : what was that ? was not that it which had most power over him , and was most apt to entangle and ensnare him ? now , he that arrives here , he that doth this , that keeps himself from his iniquity , doubtless witnesseth great power and victory over lesser and smaller sins . was not david strong in the lord and in the power of his might ? did not the word of god abide in him ? did not he overcome the wicked one by the power thereof ? how else could he walk thus in the wayes of the lord , as he expresseth , and keep himself from his iniquity ? now , this word of life , these living testimonies and precepts , yea the everlasting ordinances and statutes of the new covenant , with the sure mercies of david : which word moses had testified of and directed to , and david had experienced ( it being the pearl he had treasured up and hid in his heart ) and which was the word of faith which paul and the other apostles preached and testified of , turning men from darkness to this inward light ; i say , this word , this living word ( and the inward ministration thereof ) god hath revealed and made manifest in this our day , and hath turned the minds of many to it , and is daily inviting men to shiloh's streams , to the living waters , to the light and habitation of the living . blessed are they that hear the joyful sound , and come to the holy mount and city of our god , where life lives and reigns , and is fed on by all the living ; who are gods elect , gods heritage , gods vineyard of red wine , gods enclosed garden , whom he watcheth over night and day , and watereth every moment ; and in whom he dwelleth and walketh , and is to them a god and father , and maketh them daily sensible that they are his servants , children and spouse , in whom is his great delight , and on whose hearts and fore-heads is written , holiness to the lord. yea and the lord will bless thee forever , o habitation of justice and mountain of holiness , and every tongue that riseth up in judgement against thee , will the lord god condemn for evermore . this is the heritage of the servants of the lord , whom the lord hath gathered by the arm of his mighty power ( inwardly revealed and stretched forth in them and for them ) and their righteousness is of me , saith the lord. postscript . there is a scripture now openeth in me , as it hath often done ; and it hath been very sweet to my taste ; but i have not had freedom to give it forth to others , as at this time it is with me to do : it is that scripture , rom. . . therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy , and whom he will he hardeneth . now many apprehend from this scripture , as i also formerly did , that god hath chosen out a certain number of persons , on whom he will have mercy and save by christ jesus the lord ; and that he hath passed over the rest , so that they were never intended to have any benefit by christ's death , as to their eternal salvation . this the wisdom of man , from the letter of this scripture and many other places , may easily apprehend and strongly reason for . but as the lord openeth the mind , and men come to a sense of his nature and spirit , and his intent in sending his son , and receive the key which opens the truth as it is in jesus ; they will easily see that this is contrary to gods nature , and his intent in sending his son , and the universall covenant of light and life , and the manifest testimony of the scriptures . first , as touching the nature of god. his nature is love ; love to all his creatures . he would not have it go ill with any of them . he needeth not their misery to make himself happy . his nature is to love , to bless to save : not to destroy or cut off , not to afflict or grieve the children of men , not to hurt either the body or soul of any . he preserveth man and beast , psal . . . secondly , as touching his sending his son. he sent him in his love to mankind , to save mankind . his love was not to a few only : but he loved all his creatures , he loved all lost souls ; and he sent his son to save them all . he gave him light to enlighten them all , and he gave him life to quicken them all ; only he dispenceth this in various wayes , according to the infinite wisdom and good pleasure of his father . so that , thirdly , the covenant of light and life is universal and nigh all mankind , by which the darkest parts and corners of the earth are at sometimes enlightened , and feel somewhat of the quickning life . for the life is the light of men : and the light comes from the life , and is a quick , piercing , quickning , light , conveying warmth and life , yea living vertue into the darkest hearts , as it moves and finds entertainment in them . lastly , as for the testimony of the scriptures , it is very clear that god would have none to perish . all souls are mine , saith the lord , ezek. . . i have no pleasure in the death of him that dyeth , ver . . and again , as i live , saith the lord god , i have no pleasure in the death of the wicked , chap. . . i have sent my light to enlighten all men , and turn all men ; and i would have all men receive it and be turned by it . i have shewed every man what is good , and what i the lord require of him : and i would have every man answer the manifestation of my light and spirit in him . do ye not read gods charge against the whole earth , isa . . . that they had transgressed the law , changed the ordinance , broken the everlasting covenant ? why then they all had the law , had the ordinance , had the everlasting covenant : and for this cause it is that the curse and judgement comes upon them , ver . . so that this was the condemnation from the begining , and this is the condemnation still , that light is come into the world , and men love darkness rather then light , because their deeds are evil. men are not condemned for want of light from christ jesus ; but because they do not believe in and obey that light which they have from him : because they believe in the darkness , believe in the dark spirit , believe in the dark power which riseth up against the ministration of light in the heart ; and do not believe in that which is given of god to discover and work it out . what should i multiply scriptures for ? that common scripture is absolutely undeniable ( as the lord opens the heart unto the simplicity of truth , and keeps it out of the subtle , enchanting wisdom ) john . , . for god so loved the world , that he gave his onely begotten son : that whosoever believeth in him , should not perish , but have everlasting life . for god sent not his son into the world to condemn the world : but that the world through him might be saved . what can be more naked and plain then these words of christ , who knew the very heart of god in this particular , and plainly declares what it is : even not to condemn , not to destroy ; but to save men from condemnation and destruction ? and would christ have so affectionately wept over jerusalem , had he known it to have been his fathers will and determinate counsel , that they should have perished , and not have been gathered and saved by him ? i shall add but one place more , where the apostle ( who knew god's counsel , and understood the mystery of election and reprobation , and had the mind of christ ) saith expresly , that god will have all men to be saved , and to come unto the knowledge of the truth , tim. . . what words can be spoken more plain and full ? and let people mind , that these words are far plainer and easier to be understood , then those scriptures which treat of election and reprobation which is a deep mystery ; and men must come to a growth in the truth , before they can receive that capacity , which is necessary towards the understanding of them . but to open the thing a little , as it is now in my heart . there hath been a threefold dispensation of god to mankind . a dispensation of the law to the jews . a dispensation of the gospel ( or promise , which was as well before the law , as after it ) to the called jews and gentiles . and a secret , hidden dispensation of the mystery of grace , of the mystery of life and salvation , which the apostle calls the mystery hid in the gentiles , coloss . . . for somewhat of god , somewhat of the nature and spirit of christ , the souls of all mankind have had neer them to enlighten them , and to turn them from satan's power to god ; though it hath not been a thing known to them , but a mystery hid in them . now , that god did cast off any jew under the law , or any whom he visits with the grace and power of the gospel , from a meer , absolute will in himself , because he would destroy them and have them perish , to shew forth the praise of his justice , and his absolute soveraignity : this the true sense of life in me denies . but all have a visit , of that which saves , heartily and in true good-will from god : and he that is turned to that which god hath sent to turn him , shall be owned and saved thereby . he that believeth in the truth , in the light , in the word nigh ; even in the very lowest appearance of it ( for the lowest appearance is the same thing in nature with the highest ; and the grace is saving in its very lowest appearance , as well as in its highest ) shall be saved thereby . now mark : god's grace , god's mercy , god's love , gods light , god's spirit , god's power , &c. is his own : and he may do with his own what he pleaseth . now , it being by this that he strives , converts and saves : and it being in his own will and good pleasure , how long he will strive and contend to save ; it lieth therefore absolutely in him , even in his own will , what he will do in this kind . he may take advantage against rebellious man , and cut him off when he will : and again , he may strive and raise true sense in a mans heart , and give repentance and pardon his transgressions as long as he pleaseth ; yea , he may so change a man's heart , and so create him a new in christ jesus , and so bring him into unity with the pure seed , and to that estate in the seed , as that he may have assurance he shall never be utterly cast off : but that though he should sin , and transgress the holy law of god's spirit , his iniquity shall be chastised with stripes , and his soul recovered and brought back thereby , but not utterly rejected by the lord. now , it being thus , hath not god mercy on whom he will ? and doth not he harden as he pleaseth ? did not god give up the jews to hardness , after much striving with them ? did not god give up the gentiles to hardness , and to vain imaginations concerning the true god , after they had rejected a measure of the true knowledge ? ( rom. . . ) have not the vessels of wrath , who are fitted to destruction , a day of much long-suffering first ? rom. . . had not the old world , who were fitted for that destruction of the floud , a long day of patience and forbearance from god , his spirit reproving of them and striving with them ? to what end did god forbear them , and cause his spirit to strive with them ? was it not to lead them to repentance , that thereby they might have avoided that destruction , which by their rebellion and stiffness of spirit , against god's good and tender spirit , they were fitted for and exposed to ? see rom. . . so for cain . how tenderly did god deal with him ! how uprightly did god seek his good ! would not god have had him come to a true sense and repentance ? would not god have had him believed and offered in the faith , and been accepted as his brother was ? and for pharaoh : god , indeed , was against that nature and spirit in him , which oppressed israel : but would not the lord have had him denied and turned from that nature and spirit , and let israel go ? god would have no man do evil and bring upon themselves destruction , though in his just judgement , he is many times provoked to give men up to that , which leadeth into and hardeneth in evil. so not onely pharaoh , but israel also was given up to their own hearts lusts , when they would none of the lord , nor hearken to his counsel , psal . . . but , saith the lord , o that it had been otherwise ! o that my people had hearkened unto me , &c. it should then have been otherwise with them , ver . . &c. so that god , of himself , doth not desire the destruction of his creature ; nor doth he desire to harden them , or to give them up to a deluding spirit , that they might be damned : but men first refuse the truth and turn from it , or let it go , not receiving it in the love of it , or not liking to retain the knowledge of it ( which is death to the man's corrupt nature , spirit , will and wisdom , and such a cross and yoke , as he is in no wise willing to bear : ) and then the lord , in his just judgement , gives them up to the deceitfulness of sin , to be hardened by it . now this liveth in god's own breast when and to whom to do it , according to his own will , and according to his own wisdom and counsel ; so that it may be truly and properly said , he hath mercy and compassion on whom he will , and whom he will he hardeneth . but that god hath determined to harden any , without giving them a day of mercy ; or that it is gods will and determinate counsel , that men should reject the day of his mercy and precious invitation , that they might be hardened by him and perish : this is not god's truth , but mens mis-apprehensions upon true words , gathering meanings therefrom in their own wisdom , and not waiting upon god till he cause the true light to shine in them , and thereby give them the true knowledge and understanding . therefore , since there is such mercy in god towards all , and he hath given all men a day of visitation , greater or lesser ; yea , since of late he hath caused his light to shine forth , and given this age such a visitation , as many ages have not had : o let men take heed how they close their eyes , stop their ears and harden their hearts against it ; lest they provoke god to give them up to their own imaginary , conceited , fleshly comprehensive knowledge of the letter , and so seal them up in that hardness of heart and deafness of spirit , which they first gave themselves up to . for the letter without the spirit killeth : and so doth all litteral knowledge : and there needs no greater curse from god ( it will sufficiently avenge the cause of his reproached light and holy covenant of life in christ jesus , now abundantly revealed and made manifest ) then to close mens eyes , and stop their ears , and harden their hearts ( in their litteral knowledges and practises ) from beholding and partaking of the precious life and vertue of this holy and living ministration in christ jesus the lord , wherewith god visiteth and redeemeth his people . indeed the physitian is come inwardly and spiritually , and he inwardly heals and restoreth his people ; faithfully , seeking after the sick , the distressed , the broken , the wounded ; pouring oyl into their wounds , and healing them . but there are some , who are so sound and whole in their notional apprehensions and practises , that they have no need of the physitian : and then the physitian passeth by , as unworthy of him , and whom he intendeth shall have no share with him . ephraim is joyned to idols ( he is well , he hath enough , he hath no need of me ) let him alone , saith the lord. i will pour out the choice vertue of my spiritual life , and redeeming power , among my gathered sheep and lambs , who have need thereof and will rejoyce therein . these will know my voice , these will justifie the appearance of my spirit and power , these love the savour of my anointing and precious oyntment which runs down from the head upon all the living body : and these shall have it . these understand how i have mercy on whom i will , and whom i will i hearden : and it is my will to have mercy on these , my once greatly distressed ones , and to destroy ( inwardly to destroy , o who knows what that means ) the fat and the strong , and to feed them with judgement . o that men did know to whom the mercy , and to whom the judgement belongs . to the wisdom of the flesh , to the wise comprehenders of the things of god after the flesh , is the judgement : to the poor , to the distressed , to the broken in spirit ( not to them that are at ease in their litteral knowledge , but to the mourners in sion after the holy god , and his living power and righteousness ) is the everlasting gospel , the mercy , the love , the peace , the binding-up , the redemption which is by christ jesus , the living minister in the holy sanctuary of our god. the end the everlasting gospel of our lord jesus christ and the blessed effects thereof testified to by experience : with a few words to england, my native country / by isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; 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(eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) the everlasting gospel of our lord jesus christ and the blessed effects thereof testified to by experience : with a few words to england, my native country / by isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . p. s.n.], [london? : . reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng society of friends. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - andrew kuster sampled and proofread - andrew kuster text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the everlasting gospel of our lord jesus christ : and the blessed effects thereof testified to by experience . with a few words to england my native country . by isaac penington . the darkness is past , and the true light now shineth , joh. . . arise , shine , for thy light is come , and the glory of the lord is risen upon thee ; for behold , the darkness shall cover the earth , and gross darkness the people ; but the lord shall arise upon thee , and his glory shall be seen upon thee , isai . . . when the lord shall build up zion , he shall appear in his glory , psal . . . ( indeed he doth so . ) printed in the year , . the everlasting gospel of our lord iesus christ , and the blessed effects thereof , testified to from experience . the blessed message , which the apostles ( who were sent by christ to preach the gospel , ) heard of christ , and were to declare to others , was ; that god is light , and in him is no darkness at all , joh. . . the end of christs sending them with this message , was , that thereby ( preaching it in the evidence and demonstration of gods spirit ) they might open mens eyes , and turn them from darkness to light , and from the power of satan to god , that they might receive forgiveness of sins , and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in him , act. . . now the eye of the mind being opened , and the mind turned from the darkness within , to the light within ; and from satans power to the power of god , which is revealed in the light : the soul in the light comes to see ( over the darkness and satan who darkned it ) the things of god and his kingdom , as they are revealed in the light , which makes them manifest . as first , it sees him who is the rock , the holy foundation of god , the holy foundation of life in the soul ; the living stone , by which all the other living stones are made alive , and they are taught of god to come to him as to a living stone , and so are built upon him , and become gods building and new creation in him , pet. . . cor. . . and here , in this light none can miss of the true coming , hearing the voice of the father , and being drawn , and taught by him to the son , joh. . , . ly . here the true jews state the state of the inward jew , and the inward circumcision , and the true worship ( even the worship of the father in spirit and truth ) is known . for the jew inward is a child of light , begotten in the light , redeemed out of darkness , and dwells and walks in the light , as god is in the light , joh. . . and the circumcision is not a fleshly act ; but the cutting off of that which is fleshly from the mind , by the spirit and power of christ . and the gospel-worship , or the worship of the jew inward , is the worshipping of god in the newness of the life of his son. dly . here is the true repentance from the dead nature and dead works , which no man can attain to of himself , but is gods gift through his son , whom god hath appointed to be a prince and a saviour to give repentance and forgiveness of sins , act. . . i say , here that repentance is known , waited for and received . for not to men in the darkness , and loving the darkness , is the true repentance given ; but to them that are turned towards the light , to them is repentance given unto life , act. . . compared with chap. . , . thly . here the true faith , the precious gift of faith is received , whereby men believe in him who gives life , and receive life from him . and this is the faith which gives access to god , and gives victory over the world ; and that which is contrary to god : the faith which is given in the light , doth so ; but the faith which men have in the darkness , doth not so . thly . here the cross of christ is known , which is an inward living spiritual thing , effectually crucifying that man , that takes it up and dayly bears it , to all that is earthly and sinful ; and then the pure seed and life of christ springs up in his earth , over the world and every worldly thing , gal. . . thly . here the pure love springs in the heart , both to him that begets , and to him that is begotten . in the light there is nothing but love ; but in the darkness there is no true love to be found , but the very love that is found there is of the nature of enmity . it is the light or truth that purifieth the heart to the love unfeigned , pet. . . deut. . . thly . here the lambs patience and meekness is experienced , and the soul adorned with it . the lamb is the light of the world ; and they that are made lambs by him , partake of his sweet and meek nature , learning of him to be meek and lowly in heart ; and so have that patience and meekness from him , which no other can attain to , mat. . . thly . in the light the precious promises are fulfilled and partook of , which make them who partake of them , and in whom they are fulfilled partakers of the divine nature : for the divine nature is not partook of in the darkness , but in him who is light : man , ( who is darkness ) cannot partake of the promises which belong to the children of light : but , when by the operation of gods power , his state and nature is changed , and he is now no more darkness , but light in the lord ; then the promises which were made to the children of light , he cometh to have a share in , eph. . . pet. . . lastly , in the light the holy anointing is received , the voice of christ heard , and the new everlasting covenant , even the sure mercies of david made with the soul , isa . . . the law of the new covenant ( even the law of the spirit of life in christ jesus ) writ in the mind , and the holy fear of the new covenant , which cleanseth and keepeth clean , put in the heart ; and the blessed spirit of the father given and received , which gives to those that receive it , power to become sons of god , causing them to walk in his wayes and to keep his statutes and judgments , and do them . o blessed dispensation of life and holy power , which the lord hath caused to break forth , among a despised people in these latter dayes ! o that the sons of men would hear and understand this precious loving kindness of the lord , and put their trust under the shadow of his wings , and know what it is to be satisfied with the fatness of his spiritual-gospel-house , and to drink of the river of his pleasures , and in his light to see light , psal . , , . . this opened in me this morning , in love and compassion towards the papists . my bowels have often rowled over them , and been pained concerning them , to see how they are closed and shut up , as to the true sense and understanding of things of this nature . o that they would prize the day of their visitation ; that they might hear the sound of life , both from others , and also in their own hearts , and the saving arm of the lord might be inwardly revealed to them , and they effectually redeemed thereby ! i am no disdainer of papists , or any sort of protestants ; nay not of turks or jews , but a mourner because of their several mistakes , and a breather to god of my life for tender mercy towards them all . astrop . of mon. . poscript . and in this light , the true church , the gospel-church , the new testament church is known , which is a church of the children of light , a building built in the light , which church is in god the father , and in the lord jesus christ , thess . . . in whom they are built together for an habitation of god through the spirit , eph. . . yea in whom all the building fitly framed together , groweth unto an holy temple in the lord , v. . ( for the lord frameth them fitly together into a spiritual and holy building . ) and all that are here , gathered out of the darkness into the light , who walk in the light , and abide in the light , are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets , jesus christ himself being the chief corner , v. . and are no more strangers and forreigners , but fellow-citizens with the saints , and of the houshold of god , v. . the gospel-church is the spiritual house of jacob , which walk in the light of the lord , isa . . . who go up to the mountain of the lord ( to that which is revealed to be the mountain of god , in the last dayes , even spiritual mount zion , heb. . . ) to the house of the god of jacob , where he teacheth his spiritual people , the inward jews of his wayes , and they learn to walk in his paths : for out of this zion shall go forth the law of the spirit of life in christ jesus ( in the dayes of the gospel ) and the word of the lord from this jerusalem , v. , . for jerusalem which is above , is free , which is the mother of all the children which are born of gods spirit , gal. . . joh. . . and she being the mother of them all , nourisheth them all with the word of life , which goeth forth from her ; and all her children know and justify her their mother , matt. . . o that all , both papists and protestants knew this true mother-church , this mother of all the living , of whom none but the living are born ; and who nourisheth all the living , and none else , with the law and word of eternal life ! and if they knew the true church , the church is of the true jews the church of the first born , whose names are written in heaven , and did live and walk in the light of the lamb , and follow the leader , the shepheard of israel , and faithful bishop of the soul , who overseeth and taketh care of the soul , they would learn and come to know and experience these things following . first , the dwelling places of mount zion , and her assemblies , and gods creating upon every of them a cloud and smoak by day , and the shining of a flaming fire by night , which is the defence upon all the glory that the lord bringeth forth among his spiritual church and people , isa . . v. . dly . they would know the land of the inward jews , the spiritual judah , and the song sung therein , because of the strong city which the lord builds there , and the salvation which he appoints for walls and bulwarks about it : and would see and know how none but the inward jews , the inwardly circumcised and sanctified , even the righteous nation that keepeth the truth , can enter by the gates into that city , isa . . , . and they that dwell in that city , whose minds are stayed on the lord , and who trust in him , the lord will keep in perfect peace , v. . then jerusalem is a quiet habitation indeed , and the resting and feeding places in it are sure , isa . . . and ch . . v. . and v. . dly . they could know the feast of fat things , which the lord of hosts makes to all people that are here , to all people that come up to and dwell on his holy mountain , and serve and worship him in spirit and truth . the lord of hosts maketh such a feast , as no eye hath seen , nor ear heard , nor can it enter into the heart of man toconceive what it is , but only by the spirit of god ; even a feast of fat things , even a feast of spiritual fat things ; a feast of wines on the lees , of fat things full of marrow , of wines on the lees well refined , isa . . . they that are turned to the light , and follow christ the light , shall not abide in darkness , but have the light of life , job . . . shall be translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the dear son , and there shall sup with christ and he with them , and both together drink of the fruit of the vine of life , new in the fathers kingdom . thly . they shall infallibly know , here in this light , which shines on gods holy mountain , the destroying or swallowing up of the face of the covering cast over all people , and the vail spread over all nations , isa . . . for the vail is cast over and spread in the darkness : but is done away and swallowed up in christ the light : for the vail is done away in him , cor. . and all that are in christ , in his spirit , in the light and liberty thereof , behold as in a glass the glory of the lord , and are changed into the same image , from glory to glory , by the lord the spirit , v. . . lastly , here the king of righteousness his high way is known , even the way of holiness , which the unclean cannot pass over , but the sanctified in the light do walk in , and the wayfaring men here though fools , do not erre in , isa . . . for they that are taught of god in the new covenant , and follow the leadings of his blessed spirit do not erre . o that the true church were known , which is now come and coming out of the wilderness , leaning upon her beloved , who led and leads her out thence , into her own land of life and glory , where her light shines , and she ariseth and standeth upon her feet before the lord , and the glory of the lord shines upon her and covers her ! happy is the eye that seeth this , and the soul that hath a share in it . a few words to england my native country . o land of my nativity , o my dear country-men . the pure power of the lord is upon me , and the springs of life open in me ; and among many other things , i am melted in love and desires after your welfare : and this is in my heart to say to you . if i now testifie to you in truth , of a pearl , a heavenly pearl , an everlasting pearl ; will ye not hear me ? if i tell you , your heart is the field , or earth , wherein it is hid ; will ye not consider of it ? if the everlasting gospel be preached again , which contains true tidings of redemption from sin , will ye not listen after it ? if the kingdom of god , and righteousness of christ , be to be revealed within ; would ye not willingly learn to wait for it there ? and beg of god that the eye may be opened in you , which alone can see it , when it doth appear ? indeed god's visitation is upon this nation , in an especial manner ; his light and power is breaking forth in it against the darkness and power of the spirit of satan , which hath captivated , and still captivateth many . ye desire outward liberty , and the enjoyment of your outward rights ; would ye not be free inwardly ? free from the base earthly , selfish nature and spirit , which man fallen from god , and the glory wherein he created him , is degenerated into ? oh , is not the power of god , and the life of christable to restore man to this ? he that created man at first so glorious , in his own image ; is he not able to create him anew ? oh hear , my dear countrymen ; the power is revealed , which createth anew ; and they that receive it , and are as clay in the hands of the great potter , given up to be formed by it , are dayly created ( by the operation of it ) anew , into an holy , heavenly , innocent living , tender , righteous frame day by day ; and are made willing , daily more and more to be the lord's , in this day of his power ; and do receive power to become sons , and strength against their souls enemies : and the glorious work of redemption , which god hath begun in them , the arm of his strength mightily carrieth on in them , to their comfort , and his everlasting praise . there is a spiritual egypt and sodom , as well as there was an outward ; and there is a spiritual wilderness , and canaan also . and the arm of god's power inwardly and spiritually hath been revealed in this spiritual egypt , wilderness and canaan , as really as ever it was in the outward . do ye not read of a jew-inward , and a circumcision inward , and the leaven-inward , and keeping the feast of unleavened bread , even of bread that is not leavened with sin ? and he that eats of this unleavened bread , it unleavens him of sin , and leavens him with life and holiness : for it is an holy bread , and a living bread. this is the bread which comes down from heaven , which they that feed upon , live , and they that live feed upon it . and though they be many , yet feeding upon this bread , they become one bread one living body . consisting of a living head , and living members ; for the same life , and pure heavenly nature , which is in the head , is communicated by him to the members . but how shall we find this , may some say ? i will tell you how we found it , and how none can miss of it , that sweep the house and make a diligent and faithful search after it . that in the heart of man , which turns against sin , discovers sin , draws from sin , wherein gods ministry help against sin , that is it. that is the pearl hid , that is the kingdom hid , in that is the righteousness of god revealed from faith to faith , in all that receive and give up to this holy leaven . this is of the nature of god and christ , this is a measure of his light , of his pure life , this is the law and commandment everlasting , which god writes in the hearts of the spiritual israel . for the inward jew hath inward tables , where the inward law is writ , for the inward eye to read . o how nigh is god inwardly , to the inward people , in this our day ! o the pure glory is broke forth ! but , alas , men are in their several sorts of dreams , and take no notice of it . what shall the lord do to awaken this nation ? in what way shall his power appear , to bring down unrighteousness , and to bring up righteousness in the spirits of people ? do ye not think the lord hath been at work , and is still at work ? how could deceit be so wasted inwardly , and truth so grown inwardly , and overspread more and more , and gain ground in the nation , if the hand of the power of the lord were not with it , blessing it . o take notice of the handy-work of the lord , ye children of men , and wait to feel truth near , and to partake of the living virtue and power of it ; that you may feel your hearts creating anew , and the old heavens and earth may inwardly pass away , wherein dwells unrighteousness ; and the new heavens and the new earth may be inwardly witnessed , wherein dwells righteousness . o that this nation might become a paradise of god! o that every one might be sensible of his presence , and power , and kingdom , and righteous government inwardly in the heart , from the king that sits on the throne , to the begger on the dunghil . surely man was not made for himself ! surely he was not made such a creature as now he is ! but in the holy image of god , with love in his heart to god above all , and to his neighbour as to himself . o what are religions and professions of several sorts , where this love is not found ! the lord is restoring his image , and bringing forth 〈…〉 true , pure religion again . the pearl , the truth contains and comprends it . o buy the pearl , o buy the precious truth , sell all that is contrary to it for it ; take up the cross to all that is evil in thee , as the light in thee , as the light in thee maketh it manifest , and thou shalt have the free possession of it in thy heart , and feel it a root of life , a treasure of life , a well of life , out of which the living water will be daily springing up in thee , unto life everlasting , amen . the end . books lately printed by the same author for a general service . isaac pennington's naked truth ; or truth nakedly manifesting it self in several particulars , for the removing hindrances out of the way of the simple hearted . — the flesh and blood of christ , both in the mystery , and in the outward , testified to . — to the jews natural , and to the jews spiritual , with some sensible queries concerning some things necessary to be experienced in the true christian state. the principles of true christian divinity asserted , by rob. barcley . — universal love considered , and established upon its right foundation , by r. b. to all such as complain that they want power, not applying themselves to yeild [sic] subjection to what of god is made manifest in them, upon a pretence of waiting for power so to do penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) to all such as complain that they want power, not applying themselves to yeild [sic] subjection to what of god is made manifest in them, upon a pretence of waiting for power so to do penington, isaac, - . p. printed for robert wilson ..., [london : ] caption title. imprint from colophon. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng christian life. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images - taryn hakala sampled and proofread - taryn hakala text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion to all such as complain that they want power , not applying themselves to yeild subjection to what of god is made manifest in them , upon a pretence of waiting for power so to do . the lord god of eternal power , who made man in his own image , he stretcheth forth his arm to save and redeem his lost creature . it is his power alone , that effecteth the work of redemption . he quickneth man , who is dead in trespasses and sins . he keepeth alive , and leadeth on the quickned soul in the path of life . he conquereth , scattereth , and subdueth all the enemies round about the soul , even all the losts , corruptions and temptations , which lead unto and entangle in perdition . yet the lord god requireth somewhat of the man whom he saveth , without which being found in man , and returned to him from man , he saveth him not . quest . what doth he require of man ? answ . he requireth of man , repentance , faith and obedience . that he should turn at his call , from the darkness to the light ; that he should trust in , and cleave to the light , but believe the spirit of darkness no more ; and lastly , that he should obey the light , follow the light , walk in the footsteps of the living towards the land of light ; work the works of god in the light. quest . how can man do this ? answ . of himself he cannot : but being touched , being quickned by the eternal power , being turned by a secret vertue and stirring of life in his heart , then he can turn towards that which turneth him . being drawn by the life , by the power ; he can follow after the life , and after the power . finding the sweetness of the living vine , and his soul made alive by the sap of the vine , his heart can now cleave to , and abide in the vine , and bring forth the fruit of the living faith and obedience to the husband-man , who daily dresseth the heart , that waiteth in the living principle for further life from the fountain , that it may bring forth the fruits of life more and more . now mark : is it possible for any man to come to the eternal rest , that travels not the path ? or is there any path , but the repentance , faith and obedience of the living spirit , even of the child begotten by the eternal power , who is taught by its father to abide and walk in the life , and in the power ? god putteth forth his hand all the day long , to fetch home lost man. he hath given him a talent , a living talent , which is able to work man into the life , and to bring forth the fruits of life in man. man overlooks the talent , joyns not his heart to it , brings not forth the fruits of life to the giver , but cries he wants power , and what is he ? what can he do ? can he cleanse his own heart ? can he kill his corruptions ? can he quicken himself ? &c. now mark again . there are several dispensations of god to mankind , in all which man ( of himself ) falls short of the life , of the power , of the glory , an comes under condemnation . god layes the blame on man , for not hearkning , for not believing , for not walking with him . man layes the blame on god , and says he wants power . look on him who is not obedient to the light , which he cannot but confess to shine in his heart , and often to reprove him ; ask him why he doth not obey it ? is not this his plea , that he wants power ? now let men consider , will this stand before the throne of god ? this is the condemnation , that men do not believe the light of life , do not obey the gospel of our lord jesus christ ; do not trust and follow the light which would lead them to life , but trust and follow the darkness which leads into death and into everlasting condemnation . their plea is , they want power so to do . is this true ? i confess the power doth not so flow forth to man , as man expects it : but the power of life works man out of death in a mistery , and begins in him as weakness . there is all the strength , all the power of the enemy , against the work of god in the heart . there is but a little thing ( like a grain of mustard-seed ) a weak thing , a foolish thing , even that which is not ( to man's eye ) to overcome all this : and yet in this is the power . and here is the great deceit of man : he looks for a great manifest power in or upon him to begin with , and doth not see how the power is in the little weak stirings of life in the heart , in the rising up of somewhat against the mighty strength of corruption in him , which he turning towards , cleaving to , and wa 〈…〉 upon the lord in , the strength of the lord will be made 〈…〉 a 〈…〉 in its seas , and he will be drawn nearer and nearer to the lord , and his enemies be overcome and fall he knows not how . but he that waits for such a mighty appearance of power at first , looking so to begin , and after that manner to be preserved and carried on , can never in this capacity so much as walk in the path eternal , nor is not in the way of receiving the power , which springs up as weakness , and leads on and overcomes enemies in a mysterions way of working , and not in such a manifest and direct way of conquest , as man's wisdom expects . the seed of the kingdom is sown man knows not how , even by a sound of the eternal spirit , which he is not a fit judge of : and it grows up he knows not how : and the power appears and works in it , in away that he is not aware of . he looks for the kingdom , the power and the life , in a way of his observation , answerable to the thoughts and expectations of his heart . but thus it never comes , but in the way of its own eternal motion , it springs in the hearts of many , and they overlook the thing , and turn from it daily , not knowing its proper way of appearance , but expecting it some other way . and thus the enemy holds them in the bands of death , and they are captives in the strange land , refusing the prince of life in his daily offers of life , because they look not for him thus , but after another way and manner . and till this eye of observation be put out in them , they can never clearly see the appearance of the saviour to them , not feel the efficacy of his saving of them from that , from which none but he can deliver . now for the sakes of such as are single-hearted , and yet withheld from the enjoyment of the life of god and of his pure power , through away of wrong expecting it , i shall say a little concerning the operation of the power in quickning , and leading on the quickned soul , as also concerning the way of its springing up in the heart , and the necessity of this way . i my self was long withheld from obedience to the light eternal , in its low appearance of discovering and convincing of sin , through this very deceit , believing that my condition required the manifest appearance of a very great power to help me : and so when sin overcame me , i did only mourn over it , crying after and waiting for power , but was kept from joyning with and cleaving 〈◊〉 that , wherein the power springs up and manifests it self according to its own pleasure , quite contrary to the way of man's expectation . the operations of the power are divers and gradual , according to the condition and necessity of the soul whom it visits , and reacheth forth its hand unto . . there is a discovery of the darkness , and of the erring of the heart from god. this is power ; for this should never be in any heart , could all the powers of darkness there withstand it . . there is a rising of the heart against the evil , with a desire of deliverance from it , and of the springing up of the good in such power as might conquer it . this is a further appearance of power than the former , and a good beginning towards believing or joyning with the redeeming arm , which all the powers of darkness ( with all manuer of subtilty ) endeavour to divert the heart form . . there is an upright frame of sirit begotten , and a truth of heart formed towards the lord , from which desires , and cries , and groanes after his life and presence , and for deliverance from the enemy , and from under the power of his deceit , spring more and more . . there is a fear begotten in the heart of being deceived by the enemy , of being drawn from the feeling of and panting after the life and power of god. . there is an hope and trust in the lord's goodness and mercy , with a daily waiting for his appearance , for the manifestation of his spirit and pure presence , and for the springings up of his frsh life and precious vertue . . there are overturnings of the enemy , battering down his strong holds , breaking of many snares , beating back of many furious assaults , and causing the plant of life to grow up , and triumph over all the powers of darkness . . there are secret stayings and upholdings of the heart in the hour of darkness , when god sees necessary to let forth the power thereof upon the soul , and to eclipse his own power . when the enemy buffets , tempts , prevails , and gets ground upon the soul , is drawing it back under the vail , even into the pit , and nothing appears near to stop it or rescue the soul from death , and from the power of the grave , but the sting thereof enters and deeply wounds the soul ; yet even then the power is near , secretly upholding , preserving and watching over the soul , and waiting for the proper season of deliverance . nevertheless i am continually with thee , thou ha●t holden me by my right hand , said david , when his feet had almost slipped into the grievous snare of desperate unbelief , and murmuring against god's dealings with him and the rest of his people . many more operations of the power might be mentioned , even of its tabernacling and glorious appearing in some vessels in various wayes , both delighting it self in the heart , and also filling the heart with delight and joy in the pure life : but these things are better enjoyed and sweetly felt , in the silence of the fleshly part , then spoken of to that ear , which is not fit to hear the sound thereof . dly . the way of the powers springing up in the heart , which is , . in its turning from the darkness , in the faith and in the pure obedience , which flowes from the faith . for us the soul turns , from the power of darkness and death towards the living power , towards the power of the eternal spirit of light : so the power meets it , embraces it , appears to it , and manifests it self in it , proportionable to its present capacity and condition . and as the soul , being touched with the living vertue , gives it self up to believe , & to trust the power which draws : so the power manifests it self in the heart , according to the proportion of the faith which the eternal vertue hath begotten there . and as the soul , in the faith gives it self up to obey : so the power appears & works the obedience . for we can do nothing of our selves : but being called , being drawn , being required to do that which is far beyond our strength , and giving up thereto , the life springs , the power appears , which does the work . this the philippians had experience of , to whom the apostle gave that exhortation , work out your own salvation with fear and trembling : for it is god which worketh in you , both to will and to do of his good pleasure . it is the unbeliever hangs back , and cries where shall i have power ? but the faith follows the moving and drawing of the spirit , and the power never fails the faith. but that which cries , how shall i get out of egypt ? which way shall i ever be able to pass through this intricate wilderness ? how shall i overcome those mighty enemies , which already have the possession of the land i should inherit , and 〈◊〉 strongly senced in it , and mighty in strength to keep their hold therof ? this is not the right seed , this is not the true israel , for whom the everlasting inheritance of the life , and of the pure power is prepared . . under the cross , under the yoak to the corrupt ( yea and to the very natural ) the power springs . the false birth would have the power spring in a way pleasing to it self ; at the time its wisdom sees necessary , and in the way its will would have it : but the power springs up according to its own wisdom , at its own time , and after its own way . when the man would have it , then it flyes from him : and when it is not expected nor perhap● desired , ( at least in that way wherein it chuies to appear ) then it springs up and puts forth it self . most men , that have felt any thing of god , cannot but desire his life and power : but most fly the cross , wherein it hath chosen to appear ; and so they can never meet with , but are still complaining for the want of it . in the power is the ease , the rest of the gospel . take my yoak upon you , and learn of me , saith christ , and ye shall find the rest which flowes from the power . this made paul rejoyce in the cross of christ , whereby the fleshly lusts were brought down in him , and the life and eternal power sprang in the seed of the kingdom : for under the cross the seed grows up and flourishes , and the flesh withers and dies . and as the power of flesh and death wasts , so the power of spirit and life increases . . the power springs under the fear , and in the uprightness and love which god hath begotten . i put these together , for there is a close unitie between them . the fear is the dwelling of the upright heart , and the love is within the fear . he that distrusts himself , feels his own nothingness , finds no power to do any thing god requireth ; and yet also fears to stay behind the light of god's spirit , in any thing it requires ; and so finds 〈…〉 putting on forward in the faith ; in him the power delights to appear . he that would feel strength beforehand , and act in the sence of that strength , from him the power withdraws : but he that is weak and hath no strength , but still as it freely drops into him from moment to moment , this is the vessel the power chuseth to manifest it self to , and to be continually appearing in . this is the new covenant , i will put my fear in their hearts , and where the fear of the new covenant is found , so much life , power and eternal vertue , as is necessary for the present state of that heart , cannot be far off . so in the upright-hearted , in the heart that is true to god , the power of deceit cannot dwell , but the power of truth delights to fill it , in a way sutable to the state of the spirit , and so as may be seen by the eye of the spirit , and felt by the spiritual sence . and in the love is the constraining power , which constrains from the evil path , from the path of unbelief and disobedience , into the path of life . thirdly , the necessity of this way of the springing up of the power , and not in such a manifest way as man's heart desires , and as man's eye expects . it is necessary in several respects . in respect of god , in reference to the creature , and in reference to the soul's enemies . . in respect of god. it is necessary that his power and life should spring up in the creature in its own way , according to the counsel of his own wisdom , suitable to his own nature , and not in the way which the creature chalks out and expects it in . god must be like himself , and walk in his own path in every thing he does . he is a god that hideth himself in the mystery of his working , throughout the whole trac● of man's redemption : and man must be wrought out of himself , out of his own thoughts , expectations , gathered apprehensions concerning the kingdom and way to life , & led in a path he doth not know ( nor ever can know any longer than he is in it ) and in wayes he hath not been acquainted with . the way of life is still new , every moment fresh and living ; and the earthly part of those , who may have in some measure felt the power of regeneration , cannot know it , nor walk in it . consider this , o ye that fence your selves against the present appearance of the spirit , and against the convictions , demonstrations and drawings of its eternal light and power , by somewhat which ye have formerly felt and known . . in reference to the creature , the power of god must needs appear thus hiddenly and in such a misterious way . . that the creature might go through all those exercises of spirit , which are necessary to fit it for its inheritance in the holy land. there are straits , wants , tryals , temptations , inward weaknesses , buffetings from the enemy , withdrawings of the life , &c. which god seeth necessary to excercise the spirits of his with , that he might fit them for himself , and for a safe enjoyment of his life in fulness ; which could not be , if there were such a manifest power to begin with , and continually at hand to perform all in and for the soul , as many men wait for and think necessary to have . . that the fleshly part might be throughly worn out and destroyed . when the power appears and works mightily in the soul , there is somewhat apt to get up , to exalt it self by the power , and to abuse the power : and if the power were not withdrawn , and this tormented and famished in the absence of the power , and in the withdrawing of the sweet appearance of life , a wrong thing would be stealing into the inheritance , and the soul would never be throughly purified , nor come to a pure enjoyment of the power . therefore doth the lord appear in this misterious way , that the promise might be sure to the seed ; that the seed which is the right heir of the power , might come alone to inherit the power , and the false birth not touch the least enjoyment of it , but feel the bitter stroaks of death and destruction from it . what had become of paul , if he had had power to resist the buffettings of the enemy , as he desired ? would not his fleshly part have remained in the exaltation , and not have been brought down ? ( cor. . . ) . in reference to the enemy . the enemy could never be wholly conquered , his strong holds in the heart broken down , & the redemption from under his hand perfected , were it not for this misterious way of the appearing and working of the power , even out of the sight of man's eye , and contrary to his will and expectation . for had man such a power as he desires , still present with him ; had he faith in his power , or obedience in his power , or could he take up the cross in his power , or have strength to fight against the enemy as he desires and expects , the enemy would still find enterance into him , and keep his hold of him . but god , who knoweth the state of the creature , with the strength and passages of the enemy into man , by working with his mighty power in man according to his own will , and in the way of his own wisdom ( contrary to what man can desire or expect , but as he is taken into , and comprehended in the eternal will ) carries on his work sweetly and safely , and perfects the salvation of those who will not , who run not , who desire not to be any thing , but wait to feel and know his power , and to become subject to it , and lie under , even in the lowest way of its manifestation and appearance . object . this may be true in the ordinary way of redemption of souls ; but there are deep captivities ( even the captivity of babylon inwardly and spiritually ) which surely will need a very great appearance of the power of god to deliver out of : and what can that soul do , but wait there under the captivity , untill that mighty power arise ? answ . it is true ; the power must needs be very great , and the appearance of it wonderful , which delivers out of such a captivity : but yet the beginnings of it may be small , and out of the sight of that eye , which looks and waits for so great an appearance . hast thou not light enough already to begin thy travel out of babylon ? hast thou begun thy travel ? dost thou walk in the light , which shineth upon thee in that dark land , to gather and lead thee out of it ? or wilt thou not begin to come out , till the very glory and brightness of sion shine upon thee ? if there be but light & power enough , to lead thee one step out of the land of darkness , & confusion of spirit , towards obedience to the lowest or meanest truth , that is sufficient for thee at present : & as thou art found faithful here , more will spring in thee . but if thou stop here ( or at any time after thou hast begun and made some progress , because of any thing which falleth out contrary to thy expectation ) then that , which should lead thee on and strengthen thee , stops also ; & thou meetest nor with that , which is found & enjoyed by other in the way , because thou passest not on in it , but baulkest thy proper path , judging somewhat more necessary towards thy beginning or progress , then the lord judgeth or yet seeth fit to impart to thee . thus the enemy betrayes thee , & holds thee in his chains , which might be loosed & cast off by little and little , didst thou singly give up , to the little appearance of that light and power which is able to unbind them , and not expect more at first ( or afterwards ) then the lord hath allotted for thy present condition . and let me tell thee this from certain knowledge and experience ; that thou , who hast been high , and hast tasted much of god , but hast abused it , and fed the wrong part with it , both in thy self and others : thou must be brought lower than the rest , and for a long season be kept lower , that the pure seed ( which hath deeply been buried in thee ) may overgrow and sink all thy knowledge , experiences and observations concerning the eternal life , and its way of appearance , which formerly thou hadst some true taste of , but now holdest out of the life . thou must come down , thou must become nothing by degrees , thou must lie at the foot of the reprovings of that light , which thou thinkest thou hast gone far beyond , and be glad of a little help now and then in the lowliness and humility of thy heart , which must not chuse what appearance and manifestation it will have from god , before it will begin to follow him , but be glad of never so little , that the infinite wisdom sees good to give forth by the hand of his mercy . who ever have been high , and are still waiting and expecting in the heights of their own wisdom and observations concerning the kingdom , let them take heed of despising the day of small things , and know that their proper beginning ( yea the very path of eternal life it self ) lies in the lowness , in the humility , even in that nothingness which bows before the least light of the day , and with gladness of heart enters into , and walks in it . for this i certainly know , the wise , the observing-eye , the vast comprehending heart , which waits for such an extraordinary power , judging it cannot begin following the light , which daily appears to check and reprove , without some great manifest appearance of power , this cannot see the low little path of life , which is proper for it to walk in , and to the end whereof it must travel , if ever it come to sit down in the kingdom , or to inherit the power of the endless life . pretious is the dispensation of this age , great is the power and glory which is arising : but the wise and knowing of this age , are shut out of it , as they have been out of the life and truth of the dispensations of god in all ages , happy is he who is not above that , wherewith god visiteth his soul to redeem it . a post-script . that persons , who have not travelled into the land of life , want power , that is out of doubt . the state of israel in its travels , is a state of weaknesses and wants . how can they in the wilderness but want that , which is to be possessed in the holy land ? but dost thou want power to begin the travel with ? dost thou want what proportion of power the lord fees necessary for thee in thy present estate ? is there nothing at all discovered to thee which is contrary to god , either in thy heart , or in thy conversation , or in thy worship , which thou dost not so much as strive to give up to the lord in , waiting upon him for his power and strength to appear in helping thee . the light appears to discover and lead out of the darkness . now in giving up to the light , and not doubting but that , which calls and draws out will give strength ; and enable to come out , the power is met with unawares . but that which stands gazing and looking out after a power , which it expects to meet with , before it will so much as begin to follow the light ; that cannot but abide in the captivity , and miss of that power which redeemeth from it . therefore , i. wait to feel the light of life discovering and drawing from the evil : and let it chuse what it shall please first to discover and draw from . and though it be little , and very inconsiderable in thine eyes , yet dispute not , but where the light first begins to lead , do thou there begin to follow . then in this waiting and subjecting to the manifestations of the light , out of the self-will , self-wisdom , self-knowledge , self-judgement , in the lowliness and abasedness of the mind and spirit before the lord , the begettings of life in the light are felt , and the renewing into his pure image . afterwards that which is begotten ( and begun to be renewed in the divine image ) is by degrees taught more distinctly to know , discern and walk in the path of life . and after this , to that which is thus begotten , and taught the living faith and obedience ( which is wrought by the mighty power of god , though running in alow , secret , hidden way from the eye of the creature ) the great power is revealed , and he grows strong in the power for god , and against the enemies of his soul : and by this strength and feeling of gods presence , they fall daily and continually before him , and then his victory over them goes on with joy . but he that stops at first may grow wise and conceited , concerning the things of the kingdom after the flesh , and may hope for great things at last ; but by the deceit of the subtilty , is kept out of the living path , wherein they are to be waited for , reaped and enjoyed . now for the encouragement of such , as are willing to travel on in the weakness , yeilding up their members to the present manifestation of the light , and waiting for the further appearance of the power : it is on my heart to add a letter of a dear friend and brother of mine in the truth , who hath been a deep traveller and fellow-sufferer with me formerly , before this help came forth from the throne of god , since the day-spring from on high hath vouchsafed to visit us , and to guide our feet in the way of everlasting peace . the letter is as followeth . dear friend , my dear and tender love salutes thee , in that love from whence i had my being , and from whence sprang all my fathers children , who are born from above , heirs of an everlasting inheritance . oh! how sweet and pleasant are the pastures which my father causeth all his sheep to feed in , there is variety of plenty in his pastures , milk for babes , and ●rong meat for them of riper age , and wine to refresh those , that are ready to faint , even the wine of the kingdom , that makes glad the heart , when it is ready to faint , by reason of the infirmities ; sure i am , none can be so weary but he takes care of them , nor none so nigh fainting but he puts his arm under their heads , nor none can be so beset with enemies on every side but he will arise and scatter ; nor none so heavy laden and big with young but he takes notice of them , and gently leads them , and will not leave them behind , unto the merciless woolf , because they are his own , and his life is the price of their redemption , and his blood of their ransome , and if they be so young that they cannot go , he carries them in his armes , and when they can feel nothing stirring after him , his bowells earn after them , so tender is this good shepheard after all his flock : i can tell , for i was as one that once went astray and wandered upon the barren mountains , and when i had wearied my self with wandring , i went into the wilderness , and there i was torn as with briars , and pricked as with thorns , sometimes thinking this was the way , and sometimes concluding that was the way , and by and by concluding all was out of the way , and then bitter mourning came upon me , and weeping for want of the interpreter , for when i sought to know what was the matter , and where i was it was too hard for me ; then i thought i would venture on some way where it was most likely to find a lost god , and i would pray with them that prayed , and fast with them that fa●ted , and mourn with them that mourned , if by any means i might come to rest , but found it not , until i came to see the candle lighted in my own house , and my heart swept from all those thoughts and imaginations , and willings , and runnings , and to die unto them all , not heeding of them , but watching against them , lest i should let my mind go a whoring after them ; and here i dwelt for a time as in a desolate land uninhabited , where i sate alone as a sparrow upon the house top , and was hunted up and down like a partridge upon the mountaines , and could rest no where , but some lust or thought or other followed me at the heels , and disquieted me night and day , until i came to know him in whom was rest , and no occasion of stumbling , in whom the devil hath no part , and he became unto me as a kiding place from the storms , and from the tempests ; then came my eyes to ●ee my saviour , and my sorrow to fly away , and he became made unto me all in all , my wisdom , my righteousness , and my sanctification , in whom i was , and am compleat , to the praise of the riches of his grace and goodness that endures for ever . therefore be not discouraged , oh! thou tossed as with tempests nor dismaied in thy self ; because thou see●t such mighty hosts of enemies rising up against thee , and besetting thee on every side , for none was so beset and tried , and tempted , as the true seed was , who was a man of sorrows , and acquainted with grief , but be thou still in thy minde , and let the billowes pass over , and wave upon wave , and fret not thy self because of them , neither be ca●t down , as if it should never be otherwise with thee , sorrow comes at night , but joy in the morning , and the dayes of thy mourning shall be over , and the accuser will god cast out for ever ; for therefore was i afflicted , and not comforted , and tempted , and tried , for this end , that i might know how to speak a word in due season , unto those who are tempted and afflicted as i once was : as it was said unto me in that day when sorrow lay heavy upon me , therefore be not disconsolated , neither give heed unto the reasonings and disputings of to thy own heart , nor the fears that arise therefrom , but be strong in the faith , believing in the light which lets thee s●e them , and his grace thou wilt know to be sufficient for thee , and his strength to be made perfect in thy weakness , and so wilt thou rather glory in thy infirmities , that his power may rest upon thee , then in thy earnest desires to be rid of them , for by these th ; ings thou wilt come to live in the life of god , and joy in god , and glory in tribulation ; when thou hast learned in all conditions to be contented , and through tryals , and deep excercises , is the way to learn this lesson . these things in dear love to thee i have written , being somewhat sensible of thy condition , and the many snares thou art daily liable unto ; therefore watch , that thou fall not into temptation , and my god and father keep thee in the arms of his eternal love over all , unto the end , unto his praise , amen . john crooke . some queries to the strict and zealous professors of this age ( such as stick in the letter , but are strangers to the life and power ) to provoke them to jealousie , least the heathen and open sinners out-strip them , and enter into the kingdom of the pure everlasting light before them . query . whether god , since the fall of man from the purity and glory of his state , doth truly and really desire the salvation of all mankind ; and so would have them come to the knowledge of the truth , that they might believe it , receive it , walk in it , and so obtain salvation thereby ? or , whether he would have only some few of them to receive it and be saved , and the rest to perish ? query . if god would have all men to be saved , and to come to the knowledge of the truth , which is the means of salvation : then , whether there is sufficient done by god to convey the knowledge of his truth to all men , so as they may come to the knowledge thereof and be saved ? or , whether there is such a defect on gods part , that some men never had sufficient means to come so far to the knowledge of his truth , as that they might come into the way of salvation thereby ? query . though god doth please to adde superabundant means , in the riches of his grace , towards some more than others : as to the jews under the law , and to the disciples of christ under the gospel : yet whether there is not so much light of the spirit communicated to all , as if followed , might lead them out of the darkness , and from under the power of it ? query . whether god be not so near to every man , as that possibly he may seek after him and find him ? and if he do find him , and his heart cleave to him : whether it can possibly be , but vertue should issue forth from god , to draw him out of the alienation from him , and out of the power of sin , death and hell. query . whether if a man feel god and cleave to god , and begin to discern the streamings of light from him , and follow the lord therein : whether god will not accept this man therein ? and whether his divine light let into him ( being believed in and obeyed ) will not purify him from the darkness , unbelief and disobedience ? and whether god will not impute to this man what christ performed on man's behalf in the flesh , he being in unity with ▪ and in subjection to the light and po●er whereby it was wrought ( wherein is the fellowship with the blood , and wherein alone it washeth from the sin ) though as to the outward knowledge of what was outwardly done , the man may possibly be ignorant ? and seeing it is not absolutely necessary towards the involving in the guilt of adams sin , the outward knowing what adam did ; but the proceeding from , and being found in the same spirit and nature doth sufficiently convey it : so whether being gathered into and found in christs spirit , even in faith , obedience , and subjection to the light thereof in the heart , whether this is not also sufficient to convey the righteousness of christ ? and wheher god will fail to impute it to that man ? query . whether true religion , spiritual worship , & the salvation of the soul do not depend upon the spirit of the lord , who is near to every heart with his eternal light , which he can easily convey to any heart , whose ear is opened to hearken to his breathings and drawings ? so that it is easy to the lord to save any of the sons of men , even in the darkest and remotest corners of the earth : and he can cast off those who seem highest in zeal , and most flourishing under any outward means of salvation . oh wonderfully infinite is the lord ! who shall bound his spirit ? happy is he that feareth before him , and in his fear learneth to depart from iniquity , and walk in the good path that his spirit teacheth . he is near to god , and shall tast of the good things , and shall not be rejected for want of outward knowledge ; but what ever was done for lost man , he that is found in the light of life ( and in the obedience to the spirit of life ) shall reap the benefit of . but he that boasts in his knowledge of these things , and of his faith in christ jesus ; yet not being found in the true , living , eternal light of the spirit ( but an enemy to it , and ignorant of it ) the lord will rend his confidence from him , in a day that he is not aware of . ' glorious was the dispensation of the law , and great was the advantage to the jew thereby above the gentiles . yet they missing the spirit and life of it , ( and growing wise in their own apprehensions and interpretations about it ) fell beneath the gentiles , becoming greater strangers to the power & wisdom of god , & harder to be reached & brought in under the subjection of the gospel . more glorious was the dispensation of the gospel to the christians , and much greater was their advantage , than that of the jews . but an apostacy coming , and they loosing the true power and spirit , & growing wise by a litteral knowledge of some of the things of god in the earthly part , & forming interpretations of scriptures , and entring into practises in that wisdom ; they are now become at as great a distance from this powerfull visitation of god by his spirit ( which raiseth the seed , and springeth up freshly in the hearts of those , whom the lord our god doth call out of their fenced cities , and allure into the wilderness ) as the jews were at from that appearance before the apostacy : and in as great danger are the children of the kingdom to be cast out now , as then . oh that my god would please to open the ear of some tender and upright-hearted among them to hear this testimony , that they might no longer stumble at that , which alone is able to lead them to god , and to make them happy in god. is there any uniting with god , or enjoying of god , but by his spirit ? is there any receiving of gods spirit , but within in the heart ? doth he not appear there by his light , & in his power ? what if god please to give forth a measure of his eternal light in the hearts of his chosen , to open that to th●m which they could never see before , and to bring them into a nearer unity with him than ever they knew before ? may he not do it ? nay , is not such a thing needful to help out of the deep & intricate apostacy ( wherein have been so many twistings & twinings of the subtle serpent , about every step or appearance of reformation ) and to gather the wandring sheep , who were scattered up and down , and sorely distressed , for want of the tongne of the learned , to speak a word in season to their estates and conditions ? have not every sort bent the scriptures , in the reasonings of their own minds , and made them speak according to their own hearts lusts ? and is not every one wise in his own eyes , and strong in his own tower and fenced city ? surely there was great need of an appearance of the lord to shut out the wisdom of man , and to help the poor , the needy , the fatherless , the weak panting-babes . and blessed be the lord god , who hath appeared ; and blessed are those who have seen his light , and bowed at the feet of his living appearance , and felt the vertue of his saving arm , scattering their lusts and corruptions , yea also raising up and bringing forth his pure seed in the f●e●h power , dominion , and authority of his perfect life , which reigneth in the hearts which the lord hath regenerated and sanctified for evermore . o my friends , my friends , that the eye might be once blinded in you , which hinders your sight of god , and the eye opened which beholds his glory , and also taketh pleasure in his lowest appearance . the babe alone hath the misteries of the kingdom revealed to him ( the wise and prudent are excluded : the birth after the flesh in every one must be famished and destroyed ) and he alone can see in the eternal light , this dispensation of the everlasting gospel after the apostacy , which the lord hideth from those , who are wise in the letter of the former dispensation of the same gospel , but cannot read it as it was given forth in the spirit then , nor as it is now again held forth in the same spirit and power . o my friends , this is the truth to you , ( wait on the lord that ye may understand it from him ) your right eye must be put out ( which will never cease offending you and causing you to stumble , so long as it is able to see ) and all your knowledge which ye hold out of the life , become as dross and dung to you , if ever ye tast and come to enjoy the excellency and glory of this appearance of god in his eternal spirit , who hath descended from on high into the hearts of his chosen to prepare th●m for his spiritual temple , that he may dwell in them , and they in him . and he will dwell in them , and they shall dwell in him , to the full delight and satisfaction of their hearts , and to the confusion of all those , who remain despising and reproaching this his glorious appearance , and his people in whom he hath appeared . the day is not far off , wherein this will be made manifest , wherein great bitterness and anguish of spirit will befall those , who can onely see the glory afar of but cannot inherit it , being found in that nature and spirit which is separated from it , and eternally shut out of it . isaac penington the younger . london , printed for robert wilson , at the sign of the black-spread-eagle and windmil in ma●tins l' grand , . the great question concerning the lawfulnes or unlawfulnes of swearing under the gospel stated and considered of for the satisfaction of such as desire to scan the thing in the weight of god's spirit and to see the true and clear determination of it in his un-erring light / by isaac penington the younger. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) the great question concerning the lawfulnes or unlawfulnes of swearing under the gospel stated and considered of for the satisfaction of such as desire to scan the thing in the weight of god's spirit and to see the true and clear determination of it in his un-erring light / by isaac penington the younger. penington, isaac, - . p. printed for robert wilson, london : . reproduction of original in the cambridge university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng society of friends -- apologetic works. oaths -- religious aspects. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - john latta sampled and proofread - john latta text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the great question concerning the lavvfulnes or unlavvfulnes of swearing under the gospel , stated , and considered of ; for the satisfaction of such as desire to scan the thing in the weight of god's spirit , and to see the true and clear determination of it in his un-erring light. by isaac penington the younger . london , printed for robert wilson , at the sign of the ●●●●k-spread-eagle and windmil , in martins le grand , ●●● the great question , concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of swearing under the gospel , stated and considered of , &c. quest . vvhether it be lawful for christians ( who know christ , the substance of all the shadows under the law , and are in the new covenant ) to swear upon weighty occasions , as it was lawful for the jews to do under the old covenant ? or , whether christ alloweth his disciples to swear in solemn cases , as moses did allow his disciples ? answ . for the clearing of this weighty controversie to all such , as singly desire to know the truth ( as it is in jesus ) in this particular , that their hearts may bow to him therein , and not be overtaken with the reasonings and subtilties of the carnal mind ( which never knew nor can know the power , but hath alwayes been , and still is setting up dead images , of god's truths and of his worship , out of the power ) these few things following would be considered of . first , what an oath is , or , the nature of a right and true oath under the law. secondly , the ground or occasion of its institution . thirdly , the cases wherein an oath was to be used . fourthly , the proper end and service of an oath . fifthly , the sutableness of its nature to its end and service . lastly , the persons to whom the use of an oath was proper in it self , and intended and allowed by god ; and whether there be any persons to whom it is not proper , and to whom the lord doth not allow it ? this last is the main , and will itself determine the thing ; but yet a brief consideration of the former may not be unprofitable , to make way for a clearer leading and insight into it . first , as touching an oath , what it is , or the nature of it . a true and lawful oath under the law , was an engagement or bond upon the soul ( numb . . . ) by the name of the lord ( deut. . . ) to the speaking of truth in things affirmed , and to the performance of truth in things promised . it was as a seal to bind fallen man ( man fallen from the truth , from the uprightness ) to truth in his words and promises , either to god or man. this is the nature & use of an oath , to wit , to bind the soul to truth , to be such an engagement upon the soul , as , if there be any fear of god there , it cannot but dread to break , knowing that the lord will not hold him guiltless , that taketh his name in vain . secondly , the ground or occasion of an oath , is the fall of man from truth , from innocency , from the uprightness which engaged him to truth before his fall. this made the jews stand in need of this bond under the law , in their purposes and promises towards god ; and the same thing likwise made them stand in need of it one from another , to ratifie and confirm truth between them . thirdly , the cases wherein an oath was to be used , which were chiefly these four . . in case of a promise or vow to god , that the truth , integrity , and plain intention of the heart might stand , and there might be no departing therefrom , in the thing promised , either to god or man ; an oath in that state was found useful to bind the soul thereto . . in case of promise to man , . in case of pronouncing or declaring the truth of a thing , which was weighty , that there might be a clear and satisfactory ground of belief . . in case of controversie between parties , where the controversie could not be determined , but by taking the confession of the one party for truth ; there that party was to seal his confession with an oath , and so the other to rest satisfied therewith , and the controversie thereupon end . fourthly , the end of an oath , which is , for final confirmation , and avoiding of all further strife and contention about the thing sworn to . by binding the thing ( promised or affirmed ) with an oath , the thing is confirmed ; and now there is no more strife in the heart concerning the thing , if relating to god , or between man and man in things relating to them , but the striving nature is bound down by the oath of god , wherewith the thing is ratified , and so the doubt and uncertainty removed , and the contest ended . thus of right it ought to be , and is where the oath is forcible and in its proper service . fifthly , the sutableness of its nature to the end aimed at by it . man out of the christian life , can go no further , than to engage himself by the fear and dread of that god , whom he professeth to worship and serve , and who cannot but be jealous of his name and honour , and ready to vindicate the taking of it in vain . man under the law , could not bind himself to god , in any promise or service more than thus ; nor can there be any greater bond or seal of truth given by one man to another , in the fallen state , than this . and he that will venture to break this , what but deceit and treachery can be expected from him ? insomuch as no other engagement from him can be of weight , he hereby manifesting the want of that in his mind and spirit , whereupon all ties are to fasten . sixtly , the persons to whom the use of an oath was proper and lawful , and for whom it was instituted ; and whether there be any persons to whom it is not proper and lawful , and for whose use it was not instituted ? to find out this distinctly and truly , we must consider the several conditions of man since the creation , and observe to which of those it is useful and proper in it self , and allowed by god ; and to which it is not useful in it self , nor allowed by god. there have been four estates or conditions of mankind since the creation . . an estate of innocency , an estate of integrity , of purity , of righteousness , wherein man could not lye or deceive ; but his promises to god , and his words to men , must needs be yea and amen : for it was impossible to man , who was made in god's image ( which is truth ) to lye or deceive , until the deceit entred him , and drew him out of the truth . . there was ( and still is ) an estate of deep captivity , wherein this truth and innocency was wholly lost , and man wholly corrupted in his spirit and nature , and wholly degenerated from god. this was the estate of the heathen , who knew not god generally , nor desired after him , but walked in the vanity of their minds , and were given up to their own hearts lusts . yet among some of these the eternal principle of life was stirring , which did check them , and offer to guide them out of this estate , which they that hearkened unto , did not remain in the fall with the rest , but felt the power of that , which reproved and checked them , circumcising their hearts , and , in their obedience thereto , justifying them in their consciences before god. . there was an estate of shadowy redemption , which was not the true estate of redemption it self , or they the true people which were to be redeemed , but a shadow of it the redemtion , a shadow of the redeemed people , a shadow of the way and path of life , wherein were figures of the heavenly substance , the heavenly people , the heavenly things , the heavenly inheritance , the heavenly food , &c. but all these figures in and under the law , were not the true heavenly and invisible things themselves , but outward and visible signs and representations of them . . there was , and , blessed be the lord , now at length ( after the great , long and dark night of apostacy ) again is brought forth an estate of true redemption , wherein the soul is brought back from the death , from the captivity , from the fall , from the deceit , and from the shadows into the truth , into the pure life , into the innocency , into the uprightness ; wherein christ ( the power of god ) is witnessed , and the soul new formed in his pure image , and become a new creature , having a new eye , a new ear , a new heart , a new nature , a new life and spirit ( in the newness of which life , it is to live and walk ) a new course and conversation , a new place to walk and have its conversation in , even in that very heaven , from whence it looks for the saviour ; wherein also all old things , which came in by the fall , and all the old shadows of the law are to pass away , and in this state all things to become new . and this is not only to be expected in the perfection of this state , but belongs ( in its measure and degree ) to the very beginning of it : for even so soon as a man is engrafted into christ , and can be said to be in christ , even then he is a new creature , and all things then begin to become new unto him , and he is then to begin , departing from all the old things , both of the natural or heathenish state , and of the jewish state , until he hath left them all behind . the apostle saith expresly , if any man be in christ , he is a new creature : old things are passed away ; all things are become new . christ , the lord and master of all believers , who himself was not of the world , calleth all his disciples and followers out of the world. how out of the world ? doth he call them from having any being or commerce in the earth , or in the world ? nay , not so , but to come out of the evil and corrupt state , practices & wayes of the world ; out of the earthly wayes of the heathens , out of the earthly ordinances and observations of the jewes ; yea , even out of every thing in both , which was not of the father , but of the world ; and this made them a gazing stock to both , and the scorn and hatred of both , where-ever they came . these are the four estates or conditions of mankind since the creation : in one of which , all men that ever were , have been to be found ; and according to the estate and condition wherein man is found , is the law of god to him , and his requirings of him . now let any man , in the fear of the lord god , weigh and consider , to which sort or sorts of these an oath was useful in it self , and allowed by god , and to which not . was it useful in the innocent state ? or , did god appoint it there , when man could not but speak truth ? or , is it useful in the redeemed estate , where a greater bond is received , and professedly held forth , than the innocency of mans nature was ? is not christ the truth , the substance ? is not he that is in him , the new-creature ? were not all the oaths and shadows of the law , to last till christ the substance came ? is not this the bond of the gospel ? and doth not this seal truth , and keep to truth more firmly , than the oath under the law could ? and the greater bond being come , doth not the lesser bond ( which signified it ) flee away and vanish , and the use of it now become both needless and unlawful ? men may reason subtilly , and perswade strongly against the truth , but we know certainly and infallibly in the light of the lord , that the use of an oath was not for man in innocency , nor for man under the power and vertue of the redemption by christ ( which brings man back into the truth , into the innocency , and into that life and strength , which preserves in the truth and innocency ) but for fallen man , for man erred from the truth and covenant of god : and it is very manifest to us , that for a disciple of christ , who hath received the law from his lips against swearing , to be brought back again to swearing ( the bond of man in the fallen state , and under the law ) is no lesse than a denial of christ , who is his life and redeemer out of the fallen state , and who also is the substance , which ends the oaths : and he that hath ever known the pure power of his life , and received the pure law thereof in the clear openings of his spirit , must not depart from thence , from the feeling of that , into the fleshly reasonings , into consultations with the fleshly-wise part , which will be sure to give such interpretations of scriptures , as may avoid the crosse ; but keep to that power which begat him ; and to that principle wherein he was begotten ; and there he shall never be able to get beyond the yea and amen in christ , beyond the confessing of the truth in the presence and life of it , which is the end and substance of swearing under the law : and therefore the apostle paul , who several times , and in several cases relates to the prophecies of the prophets ( who foretold of things under the gospel , in law-phrases ) renders the word confess , instead of swear , as may appear by comparing , rom. . . and philip. . . with isa . . . that which the law called swearing , the gospel calls confessing ( each of them speaking of the same thing , in the proper dialect of each : ) which confessing in the life , in the truth in the renewed principle , is the weight and substance of that , whereof the oath was but a shadow . for what is the substance and intent of an oath ? is not the intent of it to bind to the speaking or performing of truth ? and what is it that binds ? is it the shadow , or the substance ? is it the words of an oath , or the sense and weight of the thing upon the spirit ? it was not the form of an oath , but the weight and substance hid underneath , which bound the jew under the law : and if there be more weight and substance in the yea and nay of a disciple under the gospel , it must needs be more binding to them , and hath also more true ground of satisfaction in it ( to other christians at least ) than a jews or heathens swearing : yea , and if the men of the world would but freely speak their hearts , it would be acknowledged to be of more weight with them also . who of those who have observed and known our conversation , and upright speaking and behaviour for these many years ( both towards the various rulers and authorities of the 〈…〉 also towards all men of all sorts ) would not prefer our yea and nay before the oaths of others ? object . but though a christian may not swear in relation to himself , yet why may he not swear in relation to the satisfaction of others , seeing god himself sware in that respect , who was as much in the power and virtue of that life which binds from swearing , as a christian can be ? answ . . god ( being not bound himself by the laws , wherewith he binds the creature ) may either himself , or by an instrument ( in his immediate life and power ) do that , which the creature hath not liberty from him to do : but that is no warrant in general , but the disciple is particularly to eye the rule from his master christ jesus ( who is lord over the houshold of faith , and who was as faithful in all his house as a lord , as moses the servant was in his house ) by whom the same god , who once allowed oaths to the jems , hath now wholly forbidden swearing . and let the disciple diligently and faithfully eye the laws of the new covenant ( which are written by , and received from the ingrafted word of faith in the heart ) he shall find oaths excluded there as a part of the old covenant , even as a literal and shadowy confirmation of truth among the jews , under moses his dispensation , for the time of the law ; but the grace and truth it self is the substance , and the faith received is the seal of truth under the gospel , both towards god and man. answ . . a christian may not swear in relation to the satisfaction of others , because he is to hold forth his light , his life , his principle in the eye of the world ; he is to testifie to the worth and excellency of it , that it is a greater and firmer bond to him ( both towards god and man ) than any oaths either of the heathen , or of the jews can be . now his entring into their way of confirmation of things , which is short of his own , is an undervaluing and disparagement of the worth and weight of that principle of truth , which god hath given him and raised up in him : it is indeed a denying of it : for , entring into the law-bond , is a laying of the gospel-bond by , and an offering of that as a bond , which indeed once was so , but is now excluded by the law of faith from being a bond any longer , and hath lost its vertue . and if men would but open their eyes , they might easily see how little oaths bind , and how unprofitable they are to the end and use for which they are intended : but the yea and amen in christ ( the principle of life ) cannot be broken , but he that abides in him , must perform the yea and amen , which is firm in him. answ . . a christian or disciple may not swear under the gospel , because christ hath brought in confession or affirmation of the truth , from the principle of his life , instead of oaths : which is made good , not only by the apostle paul's rendring of swearing in the law-time , confessing , in the fulfilling of it under the gospel ; but also by christ's bringing in the yea , yea , and nay , nay , instead of the law 's swearing . in the jew the oath was the seal or confirmation under the law : in the disciple , who is in the life , and hath learned the truth of christ the life , the yea , yea , the nay , nay , is appointed him by christ instead of the oath . and though the subtilty and fleshly widom strive hard , to wrest that place out of the hands of the simplicity , yet they shall never be able to do it ; but he that looks on it with a single eye in the light of that spirit wherein it was wrote , shall plainly see christ's drift to be to take away the shadow , even to abolish that use of swearing which was proper and allowed to the jews under the law , and to bring the confession or denial of the thing , the yea , yea , and nay , nay , ( from the gospel-spirit and principle in the disciple ) in the stead of it : which , to make more manifest to the honest , simple , and naked heart , which is willing to take up the will and truth of god in every thing , with all the crosses that attend it , let these few lines following be uprightly considered of . first , that slight , trivial and frequent oaths were not allowed under the law , but forbidden by the law , as a taking of gods holy and dreadful name in vain . secondly , that though vain oaths were then forbidden , yet solemn oaths , weighty oaths ( such as were needful and useful to the thing intended ) were allowed under the law. so in all those cases before expressed , oaths were allowed and justifiable , so that they were but careful to perform them , and did not forswear themselves . thirdly , christ brings in an exception against the use of this lawful swearing under the law , as the word but doth plainly signifie , and forbiddeth swearing wholly , altogether , or at all . the law saith , thou shalt not forswear thy self ( that 's the substance of what the law forbids : it allows swearing , but forbids forswearing ) but i say unto you , ye shall not only avoid forswearing , but swearing also , and that wholly or altogether : but i say unto you , swear not at all . fourthly , christ brings in another thing instead of swearing ( a thing far more sutable to the truth , plainness and simplicity of the gospel ) which is confessing the thing , or speaking the thing in truth , just as it is either by way of affirmation or denyal ; but let your yea be yea , and your nay , nay . and there is liberty enough left to a disciple , to satisfie any man concerning the truth of a thing by a confession , as much as by an oath : for is it not full as weighty , under the gospel to confess the presence of god , or that he is witness , or that we speak the thing in his fear , and in the feeling of his life and power , as it was under the law to swear by his life , by his fear , by his power , or the like ? is not the confessing of god by a christian , of more weight , than the swearing by him from a jew or heathen ? o nations and powers of the earth , seek truth , seek righteousness , and do not set up a form or image of things in your own wills ( and according to your own wisdom and inventions ) above the power of god. and let it be duely considered , whether the powers of this nation deal kindly with the lord , in exacting an oath from his people , who not in the least disaffection to them , but only in fidelity of conscience to christ their lord and master , cannot but refuse it . the question is , concerning their fidelity and obedience to the king , that is the thing which an oath is required to ratifie and confirm . now the swearing it self ( or formal taking of an oath ) is of little value ; but to be obedient , to be faithful , is the thing of value . the case then stands thus : the lord hath so formed them , that they cannot but be faithful and obedient . the lord hath raised up that principle in them , which cannot hurt the king or any man , nor cannot stand by and see him or any man hurt , without endeavouring to prevent it . here is their strength of performing good and avoiding evil ; and their yea and nay from this principle , is the best security which they can possibly give to any man ( and he who hath thus formed them in the pure principle of his life , hath likewise forbidden them to swear ) but this cannot be accepted for want of the other confirmation , to wit , of swearing , which came in by the fall , and was allowed among the shadows of the law , but is forbidden by the gospel . now , o king , shall not god's people be faithful and obedient to the lord as well as to thee ? shall they not be true to the principle of life , wherein they are begotten and brought forth , in the love and good-will to all , and out of enmity to any ? hath god raised up in them a principle which cannot deceive , and will not the yea and nay of that serve ( after so much experience , through so many changes ) but they must either break christ's command , and hazard their souls , or else lose their liberties and estates ? o that men would wait on the lord , for his pure fear to be written on their hearts by the finger of his spirit , that they might come out of the fleshly wisdom into the womb of the eternal wisdom , from whence our principle came ; that they might be able to see and justifie the purity , righteousness , nobility and worth of it , and that they might feel its security from all that is out of the good-will , out of the love , out of the life , and out of the peace , that so there might be an end of all strife , rebellion , heart-burnings , plots , and all manner of wickedness and ungodliness , which have no place in it , but daily waste and wither where it is sown and grows , even till they come to an end , and till righteousness and pure innocency fill the room and place which they had , both in the heart and mind within , and in the life and conversation outwardly . and let every one that nameth the name of the lord , depart from iniquity , and look well to his goings : for the darkness of the thick night of apostacy is already past , and the true light now again shineth . blessed is the eye which seeth it , and the heart which is established in it , in the midst of those terrible and dreadful shakings and confusions , which must not end here , but go over all nations . o that this nation could once bow to it , that it might be happy , and its rents and breaches healed for ever . the end . to such as are not satisfied with a profession without the true life and power but have sincere desires in their hearts after the lord himself, and a willingness to be acquainted with his pure living truth, and with the souls true guide and leader, this experience is in my heart to express unto you, which we have all-along witnessed in our travels out of the dark corrupt land, into the land of life and purity. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) to such as are not satisfied with a profession without the true life and power but have sincere desires in their hearts after the lord himself, and a willingness to be acquainted with his pure living truth, and with the souls true guide and leader, this experience is in my heart to express unto you, which we have all-along witnessed in our travels out of the dark corrupt land, into the land of life and purity. penington, isaac, - . p. s.n., [london : ] caption title. place and date of publication suggested by wing. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng society of friends -- pastoral letters and charges. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - judith siefring sampled and proofread - judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion to such as are not satisfied with a profession , without the true life and power ; but have sincere desires in their hearts after the lord himself , and a willingness to be acquainted with his pure living truth , and with the souls true guide and leader , this experience is in my heart to express unto you , which we have all-along witnessed in our travels out of the dark corrupt land , into the land of life and purity . we have still found the willer , the runner , the self-striver , the wise comprehending part , &c. left behind ; and the grace of god alone able to lead towards him , and the birth which is of and by grace still to obtain the mercy . and christ is our life ; and in the union with his spirit lies all our ability and strength ; and that knowledge of christ which we witness to be life eternal , we did not meet with whilest we thought to have it in the scriptures , but it hath been all along revealed to us by gods spirit : so that we can truly say , flesh and blood did not reveal the son to us , but the father . yet that which the scriptures testify concerning christ , is exactly true according as is there related , and is so acknowledged and really owned by us , though we obtained not our knowledge of christ by the letter , but by receiving a principle of life from god ; and coming into union with his spirit , we came to the true knowledg and owning of the letter , which as it came from the life , so can only be rightly read and understood in the life from which it came : so that he that is out of that , cannot but err concerning the letter , and misjudge concerning the things of god ; whereas he that is guided by & lives in gods spirit ( receiving his knowledge there ) cannot err concerning the spirit or concerning the letter , but hath that within him , which gives to him and preserves him in the true sense and understanding of both . now friends , this is an excellent thing indeed ; to come to and be acquainted with and receive that , which the scriptues testifie of , to wit , to receive christ , to feel union with him in his spirit , to enter into the new and holy agreement with god , into the everlasting covenant of life and peace , to feel the partition-wall broken down , and the wall of salvation reared up , and the defence which is thereby : to find the law of god , the law of his life , the law of the new creation written in the heart ; the pure fear planted there by god , which keepeth the mind and spirit from departing from him ; to have his spirit put within , causing to walk in his wayes , and to keep his statutes and judgements and do them : and so to have union and fellowship with the lord in that which is pure and living of him , in christ the new and living way , which was before the fall , and leads the obedient out of the fall , even beyond adams state , into himself who never fell , in whom is no sin , nor erring , no not for the waifaring man , though a fool , who often erred and wandered before he came thither : but there the fathers hand , even the hand of the eternal power is felt , which none can pluck out of . o that ye knew the infallible leader , and were turned from darkness to the light ( and did believe therein ) and from the power of satan unto god , that ye through his spirit might undeniably witness the mysteries of his kingdom , and partake of and enjoy that with his love , grace and mercy , plentifully distributes among his children , that wait upon him in his own way , under the holy ordering of his spirit : which was long harped at and longed after by many of us , but we could never meet with it , till the lord in his mercy caused the light of his day to shine into our hearts , which chased away the darkness of the night , and made the things of the day manifest . are ye of the house of jacob ? are ye of the right seed ? are ye of the true breathers after gods holiness ; after the life and righteousness of his son ? o then come ye , know , acknowledg , receive and wait to walk in the light of the lord : and do not joyn to that in you , which is separated from , and knoweth not the light of the lord ▪ but opposeth it . and friends , i beseech you take heed in this point : for he that denieth , refuseth , opposeth , speaketh evill or thinketh hardly of any thing that is indeed of christ , doth it to christ himself , in christs account ( that is , christ looketh upon it , as if he had denied him , refused him , opposed him , spoke evill of him &c. ) and it will be so laid to his charge in the day of the lord : and indeed , such is my love to you , and such my desire after your eternal good and welfare , that i would not have you stumble at the light and power of life , which the lord hath revealed and stretched out ( in this day of his mercy ) to gather and save with ; but feel the gathering by it from all that scattereth from the lord , with the preservation which is thereby and the effecting of that in your spirits , which it is able to effect , as it comes to manifest it self unto you , and to put forth its strength in you . so wait for the gathering unto the light ( the light of the everlasting day of god ) and into the power which is able to redeem and defend the soul from all that is contrary to god. and when ye are there , be diligent and faithful to the lord : and feel ( o daily wait to feel from him ) the unclothing of your spirits from all their own unrighteousness , yea from all their own righteousness also ( which are but as filthy rags before the lord , even of the same nature with the unrighteousness ) that ye may be clothed upon with the new and living garment , wherein there is neither spot , nor wrinkle , nor any such thing . for they that are of christ and in christ , do as really put on the nature , the spirit , the garment of the second adam , as ever they did put off the old garment , nature and spirit . this is from one , who uprightly and singly desireth your union with the lord ( in his pure truth and holy anointing ) and your disunion from all that is contrary to him . isaac penington . a query added , with its answer . query . what is the true confession of christ , even that confession which ariseth from the knowledge which is life eternal ? answ . friends , i witness it to be this ; a confession of his nature , a confession of his spirit , a confession of his life , a confession of his power . to confess the present living appearance of christ ; that is to confess christ . behold , saith he , i stand at the door and knock ▪ he that heareth his voice , acknowledgeth him , letteth him in , subjecteth to his truth and holy spirit ; he confesseth him . but , though a man should acknowledge and confess all that is recorded in the scriptures concerning him ; yet if he know not his knocks , so as to let him in and become subject to his power , he doth not confess christ as he ought to do , and as god requireth of him . o that ye could learn thus to know christ , and thus to confess him : for until ye thus know him , ye cannot thus confess him : and your knees must first bow at his name , before your tongues can rightly confess him , to the glory of god the father . for if ye will indeed glorify the father , ye must bow to the son , who is the light wherein god dwels , in the shinings whereof he appears to and visits the sons of men . and as the son himself is spiritual : so is the light wherewith he visits dark man. his law is spiritual , able to convert the soul of any man in whose heart it is writ , and to make wise ( the most simple among men ) unto salvation . for the law of god writ in the heart , is from the covenant of life ; and delivers and preserves from the law of sin and death , having the light , power and spirit of christ in and with it from whom it comes . now if ye would know these things clearly , certainly and infallibly ; wait to feel some touches , some drawings , some convictions of gods spirit upon your hearts . and then dispute not against them ; but immediately become subject , so far as the light and drawings of the father encline and lead the mind : and then ye shall see what he is that draws , and of what nature his drawings are . and if once ye come to feel the preciousness of his ointment , and to partake of it , receiving it and following it , it will bring you into the pure virginity , which loves and longs after the name that anoints with the pure living oyl . friends , i was once , where ye now are : and in that day , i also ( through error and mistake ) called the light , wherewith christ hath enlightened man , natural , as ye now do . but the lord hath since shewed me , that it was not the true birth of life in me which so called it : and it is also manifested to me in his spirit of truth ( which deceives not ) that it is not the true birth in you , which so judge of it . o that ye were born of the spirit , and in it knew the names of things from their nature , and might be taught of the father to worship in the son ; which ye can never do , till ye come into the son's light : and that is the sons light , even that wherewith he hath enlightned men , that they might believe in the father through him . the scriptures ( or any words spoken or written ) are not the light it self , but testimonies concerning the light. now that which ye are to come into , and to dwell and abide in , is the light it self : which light was before any words that testifie of it , and is the substance of all the shadows and the end of all the testimonies concerning it . he is alpha and omega , the begining and the end of the new creation of god. o that ye so knew him ! that from which the scriptures came , is the thing , the life , the spirit , the power it self : which is able to write inwardly , as well as outwardly . and he that knows the thing , and is led to the thing by the inward writing ( which is the testimony of jesus , the spirit of prophesie ) ●e by the testimony of jesus , by the spirit of prophesie is led to the holy power ; which he believing in , it prevails to save him out of the contrary spirit and power . and this the gentiles without the law , the jews under the law , and the believers under grace , had spritually all one and the same way and path of life unto salvation : and god will be clear and just in judging them all according thereunto , who had all some manifestation of the gospel and power which saves , according to the dispensation of the good pleasure of the free giver . and mens perishing in the time of every dispensation , is not for want of light and power from god , but from mens withdrawing and apostatizing from the light and power , which in every dispensation of life stretched forth its hand and arm sufficiently to gather and save . there is one thing more in my heart unto you , at this time , which is concerning applying the promises . the promises of god are great and precious , and give to partake of the divine nature , those that wait upon the lord in the faith and obedience of his truth . now there are estates and conditions to which they do belong , and there are estates and conditions to which they do not belong : and if any one apply any promise to himself , he not being in that estate and condition to which that promise belongs , he deceives his soul , and sucks not in the true sweetness and comfort of the promise , but of his own imaginary apprehensions concerning the promise . there is a state of wounding , of judging , of gods pleading with the soul , because of sin and transgression . now he that breaks and wounds , he alone can bind up and heal : and the lord is to be waited upon , in the way of his judgments , until he see meet to bind up and heal . now the lord heals by the same spirit and power wherewith he wounds : but it is hard to lye under the judgment to bear the indignation of the lord , and so keep the wound ( which he makes ) open , till he pour in the oyl and heal . for there is that near , which will be offering to heal before the season , and will be bringing in promises and applying promises ▪ otherwise then the spirit of the lord intendeth or applyeth them . now this is diligently to be watched against , that the hurt of the soul ( judged and wounded by the spirit of the lord ) be not healed slightly , and peace spoken to it ( and an expectation and hope raised in it ) which is not of the lord. but this is the right way , even to give up to feel that which wounds , & to receive the woundings of thy souls friend & lie low before him in the wounded state , waiting up●n him in the way of his judgments and righteous indignation ; till the same that wounded , speak peace . for the same is to speak peace , and not another . i the lord wound , and i heal : i kill , and i make alive . judgment is mine and mercy is mine ; and they both issue from my lips . ( see isa . . . ) so every one , that would not be deceived about nor misapply the promises ; wait to feel that in you , which leads into the condition to which the promise belongs , and to be led into and kept in the condition by it . and then , the same that leads into the condition , will apply the promise to him who is in the condition , the ear being open to him , harkning to the lord , waiting what he will speak , who speaks peace to his people in his seasons , and having the ear shut against the voice of the unrighteous troubler of the souls of gods heritage . yea , he that applyeth the promises to the soul ( having brought it into the state to which they belong ) he also will lead and bring unto the fulfilling of the promises , even to the receiving of the good things promised and waited for : so that the soul shall witness the gospel to be a glorious state indeed ; a state of life , a state of liberty , a state of power , a state of dominion , a state of holiness , a kingdom of righteousness and peace , wherein there are everlasting mansions and dwelling places in christ jesus , for the seed of the righteous for evermore . the lord god of everlasting mercy , life , power and rich goodness , cause the light of his own holy spirit to shine into your hearts , guide you thereby into , and in the true way , even in the pure living path ( which was and is but one for ever ) that ye may come into the true possession , and full enjoyment , and infallible witnessing of these things . of the d . mon. . there is another query , of great concernment , which springeth up in my heart towards you . query . is not the spirit , or anointing , the great gospel-promise , and the great gospel-ordinance ? is not he truth and no lie , and the leader out of all lies and deceits into the truth , and the preserver of the mind and spirit therein ? little children , said the same apostle , who had directed to the anointing , keep your selves from idols . is there any possibility of being kept from images and idols , but by him ? can any understand the things of the spirit , or the words spoken by the spirit concerning spiritual things , but by him ? and then , is not every apprehension , that ye take up from the scriptures concerning spirtual things , which ye have not from him ( but comprehend and gather of your selves ) an image or conceiving of your own concerning that thing , and not that true knowledge and understanding of the thing which he alone can give ? o that all the chambers of imagery were thrown down in you , and every idol of the heart and mind discovered to you , and broken down by the light and power of the lord ; that ye might come to that which is pure and living , and by its purifying know the pure heart , the pure mind , the pure conscience , and offer up the pure perfect offering , not the lame , blind imperfect &c. which were not accepted ( in the figure ) under the law , nor acceptable under the gospel , mal. . , . and chap. . . friends , ye must know that which is pure from god , and ye must come into it ( out of that which is impure , into that which is pure . ) now that ye may do so , ye must know the purifying : for nothing that is impure , can enter into that which is pure . yea , ye must become priests to god , and wear the priests garment , the pure garment , the living-garment , the fine linnen , without mixture of the woollen . ye must be born of the innocency , be clothed with the innocency . the stony , hard , desperately-wicked heart must be taken away , and the tender heart of flesh received , the mind renued to god , the fear put within ( which clenseth and keepeth clean ) the law writ within , the spirit of the lord put in the inward parts , and felt powerfully operating and changing there . yea and the inside must not only be clean , but the outside also : for ye must be clothed with the spirit , clothed with the lambs righteousness and holiness ; and thus ye must appear before the lord in his temple , which is the beauty of holiness , whose house holiness becomes for ever ; where ye are never to appear in your own filthy rags , but in the nature , spirit , righteousness and life of christ . and thus ye are wel-pleasing to god , even in that which is of god ; being born of that , formed of that , found in that , appearing in that . but in his own , no man can be excepted : for it is determined of god , and stands irreversible for ever , that in his own ( in his own knowledg , in his own faith , in his own obedience , in his own righteousness , in his own willing and running &c. ) shall no flesh for ever be justified in his sight ; but only and alone in the nature , spirit , life , righteousness , faith , obedience and holiness of his son. therefore wait for the seed , that ye may know the seed , feel the seed , the pure seed of life ( the leaven of the heavenly kingdom ) and may witness it arising and come in you to do the will , and you in it quickened and enabled to live to and serve the living god. and when ye know this seed , ye know christ : and when ye receive this seed , ye receive christ : and if it live in you , christ lives in you : and in it ( being in it , and abiding in it ) are ye heirs of the life , kingdom and power , which hath no end ; and shall daily feel the promises , and blessings be-belonging to the seed , flowing in upon your spirits . but if ye content your selves with that knowledge of christ , which the erring and apostatised spirit of man ( from the life and power ) may gather out of the letter of the scriptures , and feed thereon : that will not nourish you up to eternal life , but death , and sin , and the gates of hell will have power over you notwithstnding that : but if ye through the spirit , receive power over that which is contrary to god , and through him mortify the deeds of the body , yet shall live . therefore wait for the manifestation of the pure power of the endless life , which is now dispensed from on high ( blessed be the name of the living one ) and wait to know and be joyned to that seed of life , wherein and whereby it is dispensed , that ye may witness christs kingdom come to you , and the reign of your spirits with him therein , over all that captivateth from him , loadeth the foul , boweth down and oppresseth . a post-script . concerning deceit , and being deceived . there is that which deceives ( where it is harkened to ) and there is that which is liable to be deceived by it . there is likewise that which deceiveth not : and there is also that which cannot be deceived . so likewise there is a pure fear and watching in the truth against the deceit , lest by any means it should enter and betray . as also there is a fear that is a snare ( which the true faith preserves out of ) whereby many are entangled in the very bowels of deceit , even concerning those very things , about which they are afraid they should be deceived . this hath been experienced by those , who have been acquaintd with the lords precious truth , and thereby are come to know and discern the wiles and devices of satan ; who often hath quenched what the lord hath kindled , by his stirring up a fear , lest it should not be of the lord , but from the spirit of deceit . it is true , that in the apostacy from the life and spirit of truth , deceit did generally prevail and overwhelm the minds of people . and so far as people are yet in the apostacy ( not being gathered and redeemed out of it , by the spirit and power of the lord ) they are yet under deceit ; though perhaps they littel think so . little did we think formerly ( and little do they think now , who are now in that state we were then in ) that while we so much feared being deceived , we were already deceived , being short of the life and power of truth , which alone is able to make free and preserve from deceit . when the lord cometh to bring to the primitive light and principle , that he might perfectly deliver out of deceit ; what can the enemy do more advantagiously towards keeping his hold in the mind ( and towards keeping the mind in the deceits wherin he hath already entangled it ) then to stir up and heighten a fear in it , lest the precious truth , which god maketh manifest to deliver the soul by , should be deceit ? and they that harken to and let in the voice of the deceiver , must needs beleive it to be so . and thus , with them , light cometh to be called darkness , and darkness light. yea , who is it , at this day , who escapeth this snare , of calling evil good , and good evil ? surely , none but he , whose soul is led into and lives in the light and power of truth . for most men take up principles ( according to their own , or other mens understanding of the spriptures ) and judge according to those principles : and so the spirit and light of the lord judgeth not in them , but they themselves judge according to an assumed knowledg . so that flesh is not silent , the man is not dead in them and brought to nothing , but only lives in an higher region then he did before . before he lived in an apparent unrighteousness : now he lives in an imagined righteousness and faith : but not in the sons righteousness , not in the sons faith , not in the sons power , not in the sons dominion ; but at best only in that which he apprehendeth and strongly imagineth to be so . o happy is he , who is come through all his own imaginings and conceivings about the things of god , and his own apprehensions about scriptures and promises , and is come into the thing it self , into the spirit of life ( into the truth and into the power ) and who walks with god therein , daily witnessing the redemption which is of him , through his son jesus christ , who is known and partook of in the pure quickning spirit , and not otherwise . and he that is truly begotten of god , and dwels with him in the light which is eternal , knows that he is of god ; which others may strongly imagine they are , but none else can truly know it , but may easily err and be entangled in the deceits of the enemy ( about the new birth and other weighty things ) while they are greatly afraid of being deceived by him , and so ( through that fear ) fly the pure truth , which frees from deceits , lest it should deceive them . the end . some things relating to religion, proposed to the consideration of the royal society, (so termed) to wit, concerning the right ground of certainty therein, concerning tenderness of spirit, and persecution, a query concerning separation, concerning washing away sin from the conscience, and the garment of salvation, and what it is that is covered therewith : likewise, some questions and answers concerning the church of the new-covenant, the rock of foundation whereon it is built, and its preservation by and upon the rock : with some queries concerning the scattered and hidden estate of the church, and concerning that church which got up in the view of the world, instead thereof, and was acknowledged by the world as if she had been the true church, though indeed and truth she was not so : whereunto are added, some queries to professors, who speak of high attainments, &c. / written by ... isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) some things relating to religion, proposed to the consideration of the royal society, (so termed) to wit, concerning the right ground of certainty therein, concerning tenderness of spirit, and persecution, a query concerning separation, concerning washing away sin from the conscience, and the garment of salvation, and what it is that is covered therewith : likewise, some questions and answers concerning the church of the new-covenant, the rock of foundation whereon it is built, and its preservation by and upon the rock : with some queries concerning the scattered and hidden estate of the church, and concerning that church which got up in the view of the world, instead thereof, and was acknowledged by the world as if she had been the true church, though indeed and truth she was not so : whereunto are added, some queries to professors, who speak of high attainments, &c. / written by ... isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . p. s.n.], [london : . reproduction of original in duke university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng religion. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - john latta sampled and proofread - john latta text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion some things relating to religion , proposed to the consideration of the royal society , ( so termed ) to wit , concerning the right ground of certainty therein . concerning tenderness of spirit , and persecution . a query concerning separation . concerning washing away sin from the conscience ; and the garment of salvation , and what it is that is covered therewith . likewise , some questions and answers concerning the church of the new-covenant , the rock or foundation whereon it is built , and its preservation by and upon the rock . with some queries concerning the scattered and hidden estate of the church ; and concerning that church which got up in the view of the world , instead thereof , and was acknowledged by the world as if she had been the true church , though indeed and truth she was not so . whereunto are added , some queries to professors , who speak of high attainments , &c. written by one , whom it hath pleased the lord ( of his great goodness and tender mercy ) to lead out of the darkness , into his marvellous light ; known among men by the name of isaac penington , printed in the year , . to the royal society , so termed . friends , i have heard that ye are seeking after the excellency of nature and learning . i am not for discouraging any man in endeavouring after that which is good , useful and excellent in its kind and place : but it is the advantage of everything , to know and abide in its place , and to honour and serve him from whom all good gifts and endowments come . man hath but a moment in this world , and he is here no more ; and then the spirit returneth to god that gave it , to give an account of the talent which he gave it , and its improvement thereof to the glory of him that gave it , and to the salvation of its own soul . now this talent is of an higher kind than nature , and will lead higher than nature , giving a man to partake of that wisdom from which nature came ; and teaching him to order all that is natural , to its right end : for god is not an enemy to nature , but to the corruption and disorder of nature . i desire ye might know and partake of the true wisdom , and feel union with god in the principle of his own life , and in the incorruptible and heavenly seed of god receive dominion over the earthly and corruptible . for this end singly , in the love springing up in my heart towards you ( as it often doth , both towards particular persons and societies : for i am a friend to all , and a lover of all , sincerely desiring the good of all , and the right guidance of their souls to happiness ) have i proposed these things following more particularly to your view , though they concern others also , that ye thereby might be awakened to search after that which is most excellent in you , and be acquainted with the vertue and precious effects thereof , to the full satisfaction and compleat joy of your souls , in that which alone is able fully to satisfie , and give them ground of durable joy and rejoycing in that which is not of a perishing nature , but which was , and is , and will be the same for ever . from a friend to the everlasting peace of your souls , and a desirer of your welfare and prosperity in this world , isaac penington . of certainty , and rightly grounded assurance , in matters of religion . there is a witness of , and from god in every conscience , which in his light , power and authority witnesseth for him , and against that which is contrary to him , as he pleaseth to move upon it , visiting and drawing the hearts of the sons of men by it . from this witness proceeds the true and well-grounded religion in the mind towards god. for this witness both testifieth and demonstrateth , that there is a god ; and also , inclineth the mind to desire and seek after the right knowledg and true worship of him . and such who keep to this witness , and wait upon god therein , are taught by it the true spiritual worshp , the true and pure fear of the most high ; the faith which he giveth to his saints , the love which is chast and unseigned , the hope which purifieth the mind , and anchors it on the eternal rock ; the meeknesse , patience , gentleness , humility , &c. which is not of man's nature ; but the gift of god , and the nature of the heavenly giver . and then for exercises of religion , as praying to the father of spirits , hearing the heavenly voice , reading in the spirit , and with the renewed understanding , singing , and making melody in the heart ( and also with the voice ) to the lord , as his life is felt , and the spiritual blessings and treasure received ; all these , and whatever else is judged necessary for the soul ; are taught by this witness of god in the conscience , as the soul groweth up in the light , spirit , nature , and holy power thereof . but now , when the lord reacheth to his witness in men , and is teaching their hearts by it ; then the enemy , the other spirit , whose seat is in the other part , keepeth a noise there , to overbear the voice of the witness , and to make men take up religion in another part , which is shallow , and reacheth not to the depth and weight of truth , which is in the witness of god , and which the witness of god gives to them that come thither . thus the enemy stirreth up reasonings , imaginations and consultations about god and his worship , wherein he raiseth up the vain shallow mind , forging and bringing forth somewhat pleasing and suitable to the earthly understanding , taking up the mind therewith , and engaging the heart in some such practises therefrom , as may quiet and satisfie that part in men . for the wayes that men take up in their reasonings and understandings , satisfie their reasonings and understandings ; and so they walk in the light of the sparks , and warm themselves by the fire of their own kindling : but all this answers not the witness of god in them , nor will be approved by his light in their own consciences , when it comes again to be revealed and made manifest in them . this was the ground of the error both of the jews and gentiles . the gentiles were enlightned by god with his true light ; what might be known of god ( suitable to their state and capacity ) being manifested in them , insomuch as it is witnessed concerning them in the scriptures , ( which are a true record and testimony ) that they knew god. but when they knew him , they glorified him not as god , but became vain in their imaginations , and so their foolish heart was darkned concerning him ; and they worshipped him not as the witness taught them he was to be worshipped ; not according to the manifestation of his light in them , but according to their own foolish imaginations and reasonings , which taught them to make images of him , and so to worship him in and through creatures , according to their own inventions , which is not the true worship , rom. . , , . so likewise the jewes , not keeping to the manifestation of his light within them ( to the word or commandment nigh in the mouth and heart , to which moses directed them ) which would have taught and enabled them to have kept to the law of the letter without them , they also ran into the nature and spirit of the heathen , and fell into imaginings and reasonings , which led them to worship like them : insomuch that they also changed their glory , into the image of an oxe that eateth grass , psal . . . now from this part in man ariseth all the uncertainty , and doubts and dissatisfaction about religion . and hence arise the opinions , and judgments , and reasonings in the minds of men . yea , indeed the best of mens religion here , is but an opinion or judgment , which the breath of god's spirit will shake and dissolve every where , sooner or later . all flesh is grass , and all the beauty of men's knowledg , religion and worship here , will wither like grass . all the buildings and churches that are raised here ( how beautiful soever ) are but babylon , built by man's understanding , by man's knowledg , by man's comprehension , by man's wisdom , by man's skill , and indeed in man's will and time : and their standing , beauty , strength and glory , is but from man , and in man's day ; and will fade away like a flower . but the true certainty is in the day of god , from the light of his spirit shining into man's spirit , from god's inward reaching to his heart by his power , and testifying his truth there . and this all the powers of darkness cannot prevail against in it self , no , nor against that man that is kept to it . for it is the rock ( the only rock ) upon which the whole church is built , and which cannot fail to preserve every member of the church , which is built upon it . ye then , which would come to certainty in religion , observe the way , which is made manifest from god in this our day , blessed be his name , which is this : mind the witness of god in thy heart , and come to , and build upon the light thereof . dwell not in reasonings , take not up thy religion in reasonings of the mind ; but pass through them , pass beyond them into a light of an higher nature . wait to know the birth which is from god , and the light which he gives to that birth . what is the birth ? is not the birth of , and from the second adam ? and what is the heavenly birth's light ? is it not the light of the second adam ? is it not in nature and kind above the light of the first adam ? where is the seat of reasonings ? is it not the earthly mind , the fallen mind ? here lies man's strength . here is man's wisdom . here is man's life . it is so indeed . but the wisdom of christ , the light of christ , the life of christ , the power of christ , is a cross to this ; finds it in the enmity against god , crucifies it , slays it , brings it to nothing ; and he that will become wise as to god , must become a fool unto all this , a child , a babe , entring the kingdom without this , and must there remain naked as to this , and never put it on more . now observe ( ye that have understanding and true sense ) the difference between the religion which god hath taught us , and led us into , and the religions of all men upon the earth besides . our religion stands wholly out of that , which all their religion stands in . their religion stands in the comprehension , in a belief of a litteral relation or description . our religion stands in a principle , which changeth the mind , wherein the spirit of life appeareth to , and witnesseth in the conscience to and and concerning the things of the kingdom ; where we hear the voice , and see the express image of the invisible one , and know things not from an outward relation , but from their inward nature , vertue and power . yea , here ( we must profess ) we so know things , that we are fully satisfied about them , and could not doubt concerning them , though there had never been word or letter written of them : though indeed it is also a great comfort and sweet refreshment to us , to read that testified of outwardly , which ( through the tender mercy of our god ) we feel and enjoy inwardly . and in this our whole religion consists , to wit , in the silence and death of the flesh , and in the quickning and flowing life of the spirit . for he who is of the new-birth , of the new-creation , of the second adam ( the lord from heaven ) is as really alive to god , and as really lives to him in his spirit , as ever he was really dead in trespasses and sins , in the time of his alienation and estrangement from god. of tenderness of spirit , and persecution . he which is born of god , he who is of the love , and dwells in the love , cannot but be tender . he who is born of the earthly wisdom , who taketh up and holdeth forth a religion there , cannot but persecute . why so ? because he cannot but judg , that any man may take up religion as he hath done , and so by reasonings may come to acknowledg and take up , what he hath taken up and holdeth forth , or else he is wilful and stubborn , as he judgeth . but now , he that is born of god , and hath received his light , knowledg , religion and way of worship from him ; he knoweth that no man can rightly receive them , but the same way , to wit , from god , by the light which he causeth to shine into the heart at his pleasure , and in the faith which he gives . so that god's free and powerful spirit is to be waited upon , for the working of all in his people , and not any forced to act beyond or contrary to the principle of his life and light in them . a query concerning separation . quer. whether after the apostacy from the spirit , life and power of the apostles , and the getting up of the antichristian state , church and worship , there must not of necessity be a separation from all these , before there can be a recovery of the life and power again , and of the true church-state , which was brought forth in the daies of the apostles ? must there not be a perfect coming out of the corrupt state ( in the whole nature , several parts and degrees of it ) before there can be a restoration to and witnessing of the true and pure state ? must not the christians now come out of all the antichristian inventions and churches , as well as the christians of old came out of all the heathenish worships , yea out of the jewish worship and church ( which once was of god ) before they can become an holy building and habitation to god in the spirit ? yea doth not the same spirit , which cryed to the people of god then , come out from among them , and be ye separate &c. call and cry now , come out of her , my people , out of babylon , out of the false church , out of all the antichristian buildings , which are reared up after the several forms and waies of mens inventing , but out of the spirit , life and power , which alone is able to build up in and unto the lord ? and what is that which cries out against separation , in this day of the lord 's dividing and separating , but that spirit which would hold back the soul , from being gathered to the lord , in the chains of darkness and in the land of death and confusion ? o that men knew that which divides and separates , and which is appointed by god to divide and separate both inwardly and outwardly , and might feel the full work and effect of it , even perfect separation from all that is not of god , that so they might be joyned to him and built up in him , who is the life , rest , peace , joy and pure breath of the soul for ever ! the word of god is quick and powerful , sharper than any two-edged sword , and what doth it do ? why , it separates between nation and nation , between church and church , between people and people , between cattel and cattel , between soul and soul , yea between the thoughts and intents of the same heart , owning and cherishing all that is of the pure , and condemning and destroying all that is of the impure . and happy , o for ever happy is he , who can witness the work of this word perfected in his soul , even the axe of the lord powerfully laid to and having cut down all that is corrupt in him , that the pure plant of god may flourish and bring forth fruit in him in peace , without annoyance or interruption of the impure . then the river of life as the streams of everlasting righteousness shall flow into his vessel , and jerusalem become in and to him a quiet habitation , and nothing be able to hurt or destroy any thing of life in him , who dwells in and abides on the mountain of god's holiness . o blessed is the race of travellers , which in the pure light of the everlasting day are travelling thitherwards , even with their hearts and faces faithfully bent towards sion , which is the holy , spiritual , heavenly hill of god! and blessed , o blessed for ever , is the lord god of life and power , who is the faithful guider , leader and conducter , of all that follow the footsteps of the flock , in the way which is pure , true , living and everlasting . concerning the washing away of sin from the conscience , and the garment of salvation , and what it is that is covered therewith . there is somewhat appointed by god to wash away sin , which is the water of regeneration , the water of life , the spirit 's water , and the blood of the lamb , which are known , received and felt by faith in the light of the spirit , wherein alone his work is wrought . thus now , upon believing the soul is washed . the faith brings in or lets in the water and blood , which cleanse and purge the conscience from the sin , which before stained and defiled it : and according to the faith , so is the water and blood let in , and accordingly is the washing . and he that is baptized , he that is washed by the spirit , comes out of the water clean , and watching to the light wherein he was purified , witnesseth the powerful word of life as able to preserve in cleanness , as it was to cleanse . but if there be not a watch to , and faith in and single-hearted obedience to that which purified and keepeth pure , there is that near which will defile , where it is hearkned to and let in , there is that which will tempt to lust and sin , and so draw into darkness and death again . and if any man sin afterwards , sin defiles again , and the stain thereof will lye upon the conscience , till by repentance and faith the water and blood be let in again , and the cleansing vertue from it received and restored again . so if any man sin , there is an advocate , an intercessor , a divine helper , one who hath the water of life and the blood of life to wash with . there is a fountain set open for sin and for uncleanness , for judah and jerusalem to wash therefrom : but every defilement and pollution sticks , until it be washed off . now there are sins of several kinds . some are easily remitted and washed off , insomuch as the stain is hardly felt by the soul , the tender mercy and pure life doth so readily and naturally flow over them . some again are long held and bound by the spirit upon the conscience , and often remembred to the heart which is apt to backslide : yea there is in some cases a severe judgment , and a long waiting on the lord for his mercy , and for his renewing and enlivening of faith , before the water and blood which washeth can be again felt . for faith is not in a man's power , nor repentance neither ; but they are given of god to whom and when he pleaseth . and a man that is in part converted , may give ear to the enemy , and let in sin and death upon his soul : but he cannot repent again presently , nor believe again presently , but as god breathes upon him , and revives the work of faith and repentance in him . there were sins under the old covenant , and there are sins under the new , or against the law of the new. the sins of the old covenant did lie upon him that committed them , until they were expiated according to the law of the old covenant . and sins under the new covenant lie also upon the soul and conscience , until they be expiated according to the law of the new covenant , which is until the advocate interpose and plead with the father , and give faith and repentance to the soul , and sprinkle upon the heart and conscience that water and blood which hath vertue in it to wash . and if it were not for this after-washing ( as i may so say ) no man could be saved : but though he were once washed , yet sinning again afterwards he would die in his sins ( and so under condemnation ) unless he were again washed . o blessed be the name of the lord for the water and blood of the covenant , and for his continual pouring them out upon the souls of his , in the light that is eternal ! now as men come to the truth as it is in jesus , they will find their own apprehensions about these things to have been but dreams , wherewith the enemy hath fed and pleased them , while he hath lulled them asleep in the night of darkness , that he might the better steal away the true weighty knowledg of the things of the kingdom from them . thus men have dreamed about justification , about sanctification , about regeneration , about redemption , about faith , hope , love , righteousness , peace , joy &c. and have been mistaken about them , missing of that power and light whereby and wherein they are revealed and made manifest . now he that will rightly know these things , must know them in the feeling and true experience : and therein he shall find all these are wrought in a mysterious way of pure life's operation , out of the reach of man's comprehension ; and that no man can understand them , but as the new and holy understanding is given him ; nor retain the sense and knowledg of them , but as he abides in the new nature and retains the new understanding . so for the garment of salvation ; that is christ , the righteousness of christ , the nature of christ , the spirit of christ . this is the holy covering . he that puts on christ , puts on this : he that wears christ , wears this ; he that appears before god in christ , appears in this . and the soul puts on this , as it puts off the other . it is the purified soul , that only puts on him that is pure : and as a man is cleansed from the impure , so only hath he in him a capacity of receiving and being cloathed with christ . and this now is the work of the true ministry , to wit , to preach the word , to reveal the word , and bring the mind to the word ( which changeth it and begets the new capacity ) and so to begin the work of life and reconciliation , wherein and whereby there is some unclothing of the old , and some clothing with the new ; and so to carry on this work in the spirit and power of the father , until it be perfected . and this is a blessed work , and blessed is the ministry which is called to and entrusted with this work , being faithful in it : and blessed are they that witness the truth of and receive the effect of this ministry , and are subject to it in the lord. for through and under this ministry , there is a receiving of a perfect gift in some measure at first ( wherein some true union and little acquaintance with the lord of life is at first witnessed , and some operation of the light and power of his holy spirit : ) and a grovving up in it unto perfection , as the soul is exercised by it , and faithful to the lord in the exercise , under the daily cross , vvhich daily vvorketh against and crucifieth in the heart , mind , life and conversation vvhat ever is contrary to god , as it is singly vvaited for , taken up and subjected to . some questions and answers concerning the church of the new-covenant , the rock or foundation whereupon it is built , and its preservation by and upon the rock . with some queries concerning the scattered estate of the true church , and concerning that church which got up in its stead , and made a great show with her golden cup , for the time while the true church was scattered . qu. . what is the church of god under the new agreement or covenant ? an. it is a company of living stones , quickned by god , and knit together in the unity and fellowship of his spirit , to worship god together in his spirit , and offer up unto him spiritual sacrifices , acceptable to god by jesus christ . what was the church of the old covenant ? was it not the seed of abraham , the outward jews , the children of the old covenant ? and what is the church of the new covenant ? is it not the seed of god , the jews inward , the children of the new covenant ? qu. . how are these stones joyned together ? an. by the spirit of life , which begets them all in one nature , and knits them together in that nature . by the inward circumcision , cutting off that which causeth enmity and disunion , and so fitting them to be made one new lump in christ . by christ's baptism , which is the baptism of fire and of his spirit , which burns up the old earthly nature , and so baptizes them into one new living body , sutable and fitting to their head , which is the fountain of life and distributes life through all the body , according to its capacity , need and service . qu. . upon what is this church built ? an. upon the rock or foundation of god , which god hath laid in his spiritual sion , which rock is christ for other foundation can no man lay , than that which is laid , which is jesus christ , nor other rock did the lord ever chuse for his church to be built upon : nor hath any other rock sufficient strength to bear up the building , against the storms and stress of the powers of darkness , which it often meeteth with , even every member in its travels ; after it is once built on the rock , the gates of hell press hard upon it ; but abiding on the rock , it feels the strength and preservation of the rock . for as they cannot prevail against christ , so neither can they prevail against that which is built upon him . but if there be a going forth from the strength and preservation , there is a liableness to be made a prey . and the promise is not , absolutely and perpetually to that person or congregation which is received or let into the truth , but to that person or church which abideth and continueth in the truth unto the end . the jews were safe in the faith and obedience of their covenant , and the christians or christian churches are not safe , but in the faith and obedience of theirs . for if they walked not humbly with the lord and in his fear , which keeps the heart from departing from him , and in the faith whereby they stand , they were to be cut off from their church-state , as well as the jews were from theirs , as the apostle paul expresly tells the church at rome , rom. . , . qu. . vvhat was paul ? an. the apostle of the gentiles , who laboured abundantly , even more abundantly than all the other apostles , and hath left more instructions , relating to the gentiles , than all the apostles besides ; and was tender of them , in standing for and defending their liberty in christ , when peter a little warped and was to be blamed , gal. . . for indeed man cannot be certain and infallible , further than he kepeth to and is exercised by the certain and infallible spirit ; which he is subject to be tempted to err from , further than he stands upon the watch ; and cannot but err from , unless he feel a continual preservation in the fear and by the power of the lord. and the certainty of truth doth not depend so much upon the person from whom it is received , as upon the demonstration and evidence to the conscience wherein it is received . the apostles were not lords over the true christians faith , but helpers of their joy . and christ did not require his disciples to believe what ever he knew to be true , but prepared their capacities , and dropped in according to their capacities . and this is the way of the true ministers , to wait on god to beget , and on him again to water the begotten soul , and carry on his work in it : to make them know christ their master , from whom they are to receive light , life , instruction and direction ; and to feel the head , and be joyned to the head , and receive from the head their knowledg , as well the least as the greatest , ebr. . what is paul ? what is apollos ? what is cephas ? were not they carnal that cryed up these one above another ? yet the younger ought to be subject to the elder , and all to be subject one to another in the truth , pet. . . qu. . what was peter ? an. one of the disciples of christ , a precious stone in the building ( joh. . . ) one of the most eminent apostles , even the chosen minister to them of the circumcision , as paul was to the gentiles . but he knew that christ was the only rock or foundation , as well as paul , and that christ alone was able to bear the weight of that building , and to defend it against the gates of hell ; and he never had commission , nor can it be proved that ever he preached himself the rock , but he preached christ the foundation-stone , the rock of offence , the rock of defence &c. see pet. . . and v. , , . and if an angel from heaven , or any man or church on earth , so interpret any scripture , as to hold forth any such thing , that any else besides christ is the rock , they plainly shew that they are erred from the truth , and that their interpretation is of their own private spirit , and not that publick spirit , which all the prophets of god and apostles and truly-holy men were guided by . qu. . was the church alwaies to be a gathered company ? or was there a possibility of their being scattered ? an. there was a possibility of their being scattered , yea a certainty , if they grew corrupt in doctrine and practise , and kept not the faith , rom. . for the lord god intended a pure building , a spiritual building , fit to offer the spiritual sacrifices , pet. . . an holy people , separated from the world , cor. . . in which he might dwell and walk , ver . . if therefore any church depart from the spirit and life and power of the apostles , and mix again with the world , losing their own proper pale which fenced from the world , they soon lose that which maketh them a church of god , and so become a synagoge of satan . now it is in my heart also to propound a few queries concerning the scattered and hidden estate and condition of the church , and concerning that church which got up in the view of the world , and was acknowledged by the world instead thereof afterwards . q. . whether the true church did retain her ministry outwardly , and her outward ordinances , and way of worship of the outward court after her scattering ? or whether the false church , which appeared in her room as if she had been the true , caught up and appeared in the outwardness of these ? the grounds of this querie are these following . . because upon god's measuring of his temple and worshippers , the outward court ( consider well what that is , and how far it extends ) was left out of god's measure , so that he intended to reckon it no longer as his but given by him to the gentile-christians , such as were christians or jews in name , but gentiles in spirit and nature , rev. . . because in the last days , when that strange generation of christians was to spring up , who should be lovers of their own selves , covetous , boasters , proud , blasphemers , disobedient to parents , unthankful , unholy , without natural affection , truce-breakers , false-accusers , incontinent , fierce , despisers of those that are good , traitors , heady , high-minded , lovers of pleasures more than lovers of god : yet these should have a form of godliness , but deny the power thereof , tim. . , to . now mind . the temple , wherein was the power , god had removed with the true worshippers ; but the outward court ( wherein was the appearance or some kind of a form of church , ministry and ordinances ) those had got , and were found worshipping in it , in the midst of all this great wickedness and abomination of spirit . . because the jews ( who were the type ) while they were in captivity in babylon , could not sing the songs of sion , nor had the worship of the outward jerusalem there . and can the spiritual jews , sing the spiritual songs of spiritual sion , in mysterie babylon ? no , there they are but witnesses to that life and power , which the true church enjoyed and flourished with , in her built estate . q. . whether this is not an infallible mark , and most certain demonstration of the false church , her sitting upon many waters , which waters are peoples , multitudes , nations and tongues ? did not the spirit of the lord thus mark her out to john , rev. . . did the true church ever sit upon many waters ? was not the church a gathering out of the nations , into the power and life which the nations persecuted ? but the false church sits over the nations with a form of godliness , but without the true power thereof . then if this be a mark that god hath set upon her , let every one wait to read it aright , that he may know thereby which is she , and praise the name of the lord for discovering her to him . q. . whether this false church be not rightly called babylon , even an heap of confusion ( in a mystery ) as to god's eye , though to man's eye her appearance may be orderly and decent ? and whether she be not justly termed by the spirit of the lord , the great whore , both for largeness in bulk , and for the greatness of her fornications , having whored from the bed of the husband , and entred into the bed of a stranger , and having taught and compelled others to acknowledg and worship in her forms , which thus held forth and maintained by her , are not only without , but also against the true power ? q. . whether antichrist be not entred into and become the head of this false church , and whether he doth not sit there ruling in it , even as christ was head of the true , and sate ruling in the true ? and whether antichrist doth not keep his hold of this church , and possess his seat in it , for many ages and generations , even from the time he got in after the days of the apostles , till the very coming of christ in his power and brightness ? thes . . q. . whether the great plagues , woes , terrible thunders and cups of god's indignation , spoken of in the book of the revelations , are not to be poured , in their several orders and degrees , upon this false church , and upon antichrist her beloved head and king , even till she be stripped naked , made desolate , and her flesh burnt with fire , and her head bruised and destroyed , by christ the true head and king of the true church ? q. . whether the people of god , such as feel somewhat of the power , and bow to the lord in spirit and truth in some measure , yet these , if they mind not his call out of this babylon , and come not fully out of her , but abide in any part of her , observing any of her wayes or worships , till the time of god's controversie with her and judging of her , whether they also shall not partake of her plagues ? rev. . . q. . whether all people have not great reason to fear before the lord , and to look to their wayes and worships lest they be found in any thing therein which is not of him , but contrary to him , and so bring upon their souls and bodies that wrath and sore judgment from god , which they are not able to bear ? rev. . , , . q. . whether it was not the great love and mercy of god , to warn the churches of these things in the book of the revelations ? and whether he can be safe in these respects , who either doth not understand or not observe the warnings given by the spirit of the lord therein ? how often is it therein said ; he that hath an ear , let him hear what the spirit of god saith to the churches ! it is also said , blessed is he that readeth , and they that hear the words of this prophesie , and keep those things which are written therein : for the time is at hand . he then that readeth not , that hath not an ear to hear the words of this prophesie , how can he keep what is written therein ? how can he beware of and avoid the seeming beauty and glory of the false church , or suffer with the faithful witnesses of god in their testimony against her ? and if he do not thus , but is entangled by the false church with her golden cup of fornications ( rev. . . ) he misseth of the blessing , and ah what is he to meet with instead thereof ! my heart hath often melted within me , and my bowels rowled at the consideration and deep sense , which the lord hath given me of these things : and this i say therein , to those that desire life and peace from god , o wait on him for the eye which sees in his light , for the ear which hears his voice , and for the heart which understands the words and messages of his spirit , that ye may feel his gathering , guidance and preservation out of that , to which his wrath is for ever ; and against which his wrath is to be made more manifest , and poured out more fully and abundantly , than ever it yet was . for the lord will empty his love and his life into sion , and empty the very dregs and thick mixtures of the cups of his indignation into the very heart and bowels of babylon ; and her sickness , misery , woe , death and destruction will be exceeding dreadful and unutterable . therefore wait on the lord in fear and singleness of spirit , crying and mourning to him to discover to you the extent and limits of this false church , this false building , this building in a form and outward order without the life and power of the spirit ; and then fly as fast out of her and from her ( and as far ) as the spirit of the lord leads , even till ye come to the holy building which is of him , and the heavenly places which are prepared there by him , for every one of his , ( according to their growth and stature in his son ) that ye may sit down in him . some queries to professors , who speak of high attainments and experiences in religion , and yet do not witness nor can acknowledg the truth , as the lord hath now revealed it ( and done great things by it in the spirits of his people ) but look upon it as a poor , mean and low thing . q. . have ye known the great and terrible day of the lord , wherein he ariseth to shake terribly the earth ? and have ye known that shaken down in you , which must be shaken down and removed as a cottage , before the everlasting kingdom can be estableshed in you ? q. . do ye know the living , powerful , eternal word , which is quick and piercing , sharper than any two-edged sword , dividing between thought and thought , grace and grace ( as i may so speak ) light and light , life and life , spirit and spirit , power and power & c ? have ye known it an hammer , a fire , an axe laid to the root of the corrupt tree ? and do ye know the corrupt tree ? root , branches , leaves and fruit so cut down by it , as to cumber the ground no more ? q. . do ye know the paradice of god , and the tree of life there ? do ye indeed feed thereon ? have you passed through the flaming sword to the tree of life ? and is the flaming sword ( which once fenced from life and the power thereof ) set now to fence up the way to the tree of knowledg , that ye may feed no more thereon and dye , but feed only on that which is life and gives life , and so live for ever ? q. . have ye witnessed the effects of the great and terrible day of the lord in your spirits ? is antichrist destroyed , the whore burnt , flesh consumed , man ceased from , both within and without ? is the loftiness of man bowed down in you , the mighty removed out of his seat , and the meek , holy , humble seed raised up to rule in righteousness in your hearts ? is every high tower battered down , and every fenced wall laid flat ? are all your imaginations and conceivings , and fleshly apprehendings upon scriptures , yea every pleasant picture and image of the things in heaven ( formed in your minds ) brought to an end , and the pure living truth of the father waited for , received from him , and lived in ? yea is the lord alone exalted in your spirits , and all other dominion , authority , rule and lordship put under ? q. . do ye know the mountain of the lord's house , and the lord's house built and established by his own holy spirit and power upon his own holy mountain ? and do ye worship the lord alone therein ? do ye come up to the new-jerusalem to offer your sacrifices there according to the institution of the gospel ? and do ye worship the lord there on his own day , which he hath spiritually made ? and do ye bear no burthen , kindle no fire , do no work on that his day ? do ye never warm your selves at any fire , or by any sparks of your own kindling ? or are ye yet worshipping upon some of the many mountains and hills , which the lord hath not formed nor established , but have been formed and set up by man in the night of darkness , before the everlasting light of the day brake forth ? q. . do ye know the wilderness , through which the passage is from egypt to canaan , and have ye faithfully travelled in the leadings of god's spirit therethrough , and are ye entred into the pure rest thereof ? are ye not under the law , but under grace ? not under the enemy's power , but under the spirit 's power , out of the other's reach , so that the wicked one cannot touch you ? have ye gone through the exercises and tryals of the wilderness ? have ye fed on the manna dropt down from heaven upon your spirits therein ? have ye drunk of the water of the rock ? have ye seen the serpent lifted up , and felt the healing thereby ? have ye witnessed the pillar of cloud by day , and the pillar of fire by night to be your defence and leader ? and have ye now at length received the kingdom of life , and sit under the shadow of it , drinking water out of your own cistern , and eating under your own vine and figtree the fruits of the good land , after the shaking of that which was to be shaken , now being come to and enjoying the kingdom which cannot be shaken ? have ye really felt these things , or have ye been in the dreams and imaginings about them ? q. . do ye walk in the light of the lord ( as the spiritual house of jacob is to do ? ) have ye received the spirit ? do ye live in the spirit ? are ye truly united , so as to become one spirit with the lord ? are all the walls of partition broken down , and is there nothing now between you , but of two are ye made one in that which uniteth ? if it be thus with you , then hold forth the right hand of fellowship to those whom the lord hath brought hither , and know and acknowledg that whereby the lord hath wrought it in them . but if ye be not really in the thing it self , but only in the apprehensions and conceivings about it , ye can never so be witnesses concerning these things , nor concerning the truth whereby god works these things : and ye will find there is a great gulf between you and us , which ye cannot possibly pass over , till ye meet with our principle and guide , and faithfully travel with him in the footsteps of the flock , that ye may come to the shepherds tents ( even the tents which the shepherd pitcheth , and which no man can pitch ) and may know the true tabernacle , sanctuary and temple , whereof he is the minister . the end notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a -e but this is not the state of them that sin wilfully after they have received the knowledg of the truth . some considerations proposed to this distracted nation of england concerning the present design and work of god therein, upon their submitting whereto doth their settlement alone depend, and not upon any form of government, or change of governors, as that spirit which seeketh their ruin, tempteth them to believe. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page image. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) some considerations proposed to this distracted nation of england concerning the present design and work of god therein, upon their submitting whereto doth their settlement alone depend, and not upon any form of government, or change of governors, as that spirit which seeketh their ruin, tempteth them to believe. penington, isaac, - . sheet ([ ] p.) s.n.], [london? : . reproduction of original in huntington library. broadside. signed: isaac penington, the younger. eng great britain -- politics and government -- - . broadsides a r (wing p ). civilwar no some considerations proposed to this distracted nation of england, concerning the present design and work of god therein, upon their submitt penington, isaac b the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the b category of texts with fewer than defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - taryn hakala sampled and proofread - taryn hakala text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion some considerations proposed to this distracted nation of england concerning the present design and work of god therein , upon their submitting whereto doth their settlement alone depend , and not upon any form of government , or change of governors , as that spirit which seeketh their ruin , tempteth them to believe . . that god in great mercy , brake the bands of the romish yoak , which lay hard upon the neck of this nation , and was very weighty upon those consciences , wherein the true reforming light did arise in any measure ; and who were in any measure true to that light , which the lord caused to break in upon them . . that the reformation out of popery , was not presently perfected ( nay was never yet perfected ) but was very weak and low , many things therein savouring very much of popery , ( the nation being hardly able to bear at that time what was done , ) so that there were many things , still continuing which could not but be burthensome to the upright-hearted , and to the tender consciences , as the light which began their reformation , did grow and increase in them . . that the lord god ( who in such great mercy had delivered this nation from the yoak of popery ) could not but expect that the reformation should grow and increase , until it were perfected ; even until nothing were left which arose from that spirit from whence popery sprang , and which might ( in its proper tendency ) be serviceable to that spirit , but that all his people in this nation , might have free liberty at least ( if not encouragement ) to return to the pure worship of him in spirit and truth , even as in the dayes of the apostles , before the apostacy from the spirit , and from the truth . . that the reformation out of popery , was not pursued as the lord expected it should , but a dark way of worship established in the land , and a dark church government ( both very like that of rome ) whereby those that were truly conscientious , and in whom the reformed light did further and further arise , were reproached , nick-named , hated , persecuted , &c. insomuch as that there was a bar set up against the proceeding of the reformation any further , and a formal way of church-government and worship erected , which was pleasing to the loose and carnal spirit , but sharp , cruel , and burthensome to the stricter sort , and to such as were tender-hearted towards god . that under this church-government , and way of worship , there was a go●ng backwards towards popery again , instead of going further from it . things grew e●ery day worse and worse , ceremonies dayly abounding , and were more and more strictly injoyned , wearing of surplices , bowing at the name of jesus , railing of the communion tables , and making steps up to it , calling them high altars , ( bowing thrice at their approach to them ) having corporasses over the bread , saying second service , &c. and the chief end of their visitations , was to establish such things as these , and to suppress lecturers and conscientious preachers ( among whom some fresh life did spring up , for the relief of the needy and desolate ) and to curtal preaching ( and praying before and after sermons ) yea and catechising too , which by authority was appointed in the place of the after-noon sermons , when they found it exceed the limits they intended . and this proceeded so far , that there was very little difference betwen us and the papists , save only the name ; the worship in both becoming dead , and formal , and pleasing to the fleshly part , but empty of that which should feed and refresh the spirit . only the lord had reserved to himself a remnant , who could not bow to these things , but groaned under them , & witnessed against them , mourning bitterly to the lord under the load and weight of them . . that when the wrath of the lord arose against this form of church-government , & worship ( as indeed it was high time for the lord to appear , for the power and life of religion was even expiring ) and he brake down all that stood up in the defence of it , and gave much liberty to the oppressed spirits and consciences of his people , yet this was not pleasing to the nation , but fain would they have had either the same form up again , or at least some other such like in the stead of it ; whereby the loose spirit of the nation , might be setled in some way of formal worship , and the growing reforming light snibbed in the spirits of the tender-hearted towards god . look back with a single and honest eye , hath it not been thus ? hath there not been a sharp contention , between god and this nation concerning this thing ? the lord hath risen to remove the yoak from off the oppressed , that he might cause the powers of this nation , to let the oppressed conscience go free , but the nation would have them bound . it is still crying to the powers and authorities in being , to lay the yoak on again ; when one power is broken down ( because it is not faithful in the lords hand , but starts aside from the lords work , for which it was chosen , to another of its own chusing ) it seeks to have another harder power set up , ( i mean harder to the tender conscience ) yet god overturns that also , and what can stand before him , who is risen to shake terribly the earth , and to make the oakes , and cedars thereof to fail , totter , and fall ? o england ! will nothing serve thy turn , but the enslaving of gods heritage ? that tenderness of conscience , 〈◊〉 god hath begotten in his people , is his own , is that which he will inherit . it is that which he brought out of the egyptian darkness of popery , and which he is now redeeming , and delivering from the relicks thereof : and if these three nations should for the generality , joyn together as one man , yea , and though other nations should joyn with them , yet wil they fall short of power and wisdome to prevent the lord of bringing to pass his intended work . was it the generality of the nations god redeemed out of popery , or was it a poor persecuted remnant for whose sakes he did it , and whom he chiefly had respect unto ? and is not the lord able to carry on this work , further and further ? did he suffer them alwaies to be stopped in their progresse , and held in bondage by episcopacy ? nay , did he not at length break it down at their cries , and for their sakes ? and do ye think he will now suffer the line of presbytery to be stretched over them , to keep them down from rising up any further in obedience to the pure law of life in their spirits ? o england , in the zeal of the lord of hosts , i could bid defiance to all thy councils and strength , though i should see thee encompasse round his poor suffering seed ( who are very weake and foolish , as to that kind of strength and wisedome ) because mine eye seeth the almighty one ( before whom in thy greatest strength , and height of confidence , thou art as nothing ) engaged against thee : but i rather chuse to mourn over thee , and to wait for the opening of thine eyes , by the anointing of the true eye-salve , which alone can unbewitch the nations ? yea in bowels of tender love and pity to thee , i do beseech thee , o england consider thy self , do not undo thy happiness and prosperity , fight not against the holy one , the mighty one of despised , distressed israel : be not tempted to follow israel into the wilderness , ( where they now are , and whither the hand of the lord hath led them ) to bring them back again into bondage , because thou seest them entangled in the straits , and nothing appears able to deliver them out of thy hand . remember what befel pharoah and his hoast . this israel whom thou huntest , is dearer to the lord then ever that israel was : for that was but a shadow of the true seed , but the true life it self is begotten , and brought forth in many of these , and the power , and presence of the lord is mightily with them and amongst them , though thou in the unbeliefe canst not see it . there is now an hour of temptation upon thee , there appears a fair opportunity to thee to be revenged on them , and to bring them under : take heed what thou dost , lest he who hath the power over all , bring thee under , and set them on top ; seek righteousness , seek the good of all , seek true reformation , and the lord will blesse thee ; but if thou think to obtain the setting up of old forms , and waies of worship and government , or any new ones like to the old , under which the righteous cannot but groan ( though the wicked , and loose spirit way rejoyce ) thou wilt be deceived , and thy mistake may prove very dangerous and bitter to thee . our earnest desires to the lord for thee are , that thou maist be spared as much as is possible ( and that the sufferings of gods people from thee , from the very first rent from popery till this day , may not be laid to thy charge ) but iniquity is so twisted into thy bowels , that without much tearing , which will cause great pain to thee , it can hardly be separated from thee . thou art too wise and wilfull , this is the cause of thy sorrow . if thou couldst fear before the lord , and patiently wait for the revealing of his will , and of his guiding thee by his wisdome , and not be so enraged against instruments , but see through them to his hand ( who hath afflicted thee , ) and humble thy self before that , how sweetly and easily might his work go on in thee ! but alas , hast thou not set thy self against it from the very first ? and now thou art much pleased with a seeming probability of turning it backward . ah poor land , what will this stiffe spirit , ( which hath all along these times of trouble , repined at , and opposed the work of the lord ) bring thee to ? the time of reformation is come , the work of reformation is begun by that power , which is able to carry it on , and that which now standeth in the way thereof , ( how high , and mighty soever ) will be overturned . and although ( as to what men have done ) the cause and work of reformation may justly become a reproach , yet the foundation of reformation which god hath laid , is glorious : and in these troublesome times , is he rearing up the building of his new jerusalem , which when he hath finished and brought forth , will dazle the eyes of the whole earth . o england be not high minded , run not out into parties , and breaches in the heady will , but fear before him whose power is over thee , ( who comprehends all thy councels , strength , designs , and hopes , as with a span ; and when they are at the height , can moulder them to nothing , with the touch of his finger ) for his will must stand , not thine . written the th . of the th . month , . this is from him , whom in the day of thy distresse , and bitter calamity ( which thy present courses lead apace unto ) thou wilt confesse to have been thy true friend . isaac penington , the younger . a voyce out of the thick darkness: containing in it a few words to christians, about the late and present posture of spiritual affairs among them. together with a post-script about darkening the counsel of god. as also, certain scripture-prophecies concerning some transactions in the latter times. / by isaac penington, (junior) esq;. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (thomason e _ ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p thomason e _ estc r this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (thomason tracts ; :e [ ]) a voyce out of the thick darkness: containing in it a few words to christians, about the late and present posture of spiritual affairs among them. together with a post-script about darkening the counsel of god. as also, certain scripture-prophecies concerning some transactions in the latter times. / by isaac penington, (junior) esq;. penington, isaac, - . [ ], , [ ] p. printed by john macock, london : . "a post-script about darkening the counsel of god" and "certain scripture-prophecies concerning some transactions in the latter times" each have separate dated title page; pagination and register are continuous. annotation on thomason copy: "aprill. "; the in imprint date is crossed out. reproduction of the original in the british library. eng bible -- prophecies -- early works to . theology, doctrinal -- early works to . christian life -- biblical teaching -- early works to . a r (thomason e _ ). civilwar no a voyce out of the thick darkness:: containing in it a few words to christians, about the late and present posture of spiritual affairs amo penington, isaac b the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the b category of texts with fewer than defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images - judith siefring sampled and proofread - judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a voyce out of the thick darkness : containing in it a few words to christians , about the late and present posture of spiritual affairs among them . together with a post-script about darkening the counsel of god . as also , certain scripture-prophecies concerning some transactions in the latter times . by isaac penington , ( junior ) esq ; isaiah . . o house of jacob , come ye , and let us walk in the light of the lord . isai. . . behold , all ye that kindle a fire , that compass your selves about with sparks : walk in the light of your fire , and in the sparks that ye have kindled . this shall ye have of mine hand , ye shall lie down in sorrow . mat. . . if thy right eye offend thee , pluck it out , and cast it from thee . london , printed by john macock . . the preface . it was my intention , some distance of time since , to have published somewhat concerning the then present state of affairs ; wherein i should have expressed ill-will towards none , but only have uttered that deep affection that then was in me , towards the soddering and healing the distempers of such spirits , as are made more miserable by their own discontents , then they could be by any thing else that can in probability befall them in this state of things , wherein it is hard to determine what is truly best and most profitable , though most men are very ready to determine , and very confident in determining , according to their own desires and apprehensions . it was then my design to have cast some water upon these flames , that they might not burn so intensely within to the disturbance of mens own spirits there , nor yet be so liable to break forth to the disquieting and endangering of the publique interest . there are one sort of men whom i should more especially have applied my self unto , who are wonderous eager after making the nation happy ; whose spirits can be no ways satisfied till they see the attainment of that universal freedom , and the flowing forth of that universal speedy impartial justice , which is easie to be desired , but hard to be met with . in pity towards these ( whom i had cause enough to pity , i my self lying with them under the same desire , though not expecting to meet with it in that way wherein it was pursued ; ) i say , in pity towards these , i was ready to issue forth to administer to them more especially what i conceived might be in any kind relieving ; and after such reasonings as should have fallen within my shallow compasse , at last i should have ventured to have proposed three directions to such as should be made willing to consider of them , which when embraced , would not quite have taken them off from , but only have somewhat allayed the vehemency of their spirits in this their prosecution of publike good , which in tenderness to them and others i could not but desire . these directions being so few , and of a more general nature then to be restrained unto them , or any one sort only , i shall here make mention of , being setled in my spirit to wave the rest of the discourse . the first of them is to this effect : be content to passe through your pilgrimage without the full enjoyment of that freedom ye have desired and pressed so hard after . there is a power above , whose will may crosse yours in this , which may as well find fault with your untowardnesse to be governed , as with the self-seeking of such as have been governors . i might perhaps have said , if i had not suspected it would have relished too harshly , be content to be slaves . it is a brave thing sometimes to oppose the yoke , but a braver from judgment to submit unto it . it is in many cases better for particular persons , yea for societies , to bear , then avoyd the yoke . it cost the israelites dear that they would by no means be brought to put their necks under nebuchadnezzars girdle . canst thou say that a present oppression is not determined concerning thee by him who hath power to dispose of all things ? if thou canst not , take heed of over-violent resisting . if thou labourest for freedom with all thy might , and a greater power oppose , what wilt thou gain by the contest ? i have often repented of shunning , of avoyding , but never of meeting and closing with misery . it is the stiffnesse of the neck , and unbrokennesse of the spirit that chiefly makes all our yokes so harsh . . groan , pant after , and in a just way pursue the attainment of perfect freedom . lie not down as a slave , with a base abject spirit , counting slavery best , but with a sweet spirit submit to it for necessities sake , and withall let a sense appear of your prizing and desiring of liberty : and what way of attaining it is made out to you plainly and evidently justifiable , forbear not to fall in with ; yet not in such a violent and irrational manner , as to make your more noble parts far worse slaves to bruitish passions within , to avoyd a more inferior slavery of the outward and more ignoble part . . hasten your desires and expectations aright : look not for it from thence where ye cannot hope to find it , but thence from whence alone it can come : look not for it from man , righteousnesse cannot grow there , it never grew there : man has not a soil fertile enough for such trees to flourish in ; man has not a root deep enough to bear such fruit . besides , man seems now to be blown upon , and all his excellency withers ; adore him no longer . is not the glory of all sorts of men fallen ? why do ye so often remove your eyes from one sort of men to another ? oh loosen them from all , and fasten them no more on any , if ye would not be frustrated . solomon that deep wise man , who knew things in their causes , tels you what the place of judgment and righteousnesse under the sun is , even a place where unrighteousnesse and iniquity is still to be found , eccles. . . if ye look for a place of pure judgment and righteousnesse under the sun , ye will be deceived . for this is the state that ever was and ever will be under the sun ; there will be oppressions exercised even there , and the oppressed ones may weep , but they are like to have no effectual comforter ; for the power that should comfort and relieve them , is still on the oppressors side , as that same comprehensive man speaks in that same book , chap. . . therefore look not there for it any longer , since wisdom hath said , and experience too hath always shewn , that it is not , it will not , it cannot be found there . but if ye know and can think of a fountain of righteousnesse , a power that can issue out pure and perfect salvation , look thither ; and when that fountain shall be opened , ye may chance to meet with it ; but till then , your hunger and thirst is not like to be satisfied , however your hopes to meet with it in this or that party , this or that interest , may flatter you . now whether these may be useful to any or no , lies not in me to resolve ; this is all i have to say concerning them , that i found them in my own spirit , and i found my spirit much composed by them , ( in reference to the several tossings and tumblings that have been , ) they lying at the bottom there , from whence i produce them into publique view , not knowing but they may drop and distil into some other spirit , to bring it also to some kind of rest in this respect , in the middest of such future shakings as are very incident and frequent after dissettlement . about the same time the state of spiritual things was presented to my view , and i beheld the people of god in their several stations ; some scattered this way , some that way ; some setled this way , some that way ; some bewailing themselves under their scatterings , others blessing themselves in their setlings ; some seeking , and others glorying , in what they imagine they have found ; some complaining of the breaches , growing greater and more spiritual , others crying out as fast , that their antidotes , plaisters and arts of healing , which would easily help all , were not embraced . i found my spirit likewise drawn out to speak a little concerning this state of things , as i felt the sence of them then upon me , and as i found it most ready and convenient to communicate that sence ; which though i had intended to wave also , yet finding the state of things calling for some such kind of language to invite to a more then ordinary consideration of them , i find my self willing to let it go forth as an instrument in his hand , who knoweth how to manage it , to effect what he pleaseth by it . this is the account i thought fit to give by way of preface , to lead to the discourse it self , which now follows . a few vvords to christians , about the late and present posture of spirituall affaires among them . it was not onely the civil part of this nation that lay under misery and oppression before this great commotion , but religion also , and the religious party , had a deep share in it , being most of all troden under foot . that present form of government , which then was in force , struck at the life and power of that , which it was erected to be a wall unto . nor did onely the sweetness of liberty and propriety put men , that were sensible thereof , upon striving to regain and possess them ; but the preciousness of freedom to conscience , tender conscience , which had been so long yoked and burthened , did much instigate christians to assay the recovery and re-enjoyment of it . and the result hath been much alike to both ; both have been buried in the dust of contention and confusion . the contention hath grown so hot , that men have almost forgot what they contended for in both , which at first was not a power to oppress and captive others , but to attain liberty for themselves and others . it is to you , o christians , that i intend a few words , ( to which i hasten , ) and that concerning your choycest jewel , religion . in what state is it ? in what state hath it been ? hath it thriven , or decayed ? is it alive , or dead ? whom do ye embrace in your bosoms , your true love , or a stranger ? what , is your religion of the right coyn ? hath it the stamp of your king , or is it counterfeit ? truly there are so many different pretenders stand up to lay claim to him , who belongs but to one , ( his own spouse , as he is but one , his light one , his will one , his way one , in the midst of infinite variety and contrariety ) that he had need have infallible certainty , who satisfieth his spirit with his interest in him . but i would speak but little to you ; i will therefore come to those few questions i have to propose to your consideration concerning the state of spiritual things , in reference to the many changes it hath under-gone , and the present condition wherein it stands . the first whereof may be this : . whether religion hath not received a wound in the inward part of it , since this contestation about outward things , and the outward part of religion ? whether the life and power of religion ( which was always scanty enough among the best ) be not now much abated , and runneth not so low , that it is hardly , if at all , discernable ? it hath been the complaint of divers , both presbyterians and independents , and therefore may well deserve the consideration of each sort . o christians ! be not so busie about the outward part , about the dress of religion , as not to enquire into the state of the inward part , whether that flourish , or languish and decay . . if it do appear to you , that religion hath received a blow within , a wound at heart ; let me ask you , in the second place , whether it doth not nearly concern you , to bethink your selves how it may be cured in time , before it bleed to death ? thou art busied , o christian , about garments of religion , for thy self and others to wear ; look within man , thy heart faints , thy life is expiring : thy faith is even dead ; thou canst not trust god , but runest to thine own wisdom to contrive for thy self , and to thine own power to effect thy counsels . thy love , what is become of it ? o what a strange thing is love among christians ? patience , humility , meekness of spirit , &c. where do they grow ? what is there of these left within , in the heart , when there is such a general complaint , that they are not to be found in the lives of professors ? . let me ask thee , in the third place , whether the establishment of , or voluntary submission to , any outward form of government , or church-discipline , of what kinde soever , can heal this breach within ? will presbytery do it ? why doth it not do it in scotland , where it hath scope and power enough ? will independency or anabaptism do it ? how come so many then to lose the lives of their spirits in such relations ? the form doth seldom contribute much to the power , but the power is very commonly eaten out by the form . i know men that are engaged much to any way , are highly conceited of it , thinking it would effect strange things , if it were but generally owned and embraced ; and are ready to impute all miscarriages and bad effects to the want thereof : but this is but a favorable and self-ish judgment ; i propose this question to thee to consider and ponder of , till thou art enabled to pass a righteous judgment upon it ; and then perhaps thou wilt be as ready to condemn thine own form and way of administration in this behalf , as thou art to condemn such other ways as thou now opposest . . let me ask thee yet again , whence this cure is to be expected , and can alone be had ? from whence did any true life and power flow at first , and whither is it now retired ? who is it that hath wounded ? can he heal ? can any else but he heal ? who is it that hath shaken the foundations of mens spirits , and battered down the fabricks of their religion about their ears ; yea , even of such as have built with hewen stone ? truly , miserable is that man , whose life is almost wasted , and dayly wasting , and yet he still running to that for recovery , which destroyeth him . it is one fair step towards redemption , to know from whence to hope for it , and to have the eye taken off from every thing else . . and lastly , let me put this one thing more to thee ; what dispensation thinkest thou are we under at present ? whether have we attained that light , that life , that power , by which we are to walk , and under which we may comfortably sit down ? or are we to expect and wait for a reducement to that state wherein the primitive christians were , when the spirit was poured out upon them , and they led thereby into church-communion ? or are we to expect any other state promised in the scripture , and ( as some say ) experienced by themselves , which this is to give way unto ? this is a very weighty question , and very needful , especially in these shaking times , wherein men had need be much enquiring , and not over forward to settle , when a power above them stands so ready to shake , and hath so sorely shaken , that which was very likely to have stood . to further such a little , as are desirous to bend their thoughts hereunto , by opening a way for a more full and exquisite search , i shall communicate some of the workings of my minde formerly concerning these three things . as touching the first , whether we have attained to such a dispensation , as we may walk on comfortably in ? the workings of my minde have been very various and doubtful concerning this ; one while inclining to the one part , another while to the other : sometimes apprehending the substance both of inward and outward worship and conversation , so clearly revealed in the scriptures , and so testified within , in the spirits of christians ; and so much life and power also communicated from above , as might very well suffice to lead them on very sweetly and comfortably in this vale of tears to their resting place . otherwhiles again apprehending from light sence , and evident experience , so much deadness , so much darkness , such a vail over the heart , and over the scriptures ; such uncertainty in things that were received , such a want of power within to buckle with power without , that there appeared no possibility of rubbing on like christians after this rate ; which hath made me often wonder , whether we were under the law , or under the gospel ; there was so much work , so little strength ; so large promises without , so little of what they spake within . so that though i had many advantages , both from the earnestness of the desire in my own spirit , and from the considerations that were administred to me ; as also from my own experience , and enquiry among such as pretended both light and experience in the point in hand ; yet still there was somewhat of concernment to keep me back from a positive determination , even when i was nearest unto resolving . for the second , whether we are to expect a restoration of the the primitive state , or no ? my mind wrought much after the same manner . sometimes it seemed very likely to me that it should be restored : sometimes again the weakness both of the ordinances and administrations of it , and their sudden death , made it seem to me fitter to pass away , and give place to that which is more durable . there were three things eminent in that dispensation , gifts , administrations , and graces . they had several sorts of gifts ; gifts of healing , of speaking with tongues , of working miracles : again , they had gifts of prophecying , of singing , of revelation , of interpretation , &c. then they had administrations , they had proper ways of administring every gift , which were appointed to them , and whereinto they were led , by the same spirit which bestowed the gift . some gifts were bestowed in reference to persons without , for conviction and conversion ; and other gifts in reference to persons within , for mutual edification , exhortation and comfort ; the same spirit leading them to the use of these in some measure , who imparted the gift unto them . then lastly , they had graces , strong , powerful graces were poured out unto them , graces that were truly spiritual , not acquired by their industry , but breathed by the spirit of life ; such as faith , love , patience , humility , meekness , &c. and there is a vast difference between these when they are dropped out of heaven , and those that are extracted out of the earth , though they may bear the same name , and carry the same resemblance . the common fires of the jews , and the fire on the altar , were not the same , how little difference soever might seem between them to common judgments . but what became of this glory ? how soon did this sun set ! what christ foretold concerning the material temple of jerusalem , proved true also of this spiritual , this apostolick building , there was not one stone left upon another that was not thrown down . who would have thought so glorious a fabrick should so soon have been laid flat ! that the churches , so well founded and setled by the apostles , and not barely by them , but by the spirit of god in them , should so soon come to ruine ! and since it hath thus passed away , must we not be forced to confess , that there was some flaw , some defect in it , or else it could not so soon have decayed and perished ? and truly methinks there seemeth to lie as just an indictment ( in kind , though not in degree ) against this dispensation , as did against the dispensation under the law , for weakness , for unprofitableness , for inability , to make the comers thereunto perfect . what a poor state were the churches in , even in the apostles times ? how subject to be shaken in doctrine ? how carnal and defective in practise ? they had the spirit poured out upon them , and yet wanted both outward light , and inward life and power . they had abundance of gifts , but knew not how to use them towards the edification of the body , but employed them to the building up of that which was to be destroyed . and it was not only a weak state while it was enjoyed , but was also continually languishing , and soon expired : and all the endeavors that have been to rear up this fabrick again since , either in the internal or external part , have had the like success with those endeavors that have been used to re-build the temple of jerusalem since its desolation ; before the building can come to any maturity or perfection , it is still blown down . such a continued , experimented discovery of the frailty of it , seemeth to me to foretel its death , not its resurrection ; its casting away , not its restitution . now for the third branch , whether we are to expect any other state , which some from experience ( as they say ) can and do testifie concerning , whereunto this , and all former dispensations are to give way ? wherein two particulars would be distinctly considered , the thing it self , whether such a thing is to be or no ? and the testimony which we hear , or at least may hear , given out by persons concerning it , which is of a very high kind , they say , they have tasted , they have felt it in their own experience , and commend it unto us as a thing they know already is in part , and suddenly shall be more fully seen and enjoyed . i intend to speak somewhat to both these , and that very freely , ( for i hope the time is coming wherein my heart and thoughts concerning all things shall be opened ) and first concerning the experience of these persons , which though it come afterward in order of nature , yet i shall begin with it , to lay it out of the way ; and then i shall come more fairly and directly to the thing it self . as touching the experience of those persons who thus speak ; though they have made a noise in the world , & drawn the eyes of many upon them , and the hearts of many after them ; yet there lieth so just an exception against their persons and practises , as cannot but damp their testimony , and eat out that strength which otherwise it might carry with it . there is a greater ground of rebuke and reproach lies upon them , then hath usually attended the people of god , who have always , and that too justly , layn open to reproach . the weakness of every administration , the frailty of the persons under it , the great boasts that have still been made by some of them , of their interest in god , nearness to god , power from god , and yet the low ebb that most commonly they are found in , hath still given too much occasion to wise flesh to despise such a weak and mixed appearance of the spirit of god in them : yet this is not their worst , but their ordinary state ; you shall sometimes have them buffeted by satan , overmastered by corruption , forsaken by god , giving up all their hopes , ( my strength and my hope is perished from the lord , said jeremiah , lam. . ) all their light darkened , all their life extinguished to appearance ; and this is such a stumbling block as it is hard to leap over . but none ever lay so open to reproach as these : persons wallowing with delight in that which the eyes of sence and reason ( if the eye of religion were quite put out ) cannot but call unclean , filthy , wicked : boasting that they are all , and all is theirs , and yet possessing nothing ; not knowing where to attain necessaries for the body : speaking greater words then ever were spoken , but with less demonstration of the spirit and of power , then god was usually wont to give out to them whom he called to speak after a far lower rate . how can any mans stomack forbear nauseating such kind of persons ? i must profess there is nothing i have met with more contrary to my temper , and answerably more distasteful to me , who have been always strongly bent towards , and in prosecution of exact purity , both within and without , to the utmost extent and degree . my temper hath likewise enclined me much to modesty , sobriety , silence ; i have still desired to be much , to enjoy much , but not to make any great sound of what i was made or enjoyed ; and i think few can testifie any great boasts they heard from me of that light , that life , that power , that sweetness , which once i tasted of , nay for a season possessed , but still kept back the discovery of it , further then the drawing of it forth into action ( wherein i was not overforward neither ) did occasion it . to be , but not to appear , was very delightful to me ; but to make a glorious appearance beyond substance , to speak great words beyond what i felt or enjoyed , was in no wise pleasing unto me , or passable with me . and if i deal ingenuously , i must confess , i never found my spirit rise with greater detestation against any thing , then this which i am now speaking of . it was irksom to me formerly to hear men talk of the spirit of god , of being assisted by the spirit of god , when it was too too clear that their own parts & abilities were the master-engine in all their performances : but this was far more distasteful to me , and that which i could in no wise brook , until i was throughly battered , and shewn my insufficiency to judg any thing . since which time , i have learned by much experience , that the clay is not its own , but the potters ; nor hath it liberty to chuse its own form , but must be cast into what form the potter pleaseth , and into what several forms he pleaseth : one while it shall be a vessel of honour , by and by a vessel of dishonour ; anon a vessel of honour again , then a vessel of dishonour again , of greater dishonour then before ; and afterwards perhaps a vessel of greater honour then before . the same peece of earth one while lyeth common with the rest of the world , by and by is separated for a garden or vineyard to the lord , enclosed with his fence , surrounded with his wall , for him to possess and please himself with ; anon the fence , the wall , is broken down , and it laid open , and made common again : and thus it is tossed and tumbled into several sorts of various conditions as often as the owner of it pleases ; and what shall be the issue of all , who knows but he who is all ? there are many devices in the heart of man to exalt himself , and throw down others , ( every one thinks it will go well with him , and is ready to prophecy woes to others , ) but the counsel of the lord it shall stand . others shall meet with that blessedness he promiseth to himself , and he shall meet with those woes he denounceth against others . when israel is a grievous slave , the despicablest peece of earth throughout the whole creation , then is israel picked out , chosen for a vessel of glory : when israel lifts up it self above the rest of the world , looks upon the rest as heathen , as dogs , ( it was their usual phrase to term the gentiles by , ) they were the chosen people , the rest cast off ; they the holy people , the rest prophane , wicked , sinners of the gentiles : now must israel be turned back , and be put in mind of his own original , which was the same with theirs , ( his father was an amorite , and his mother an hittite , ) and he must change places with them , a parcel of the heathen must become the choyce separated people , and these must be cast by . having tasted somewhat of this in my own spirit , having been hurled by might and power into several forms and shapes , and such too as i have been strongly fortified against , and have strongly opposed , it hath made me somewhat shy of finding fault with any peece of clay , in what guise soever i find it . and i cannot but advise all , who have respect to their own ease and safety , to take heed how they judg these persons . this is no ordinary case ; and though sence or reason , much more religion , may presume upon the seeming clearness of the ground , and so grow bold in pronouncing sentence against them ; yet it is the light of the day can alone declare things of this nature , and till the time of judgment be come , that light may be withheld . the nature and end of the various passages between god and his people , are many times then most hid , when they seem most manifest : there is commonly deepest love in the bitterest cup , and the purest glory is frequently vailed over with the darkest covering . flesh hath been always bold in judging , it may now be met with ; there may now be a trap laid to catch and ensnare it to its own confusion and destruction . this occasion is so palpable , that it will be very hard for flesh to avoyd , being drawn out to judg and condemn ; and yet its being drawn forth may be but an entrance into its own judgment . methinks i see how apt man is , according to his own state in religion , and according to his own apprehension of things , presently to give out his verdict . this is because the foundation was not well laid , will some say . this is the effect of their leaving ordinances and duties , will others say . this is the fruit of their prying into mysteries and secrets , may a third sort conclude . but how knowest thou , o vain man , that it ariseth from any of these ? or who gave thee liberty to vent thine own imagination concerning so intricate a passage as thine eyes never met with before ? i can tell thee of another cause different from any of these , whence it may proceed for ought thou knowest . there is a wine prepared for all to drink of , to empty them of all their glory , which the people of god must begin with . god will have no glory stand in his way : religion is the highest glory , stands most in his way , therefore that must first down . nature is glorious , and doth glorifie god in its kinde , but yet it stands in the way of religion , which is an higher glory ; therefore the first thing religion does , where it comes in power , is , to break nature , to dash the glory of nature . religion is more glorious , and does more glorifie god ; but withall , being more glorious , it stands more in the way of a greater glory , then the glory of nature does ; and therefore the present controversie is more sharp against it , then against nature . there is a time to set up , and a time to pull down ; a time to raise , and a time to level : and that which is truly excellent and glorious in its kinde and degree , must vail and dye , when the season of the discovery of a greater glory draws nigh . and the people of god speak very lamentably of it , as a thing they did not look for , as a thing they thought to have avoyded , but were forced unto by a power which could not be resisted ; thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment . there is a wine of gods mingling that will astonish , a wine made by his art and skill purposely to astonish , which can without fail effect it ; a wine that will quickly lay the creature dead drunk , and strip him as naked ( if not more ) of all the knowledg of god , yea , of all spiritual excellencies , as a man drunk after the common natural way is of the knowledg of natural things , and of natural excellencies . there is a consumption determined to pass through the whole earth , upon every earthly person , and every earthly thing in persons truly spiritual . every earthly thing must be consumed . not onely earthly relations , earthly converse , earthly imaginations , earthly endowments , customs , with the whole fashion of this outward world : but likewise earthly religion , earthly ordinances , earthly duties , earthly graces , earthly knowledg of god , earthly desires after god , earthly enjoyments of god , earthly acknowledgments of god , earthly praising of god , earthly hopes , evidences , assurances of everlasting life and blessedness ; all that is earthly must be consumed every where . and that which you call spiritual , heavenly , in this dark eclipsed-moon-light , god may call earthly in his clear sun-light ; and whatsoever he calls earthly , must under-go this consumption . all flesh is grass , and the glory thereof as the flower of the field : the grass withereth , the flower fadeth , because the spirit of the lord bloweth upon it . there is a blasting breath of the lord gone forth , and going forth , which shall make every thing that is fleshly , that is not pure spirit , to dye , and give up the ghost . there is a terrible storm and tempest to come forth ( isai. . . ) to batter down all the beauty and glory of ephraim , of dear ephraim , of ephraim the pleasant childe . now hence it may proceed , these persons may have been made to drink this wine . this judgment , which is to go over all , may be begun in them . the spirit of the lord , which will blow upon and make the glorious beauty of all to fade , may have already blown upon them , and have so blown upon t●em , that there may no remainders of that life and sweetness , whereof their spirits were once full , be left standing . therefore look about you ; let him that standeth take heed , lest he fall . consider what ye will do when ye come to drink of this cup ; how ye will keep off astonishment , and preserve in you the knowledg of spiritual things , when ye are made to drink the wine of astonishment ; how ye will do to retain the beauty and glory of your religion , when the spirit of the lord blows upon it . alass sirs ! if these things be done to the green tree , what will become of the dry ? if persons , in whom there was such an eminent power , purity and life of religion ( as there was known to be in many of these ) be thus dealt with , be thus stripped , have the very foundation so struck at in them ; what will become of persons who have very little better then a form , whether of presbytery , independency , anabaptism , or any other kinde ? how will these stand against the tempest ? how quickly will the unquenchable fire devour such stubble ? if the oaks of bashan , the cedars of lebanon , persons of such height , such strength , be fell'd to the ground , be burnt in the fire , be so much consumed , have so little ( if any thing at all ) left , what shall become of the brambles of the forrest ? and yet none more forward and confident in judging , then such as are least able to stand , and shall soonest fall , when they come to judgment . but i will insist no longer on this , which is ( to the point in hand ) but circumstantial ; but proceed now to the thing it self , which is of substance indeed , and of very great weight , which is this , whether we are to expect any other state , which that we are or have been in , and that the primitive christians were in , is to give way to ? whereunto i have this to say : there seemeth to me to be a larger pouring out of the spirit promised , and to be expected in the latter days , then hath as yet been dispenced ; larger both for extent and vertue : it is to be poured out more generally upon the people of god , i will pour out my spirit upon all flesh ; and more effectually upon those on whom it is poured out ▪ and your sons and your daughters shall prophecy , &c. this second pouring forth of the spirit is to be fuller of vertue and efficacy in several respects . . in respect of the knowledg of things , and the way of dispensing it . there was a great deal of knowledg given out then , in respect of what had been before , and after a far clearer and more powerful manner : but yet it was still weak , dark , imperfect , and given out by weak fleshly instruments , earthen vessels , and in a weak fleshly manner , through much infirmity of the flesh , as paul speaks : and it was received in but weakly too ; so that ignorance did still prevail , and men were very carnal and dark under those administrations and receptions of light , and had need to be taught over and over again the very elements and first principles of christianity . but at the second pouring out of the spirit , there shall be no need of any such givings out of light , ye shall not teach every man his neighbor , saying , know the lord : knowledg shall then be universal among the people of god , they shall all know me , from the least to the greatest : the knowledg of the lord shall cover the earth , as waters cover the sea . now there is a gasping after more light , more discoveries of god ; but then every vessel shall be filled , and filled from the fountain . the waters shall be no more sullied by the pipes that convey it , but pure light shall spring from within . . in respect of the remembrance of things . it was a work appertaining to the spirit , upon his first pouring forth , to bring things to their remembrance . the things that christ had spoken , what they had known or heard , that was useful for them , the spirit was to put them in minde of , when they should need it , either for direction or comfort . but at the second pouring out of the spirit , the spirit shall indeed bring all things to our remembrance much more fully : all the things of god , all the things in god , all the things done by god . then we shall indeed remember the things of old , before this late earth was formed ; when there was nothing but the light of god , the life of god , the power of god , circling within its own pleasure . . in respect of power over spirituall enemies and evils . they had power over these in a great measure . they could in some sence play with sin , laugh in their spirits at the condemnation of it , at the reigning power of it : there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in christ ; and if sin abound , grace abounds much more ; and again , sin shall not have dominion over us , for we are not under the law , but under grace : here is fine sporting with sin . but for all that , it was but sad sport sometimes , sin gave them now and then such gripes , as made them roar out , oh wretched man ! and , who shall deliver ! yea , the body of sin stuck so close , as troubled the best of them all their dayes , so that they could not throughly do the things that they would , nor throughly avoyd the things they would not do , but were often forced , by the power of sinne , to do what they hated . so for the world : they were delivered from this present evill world ; but so as they were still troubled with it , and faine much to be pressed , not to love the world , nor the things of the world , not to fashion themselves to the world , &c. they were half out , and half in ; got out from the world , and yet the world stuck close to them ; drawn upwards by the spirit , and yet still held downwards by the flesh . and for the devill ; his head was a little crushed , but he was not quite trodden under foot . they were not ignorant of his devices , they knew his wiles well , and yet for all that they were not free from being entangled by him . paul himself was buffeted by his messenger . he went up and down the very churches like a roaring lyon , seeking whom he might devoure ; neither was he content with particular souls , but he never left till he had swallowed up all the churches . but at the second pouring out of the spirit , spirituall enemies and spirituall evils shall be pure sport . nothing shall hurt or destroy in all gods holy mountain : then the sucking child shall play on the hole of the aspe , and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den . the sting of sin shall be so taken out , that it shall be as harmless as any other thing . such light , such life , such puritie , shall then be dispensed , as shall transform the very nature of things . darkness shall become light ; death , life ; impurity , purity , unto them . they shall be so fully , so truely pure , as all things shall be pure to them ; so fully living , as all things shall be life to them ; and full of that light , which maketh every thing light about it . sin , and devil , and hell , have no evill originally in themselves , but only by a sharp law are made terrible to weak flesh , but are very pleasant to the might and strength of perfect spirit . . in respect of wisdome to use things . they had not wisdom proportionable to make use of the things bestowed on them . they knew not how to manage their gifts and graces ( as appears in the . chap. of the epist. to the church of corinth ) to the best advantage , but their very table became a snare to them . their food , though it was weak , yet it was too strong for their stomacks . the wine of the spirit was too heady for their weak braines , so that it turned them out of the way . paul himself , though more then an ordinary man , yet not able to bear more then ordinary revelations . but at the second powring out of the spirit , he shall become a perfect guide . there shall be wanting neither light to see the right , nor life to fall in with it to the full . the way of holiness , true holiness ( not a shadowie , not a representative , but true holiness ) shall be so plain , that waifaring men , that never went that way before , though fools , who have no skill in it , who know not how to ask a wise question about it , shall not erre therein . and this is my interest , herein lies my heart , this is all the little hope that is left me , ( or rather that is a little revived in me ) after the bitter death and losse of all . and if this also faile me , or be over-much prolonged , i know not which way to turn , having nothing further to expect , but to lye down in miserie . i have seen an end of all the perfection i have hitherto been acquainted with ; and if i had it again , yet it would be too narrow to yield my spirit content , which through much extremity hath been forced from its hold , to seek out and pant after , a firmer , a deeper , a larger foundation . and now what shall i say to you , my dear ones ? had i a word in season , oh with what delight should i give it forth unto you i and yet why should i poor ignorant wretch be speaking , when he who knows how to speak , sees it good to be silent ? had i not better fall a weeping over you ? but what value have my tears above my words ? yet let me weep or speak , or both , at worst it can be but like what we dayly meet with ; lost labour , vanitie . and i could almost fall into a patheticall perswading of you ( if i were sure it might be prevalent and profitable ) to weep with me ; yea , and yet somewhat further , even to leave this same eager prosecuting the formes and shaddows of things ( which passe away , which perish in the very use , which did not contain life and substance in them , even whilest it passed through them ) to withdraw your spirits from doting on your present enjoyments ( if they be present ) and to consider what is absent , what is worth the enjoying , and to mourn after it ; to forsake the house of feasting in these poor , low , dark , shallow things , and to enter into the house of mourning , after deep , after excellent things , after that life and substance which will alone be in request for food and satisfaction of souls , when these shall vanish , and their emptiness and nakedness appear unto , and be acknowledged by all . there is ground of mourning in a double respect : both in respect of what is lost , and in respect of what was promised to be enjoyed . first , in respect of what is lost , and that in a double respect also : in respect of what you your selves have lost , and likewise in respect of what the state of christianity hath lost . consider what ye your selves have lost , and mourn over that . what sweetness , meekness , patience , humility , faith , love , &c. did appear in christians a while ago ? what life and vigour in prayer ? what inward searching of heart , and outward strictness of conversation ? oh where is this ! is it not gone ? nay , is it possible to be recovered ? be provoked to jealousie , o ye professors of this age , hold forth the truth of things , or give up the name also : if ye have lost the substance , please not your selves with the title , but throw it away also , rather then it should hinder you from pressing after the substance again . consider likewise , what the state of christianity hath lost : what it once possessed , whereof the shadow is not now to be found . what presence of god dwelling in them . god dining , supping , walking up and down with them , and they with him . we know god by outward apprehensions , sucked in from the letter of the scriptures : they knew god from the sight of him , from his ingoings and out-goings in their own spirits . they , by a spiritual eye received from god the father and jesus christ his son , saw themselves in god the father and in jesus christ : they saw god the father and jesus christ in them . they were come to mount sion , to the city of the living god , &c. they saw , they tasted , they handled , the word of life . they had golden candlesticks , and christ walking in the midst of them . what power of the spirit of god going forth in them . they could pray in the spirit , act in the spirit , live in the spirit . they knew how to move towards god in his own spirit . out of their belly did indeed flow rivers of living water , which did continually run back , and carry them back into the sea of life . what liberty of spirit , true liberty , wherein they knew how to use every thing , and be in bondage to nothing : such liberty , wherein the spirit might take its full scope to meet and enjoy god every where , in every thing ; and the flesh have no advantage thereby to feed it self anywhere , in any thing . this was once the state of christians , that which they were in a way to attain , that which some did attain , yea that which was generally attained in some degree . but where is it now ? who comes near it ? indeed a strong imagination may fancy , that it hath attained some kind of resemblance of it ; but do but compare it with the reality of this state , how soon will it appear but an imagination , but a fancy ? and is not this a just occasion of lamentation ? again , there is ground of mourning , in respect of what was promised . more was promised then they enjoyed . a more full presence of god , a more abundant power of the spirit , a more perfect liberty in the spirit . he that beleeveth , out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water . i will dwell with them , and i will walk in them , and i will be your god , and ye shall be my sons and daughters , saith the lord almighty . though they had the enjoyment of this in respect of us , yet this was but a promise in respect of what was to be enjoyed . promises are very large of plenty , fulness of bread , but the children of the promises are very scanty , almost famished for want of it . how full are the scriptures of promises to the last days ! we say , these are the last days , and surely we meet with ( in part ) the misery that is spoken of , as belonging to the last times ; but the happiness , the sweet enjoyment of god , the plentiful pourings forth of the spirit , which are so abundantly promised to those times , seem more remote from us in view , then they have been from preceding ages . if ever there was a time for tears without , and grief of spirit within , this seems the season : when after such an expectation of light and glory , of settlement and establishment in the things of god , such thick darkness , such universal shame , such dreadful shatterings , have so apparently overtaken us , and are so likely dayly more and more to overtake us . not only our superstruction , but our very foundation is shaken ; and when we have striven and tryed to the utmost to settle again , we may be forced at length to confess , that there is no setling any more upon it , but we must come to a deeper bottom , or sink for ever . the sense of a poor shattered soul , concerning his spiritual loss & misery thereby , expressed in a letter to an intimate friend . the letter . my dear heart , mine own soul ; what shall i call thee ? i can call thee any thing in word , in form ; but nothing in light , in power . i have not been unwilling to write to thee , otherwise then i am made unwilling towards all motions : but this i must confess , i am unwilling so far to grieve thee , as my writing necessarily will occasion . how canst thou bear to hear how i have been tossed up and down , stripped of all ; not of the outside , but of the inside ; not of my corruptions , ( which i hoped had been burning up , and wasting away , ) but of the vigor and life of my spirit ? not one branch of knowledg , not one sweet motion of my spirit , but hath been confounded , condemned , taken from me , and made odious to me . very shy have i been of new notions , till extremity made me desirous to entertain any thing that might in any respect mitigate my torment , and then fain would i beleeve any thing , imagine any thing , be any thing , for ease sake . and yet to this day am i still held off from every thing . i can neither receive any thing that is new , nor return to any thing that is old : but every thing is darkness , death , emptiness , vanity , a lye . thus they still appear to me , and yet my spirit presently judgeth me for so thinking and judging , while i know them not , nor what they may be . i am rent from all things , but have nothing to turn to . my hopes , comforts , enjoyments , are all dashed , but nothing new brought in their stead . i am like a wilde bull in a net , entangled with misery and torment , which i know not what it is , no● whence it comes , nor whither it tends , nor see no likely hood of any issue . i am perfectly weary of my self and all things , but continually more and more beset with what i hate ; and have quite lost the remembrance of what i desire , or could love . nor is there any use of any means for me , for there is no principle left in me for any man , or means , to work upon . i will tell thee one strange thing . after i had been long worried , and had had all my religion violently rent from me , peece by peece , and had long mourned over the dead carcass ; having at length forgot the sweetness of it , i was drawn to a willingness to part with it . hereupon for a season i enjoyed a kinde of fools paradise , yet not without intermixtures of anguish ; but i was quickly weary of it , and turned out of it too . at the same time also i felt my reason somewhat revive , which made me a little entertain this conjecture : that the blows which did light so heavy on it were for religions sake , which it was still offering to be serviceable unto , while it remained ; which when it had once quitted , it much escaped the dint of those strokes which followed it so incessantly before . and i finde still somewhat more of it in me , then when you were here ; yet have very little comfort or sweetness in the enjoyment of it , having this imagination at some times somewhat strong in me , that i must be stripped of the man , as well as of the christian ; and at present cannot think otherwise , by reason of the sharp wounds it sometimes sensibly receives . i am weary of all things , of religion , reason , sense , and all the objects that these have to converse about : but yet there is somewhat in stead of these that i would fain finde within , and somewhat in stead of those objects i would fain meet with without , which if once my spirit might be satisfied in , i should finde some rest ; till when i cannot but remain truly miserable , and be fit for nothing , but to torment , and to be tormented . febr. . . a post-script about darkening the counsel of god , which most men pretend to know themselves , and are too ready to undertake to reveal to others : which counsel of his is much hid from man ; and the light of man , while it seems to shine with clearness and perspicuity about it , doth but darken it . matth. . . and if the blinde lead the blinde , both shall fall into the ditch . isai. . . whom shall he teach knowledg ? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine ? them that are weaned from the milk , and drawn from the brests . isai. . . and i will bring the blinde by a way they knew not , i will lead them in paths they have not known : i will make darkness light before them , and crooked things streight . these things will i do unto them , and not forsake them . london , printed by john macock . . a post-script about darkening the counsel of god . about the same time ( when those former thoughts , mentioned in the preface , were fresh in me ) or not long after , there was a scripture presented to my view , which flew into my face , and checked my spirit for some things , which i thought i had humbly and conscienciously done . perhaps it may speak somewhat to some others also , where it may finde enterance ; upon which peradventure it is here annexed . the scripture was this which follows . job . . who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledg ? this is gods enterance into his expostulation with job . job was an upright-hearted-man , did truly fear god , and eschew evil , as god himself testifieth of him , chap. . by temptation and affliction he becomes the most miserable of men . there is great dispute between job and his friends concerning the counsel of god in this thing . his friends say , it was because of sin : for his wickedness and oppression , saith one ; for his hypocrisie and deceit , saith another . job bears himself very high above them all , laughs at them , denies utterly that it was either for one sin or other , and is so confident , that he offers to plead with god himself about the matter . in his dispute , this is the great thing he drives at : that god stands not upon sin in his dealings with men , but perfect and wicked he consumeth ; falls upon either sort as he pleaseth . ( god casts the best into his furnace of fire , as well as the worst ; and when he casts them in , he melts the whole vessel , he melts all that is in them ; as well the silver and the gold , as the tin and the dross : and both suffer loss in the fire , onely with this difference : the one loseth its substance , the other its shape ; the dross , the tin , is burn'd up in the fire , is quite consumed by it ; the silver and gold lose onely their shape . in plain terms , fleshly graces , fleshly priviledges , fleshly hopes , fleshly joys , fleshly peace , fleshly knowledg of god , fleshly life in god , which did not flow purely from his spirit , but was strained by the wit and industry of man out of the scriptures , when it is once cast into the fire , shall never come out alive , but perish there : but that which was truly spiritual , which did indeed flow from god , which had the true life and power of god in it , shall rise again in the same substance , though not in the same image . ) thus job lifts up himself in this high peece of knowledg ( wherein he went far beyond the reach of his friends ) till god here comes to take him to do ; who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledg ? counsel is the intent of a person concerning things , what he drives at in the things he does . the counsel of god is not the action it self , but what is intended by him in the action . what he intends in the creation , in making such and such kinde of things ; what he intends in the government of the world , in ordering things in this or that manner ; in the seasons of the year , in sending rain , in withholding rain , &c. in the seasons of ages , in lifting up , in throwing down , this or that : so in the government of the church , in afflicting some , in exalting others , &c. the aim , the intent of god , in any particular transaction , that is his counsel . to darken counsel is to cover , to hide , this meaning of god ; to make it more intricate and difficult to be understood . light reveals , opens , discovers things ; darkness vails , hides things from sight . to enlighten is to make manifest , to expose to view ; to darken is to make obscure , to hide from view . by words without knowledg . knowledg is the persons understanding of a thing , a persons acquaintance with a thing , a persons insight into a thing , whereby he is enabled to discover it to another , which he that hath not knowledg cannot do . a man cannot make that known , which he himself doth not know . when a man speaks concerning a thing to open it , he pretends to bring light , to bring words of knowledg round about it , to make it manifest to him that is ignorant of it ; but if his words have not light in them , if they do not reach the nature of the thing , then they are words without knowledg , darkening words . this was jobs case here . he takes up his friends sharply for darkening counsel , for words without knowledg , and pretends to rectifie them , to open that counsel which they had hid and perverted , to bring light about that which they had darkened ; and so he seems to do , till god comes to take him up also , and tells him , that he also darkens counsel by his shallow expressions of it , and blames him for it , as taking too much upon him ; who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledg ? the words seem to give forth these two things of their own accord . . the clearest holding forth of the counsels of god , without the light of god , is but a darkening of them . mans light , mans understanding , and from thence revealing the things of god , though it may appear as a very eminent and glorious discovery of those things , yet it is but a vailing , but a clouding of them . man is very ignorant of god , when he seems deep and high in the knowledg of him ; and does but darken him , when he strives to make him manifest . the light of man is but darkness before god , and the casting abroad of this light is but scattering darkness about god , which though it cannot darken god in himself , yet it may , and doth , darken him to those to whom it seems to reveal him , though they perceive it not , but think they have attained some sight of god by it . and man would hardly beleeve , if he were told , that he shall not come this way to know god , but must be plunged in darkness to have this light buryed , before the true light break in upon him : and yet it may be so , though man with his eye , and in his day , cannot discern it . . it is an act of presumption ( a thing that does little beseem man ) to hold forth the counsels of god without the light of god . man goes beyond his sphere , when he will take upon him , by his shallow apprehension , to measure the things of god , and so to give them out as the things of god . who is this ? that takes so much upon him , that will be opening the counsels of god , and yet hath not knowledg ? i may speak somewhat concerning both these . for the first . the clearest holding forth of the counsels of god , without the light of god , is but a darkening of them . job here a man eminently qualified with knowledg , neither was he one whose knowledg god was likely to blast for any jugling in his spirit , but of an entire heart too ; a man that spake as right of god , as it was almost possible for a man to do ; yea , god in part doth justifie him , chap. . . yet job , in thinking to open the counsels of god , darkens them . in comparison of what his friends said , job had spoken right , it was light compared with their darkness ; but bring it to the touchstone , set it by truth , by pure light , then it also is darkness . there is none knows the minde of god but himself . what man knoweth the things of a man , save the spirit of man which is in him ? even so the things of god none knoweth , but the spirit of god , cor. . . you may see a man doing many things , but you know not his minde , his intent therein : so he that hath a true , a spiritual eye to see some motions and actions of god , yet may miss of his meaning in them , unless his spirit reveal it to him : and he that knoweth it not , how can he speak it forth ? his words must needs be without knowledg . there is no gathering the minde of god from any of his words or works , but by his own light . all the sight man has of things , without the light of god , doth not reach the minde of god . iob was as entire , ingenuous , searching a man as well could be , and had , no doubt , that which we call the blessing and assistance of god , and did attain much : yet his knowledg was not the opening , but the darkening of god , the hiding of his counsel . the sight we have of things is both a shallow sight , and a deceitful sight . it is a dark , shallow , imperfect sight , both in respect of the things we see , and in respect of their reference one to another . in respect of the things we see . we see but part of things , but the least part , the outside , the shape of a creature : we see not the nature , the inward properties , much less the internal substance of things . so we see the outside , the rationality of a scripture , but not the inward life and spirit of it . we are come to the mount that may be touched by our sense , reason and experience , but the spiritual glory and majesty of god is not discovered from that mount , nor to that eye that looks there for it . and for the reference of things one to another : who sees how one creature , one action of providence refers to another . there is no man sees gods works from the beginning to the end . and then that little sight we have of these is uncertain , liable to deceit . we see things as they are not , not as they are : the true being is hid , and the appearance of things ( being so various and mystical ) easily cozens a weak eye . we cannot judg of things that are vailed , by the vail that lies upon them ; and yet this is all the sight we have : and what man , from such a dark sight of things , can give a clear account of things , or of gods counsel , of his meaning in things ? therefore there is no knowing , or grounded declaring any counsel of god without his light . as there is no knowing man , or the things of man , by any light beneath mans : the sense , the understanding of the creatures will not reach it ; that kind of knowledg they have of man , deserves not the name of knowledg : so there is no knowing god , or the things of god , by any light beneath his . the light must be of the same kind with the thing it discovers , or it cannot discover it . the light of the creature can never discern the creator ; but it must be the light of the creator let into the creature , which discovers the creator to the creature . indeed there is a kind of knowledg in the creature answerable to the state and being of the creature ; but this kind of knowledg is darkness , is ignorance , to the true and spiritual kind : and an over-high conceit of the excellency of this knowledg , is one of the greatest blocks to true spiritual knowledg . the sensible use of this eye makes men insensible of the want of the true eye : because they find they do see , they take it for granted they have an eye ; and so they have , both an eye and a sight , but not a right eye , not a right sight : yea , though it be a right eye to them , it were better it were plucked out and cast away , then possessed by them . thou knowest there is a god ; nature , the scripture , teacheth thee so : thou canst reason so from his works , from the things that are made , which evidence to thee his eternal power and godhead : thou knowest he must needs be wise , holy , righteous , powerful , &c. well , in what light dost thou see this ? doth thy reason tell thee so ? i do not blame thee for hearkening to the voyce of thy reason , nor do i deny this to be knowledg in its kind , it is knowledg in the earthly , in the natural man ; but for all that , it is ignorance , it is darkness , compare it with spiritual light : thou mayst be a very atheist in the eye of god , and as ignorant of god , in respect of the true kind of knowledg , as the bruit creatures are , notwithstanding all this . so thou knowest , that thou art a sinner ; that there is redemption by christ for those that beleeve ; that faith is the gift of god ; that those who receive this gift , and christ by it , must walk in new obedience . but tell me , o poor soul , cannot the natural understanding drink in all these things ? is it not almost necessary , that a creature , touched with the sense of eternal misery , should pant after redemption , should hearken out for it , should with readiness embrace it , and fight with all reluctances in it self against it ? if beleeving be the way , i will presently beleeve ; or if i cannot beleeve , i will pray for faith ; if my self be my greatest enemy , i will deny , i will hate my self , and by the strength of christ i will walk in all the ways of new obedience . how naturally doth the poor frighted creature take this course ! and how vigorous will nature be , when it is put forth to the utmost , for the utmost degree of self-preservation and happiness ! and yet what man almost that finds these anything lively and vigorous in himself , but takes it for granted , that they are spiritual ! no man can attain these things but by the spirit of god ; no man can know christ , or acknowledg him to be the lord , but by the spirit ; no man can beleeve , but ●e to whom it is given . i have , by the goodness of god , been led into these things : therefore it is by the spirit ; and these in me must needs be spiritual . ah poor man i why dost thou cozen thy self ? how comest thou to be so subtle a sophister ? dost thou not know it is against thine own soul ? the same things may be seen with different eyes , naturally with the natural eye , spiritually with the spiritual eye . the question is , with what eye thou seest these things . thou wilt prove it is the spiritual eye , because thou seest them . it is true , if thou couldst prove thy sight to be spiritual , then thou mightest conclude thine eye to be spiritual : but there is a very clear kind of seeing with the natural eye , as well as with the spiritual eye , which self-love , joyned to a strong desire to have it of the best kinde , will easily perswade the poor creature to resolve it to be so . ah christians , christians , how long will ye lay out your money for that which is not bread ! how long will ye feed on the husky knowledg of things which cannot satisfie ! ye may please your selves in the night , in a dream , thinking ye make brave meals ; but when ye awake in the day , ye will find your bellies empty ; and then , oh what lamentation will there be over husky knowledg , husky interpretations of scripture , husky graces , husky comforts , husky hopes , &c. things that yeelded great pleasure in a dream , in a fancy ; but vanish when reality , when truth comes to be discovered . thus much for the first of these . as touching the second , which is this : it is an act of presumption to hold forth the counsels of god without the light of god . who is this , &c. there is a three-fold step or degree of presumption in it . one in respect of god ; another in respect of the things themselves ; and a third in respect of the state of the person who doth this : all which together aggravate this presumption , and raise it very high . . in respect of god ; his height , his eminence , maketh every transaction towards him presumptuous , unless it be very circumspectly managed . the greatness of persons maketh those transactions presumptuous towards them , which would not be so towards others . god is very high , very great , and that makes it a very high presumption to intermeddle with things belonging to him without his warrant . man , though he were created lord of all , yet the creatures are more gods then his ; and if god had not sealed a warrant to him , it had been boldness in him to have touched the least creature . now he hath given no man liberty to open his counsels without his light ; he giveth no man liberty to deface his image , to hold forth his own carnal apprehensions for the spiritual image of gods truth . god hath set ranges about every spiritual thing , as he did about mount sinai , that none may break in to gaze without his commission ; none but whom he leads must enter into his counsels ; it must needs be therefore great boldness for any person to venture to declare his meaning before he hath received his light . . in respect of the things themselves , in respect of their nature : they are great , mysterious , and secret . it is presumption to meddle with any thing that belongs to a great person without his leave ; but to meddle with his weighty affairs , with his secrets , is an aggravation of the presumption . the counsels of god are secret things : the actions of god are somewhat open and manifest , but what he intends in his actions is deeply hid . that the tower of siloam , by the providence and will of god , fell upon such and such , seemeth somewhat easie to be discerned : but thence to conclude , that god did thereby intend to signifie , that these were sinners in a special degree above the rest , was a presumption christ warned them to beware of . the counsels of god they are {non-roman} {non-roman} {non-roman} {non-roman} {non-roman} , the depths of god , he is wonderful in counsel ; his counsel is such , that men and angels cannot but wonder at it , when it is revealed ; but there is no certain guessing at it without his revealing it , and it is no small peece of boldness to venture so to do . . in respect of the state of the persons , which is a low state far beneath god , and a broken state , far beneath it self . the naturall state in its puritie is far short of spiritualitie . adam the earthly man had an earthly image , an earthly knowledge , but not a spirituall : and the naturall man cannot discern the things of god , because they are spiritually discerned . the counsells of god are far above the reach of our nature , yea above the reach of any spirit but his own . his riddle is so deep that christ himself could never have found it out , but that he had his heyfer to plough with , into his own bo●ome . the angels they peep into things as they are revealed , but they cannot discern them till they be revealed . how bold then is man , poor weak man , broken man , that will be piercing into these things , and holding them forth as the light of god , without the light of god . this raiseth the presumption very high . what man almost in any trade , if a person that hath no skill shall come and passe his judgement upon his workmanship , but looks upon it with disdain , accounting that person presumptuous , though far above him in degree ? and yet man hath the same principle with man , to receive the things of man into : how disdainfully then think you will god take it , that poor shallow man , poor broken man , silly weak-eye'd man , that is so many regions below god , so far beneath that principle wherein god lives and acts ( who lives in light and acts from light unapproachable ) should be opening gods counsells by his shallow brain , should be measuring the light of gods infinite spirit , by the darkness ( or , if you will , by the light ) of his own understanding . so much for the second likewise . now from both we may take notice of these three things . . it may blame us for our forwardness in opening gods counsell in things . every man almost can tell what god means in every thing : this , god intends in this ; this , in that : is such a man afflicted so or so ? oh , i thought he would be met with ; it was for such or such a thing . there is hardly an action of providence , but every man will be ready to interpret ; few scriptures but bold man will be ready to shew gods meaning in them , and that very confidently if he have but a little bent his thoughts that way . . it may shew us what the wisest undertakings in this kind are ; what our wise openings of scriptures and counsells of god , without the light of god are : if any man can truely and groundedly say , n●t i but the spirit of god in me , opens this or that scripture , thus and thus unto me ; that is another matter , i have nothing to say against that , but i speak concerning our own opening , though by our most ingenuous and industrious search , by the fairest debating things i● our own understanding ; yea , of our wise opening , when we seem to give out the full intent , the very life and heart of a scripture , and fence it about with strong argumen's , making that interpretation safe from all reasonings of all contrary judgements whatsoever , what is this ? but a peece of folly , of madness ; a setting up the wisdome of man , an idolizing the pleasant conceptions of mans working brain ; but a darkening of god : so god said of job and so job confesseth his to be , chap. . ver. . who is he that hideth conncel without knowledge ? therefore have i uttered that i understood not , things too wonderful for me which i knew not : ah what a fool have i been , saith iob , to speak i knew not what , to utter that out , which i my self did not understand within , to hide the wonderfull cousell of god by my vain words , and how presumptuous have i been in doing of it ! who is he that hideth councel , &c. he brings this reproach close to his spirit . . it may be a ground of silence and waiting for the light . this effect it likewise wrought in iob. i will lay my hand upon my mouth , i will stop all that my mouth would be uttering for the future , once have i spoken but i will no more , yea twice but i will proceed no further ; i will never undertake to open the councels of god again , after this rate : now i have seen god , now i have heard god , i perceive what my own knowledge was , i see what a dark blind buzzard i was in the midst of my confidence , concerning mine own cleer eye-sight . oh it were excellent to be brought to this by the sight of god , as iob was ; but its good also to check proud reason by its own light ; in which ballance , if things were duly weighed , there would appear little cause for our insulting over one another , or for obtruding our light upon one another , with such vehemencie and confidence , as we are all too apt to do . finis . an additionall vvord to such as it may concern , those who speak such lofty language with such high confidence , saying , god is all . there is nothing besides the lord . all is good . all is alike , &c. i must impart to you my inward sence , which is this : if ye have received these things from pure power , with true and clear light , into an inward and spiritual understanding ; oh how lovely , how excellent is this to the relish of my spirit ! o how i long to be one with you , in receiving the same things , or any thing else after this manner ! or if ye speak thus-like mad persons , who have been hurried by extremity out of what ye were and understood , into ye know not what or whither : ye have liberty to say what ye please , and my spirit cannot be offended at any thing that is said or done by you through the force of this extremity . but if the strength of reason by its workings hath purged out old notions , and brought these and other like in their stead into the old vessel , the creaturely imagination or understanding ; i must profess , of all things this is the greatest abomination to my spirit , and i thirst exceedingly to see the unquenchable fire let loose upon these notions , and cannot but laugh in my spirit to behold what havock it will make among them , of whom it will be as quick , greedy and powerful a devourer , as you expect to see it of any principles or notions that have gone before them . the great queen , that looks to sit a lady for ever , that saith and thinketh , i am , and none else besides me , must have those words and thoughts fired out of her throat , and out of her heart , and she also must come to sit as a widow , and know the loss of children , yea this misery shall light upon her even in perfection , because of the multitude of her sorceries and inchantments , wherewith she bewitched and intangled the poor desolated people of god , and whereby she made account to charm off all sorrow from her self , isai. . , , . i have nothing more to say to you , but this : ye will one day confess , that the kingdom of god consists not in word , but in power . true life , true spirituality , lyeth not in the height of notion , but in the inward vigor of the spirit of life . high notions are very pleasing to the flesh , she loves to get upon the pinacle of knowledg , and to trample upon all that are in dresses beneath her , though they be the same with her : yet is she never the more lovely in the eye of god , but the greater object of his jealousie and indignation . he cannot endure to see the whore dressed like his bride : these ornaments must off , as well as the former . the imagination , reason , wisdom , understanding of the creature , thus clothed , thus adorned , thus fortified , being for all this but flesh , must feel that it is so , by being stripped , burnt , consumed , by that fire , which will destroy all that cannot live in it . the isles shall wait for his law . there is a law which he hath to reveal ; a sweet law , an inward law , a law of true life , of true liberty , whereas fleshly liberty , in its highest strain , and utmost scope , is but bondage . there is no attaining to the sight of this law by any strivings or struglings of the creature : happy is he who is led to wait for it . but till the discovery of it , it is impossible to discern or distinguish those things , which it alone can teach : and mens fleshly tossing and turning of things upside down , will be esteemed but as the potters clay . a fleshly destroying , a fleshly throwing down , will be of as little value as a fleshly rearing up ; and flesh will be no more justified in running apace from things , then it was in running to things . when god puts his law into our hearts , and writes it in our inward parts , and takes such hold of us that we cannot depart from him , then shall we err no more : but if we had never so clear and full discoveries , if we were withall left in the least to our selves , we should be still at our old work , viz. a raising up such a fleshly fabrick in our selves and others , as would stand in the way of gods glory , and our own happiness . till god takes upon him to be all , and to do all , not in word , but in truth and power , all cannot be well . o god , what a state are things in ! here is every one tugging for their inteterest , put in for thine too . do thou gain , and let all sit down with loss , whose gain lies not in thine . take from us all , what we have stollen from thee , for it cannot thrive in our hands , nor miscarry in thine . cozen all creatures , by bringing about a swifter , a fuller , a more universal happiness , then ever heart could imagine . amen . finis . certain scripture-prophecies concerning some transactions in the latter times : with a glance at the sence of some of them . eccles. . . for man also knoweth not his time , as the fishes that are taken in an evil net , and as the birds that are caught in the snare ; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time , when it falleth suddenly upon them . james . , , , . let the brother of low degree , rejoyce in that he is exalted : but the rich , in that he is made low : because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away . for the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat , but it withereth the grass ; and the flower thereof falleth , and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth : so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways . blessed is the man that endureth temptation : for when he is tryed , he shall receive the crown of life , which the lord hath promised to them that love him . london , printed by john macock . . certain scripture-prophecies , &c. isai. . vers. . to . stay your selves and wonder , cry ye out , and cry , they are drunken , but not with wine ; they stagger , but not with strong drink . for the lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep , and hath closed your eyes : the prophets , and your rulers , the seers hath he covered . and the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed , which men deliver to one that is learned , saying , read this , i pray thee ; and he saith , i cannot , for it is sealed . and the book is delivered to him that is not learned , saying , read this , i pray thee ; and he saith , i am not learned . wherefore the lord saith , forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth , and with their lips do honour me , but have removed their heart far from me , and their fear towards me is taught by the precept of men : therefore behold , i will proceed to do a marvellous work amongst this people , even a marvellous work and a wonder ; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish , and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid . how dark must it needs be , when the whole vision of god is become as a sealed book , that none , either unlearned or learned , can read any part of it ? needs must the fear of god , the whole worship of god , both outward and inward , be taught by the precept of men , ( if it be taught at all , ) when the true vision of god is wholly hid . yet miserable is that fear , that worship of god , which is taught by the precept of men , whose wisdom hath ever been foolishness before , and hateful to the eye of god . but because man will be stepping into the place of god , and by his light patching up those defects , which can only be healed by gods light ; god will at length not only confound these his presumptuous enterprises , but strike at the very foundation of this wisdom , even in the wisest and most prudent , which have been looked upon as the safest guides . and what then will poor man do for his religion , for his worship ; when the wisdom of those that were wont to frame it for him is so smitten , that both they themselves and others , cannot but see and acknowledg it perished ? isai. . vers. . &c. wo to the crown of pride , to the drunkards of ephraim , whose glorious beauty is a fading flower , which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine . behold , the lord hath a mighty and strong one , which as a tempest of hail , and a destroying storm , as a flood of mighty waters overflowing , shall cast down to the earth with the hand . the crown of pride , the drunkards of ephraim shall be troden under feet . and the glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley , shall be a fading flower , and as the hasty fruit before the summer : which when he that looketh upon it , seeth it , while it is yet in his hand , he eateth it up . behold a drunkenness , which is not a matter of shame , but a crown , a beauty , a glorious beauty ; yet a wo follows , which pitifully bemires this crown , this beauty , this glory . it is not the common sort of the world that are here spoken of , but israel , gods own people ; nor the common sort of israel , but ephraim , the pride or glory of israel , ephraim the dear tribe , the tribe picked out to be blessed , ( in thee shall israel bless , saying , god make thee as ephraim : ) nor yet the common sort of ephraim , but the choicest , the peculiar ones , who by their worth and excellency , their strictness and exactness , were the crown of that pride . this drunkenness was a peculiar kind of drunkenness , incident only to the people of god , my proper to the devoutest among them : it was religion , devotion , that ephraim was drunk with , it was the steem of that wine overcame him , overturned his weak brain , and made him stumble and tumble into misery , while he thought he was going on safely and swiftly towards happiness . he that will take pains to search , and hath an eye to see with , may perhaps find ephraim drunk with these three things : . with his religious performances ; his sacrifices , his obedience to the revealed will of god ; his fasting , his feasting , or thanksgiving , and such other ordinances of worship . ephraim expressed his drunkenness herein , both by his over-valuing them , and by his over-performing them . he over-valued them , he looked upon them as more excellent things then they were , forgetting out of what lump they came , as well as out of what lump he himself came . he looked upon them as more pleasing to god then there was cause for , who little regarded them at the best , but now began to turn much more from them , finding man so taken with them . my soul loatheth your solemn feasts . praising god , using the creatures in a way of acknowledging and honouring the creator , a set and solemn lifting up of the name of god , what can carry a greater shew of excellency in it ? and yet , oh how god turns from it ! my soul loatheth your solemn feasts . and ephraim did over do them too , ( as man thinks he can never exceed in acts of worshipping god , especially if they be of his own institution . ) ephraim did more of these then ever god desired of him ; did even tire god out with the multitude of his sacrifices and services . wherewith shall i come before the lord , will the lord be pleased with thousands of rams , or with ten thousand rivers of oy● , &c. let god call for never so much , he shall have it . god had so much of these , he was fain to cry , hold . to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices , &c. your new moons , &c. i am weary of them . who hath required this at your hands ? . with his spiritual priviledges ; his nearness to god , his interest in god , the testimonies of gods presence with him , such as the ark , temple , &c. ephraim did over-value these too , thought these to be of another nature then they were , of a more excellent lasting nature . little thought he that these could pass away , or be of so little efficacy , as many times they were , while they remained . . with his security in respect of both . he thought himself seated in blessedness , and far from misery . the overflowing scourge may over-run the world , but he thinks himself safe from it : and as for hell and death , they may seize on others , but he is at agreement with them , he is secured from them by his interest in god , and by the promises of god to him , which cannot fail . ah poor ephraim ! what wilt thou do , when thou shalt meet with this wo ? when thou shalt not only find thy glorious beauty a fading , but the spirit of the lord blowing upon it with a strong east wind ? when that spirit that breathed life into it shall not only withdraw from it , but blow sharply upon it ? when thou findest by sensible and undeniable experience that which thou thoughtest utterly impossible ? whatsoever is not everlasting may pass away : that which thou callest everlasting may not be so . the narrowness of thy eye may cause thee to take things to be everlasting , which are far short of it . things everlasting after thy measure may be of very short continuance after gods measure : look to thy footing . psal. . vers . , , . o god , thou hast cast us off , thou hast scattered us , thou hast been displeased , o turn thy self to us again . thou hast made the earth to tremble , thou hast broken it : heal the breaches thereof , for it shaketh . thou hast shewed thy people hard things ; thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment . here is the lamentation of ephraim over his own dead and forlorn state , wherein he very pathetically deciphers and bewails his misery , and casts an eye of grief likewise upon the sad distasters that befall the world at the same time . the first verse speaks mournfully of gods sharp dealings with his people , expressing withal their affectionate desire to have them changed . o god , thou hast cast us off , &c. the second verse holds out his sharp dealings towards the world , with a desire of relief towards it likewise . thou hast made the earth to tremble , &c. the third verse contains a further aggravation of the sharpness of gods dealings towards his people , which it sets forth both in general , thou hast shewed thy people hard things ; and lays down a particular instance , thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment . the hard dealings they complain of in the first verse are three . thou hast cast us off , thou hast scattered or broken us , and thou hast been displeased . thou hast cast us off from thy self , scattered and broken us one from another , and in our own spirits ; and that which is worst of all , thou hast suffered thine heart to be offended against us , thou hast been displeased . thou hast cast us off . this points at the relation and state , which god and his people stand in one to another , and should of right be found in : which is a state of union , a state of fellowship , a state of embracement . he the father , they the children ; he the husband , they the spouse ; he the master , they the servants ; he the king , they his subjects . they should live in the same kingdom , dwell in the same house , sit at the same table , lie in the same bed , have the same share within , and the same lot without in every thing . every thing that is theirs must become his ; every thing that is his must become theirs . all their beauty , their excellency , their glory , must not be to adorn or serve themselves with ; but to adorn him with , to cloath him with , to serve him with . all his wisdom , his excellency , his power , his love , his infinite riches , greatness and majesty , must not be to please himself , but to fill them with , to lay out for them , to bestow upon them , to empty into them . when god takes a people , he draws them nigh to himself , opens his bosom to them , embraces them , pitches his tabernacle among them to dwell with them , builds an house for them to live together , erects a bed , prepares a table for them , feeds , cherishes them , as the man doth the wife , the father the child ; stands in their defence against all opposition . sin within , enemies without , nothing must speak a word against them : if they do , he takes it as spoken against himself . he that toucheth them , toucheth the apple of his eye . and so 't is with them , the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me . this is the proper state between them . but now behold , hearken , and you shall hear them complaining , and that to god himself , o god , thou hast cast us off . thou hast thrust us out of thy presence , thou hast withheld thy sweetness from us . we are not now one , but severed , and at a great distance one from another . we never meet at the same bed , at the same board , in the same house , no not in the same kingdom : but thou thy self art gone into a far country , and hast left us here in a strange land . o god , our happiness lies in thine embraces , in union and communion with thee . we desire nothing but to be near god , to dwell in the house of the lord all the days of our lives , to see in the bosom of the lord all the motions of our spirits : but o god , thou hast cast us off , thou hast given us a bill of divorce , and sent us packing . we can hear no news of thee , no news from thee . lie we in never so great depths of misery , and pangs of spirit , thou regardest not . we are as a woman forsaken , bearing up and down the reproach of our widowhood continually , o god , thou hast cast us off . thou hast scattered or broken us . there should be a publique communion among the people of god . they should have fellowship one with another , as well as with god . they that are so near in one spirit , should not be such strangers here in the flesh . and there should be also a meeting and current of life in every ones particular spirit . faith , love , hope , joy , peace , &c. should meet in the inner man , and go forth from the inner man into their several ways of spiritual motion . thus it is when things are right . but now , thou hast broken us . thou hast scattered us up and down one from another . how are the people of god rent in spirit one from another ! so scattered , that they can have no true spiritual communion together ! and how broken and shattered in their own spirits ! their life broken , their light broken , their joy broken , their peace broken , their hope broken , their faith broken ; yea every thing so broken , that there is nothing left whole within neither . surely some feel this . thou hast been displeased . all relations are knit up of love . the relation between king and people , father and child , husband and wife , are knit by several ways of affections one to another , wherein their hearts stand towards one another , according to the tye and bond of the relation . now in several cases their hearts turn one from another . they do not only act harshly one towards another , as it often falls out ; but in some cases their hearts turn one from another . and this points at somewhat in god , who hath so ordered things , that though the original tye between him and his spouse be ever the same ; yet there are certain cases , yea , he himself often casts her into such a posture , wherein his heart turns from her . he can at the same time wonderfully love her , and yet loath her in her present condition . though he loves her in her person , yet he loaths her in her state of weakness and vanity . and though the strength of his love to her person causeth him at sometimes to turn towards her , and entertain fellowship with her ; yet the vileness of her present state soon turns his stomack , and causes him to withdraw again . and so the husband likewise is at present in such an unlovely state , so dark , so hidden , and in that respect so unlovely ; his excellencies so clouded , and he thereby appearing so unlike himself , that the spirit of the spouse too turns from her husband , and she doth not like such a god as he now appears to be . now of all things , this is most irksom to each , when they perceive the heart of either turning from the other . god regards not all the sins of his people . let him but find their love flow forth fully towards him , their hearts stand entirely and only to him-wards , he has enough . nor do the people of god much grumble at the afflictions and miseries that befall them from god , they know they have need of these things . but when they suspect that they take offence at one another , that their hearts begin to withdraw , then they stir up one anothers jealousie . god complains much of his peoples thus provoking him to jealousie , and likewise speaks of his provoking them to jealousie in the same manner . and this is that that lies sore here at the spouses heart , thou hast been displeased . sure thou hast taken some offence at us ; or thou wouldst never have dealt thus with us . o turn thy self to us again , now the spouse speaks to god , as he doth at another time to her ; thou hast played the harlot with many lovers , yet turn again to me , saith the lord . thou hast cast us off , and scattered us , and hast been displeased , o turn thy self to us again , saith the spouse ; that will help all , all the rest will quickly be forgot . the church feels her sickness , and knows what will heal her . her wound , her misery , came by gods turning from her , by his turning his back upon her ; and she knows nothing will heal her , but his turning again to her , and that she calls to him for . she doth not pray to have her wounds healed , or to have comforts or enjoyments from him ; but she prays for that which will do all , o turn thy self to us again . all our content lay in thee , all our trouble arises from thy absence , from thy turning away and departing from us , o turn to us again . she prays for healing for the world in the next verse , heal the breaches of it , that will serve their turn : but no healing but the presence of thy self will serve our turn . if thou intendest any pity , any relief to us , there is no way but this to bring it home to our hearts , turn thy self to us again . there is nothing can throughly wound a soul truly acquainted with god , but his withdrawing from it : nor is there any thing can heal that wound , but his return again . this is all the request such a soul knows how to put up from the bottom of his spirit , o turn thy self to us again . vers . . thou hast made the earth to tremble , thou hast broken it : heal the breaches thereof , for it shaketh . at the same time when god rouls up the heavens like a scrole , he kindles a fire in the bowels of the earth . when he causeth the spiritual beauty , glory , rest and peace of his own dear people to pass away , the earth must not enjoy theirs long after . when christ cryed out , my god , my god , why hast thou forsaken me , there was immediately an earthquake : and when the people of christ ( who are of the same body , feel the same things , and cannot but express the same sence ) cry out , o god , thou hast cast us off , thou hast broken us , thou hast shut up the light of thy countenance ( which was ever our life ) in the displeasure of thine heart ; the earth shall feel somewhat to complain of too . when he falls upon all the several parcels of his own holy land to lay them flat , he will likewise arise to shake terribly the earth : and he doth here so tear and rent it , that he makes it tremble under sense of what it feels , and of what it further expects . but this is no delight to the poor people of god , they desire not to have the earth share with them in misery . though the earth has ever delighted to see them rent and torn , has been still persecuting them , even when god has smitten them , yea most when they have been most smitten by him ; yet they have no pleasure in the breaches god makes on the earth , but would fain have them healed , and put up a very affectionate request here for it , heal the breaches thereof , for it shaketh . it cannot stand long in this posture , visit it betimes with health , with salvation . it shakes already , relieve it , rescue it , before it shake quite in peeces . vers . . thou hast shewed thy people hard things . thou hast dealt very hardly with thy people : oh many hard things that we could mention , many bitter , sharp passages that our spirits have been sensible of . we never looked that god should have dealt so with us . who ever would have told us that god would have dealt so with his people , we should have accounted him an abominable lyar . we looked indeed for hardships in the way , hard graplings with enemies ; but we did not look for such things from him . we thought he would have stood by us , and have helped us ; we did not think that he himself would have wounded us deeper then any else could . we did not look for such kind of things from thee , o god , and we cannot but complain of them as hard usage , nay in no wise justifiable between god and his people , according to the measure that we understood his covenant and promises by . to give a particular instance of somewhat we have felt , but never could expect or fear , thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment . astonishment is an amazedness of spirit : when one knows not what to think , which way to look , nor what to do ; then a person is astonished . spiritual astonishment is when the soul is astonished in and about spiritual things ; when the soul does not know what to think of any thing that is spiritual . a spiritual man knows spiritual things : he knows the father of spirits , and the way of a spirits communion with his father ; the way of the spirit of lifes going forth in his own spirit : he knows god , christ , heaven , hell , life , death , joy , peace , &c. spiritual astonishment is the amazement of the spirit concerning these ; when the soul does not know what to think of any spiritual thing , as of god or christ , heaven or hell , &c. wonders whether there be any such things or no , wonders whether his knowledg ( as he accounted it formerly ) of them was not a meer imagination : wonders at every creature that he sees , at every thing that he hears , what it is , what it means ; is in a condition that he is amazed how he came into it : finds continual misery and torment attending him , but cannot tell which way to stir for any relief ; can neither tell how to stir ▪ nor yet how to stand still ; cannot tell how to hope , or how to despair ; would fain move some way , but cannot ; would fain stand still some where , but cannot ; would fain know , or be quiet under its ignorance , but can find no bottom to fasten either on . this is spiritual astonishment , true astonishment , through astonishment . if the spirit could fix anywhere on any thing , it were not perfectly astonished . but when it knows nothing , can own nothing , can turn from nothing , can turn towards nothing , can move no whither , nor abide anywhere , it is confounded to purpose . that which produceth this astonishment is wine , drinking of wine ; it is a drunkenness with wine . a wise man can search through the causes of things , and is not easily astonished : but if he drink wine hard , it takes away his understanding from him . the spiritual man is very wise , can search into the causes of spiritual things , and is not easily confounded at the variety of gods ways till he come to drink wine , and that strips him of his understanding likewise . there is a wine of astonishment , a wine that does naturally produce this effect , as it was purposely made for this end . a wine there is that god has made and prepared for the creature to drink , which shall drink up all the excellency of the creature ; which whosoever drinks throughly of , will quickly lose not only all his natural understanding , but all his spiritual understanding also . psal. . . in the hand of the lord there is a cup , and the wine is red : it is full of mixture . red wine , wine mixed ▪ yea throughly mixed ▪ full of mixture ; sure it is very intoxicating : very easily may he be brought into a state of astonishment who drinks such kind of wine . but how come they to drink this wine ? thou hast made us to drink . it was not their love to the wine , they had no mind to it , they turned from it ; but thou hast made us to drink . he poureth out of the same , psal. . . the dregs the wicked shall drink , but , they must drink the top . they must begin to the world , they must drink the first draught , and be purged of all their earth and filth first . judgment must begin at the house of god . jerusalem must begin the round to the rest of the nations . though till they come to taste of it , they are apt to mock at the mention of it , ( isai. . . ) thinking their nearness to god , and interest in god to be such , that they may laugh at destruction , as beholding the evil day far from them , and they themselves sufficiently fenced against its overtaking them : no , it must pass over all . god holds the cup in his hand ▪ and if they will not drink , he will pour it down their throats ; thou hast made us to drink . therefore jerusalem is said to drink it at the hand of the lord . isai. . . awake , awake , stand up , o jerusalem , which hast drunk at the hand of the lord the cup of his fury ; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling , and wrung them out . when the lord is pleased with jerusalem , he has a cup of sweet wine , a cup of joy and delight to chear and refresh the spirits of jerusalem . but when the lord is angry , he has a cup of astonishment , a cup of trembling , a cup of confusion , of sleep , of death ; all which jerusalem tastes in it , when she drinks of it . and jerusalem cannot chuse whether she will dri●k the cup or no , but must drink it , which hast drunk at the hand of the lord . god stands like a mother that holds a potion of physick in her hand , and will make her child take it , though sore against the childs mind . yea some mothers will make their children drink the very thick of the potion , the bottom of the cup : and poor jerusalem must drink the very dregs too , if god will have it so . o how sweet is god in building up , how terrible in throwing down ! how pleasant , how quickening is the cup of his love ; how dreadful , how destroying is the cup of his wrath ! there is none can so much as imagine the power of his wrath , that have not tasted the power of his love . if christ and his people had not felt and known so much sweetness in the love and life of god , they could never have found so much bitterness in the cup of his indignation , in that cup of death which he prepares to put an end to that kind of life . the people of god must lose that very life that christ lost , by that very cup : we must all taste of his baptism . o how sweet is that life in its season , how pleasant is it to thrive and grow in it ! communion with god , the mutual opening of hearts one to another , the continual meeting every where in everything in one and the same spirit , is very ravishing and transporting : but to have this pass away , or ( if the the life of be too strong so to do ) to have it killed by power , by a cup of deadly poyson , is so sharp and terrible , that the pangs of dissolving the body are hardly worthy to be a shadow of it . yet if any have a desire before-hand to conceive what it is , such as have tasted of the spiritual pleasure of this kind of life , may give some guess at it . this drink is the wo god administers to expel the former drunkenness by : this wine , whoever is throughly made drunk with , will quickly find all his former beauty and spiritual glory stained , and his nakedness uncovered by it . isai. . vers . . & . bring forth the blind people that have eyes , and the deaf that have ears . this people have i formed for my self , they shall shew forth my praise . this is the issue , the result of all to ephraim , though little expected by him . god liked not his beauty , therefore stained it with his vomiting by the force of a new kind of wine . but while ephraim was drunk , had lost his eyes and his ears , could see nothing of god , could hear nothing of god , god was forming him anew ; and after he hath layn long enough in the grave , for his former shape quite to rot and waste away , he must be brought forth anew to the praise of him that formed him . this people have i formed my self : you thought i was destroying this people , and perhaps they themselves ( because of what they felt ) thought so too . they were become the blackest people under heaven , upon whom the blackness of darkness seemed to have seized for ever . and indeed i was destroying that fleshly shape and image of holiness , wherein they formerly appeared , and which their spirits too much doted upon ; this was i resolved to lay in the dust , and not leave the least reliques of it . they were the most deformed people too , without eyes , without ears , could hear or see nothing of the greatest danger , nothing of the greatest good , but all good passes by them , and every snare takes hold of them . thus did i deal with them , thus did i undo them ; but withall , i was forming them anew . i was not only destroying the old form , as men thought , and they thought ; but i was likewise introducing a new form , and that a very excellent one , one for mine own self ; not to serve my design upon , as allshapes i have hitherto cast my people in have been , but for my self to possess , enjoy , and please my self in for ever . these desolate spirits have i built into such a tabernacle , into such a temple , as shall never be pulled down again ; but here will i dwell for ever , this is the true place of my rest , these vessels shall indeed hold all my glory . this fabrick shall be so perfect , so fair , so full of lasting beauty , that all that behold it shall not chuse but praise the skill of the workman , who hath prepared so fit an habitation for his own spirit , and so perfect glory , pleasure and content for his own habitation . then shall the blind see , and the deaf hear , when those that now see and hear may be made blind and deaf . when the new eye and the new ear is brought forth in new-made israel , the old eye and the old ear in old israel will be out of request . amen saith my spirit within me ; let old things pass away , and all things become new . let the scheam of this present world , both outward and inward , pass away , and a new scheam of both be brought forth . a new light , a new eye ; a new sound of things , a new ear to hear that sound ; a new discovery of god , a new mind to receive that discovery into ; a new heaven , a new earth , and new inhabitants for both ; a new worship , new worshippers , new wine , new bottles , all new : and he that is perfectly weary of the old cannot but say amen with me . amen , halelu-jah . cursed be all the idol ▪ gods of the heathen , but blessed be the living god for evermore . he shall be god indeed that doth these things . lo this is our god , we have waited for him , and he will save us , and we will be glad and rejoyce in his salvation . amen , halelu-jah . be not offended , we must tune our harps to the new song , when once we taste of the cup of this new salvation . isai. . vers . , , . therefore thus saith the lord god , behold , my servants shall eat , but ye shall be hungry : behold , my servants shall drink , but ye shall be thirsty : behold my servants shall rejoyce , but ye shall be ashamed . behold , my servants shall sing for joy of heart , but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart , and shall howl for vexation of spirit . and ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen ; for the lord god shall slay thee , and call his servants by another name . o doleful ! o joyful ! weeping ▪ wailing , gnashing of teeth in some , joy unspeakable in others . the prodigal shall be welcomed home with the fatted calf , with mirth , musick , dancing , which his other brother , through grief and anguish of spirit , cannot partake of , nay perhaps it may prove the will of the father not to admit him to this feast , which he makes to welcom home the unthrift . he will fill the hungry with good things , but the rich will he send empty away . yea , the lord god will slay thee . thou hast a name now that thou livest , though thou art dead , but the lord will kill that appearance of life in thee wherewith now thou flourishest , and cast thy name out for dead . that name thou now hast shall rot and dye , and be no more accounted for a living name : he will call his people no more after that name , but he will have a new name ( which the mouth of the lord shall name ) to write in the foreheads of his servants , and to call them by . isai. . vers . , , . then the eyes of the blind shall be opened , and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped . then shall the lame man leap as an hart , and the tongue of the dumb sing : for in the wilderness shall waters break out , and streams in the desart . and the parched ground shall become a pool , and the thirsty land springs of water . then the wilderness shall become a fruitful field , and the fruitful field shall be counted for a forrest , chap. . . and there will be great joy and singing among the blind , the deaf , the lame , and the dumb , when they shall all be perfectly healed ; when the barren parched ground shal abound with that water which it thirsted after , and grew so heartless and barren for want of . ezek. . vers . , , . thus saith the lord god , i will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar , and will set it , i will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one , and will plant it upon an high mountain and eminent . in the mountain of the height of israel will i plant it : and it shall bring forth boughs , and bear fruit , and be a goodly cedar , and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing : in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell . and all the trees of the field shall know that i the lord have brought down the high tree , have exalted the low tree , have dryed up the green tree , and have made the dry tree to flourish : i the lord have spoken , and have done it . then said i , when , when ! o lord god , how long ! thou hast a long time holden thy peace . awake , awake , put on strength , o arm of the lord . uncloath thine arm of flesh , and cloath it with strength , if thou meanest to do these things . sleep no longer under the vail of flesh , but rent it from the top to the bottom , and come forth in thine own likeness ; and so soon as we see this in this equipage , we will sing and shout , hosanna in the highest : blessed be he who is , and was , and is no longer a coming , but come . even so , amen . finis . machine-generated and other supplemental data some queries concerning the order and government of the church of christ penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) some queries concerning the order and government of the church of christ penington, isaac, - . p. s.n., [london : ?] caption title. 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ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng christian life. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - judith siefring sampled and proofread - judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion some queries concerning the order and government of the church of christ . query . whether christ , who is the head , lord , king , &c. hath not appointed a spiritual order and government to be in his church and congregation ? qu. . whether a spiritual order and government is not useful , profitable and necessary , for the well-being and right-managing of this spiritual body and holy society in the faith and life of our lord jesus christ ? in natural societies natural government and order is profitable and necessary , and is not spiritual government as profitable and necessary in spiritual societies ? qu. . did not christ give power of government to his apostles and ministers , at the first publication of his everlasting gospel ? all power was given him in heaven and in earth ; and did not he who had all power given him , give power to his apostles and ministers to preach his everlasting gospel to the world , to gather his sheep out of the world , and to watch over them , oversee them , repreve , exhort , admonish , build up in the holy faith , and out off and cast out that which was unholy , and would dispute against , but not submit unto the spirit , life and power of truth ? qu. . did not christ give them gifts also answerable , spirits of discerning , that they might be eyes to the body ; and quick ears , that they might hear for the body ? for though the lord hath given every one an eye and an ear , as to themselves ; yet every one is not made by the lord an eye or ear unto the body : but this is appointed for , and given to those to whom the lord pleases , who hath ordered all things wisely , carefully and tenderly for the good of all . qu. . were there not titles given them suitable to their offices and services in this kind , as pastors or shepherds after god's heart , according to the promise of the new-covenant , overseers or bishops , such as watch for the soul ; such as were not only to lay the foundation , but also carry on the building even to perfection , even till they were able to present the gathered and quickned souls a chast virgin to christ ? and were they not to watch against , testifie against , and in the power and authority of the lord to strike at all that was contrary , and would endeavour to interrupt , overturn , and destroy their work , which was of , in , and from the lord ? qu. . whether the body and common members of the churches , were not to hearken to these ( he that knoweth god , heareth us , joh. . . ) to obey them in the lord , to submit to this ministry , and their work in it , in the lord , to receive the word of truth and holy exhortations and admonitions milked out by these to them from the breast of life ? and were not they that did hearken and obey , commended ? and were not the other that were not subjected , but slighted them and their ministry and authority , testified against as disorderly and unruly ? qu. . were there not some reliques of this order and government all along the apostacy , in the true church and ministry thereof ? for there hath been a church and a ministry all along the apostacy , blessed be the name of the lord , though not so visible and outwardly glorious , as many ( who have erred from the spirit and way of truth and are out of the holy understanding ) would make it . it is true , the church hath been as in a wilderness , desolate , as a woman forsaken , as a widow , bereft of her husband , stripped of her children , her visage marred , her witnesses mourning , nothing of her beauty , former estate or glory , to be discerned or found out : yet all hath been preserved in the root , and there have been some shootings and sproutings of it forth , which have been inwardly felt by that which is of god in the heart , though not outwardly seen by mans eye . thus the witnesses have had a ministry , have had the testimony of jesus , even the spirit of prophecy , all this dark night of apostacy , and in it have spoken mourningly to the world , and to the captivated souls , which that which was of god in his hath hearkned to , and there hath been a bowing and subjection of spirit in the lord. o reade this , and praise the name of the lord for his mercy to his in former generations , ye who are now gathered into his pure light and living power , from whom the night is past , and on whom the day , the everlasting day-spring from on high is risen . qu. . after the apostacy , doth not god renew his commission , and send forth his angel ( for they are all but one ) to preach his everlasting gospel ? and doth not he give them power to preach to the world , and to gather those , that hear the everlasting voice through them , into holy assemblies , separated in spirit , nature and appearance from the world ? and have they not authority and gifts as well to build up as to plant ? and ought not those that are gathered by them , as well to be subject to the light , spirit , power and authority of the lord in them , as the former to the former ministers of the lord ? o that the world knew them , o that the world knew the appearance of god in them ! surely then they would bow to the word of truth and the glorious appearance thereof , and happiness both inward and outward would break forth upon the earth . there would be no more misery , sorrow nor distress in nations , if the dispensations of life from god had but their course in the earth ; yea nations and persons , that are now deadly sick , would soon be healed , did they but eat of the leaves of the tree of life , which are appointed by god for their healing , and can easily heal those wounds and repair those breaches , which the wisdom or counsels of man cannot heal or repair . and o that they that are gathered might keep and be preserved in that sense and subjection , which they had and received from the lord in the day of their convincement . o how beautifull , how precious , how glorious was the ministry and ministers of god in their eye then ! and to those that are still there , they are still precious ; and to those that grow there , they are yet more precious . but those that enter into , or are ensnared in another thing , which leadeth from the true spirit , lose the sight and sence which they then had , and instead thereof are filled with prejudices and wise reasonings , which to them may seem very strong and undeniable , though truth and the true spiritual eye , sense and understanding easily pierces through them , and preserveth those , who abide single in it , to the lord. now against this holy order and government appointed by god , there may arise in some hearts some such objections as these following . object . . but is not this a turning away from the measure of life in a mans own vessel , to another mans measure ? answ . waiting on god in his ordinances and appointments , and upon the ministry which he hath set up , the measure of life in him teacheth ; and it is not a turning from the measure , but a subjecting to the lord in the measure of his life , so to teach and do . the measure of his life taught me thus to do at first , and teacheth me to do so still ; and will teach so still , all that hearken to it . it did not teach subjection in the apostles dayes to the ministry then , and another thing now to the ministry now . but christ is the same to day as yesterday ; his life the same , his spirit the same , its doctrine and teaching the same : and that of god , in the conscience within , answers the pure voice , when it comes to the ear without . if life speak in one vessel , and its voice be not heard or owned by another vessel , the pure ear ( in that other vessel ) is not at that time open ; but there is somewhat there that obstructs . and if the pure ear of the sheep be not open to hear the voice of the shepherd , but it be accounted strange : it is much , if the other ear in that vessel be not opened to hear the voice of the stranger , and to look upon it as the voice of the shepherd , it agreeing with that and answering to that , which now goeth for the voice of the measure of life in that heart . he that hath an ear , let him hear : for it is easie being taken in this snare , and the danger thereof is very great . object . . is not the least measure of life in any vessel , ( if subjected to , waited on and believed in ) sufficient to instruct and build up into a perfect man in god ? answ . the sufficiency of the grace of god , turned to and waited upon , there is nothing in my heart either to undervalue my self , or to teach others so to do : nor , when god did appoint a ministry to gather and build up his church , do i believe he did intend therein to undervalue the sufficiency of his grace : yea , i verily believe , that the grace of god turned and hearkened to , and followed by any soul in the darkest part of the earth , hath sufficiency in it to save , and will save that soul , though there be none outwardly to minister to it or help it . yet this i also believe , that as there is a sufficiency in every measure of life , to the work god hath appointed for that measure : so there is a greater sufficiency in the growth and fuller proportion of life ; and the lesser , the weaker , the poor , the afflicted , the babes are to be helped by the stronger , especially in their darknesses , afflictions , temptations , &c. and so the greater and stronger in the life , spirit and power of the lord , is a strength and blessing to the weaker , which the weaker making use of in the guidance of the spirit of the lord ( in the sence and benefit of the sweet help and relief which often the lord pleaseth to give forth thereby ) will find just cause and be often drawn to blesse the name of the lord for . the measure of life in the vessel , teacheth to subject to the spirit of the lord and his life in others , which the measure of life in any never refuseth , but still knoweth ( when awake and living in the vessel ) its own , and hath ( at least ) a secret sense of it and unity with it . but that which pretends to set up the measure of life as a teacher , otherwise than god hath appointed , and in opposition to the teaching and ministry which he hath appointed , and to his gift in those vessels , which is as well for the building up and perfecting of the body , as for the gathering : that is another thing in that vessel that doth so , than the measure of life ; another spirit , another nature , another ear than that , that first heard . and though it seem to cry up the sufficiency of the measure of life , and to plead for that ( and perhaps the creature thinks it is really so : ) yet that is not the intent of the spirit in the vessel , but to cry up it self , and to make its voice go for the voice of the measure of life : and so such err from the faith , the truth , the spirit , the measure of life , and are in the nature , spirit and measure of another thing , which is indeed death , though they see it not , but look upon themselves as gloriously living , and abiding in the pure doctrine and principle above others . now to help these a little out of the snares and deep entanglements of the enemy , if the lord please , i would earnestly press the consideration of this upon them . did not the apostles preach up the measure of life , the grace of god in their day , christ within , the word of faith nigh in the mouth and heart , the anointing within , its sufficiency to teach all things , &c. and yet did they so preach it , as to overthrow the ministry , or their gifts or service , either towards them that were without or them that were within ? had they not power over them in the lord ? were they not to teach them , to instruct them , to build them up in the holy faith , and also to watch against wolves and devouring spirits , which would strive to enter the flock in sheeps clothing ( and as preachers of righteousness ) to make a prey of the innocent life in the upright-hearted , if possible . object . . but those who have ministred from the lord , and whose ministry i have felt and owned , and in the distress and affliction of my soul have had recourse to , hoping that they might have a sense of my condition and give me proper advice ; yet they ( instead thereof ) have turned me to his witness that wounded me , counselling me to wait on the lord there : and have they not also told us , that if they themselves should turn from the things they have declared , this truth would abide for ever , to wit , that man is to keep to the measure of life in his own particular ? answ . it is true , a man is to keep to the measure of life in his own particular . they taught this then : they teach it now . we practised it then : we are to practise it now . in this measure of life we received them then : and in this measure of life ( if we abide still in it ) we shall receive them now , and feel their growth in the ability , gift , and power of the lord. and when any come to them for advice , they are to wait on the lord to feel in him their state who come , and to give forth what the lord gives them ; whether word● from the lord to the party concerning his state of dire●●●ons to retire in and wait for his more immediate appearance in their own measures . for , when we feel ●●e presence and mighty power of god in them , we 〈◊〉 too apt to look at them ; and then a word may come proper to our estates ) to recall us to retire to our measure . and when we feel immediate relief from the lord and his appearing to us , in our retiredness in our own spirits , then we may be apt to despise the gifts and service of others ; and then another word may come from them , proper to our state then , to warn us not to despise prophesying , or the gifts , power and authority of life in others . now both these are proper , usefull and weighty in their seasons , when given forth by the spirit of the lord. nor are they contradictory one to the other , but subservient in their seasons and places , which that which is of god feels ; but that which is erred from god , and joyned to another ( under a false representation and belief of things ) feels not ; but finds a seeming difference , and sets them at variance one with another , as if they could not stand together . and this is the false nature , the false spirit , the false appearance of life , which appears as if it were the measure of the pure true life , but is not . this is the false woman , the false wisdom , whose heart is as snares and nets , and her hands bands : who so pleaseth god ( abiding in the measure of his truth ) shall escape her ; but the sinner ( that departs therefrom ) shall be taken by her . therefore fear the lord , come to that which first convinced ; to the first truth , to the first sense , to the first love &c. and all these imaginations of the mind , and subtile devices of the enemy will fly away , and thy poor entangled soul be delivered , as a bird out of the snare of the fowler . if the enemy should directly cry out against god , or his christ , or his grace , or the measure of his truth , he would easily be espied and turned from . therefore he teacheth to cry up these in a wrong spirit and judgment , and after a wrong manner , to undermine , betray and lead the heart from that secretly , which openly it would never hear any thing against . now those that are thus deceived , are exceedingly to be pittied , and their deliverance from their entanglements and captivities to be breathed after and waited for . for i may say in truth and upright sence of heart , there are many that look towards sion , who yet are ignorant of the devices and slights of satan , to entangle them in their way ; and some are caught in his snares ( like foolish birds catching at the chaff , which makes the bigger shew , instead of the wheat ) losing the substance for a shadow ; the life and power in the heart , for a notion and conceit in the brain . and these are wise in their own eyes , so that indeed it is very hard to reach or recover them ; yea much harder than it was at first , because they are become more rooted and setled in the wrong ground ( yea in a worse earth ) than they were , when they were first reached to by the power of truth . yet over these there is a deep lamentation , and for these a sore travel , which the lord god bless and prosper for their recovery unto that , from which through mistake they have erred . object . . if any man hath received a gift of ministry , he hath received it of the lord : and its end being to gather to the lord , they that by it are gathered are to be delivered up to the lord , that he as king , priest and prophet may govern , &c. answ . the end of the ministry is not only to gather , but also to preserve and build up what is gathered , even to perfection . and the soul being ( especially at first , if not for a long time ) weak and babish , not so fully acquainted with the measure of life ( having had but some touches and demonstrations of it , but not being gathered fully into it , nor rooted and setled in it ) i say the soul in this state , hath as much need of the ministry to preserve , direct and watch over it in the truth , as to gather it out of the world. therefore the father , in his tender mercy and love , hath appointed those who are grown in his life ( and in the power and authority of his spirit ) to oversee , watch over , instruct and take care of the flock , so as they may give to him an account of their souls : and in their care , diligence and faithfulness , they are owned and blessed of the lord ; and the other in their holy fear , reverence and subjection . now this is right order from god , wherein the safety of the flock consists : but out of this is danger and confusion , which the measure of life teacheth to avoid . object . . but in a case of doubt or difference , which shall be the judge ; the measure of life within , or the testimony of others without ? shall i judge , as i feel the thing , in the measure of my own life ? or shall i submit to others against my own sense and judgment , because i have an esteem of them , as being much above me in the growth , sense and understanding of truth ? answ . it is a great matter to judge aright , and to discern and know the measure of truth ( the voice , motion and judgment thereof ) from all the enemies false appearances , and from all the deceits of the heart . this is most certain , jerusalem ( the heavenly-building , the church of the first-born ) is at unity with it self . truth is pure , eternal , unchangable , alwayes the same ; the same in every member , in every vessel throughout the whole body . and this i may say concerning its appearance in this our age , was ever the like unity known and brought forth since the dayes of the apostles ? how hath the spirit been one , the demonstration and testimony of truth one , the doctrine one , the conversation and practices one in us all ! why , or how so ? because we have had our begetting , birth and teaching from the same life , the same spitit ; ( the same fountain springing up and opening in us all , that have been gathered into its nature and power . ) now from this fountain , from this spring of life , never issueth any thing that is contrary to the life in any . therefore if there appear a contrariety , there must be a waiting to feel who is erred from , or at least not yet fully gathered into the measure of life . and such as are of an inferiour stature and growth in the body , are ( in an especial manner ) to watch and wait in sobriety and fear , till the lord clear up and make things manifest ; & likewise in the mean time , to take heed of an hasty concluding , according to what riseth up in the understanding or judgement ( though with never so great a seeming clearness and satisfaction ) as if it must needs be of and from the life in the vessel . it is not an easie matter , in all cases clearly and understandingly to discern the voice of the shepherd , the motions of god's spirit , and certainly to distinguish the measure of life from all other voices , motions and appearances whatsoever . through much growth in the truth , through much waiting on the lord , through much fear and trembling , through much sobriety and meekness , through much exercise of the senses this is at length given and obtained . and yet there is a preservation in the mean time , to that which is lowly and submissive , looking up to the lord continually , and not trusting to its own understanding , sense and judgment . but that which is hasty and confident , and so ready to plead for its own sense and judgment , according to the measure of life , as it calls it ; that is commonly out , entred into the erring spirit , pleading and contending for it knows not what , and is very apt to judge and condemn others in that very respect , wherein it self is most justly and righteously judged and condemned by the lord , even by his pure life and spirit in his people . this then is in my heart , to say in short to this objection . let the measure of life judge freely in thee at any time concerning any thing : and that judgment will stand for ever . but be thou wary , wait on the lord , that thou mayest be sure thou dost not mistake in thy own particular , calling that life , which the lord and his people know to be otherwise . for if so , thou departest from the unity and bond of the spirit , and from the true sense and judgment , and givest deceit an advantage over thee , even to lay a foundation of destroying thee . likewise those who are to watch over thee in the lord ( to lay his truth before thee , to exhort and reprove thee , as occasion is ) that they may give an account of thy soul to him , cannot do it with joy and rejoycing in his presence , but with grief and lamentation of heart , which is not at all profitable , but very unprofitable for thee . now , for a close , there are some considerations springing up in my heart concerning unity , which i find drawings here to annex , in true love and tenderness , for the use and service of others ; which are as follow . . unity in the spiritual body , which is gathered into and knit together in the pure life , is a most natural and comely thing . yea , it is exceeding lovely to find all that are of the lord , of one heart , of one mind , of one judgement , in one way of practice and order in all things . . the lord is to be waited upon for the bringing forth of this in the body : that as there is a foundation of it laid in all ( the life and spirit being one in all : ) so all may be brought by him into the true and full oneness . . the lord is to be acknowledged and praised in the bringing of it forth ( so far as it is brought forth ) and to be waited upon for the further perfecting of it . . a watch is to be kept ( throughout the whole body , and in every heart ) for the preserving of it , so far as it is brought forth : that the enemy by no device or subtilty cause disunion or difference in any respect , wherein there was once a true unity and oneness . for the enemy will watch to divide : and if he be not watched against , in that which is able to discover and keep him out , by some device or other he will take his advantage to make a rent ( in those that are not watchful ) from the pure truth and unity of life in the body . for he that in the least thing rents from the body ( in any respect or particular , which was brought forth by the life ) he in that respect hearkens to another spirit ( even the dividing spirit ) and by its instigation rents from the life it self , and so doth not keep his habitation , nor his unity with that which abides in its habitation . now it is also in my heart ( for the perfecting of this close ) to mention a few things ( in the same love and tenderness ) which i have found helpful to me towards the preserving of me in unity with the body . perhaps it may please the lord to refresh some others by the mention of them , and to make them usefull and helpfull to them also . . the first is , the pure fear of the lord. this poizeth and guardeth the mind , keeping down fleshly confidence and conceitedness ( which is very apt to spring up ) making it wary and considerate either of what it receives or rejects , of what it practiseth or forbeareth practising , causing it to wait much , try much , and consult much with the lord , and with his ministers and people , and preserves out of that suddenness and inconsiderateness of spirit , at which the enemy often enters . for truth is weighty , and will bear trial ; and the more it is tried in the ballance , the more manifest its nature and ways appear : but the enemies appearances and likenesses are not so , but their deceit by a thorow trial comes to be made manifest . . the second is , humility of heart . this is very precious and of a preserving nature . yea in this state the lord helpeth and teacheth , and the soul also ( in this state ) is fit to receive the help and teachings of the lord. that which is lifted up and conceited ( ready to justifie its own way , and condemn even the whole body ) is neither fit to be taught by the lord , nor doth the lord delight ( but rather disdain ) to teach it . and so not being taught by him , it must needs be liable to err , yea to hearken to that spirit , whose voice is more pleasing and suitable to the erring mind , than the lord's voice is . . a third great help , which in the tender mercy of the lord i have had experience of , is , sobriety of judgment . not to value or set up mine own judgment , or that which i account the judgment of life in me , above the judgement of others , or that which is indeed life in others . for the lord hath appeared to others , as well as to me : yea , there are others , who are in the growth of his truth , and in the purity and dominion of his life far beyond me . now for me to set up , or hold forth a sense or judgment of a thing in opposition to them ; this is out of the sobriety which is of the truth . therefore in such cases i am to retire , and fear before the lord , and wait upon him for a clear discerning and sence of his truth , in the unity and demonstration of his spirit with others , who are of him and see in him . and this will prevent the rents , which the want of this sobriety may occasion . . the last thing which i have now to mention , is , tenderness , meekness , coolness and stilness of spirit . i wrap up these together , because they are much of a nature , and go much together . these are of an uniting preserving nature . he that differs and divides from the body , cannot be thus : and he that is thus , cannot rend or divide . thus is the pure heavenly wisdom , which is peaceable and keepeth the peace . but the other wisdom is rough , stiff , hard , clamourous , ready to take offence , ready to give offence ; exceeding deep in the justification of it self , exceeding deep in the condemnation of others , and dares ( in this temper ) appeal to the lord , as if it were right in its wayes , but wronged by others ; as if it did abide in the measure of his truth and life , which others are departed from . and how can it be otherwise : how can the wrong eye , the wrong spirit , the wrong wisdom , but judge wrong ; justifying the wrong practices , and condemning the right ? but such shall find ( if they come to the true touchstone , even the measure of life indeed ) that they are not in the true tenderness , which proceeds from the life , in the true meeknesse and gentlenesse , in the true coolnesse and stilnesse : but rather in the reasonings , noises , clamours and disturbances which arise from another spirit , mind and nature , than that which is of the truth . and in coming back from this wisdom to the pure wisdom , from the pretended measure of life to the true measure , and becoming tender , meek , cool and still in it , they shall there feel their error from the spirit and power of the lord , and therein own their condemnation therefor from him , and also justifie them who have abode in the power , and been guided by the spirit and pure measure of life , which is from god and in god , while they have departed from it . for though the spirit of error ( wherewith they have been deceived and entangled ) hath made them believe , that they have faithfully abode in the principle and doctrine of truth , while others have departed ; yet that will soon vanish , as truth comes again to be felt and heard speak in them , and the measure of life to live again in them , and to redeem them afresh into its holy nature and pure living sence . and blessed is he who is not deceived , about truth , but is of the pure nature , and in the pure power of it : in whom the true eye sees , the true ear hears , the true heart understands ; who is of a right spirit , and walketh uprightly before the lord and among his people . the blessing of the seed , the peace , comfort , and joy which is from the most high , shall descend upon him , fill his vessel and continue with him , to the satisfying of his heart and the overflowing of his cup , in the midst of his brethren , and in the very sight of his enemies . the lord god of his tender mercy , who is the great shepherd of the sheep , watch over , preserve and mightily defend all his , from all devouring spirits , and inward devices and deceits of the enemy ; carrying on and perfecting the work of his goodness , love and mercy in them , to his own glorious , eternal , everlasting praise . amen . written by isaac penington in alisbury prison . the root of popery struck at, and the true ancient apostolick foundation discovered, in some propositions to the papists concerning fallibility and infallibility, which cut down the uncertain, and manifest the certain way of receiving and growing up into the truth : also, some considerations concerning the true and false church and ministry, with the state of each since the dayes of the apostles : held forth in true love and pity to the souls of the papists, that they may hear and consider, and not mistake and stumble at the rock of ages, whereupon the prophets, apostles, and whole flock of god throughout all generations have been built : there is likewise somewhat added concerning the ground of error, and the way to truth and unity, for the sake of such as are more spiritual, and have been more inwardly exercised in searching after truth / by isaac penington, the younger. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (wing p ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) the root of popery struck at, and the true ancient apostolick foundation discovered, in some propositions to the papists concerning fallibility and infallibility, which cut down the uncertain, and manifest the certain way of receiving and growing up into the truth : also, some considerations concerning the true and false church and ministry, with the state of each since the dayes of the apostles : held forth in true love and pity to the souls of the papists, that they may hear and consider, and not mistake and stumble at the rock of ages, whereupon the prophets, apostles, and whole flock of god throughout all generations have been built : there is likewise somewhat added concerning the ground of error, and the way to truth and unity, for the sake of such as are more spiritual, and have been more inwardly exercised in searching after truth / by isaac penington, the younger. penington, isaac, - . [ ], p. printed for robert wilson ..., london : . reproduction of original in duke university library. eng fallibility. a r (wing p ). civilwar no the root of popery struck at, and the true ancient apostolick foundation discovered, in some propositions to the papists, concerning fallibi penington, isaac c the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the c category of texts with between and defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images - ali jakobson sampled and proofread - ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the root of popery struck at , and the true ancient apostolick foundation discovered , in some propositions to the papists , concerning fallibility and infallibility , which cut down the uncertain , and manifest the certain way of receiving and growing up into the truth . also , some considerations concerning the true and false church and ministry , with the state of each since the dayes of the apostles . held forth in true love and pity to the souls of the papists , that they may hear and consider , and not mistake and stumble at the rock of ages , whereupon the prophets , apostles , and whole flock of god throughout all generations have been built . there is likewise somewhat added concerning the ground of error , and the way to truth and unity , for the sake of such as are more spiritual , and have been more inwardly exercised in searching after truth . by isaac penington the younger . in vain do they wo●ship me , teaching for doctrines the commandments of men , matt. . london , printed for robert wilson , and are to be sold at his shop at the sign of the black-spread-eagle and wind-mill , in martins l'grand , . preface . the mystery of iniquity ( which overspread the earth under a shape and appearance of holy church , and holy worship ) did begin to work in the apostles dayes , thes. . . and this was the way whereby the god of this world did deceive , he endeavoured to blind mens minds , to put out their right eye , ( cor. . . ) to draw from the spirit , from the annointing ( joh. . . ) to rob of the eye-salve wherewith the eye must be annointed to see the things of god ; rev. . . and now when he hath done this , how easily may his false ware pass for true ; his synagogue ( built in the likeness of the true church , rev. . . ) for the true church ; antichrist his son ( sitting in the temple like christ , thes. . ) for the true christ ; his doctrines for the true teaching , ( matth. . . ) his feigned , formal , dead , earthly traditions , for the true everlasting gospel ; ( rev. . . ) his gentiles , or heathens , ( who are so in nature , and christians onely in name ) for the true christians , rev. . . ? the light of the body is the eye ( saith christ by way of parable , mat. . , . ) now if the eye be dark , if the light which is in thee , be darkness , how great is that darkness ? how shalt thou see the gospel , the church , the spirit , the things of god ? but if that eye be clear , who shall be able to blind thee ? the devil may come with his deceits , his false church , his false gospel , his false power ▪ &c. yea though his spirit creep into the very true form of godliness , thou wilt be able to discern him there . but if thou see with anothers eye , thou mayest easily see amiss , mistake christ , mistake the church , and so believe as the false church believes , and fare as the false church fares . oh who shall redeem the deceived nations back to the spirit ! who shall preach to all nations , kindreds , tongues and people , the everlasting gospel ! who shall open the eye in them which hath been so long blinded ! who shall take the golden cup of fornication from their lips , and loosen their hearts from the sorceries , flatteries , and enchantments of the false woman ! the everlasting bowels of the lord rowl toward his poor captivated seed , and towards the poor deceived nations , and he is now preparing to build the ruins of many generations ; he is bringing forth that power of truth , that demonstration of his spirit in the spirits of his people , as no paint shall be able to stand before . he will rend the vail of the covering from off all nations , and the desire of all nations shall be seen by the eye which he opens and annoints ; & that which hath , deceived , and destroyed , and led from the truth , building up a mystery of unrighteousness in the stead of it , even the beast and false prophet ( which wrought miracles , with which he deceived them that had the mark of the beast , & them that worshipped his image ) shall be taken & cast alive into the lake , rev. . . then captivity shall be led captive , and those which have been led captive , shall creep out of their dens , and out of their holes , into the light of the living , and worship the true and everlasting king , when this king abaddon is destroyed , rev. . , , . o who shall be accounted worthy to be taught by the lord where to wait for this ! to whom will the lord discover the place of wisdom ( the place where wisdom is learned , her voice heard , and her instructions to life received ) which is hid from the eyes of all living ! job . . whom shall he teach knowledge ? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine ? they are them that are weaned from the milk , and drawn from the breasts of the false woman , isa. . . & chap. . . they that are turned from man , from the fleshly wisdom in themselves , towards the spring of life , they may hear the voice of this wisdom which begins in the living fear and power , which effectually turns the heart from death and darkness , towards the living god , to worship him in spirit and truth , according to the pure living teachings thereof , and not after the inventions , imaginations , and traditions of men : and he that is once come hither , as he is true and faithful to the light of life , doing the will as it is made manifest to him , shall know more and more of the doctrine , ( joh. . . ) and have his feet infallibly guided into , and preserved in the way of peace . the root of popery struck at ; and the true ancient apostolick foundation discovered , in some propositions to the papists concerning fallibility and infallibility , &c. propos. . that councils may erre ▪ ( if i should add , and have erred , it might not be impossible to prove . ) first , in that they are men not perfected in the knowledge , faith , and obedience of the truth , it necessarily implies a capacity of error , both in relation to the knowledge , to the faith , and to the obedience . dly . their doubtful disputation of things , and long canvasing , implies an uncertainty and possibility or erring . dly . their way of determining things at last , which is by a vote of the major part , is an uncertain way of determination ; for it is not impossible but the major part may be overswayed by by-ends , & relation to their own advantage & interests , against the righteousness and equity of the reason of the lesser part ; so that the way of determining things by a council , is not a certain way in it self , but because men know not well how to find out a better and more probable way of deciding controversies , they judge it necessary to acquiesce therein : but the votes and determinations of men concerning a thing , do not conclude a thing to be true or false in it self ; they onely signifie their opinion , judgement , and testimony concerning the thing , the validity whereof depends upon their knowledge of the thing , which if it be not clear , full , and certain , their testimony , opinion , or judgment , is of little value ; truth remains the same in it self , though all the wise men in the world should testifie against it , calling it error , or heresie ; and falshood can never become truth , though never so many wise men should testifie for it , putting the fairest habit and appearance of truth upon it that they can . prop. . that the pope himself may erre . the pope hath not greater freedom from fallibility in judgement or doctrine , then peter himself had . now peter had not only a capacity of error in him , but he did erre in that doctrine which he taught the gentiles , of living after the manner of the jews ; for he did not only do the thing himself , gal. . . but he compelled the gentiles to do the same thing , holding it forth as a practice which ought to be observed by the gentiles , ver. . for which carriage of his paul withstood him to the face , and said he was to be blamed , v. . and the council of constance deposing pope john , & advancing the authority of councils above the pope , did plainly imply that the pope might erre ; which might further be confirmed by what the council of basil determined concerning pope eugenius . prop. . that every man may erre in his interpretation of scriptures , further then he hath a certain and infallible opening of them to his spirit , by that spirit which gave them forth . the spirit knoweth his own minde in every word which he hath spoken ; but no man knoweth his mind , nor the meaning of his words , but as he reveals them , cor. . . so that god is true in all his sayings in the scriptures ; but man is a lyar in all the meanings he gives of his sayings , according to his own guessings , reasonings and imaginings , without the spirits infallible opening of his own words to him . so that the spirit it self is the ground and foundation of all true light and knowledge of the things of god . prop. . that if there be any light to be found anywhere shining immediately from god , that light cannot erre ; for god is pure , and that which comes immediately from him , cannot but be pure . all the knowledge which man gathers , or can gather , into his vessel , he may pollute : but what issueth from the spring is pure , and of a perfect nature , james . . prop. . that there must necessarily be such a light communicated to all men since the fall , that they may believe thereby , come to the knowledg of the truth , and be saved : which i prove thus . . from the will of god . the apostle saith expresly , that god would have all men to be saved , and to come unto the knowledge of the truth , tim. . . why then there must necessarily be somewhat dispenced from god to all men , sufficient to bring them to the knowledge of the truth , that they may be saved . . from what is found in man . there is found in man a light shining in his darkness , ( joh. . . ) a light discovering the darkness , and drawing from it , somewhat which checks and reproves the sinner , but never consented to the evil of his heart and ways : this is of god , this is from god , this is pure , this is spiritual , not of the fleshly , not of the natural ; for then it might be drawn some time or other to consent to some of the corrupt desires of the natural : but though the conscience be never so much defiled , yet the light in it can never be defiled . indeed a man may set up that for light in his conscience , which may be darkness ; but gods light , gods witness there , can never be bribed , but wil speak truly ( when god at any time awakeneth , or raiseth it up ) witnessing for him both against the evil of the man , & against the ●earedness , hardness & unfaithfulness of his conscience towards god . prop. . that this light being let in , believed in , and obeyed , shineth more and more unto the perfect day , even until it hath wholly brought out of the error , into the truth . every way of it is infallible , and every step of the creature after it is infallible . indeed the creatures reasonings and consultations about it may be fallible ; but the light is infallible in it self : and so far as there is a pure , simple , naked thing begotten by it , ( for it is of a begetting nature , jam. . , . ) so far there is an acknowledgement of its certainty in the creature . there are some things that all the men of the earth certainly know to be evil by means of its shining , & some things also that they certainly know to be good ; and at some times there is a will begotten in them towards the good , & against the evil : now if they did honestly wait in the singleness of this will , breathing to the god of power to have it brought to victory in them , the light would shine more and more from his presence , and in the light , the power and saving arm would arise , which would effectually lead out of the death and captivity , into the fellowship and freedom of the life . prop. . that nothing less can lead to eternal life , than an eternal light in man's spirit , where the darkness is , which is to be discovered there , subdued there , and to be led from . this was the apostle's message , ( who received and came with the message of the gospel ) that god is light , and in him is no darkness at all , joh. . . and this they preached to bring men into fellowship with this light , ver. . that they might walk with god in it , & there be cleansed by the blood of jesus through it , ver. ▪ which that they might obtain , they must first be turned from darkness to it , act. . . and from the power and kingdom of satan , to the seed of the kingdom of god , mat. . ▪ which christ told the pharisees was within them , luk. . . and the apostle paul told the hebrews , that the laws of the covenant , whereof christ was the minister and mediator , were by the tenor of the new-covenant , to be written in the heart and mind by the spirit , & not to be written outwardly , as that covenant was which god made with the jews by moses , ( heb. . . &c. ) which was not the eternal covenant it self , but a shadow of it , which made nothing perfect , but only made way for the hope of a better covenant , by which believers draw nigh to god , heb. . . yea moses himself tells the jews , that the commandment of life , the word eternal ( according to faith wherein , and obedience whereto , they were to live or dye eternally ) was within them , deut. . , . and paul tells the church at rome , that this was the word of faith which they preached , that it was also the covenant of life and death under the gospel , rom . . christ is the light of the world , joh. . . or the eternal word , joh. . . which light or word speaks within in every man's conscience ; he that believes in it , brings his deeds to it , and obeys it , is justified by it ; but he that hates its reproof , is condemned by it , joh. . , . and not only shut out of life , but out of the very way to it ; for the reproofs of the instruction of this wisdom , are the sole way or path of life to the sinner , prov. . now behold the true certainty of the everlasting foundation , and behold your own uncertainty . see the rock of ages whereupon the prophets , apostles , & all the saints have been built . see that which indeed is infallible , and cease from man , who is vain , and subject to vanity & error . the church of the jews did err , the churches of the gentiles also did err even in the apostles dayes , insomuch as their candlestick wa threatned to be removed , and was soon removed ; yea the apostle particularly foretold the saints at rome concerning the gentiles , that their standing was by faith , and that if they continued not in gods goodness , they also should be cut off , as the jews were , rom. . , . now there was not a standing in the faith , but a general backsliding and falling away from the faith ; and then the man of sin was revealed , and christ and his truth withdrawn , strong delusion , deceit and false appearances of truth starting up instead thereof , thes. . . . for the lord god upon the great defection and apostacy of the gentiles , seperates the outward court from his temple , altar and spiritual worshippers , which temple was his true church , which he reserved for himself , giving the outward court to the gentiles , rev. . . . and then the true church fled into the wilderness , where she had a place prepared of god for her ; and so the gentile-christians could build up their false churches in the cities or places where the true church had been built by god , and had appeared before . and these false churches may easily become much larger then the true church ever was ; for while the lord built the church by his spirit , he built it onely of spiritual stones , pet. . . adding to it such as he first converted , act. . for such alone are fit to worship him in spirit and truth , and such alone he seeks out to make up his church of , instead of the jews whom he had cast off from being a church and people to him , john . . but when man comes to build he takes in more largely then god allows , he may gather in , or force a whole city or nation to become a church , by perswading or compelling them to receive the doctrine and traditions which he prescribes , and by setting up an outward knowledge , policy , and government according to man , & in the wisdom of man , which the humane part will answer to , & be satisfied with . to make this a little more manifest to such as in simplicity of heart desire to know the mind of god ( in this respect ) and the true state of the church since the dayes of the apostles , consider these things following . first , god in those dayes sent his true apostles and ministers with the everlasting gospel , which was the word of faith which they preached , to gather men out of jerusalem , judea , and all nations , into the obedience of the faith , ( rom. . . ) that he might have a spiritual house , a spiritual people to worship him , instead of those outward worshippers whom he then cast off , john . . . that this gathered people in judea , at jerusalem , at corinth , at ephesus , at coloss , at philippi , at rome , &c. were his several churches or congregations , and not the city of jerusalem not the city of corinth , ephesus , rome , &c. none of these were churches , but only a select remnant gathered out o● these . . that the devil after he had stirred up the jews every where , and the heathen as much as he could , to cry out against the truth , and such as god had converted to the faith , for heresie and a sect , and to persecute them and it , yet could not prevail that way ; then he tryed another way , sending his messengers abroad , cloathing them as angels of light , teaching them also to preach christ , and the doctrine of the gospel , and so transforming themselves under this colour , secretly to sow the seeds of division , error , and heresie in the church , cor. . . when this would not do , but these were discovered and judged ( by the power and presence of the light of the spirit in the church ) for false jews , false apostles , deceitful workers , ministers of satan , &c. rev. . & chap. . . then they seperate themselves from the church , jude . make up a body of the●r own , go out into the world , preach there , gather a company there , get the greater number , and then set upon the church , fight with her , overcome her and her ministry , and then get up their own false church and ministry : thus the synagogue of satan and his ministry , get footing in the world , even in the very same cities and places where the church had newly had dominion before . and now , whereas before there was a church at jerusalem , a church at rome , a church at ephesus , &c. when the synagogue of satan is set up , and hath got the dominion there , the whole city jerusalem , or the whole city rome , &c. can then become a church . to make this yet more manifest , observe and weigh these things following in the ballance of the true sanctuary . first , the false prophets , the false apostles , which had crept into the church , jude . which strived to seduce the church , iohn . these went out from the church , ver. . and went into the world , ioh. . . dly . when they went out into the world , their intent was to leaven the world with their doctrine , and to gather a people after them . they preached to gather people to them , and their doctrine and form of godliness , as the apostles preached to gather people to god , and his living truth . dly . the world heard them , they hearkened to their doctrine , were willing to be gathered by them , owning their false ministry , and their false church or synagogue , even as those that were of god hearkened to the apostles , and owned the truth , ioh. . . so that here was now two distinct bodies in cities and places where the gospel had come : a body of the true saints and true apostles ; a body of the false apostles and ministers , of the deceitful workers , who shewed miracles and wonders , and had all manner of deceivableness , of unrighteousness on their side , thes. . , . thus there was a great division and breach in the places where the gospel had been preached , and had reigned in power ; for he that was of god , heard the true apostles , and kept to the true church ; but those that were not of god , but of the worldly spirit , heard the false apostles and false ministers , and so joined to the synagogue of satan , ( iohn . . ) where satan had his seat and dwelling , rev. . . even as christ dwelleth & sitteth in his temple the true church . thly . these false apostles and ministers , with the help of the world , which they had gathered in unto them , joined together against the true church and her seed , ( as where-ever the two contrary spirits and principles appear , they cannot but contend and fight against each other , the one for the faith and truth of the gospel , the other against that which is true , and for a counterfeit of it ) so rev. . there is michael and his angels , fighting on the side of the true church ; there 's the dragon and his angels fighting for the false church . now mark who prevails . the true church , michael and his angels prevail one way ; the the false church , the synagogue of satan , the dragon and his angels prevail another way . quest . how doth the true church prevail ? answ. thus : shee keeps all the spiritual , the invisible , the holy things of god from the paw of the dragon , and of all those false worshippers . the invisible jew , the invisible life and power , that whereof god had built up his church , is preserved by him ; and against his life and spirit , and his church ( which he builds by his spirit , and preserves in it ) all the powers of darknesse cannot prevail ; but do they all what they can , the man-child is caught up to god , and the church by god's help flies from the face of the dragon into the wildernesse , where she is fed . months , or . dayes , which is the time of the dragons prevailing outwardly by his false church and ministry , rev. . quest . how doth the dragon and false church prevail ? answ. by putting the man-child and true church to flight , by gaining the churches ground , setting up his synagogue ( or false representation of the true church ) where the true church had stood before . for the church being fled into the wildernesse , the field was left to him , and there he sets up his false synagogue in the sight of the world , calling her the true church , and her seed the true catholicks , but casting a flood of reproach after the woman , reviling her ( who indeed was the true church ) for a strumpet , and all her seed for seducers , schismaticks , hereticks , deceivers , &c. even such as were not fit to be suffered in the earth , but to be made war with both by the the spiritual and civil sword , rev. , . thus then was the victory on each hand : the true church and temple ( with the inward power and virtue of life ) was preserved by god , who caused it by the wings of his spirit to flie out of the sight of all false worshippers and imitators , as far as that is from the sight of men in a city , which flieth out of the city into a wildernesse : and to the other is left the outward court to worship in , the profession , the attire , the garments , the visible observations and practises wherein the church before had appeared , and in which she did once truly and spiritually worship : for the church did acceptably worship in the outward court , before it was measured and divided from the inward temple , and given to the gentiles , rev. . quest . now how long was this false church to stand ? answ. till the church its coming out of the wilderness in the same spirit and power wherewith she fled into the wildernesse . when christ comes with the fiery breath of his mouth , and with the brightness of his eternal light , then this false image of the church melts and dissolves away , thes . . but till then she keeps her seat on the beast , on whom she rides , and by vertue of whom she sits upon the waters , even upon peoples , multitudes , nations and tongues , rev. . . obj. but did not christ say the gates of hell should not prevail against his church ? answ. no more they did not : for she had wings of an eagle given her to fly into the wildernesse , into the place prepared of god for her ; into which she did flye , and was there fed and preserved , do all the powers of darknesse what they could : so that the dragon and his angels prevailed not against the woman , but she was hid from the face of the serpent , and from all his spite and power , who could not come within the bounds of her heaven in the wilderness , but was cast out into the earth , and his angels with him , rev. . , . but christ did not say that the gates of hell should not prevail against her outward estate , but the contrary in this very prophesie of john is here declared , to wit , that she was so far prevailed against : the true woman who was clothed with the sun , and had the moon under her feet , and was crowned with a crown of twelve stars , was to flie away and give place , and a false woman to start up in her stead , who with her golden cup of her fornications , was to deceive and bewitch all nations , kindreds , tongues and languages . months , or . days , which was the full time the church was to remain in the wildernesse : but after that time , the false church with antichrist her husband ( who all this while sate in the temple ) were to be revealed , judged and destroyed , and the true church return again out of the wildernesse into her own place . quest . why would god suffer his church thus to be prevailed against , thus to be banished and driven out of the building which his spirit had reared for her , into a wilderness , and a mystery of deceit and falshood to be set up in her name and stead ? answ. first , as a just judgement upon the world ( who slighted the day of their visitation , and would not come into the vinyard to work ) god brings the night upon them , wherein they could not enter into the vinyard , nor work if they would never so fain , john . dly . as a just judgement upon such , who though they could not but own and acknowledge the truth , yet did not love it in their hearts , but loved their unrighteousnesse , their darknesse still ; therefore god removes the power of his truth from their eyes , into the wildernesse , and lets out a power of darknesse and deceit upon them , wherewith they were deluded instead of the truth it self , thes. . , . dly . that such as were approved , might be made manifest in the spirit to be pure gold indeed . they that held the living truth , and could not be drawn aside with all the pleasures of this world on the one hand , nor with all the dangers from it on the other hand , no nor yet with all the deceivablenesse of unrighteousnesse , these did shine indeed in the light and power of the spirit , and were a great honor and crown upon the head of their master . thly . that darkness might have its day , or hour , or season of manifestation to the full . there hath been no day of any dispensation hitherto , but it hath had a night coming after it . there was an antichrist to be revealed in the power of darkness , as well as christ ( the eternal light of life ) in the living power . now as long as the true church stood , and as long as the the man-child was found dwelling here with her , in the habitation which god had built up for them , the man of sin could not be revealed , but the pure power of life would soon discover him . therefore at length , when the full time and season of his discovery came , god removed that into the wildernesse which stood in the way , and then he and his spouse , the false church , make a fair shew in the world , thes. . . thly . that the lord might make the name of his son , with the glory of his truth and power to shine , by overcoming the dragon and this false church after so long a time of thick darkness , and after such an universal prevalency of the powers and deceits thereof . was it not a great glory and honor to the lord , to overcome the heathenish world , and jewish church & worship , by the power of his truth shining through a poor despicable company of fishermen and mechanicks ? and will it not be as great ( if not a greater ) glory to him to overcome the antichristian world ( after it hath taken so long and so deep root , and is become so strongly founded ) by as poor contemptible instruments as they were ? quest . but how was it possible that so great a deceit should get up in the world so near the apostles dayes , or rather in the very dayes of the apostles , as this seemeth to be ? answ. the false apostles and ministers came with all deceivavableness of unrighteousness , and with all power , and signs , and lying wonders , thes. . , . and the power of miracles in the true apostles might well cease : for the end of miracles was but to testifie to the world , to be a sign to the unbelievers , cor. . but now their work towards the world , was well nigh finished , & judgement was to come upon them for neglecting and despising the day of their visitation . so that the power of deceit was let up in the false apostles , & the power of truth did draw inwards in the true apostles , which made it very easie for deceit to prevail . besides , the false apostles appeared in an higher appearance than the true apostles did , with more glorious discoveries , so that they could hold forth all that the apostles did ( as to the form & outward doctrine ) & more too , & could shew wonders to confirm what they held forth further : and now how could they chuse but prevail over all that kept not close to the annointing , which distinguisheth & discerneth not by any outward manifestation or appearance , but by the savour of the ointment ? yea so great was the power of deceit in them , that they drew the third part of the stars of heaven from their place , into this earthly building , so that they fell from the true ministry , and the true church , unto this false church and ministry , rev. . . how many then of the inferior and common sort were then drawn aside ? quest hath there then been no visible true church-state in the world since that time ? answ. it is impossible for any to build a true church for god , but his own spirit : and if god removed the church which he built into the wildernesse , it is impossible for all the men of the earth to build up another true one , all that season that god appoints his church to abide in the wildernesse . several sorts of men may attempt it , and each may build up their different images of the thing , but none can recover the thing it self , till the lord by his spirit ( who first built , and then pulled down ) pitty the dust of sion , and raise up the tabernacle of david again , psal. . . isa. . . rev. . , . qu. what is the wilderness , tell us , that the simple hearted , who long after the truth may know where to look for , & how to find the true church ? answ. it is not an outward place , into which the bodies of persons might flee , but a parable to express somewhat inwardly : and it is under the feet of all the false worshippers , who are worshipping in their several buildings in the outward court . that which they trample upon , keep down , and despise , is the holy city , rev. . . and the place where the true church all this while hath been , ( and yet in a great part is ) is there . quest . but if god's church hath not been in a built state , but lain desolate in the wilderness ever since antichrist and the false church got up , what hath the estate of his people been ever since ? answ. a state of witnesses , rev. . . in every age god hath hath had two witnesses ( which was a sufficient number to confirm his truth by ) to witness to the power of his truth , against the emptiness and corruptions of the forms which antichrist had brought in , instead of the living power : which witnesses were clothed with sack-cloth , giving forth their testimony with tears , while they of the antichristian party were rejoicing in the glory , riches and beauty of their false church , as they could slay , suppress and keep down the vvitnesses , rev. . . and chap. . , . quest . what did the dragon do after this victory , after he had got his building up in the outward court , ( for after he had prevailed to corrupt it , the lord gave it to his worshippers the gentiles , rev. . . those that made a profession of his truth , but were not true jews , rev. . . not of the inward circumcision , phil. . . ) and had got the holy city under the feet of his worshippers ? answ. he pursued his victory against the woman , and the remnant of her seed . as for the woman , he cast a flood of infamy , of reproach after her , that she might never be able to lift up her head again in the power of truth , but what she causeth to spring up , might still be reviled for falshood and heresie , & that nothing might henceforth go for truth , but what this false woman should determine to be so . and as touching the remnant of her seed which stil remained true to god , keeping his commandments , and having the testimony of jesus , he applies himself now to wage the war against them , rev. . . . quest . how doth he wage the war against them ? answ. he raiseth up a beast out of this sea of cofnusion and vvickedness , ( which ensued upon this great battel and victory on his side ) to whom he gave his power , his seat , and great authority , rev. . . he had hitherto kept his seat in his synagogue ▪ where he had been slaying the faithful martyrs of jesus , rev. . . and had put to death such as loved not their lives unto death , rev. . . now he finds it more for his advantage to raise up this beast , and to give his power , seat and authority to him . this was the roman power , which till it was thus depraved and enslaved by satan , was not a beast , but more noble and just in government than the corrupted jews were , but now it becomes a beast : and this beast he stirs up against the very name and form of godliness , that he might root out the very appearance of israel from off the earth : for he got but into the form , to eat out the power ; and now , seeing the power is removed , it is for his advantage also to corrupt and destroy the memorial of the true form . quest . doth he effect this , and prevail likewise against the witnesses ? answ. yea , as he effected the other . he overcomes the witnesses after the manner that he had overcome the church , ( to wit , by captiving the outward man , and killing with the sword ; but they overcome him by patience and faith , in their testimony and sufferings , rev. . . ) and this in all kinreds , tongues and nations ; and so all the publike worship of the earth is given to him , ver. , . quest . why would god suffer him to do thus , seeing he hath all power in his hands , and could have restrained him if he had pleased ? answ. this was greatly needful to the present estate of his people : for by this god raised up that which was good and pure in any , and kept life in it , which otherwise might have perished in the estate of that corrupt form , which then had prevailed , and had gotten dominion outwardly over the true power . quest . but did not this tend to destroy satan's kingdom also ? for this stroke going against the very name of christianity , and profession of godliness , might light upon his carnal gospellers likewise . answ. they could easily save themselves , turning about to avoid sufferings , and crying , who is like unto the beast ? who is able to make war with him ? rev. . . being already one with him in spirit and principle , they would not easily differ from him , and suffer about a form , especially seeing their masters interest and service ran now another way . quest . what became of this beast ? answ. the lord did rend and teare him outwardly by his plagues , famines , pestilences , wars , &c. insomuch as one of his heads was wounded as it were to death , and inwardly by the innocency and power of his truth appearing in his witnesses , which scorched and tormented the adversary , so that this engine of the dragon grew faint , and weary , and unfit for this service , as he stood in this capacity . quest . what doth the dragon do then , to carry on his war against the witnesses ? answ. after this tempestuous sea was over , he raiseth up another beast out of the earth , with another kind of power , even with horns like a lamb , rev. . . but he spake as a dragon , exercising all the power of the first beast , ver. . so that he is the man in power hence-forward ; yet he setteth up the first beast also , causing the earth and them that dwell therein , to worship the first beast , whose deadly wound was healed . and thus these two join together , to set up an image to be worshipped : and all that will not worship this image ( but the living god alone in his pure life and spirit ) this latter beast hath power to cause to be killed , ver. . and such must not so much as buy or sell , who will not receive the mark of the beast , or his name , or at least the number of his name ; to which number the highest growth and perfection in religion and worship after the wisdom of the flesh , ( or man's wisdom ) is to be reckoned , ver. . . observe now diligently the place of the true church , and her estate , and the estate of her children all the . months . her place of habitation is a wilderness , her estate an estate of widowhood , ( a city un-built , trodden under the feet of the gentiles ) her seed witnesses , reproached , persecuted , and slain by the false woman and her seed . observe likewise the place and estate of the false church and her children ; she rears up a glorious building as to the outward , she is a city built and richly adorned , she hath a golden cup of doctrine and discipline , of ordinances and worship to hold forth to the kings and inhabiters of the earth in all nations , peoples , kinreds and tongues ; she is arrayed in purple and scarlet-colour , and decked with gold and precious stone , and pearls , rev. . and all her daughters , who though they may deny her , yet partake of her spirit , and learn to rear up buildings of churches like her ) they also flourish in their degree and measure . none is poor but sion , none is desolate but god's jerusalem , but his church which fled into the wilderness , to abide there all the time of his appointment : and her witnesses are clothed with sackcloth , testifying to god's despised and reproached truth , with mourning and grief of spirit , and not with that fleshly joy , wisdom , and confidence , wherewith babylon and her merchants vent their wares , but onely in the evidence , demonstration , and assurance of the spirit in their hearts , which all the wise and confident builders and inhabitants of babylon trample upon , and despise . now it behoveth all to consider what this babylon , what this woman is , spoken of rev. . which came in the place of the other woman spoken of rev. . what this built city is , which the wrath of the lord will make desolate , what this beast or false prophet is which appears like a lamb , ( and sheweth such miracles to deceive the earth ) and yet is fierce and cruel to such as witness for god , rev. , , for dreadful are the plagues , woes , vials of wrath , thunders , &c. which god hath prepared for her , even the cup of the lords indignation without mixture , torment with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels , and in the presence of the lamb , rev. . , . and chap. . . and who would not fear thee , o thou king of saints , when thou comest with thy cup of fury and indignation , to empty into the bowels of this woman , which hath been so long drunk with the blood of thy saints and martyrs ▪ rev. . consider these things , o ye papists , wait on the lord in his fear and dread , that he may vouchsafe to make known to you what , and where this city babylon is , and that such of you as belong to him may hear his voice calling you out of her , that ye may escape this bitter cup , rev . . the great judgement is already begun ( this we know , who have tasted of it . ) it hath begun at god's house , and is spreading further , yea even over the nations which have disowned you , & yet have learned of you to build up a church and vvorship , after the manner of your whoredoms . these the lord will judge first : he will plead with the daughters who have disowned their mother , and yet have gone on in the spirit of vvhoredoms , worshipping the works of their ovvn hands , and admiring and magnifying the beauty of the churches which themselves have formed . now is your time to consider , now is the time for the simple-hearted among you to flee from babylon , before the wrath of the lord besiege her . there are three things in general ( besides many particulars ) which the protestant nations and churches have learned of you , which will cost them dear , ere they be made willing to part with them . first , their taking upon them authority over mens consciences , commanding them what they should believe , which the apostles never did , but said expresly , they had not dominion over the faith of others , but were helpers of their joy , cor. . . they could not command any to believe their doctrine , but spake in the demonstration of the spirit , waiting till god opened the heart , cor . . and would not have men profess , believe , or practice from their words , but by a feeling of the power , cor. . . and when men did believe some things , and came into the unity & fellowship of the faith , they did not require them to believe all the that church taught or held forth as true , but waited till god pleased to reveal further , phil. . . indeed they could command obedience to the faith ; what truths the spirit of the lord revealed and taught any man , they could charge him in the name of the lord to be faithful to , rom. . . but they knew it was god alone who could ingraft the truth into the heart and conscience , and also give the encrease of it : and so from him alone they expected it , waiting in patience on the stubborn and perverse , till god should please to work upon them , tim. . , . and likewise on those that were convinced , and had subjected themselves to the faith , for his encrease of it , cor. . , . dly . their abridging mens liberty in things wherein god hath left them free , and pressing an uniformity in things which they themselves confess to be indifferent . now the apostle ( who had the care of all the churches , cor. : ) though he knew certainly how to determine about meats and dayes , as himself confesseth , rom. . . yet he telleth the church at rome expresly , that christ was the lord and master of every disciple , to whom he must stand or fall herein , ver. . and that every man ought to do is he is fully perswaded in his own mind , ver. . nay he is so far from pressing a necessity of uniformity in such cases , that he presseth a necessity of bearing on each hand , ver. . so that in the apostles judgement , the church hath not power to lay commands on the conscience , but must receive the weakest in the faith , ver. . leaving him to the liberty of his conscience and to his subjection to his own lord and master , to whom every believer must give an account of what he receives , and of what he obeys and performs , ver. . and . dly . their setting up a church-building , government and discipline by the magistrates power . this the apostles no where taught nor practiced . they converted men by the power of the spirit , they cut down errors , heresies , seducers and hereticks by the same word , and they found the weapons of their warfare sufficient , cor. . . they had no need of running to the magistrate . but that church , those doctrines , that government and discipline which is set up by the magistrates sword without and against the spirit , that hath need of a carnal sword to defend it against the spirit , and to cut down god's witnesses ( whom he raiseth up to testifie against it ) for schismaticks and hereticks , or its nakedness wil soon be made manifest , & it's ruin approach . now when the lord hath judged all the daughters of babylon for these things , then will he at length begin to plead with their mother , babylon the great , who hath gone a whoring from the spirit , and built up a gawdy church without the spirit , which she hath defended by violence and blood , drinking the blood of the saints who have been inspired by the spirit to testifie against her , rev. . , . and hath taught all her daughters to do the same , to wit , to drink the blood of the witnesses against them , even as she hath drunk the blood of the witnesses that have testified against her . and though because she hath had an half day more given her , after her time seemed to be even expiring , and after judgement and desolation was beginning to enter upon her ; though because of this , she thinks the bitterness of death is past , and she shall now sit as a queen , a lady , a glorious church for ever , rev. . . yet for all this is she come again into god's remembrance , rev. . . and she shall see widowhood , and be cast into a bed of torment , and all her children into great tribulation with her , and she shall be desolate , and naked , and drink of the cup , and not repent that she might escape it , rev. . . and . , . this is her portion from the hand of the lord : oh happy is he whose eyes the lord shall open to flee out of her for his life ! for the lamb is arisen to make war , and his spouse is making her self ready for his pure bed of life , & his anger is kindled against all the kings & powers of the earth that stand in his way : and though they fight never so resolutely against him and his meek ones , they shall not prevail , but the lamb will overcome all , for he is king of kings , and lord of lords , and they that are with him in this battle of his spirit , are called , and chosen , and faithful , rev. . . and though this woman ( the false church , in her various dresses ) is so strong every where ( getting the earthly powers and authorities on her side ) that now it may be said concerning this beast in the several appearances of it , as was concerning the former , who is able to make war with her ? yet there is an invisible power stronger than she , who will call her to judgement , rev. . . and make her give an account of all the saints blood which she hath drunk her self , and which she hath taught her daughters to drink : and salvation , glory , honor and power shall be ascribed to the lord for his righteous and powerful judging of her , rev. . , . and he that hath any glimmering of this in the eternal light of the lords pure ever-living spirit , let him even now say , alleluja to him who is arisen out of his holy habitation , and hath already begun this work , who will not fail to perfect it . amen ▪ somewhat concerning the ground of error , and the way to truth and unity , for the sake of such as are more spiritual , &c. there is no way to become an heir of the kingdom of god , but by being begotten and born of his spirit , which blows upon the spirit of a man , breaths life into him , and forms him in the eternal image , john . . gal. . . there is no way of having this work of god preserved , but by turning to the spirit , which begets , standing and keeping upright in that which is begotten , and taking heed of the fleshly wisdom , which stands near to corrupt and destroy the work of god , tempting , and leading aside from the truth it self , into some image and resemblance of it : and if this prevail , there is suddenly a departing from the living god , and a running a whoring after the inventions of the fleshly wisdom , which appears in the likeness of the true wisdom , that it might the better deceive : now when man is first breathed upon , and begotten towards god , there 's but a little life , a little simplicity , a little light , a little power , a little of the wisdom of the true babe ; but a great body of death , deceit , darkness , power and wisdom of the flesh standing : and all these apply themselves to overturn & destroy the truework of god , by raising up a false image of it , which is easily done ; but abiding and preservation in the truth is difficult , and alone maintained by that power , which at first begat . now the power preserves through keeping out of the sensual and reasoning part ( where the corrupt one hath his lodging ) in that poor , low , little , childish sensibility of the life , which the father hath begotten . here is the entrance unto the truth , here is the growth , here is the preservation and safety : which makes it so hard for those that are wise and strong in the reasoning and comprehending part , either to enter in , or to abide and grow in the nakedness , simplicity , and seeming folly of the truth of the gospel . oh what a deal is to be brought down , before they can be truly reached and convinced by the foolish & weak things which god chuseth to effect his great works by , cor. . , ! what a work hath god with them to batter their wisdom , and bring down their understanding , which the larger it is , the more it stands in the way of his light , cor. . . and if they be convinced at any time , what an easie and natural return unto them doth their own wisdom find , by some subtil device or other , to draw them back from the plainness and singleness of the truth , into an holding it in the wisdom and subtilty of the understanding part , where the simplicity is soon lost , cor. . . in the spirit which begets and in the truth which is begotten by it , is the true unity . feeling that in one another , is that which unites us to one another . every one keeping to that in his own particular , is kept to that which unites ; and that is kept alive in him which is to be united : but departing from that , there is a departing from the true unity into the error and ground of division . and then that which hath erred and departed from the true unity , strives to set up a false image of unity , and blames that which abides in the truth , because it cannot thus unite : for that which abides in the spirit , and in that which the spirit hath begotten and formed , cannot unite according to the flesh ; as that which is run a whoring from the spirit , into an image of the fleshly wisdom's forming , cannot unite according to the spirit . consider this , o ye professors of this age , ye blame us for departing from you , for withdrawing from unity with you ; we blame you for departing from the living principle , wherein our unity with you formerly stood , and wherein alone we can again unite with you , and not in such things as uphold a fleshly and false image of the true unity . oh that ye could hear the lord's voice , who cryeth aloud to the professors of this age to cease from man ! cease from man in thy self , o thou who hast ever had any taste of the pure grace and power of god . cease from thine own understanding , thine own affections , thine own zeale , thine own gathered knowledge and wisdome from the scriptures , with all the sparks of thine own kindling , that god may be all in thee , and his eternal habitation be raised up in thee , and perfected , & thou swallowed up and comprehended in it for ever . oh what a work hath god to do to drive man's reason and vvisdom out of his temple , out of his scriptures , out of all his holy things ! he that hath an ear , let him hear , for the sake of his souls eternal peace . alas , alas how many stumble at , and blaspheme that , which alone can save the soul . there have been many dispensations of , but there is but one living truth , but one substance , but one arm of salvation : and he that stumbles at the thing it self , how can he be saved by it ? it is easie mis-understanding a former dispensation , reading it in the letter , and so to miss of the salvation hoped for by it . the jews owned the messiah ( according to the scriptures , as they thought ) but rejected him in the way he came to save them in . now if christians have gathered such a kind of knowledge from the letter of the scriptures , as they did , how can they avoid the same error , namely , of owning christ according to the scriptures , as they think , but rejecting him as he comes to save them , rebelling against his living ministry , and the pure povver and demonstration of his spirit , because it appears vveak & lovv , because it doth not appear the same thing to them vvhich they expect to be saved by , according to their apprehensions of the scriptures ? thus reading the scriptures in another spirit & wisdom then that which vvrote them , they must needs conclude and gather another thing from them , then what is vvritten in them , and so make that a means to them of erring from the life , which was written to testifie of , and point to the living principle from whence life and salvation springs , and vvhere alone it is to be had . the end . babylon the great described. the city of confusion. in every part whereof antichrist reigns. which knoweth not the order and unity of the spirit, but striveth to set up an order and uniformity according to the wisdom of the flesh, in all her territories atd [sic] dominions. her sins, her judgements. with some plain queries further to discover her, and some considerations to help out of her suburbs, that her inward building may lye the more open to the breath and spirit of the lord, from which it is to receiv [sic] its consumption and overthrow. also, an exhortation to the powers of the earth. by isaac penington, the younger. penington, isaac, - . this text is an enriched version of the tcp digital transcription a of text r in the english short title catalog (thomason e _ ). textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. the text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with morphadorner. the annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. this text has not been fully proofread approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. earlyprint project evanston,il, notre dame, in, st. louis, mo a wing p thomason e _ estc r this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (thomason tracts ; :e [ ]) babylon the great described. the city of confusion. in every part whereof antichrist reigns. which knoweth not the order and unity of the spirit, but striveth to set up an order and uniformity according to the wisdom of the flesh, in all her territories atd [sic] dominions. her sins, her judgements. with some plain queries further to discover her, and some considerations to help out of her suburbs, that her inward building may lye the more open to the breath and spirit of the lord, from which it is to receiv [sic] its consumption and overthrow. also, an exhortation to the powers of the earth. by isaac penington, the younger. penington, isaac, - . [ ], , [ ] p. printed for lodowick lloyd, and are to sold [sic] at his shop in cornhil next door to the castle, london : . the first leaf bears text and scripture verses concerning babylon on verso. annotation on thomason copy: "augu: ". reproduction of the original in the british library. eng babylon (iraq) -- early works to . great britain -- religion -- th century -- early works to . a r (thomason e _ ). civilwar no babylon the great described.: the city of confusion. in every part whereof antichrist reigns. which knoweth not the order and unity of the penington, isaac b the rate of defects per , words puts this text in the b category of texts with fewer than defects per , words. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - john pas sampled and proofread - john pas text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion babylon the great described . the city of confusion . in every part whereof antichrist reigns . which knoweth not the order and unity of the spirit , but striveth to set up an order and uniformity according to the wisdom of the flesh , in all her territories a●d dominions . her sins , her jvdgements . with some plain queries further to discover her , and some considerations to help out of her suburbs , that her inward building may lye the more open to the breath and spirit of the lord , from which it is to receiv its consumption and overthrow . also , an exhortation to the powers of the earth . by isaac penington , the younger . that which is far of , and exceeding deep , who can find out ? i and mine heart compassed to know , and to search , and to seck out wisdom , and the reason , and to know the wickedness of folly , even of foolishnes and madness . and i find more bitter then death , the woman whose heart is snares and nets , her hands bands . he that is good before god , shall escape from her , but the sinner shall be taken by her , eccles. . , , . he that is born of the pure immortal seed , and lives in the annointing , escapes the golden cup of fornication , and all the painted beds of fornication , and is not defiled with women , rev. . . but remains chast to the bridegroom . london printed for lodowick lloyd , and are to sold at his shop in co●nhi 〈…〉 next door to the castle , . lo this is the city which is built up of , and filled with images , and likenesses of the ways and truths of god , without the life and power . on her outside ther 's the likeness of a church , the likeness of a ministry , the likeness of the ordinances , duties and ways of holiness . on her inside ther 's the likeness of the good knowledge , the likeness of repentance and conversion , the likeness of faith , the likeness of zeal for god , the likeness of love to god and his saints , the likeness of the lambs meekness and innocency ; the likeness of justification , the likeness of sanctification , the likeness of mortification , the likeness of hope , peace , joy , rest , and satisfaction , &c. but the substance , the truth , the vertue of all these is wanting to her , and she her self is found persecuting that very thing ( where it is found in truth ) the image whereof she cries up . this , this is the woman that hath bewitched the whole earth for these many generations , and is still changing her dresses and paints , that she might still bewitch people , and sit as a queen reigning over their consciences . but blessed be the light which is arisen to discover , and the power which is able to overthrow this stately , this lofty , this mighty city , and all that take part with it . the lord god omnipotent reigneth in sion , and antichrist with his city babylon falleth . sing praises , sing praises o inhabitant of sion , to him who subjecteth babylon ( with all her glory ) under thy feet . for he bringeth down them that dwell on high , the lofty city he layeth it low ; he layeth it low , even to the ground he bringeth it even to the dust . the foot shall tread it down ( the feet of the poor , the steps of the needy ) isa. . , . the preface . there hath been in me a zeal for god from my childhood , and a most earnest search into the scriptures ( which my soul deeply relished , and my heart honoured and loved , and still doth ) for the revelation of the mind and will of god . two things did i earnestly search and beg for : the one was , for the discovery of the outward way of worship ; the other , for the inward life , vertue and power , which i looked upon the outward , as the proper means to lead me to , at the beginning of the troubles in these nations , there was a lively stirring in me , and an hope that god was bringing forth somewhat ; i likewise felt the same stirring in many others , at which my heart was rejoyced , and with which my soul was refreshed ; but i found it soon begin to flag and wither , which forced me to retire , and to separate from that , where i found the life and power dying and decaying . in my separation the lord was with me , my soul remembreth it right wel , and he had regard to the simplicity , honesty , and integrity of my heart , ( which he himself had kindled in me : ) and though i felt too soon into a way of church-fellowship and ordinances , yet he had regard to me , and pittyed me , and refreshed my life even there . but at length the form overgrew vs , and the sweet and precious life in us began to dye . then the lord found out another way to refresh us ( namely by a sensible relating of our conditions , and of his dealings with us , and workings in us ) which was very sweet and precious at first , but the enemy crept in there also , out of this state i never made any change , but here the hand of the lord fel upon me , striking at my very root , breaking all my life in sunder , and trampling my crown in the dust . then i became a man of sorrows ( being stripped of all my life , faith , hope ; joy , comfort in one day ) not knowing which way to looke , nor what to desire . sometimes there were breathings stiring in me , but they were presently judged : sometimes a little glance of refreshment from a scripture presented to me , but suddenly taken away , and my death and darknesse increased thereby . then should i wish , o that i might appear before his throne ; for surely my conscience is clear in his sight , and i have not wickedly departed from my god , but was broken in pieces by his hand , even while my soul was earnestly seeking after him . o how my soul did mourn , to see how i was fit to be made a prey to every ravening spirit ! and many did seek to devour me , but the hand of the lord was with me , preserving me , though i knew it not . and though i was wholly broken , and desolate of all that i had called , or could call knowledg ( insomuch as that i could not call any thing either good or evil ) yet the lord by a secret instinct , preserved me exceedingly out of that which was evil , and kept my heart secretly panting after the fountain & wel-spring of good . yea when i was at length ( through deep despair of ever meeting with god any more in this life ) captivated by the world , and betrayed by the love of it ( which at last rose up in me , and gained upon me by perswading me , that my present estate and condition did require the free use of it , and the enjoyment of all it could afford ) yet the lord followed me , and often was i visited with secret loathings of the world , and turnings from it , and pantings after the spring of my life : but these were dreaded by me , and suddenly quenched by the evil part , for fear of that misery and unutterable anguish which i had felt hereby , the remembrance whereof was fresh in me . in this my courting of the world , and estrangement from the life , the reasoning part ( which the lord hath been long battering , and had laid very low ) gathered strength in me ; and i began to grow wise again , and able to judge of the things of god , and to hope and wait for some great appearance , wherein at length i might be visited , and meet with that which i so vehemently desired , and stood in such need of . thereby the enemy deeply deceived me , pleasing me herewith , and keeping me hereby from unity with that , which alone was able to give me the sight of him , when ever he should appear . and in this fleshly wisdome , i judged and despised the true life in others , as weak and low , and not able to bring them to that which i stood in need of , and waited for . yea the more i considred and reasoned in my mind , and the more i conversed with them ( hoping thereby to find some clear ground either of owning or turning from them ) the further off still was i , till at length the lord powerfully touched , and raised up the life in me ( which by all these reasonings and consultations , all this while , i slew ) and then by degrees ( waiting upon that ) i saw , i felt , i tasted , i handled , as the lord pleased to open to me here , that which was shut out from me in my narrowest search and closest reasonings . thus the jew in me was cast off , and the gentile called : but who can read this ? i am sure the eye of mans religious wisdom cannot . hereby my eyes have been opened , and i have seen the fetters , whereby i have been held captive from my life all my dayes : yea many of the streets , and chambers of babylon hath my eye beheld ( in the pure life ) wherein the witch dwels which inchanteth from the life : yea i have heard the tongue of the false prophet , which speaketh so like the true prophet , as no flesh can discern or distinguish between them : yea i have seen the dragon in the temple , worshipped there for god by the strictest sort of professors . and now in tender bowels , in the true light of life , from the pure movings of the eternal spirit ( as the lord pleaseth to guid and direct ) do i come forth to visit my poorfellow creatures and captives in babylon . and what i have seen and known i testifie for the relief of others , that if it be possible ( by the mercy & good hand of god ) they may escape that misery , wherewith my poor soul hath been overwhelmed , and may come out of that filthy abominable city which god is making desolate ; where the pure life , the conquering faith , the suffering love , the purifying hope , the putting off of the body of sin , the putting on the living garment is not , nor cannot be witnessed but men are only dreaming of these things in babylon , where all the satisfaction they have , is from the pleasure of their dream ; but when they awake they will find leannesse and penury , and nakedness upon their souls . a description of babylon , for the sake of the daughter of sion , which at present dwelleth in the midest thereof . now though the world be deaf and blind ( even all sorts of worldly professors , from the highest to the lowest ) yet open your ears , and hear the joyful sound ; open your eyes , and see the city of desolations , and of all the abominations of the earth ( both of flesh and spirit : ) and feel in your selves what it is , which is to be led out , and what is to lead you , that your feet may be guided to , and set firm upon mount sion , where the life rules over all her enemies . babylon is the spiritual fabrick of iniquity , the mystical great city of the great king of dark ess , built in imitation of sion , painted just like sion , that it might be taeken for sion , and he worshipped there , instead of the true eternall ever-living god and king of sion . this is the seat of the man of sin : where there is a building framed in any heart , or in any society of men like sion , there he lodges , there he lives , there he sits as god , there he reigns , there he is worshipped , there he is exalted above all that can truly be called god in that heart , or in that society . . it is a city , this is a proper parable , to discover the mystery of iniquity by , in this state , it is just like a city , in its kind it is a city . in a city there are several streets , in the streets houses , in the houses several rooms , to which familyes and persons appertain , and to all these there are laws and governments . thus it is here , there are many streets in this city babylon , many houses in every street , many rooms in every house : and the houses and rooms have their several familyes and persons appertaining to them , and they have their laws and governments , their knowledge of god and christ , their order , their worship , their discipline in which they walke , and by which they order themselves in their several services , places , offices , and imployments under the king of babylon . . it is a spirituall or mysticall city , it is not an outward building of earthly materials , but an inward building of inward materials . as the outward sion , the outward jerusalem is passed away in it's use and service : so the outward babylon is out of date too . ( ye need not look so far for it . ) and as god hath built up an inward city , a spiritual building : so hath the king of darkness likewise . ( he could never have tempted from the city of the living god , from the city of the mystery of life , but by the city of the mistery of deceit . ) and as god builds his city of hewen stones , of squared stones , of living stones : so also hath the king of darkness his hewings , his squarings , his preparations , his qualifications for his buildings . if the light break forth , and make it appear too grosse to have the whole nation a church , or to admit an whole parish to ordinances , he will gather a church out of the nation , and select some of his choicer stones out of the parish ; yea he may grasp in some of the stones of the true temple , if they come within his reach and circle , that is , if they look abroad , if they step forth , and keep not close to the anointing within , which is the great and only ordinance of the saints preservation from antichrists power : for if they step forth , but so much as into a prayer against antichrist , out of this ; they are caught in his snare , and are serving him in that very prayer , which they may seem with great earnestness and zeale to put up against him . . it is a great city , an overspreading city , a city that over-spreads the earth . as sion was a vast city , a city that did overspread the nations : how did the faith of the gospel over-run the world in the apostles dayes ! so this city hath also over-run the world . indeed it hath taken up the whole territories and dominions of the other city ( and hath enlarged it self further ) and sion hath been laid in the dust , and trodden under foot . and though many witnesses , prophets , and martyrs have mourned over her , yet none have been able to raise up the tabernacle of david which hath fallen down , nor to recover sion to this day , but babylon hath had the power over her . look with the true eye , and behold how all nations , kindreds , tongues , and languages have been drunk with some or other of the mixtures of this false womans cup ( some of them over , and over , and over again ) and have been inhabitants of this city crying her up ( though not all in her grosse habit , but some in her more refined shapes and transformings ) for the true church , for sion , whereas alas , she hath only sions dresse , sions shape , sions outward garment ( which is the likeness wherein she lies in wait to deceive ) but not sions spirit . . it is a city of iniquity , of hidden iniquity . that which is hid in this city , it is not the life , it is not the righteousness , the holiness of the saints ; but iniquity , sin , transgression of the life : look into any of the streets of babylon , into any of the houses , any of the rooms , any of the chambers of darkness : there 's sin there , there 's unrighteousnes there , there 's not one cleansed heart to be found there , not one pure eye to behold the god of life is to be found there ; but in every heart sin in a mistery , iniquity in a mistery , unrighteousness in a mistery . they seem to be for god and christ , and to be cleansed by them , but uncleaness lodges in them , and sin rules in them against god , and against his christ in a mistery , which their eye cannot see ; and so must needs mistake their state . yet this is the true state of babylon in all the parcels of it , it is the unclean city , where purity of heart and life cannot be known , but though it be washed and transformed never so often outwardly , yet still it remains inwardly polluted , that which defileth keeping possession and dominion there in a mistery . the living water , the living blood runs not in any of the streets of this city , so that there can be no true cleansing there . nay , such strangers are the choicest inhabitants of babylon to the fountain of life in sion , to the river that cleanseth and healeth , that they cannot so much as beleeve that there is a possibility of cleansing , and perfect healing and making sound and whole here , while on earth . there is great talk of these things ( of the water , the blood , the cleansing ) in all the regions of babylon , ( which hath heard of the fame , and forms to it self a likeness ) but the thing it self is not to be found there , and so the vertue , which comes from the thing it self alone , cannot be felt there . and here , in this there is a great difference between the vessels of sion , and the vessels of babylon . the vessels of sion , they are weak , earthen , foolish , contemptible to the eye of mans wisdome ( which cannot look for any great matter of excellency there : ) but the treasure , the liquor of life in them is precious . the vessels of babylon make a great shew , appear very holy , very heavenly , very zealous for god and christ , and for the setting up of his church and ordinances all over the world . thus they appear without , but they are sepulchers , there 's rottenness within : under all this there lodgeth an unclean , an unsanctified heart , an heart unsubdued to the spirit and power of the gospel , while it makes such a great shew of subjection and obedience to the letter . . it is the city of the king of darknesse , of the great king of darkness , of the prince of the power of the ayre , who rules universally in the darknesse , in the mistery of iniquiry throughout , even in every heart . where ever is sin , there is satans throne ; and there he hath his laws , his government , his power in every heart of his dominion . and where there is the least subjection to him , he is yet a prince , his building is not as yet there wholly thrown down , he is not there as yet dispossessed and cast out . as long as there is any thing left wherein he may dwell , he knows his owne , and keeps his hold of it . it is his right , and he will not loose it . all sin , all darkness is properly his : it is his seat , and he hath the government there . man is the land where these two kings fight , and what ever is good and holy belongs to the one king , and what ever is evill and unclean belongs to the other , and there is no communion or peace between them , but each keep their own , and gather of their own unto themselves . and where the fight is once begun between these , there is no quietness in that land till one of these be dispossessed : but then there is either the peace of babylon , most commonly under a form of holinesse , or the peace of sion in the spirit , life and power . . this city was built ( and is daily built ) in imitation of sion , painted just like sion . the intent of it's building was to eat out sion , to suppresse sion , to withdraw from the truth by a false image , and to keep her inhabitants in peace and satisfaction , under a beliefe and hope that it is the true sion ; and therefore it must needs be made like sion , else it could no way suite these ends . every street must be like the streets of sion , every house like the houses of sion , every tribe and family like the tribes and familyes of sion , every person like the persons in sion , all the laws , ordinances , &c. like the laws and ordinances of sion , the worship like the worship in sion , the faith like the faith of sion , the painted christ like the christ of sion , all that go for truths like the truths of sion , they would not deceive else ; city babylon would be soon seen through else , and become quickly desolate and forsaken , did she not lay her paint very thick , and with great art and skil . now here 's the wisdome , here 's the true eye tried , to see through al the paints of this city in al the shapes and forms of it , to turn from every street , every house , every chamber , every image and false appearance of truth , every false appearance of ordinances and wayes of worship , every likenes of things which this spirit forms from the letter , every duty that it thus cals for , every promise of scripture which it endeavours to apply to that to which it belongs not , that it might lull the soule asleep , and cosen and deceive it of the thing promised : here i say is the true eye tried to turn from all this , and to waite for the raising and redeeming of the true seed of sion , and for the springing up of the true life and power in it and from it : for as long as this spirit can deceive you with any likenes , ye shal never know the truth , nor come to the worship of the true living god , which alone is in the spirit and in the truth . . the end of al this , of satans building up this city , this great city ( thus accurately in the power of deceit , and in the very likenes of sion ) was and is that it might be taken for sion , and he worshipped there as god , and that without jealousie or suspition . and he hath attained his end , his city hath deceived and doth deceive , it passeth currant for sion among al the inhabitants of babylon ; almost every sort of people cry it up for sion , in one appearance or other , though al do not cry up the same appearance ; but their own image , way and worship , every one extolls ; their own image of the truth for the truth , their own way of worship for the way , their own church and family for the church and family of god . and worshipping here , they worship him , and not the lord : for the lord cannot be worshipped in any part of babylon , but the king of babylon is worshipped in babylon , and the king of sion alone in sion . ah how deeply do men deceive their souls ! they think they beleeve in god , they think they pray to god , and hope to be owned at length by god , and yet are so far from coming out of mystery babylon , that it was never yet so much as discovered to them ; but they have either walked in the way of religion and worship they were brought up in in the apostacy , or perhaps have removed out of one or two of the broad streets of it , and so thereby think they have left babylon , when as the same spirit hath sit down in another street of the same city , building up another house by the direction of the king thereof , and there worshipping the same spirit as they did before ; but their souls never knew the fire in sion , and the furnace in jerusalem , by which the very inwards of their spirits must be cleansed , before the pure ey of life be opened which can see sion . now because ye are more able to receive things from scripture-expressions , then from the nature of the thing it self , spoken as it is felt in the heart ( concerning which , much more might be said , were ye able to bear it ) consider a few scriptures . babylon is called a great city , rev. . . and a great and mighty city , chap. . . o the power of deceit in that city to bewitch from the life ! o the multitude of lying wonders that are there shewn in the heart , to make a man beleeve that he is in the life ! to perswade men that the king thereof is the king of sion ! and that the laws and ordinances of worship there , are the laws and ordinances oi sion ! that the prayer there , is the prayer of the true child ! that the beleeving there , is the true faith ! the love there , the true love ! the hope there , the true hope ! &c. some parts of babylon , some likenesses of truth there , are so taking , that none but the elect , by the opening of the eternal eye , can espy the deceit . and it is a spiritual city , a mystical city , a city built by the working of the mystery of iniquity , thes. . . whereupon she is called mystery , rev. . . it is not a city of plain wickedness , but a city of sin hid , of sin keeping its life under a covering , under a form of godlines , of sin reigning in the heart under zeal , under devotion , under praying , beleeving , worshipping , hoping , waiting , &c. where sin lies hid within under these , there 's babylon , there 's the mystery of witchcraft , there 's the painted throne of satan , there 's spiritual egypt and sodom , where the lord of life is daily crucified . this is the city , the mystical city , the spiritual city , rev. . . and here is building up and throwing down continually . she builds , the spirit of the lord confounds , then down goes her building , then up with another , then down again . this is her course without end , when the spirit of the lord disturbs her , for otherwise she can settle in any form of knowledg or worship : though in her ordinary course she hath also many changes and turnings , one while this or that being a truth , another while not , one while this or that being the sence or meaning of such a scripture , another while not . babylon is hardly ever without this kind of building up and throwing down . and this city is a great city , a city spread over all the earth , she made all nations drink of the wine of the cup of her fornication , rev. . . the woman , which is this city ( rev. . . ) sate upon peoples , and multitudes , and nations , and tongues , rev. . . she sate upon them as queen , as princess , guiding them in their knowledg and worship of the king of babylon . and those that once hated her , and made war with her , and burnt her flesh with fire , she cosoned them with a new paint , got them into her new bed of fornication , and made them worship the king of babylon again , rev. . , . & v. , . and there they lay committing whoredom with her , til the time of her last burning and utter desolation : but then they forsook her , for fear of her torment , when they saw the smoke of her burning , rev. . , . in the temples of this city ( for in al the streets thereof , yea in every house there are temples ) antichrist sits as god , and is worshipped , thess. . . he as god sitteth in the temple of god , shewing himself that he is god . he hath clothed himself like god , he appears like god ( like the holy pure spirit of life and power ) he appears in the temple of god , he sits there , he rules there , he gives forth laws and ordinances of worship and devotion . yea if any one wil question his godhead , or his right to do thus , he wil prove it , he wil make it manifest , in the very temple of god , that he is god : he as god sitteth in the temple of god , shewing himself that he is god . he hath exalted himself into the throne above al that is called god , he hath got into the temple , he sitteth there as god , and there he maketh it manifest to al his worshippers that he is the god , in so much as among al the inhabitants of babylon he is acknowledged and worshipped , and the true spirit of life is hid from their eyes , and denied and crucified . he shews himself that he is god , he gives demonstrations of his godhead , which that eye which is out of the life cannot but acknowledg and take to be true . there is none can see and acknowledg the true god , the true christ , but those that have the true ey , the true anointing ( no man can say , that jesus is the lord , but by the holy spirit , cor. . . ) and yet how many can speak great words of god and of christ , who know not what belongs to the anointing ? alas , alas , al nations and sorts of professors out of the life , are co●oned with the devils demonstrations , with antichrists demonstrations , with the whores demonstrations , with the false prophets demonstrations , which are undeniable to that wisdome wherein they stand , and to that eye wherewith they look to see . now mark this , antichrists coming , when he first deceived , was very mighty , exceeding strong , thess. . , . whose coming is after the working of satan , with all power , and signs , and lying wonders , and with al deceivableness of unrighteousness &c. weigh the thing wel satan used al his art , and al his strength to conceive and bring forth this mystery of iniquity , so like the mystery of godlines , that it might pass for currant in the world , and he rule as god in in i● . with all power , &c. no power of deceit wanting , he did not spare for signs and lying wonders , yea 〈◊〉 gave power to the beast to do wonders and miracles , even to make s 〈…〉 e come downe from heaven on the earth , in the sight of men , ( which was the sign and wonder whereby the god of israel was distinguished from baal , power to work this very sign satan gives to the beast , to confirm the godhead of the dragon and antichrist with . ) rev. . v. , . these are the things men look for , see but great power , signs , miracles , they are satisfied : the whole world stands ready to be deceived with this . yea , and if the eye be not opened in persons , which can distinguish of power , they must needs be deceived . signs , wonders and miracles had their place in the first covenant , and were to that part to which the first covenant was ( not to them that beleeve , but to them that beleeve not . ) now after the full demonstration of the truth by signs and miracles , the power of satan riseth up , and by lying signs wonders and miracles overturneth the truth . now the unbeleeving part in man expects and cals for signs and miracles , and says that wil determine the controversie , and settle the state of the church again , but that part is not to prescribe god his way : yea he wil steal as a theif upon thee , whose ey is abroad , and lookest for demonstrations without . and as antichrist got up thus , so antichrist wil go out thus : he wil raise up this power , and what lying signs wonders and miracles he can , to defend himself with , now the spirit of the lord is risen up to dispossess him , and cast him out of the house which he hath long lodged in . and he that can be cosened with power , with signs , with lying wonders ( which are lying , because they come from the spirit of deceit , with an intent to deceive , though they may come to pass , and appear true to mans eye , deut. . , , . ) or with any of the deceivablenes of unrighteousnes , shal never come out of babylon , but only be translated into some of the more refined chābers of it , & fed with somemore fresh likenesses of truth , where he shall stil remain an inhabitant and worshipper in some image , perhaps of universal love life and liberty , and yet be out of the life , out of the love , out of the liberty of the truth , which stands in the power and presence of the spirit of god , and not in the most refined image or likeness . all the world wondred after the beast , and they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast , and they worshipped the beast , rev : . , . the dragon is the devil , the beast is that spirit of the earth which he raiseth up , and feeds in men with a form and appearance of truth ; to which he gives his power , and his seat , and his authority : and every man hath a measure of this according to his state , condition , place and service in babylon . and now what a man doth here in religion ( be he never so devout and zealous , and frequent in ordinances and duties ) is the worship of this spirit , and of the dragon who sits and rules in this spirit . i am run into hard expressions , very hard , because the nature of these things is hid from mens eyes , and they are in the mist of antichrists raising , in the smoak which comes from the pit , where there is no opening of the true eye , nor no true sight of things : but truly , if ever ye espy the dragon , the beast , antichrist , the whore , the false prophet , ye must look at home , and read within : and there having found the thing , and seen it in the true light , ye will be able to read it certainly abroad also . now do not go about to distinguish these things , in the notion of the understanding , but come to feel the life , to unite with the life , and the eye will open which can see into the nature of things , and will behold all in it's season : for that eye which is so eager to see , shall never see these things , but that eye alone which waits in stilnesse and quietnesse , on the pleasure and good will of the opener . now all this time , while babylon stands , while antichrist sits in the temple , while satan reigns over all the antichristian world , the true and living god hath not been known , feared , nor glorified ( but mens knowledge hath been of a false god they have set up , and him they have feared , and given the glory to in their worship ) nay the gospel hath not been preached , the true gospel , the everlasting gospel , the gospel wherein is the light and power of eternal life , to turn men from all antichristian forms of knowledge and worship to the true life and power . but when babylon falls , and mount sion begins to appear again , then this gospel is to be preached again , even by an angel who receiveth it from god himselfe , rev : . , . for man could never recover it again : it requires a new inspiration . the law is to go forth out of sion , & the word of the lord from jerusalem . and this gospel is to be preached to every nation , and kindred , and tongue , and people , v : . mark , there was not one nation , not one kindred , not one tongue , not one people that kept the everlasting gospel , but it was laid up in sion , it was carried with the church into the wildernes , and there it hath been hid all the time of the apostacy since the dayes of the apostles . but now sion is redeeming , the true woman bringing back again out of the wilderness , she brings back the true everlasting gospel with her ; and there is an angel chosen in the power of the lord ( even in the same power and spirit that first preached it ) to preach it again to every nation , kindred , tongue and people . and the lord hath so ordered it , that he will have the voice of this angel as despicable to the wise in religion , to the zealous in devotion of all sorts of this backsliding age , as the former preaching was to the wise and devout both among the jews and greeks . so that whosoever is wise in religion according to the flesh , whosoever is wise in expectation and waiting for the kingdome , whosoever is wise in reasoning about it , and can tel the foregoing signs . of it , &c. shall not know the voice : but he that can shut his eyes by the leadings of the pure life , and enter into the hidden womb of wisdom , where the light of life is sown , he shall be new formed , and come forth a child out of the womb of wisdom with the new eye , the new ear , the new heart , the new understanding and sences ; and keeping in the childish simplicity , out of the wisdome , zeal , and devotion which deceived him before , he shall receive and enter into the everlasting kingdome . therefore all people wait humbly for the candle of the lord , that therewith ye may search out babylon , and may come to see what of her treasures ye have gathered , that ye may throw them away speedily , and give up your ships and vessels ( wherewith ye have traffiqued for these kind of wares ) to the fire of the lords jealousie , that ye may receive the durable riches , that ye may hear the joyful sound of the everlasting gospel , and know the true christ which it alone reveals , and come to fear and worship and glori●e the true god , and not go down into the pit or lake with the dragon , the beast , the whore and false prophet , which will be the portion of the most zealous false worshippers . and when your eyes come once to be opened in the true light , ye will bless the lord for giving you these warnings , and not be so angry at us ( who have paid dear for them ) for our willingnesse , if it be possible , to save you some of the charges they have cost us ; however , at least to preserve your souls from that ruine and dreadful destruction , which all the paths of babylon lead to . the sins of babylon . although in the foregoing description , some of the sins of babylon have been touched at , yet i find my spirit further drawn forth ( in way of service to the lord and his people ) to take a further view , both of them and some other of her sins . the sins of babylon , by the spirit of life ( which hath righteously measured and knoweth them ) are referred to these two heads , fornications and abominations . she allureth the spirit of the creature into a strange bed , and there it acts filthily and abominably with this strange spirit . now of these there are two sorts ; first , some more open and manifest ; secondly , some more hid and secret , hard ( yea utterly impossible ) to be discerned without the shining forth of the pure light of li●e . all sorts of men are estranged from the life : under the whole heaven is the lord god forgotten , and his holy and pure law and way of life , and filthinesse and abomination is committed every where . now all this filth ( even the common filth of the earth ) springs out of babylon , hath it's rise from her womb . were it not for her , the sound of life would be heard even among he heathen , and they would not be such strangers to him that made thē , nor would they act so contrary to those leadings & teachings of the spirit of god ( who is the god of the whole earth ) which the darkest parts are not without . it is she , which withdraws their minds from the pure glimmerings that rise up in them , setting up another god in their eyes , and heathenish sottish wayes of fear , worship and devotion : and under this she makes them filthy and polluted , unclean in their minds and in their bodyes , brutish in their knowledge and in their practices : for she is the mother of fornications and abominations of the earth , rev : . . look what of pride , of vanity , of cruelty , of envy , of wrath , of lust , of covetousness , of idolatry , of blasphemy , &c. is to be found anywhere among men upon the earth , she is the mother of it all . all the common filth and stench of the earth springs out of this womb ; this secret womb , this hidden womb : for though in this her open & visible appearance , she be manifest to the eyes of many ; yet to those children of hers who are thus conceived , brought forth and bred up by her , she is a mistery of iniquity , and they perceive her not so much as here , and so cannot escape this her openly polluted bed . secondly , the whore hath more secret fornications and abominations . where she can passe thus , she need not paint , either her self or her ware : but where need requires she hath her paint , she hath her delicates for the curious eye ( rev : . . ) she hath her cinamon , odours , ointments , and frankinsence for the nice scent ; she hath her fine flower and wheat , &c. for the fine pallace ; and gold , precious stones , pearl , and vessel 's of ivory , and all manner of vessel 's of most precious wood for the more stately worshipper ; as wel as of brass and iron for the more common , rev : , , . she can paint both her self and her ware , so as to make them taking to the eye of all flesh . she can so mingle her cup , as shall please every palate , but that which is truly living , and cast such a colour upon her abominations , as no eye that 's without can suspect , but takes with every young man that 's hunting abroad , and knows not the spring of life in himself . so that all the deceits in religion , all the several forms and wayes of knowledge and worship , all the ordinances , duties , and devotions which the spirits of most men take pleasure in , are of her . and herein is her pride and glory , in subjecting these , in ruling over these , in blinding the eyes of these , and opposing the true life and power by these . she doth not value whole territories of the other , so much as one congregation of these . for mark , the great master-piece of the whore was to paint her self like the lambs wife , and so to withdraw from the true church , and set up a false church , which by reason of its paint and likeness to that which once was the true , should passe up and down the world , and be taken for the true : and here lies her beauty , her glory , her majesty , her life , her heart , even in the deceivableness of this appearance . therefore her great care and indeavour is , to keep her possession and dominion here . she often reneweth and changeth her paint , neerer and neerer to the image and former likeness of truth , that she might make it pass instead of the truth , and so keep that which is indeed the truth down stil under reproach , contempt and persecution , as she hath done these many ages . therefore she hath her sorts of paint by her , her varieties of sorcery , of witchery , of inchantments , whereof her cup is ful , and wherewith her wine is made strong , to make the inhabitants of the earth drunk thereby , that being thus besotted , being not themselves , but their spiritual sences bound up ( as this wine doth very effectually , where ever her cup is drunk off ) she might lead them up and down from one thing to another , from one chamber to another , from one bed to another , from one practice and way of worship to another , and stil keep them from the true living thing which their souls seek . for were it possible for persons , who did but so much as read in the scriptures , concerning the power of life the saints formerly enjoyed , the living ministry and ordinances , their sweet walking and fellowship in the light , the presence of the spirit in their worship , and in their whole course , their sincere love in the spirit , and tender bearing with one anothers weaknesses , doubts and differences ; ( which he that reads singly , cannot but pant after ; ) and the state of the gospel was not to be a decaying and dying in these things , or a loosing of them , so that the power of the spirit , and the revelations thereof should cease ( as the whorish spirit , which hath gone out from the life , pleads ; ) but to grow and increase , and the last times to abound most of all with the power and glory of truth : i say , were it possible for persons who should read , and entertain the least tast or savour of these things , to be satisfied with any of those dead wayes and forms , which the whore hath set up instead of them , unless they were wholly bewitched , and altogether deprived of their sences , being made dead drunk which the whores mingled wine in this dark night of apostacy ? yea , professors are drunk , they have deeply drunk of the cup , and are sorely overtaken , and their hearts overcharged with strong liquor , which makes them even mad to draw others into their beds of fornication , and to stand up themselves in great rage , and call also to the magistrates for the defence of them . yea like the clamourous woman they make a great noise about ordinances , duties , ministry , church , &c. ( i have decked and perfumed my bed , saith the loud woman , the subtilhearted woman , prov : . , . ) but do not soberly consider which are the painted ones , which the truth . we have run on headily after these things too long ; it is now time to stand stil a while , and wait for the purging out of the wine wherewith all our brains have been overturned , that we may come into soberness , and into a fit temper to be led by the spirit of life , out of the bed of fornications , and out of the wayes , worships , ordinances , and duties of fornication , into the bed of the true and undefiled spirit . now he that worships god aright , must feel life within ( and that life raised and strengthned by him who begets it ) and this will savour death , and ( faithfully following its guid ) will come out of the land of death , even that land wherein all the false worshippers inhabit , and wherein all the false wayes and worships , duties , ordinances , ministeryes , &c. are set up and flourish . now these secret sins of babylon , are the same with the more open and gross , the great difference is their secrecy , their not appearing like sins , their paint , their colour , whereby they are swallowed down for holy and good . as to instance . there is fornication ( or adultery from the life ) in the finest , in the purest way of worship man can invent or imitate : but the fornication doth not so plainly appear here , but they who have drunk of the cup , take these things for the wayes and appointments of god . those that set up the whores church , do not call it so ( nor perhaps think it to be so ; ) those that set up the whores ministry or ordinances , do not give them that name , but call them the ministry and ordinances of christ : yet this is as truly , as really fornication from the life , as the grossest wayes of heathenish worship . o mark it , mark it . if thou hast read the scriptures , and thrust thy selfe into any practices thou there findest mentioned , without the raising up of a living thing in thee , and without thy following by the guidance thereof , thou hast done this by the whores advice , and in this thou art committing fornication , and erring from the life : for the true worship lies in the spirit and in the truth , and it is the new birth that god seeks to worship him : but the spirit of man thrusting it selfe into these things , the lord abhors and rejects . and this spirit never can be thus cleansed and fitted to enter into christs bed , but only gets a paint from scripture , and enters into the painted bed and bosome of the harlot , where it remains unrenewed , unchanged , unmortified in the midst of all it's great talk and profession of these things . and thus the scriptures , the holy scriptures of truth ( which were given forth from the pure spirit of life ) the whorish spirit maketh use of to estrange from the life . for what sort of persons , which have fornicated from the life , but make use of the scriptures to maintain their whoredoms by , and to bewitch others into their whoredoms with ? every sort cryes up their own way and worship , to be the way and worship according to the scriptures : and if any be gathered out of all these witcheries into the power of god , then the bewitched say that such are bewitcht . then as for all the abominations of the earth , all the filth that defiles the heart , it is to be found on the skirts of the whore , even in her most refined dresse : for her religion , her worship , her profession , her practices do not reach to the purifying of the conscience , but only to painting over of the old sepulcher , where rottennesse still lodgeth within . the sore was never throughly searched , the heart was never throughly circumcised or baptized , the old man was never put of , nor the new man put on , the blood of purifying ( which truly washeth away the sin ) was never felt in it's vertue and power , but only an apprehension and talk that they are cleansed in christ , from a notion they have stollen out of the scriptures , but not from the sensible feeling of the thing in life and power in their consciences . and so the evil nature stil remains , the evil heart of unbelief is stil to be found in them , and they want the life , they want the power ; they want the spirit , they want the love , they want the humility , they want the meekness , they want the patience , they want the innocency and simplicity of the lamb and dove . and when the lord comes to provoke them to jealousie by the shining of his light , and by the appearance of his power in some whom they despise ; then the pride , the passion , the envy , the heart-burnings , the hard speeches , the false surmisings , with the rest of the enmity which still abides with them , stirs and rises against the life and power , and their hypocrisie is made manifest . yea some of the strictest among them can scoffe and jeer at the appearance of life , so strong is the evil and unmortified nature in them , and so conceited are they in their wayes and practices , because of their cover , under which all this iniquity ( for the most part ) lyes hid from their eyes . but for all that it is there , it is there , the lords candle will search it out , and thine owne eye shall see it , and find in thy selfe bloody cain , scoffing ishmael , prophane esau , the uncircumcised jew , who is angry that his brothers sacrifice is accepted and his not , who disdains and derides the true seed of of life , the living heir , who hunts abroad for food pleasing to that nature which is to be famished , who crucifies the lord of glory because of his meaness , and because he appears not in that way of devotion and holinesse wherein they expect him . neither will he appear so , but to overturn all that which ye have set up , and to set up that which ye disdain . this is the lords work , and it is marvellous in our eyes . now there are several sins which the spirit of the lord hath charged babylon with , and which he will reckon with her for , and with all that partake with her therein , some whereof i may mention . as , . her deep fornications from the life , under a pretence of honouring and worshipping of it . ( be not offended that i begin with it again , seeing it is also mentioned among other particular sins of hers , rev : . . ) she speaks fair words , she calls to have the worship of god set up , and a godly ministry , and the ordinances of god in a nation ; but the thing is not so in the sight of god , but in all this she seeks the advancement of her owne whoredoms . and this was , and is the very way of antichrists rising ; he gets into the form , he cryes up the form ; and by the form which he cries up , he eats out the power . if antichrist speak directly against the power , ( without first creeping into , and setting up a form , and crying up that ) he would soon be detected : but under a form and profession of truth , he hides himselfe , and covers his spirit of enmity and persecution therewith ; and here he can secretly and safely smite the innocent , and fight against that very spirit , life , and power , which he himselfe in his form makes a profession of being subject to . and this is the wolfe in the sheeps cloathing , which by this fair appearance of the sheeps wool on his back , covers his ravenous nature from the eyes of the beholders . now there are three wayes of fornication , one of which this spirit is allwayes guilty of , sometimes of them all . . by inventing things which the lord never commanded , or adding to that which the lord did command . the mind of man is very busie , and ful of inventions : and where the heart is touched with devotion and zeal towards god , the inventing part exceedingly exerciseth it selfe this way , either in imagining and forming somewhat which it thinks may be acceptable to god , or in adding to those things which it finds commanded . in this way of fornication the popish church abounds , being filled with ceremonies of their own inventing , and of additions to such things as are found mentioned in the scriptures . the common protestants also have been too guilty here . . by imitating of those things , which were commanded to others . when a man finds in scripture the things which some others did , or which they were commanded to do ; and so he is venturing upon them , before he feels the leading of that spirit , whereby they were led thereunto . now in this , he errs from the life , he goes without his guid , he doth that which was a good thing in others ( who were led by the spirit thereto ) but in him it is fornication . this man is a theif and an intruder , he steals into the outward knowledge and practise , without the inward life and power , he intrudes into that into which others were fairly led , coming in by the doore , for which entrance he also should have waited , and not have run on headily of himself . this way of fornication , the strictest among the protestants have generally been ensnared in , who have run on further and further to search out the purest way of worship , the neerest pattern to the primitive times , and so have applyed themselves diligently thereto , not knowing what they were to wait for to be their guid , and give them the enterance . and here now , thinking themselves to be in the right , they have contracted a lofty spirit , ( and held forth their conceptions of the way , as the only way ) and so have lost the meekness and simplicity , which was fresh and lively in some of them before , which sets them a great way back , and makes the enterance into the kingdom very hard to them : whereas if that simplicity and tenderness were fresh in them , the lord would shew great regard to that , easily pardoning this their errour and ( in mercy to them ) visiting that evil spirit with his judgements , which stood nigh them , and was the cause of their error . but they are grown high , they are grown wise , they are become confident , they know the way already , and can maintain it by undenyable arguments ( as they think ) to be the way , so the lord with his teachings is at a great distance from them , that lying very low in them , which the lord alone will teach . . by continuing in practices , to which they were once led by the spirit , without the immediate presence and life of the spirit . for the whole worship , the whole religion of the gospel consists in following the spirit , in having the spirit do all in us , and for us . therefore whatsoever a man doth of himself , it is out of the life , it is in the fornication . if a man pray at any time without the spirit , that prayer is fornication , and is not either acceptable to god , or profitable to himself ; but grieves the spirit , hurts the life , and wounds the soul . now this way of fornication have they especially fallen into , who have been acquainted with true leadings and openings of the spirit , and have afterwards run to them for refreshment , and so by degrees forgot the spirit that opened . and by this means was that life , which was precious and very favoury in the ranters ( before they were seduced , by the spirit of deceit , into that way of ranting ) overturned . and thus they also ( who deeply saw into the mistery of whoredoms , and into the more inward wayes of fornication , above others ) even they also were deceived with the whores cup , and drank afresh of that wine of fornication , which the whore very cunningly had new mingled for them , and they also are become a reproach to the inhabitants of sion , who find a living habitation in that spirit of life , which they turned from . now if there be a true eye opened in any in the reading of this , how easily and manifestly will he see whoredome , whoredome , fornication , adultery generally in mens religions practices , in their churches , in their ministeries , in their ordinances , in their prayers , in their whole course ! o how , think ye , doth the eye of the jealous god behold these things ! but your eyes , who are held captive here , cannot see it . the god of this world , with his mists hath darkned you , the great whore with her sorceries hath inchanted you , and ye are her slaves , : ye are drunk with her cup , and how can ye judge soberly , ei●her of your own estate towards god , or concerning your practices in religion ? . her notorious blasphemies . having fornicated from the life , and from the spirit , then she blasphemes the life , and the holy pure power and movings of the spirit . the woman which sate upon the scarlet coloured beast ( with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication , and the inhabitants of the earth were made dru●k with the wine of her fornication ) was full of names of blasphemy , rev : . , . yea the beast which carried her , which had many heads horns and crowns , he also had on his heads names of blasphemy , rev : . . and there was given to him a mouth speaking great things , and blasphemies , ver : . and he , with the whore together ( for he did it by her spirit and instigation , by vertue of the wine he had drunk out of her cup ) opened his mouth in blasphemy against god , to blaspheme his name , and his tabernacle , and them that dwel in heaven , ver : . this hath been the work of the tongue , in every head of the beast , namely , to blaspheme the life , to blaspheme the true living power , in all ages and generations , since the apostacy from the life and spirit of the apostles . now there is a twofold blasphemy , which the whore ( and the powers of the earth that serve her ) are guilty of . . there is a speaking well of the wayes of their own invention , or the wayes which they have imitated without the life , to call these the wayes of god , the true wayes of life is blasphemy , i know the blasphemy of them which say they are jews , and are not , but a synagogue of satan , rev : . . there were even in the apostles dayes , persons who pretended to be christians , and pretended still to be of the church , though they had lost the life , and this the spirit of the lord saith was blasphemy . and what is their gathering into a church , who were never gathered into the life , and setting up ordinances and pastors ? what is this ? what is it for him to call himself a christian , or inward jew , who never had the fore-skin of his flesh cut off by the circumcising knife of the spirit ? what will the lord say this is , when he comes to judge ? . there is a speaking evil of the truths of god . the true knowledge , the true fear , the true worship , the true saints , the true god , the true tabernacle , the true temple , the true heaven ( all which is in the spirit , and is alone revealed and seen there ) there are reproached , these are mis-represented ( and the true sight and acknowledgement of them called error , heresie , and sectarism ) by all the blasphemers of babylon . israel , who had the law and the prophets , the true ordinances and the true priests , yet they called evill good , and good evil ; they put darknesse for light , and light for darknesse ; they put bitter for sweet , and sweet for bitter , isa : . . they were so wise in their own eyes , and so prudent in their own sight , they were so mighty to drink wine , and men of such strength to mingle strong drink ( justifying the wicked for reward , and taking away the righteousness of the righteous from him ) that there was no convincing of them by the light of god shining from the prophets , of their casting away of the law of the lord , and despising the word of the holy one of israel , ver : . to . nay they were observers of the law , and bearkned to the prophets and priests of the lord , jer : . . therefore when the overflowing scourge came , it should not come neer them : yea when the true prophets of the lord threatnedthē with his coming with dreadful vengeance , and his strange worke , they in the height and confidence of their spirits could reply , let him make speed , and hasten his worke , that we may see it , isa : . . how blind were they from seeing their blasphemies , their calling of evil good , and good evil & c ? yea in the very dayes of the apostles , the way of truth was evil spoken of , and synagogues of satan setting up , and blasphemies growing up apace from those which held the true form , but denyed the power , even while the powrings forth of the spirit , and revelations from the spirit did abound : how can it be expected it should be otherwise now , when the spirit is grown such a strange thing , that to mention such a thing as being moved by the spirit , or acted by the spirit , is become ridiculous ? and the very teachers of the nation ( who must speak by the spirit , if they speak the word of god ) cry revelation is ceased , and count it a reproach , for a man so much as to pretend to speak by the movings , and in the power of the spirit . now this double blasphemy necessarily follows the fornication . whoever is fornicated from the life , he blasphemes the the life , in all his knowledg , in all his worship , in all his religion . he calls that prayer which is not prayer , that an ordinance which is not an ordinance , that a church which is not a church , 〈◊〉 a minister which is not a minister : and that which is indeed the prayer , the ordinance , the church , the minister , he denyes and blasphemes , and cannot do otherwise , until the righteous judgements of the lord purge the whores wine out of him , and he be led back to that life and spirit again , from which ( in all these wayes of worship , inventions , and imitations ) he is gone a whoring . the whore , for these many ages , hath been laying blasphemy to the charge of such , as in any degree , have been led by the spirit of the lord from her whoredomes : but now the lord is taking it off from them ( who have long been unjustly charged therewith ) and charging it upon her , and she cannot escape his judgement : for though she put on never so fine dresses , and appearances like the spouse and church of christ , yet the lord can distinguish and find out his spouse , though naked , in the wilderness , and without her attire ; and can also espy the whorish spirit , though cloathed with the churches attire , and can charge her blasphemies ( against him , his tabernacle , and them that dwell in heaven ) upon her . . grosse or more refined idolatries . little children , said john , keep your selves from idols , john . . he saw antichristianism breaking in apace , many antichrists being already come , and now saith he , keep to the anointing , and keep from idols . without a very strict watch , without a mighty preservatiō by the anointing , he saw idolatry would even creep in upon them , who had tasted of the true power and vertue of life . but how shall they keep from idols , who know not the anointing , but think the revelations thereof are ceased ? he that buyeth not the tried gold of christ ( rev : . . ) how can he avoid buying untried gold of antichrist , or silver , or brasse , or wood , or stone , which his merchants traffique for , and make idols of ? rev : . . if thine eyes be anointed with the true eye-salve , thou mayest see , and read the parable . idolatry is the worshipping of god without his spirit ( that is the plain , naked truth of the thing . ) to invent things from the carnal mind , or to imitate things which others ( who had the spirit ) did in the spirit , by the command of the spirit , for thee to imitate and practice this without the spirit , is idolatry . an invented church , an invented ministry , an invented worship , an imitated church , an imitated ministry , an imitated worship without the life , without the spirit , all these are the work of mens hands , and are idols , and all that is performed herein is idolatry , rev : ▪ . this is a religion without life , a worship without life , a fabrick for idolatry ; and the whole course of worship and service in it , is idolatry . for the living god , the lord god of endless life and power , is alone worshipped by his spirit , and in the truth of that life which he begets in the heart , and all other worship ( though never so seemingly spiritual ) is idolatrous . ah professors , professors , if ye knew how many idol-prayers , and services ye have loaded the lord with , and how ye have been whoring from him , while ye have seemed to be drawing nigh to him , ye would hang down your heads and mou●n : for what ever ye have done , in the worship of god , without the leading and presence of his spirit , it hath been idolatry . for the worship of god under the gospel is in the spirit and in the truth , and required of them who are in the spirit and in the truth , and not of others , john . . for them alone the lord seeketh to worship , and the lord will admit of none to his worship , but such as he seeks . and if any else will thrust themselves into his worship , it is not accepted , nor do they worship the true god , but they worship they know not what : and their whole state and course here , is a state and course of idolatry . . sorceryes , witcherafts , divinations and inchantments ( i do not mean outward sorceryes or witchcrafts , they are but the shadow or figure of the inward mistery of deceit of this black dark spirit , which appears as an angel of light , that he migh bewitch and deceive . ) neither repented they of their sorcer yes , rev : . this false church , this adulterous woman , she hath her golden cup , and her wine mingled , and with this cup she bewitches the eye , with this wine she inflames the heart , and intoxicates the brain . she invents wayes and worships like to the true , or she imitates the true wayes and appearances of life , and when the poor simple young man is singly seeking after god from some true touches of his life , before he comes to know the spirit of life , before he can come to be marryed to the lamb , she comes with her golden cup , and with her tempting wine , and bewitches the poor heart therewith , and so leads it aside into her painted bed . wouldst thou enjoy god , saith she ? wouldst thou worship him aright ? wouldst thou have fellowship with him ? lo here 's the way , here 's the church , here are the ordinances , here 's the ministry , here are the means . thou must wait upon god in the use of the means , and these are them . did not the saints formerly do thus ? did not they meet with god here ? did not they serve and worship god thus ? come thou hither also , do what they did , enjoy what they enjoyed . yea , but thou whorish woman , did ever god appoint means wi●hout his spirit ? thou leavest the main , yea indeed the only thing behind thee , which it selfe alone is accepted , and without which nothing is accepted . and this is the course of the whore in all her transformings , in all her baits , in all her temptings , she stil leaves the spirit behind her . she may perhaps speak of the spirit , to hide her self the more ( because the letter of the scripture is so expresse therein ) and teach people to look and wait for the spirit , but so as is never to be obtained : for he that begins in religion either to pray , or worship , or seek the knowledge of god without the spirit , shall never meet with the spirit so ; but that way of knowledge , religion , and worship of his must first be broken down , and he become a fool , and recieve the spirit as a fool ( out of all his religious knowledge and wisdom which he had gathered before ) and afterwards , following the spirit which is thus received , he shall be led into the true wisdom . now mark that which follows , ye that have a desire to understand . this spirit of deceit , this whorish spirit , this spirit of divination and witchcraft , ( which by her sorceryes deceived all nations , rev : . . ) came forth curiously decked at first with all manner of deceiveableness of unrighteousness . it had the exact form of life , ( the true form of godliness ) and a lively spirit in it : it had the form of knowledge , and the form of worship , and with these it came to tempt , and draw away them from the life and from the power , who were in the life and in the power : and it did prevail upon such as kept not close to the anointing . but after it had overcome , and gained the churches territories , then it might safely corrupt the form ; and so it did , and went into multitudes of inventions and fopperies ( as at this day may be seen amongst the papists . ) now these are easily discovered , and seen through by any simple plain honest eye , upon a little breaking forth of the light . therefore the whorish spirit , when she perceives her self found out here , she changes her shape and attire , and comes back , back again by degrees ( as need requires ) to the forms of knowledge and worship , wherewith she was arrayed , when she deceived at first : yet stil she is the same , and doth this to keep poor simple hearts , still in her bands , from the life and from the spirit . and thus painted , thus decked , thus holding forth scripture-knowledge , and scripture-wayes of worship , she is the more subtil witch , the more subtil sorceresse , and is able to deceive any eye , but that which is opened in the light . with her lo here christ , & lo there christ , she would deceive the very elect , if it were possible : but it is not possible ; for they are taught by the spirit not to go forth , and the anointing within preserves them . and he that knoweth not this preservation , is bewitched by her , and his fear of god is such as may be taught by the precepts of men , and practised without the knowledge of the law of the spirit of life in christ jesus , which is the saints rule , guide , and preservation . for as the apostles were able ministers , not of the letter , but of the spirit of the new testament , cor : . . so they that received their ministry ( or that which they ministred ) received not the letter only , but the spirit ; and were preserved , not by the letter , but by the spirit ; and were made able to try words , things , and spirits , not by the letter , but by the spirit . but this the whorish spirit is departed from , and bewitcheth others from , first possessing them that the spirit is not to be looked for , and then perswading them to make as good shift as they can without it : and then ( having thus prepared people ) she brings forth her wares . look ye , saith she , this is the way , thus and thus the saints practised , do thou thus also . but thou must receive the saints spirit , before thou either know or worship , or thou knowest and worshippest out of it : and in that path of sorcery and witchcraft from the life , thou shalt never meet with the life , but the further thou proceedest therein , wilt be more and more entangled from it , and become stil a greater and greater enemy to it , and more and more in love with the whore , and her whorish paths and pleasing wayes of devotion , whereby the false spirit in thee is raised up and nourished , but thy soul famished : for that can be nourished with nothing but the bread of life from the hand of the spirit , but not with words , or forms of knowledge , or wayes of worship invented , or imitated ; which doe but tickle the understanding or affectionate part of man , but reach not the life , so that that which should serve the lord , is not there raised , but stil bound over with the bond of iniquity . . luxury , excesse , and pleasure . she is rich with her merchandize , and she enjoyes it to the ful , she takes the pleasure of it . she builds costly houses , weares rich apparrel , fares deliciously ( read spiritually with the spiritual eye . ) she is rich in knowledge , rich in wayes of worship , rich in duties , rich in religious performances and practices . and as she gained these in her own will ( without the leadings of the life ) and by her own search and wisdom : so she can make use of these in her own will , and according to the direction of her own wisdom . she can fast when she will , give thanks when she will , preach when she will , pray when she will , sing when she will , meditate when she will , bring forth her knowledge to others when she will . look on the papists , how rich are they in outward buildings , in gorgeous ceremonies , in times of worship , in wayes of mortification and pennance , in fasts , in feasts & c ! look on the several sorts of protestants , they have their riches in their kind too , their churches , their buildings , their arts , their sciences , their languages , their bodyes of divinity ; their cases of conscience , &c. they can open the whole body of religion , resolve all doubts , expound all scriptures , &c. the great city was cloathed in fine linnen , and purple , and scarlet , and decked with gold and precious stones , and pearls , rev : . . and she sate thus on the throne like a queen , living deliciously , and taking her pleasure , to which her torment and sorrow afterwards is proportioned , ver : . yea she had treasure and costlinesse enough to make all her merchants rich that would trade with her , ver : . what knowledge , what delicate food , could the wisest or greatest of the earth desire , which she had not ready for them , see ver : . & ver : . but sion , all this while , hath lain in the dust , and been despised : she hath had no building , no fence , but hath been trampled under foot by every unclean beast : her witnesses have been cloathed with sackcloath ( a garment which all the lofty inhabitants of babylon disdain : ) her sare hath been hard in the wildernesse , only a little manm ( which with fleshly israel , who lust after rich and large knowledg , is counted light bread , and their souls soon loath it : ) nor had she this in plenty , but only a smal proportion dayly from the hand of the free-giver , sufficient to keep life in her in the wildernesse , and to furnish her with strength to give in her testimony against babylon , so far as the lord saw good to call any of her seed thereunto . now what professor can be willing to fare thus with her at present , and to wait for her future riches , fulnesse , beauty and glory ! nay , nay , they have so long lived richly , and fared deliciously in babylon that they know not how to eat the bread of affliction , and drink the water of affliction with sad and desolate sion . and yet this is the only way and passage out of babylon into sion : that which hath been rich and fat , and ful-fed there , must become poor , and lean , and feel hunger , and have none of the bread of life administred to it , no nor so much as husks neither : and in this sad day and state of misery , the poor is visited which receives the gospel , and the dead raised , which receives the life . . worshipping of the devil . all the world wondred after the beast , and they worshipped the dragon , rev : . , . now the dragon is the devil , rev : . . there is no other worship of god under the new testament , but in spirit and truth : and he that worships otherwise , worships not god , but that spirit which teacheth to worship out of gods spirit , and out of the truth . every prayer is not a prayer to god , but only that prayer which is from and in the spirit . every ordinance or duty is not an ordinance of god , or a duty performed to god , but only that which the spirit leads into , and guids and preserves in . this is the way that all the earth have departed from the lord , namely , by erring from his spirit . they cry up practises in religion , dutyes , ordinances , the means , the means , a church , a church ( as the jews did the temple of the lord , the temple of the lord : ) but they find the church , before they have found the spirit of the lord ; and so they find not the church that is in god , the church that is of his building , but they , poor hearts , frame up a building as wel as they can according to the pattern they find in the scriptures ; and so they are not an habitation for god in the spirit , but are estranged from the life and spirit in all their worship : and so are not found by the spirit ( which searcheth them and their worship ) worshiping of god , but the works of their own hands , and devils , rev : . . for that charge stands good against all the inhabitants of babylon , even to the highest and strictest of them all , whether in forms , or out of forms : there are many men who are very zealous and devout in their wayes of worship , who were never taught by the spirit the way of worshipping god , nor do at all know how to worship in the spirit : these my soul exceedingly pittyes . they have received into their understandings from the letter of the scripture , that god is to be worshipped in spirit , and that god will give his spirit to them that ask it . they have asked , and they hope they have the spirit , but poor deceived hearts , they know not what spirit they are of , nor in what spirit they act , nor what spirit they serve ; and so perish for lack of knowledge , the key whereof hath been hid from them . now let such consider : there are but two spirits , the spirit of god and the spirit of satan , one of which guid all men in their devotion and religion , and one of which they serve therein . he that is led by the spirit of god , he serves god , he worships god : he that is led by the spirit of satan , he serves not god , but that spirit which appeares in the temple of god , like god , and gives such demonstrations that he is god , as no flesh can deny , thess : . . here now is the great deceivableness of unrighteousness . in prophanesse , in manifest wickednesse , satan is easily seen : and men that are found here , it is granted that they are serving the devil : but that he should sit as king in gathered churches , in dutyes , in ordinances , in wayes of self-denyal and mortification , and be worshipped here , this is hard to be seene : yet any of these which the spirit of the lord leads not into , or which are performed at any time without his spirit , he is worshiped in . consider this , ye that are wise in religion , and are dilligently reading the scriptures and gathering knowledge , and rules of worship , and applying promises , &c. do ye this in the life and spirit of god ? or in your own wisdom , and according to your owne understanding ? doth not the wisdom of that spirit which is out of the truth , guid you in your searchings after truth ? o do not serve that spirit which the lord hates but come backe to that , from which in all this ye erre , and which in all this ye cannot serve and worship . and let not your religion any longer consist in meer practising what the saints formerly practised ( for that ye may do without the same spirit ) but in yeelding up to that life , power , and pure spirit that they were led by . and when ye are joyned to this , then do not prescribe the lamb the way that he shall go , but follow the lamb , whithersoever he goeth . do not tell the shepheard ( by your gathered wisdom ) the way that he must lead you in , but know the voice and follow : for this i can truly testifie , that if once ye come in faithfulnesse and true light to follow the lamb , he will lead you in paths ye have not known , and out of the paths ye have known . . compelling of others to worship , rev : . , . the false woman and the beast set up a worship in the will , and they do not know why any in the will also may not subject and submit to it . they can give them reasons , they can give them arguments from scripture , and if they will not yeeld to these , they are to be looked upon as stubborn and refractory , and to be compelled by outward force . this hath been the course generally throughout the land of babylon , but these shew hereby that they themselves are erred from the truth ( and therefore very unfit and unlikely to teach it others : ) for that which god works upon is the conscience , which he convinceth by the light of his spirit , and no other light can truly convince it . that therefore which would have a man yeeld to any practise , or way of worship , till he be truly convinced , is of the devil . my son , give me thy heart , saith christ , the wisdom of god : come not to me with oblations and sactifices , but give me thy heart . my son , give me thy knee , give me thy obedience to the wayes i have set up , give me thy conformity , saith antichrist , saith the adulterated wisdom : and if any refuse , she endeavours to compel them . thus like jeroboam the son of nebat , she makes ( that which she calls ) israel to sin : or like nebuchadnezzar , she sets up an idol , and causeth all her children to bow to it . thus the load of the iniquity of multitudes lies upon that scarlet whore , who forces her cup of abominations and filthiness upon all she can , rev : . . causing all both smal and great , in all her territories to receive her marke , and worship her image . the work of the minister of christ , is to keep the conscience tender , that the voice of christ may be heard , and the law of his spirit of life ( which makes obedient to the god of life ) spring up there : but this is the image , here is the way , bow , conform say the ministers of antichrist . but we are not convinced in the sight of god , that this is the way , say poor souls . it is your own fault , ye may be convinif ye will , say the ministers of antichrist , we are ready to give you arguments and scriptures to convince you , how is it ye are not convinced ? ye must be convinced otherwise , the magistrate must deale with you . thus they endeavour to harden the conscience , that they may set upon it and ride it , and terrifie it from it's subjection to it's only true and lawful king . o the havock that hath been made of souls by this means ! the lord is requiring it of this generation . but let me ask this question to all the learned and wise , in all the regions of babylon , under what painted form or way of worship soever . can any worship god aright , before they be truly convinced of his will and way ? can any be convinced without his light and spirit ? were it good and acceptable in the sight of god , for any persons to run into that way , whereof thou sayest thou art convinced that it is the way , before they themselves are convinced ? if it be not good or acceptable , what is that that goes about to compel them ? away with thy carnal weapons ; and if thou wilt draw to god , draw by that which is spiritual : but if thou wilt still be using outward force ( running to the laws of men , and power of the magistrate ) the lord hath opened an eye , which discovers thy nakednesse herein , and is able to make it manifest in the sight of all people , and thou shalt not long cover thy shame . the lotds people shall be a willing people to follow him in the day of his power : but all the lords people have been unwilling to follow thee in the day of thy power , which is neer an end ; and the very fountain of thy deceit ( and tyranny over the conscience ) is opening and making manifest . . persecution of such as she cannot compell to her worship . she sets up her form of knowledg , she sets up her way of worship , and those that will not be drawn to own the one , and practise the other , she sets her brand upon them for erroneous persons , schismaticks , hereticks , they must not buy or sel , rev : . . they must be banished or imprisoned , or perhaps put to death , for she is hardly satisfied , til she hath drunk the blood of those , who in any eminent degree are the witnesses of christ against her , rev : . . this was a thing wondered at by john with great admiration , to see this woman , this great city , out of which all the venomous darts are shor , against the saints and martyrs of jesus , under a pretence of zeal for the church and ordinances of christ . for this is the engine , whereby the dragon makes war with the true womans seed , ( which keep the commandements of god and have the testimony of jesus christ ) even by this false woman which rides on the beast , by whose power and strength she overcomes the saints . she sets up a way of doctrine , a way of worship in a nation , and gets laws made for the defence of it , and against them that will not submit to it , and here she is too hard for the saints , by this means she overcomes the martyrs and witnesses , and keeps the truth down , and keeps up her way of deceit , which without this prop would soon fall . this whorish spirit scents the spirit of the lord , she knows it will soon be her death , if she cannot make it appear odious , and suppresse it : therefore she hunts this spirit , she hunts the life and power of what she her self professes ( especially if it appear vigorous and strong in any ) she seeks advantages against the servants of the living god , representing them to the earthly powers as persons of dangerous principles and bad practises , inventing all manner of what can be called evil against them , and spreading it among the people , that the truth may start up no where in the earth , but every where be knocked down by the violence of the multitude , or by the sword of the offended magistrate . now what is the matter of all this great noise and fury ? why this : a lamb is risen up in the innocency , the pure harmless spirit is appearing in the earth , the true life . ( which discovers the hypocrisie , and dead forms and wayes of the whorish spirit ) is breaking forth : therefore she makes a great out cry , awakpeople awak , the church is in danger , arise magistrates , magistracy and ministry wil down , if this lamb-like spirit be suffered . nay , nay ; these shall stand , but babylon shall fall , and her mistery of iniquity be discovered , and her deceiveablenesse of unrighteousnesse made manifest ; and the true life and spirit shall arise and take possession of the hearts of people , and make them a clean and fit habitation for god : and people that are subject hereto , shall feel it and enjoy it , though the merchants of babylon say , men shall never be made cleane while they live , but must stil have a body of sin and death hanging about them . but how shall they put on christ , who have not put off the body of sin ? shall those who are made kings and priests to god here on earth , minister in their filthy garments . these are some of the sins of babylon , that painted harlot , which is subtle in heart and lyes in wait to deceive , in the absence of the true church , whose cloathing and resemblance she takes up and appears in . and when she hath done all this , when ( like aegypt ) she hath kept the seed in bondage in all her territories and dominions , in every church she hath set up , and by all her ministries and ordinances : when ( like sodom ) she hath filled the whole world with filthinesse , uncleanesse , and all manner of spiritual abominations : when ( like old jerusalem the bond-woman ) she and her children have scoffed at the spirit in every appearance , all the time of her reigne , and have trampled upon and domineered over them , who have but spoken of the coming of the just one in his people , sporting her self in her own deceivings : yet , after all this , she wipes her mouth , and saith she hath done no harm : she hath been for the gospel , and church , and ministry , and ordinances , and the saith once delivered to the saints , and only against deceivers , seducers , blasphemers , and hereticks . but the spirit of the lord cannot be thus deceived , nor shall the nations be allwayes thus deceived , and suffer her to sit as a queen upon their consciences , but she shall see sorrow , and they shall taste joy at the sound of the everlasting gospel , when once again it cometh to their ears , rev : . . & chap : . , . the judgement of babylon . babylon the great , this great city of abominations , which hath reigned over the whole earth , which hath bewitched all sorts of professors with the golden cup of her fornications , which hath subtilly led from the life , and held all sorts captive in the witchery of her deceit , and hath triumphed over the holy seed , making sion their mother desolate , who sat in the dust , and was trampled upon by her . this great city , this glorious city , this rich city , this mighty powerful city , this queen of the earth ( which knows not what belongs to sions misery , sorrow , poverty , and desolation ) with antichrist her king and husband ( who hath cloathed himself with the garments of light , and appeared in the likenesse of the king of sion , and hath long been so acknowledged and worshipped ) is to be judged by the spirit of life , which ariseth up out of the dust of sion . and though babylon the great whore ( who in all her transformings hath still remained an enemy to the life ) hath great power and great wisdom , and can shift very subtilly to save her self by both ; yet strong is the lord god who judgeth her , and he also is wise , and she shall not escape his hand , but he will pursue her with his voices , with his thunderings , with his hail-stones , with his earth-quakes , with his woes , with his plagues , with his cups of indignation , till he hath made her manifest , till he hath broken her in peeces , till he hath crumbled and laid her in the dust , till he hath brought her down to the very pit , where the feet of sion shall trample upon her for ever . sing , sing o inhabitant of sion , dost thou not behold the crown of pride going down apace ? the decree is sealed against her , she cannot escape ; yea she is fallen , she is fallen , she is already taken in the snare , the eye of my life seeth it , and rejoyceth over her in the living power . the plagues of god allmighty , from the fiercenesse of his indignation , are visiting her whole territories , and passing over all her land . nothing can help her to avoid his stroak , no paint will serve , no cover will hide , no profession , no practise , no duties , no ordinances , no church , no ministry can avail to conceal her , but that spirit is pursued by the spirit of the lord , and found out every where , and plagues are prepared and powring out upon her . nay , though she leave all her forms , and pretend to wait and seek for the lord , yet she is found out there also . now what is her judgement ? destruction and utter desolation from the hand of the lord , to be an hissing and reproach throughout all generations , to be brought down ( by powrings forth of the wrath and vengeance of the allmighty ) into the pit , and there to drink the fulnesse of his wrath for ever . sion shal be exalted , sion shall drink the cup of life , the cup of blessing , the cup of love , the cup of salvation for ever : but babylon the cup of fury , the cup of indignation for ever and ever . sion shall sing , but babylon shall howl : and all that saw any beauty , or took any pleasure in her , shall mourn over her ; alas , alas , for her , she who hath so many ages gone for the church , is now proved to be the whore ; those who have been taken , in their several transformings , for the true ministers , made manifest to be the false prophets ; their ordinances and duties , but thefts and imitations ; things which they have stollen from what they read in the scriptures , but never received from the hand of the spirit . the wrath of god , the dreadful cup of his fury and jealous indignation for the cause of sion , is to goe over her whole land . over her sea , and all the ships that trade therein , and all her merchants with all their precious traffique and merchandise . all her doctrins which she hath stollen out of the scripture , all her disciplines , all her experiences , all her performances ( even those which are most like the performances of former saints ; ) nay though she may speak the very words of truth , yet as they come from her mouth , they shall be thrown by and judged , and be of no service or esteem in sion . the preciousest of her ware shall be drosse and dung in the land of life , where there shall be no sea , nor no such kind of merchants , traffique or trading for ever . her earth also shall be made desolate , and burnt up , with all that is found therein : all her settlement shall be shaken , all her fruit-trees shall be rooted up , all her fruit shall wither , rot , dye , and perish . all her conversions of people to god ( as she calls it ) shall come to nothing : yea , and if she have yet any more dresses , or secret coverings , wherein she would appear like the church again , and bring forth again , yet she and her children shall immediately be discovered , her flesh burnt with fire , and her children dash'd against the stones . every street in her city , every house and idol in every street , every room in every house , with every inhabitant , shall drink of the cup of astonishment , and stumble , and fal , and rise no more . thou hast long triumphed over me , o mine enemy , because i have fallen , and have long sit in darknesse : but rejoyce no longer , for i shall rise again , and the lord shall be a light unto me ; but thou shalt rise no more , and thy light shall be put out for ever ; glory to the meeke suffering-lamb , even to him that sits upon the throne of life for ever . her aire also shall be darkned . the lord shall enlighten my darkness , but the light of babylon shall be darkness for evermore . the light of a candle shall be seen no more at all in thee . many lights hath babylon set up in the dark night , but the rising of the sun of righteousness shall extinguish them all for ever , and babylon shall be shut up in utter darkness . yea all that have retained to babylon , all that have walked by the light of any of her candles , that have cryed up any of her false ware for orthodoxe , that have given up their names to her under any of her dresses or appearances , or that have received any of her marks , they shall partake of her shame , of her misery , and of her torment from the hand of the lord god . yea her throne also shall be visited , and the seat of antichrist in every heart shall feele the wrath . rise up from the dust , and shout forth with joy , o captive daughter of sion , who hast long dwelt under oppression , in the midst of the daughter of babylon . behold babylons king shall be no longer judge over sion , but thy king shall be judge , and he shall judge the king of babylon . and let all the powers and potsheards of the earth strive to their utmost , yet , saith the lord , have i set my king upon my holy hill of sion , and he shal rule in my people , and rule over babylon . therefore , o inhabitants of the earth , great and smal , learn meeknesse , learn righteousnesse , learn the fear of the lord ; kiss the son , harden not your selves against him , calling him a deceiver , a blasphemer , a seducer , an heretick ( for what ye do to the least that appear in his life , ye do to him : ) but hearken to the word of his everlasting gospel , which saith , fear god , and give glory to him , for the hovre of his jvdgement is come , and ye cannot escape his hand by that fear , which is taught by the precepts of men , or by traditional knowledge out of the scriptures , nor while ye seek that honour which came out of the earth , and is of the earth , and to that which is earthly . therefore let your hearts learne to know him , and your tongues to confess him , and your knees to bow to him : which , if ye do , ye must forget all that knowledge , and those confessions and bowings , which ye have learned in babylon : for though ye may have confessed some true things , yet ( having learned this in babylon ) ye have confessed falsly , even as the jews who said , the lord liveth , yet swore falsly , jerem : . . now consider , ye ministers of several sorts , and ye several sorts of professors : we may appear great enemies to you , because we witness against your wayes , and tel you what the end of them will be ; but are we enemies to you indeed , whose desire it is to save you from this great wrath , which hath already entred into the earth , and seized on some ? should we sooth you up , and not witness these things to you ( which we infallibly know ) how should we answer it to the lord our god , or to your souls , when we shal appear before him ? if we were in your condition , would we be content to be let go on , and to be overtaken with this great destruction ? we cannot be silent . ye must be silent , but we cannot . we know ye must be silent : for that which now speaks in you , hath been silenced in us , and is not to minister the things of god . but the spirir of the lord must not be quenched in us , no notwithstanding all our weaknes , but the treasure must issue forth from the earthen vessel , for the relief of the poor in spirit , who alone receive the gospel . therefore though ye hate us , though ye persecute us , though ye speak all manner of evil against us , and use us never so hardly ; yet there is love rooted in our souls towards your souls , yea and towards your persons also : and having both felt the wrath , and tasted of the mercy , we cannot but warn you of the one , and invite you to the other ( and o that ye might find a shelter under the shadow of his wings in the stormy season , when wrath shall be showred down without mercy ! ) and this we cannot but tel you , that the several wayes of religion in the christian world , are but so many several coverings ; and that that which is covered with them is the whorish spirit , which the spirit of the lord is hunting , who wil strip her , and make her naked , and she shall appear to have been the whore under them all . now that which lyeth beneath this spirit in you , which is despised and trampled upon as a thing of nought , which is burthened and daily slain by your multitudes of ordinances , professions and religious practises , this is the heir of life ; and by the raising up and living of this in you , may ye come to life , and no otherwise . and all religion without this ( even the most inward ) is but the deceit of the whore , who makes a great shew of worship , and of zeal towards christ , his ordinances , and ministry ( as she cals them : ) but by all these , and under all these holds the life in bondage , and strives by all means to slay the heir , that the inheritance might come to her son . but cain the sacraficer , ishmael the son of the bond-woman , esau the hunter abroad after venison , the jew full of profession , zeal , ordinances and worship , shall not inherit : but slain abel shall be raised to life , isaac ( who was born of the dry and barren womb ) shall have the promise , plain jacob the blessing , the out-cast gentile be sought out . thus it shall be , can ye read it ? yet it is the desire of our souls that a remnant of you may be saved , and now is the gathering . therefore seek humility , seek poverry of spirit , seek the suffering seed , seek the meek , innocent , harmlesse dove-like nature , even the love which doth no il , nor thinks no il , for this is the spirit which is to be gathered : but the high and lofty , the wise and knowing , the fat and strong , the rough and confident in their wisdom , and in their duties , churches , ordinances , &c. ( which they have gathered , and stollen from the scriptures , out of the life ) are with all these to be rejected , and to be shut up in blindness and hardness of heart . seeing they are to see , and not perceive , and hearing to hear , and not understand , lest they should be converted and healed . yea it is this spirit , which is to fret under it's pain and torment from the woes and plagues , but cannot repent , but passeth on with babylon to ruin and destruction , rev : . , , . babylon is become the habitation of devils , and the hold of every foul spirit , and a cage of every uncleane and hateful bird . come out of her , my people , that ye be not partakers of her sins , and that ye receive not of her plagues , rev : . ver : . & . this is the cry concerning babylon just upon her fal her iniquity is ful , her filth overflows , the pure seed is gathering out of her , and nothing but devils , and foul spirits , and unclean and hateful birds remain in her . and the cal stil is to the people of god , from one remove to another , from one part of babylon to another , to travel on and pass away stil , til they come quite out of it all . to come out of one part of babylonish worship , that 's not enough , or to come out of some peices of babylonish knowledge and wisdom , will not answer the cal , but ye must come out of it all . depart ye , depart ye , this is not your rest , for it is polluted . stay not in any part of the uncleane land , o child of the pure life : but be separate and touch not the unclean thing , if thou wilt have the holy one to receive thee . not only the several dresses and forms of the whore are polluted , but her spirit also , and all her inward fabrick of religion , out of which thou must also come , if ever thou be joyned to the pure life . thy faith , thy hope , thy love , thy patience , thy joy , thy peace , thy justification , thy sanctification , thy mortification , thy ability to pray , to give thanks , to wait , &c. all must down , all must suffer loss , all must become dross and dung to thee , that thou mayest know the building of true life from and in the spirit . for the lord will not own any of these , nor receive thee with any of these which the whore hath touched , but if thou wilt have the pure life both within and without , thou must part with the corrupt life both within and without . ( this is a faithful and true testimony , but who can receive it ? will not both the houses of israel be offended and stumble at it ? ) but if any of the people of god will abide stil in babylon , and not hearken to every call of the spirit of the lord , to follow its guidance out of every part of her , they shall receive ( from the impartial hand of the lord ) of her plagues , and shall have torment and sorrow proportionable to the glory and pleasure they have had with her . therefore , if after one , two , three , or many removes out of some parts and practises of babylon , the voice stil follow , crying , come out of her my people ( the spirit of antichrist is yet among you , the wine of fornication from the pure life , is not yet purged out of you ) do not stop your ears , thinking this belongs not to you , because ye have forsaken some paths which are antichristian ; but hear and follow , for it is your life , and your way to rest and peace in the land of the living , and your sure preservation from anguish , perplexity and misery , in the houre of babylons judgement and sore distresse . now there is one thing , which lies as a great block in the way , to hinder this testimony from entring into the hearts of those , to whom it is directed , or at least to weaken the spirits demonstration of it to their consciences ( for exceeding subtle is the whorish spirit , to keep every one of her subjects from the sight , or suspition of her in themselves , and to darken every beam of light , whereby it pleaseth god to make any way for the discovery of her in them ) which is this . object : but hath all our religion for these many ages , been babylonish , and whoredom from the life ? all our churches , all our ordinances , all our dutyes , all our ministry , & c ? we can never be drawn to beleeve this . we are sure we have felt lively touches from god many a time , and enjoyed sweet communion with him in them . god hath often met us there , and refreshed our spirits , which he would not have done , had they not been of himselfe . answ : there hath been a simplicity and sincerity of heart , strring in some people towards god in all ages , even among the heathen under all their idols , and among the jews in the midst of their great apostacy : which simplicity is of god , and accepted with him , notwithstanding all the load of filth that may hang round about it . even in the midst of egypt , or in the midst of babylon , if israel groans the lord hears , and may return sweet answers to israel , even there . when israel was a child i loved him , and called my son out of egypt . the lowest breathings of true life towards god is the voice of his son , and enters into his ears from the darkest part of egypt or babylon . now in this nation , the simplicity hath more stirred , then in other nations ; the seed of god in this land , hath been exceeding precious and dear to him . and at the beginning of these late troubles , the stirring of the simplicity from the pure seed , was more vigorous and lively , then it had been in many ages before : and accordingly the answers of god to it were more fresh and sweet , and there was a tast of him , and fellowship with him , and sweet hopes and refreshments to the soul . though the way of praying , preaching and worship ( either publique or private ) was not right before him ; yet he over-looked that which his soul hated ( winking at the time of ignorance and antichristian darkness ) and met with that which he loved . and if the simplicity had grown and thriven , communion with god ( and life from him ) would have increased , although the pure path of the sanctuary had no yet been made manifest . but this was it destroyed all , another thing got up under a cover , and the simplicity sunk , and so the life with-drew , and god hath grown strange to his people . he missed that which he loved and came to visit , he found that thrust upon him for his , which his soul cannot own or unite with , & so he became but as a wayfaring man , that turneth aside to tarry for a night , jer : . . enter into your hearts , o ye back-sliding children , is it not thus ? you , who had sweet tasts of god is he not become a stranger to you ? you that had sweet , fresh , lively breathings after god , are you not sit down in a form ( or under some pleasing notions ) and have got a covering , but lost the simplicity of your life , and the sweet tasts of god , and refreshments from him ? thus it hath been in all reformations : there was commonly a pure , single , naked beginning , but an evil thing soon got dominion over it , slaying the pure living stirring by the form which it raised up , under a pretence of preserving the life thereby , and of serving god more uniformly and acceptably therein . ah the precious seed that was sown at the beginning of these troubles ! what is become of it ? how is every one turned aside from the pure life , into some idol or other of his own heart ! some into one way of worship , and some into another ; some into one notion , and some into another ; and all joyning together to keep the seed in bondage , endeavouring either to bring it back again to egypt ( to make it serve there ) or to destroy and bury it in the wilderness . but the lord hath visited his poor desolate seed , and hath been gathering it from all quarters , from amidst all empty forms , on the one hand , and all vain high notions on the other hand ; and he will preserve it , overturning all his new enemies as wel as his old . this then is the sum of the answer . . no way , or particular act of worship under the new testament , is acceptable to god without his spirit . . all invented or imitated wayes or acts of worship , to the performing whereof , the mooving , presence , and power of his spirit is not necessary ( but men can perform them without it ) are babylonish , and whoredome from that spirit to which the true christian is joyned , and in which all that he doth is performed . . under this antichristianism , under this whoredom ( even in the land of babylon , where the true israel is captive ) a true simplicity and zeal towards god may sometimes be stirring . . when this at any time is stirring towards the lord , the lord pityes it , the lord loves it , the lord accepts it , when this cals , the lord hears , and waits that he may be gracious , and return answers of grace to it . . though the lord accept of this in the midst of babylon , and in the midst of the whorish wayes of worship that have been learned there , yet this doth not make babylon , or her wayes of worship acceptable , nor are not to be made use of ( nor cannot ) by any that fears god to justifie them . . where they are so made use of , and the babylonish wayes and forms of worship cryed up ( because of gods visitations and tender mercy to his seed under them ) god is provoked , his presence with-drawn , life lost , and wrath prepared against those forms and wayes of worship , which will reach to the very bowels of those who are found there . and let this word come home to your hearts , o ye that ever knew what belonged to sweet communion with god! if god was so tender to you in babylon , when he stirred up in you a pure simplicity and zeal there , what would he have been to you , if ye had come out of babylon ? ah , ye have lost the substance for a shadow , and that not a right shadow neither , but a shadow of your own forming ! and now ye are angry with them , who will not also leave the substance to cry up your shadow . ah enter into your secret chambers , and let shame cover your faces , ye who would propagate that apostacy from the lord , which your own hearts have too far entred into , and are so deeply involved in . o that the eye were opened in you which can see it ! do not your hearts a little feel it ? o mourn after the lord , and mourn after the losse of that which once ( in some measure in you ) was true to the lord . o that the lost sheep might be sought out , and that which hath been scattered ( in the day of your loftines , and seeking dominion and great things ) might be gathered again to the lord ! for great is the wrath and severity that is towards you , and he is become exceeding jealous for his seeds sake ; and judgement must begin with you , who cry out against antichrist in one grosse fleshly by appearance , and yet are serving him your selves , some of you in other forms , some in spirit . this is a standing ttuth , what ever is not of the spirit of god in religion and worship : is of the spirit of antichrist . what ever the spirit of man hath invented or imitated , is not the thing it selfe , is not the true worship : for the true worship is only and continually in the spirit , and never out of the spirit . the true praying is in the spirit , the true singing in the spirit , the true preaching in the spirit : whatsoever is out of it , is of antichrist in man . now therefore give up all your religion , your knowledg , your worship , your practises which are out of the spirit , and return unto the lord , and wait for his raising of that seed in you , which once began to spring , but is now slain , and lyes in death and captivity under all these , and the earthly part ( wherein all this religion and these practises stand ) covers its blood , so as ye cannot see how ye have slaine , and dayly do slay the just one . o the blood , the blood , the innocent blood that daily cryes to the lord against you ! how can the lord accept any of your services , while your hands are ful of blood ! while the pure simplicity is slain , the love grown cold , the life lost , and the whorish way and path ( wherein and whereby it was lost ) cryed up for the way of god . shall not the lord visit for these things ? shall not his soul be avenged on such a nation as this ? yea his wrath is kindled , the fiercenesse of his wrath is kindled against the professors of this age , and wo is from the lord towards them . wo to the protestant congregations , wo to the select churches , wo to their pastors , who have helped them to wander from the life to dead idols , which cannot profit : wo to them who are exalted in notions and high knowledge : ye have judged and condemned the papists , and the lord hath found out the same spirit of idolatry in you ! but turn from your idols , return to your simplicity , put away your adulteries from between your breasts , and returne to your first love , and the lord wil receive you , though ye have wandred after many lovers , and have been inflamed with the love of idols under every green tree : but in these your church wayes and worships the soul of the lord abhors you , and all your former zeal and simplicity is blotted out and forgotten , and in your present adultery and idolatry shall ye dye , unlesse ye hear the voice of the lord recalling you , and turn at his reproofe . now in tender bowels to help you a little , consider that which follows . the same spirit that stealeth away the true simplicity , raiseth up and stealeth in a false image thereof , which there is no perceiving at present , unlesse the soule lye very low , and be kept open and cleer in the pure light . and as in the true simplicity , the true light , the true knowledg , the true faith , the true hope , the true love , the true meekness , the true zeal , the true poverty and humility , &c. springs up and is nourished : so in the false image of simplicity ( which the devil secretly conveys in , when he steals away the true ) there 's a likeness of all these springing up and growing . and here 's the beginning of babylon in the heart , here are the inward riches and treasures thereof . what can sion pretend to , which babylon hath not in the resemblance ? is there simplicity of heart in sion ? and is there not simplicity of heart among the inhabitants of babylon ? yea ; a false image . is there light in sion ? and is there no● also light in babylon ? yea there 's the light of the sun , and the light of the moon , and the light of the stars which fel from heaven , and the light of many candles shining in babylon . is there true knowledge in sion ? there 's knowledge fasiy so called in babylon : a false knowledge of the crosse of christ , a false knowledge of his death , a false knowledge of his blood , without feeling the living vertue thereof , which truly washeth away the sin . so for faith , hope , love , meekness , zeal , humility , &c. there are false images of all these in babylon , and of what ever else is wrought in truth in the inhabitants of sion . now when the truth is lost , and the false image crept in ( both which are done at unawares , while the husbandman is asleepe ; and so he perceives it not , but thinks in his very heart that it is stil the seed of truth that is growing up in him ) then begins the mistery of fornication , idolatry , witchcraft , and all manner of spiritual wickedness and deceit to work in the heart . thy beleeving , thy hoping , thy love , thy zeal , thy praying , thy waiting , &c. all here is abomination , it 's from a false root , it 's of a false kind : it is not of the true seed ; the enemy hath stollen away that , while thou wast negligent and slumbering , and all this ariseth in thee from the seed which he did sow instead thereof , and is the fruit of the land of babylon . and having thus committed inward whoredome in thine own heart , then thou seekest and settest up outward wayes of whoredom also . having first set up an inward image of the inward life of the saints , thou then seekest and settest up another image of their outward worship , an image of a church , an image of a ministry , an image of ordinances , an image of praying , an image of singing , an image of preaching , an image of baptism , an image of the saints communion . and thus thou art defiled within and without , and art mad with envy and rage that thou canst not bewitch the inhabitants of sion ( who are kept pure from all these defilements , and reserved as witnesses against thee ) into thy bed of whoredoms . and thus while thou thinkest thou art the chiefe worshipper , thou art all over polluted , the whole head is sicke , and the whole heart faint , there isno cleanness , no soundnesse within or without , but wounds , and bruises , and putrifying sores , which have not been closed , neither bound up , nor mollified with oyl : but the hurt of the daughter of my people hath been healed deceitfully , by physitians of no vallue , who had notthe oyl . ( isa : . , . & ezek : . . ) this is generally the state of professors at this day , but they cannot see it : for they have put out the eye of the simplicity ( wherewith alone god will suffer the things of life to be seen ) and god hath blinded the eye of their wisdom , that they shall not see , nor be converted and healed that way . so that exceeding miserable is their estate : they will not see gods way , and god will not let them see their way . so that though there be line upon line , precept upon precept , here a little , and there a little ; yet it is that they might stumble , and fall , and be snared , and broken , and taken : for as discoveries of truth grow more cleer and manifest ; so they grow more hardned against it . and as they , on the one hand , increase in walking contrary to god ; so god on the other hand , proceeds in walking contrary to them , delighting more and more to stumble the wise disputing part , which would so fain know , but must be made blind , that the eye of the babe may be opened , which sees that in the childish simplicity , which the other eye can never reach in the most manly wisdom . therefore put away all your images and likenesses of truth : put away your false faith ( which can never overcome the worldly nature and spirit in you ) and your false hope ( which can never purifie your hearts ) and your fained humility and self-willed fasts ( which can never bring down the lofty exalted nature in you ) and your false love ( wherewith ye can never love the brethren in the truth , but only the brethren in your own , or some such other likenesse of the truth ) and your false zeal , meekness , holinesse , &c. all which spring and grow up from the wrong seed , in a seeming simplicity ; and all your praying , reading , preaching , &c. which ye have taken up and practise in your own wils , which should be crucified , and wherewith no service , worship , or performance can be pleasing to god : and wait for the raising of the true seed of life in the true simplicity , whereby ye may serve god acceptably here , and be saved hereafter . and be not mockers , lest your bands be made strong , for the consumption is determined against you by that spirit of life , whose breath wil wast you : all flesh is grass , and the glory thereof as the flower of the field ! surely this people is grasse , and their zeal , and profession of god , like the fading flower . some plain queryes , drawn out of the book of the revel : for all sorts of professors of this age , to answer between god & their own souls , that they may see whether they have received that light from him , which his spirit judged necessary to give forth , to keep people chast to him , & to preserve them from the several painted beds of antichrists fornications and whoredoms from the life . blessed is he that readeth , and they that hear the words of this prophesie , and keep those things which are written therein : for the time is at hand , rev : . . the time of deceit was then at hand for antichrist ( with his false church , and false prophets ) to get up , which were to last til the houre of judgement , rev : . , . hast thou read ? hast thou heard ? hast thou kept the things written in this book ? then happy art thou ? but hast thou not read in the spirit ? hast thou not heard the true sound of these things from the spirit of life ? hast thou not kept the things written therein ? then thou hast been deceived with the mistery of iniquity , and must smart with the whore in the hour of her judgement . the queryes are these which follow . i. what woman was that which was cloathed with the sun , and had the moon under her feet & c ? rev : . . whether it was the true church or no ? ii. what that wilderness was whereinto she fled , where she had a place prepared of god , that they should feed her there dayes ? vers : . iii. how long those dayes did last ? and whether they he yet expired ? and whether the true church is anywhere else to befound all the time of the days , but in that place in the wilderness ? iv. what are all the churches , the ministry , the ordinances that appear out of the wilderness all this while , while the true church is there ? v. what was that beast which came out of the sea ; to which the dragon gave his power , his seat , and great authority ? which all the world worshipped , rev : . ver : . to . vi . what is that sea and those ships , wherein & wherewith the merchants of the earth traded with babylon , and were maderich by their traffique ? what were those merchants ? what their merchandize ? and what kind of riches was this ? rev : . ver : . to . vii . what was that name of god , and that tabernacle , and those inhabitants of heaven , which was blasphemed , by the beast that arose out of the sea , all the time of the moneths , rev : . vers : , . viii . what is the lambs book of life ? and where is it ? and how are the names of any so written in it , as to preserve them from the worship of the beast ? rev : . . ix . what is that beast that came up out of the earth , with the horns of a lamb ( as if it came up in the lambs power ) which doth great wonders , and iustifieth his sacrifice by making fire come down from heaven in the sight of men ; who both causeth men to make an image to the first beast , and also putteth life into the image which men make ? rev : . ver : . &c. so that here 's not a meer dead image , but there 's life in the beasts knowledge , ordinances and worship : yet with god all this is dead , for it is not the true life . x. what is the beasts mark , his name , his number ? ( rev : . . ) for if i do not infallibly know this , i may have receved his mark , i may help to make up his name , i may be of his number , and be ( unknown to my selfe ) a worshipper of him and his image , and so be liable to partake of the torment of the fire and brimstone threatned to such ; rev : . , . xi . what is that song , which none could learn but the thousand , which were not defiled with women , but remained virgins ? rev : . . xii . what was that other woman , which took and kept the place of the former woman ( after she had fled into the wildernesse ) and enlarged her territories in nations kindreds tonguus and peoples ? rev : . . & ver : . xiii . what was the purple and scarlet colours , and the gold and precious stones she was decked with ? ver : . xiv . what was the golden cup she had in her hand , which was ful of abominations , and filthinesse of her fornications , in the midst of all her glorious appearance of zeal , devotion , humility , and holinesse ? ver : . xv . what kind of drunkenness was it , wherewith the kings and inhabiters of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of this cup ? rev : . . xvi . how may th●se who have hated the whore , and made her desolate and naked , and cat her flesh , and burned her with sire , yet after all this , give their kingdom again to the beast ? rev : . v : , . how may this be done ? and how often may it be done ? these are plain simple queryes , not to intangle mens minds , or set their brains on work ( for that way shall they never be able to resolve them ) but to awaken the simplicity in them , which will readily let them see what the lord hath revealed to them herein and in which they are to wait for the knowledge hereof , that they may escape or come out of the snare . and in the mean time not to boast , as israel of old did ( when the prophets from the mouth of the lord accused them ) that they had not polluted themselves , they had not gone after baalim : ( jer : . , & v : . ) but wait o backsliding christian , and thou shalt see thy way in the valley . and though thou hast of●en traversed thy ground to change thy path , gadding from one form to another , from one notion to another ; yet all this hath been out of the life , out of the pure power , and stil in the whoredom . open the weak sick eye in the weak heart ( for how weak is thy heart , while thou hast done all this ) and let the languishing simplicity be my witnesse : for ( under all thy wisdom , thy zeal , thy knowledge , thy worship ) that faints , that fails , that is not what it was in the beginning . though thou art grown much higher , wiser , and greater otherwise , yet there thou hast lost : and happy wilt thou be , if all thy gains ever since , may become losse to thee for the recovering of this . some considerations , helping out of the suburbs or out-skirts of babylon , that her inward building may be the better come at , and lye the more open to the axe and hammer , which is to batter it down , and to cut it up for the fire . first , consider what it was the church fled out of , when she fled into the wildernesse . was it not out of that church-state or building , which the spirit of god had raised up for her here in the world , to which her ordinances and way of church-worship belonged ? was it not here that the dragon assaulted her , and from whence she fled into a desolate place and state ? secondly , what spirit entred into these , when she fled out of them ? were not these the conquerors spoils ? did not antichrist get possession of the form ? did not the whore get the spouses attire ? did not the wolves gather up the sheeps cloathing , and cloath themselves therewith ? was not the outward court ( what is the outward court under the gospel , but the visible church-state with the visible ordinances thereof ? ) given to the gentiles , who trod under foot the holy city , all the while they were worshipping in the outward court ? rev : . . thirdly , what spirit is it directs men to these , since the true church hath been fled out of them ? and to what intent ? is it not that spirit which would keep men from the life , that they might not be born of the barren womb in the wildernesse , but be born of some of the fruitful wombs of the visible churches , while the true church is invisible , and hath no visible place in the earth , but remains in that place in the wildernesse which god prepared for her , and where she receiveth her food all the months ? rev : . ver : . & . i have smarted deeply for these things , and have been taught by the bryars and thorns of the wildernesse , whereby my ears came to be opened , to hear the sound of the everlasting gospel , to which they were before through ignorance stopped . for i also did beleeve and expect great things in a church state and way of worship ; and in simplicity of heart did i enter into it , and walke in it , and was not without knowledge , warmth and experiences there . but all this the lord broke down by a strong hand in one moment , and hath taught me since to throw away all my gains here and elsewhere , and to count them but drosse and dung , for the excellency of the knowledge of jesus christ my lord . and having tasted , having seen , having felt , having handled , i cannot but commend the life , and disswade all men from all knowledge , all worship , all religion , all wayes and practises ( though never so taking , pleasant , and promising ) out of the life . and this is to know christ , namely , to know the life : and this is to obey christ , to obey the life : and this is the kingdom of christ which is to come , to have the life reign in power and great glory . but the knowing or beleeving of an history concerning christ , this is not the knowledge or the faith : antichrist all along the apostacy , in all his various forms and dresses , hath known and beleeved thus : and this kind of knowledge must passe away , further then it can find a place and service in the life . be not angry at my testimony , it flows from pure love , and comes forth in great good will to your souls . yea if it be possible that i might be a little serviceable to you ( for my soul travels for the redemption of professors from the witchery of the whorish spirit , even of such as are ready to revile that which alone can redeem them ) in the meekness and coolness of your spirits , out of the fiery false zeal , consider yet a little further these few things following . . the state of the gospel is an invisible state , a state consisting of invisible things ( as the law was a visible state , or a state consisting of visible things ) the light invisible , the life invisible , the power invisible , that which converts invisible , that which is converted invisible , that which it is converted to invisible , and the whole course ofspiritual life lyes in the invisible . . this invisible state hath a visible way of appearance to the world , by garments which it wears , by motions and exercises which the life chooseth for itto appear in . . these garments are subject to corrupt , and to be worn by that which is corruptible and corrupted . that which hath not the life , may put on the garment ; and that which hath lost the life , may stil keep the garment . . the preservation of the life lyes not in the garment , or in the observation of any thing wherein the life did once appeare ; but the preservation of the garment lyes in the life . and the life may change it's garment at it's pleasure , and may refuse to wear those any more , which the whore hath worn , but as the life again leadeth . . when the life is at any time lost , the only way of recovery , is by retiring to the invisible , and keeping there , and growing up there , and not coming forth in the visible further then the life leads , nor staying there any longer then the life stayes . now this is the mistake of persons generally , they look for the finding the invisible life in visibles . they run to corrupted ordinances and wayes of devotion , and think to find god there ; but do not wait to feel him in their hearts , and to be led by him into what he pleaseth : and to stay no where any longer , then while he stayeth there , but to follow the lamb wheresoever he goeth . some others mistake in running to that , and waiting there where they once felt life , but do not know the way to wait on the life it selfe : and so they are running to an image , waiting at an image , worshipping of an image , and the living god will not meet them there . but throw away your images , let ephraim the dear child say to his idols get you hence , thrust away your adulteries which provoke the eye of gods jealousie , receive the forerunner ( the severe purifyer ) into your bosoms , and let the fire of his jealousie cleanse your hearts , and the pure will soon come after , and lodge again between your breasts : can ye hear this sound ? that which is born of the same wisdome , cannot but hear it : but the other birth must have it's ear stopped . now hearken to this advice . when the invisible life is felt and known , doe not disdain to follow it into what ever visible thing it leads . let not thy wisdom be judge what the life will lead into , or what the life is to be followed in ; but let the life it selfe be judge : and let the child , which is born of the life , follow it singly without murmuring , without disputing . the life hath foolish wayes ( to the eye of thy wisdom ) of breaking the wisdom in thee which is contrary to it , which thy wisdom will be reasoning and disputing against , and if that wisdom be hearkned to , the life is overturned in its course , and the head of the serpent remains sound in thee , which the foolish and weak things ( which the wisdom of god chooseth to crosse and disturb it by ) would help to break and crush . an exhortation to the present powers . babylon the great , the mistery of iniquity , which hath deceived and held captive the whole christian world , for these many generations , under forms and appearances of godliness and devotion , is at length come into remembrance before god , who is arisen to judge her , and overturn her seat . the army hath been preparing , and many souldiers have been drawn forth , the trumpet hath sounded , the battel is begun , and blood hath been shed on both sides ; the blood of the creature on the one side , the blood of the whorish spirit on the other side . the whore ( with the power of the beast on which she rides , and by whose strength and assistance she makes war with the lamb ) is mighty and dreadful ; and it hath long been said , who is able to make war with the beast ? ( whose strength is hers . ) but the lord god ( who hath arisen out of his holy habitation to judge , and hath begun to judge her ) is more mighty , by whose arm & strength she shal fal , & the beast shall not be able to carry her up and down any longer , nay nor to uphold her in her seat of government over the consciences of men . be wise now therefore , and consider the present state of things : and if ye find not hearts to help the lord against the mighty , yet take heed of helping the mighty against the lord . the vessels , wherein the life arises and appears , are poor and very contemptible , and ye may easily trample upon them : but the life which riseth up in them , is very precious , and too strong for the powers either of earth or of hel . the lord did not appear formerly among you , or of late begin to raise you up again , that ye should become enemies to him , or aiders of his enemies against him , but that ye might let his seed go forth to worship him in the wildernesse : ( for in this dark land of egypt they cannot . ) therefore break the yoaks , and take off the burdens , an 〈…〉 er there be no new snares laid , but leave the conscience ( where the lord chooseth to appear , & which he delights to draw out of the world to himselfe ) free to the lord . the lord hath kindled , and is kindling the fire , with which he is burning , and wil burn the flesh of the whore . come not neer to help her , lest ye feel the flames . stand afarre off , and see her burning , and at most pity her , but help her not . we fight not against the flesh and blood of creatures , but against that evil spirit which captivates , and makes them miserable : nor do we fight with carnal weapons , but with such weapons as are able to reach that spirit . now if ye interpose with your carnal weapons , and smite the vessel which the lord is pleased to make use of in this warfare , his hand will be upon you : yea if ye endeavour to bear off the stroak from the whore , it will light upon your selves , and the lords hand ( and his stroaks in this day of his jealousie and vengeance ) is very heavy . do what ye can , ye shall not be able to hinder the lords victory ( who will overcome , even by this very people , whom the wise of all sorts despise : ) all that ye can doe in taking part with the enemy , is but to bring wounds and judgements upon your selves , and to shorten the dayes of your government : but the worke of the lord will go on and prosper ; and this painted harlot ( which pretends to be the spouse of christ , and has deckt her self so pleasingly with her stollen knowledge of scriptures , and layes claim to his ministry and ordinances ) shall be stripped naked , and her shame seen , and every child in the life shall be able to point at her , and the song of triumph over the dragon , the beast , the false churches , and all the false prophets ( who are not made , nor prophesie not by the anointing ) shall be sung in righteousnes , even to the lamb who dayly getteth , and will get perfect victory : for to him it is given , over all his enemies . a postcript . the redemption of the soul is by the spirit of the lord , which he that would enjoy from it , must know its appearance and operation in himself , and not quench or limit it , but universally be subject to its guidance and leadings . all mans inward misery arises from mans inward rebellion , which is as the sin of witchcraft ( springing from the spirit of witchcraft : ) his recovery and happiness is in the faith and in the obedience to the pure power , movings , and operations of the spirit in him . the lord god who made all mankind , who is the lord of all , he is redeeming a people to himselfe by his spirit . and this spirit will not be limited by the powers of the earth , but will break nations in pieces , and trample upon princes as mortar , and as the potter treadeth clay , til it hath made its way through them . o open the eye , the inward eye , which can discern the seasons ! it is not now the time for antichrist to prevail , or for proud flesh to rise up in its heady will to stop the outgoings of its maker . this season is past ; and the season of the prevailing of the life , and power of the son of righteousnesse is now come . therefore lift up your heads , o ye weak and faint of the flock , for iniquity and oppression must fall both within and without , and the tender god of everlasting love will turn back the captivity of his people , and of his creatures . be not therefore affrighted at the inward power of sin in the heart , nor at the outward oppressing powers of the earth : for the redeemers strength is above all , and he is stretching forth his mighty arm to save : in the true , and living faith of the elect it is felt , it is felt . and o ye potsheards of the earth , strive not with your maker , limit him not , for he wil assuredly break through you . think not to subject him to your laws , but learn his law , come under his yoake , and be bound by him , that ye may tast of his liberty . wash your lips , and kisse the son , and be not angry at his , various appearances so contrary to your wisdome , but fear his dreadful name , and his threshing instrument which hath teeth , and seek an hiding place under the shadow of his wings , against the sharp season of the breaking forth of his wrath , and jealous indignation for the cause of sion which hastneth apace . he hath long let the spirit of babylon have its liberty , and his hath been silent : now is the time for his spirit to speak , and for babylous to be silent . wil ye stil force him to silence , and open babylons mouth ? will ye not suffer him to speak , but according to the laws and orders of babylon ? must that counterfeit queen stil sit on the throne among you , and the true princesse be made her servant ? o let it not be grievous to you , to see the spirit of the lord arise , and make babylon appear babylon ! her wisdom , her knowledge , her unity , her uniformity , her order , her comelinesse , her beauty , is but folly , confusion , disorder and deformity before the lord . happy is the eye that sees it , and the foot that turns from her . therefore awake , arise and stand up from the dead , come out of the thick dark land , where the pure god of life is not to be found : come out of babylon , and touch not the unclean , that the pure life may receive you into unity with it selfe : but the spirit that is unpurged from its babylonish worships and practises , the lord will not suffer to come neer him . therefore search what is babylon , and of babylon in all your wayes and worships ; and wait on the spirit of the lord to be redeemed out of it , and separated from it , or ye must remain separated from the lord , and not partake of his life and vertue , from which that city ( with all her inhabitants ) is shut out for ever . the lord hath had a sore controversie with this nation ( with her rulers , her teachers and people ) for his seeds sake , which he hath been begetting to himself , and calling forth to worship him ( according to the pure law of his spirit of life ) out of the wayes , worships , and heathenish customs of the earthly spirit . israel is his first born , whom he will not have any longer kept in bondage . they are his own , of his own begetting and forming , of his own nourishing and bringing up , the plants of his own right hand , whom he watereth with the dews of heaven , and with the showrs of his everlasting mercy and loving kindness ; whom he hath gathered by the arm of his power , and whom he leadeth and defendeth by his cloud and pillar of fire , over whom he is tender as of the apple of his eye . they are his anointed ones , whom he will not have touched , but rebuketh kings and parliaments , armyes and councils for their sakes , saying , touch not mine anointed , and do my prophets no harm . have ye not seen , how no strength nor council hath been able to prevail against them ? they have had no fence , but the arm which hath gathered them . what plottings and contrivings hath there been against them ? how are they as sheep appointed for the slaughter , destinated to be devoured , crushed , and trodden under foot ? what divinations and inchantments have been used against them , even to blot out their name and remembrance from the earth ? but why do ye strive and contend thus with the god of jacob ? can ye prosper ? he that made the earth , will not ye let him have room therein for his people ? must they be subject to your wils ? must they bow to your image ? shall not the god of the spirits of all flesh , have the command of the spirits of his own people ? can ye stop the spirit of god from breathing upon them ? or will ye fal foul upon them , if they be obedient to the breathings and movings of his spirit ? may it not suffice that they are innocent , and harmless among you in their conversations and practises , but will ye still lord it over their consciences ? will ye put the lord to it to the very last , to try it out with you , whether he can defend his people and make way for their liberty ? wel , if peace be taken from you , if your rulers , laws , and governments be broken in peices , if his hand be stretched forth against you , if he curse your very blessings , whom can ye blame ? why do you provoke him against your own souls ? are ye stronger then he ? if ye be stronger and wiser , ye may prevail : but if he be stronger , and will put forth his arm , his people shall be saved and find a shelter in him , in the midst of all that wrath which is powring down upon you . your peace hath been lengthned out for their sakes , if it had not been for their sakes ( for the remnant which the lord hath had to gather ) ye had ere this been as sodom , and like unto gomorrah . the land is ful of filthinesse , which the lords soul loaths ; and instead of drawing forth the sword against it , ye draw it forth against his witnesses . there is liberty enough for sin and vanity , for excess and riotousnesse , for images and idols : but to worship god in spirit , to obey his pure movings , this kindles your rage , and these are the people who are a burthen to you . ah how fain would ye ease you of this people ! ( sion is indeed a burthensome stone , and will fall heavy on all that meddle with her ) but the lord will ease himselfe of the adversaries of his life and spirit , and he will bring forth his righteousness which he hath prepared , and set it up in the earth , and none shall be able to stop him . therefore gather your selves together in battel ; associate your selves , that ye may be broken in peices ; take council together , it shall come to nought ; speak the word , it shall not stand : but the lords council shall stand , and he will fulfil all his pleasure , and will delight himselfe in his people , and raise them up by the fall of their enemies : and then ye shall see against whom ye have plotted and contended , and what ye have helped to bring about by all your secret plots and designs if the lord had not been on our side , now may israel say : if the lord had not been on our side , what had become of his poor people ! ah poor worm jacob , how often would the foot of pride have trampled thee down ( again and again ) had not the everlasting arm been stretched out for thee ! but fear not worm jacob , nor be not sollicitous for thy preservation , but trust that arm which delighteth to preserve thee . ah foolish people and unwise ! who strive against your own mercy , who see not upon what hinge all your mercies hang , but make it your work to break down the wall that defends you . jerusalem is the city of the great king , which is coming down from heaven , and israel is his people , and both must have a place in the earth : the lord hath determined it , and who can withstand it ? what prejudice can jerusalem , or the inhabitants thereof bring unto you ? they are enemies indeed to this earthly state of things , and would have all brought in subjection to the life and power of their king , and all that stands in opposition to god brought down , and made pliable to his spirit ; and this the unyoked earthly spirit cannot bear . but this is the interest of your souls , and the way to unity with that life which is their happiness , peace , and rest for ever : for if ye could pass through the fire , and bear the burning up of your dross , ye also might become vessels for the finer , and might dwell with them in their everlasting habitation . the saints formerly had an entrance ministred to them into the everlasting kingdom , and came to mount sion which cannot be removed , and to jerusalem the city of the living god , heb. . . where the blood of sprinkling , the peace that passeth understanding , the everlasting righteousness , and the joy unspeakable and full of glory was witnessed in the renewed spirit , which receiveth the kingdom which cannot be shaken , and entreth into the everlasting rest . and this is again revealed , and the 〈…〉 nesses shall ascend into heaven in the sight of their enemies , even into the new heaven and the new earth where righteousness dwells , and the old heaven and old earth ( withal its inhabitants ) shall be burnt up : and then shall it be seen that righteousness becomes , and belongs to the house of god for ever . and his city shall be a quiet habitation , free from all the noise and hurry of babylon ; where the pure river of life runs clear , free from all the mud and mixtures of babylon ; and the lord god of infinite fulness will not disdain communion with his creatures , but will tabernacle among them , dwell with them , sup with them , walk in them , and take them into his holy habitation , and they shall dwell with him , sup with him , and walk in him . but who shall abide in his tabetnacle ? who shall dwell in his holy hill ? he that walketh uprightly , and worketh righteousness , and speaketh the truth in ? his heart , &c. he who contemns the vile person ( how great and high soever ) but honoreth them that fear the lord , be they otherwise what they will . this man shall dwell on high , above the reach of all low , creeping , dark spirits , even in that holy habitation of life and power , which nothing can touch or annoy . i shall now conclude with a few words concerning the present estate of this poor distracted nation . this nation hath long lain wounded and sick : she hath had many physicians ( on whom she hath spent much ) who have promised her fair , but have not effected her cure . of late her wound hath been much enlarged , yea she is become sick at her very heart , and in great danger . many are spending their judgement upon her , some thinking a king would help all , some a parliament , and some hoping for good from the army ; but every eye sees her case to be very desperate . ah england , england , thou strivest with thy maker , and he overturns thy strength and councils . the life and wisdom which thou despisest , is that which alone can heal thee . thou strivest to keep off the strokes from the enemies of god , and smitest his dear ones , how can he spare thee ? hand stils joyn in hand to keep the lords stroke from reaching babylon , which he hath directed at her heart , and will not miss her , but will peirce through every thing that stands in his way . though the cry hath long been , hurt not the tender conscience , it is that on which god works , and wherein he chuseth to appear , and with which he is pleased , and pitties . many promises have been touching liberty of conscience , yet still the meek of the earth , the innocent lambs of christ ( those that are faithful to the light of god in their consciences ) are persecuted and suffer . what canst thou plead , o england , why the lord should not break thee all in peices , and save his people himself , by and in the midst of thy ruins . the lord will have the victory over thee in this particular , about which he hath so long striven with thee . it would be better and easier for thee to yield unto , then be forced by his hand . therefore at length hear his voice , which hath so often and so loud cryed unto thee . let my people go , that they may serve me . the end . to friends in england, ireland, scotland, holland, new-england, barbado's, or any where else where the lord god shall order this to come, in the tender spirit of life and love, greeting penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : - (eebo-tcp phase ). a wing p estc r ocm this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons . universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) to friends in england, ireland, scotland, holland, new-england, barbado's, or any where else where the lord god shall order this to come, in the tender spirit of life and love, greeting penington, isaac, - . p. s.n., [s.l. : ] caption title. signed: isaac penington (p. ). reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng christian life. salvation. - tcp assigned for keying and markup - aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images - judith siefring sampled and proofread - judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion to friends in england , ireland , scotland , holland , new-england , barbado's , or any where else where the lord god shall order this to come in the tender spirit of life and love , greeting . o friends , in the pure love of god , and fresh breath of his living spirit , is it now on my heart to write unto you , in fear , in tenderness , in meltings and true sence of spirit ; and the lord god so guide my heart and words , as that they may reach the witness in the hearts of all that shall read , and may be felt by that to be purely of god , and not at all of the birth , will , or wisdom of the flesh . i remember , i remember , o friends , and it is in my heart to put you in remembrance of the cloudy , dismal and dark day , wherein the shepherd of israel 〈◊〉 our souls , and what condition we were in , when he caused the light of life to shine upon our tabernacles , and to spring up in us . o the desolation , the desolation that our souls were in , in that day ! o the wandrings up and down , the seekings , huntings , mournings , bitter complaints , and deep distresses for want of our god , and for want of the guidance of his good spirit ! who can utter now what was then felt of the thickness of darkness , of the misery , the loss , the dreadful captivity that poor souls were entangled and wraped up in ? o how acceptable was the visitation of god then ! how deep was the sence of his tender mercy in visiting ! how glad was the soul then of the living path revealed ! how unfainedly did it cleave unto the lord , and embrace the measure of his life revealed inwardly to the mind ! how did it fear ! how did it wait ! how did it watch against the enemy , and cry to the father for his help ! how beautiful were the feet , and how pleasant the visitations of them , who brought the tydings of this life and peace ! what love , what unity , what embracing one another in this life , was then witnessed in the hearts of one another ! and where this lives and grows to this day , o how precious is that vessel ! but where the life in any is departed from , where another thing ( of another nature ) hath entered and been entertained by any , there it is not so ; but there the love is grown cold , the mind changed , the goodness of the lord forgotten , and the poor soul again entangled in that which formerly it felt some release and deliverance from . now , that the enemy would endeavour to entangle the minds of the redeemed , and to draw them back from the lord , and his pure measure of life in the heart , towards perdition again , that is not to be questioned , it being his nature and property so to do ; and that he would use , not only his strength , but also all his subtilty & deceiveableness to affect this ( his aim being at the church and redeemed of god , more then at the world ) appearing as an angel of light , in motions like light , in wayes like life , this is not to be doubted neither ; for how else could he gain upon that , whose eye is towards , and whose aim is after the lord ? but this is the great thing for my heart , and the hearts of friends , to be exercised in , to wait on the lord , in his true light , clearly to discern how far we have been assaulted by this enemy ; and how far the lord hath preserved us from his assaults , or suffered him to prevail upon us ; for he hath prevailed in former ages , under the ministration of the law in the prophets dayes , and under the ministration of the gospel in the apostles dayes ; yea , and i must needs say , he hath also prevailed in our dayes , on all that have not watched in the pure fear , and been preserved by the pure power of the lord. now doth it not concern every one to look up to the lord , to guide his heart in searching , that he may truly understand his state ? that , if he can witness the preservation of the power , he may sing praise to the power ; but if he hath been betrayed and come to a loss , he may seek after the power of life again , and wait for deliverance and restoring by it . for with the lord god is mercy and bowels , and he seeketh after and saveth the lost , not once onely , but again and again ; onely here is the great danger of souls , when they are ignorant of their captivity , and judge in themselves , and are guided by that , which should be judged down and destroyed in them ; when darkness is the light and leader in the mind , o whither doth that soul travel ! how doth it judge , think , act ! how sure doth the enemy hold it in his bonds and chains ! how easily doth he prejudice it against that , which is of god and for its good ; and incline it to think favourably of that , which only appeareth to be of god , but is not , and is to its hurt . now friends , there were three things on my heart this morning , which sprang up in true sence and demonstration of god's spirit , as subtil engines , which the enemy hath endeavoured to make use of to hurt our souls ; which any that have been entangled in , have received hurt by , and those that have escaped , have cause to bless the name of the preserver of israel . the first is this , by getting in persons prejudices against those whom the lord hath chosen , and pleaseth to make use of in ministring to his people . precious is the ministry that is in the spirit , for the building up in life , as well as for begetting . how doth the enemy strive to prejudice the world against them , that there may be no begetting to god from amongst them ? and how doth he also endeavour to raise prejudices among the begotten , that he may interrupt , and ( if possibly ) stop their building up ? the second is this , to draw men from eying and subjecting to the present dispensation , by an earnest looking after and waiting for another , or further . the security and blessing of the soul lies in the present dispensation , in bowing to god there , in being diligent under the exercises of his spirit therein . now that which draws the mind another way , from the present exercise , from belief in the present gift , under a specious pretence of waiting for somewhat more glorious to appear , betrayes and deceives , in thus turning the mind out of the path which god holds forth and guides into , towards expectation of a path as yet to be revealed . the third is this , under a pretence of sticking to the enlightning & guidance of ones own measure , to set up a sense and judgement in the mind , both concerning persons , practices , and things , which is not truly of the measure , but secretly instilled into and raised up in the mind , contrary to the pure measure of life . all these have i not onely seen in spirit , but been forely assaulted with ; and that they have not prevailed upon me , even to destruction , is the tender mercy and kindness of the lord unto me ; and in that tenderness and love , for the preservation of others do i write these things : and indeed , i have somewhat in my heart to say singly and nakedly concerning each of these , which the lord guide and bless to the conditions of those who stand in need thereof . first , concerning those prejudices which the enemy is apt to lay before the minds of friends concerning those whom the lord hath chosen to minister to them in the power of his truth , i shall say this : look over the former dispensations of god ; there were false prophets under the law , and false apostles and ministers in the time of that dispensation of the gospel , who did strive and labour hard to disturb , undermine and overturn the building and work of god in the spirits of his people then ; but did god suffer the true prophets under the law , or his true apostles to fall and lose their ministry ? and is not this present dispensation pure and living , and able to preserve both the instructers and instructed in the lord ? it is natural to the enemy to suggest such a thing ; but let all that fear the lord and love his truth , take heed how they entertain such a suggestion . besides , he that hath felt the pure power in his heart , and waited to be carried through the work of it , and hath been carried through and brought into the dominion , and set as a pillar in the temple of the lord ; it is not easie ( if possible ) for him to fall , the lord having undertaken for him , that he shall go no more forth , as rev. . . but let me say this to thee , o soul , who ever hast entertained this prejudice , thou , through prejudices and suggestions judgest them fallen ; but do not they , in the true eternal light of the spirit of life , see thee fallen ? nay , if thou couldst but retire to the pure measure that at first quickened thee , mightest not thou feel thy own fall ? to the second , of drawing out the mind to look after another or further dispensation , i have this to say : consider what this dispensation is ; is it not of the seed it self ? is it not of the light , life and power of the father , manifested in the seed , and in the soul through the seed ? is not the sence quick , and the love pure , where this is felt ? what wouldst thou have , poor soul ? o that thou feltest the virtue and power of this , surely thou wouldst then find , that thou mightest sit down here in the peace , purity , power , dominion and perfection of life ; for it is all in the seed , and to be revealed to thee , and become thine , as thou art gathered into the seed , and the seed opened in thee . besides , are there not many that have witnessed , and that can witness from god , that this is the dispensation which is to go through the whole earth ? and shall it be laid aside in the beginning of its work ? if there had been a law given , which could have given life , ( said the apostle ) righteousness should have been by the law. god doth not change . when he hath brought forth that which will do the thing , why should he change it ? now of the ability of this , there are many witnesses ; yea it hath brought forth life and righteousness in those that have been subject to it , and was once owned as the desire of our souls , and became a covering to our eyes that we could look no further ; our hearts in the sense and life of truth , being satisfied that this was the very thing we had long mourned after , and waited for . o that which begets another sense in any of us , ( under what pretence or appearance soever ) let it be the abomination of our souls , that we hearken not , nor give the least entertainment to it , lest by it we be betrayed of our portion in the blessed treasure and inheritance . to the third i say ; it is a standing truth , the standard we were invited to , and to which we are to keep for ever , even the measure of life in our own vessels : this will justifie us in our subjection to whatever it reveals ; and its justification will stand , whatsoever any man else shall say to the contrary . but this is at unity in it self , and never opposeth the motion or appearance of life in another . now this is certain , the enemy will appear as neer life and its motion , as he can ; and if i receive his appearance , i am not subject to the measure of life in me , but to him under his deceitful appearance . therefore if that , which appears like life in thee , contradict a practice or appearance of life in others , ( who were in the truth before thee , and are in the growth thereof far beyond thee ) oughtest thou not to be sober in spirit , and to wait in fear , lest thou shouldest be deceived , lest thou shouldest exalt self and the enemy in thee , and not the truth ; yea lest thy heart should grow hard , and thy neck stiff against those who are over thee in the lord , and so thou lose the benefit of their watching over thee and counsel to thee , and of gods preservation ? for out of the truth , in the deceitful appearance , there is no preservation , nor true light , nor justification of life , but self conceit fleshly confidence , and the justification of a mans own spirit ; and his wisdom then gets up , and exalts it self , as if it were the right thing . the lord gave the measure of life to thee , and the lord also hath given fathers , guides , instructers , watchmen , in his israel . these have a service from the lord towards thee , who knoweth that thy soul hath need of that service ; now if the enemy can prejudice thee against , and withdraw thee from the use of what thou needest , art thou not in danger of falling and miscarriage ? dost not thou set up the measure of life in thee ( if not another thing ) beyond its place , state and growth ? and can any thing grow and thrive out of the order and wisdom of god ? nay , nay , the very measure of life it self will this way come to wither and die in thee , and another thing live in its place , and the sword of the lord will be drawn against thee , and thou wilt be cut off from the body , and also from him who is the quickner and preserver of the body . therefore my friends , as the enemy watcheth to deceive and destroy , so the lord keep our souls in the true watch and looking up to him , who ( to those that fear him ) discovereth the deceit , and preserveth from the snare . and this is witnessed concerning the measure of life in the heart , and the way of its acting and operation , that it alwayes acts in its place , even in due subjection to the father of spirits , and to his life in others according to its growth : for there is no rent nor division in the living body , no setting up one measure of life against another measure , or one motion of life against another motion , or one practice against another , but all there is in the unity , in the love , in the tenderness , in the sence , in the peace , in the dominion , in the subjection ; and that which differeth or dissenteth from the life , interrupting the union and uniformity in the life , is not of the life ; which when it is every-where cast out , life to life will answer every-where ; which day my soul breatheth and waiteth for , even the day wherein life alone shall live and reign in every vessel , and all the devices and snares of the enemy not be able to enter upon , or catch any of god's little simple-hearted ones ; but still by the power of life rising in clearness against them , be thrown back upon the enemy , to his torment and disadvantage . and o dear lambs , consider how easie it is for you to mistake , err , & wander from the truth ; and do not refuse the care , watchfulness and tender counsel of those who were instrumental to beget you to , and are yet over you in the lord. alas , how easie is it for the enemy to deceive your simplicity , and get between you and your life ; and then ye are liable to miss-see and miss-act in all ye do , and to follow the enemy , as if he were your right guide ; and to fight against , and resist him who is your true leader , as if he were your enemy . the life in you is to be your guide and leader , as it groweth up and receiveth ability , strength and dominion from the lord ; but the heir is to be under tutors and governour , till the time appointed of the father . and the seed is meek , humble , tender , lowly , sensible of its own state and weakness , and subject to the exaltation , dominion and pure authority of life in others where the lord hath so exalted it . that which is otherwise in you ( which is high , exalted , conceited of it self , and not subject to every degree of life in others , according to its state ) is another thing , which is not of the true kind , but onely under a guize appears to you as the true ; and as it gets entrance , corrupts your hearts from the true , & destils its poyson into your spirits , which ye believing , entertaining and feeding upon , as if it were the true , grow up in his poysonful nature ( losing the pure nature and fellowship of the body ) and are travelling whither ye are not aware , being gone from that which at first gathered , into that which through subtilty hath deceived , appearing to you as if it was still the same , and that ye still keep to it , but others are departed ; whereas the thing is clean contrary in the sight of the lord , and in the sight of those who keep to the annointing , and see with his eye . therefore , o dear lambs and babes , what need have we to wait , in tender sence , for the lord's preservation of us in that nature , spirit and life , whereof we were begotten , and wherein we were taught , that there we may still learn and keep to the true teaching , in the innocency and simplicity of love , and not hearken to the wisdom and reasonings of another spirit , who lieth at watch to catch the mind with his wiles , and draw from the true thing . mark how we learned at first ; was it not in a nature , by a secret instinct and inclination of our minds towards the life , and the path , wayes and practises thereof , whereinto the body ( which before had been gathered ) was led and walked before us ? the same life , when it maketh us part of the flock , bringeth us into the same footsteps ; and there we walk with them , in the unity of the same life , and sence of the same leader ; but if the enemy can at any time draw us from this sence , and from the belief and practices or practice , which we received in this sence , ( even out of the limits of this nature and its naturalness ) how easie is it for him to perswade us to question right things in our minds and understandings , as if they were wrong , ( darkening our eye , and causing us to overlook and forget the leading and motion , which we had in the true sence and nature , from the annoiting it self ) and so confidently to think and conclude , that we took up such or such a practice by imitation , and have held it up in form ? whereas the lord ( who forgetteth not what and how he hath wrought in us ) knoweth that we took it up in the sence and leading of his truth , and are now tempted from that in the reasoning subtilty , which we formerly practised in the true innocent simplicity . and thus getting into us a belief and entertainment of his snare , he draws us from that which at first led us , and from the practices we were at first led into , to hearken to him and follow him , who instructeth us in a way we were not instructed in before while the lord instructed us ; and so destroyeth his nature , and the work of his spirit in us , dividing us both from the head and living body ; and so our standing , growth , sence and judgement is altered , and we are neither to the lord what we were before , nor is he to us what he was before ; for he hates that spirit in all its appearances , and cannot have unity with the souls that are entangled by it . therefore , dear friends , as we prize our gathering to and abiding with the lord , and the enjoyment of his love , peace , joy and presence at present , and the crown and inheritance of life with him for ever ; so let us fear , so let us watch , so let us cry unto him , to be preserved by him , which gathered us , in that into which he gathered , and not by any means betrayed ( through subtilty of the enemy ) into another thing , where the life of the body ( and union with the body ) cannot possibly be witnessed , nor the true justification of the lord , but only an appearing justification of a man 's own spirit , which must afterwards come under condemnation . ye , who are in the living and true sence , will feel my love , tenderness and faithfulness in what i write ; and ye who are not , the lord god of bowels pitty , and recover out of the snare and wrong judgement , that ye may feel it ; and feeling that which is true , may be joyned to it , drinking of its virtue and preservation , and live ; which is the earnest desire of my soul to the lord , who am from alisb . prison , the th . of the th . month , . your brother and companion , in the tribulations and mercies which attend the living . isaac penington . postscript . dear friends , brethren , lambs and plants of the most high , it is in my heart to add one thing , which i have been deeply exercised about , and have received help from the lord in , wherein i am truly willing ( in faithfulness and tenderness ) to be helpful to any of you that stand in need thereof , as the lord shall give me ability and opportunity ; it is this , among other things , wherewith the enemy endeavoureth to reproach those whom the lord hath sent forth amongst us , he maketh use of this , as if they wanted bowels and tenderness . now friends , i beseech you consider it , that the enemy may not thus enter you ; did not the lord consider of his work , and whom he sent forth in this his service and labour of love ? doth he not know the need of bowels and tenderness in them , and would be not especially furnish them therewith ? yea , have they not bowels from , and in the lord ? and doth not the eye that is open see , and acknowledge their bowels , and bless the lord for them ? i have lately been often warmed in the true sence of it , and have felt , that therein i have not blessed his name in vain ; but the thing is so in the sence of truth , and so acknowledged before the lord , in that which erreth not : onely as true judgement and severity hath its proper place in the lord as well as his mercy ; 〈◊〉 made use of by him towards his people , as all by experience know , so must it be in them also who bear his image , who must know , in his wisdom and authority , whom to smite with his rod and sharp reproofs , and when , and whom to cherish in the tenderness and meltings of love. and this is also love and tenderness ( and hath sweet and precious vertue and usefulness in it , both for the recovery and restoring of those whose condition calls for the sharp stroke , and for the preservation of the rest ) though it doth not so appear to that , which by no means can endure the judgement , but would have the tenderness and mercy which belongs not to it ; for the mercy is to the broken , to the humble , to the meek , to the afflicted and bo●●●down ones under the sence of judgement ; not to the stiff and stubborn against the righteous judgements and testimonies of the lord. and my friends consider , could the lord carry on his glorious work , in the hearts of his children , without his judgements ? or can they , who are sent by him , possibly carry on his work among his people , without making use of 〈◊〉 pruining-knife , to cut off that which sprouted out unnaturally and unseasonably , which ( if it be let alone ) will draw away the sap from that which should be fed and nourished with it . dear friends , the lord give you a true sence , that in his light , life , wisdom and presence ye may justifie what is of him , discerning between things that differ , and not call any thing that is evil ( as the tenderness which is out of him is ) good , nor any thing that is good ( as the judgment and severity which is of him is ) evil , but may rightly distinguish between the nature of things , knowing every thing that is of god , and owning it in its place . alisb . prison the th . of the th . month , . the end . some observations, upon that portion of scripture, romans . for the service of such in this present age, whose eyes, and hearts the lord shall please to open to see and consider the weight of the truth thereof. with some few weighty words of advice to several sorts of people, according to their different states. by isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . approx. kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from -bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; 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(eebo-tcp ; phase , no. a ) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set ) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, - ; : ) some observations, upon that portion of scripture, romans . for the service of such in this present age, whose eyes, and hearts the lord shall please to open to see and consider the weight of the truth thereof. with some few weighty words of advice to several sorts of people, according to their different states. by isaac penington. penington, isaac, - . p. printed for robert wilson, london : . page contains "a post-script". reproduction of the original in the friends house library, london. created by converting tcp files to tei p using tcp tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between and available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the , texts created during phase of the project have been released into the public domain as of january . anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. % (or pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf- unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p , characters represented either as utf- unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng bible. -- n.t. -- romans xiv, -- commentaries -- early works to . - tcp assigned for keying and markup - apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images - mona logarbo sampled and proofread - mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited - pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion some observations , upon that portion of scripture , romans . . for the service of such in this present age , whose eyes , and hearts the lord shall please to open to see and consider the weight of the truth thereof . with some few weighty words of advice to several sorts of people , according to their different states . by isaac penington . london , printed for robert wilson , . some observations , upon that portion of scripture , rom. . . for the service of such in this present age , whose eyes and hearts the lord shall please to open , to see and consider the weight of the truth thereof . romans . . for meat destroy not the work of god. observ . . god hath a work in some mens hearts . the mighty god , who made heaven and earth , and whose eyes run to and fro through both , he by the finger of his pure power toucheth some of the hearts of the children of men , and in the pure demonstration of his living spirit is found working there . religion , true religion is not a matter of opinion ( as men , who have not tasted of the power , are apt to imagine ) but a new-creation and work of god in the heart of the creature , sowing the light and life of his spirit there , and by it working man out of the darkness and death of sin ( which is the destruction and misery of the soul ) into his life and blessedness . observ . . that this work of god in man , is lyable to be destroyed . god could so have made man , as that he could not have fell : he could so have comprehended mans spirit in the pure power of his life , as that man could not have broke out of it . but it pleased him to make him under a law : wherein , waiting upon and watching to the power of life , he might be preserved and remain happy ; but departing from it , he should lose his state and sink into misery . god could also so redeem man , as that no power should stop or interrupt his work : but it pleaseth him also to hold forth a law of redemption ; according to which , his work of redemption may either go forward or backward . as man is drawn by the spirit of god , and followeth his leadings out of the corruption , out of the vanity , out of the earthly nature , out of the wisdom , reasonings and spirit of this world , so the work goeth forward : as man is tempted , hearkeneth unto , and is drawn back from the leadings of gods spirit by any of these ; so the work goeth backward , and degrees of destruction overtake and come upon the work of god in that heart . observ . . a little thing will destroy the work of god in the heart . a matter of meat , eating but a little meat doubtingly , out of the faith , ( wherein is the preservation from the destruction ) this leads into the sin , where death and destruction is still met with . for in the path of life , in the faith , in the obedience to gods spirit , there alone is the preservation of the work of god : but in the unbelief , in the disobedience , in the doubting ( though about never so small a matter ) there is death and destruction met with , if the person venture upon that , which it doubteth of . those who have travelled in the path of life , i know can witness this . o how small a thing brings a vail over the life ! what a little giving way to the reasonings of the earthly spirit , about a small matter , drives back the work of god in the heart , and brings anguish and misery upon the soul , causing the hiding of the light of god's countenance , which is the life and joy of the renewed spirit . god is a great king , and all his leadings and teachings are weighty : and he that rebelleth , or neglecteth in the least thing , must bear his burthen , unless he feel the humiliation of his soul , and the remission from the spirit of the lord , the grace of god pittying him , and the blood of his son washing him . observ . . no man should do that , which tendeth to destroy the work of god in himself , or the work of god in another . there is no such thing allowable by god for any man to do ( whether in publick government , or in any kind of commerce or conversation amongst men , or in ones private course of walking ) which tendeth to destroy the work of god. the intent of government , either in church or state , was never to destroy the work of god in any man. government is of god , both in church and state : but that way of government , which destroyeth his work in any , is not of him , but contrary to him and against him . o that men could consider , and had the ballance of truth to weigh things in , that they might bow before the god of truth , and not strive with their maker , about his work in the world. my soul hath mourned , i may say , almost from my cradle , about the estate of this creation . to behold man fallen from his glory , departed from his god , living without the sence of him , and sowing the seeds of eternal misery for his poor soul ( which he must as certainly reap , as he hath sown , unless he travel the path of redemption in the powerful leadings and guidance of god's holy spirit ) this hath so broken my heart ( together with the close exercises , which have continually attended this poor wearied spirit ) that i have often wondered , how the natural life could be contained in the natural vessel . i am a lover of mankind in general , and have been a deep sufferer with , and traveller for all the miserable . none knows the path of my sorrows , or the extent of my bowels , but he that made me . it is not natural or kindly to me to upbraid any man with any kind of wickedness , or never so justly deserved misery , but my bowels work concerning him towards the spring of eternal power and compassions , even as i would be pittied and represented to the father of mercies in the like condition . indeed i have been emptied from vessel to vessel , and tossed with multitudes of storms and tempests , yet the savour of my life remaineth with me to this day , and the spirit of my god breatheth on my heart , blessed be his holy name for ever . and though i walk with one sort of people , because my heart saith ( yea the spirit of the eternal god hath witnessed unto me , and shewn me in that light which cannot deceive , and to that eye which cannot be deceived ) that they are the people whom he hath chosen , out of all the gatherings ( throughout the earth ) from the apostacy , to manifest his power in , and his presence among : i say , though i have been guided and led by the spirit of the lord to walk among these , yet am i not bounded there , either in the love or in the unity of my heart ; but i have unity with the integrity and zeal for god which is in others , of what sort or gathering soever , and i have tender bowels for all , even for those which hate and persecute that , which is my life , and hath the love of my heart for ever . o how have i prayed for the lost world ! for all the souls of man-kind , how hath my soul bowed in unutterable breathings of spirit before my god , and could not be silenced , until he quieted my spirit in the righteousness and excellency of his will , and bid me leave it to him . and as touching this nation and the several sorts in it , even those who seem most cast off and without all sence , yet the preciousness of their souls have i spread before the lord my god with tears . and now , i have somewhat to say , in the love of my heart , and in the shinings of the light of my god , to several sorts of people , which nearly concerns them , as those whose hearts are weighty and serious ( and who are not drunk up in the earthliness of the sensual nature , or mis-byassed by pre-assumed principles from the wrong ground ) may easily perceive . first . to such as never knew what belonged to tenderness of conscience towards god , but have spent all their dayes either in licentiousness of spirit , or in a dead formality , to such my soul saith . on friends , wait to feel the power of god upon your hearts ( which is present with that , which sometimes lets you see the evils thereof ) that they may be melted and made tender by him , fit to receive the impressions of his life . why should ye go down to the pit in a dream , and center in the land of misery ? ye have immortal souls in these earthen vessels , which must either be redeemed to god by the power of his life , or be shut up from his glorious presence in the chambers of death . it is a dreadful thing to appear before god after death , and receive the sentence of condemnation for the things done in the body . o that the eye of your souls were awakened , that ye might see the hazard and danger ye are incurring dayly , and might know the hope of escape set before mankind , by the appearance of the grace in you , and learn of the living god to flie thereto for succour , that ye might be sheltered in the evil hour , which hasteneth apace upon all flesh . secondly . to such as formerly have been tender and sensible , but are now grown hard , and deaf to the voice of god's spirit in their hearts and consciences , this is the language of my soul in the love a●d life of my god. oh that ye could wait to feel the hammer and stroke of god upon that which is hard , that it might be broken by him , and that that which is high and lifted up above his pure fear ( where the law of his life is learned , and the souls of his saints preserved ) might be brought down and abased before him . great is your danger , exceeding difficult is your recovery : yet there is strength in the arm of the lord god to strike through your deadness , and to quicken the immortal principle of his life in you . why should ye , who have once tasted of the goodness of god , become more miserable then the rest of the sons of men ? why have you departed from that , which once gave you a true taste of life , and of the sweetness of redemption by it , into that spirit which is sealed up in the death , in the midst of its greatest wisdom and surest footing ? o return , return to that which leadeth to the living god , that ye may travel ( in the exercises of his spirit ) out of the wisdom and spirit of this world , unto the land of the souls peace and rest . thirdly . to such as are still tender , and d●re not but exercise a conscience towards god , even in these searching and trying times . friends , keep your standing in the life of god. what god hath begotten in you , let it depend upon him . let him do what he will with his own in you , and let the creature be subject to that living principle , which god hath sown and raised in your hearts . sell not your peace with god for any ease or advantage in this world. let the tenderness of your consciences , which is of value with god , be precious also in your eyes . the times and seasons are in the fathers hand , and he seeth good to let this day of tryal come upon you . his grace is able to carry you all through . it will be for his honour , to let all the world see how dear your god is to you , and how able ye are ( in the meekness and strength of the lamb's spirit ) to suffer for his names sake . thy will , o god , be done . the cup which our father gives us , shall we not drink it ? the lord preserve you in uprightness of heart towards him , in meekness of spirit towards those that afflict you , and in true love and good will towards all ; that his light which hath gathered you may shine over all the darkness which opposeth it , and his life which hath quickened and preserved you , may be famous over all the territories and dominions of death . fourthly . to such as are hard-hearted , and of a persecuting spirit towards the tender-conscienced . o that ye knew what ye did . ye are enemies to the most precious thing , that is to be found among the sons of men . ye strike at what god loves , and cherishes , and takes great pains to bring the creature to . ye strive to keep that down upon which the happiness of mankind depends : yea , ye consult and take much pains to remove that out of the way , which stands between you and the judgements of god. o that your eyes were opened : for surely then ye could not proceed in this course . well ; the lord will open the eyes of many , and mercy towards mankind is issuing from his throne , and he will smite that through and through , which maketh the earth miserable and desolate of his life . but , o that man could hear in the day of his prosperity , that adversity might not come upon him . wait to read these things in the life from which they sprang , and then tell me , whether there is not a cause for what i write . a post-script . there hath been a great apostacy ( since the dayes of the apostles ) from the living power , into dead forms of worship and devotion , where likenesses of truth have been set up , in stead of the truth it self . now the lord is gathering his true seed ( even israel his beloved off-spring ) out of all dead forms of all kinds , into his living truth , and into the true spiritual worship : and who is he , that shall be able to stop him herein ? let him consider his strength , who girds himself to the battle against him : for not by might , nor by the power of man , but by the spirit of life in his called , faithful , chosen and innocent lambs , will the lord of glory carry on his work in the world. the end .