that consult and endeavour to make the places of Saints too straight and to binde up the spirit of God to your formality darkness and bounds You that hear the children that you have lost say in your ears the place is too straight for us give place to us that we may dwell Isa 49.20 21 22 23 24 25 26. You that say in your hearts who hath begotten me these seeing you have lost your children and you are and will become desolate and who hath brought up these these where have they been will you make the broad places straight will you comprehend God in a narrow compass of a man of a Synod will you compass the incompassable will you compare with the incomparable Oh you cannot Do you think that God hath no other Ornament then a Directorie to adorn a Nation which he means to reform If he hath such a minde surely he hath Do you think that he who hath rivers of all sorts and waters of glory and of varietie to change his Creation by Iesus Christ and according to Iesus Christ hath but your stream But that one current of yours which you intend to make to run in the veins of the heavens and of the earth if you can Surely you are deceived God will I am confident dry up your River and make your fish to stink and die for thirst If you have a Jasper do you think all must have Jaspers may not another have a Saphir Yes truly whether you have or have not a Jasper if you have a Saphir may not another have a Chalcedony If you have an Emerauld may not another have a Sardonyx If you have a Sarduis may not another enjoy a Chrysolite if you have a Topar may not another enjoy a Chrysophrasus If you have a Jacynth may not another have an Amethyst Rev. 21.19 If you have or be any of these surely it would be satisfaction enough to you If you have the light of the Sun freely given you will you endeavour to destroy him that hath but the light of the Moon will you despise the day of small things Have you freely received and will you force another to walk as you walk when he hath not received You that were overcome your selves if you have truly overcome evill and Heresie will you have another Conquerour then the brightness of the Fathers glorie Is it not your darkness and inconsiderateness to say in your heart who hath begotten these Do you think you must be perpetuall Fathers shall Saints be alwaies taught of fallible mutable vain man would you not have God to beget how he pleaseth and when he pleaseth Oh vain man why contendest thou with thy maker the holy one of Israel Thou canst not prevail thou never madest a hair of thine own head thou never addest a Cubit to thine own stature He that walks in the circuit of heaven laughs thee to scorn and hath thee in derision daily Doest thou think God can bring none forth but such as thou willest can teach no other way but such as thou teachest can have no other Terms but such as thou understandest comprehendest studiest and contrivest If that invisible God and eternall substance doth begin to set up his Standard to the people to lift up his hand to the Gentiles and to make Kings nursing Fathers and Queens nursing mothers Wilt thou instigate the Magistracy the Kings the powers of the world in the high places to binde the people of God though under another notion in chains of death and darkness Doest thou think that Kings Queens and Magistrates must be only nursing fathers and mothers unto you must honour the God of Heaven and earth only in you and lick up the dust of your feet In the consideration of these things I am cast into admiration of infinitie Oh boundless God and binding man Oh boundless God! that measurest all things comprehendest all things who hast infiniteness in all thy true variety let not thy Saints be ashamed to wait for thee Oh Super-superlative binding God! who art able to bind Synods Counsels Powers of the world in chains and fetters of Iron that have bound the people deceived the Nations a great space manifest thy self that thou bindest and loosest and art able to restrain the bindings of man as well as to unloose after thou hast given him power to binde And if thou hast an intent that this Synod shall be a scourge or means of a scourge to thy people as well as other Synods formerly called Convocations or other names do thou say to thy Saints in the spirit of understanding Where is the fury of former oppressors and am not I the Lord thy God and is not my name the Lord of Hosts who have divided the Sea whose waves roared Isa 51.15 Say thou to thy people as thou saidst of old Isa 52.3 4 5 6. Ye have sold your selves for nought and ye shall be redeemed without money though they that rule over you make you to howle and cause the ignorant of God to blaspheme the Lord every day But let thy people know it is thou that speakest even thou I am confident Synod the thoughts of God are not your thoughts neither are your waies the waies of the Lord for as the heavens are higher then the earth so are the waies of the triumphant God and the thoughts of the triumphant God higher then yours and you may miss of your aime in your generation but I rejoyce you keep your Crown Power Kingdom and Glorie so long as the Father will Synod reade perhaps you may know and understand 56 Isa 11. 57 Isa Whose Chapter may appertain to thee in thy own understanding and the 13 Ezekiel 14 Ezekiel 9 10. 41 Isa 10 Ieremiah 23 Ieremiah the 26 Ieremiah 29 Ieremiah 8 12 verses c. And also the 34 of Ieremiah 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 c. I can I thank the most High the invisible substance make parallels and the parallels aequipolent Therefore though you shall endeavour to scourge me and afflict me yet I shall see the love of the absolute Lord in scourgings and whippings Though you shall say as others before you have said Come let us scourge him and afflict him for he hath sinned against the Lord yet my glory is in the absolute God washer cleanser purger discerner informer reformer and acquitter and from him I have my Quietus est What though you make me an offender for a word What though you shall have the Nobles the Powers of the world the Parliament whom you instigate the People to say Come let us devise devices against him because he speaks of the things of God he being not Ordained The Law shall not perish from the Priest nor Counsel from the Wise nor the Word from the Prophet Come let us smite him with the tongue and let us not give heed to any of his words Yet the absolute Lord non-respecter of persons can
give a word to the poor as well as to the rich to the Carpenter to the Fisher as well as to the Prophet the Priest and the Levite I rejoyce in your instigation of Magistracy because of the Fathers will and because it causes this operation in me it makes me and hath made me to see if I might attain it how I am as really in the beauty of the Son of righteousness who is more beautifull then the Sun the Moon and the Stars And truly I am told of God as I am perswaded that I should not as yet one my self with you nor acknowldge you as friends to the wisdom and glory of God in Iesus Christ If I should not hold forth my contrariety as the Father hath made me contrary to you in love for God in love from God and to God I should have burning fire in my own breast Would you have me know any thing of God and not speak it if I should forget the Lord my maker and trust on you and upon you surely my Lord when he looks upon me and I see him would make me to lie down in sorrow and to weep bitterly therefore I had rather have your frowns who call your selves Teachers Fathers then my reall absolute immutable Fathers Will you scourge me or afflict me or instigate Magistracy if at any time I shall declare the sweetness of God Shall I be in the garden of variety and not speak of it would you have none be in the garden but your selves would you have none other but your selves though others are in the garden to speak of the things they see and hear Do you know the root and the ground of Gods wisdom Do you know all the branches of Eternity Do you know the God of Dominion Will you not let him save whom he will and condemn whom he pleaseth Will you assume to make a man know before he must truly know and understand before he must truly understand Are not the times and the seasons in the heavens and the earth for the fathers accomplishments Must not the heavens and the earth hear his voyce when he speaks with an intention that it shall hear know and understand I was lately cast into a consideration of the incomprehensible od even of God who is acknowledged by you generally to be Causa Causarum and also of vain weak inconsiderable Logical Sophistical formal in fine sensuall man I was thinking how small a particular creature of God I was and how little of the visible world I could comprehend in the hollow of my hand and then I considered and said surely it would be an admired thing if a Synod if a man if men if a few men should make a Law or procure a Law Ordinance or Declaration to be made that a man that could not comprehend the heavens and the earth or the glorious visible things of God in the hollow of his hand should be accounted an Heretick All rationall men in the world and those that are only rationall would think it a foolish Ordinance an inconsiderate Law Would you have a Law made then that he that cannot comprehend or comprehend as you would have him comprehend the invisible things of that invisible indivisible God shall be accounted an Heretick O surely if you had faith you would be glad to have it to your selves and you would manifest it with the glory of its pure self and undefiled being surely if you had faith to remove mountains you would have more love to Hereticks as you call them and less bitterness But it satisfies me that God can roul the heavens and the earth together like a scrowl and bring it into the narrow compass of a mans hand if he will and manifest himself to whom he will and when he pleaseth and you are not masters of him He alwaies comprehends and he can so be seen to mans capacity if he will and he can and doth comprehend not to be seen if he will he is not like to man one little particular of Gods varieties he can feel us and we shall not be sensible of it and see us and we shall not see him though he be within and without upon the right and upon the left before and behinde Suppose you have seen Lillies but another hath seen Roses and another hath seen flowers of other natures and kinds will you make a Law or endeavor to have a Law made that all must say they have seen Lillies and nothing but Lillies when they have not seen Lillies at all but Roses or other of Gods diversities Again suppose you have been in the garden of God did you get in by the sword by violence by power by sleight of hand by wit policie by Logick and Phylosophie what must others do that have not your Logick and Phylosophie but truly I think the flaming sword of the incomprehensible God will keep you out with your Logick and prevail with you and over your Philosophie and truly immutably and substantially cry Victoria Again suppose you have been in the garden of God and seen the fragrant flowers the sweet beams of Divine Light your names written in heaven suppose you have the witness of Jesus in your consciences will you endeavour to have a Law made that all that will not beleeve you may be burnt with fire may be imprisoned may be banished may be sawen asunder may not trade traffique in the kingdoms of the world which are the Lords Surely if you were truly taken up with those beauties in your selves you would not desire that fire should come down from heaven to destroy others much less make a fire your selves to consume them Again suppose that a multitude or many now in these daies should see Jesus Christ should enjoy the invisible teachings of God in the inward man should speak of it or preach it would it not be a Pharisaicall envious trick to endeavour to rebuke such Disciples if they should cry Hosanna Hosanna blessed is he that commeth in the name of the Lord in the inward man May not Christ say if these should hold their peace the stones would immediatly cry out Luke 19.37 38 39. When the incomprehensible pleasantness of the spirit is manifested from enjoyment it would be never the worse if it were by all the people if in the streets if upon the house tops But I know that Scribes and Pharisees and high Priests will murmur at this and pray and fast that Christ may rebuke this but Christ will not and therefore Assemblie though I have been held in chains of darkness a great while and though held in the grave as it were yet when the eternall God to my understanding and with his flame inflames and zeal makes me zealous and in his time makes me to serve him I desire it in that time when he wils and alone in that time when he wils and untill that time I may say from my self to my self and to you Ne sutor ultra crepidam
infallible and absolute Divinity but in the 58 of Isa you may see your Image even by your Nationall fathers before you when the absolute alone supream judge shall enter into judgement and give grinding to the grinders in giving eternall burthens to those that have temporarily burthened bound and oppressed O then let the mountains and Rocks fall on us and the Hills cover us from the presence of the judge Oh then Ministers Divines Teachers Instigators Instructers as you said of your selves in righteousness what hiding place shall we have But you say or think it may be that there is no such thing to be expected therefore you will take another mans word I wish I could truly say if it were the will of eternity much good may it do ye When the absolute supream shall fasten this to your Consciences which as yet passeth away as a tale that is told unto you 59. Isai Your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity your lips have spoken lyes you conceive mischief and you bring forth iniquity you hatch Cockatrice eggs and weave the Spiders webb but your eggs if they are eaten they that eat them die and if any with the power of life manifestation and understanding of the Absolute crush your eggs they break forth presently into a viper but when eternity will enter into judgement when the Islands shall flie away and the Mountains not be found when the hearing of this voyce shall be manifested Rev. 6.10 c. Oh Lord not Lords holy and true doest thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth shall the glorie of the heavens afford you any comfort they shall be roll'd together like a scrowl shall the Kings of the earth and the great men the richmen the chief Captains your servants the mighty men the bond men the freemen the Dens Rocks Mountains afford you comfort and succour Shall multitudes shall kindreds Nations Tongues shall power and authority shall a Ladie shall a Queen shall a woman arrayed in purple and scarlet colour decked with Gold precious stones with a Golden cup in her hand Rev. 17. Shall the Merchants of the earth with their Merchandise of Gold Silver and Precious stones shall the fruits that your soul lusted after shall the Shipmasters Rev. 18. shall the Parliaments shall the Synods shall the Committees No surely Lords Oh then happy is he whose God is the Lord. But Counsellors but earthly Polititians when you shall be arraigned in the interiour man by the interiorest the all-seeing Jehovah the infinite everlasting the absolute Lord VVhat are many Lords and what are many idolized false Gods when you shall be called Gods and Lords and come to be judged arraigned condemned by the absolute non-respecter of persons as men in the inwardest cogitations minde understanding with those aggravations that lie in the wisdome of eternity to make and manifest your Webs shall not become garments neither shall yee cover your selves with your works for your works are works of iniquity and the Act of violence is in your hands But in the midst of all my thoughts I was sore oppressed in my own spirit I was willing to give up my self even the exteriour the interior life to the supream absolute To live in the world I was unwilling yet willing for live I must and in this consideration live I would so long as the giver or the taker pleaseth let him do with me what seemeth him good in his own eyes But I saw man or the temporary Lords in the world contending to amend me thought I saw that which was mended by man was but amended with a fancy and that which was amended with a fancy was lacerated and torn with another one mans amending another in the world in relation to the supereminent divine changer amender translater is like a simple Cobler his amending a paire of shooes that may be for a fortnights or less not much more walking will weare them out so that it may be sayed as you were or rather worse then you were for these amendings perish with the using therefore I may say Ne sutor ultra crepidam But that which I beheld in the world I desired the supream to destroy in me for I thought with my self it may be I may contein all the innormities of the whole Orb therefore I was in fine made to reflect upon the supream and the absolute Lord and Lawgiver and when I by reflexion considered the foundation of all Generations and I had no satisfaction in the apprehension of the life of the Generations past or the life of the Generation that now is I was reduced into the foundation and that gave me some sweet solacing and some pleasant refreshing But in seeing I beheld and in my view I saw the Lords of the earth had inlarged and were ever inlarging their beds of pleasure to take pleasure in their excess and their temporary glories Methought I saw them resolved so far as mutable Lords could resolve to keep to their own Lawes Statutes Ordinances and to make them unto themselves and demonstrate it unto others as if it were the absolute true and infallible Sabbath of rest and commendable by the most high And when I did upon the Lords casting me into serious consideration behold the Lord by the glimmerings of the supereminent and everlasting glory opening the Seals I saw beasts in the shape of men going forth conquering and to conquer with bows in their hands Rev 6. And I saw and expected an Arrow to pierce all those who held the Testimony of Jesus I saw the Lords and the Potentates of the Aire those that had the power of Nations and Kingdomes so long as they had the Crown go forth conquering and to conquer But Lord if it be thy will make me also to will to receive if thou willest to give an Arrow from that Bow The life supereminent was no sooner held out the Seals were no sooner opened by the eternall supereminent judging word but presently another beast represented it self so long as it had the Crown to take peace from the earth and to kill with the sword But Oh Lord Absolute and Eternall I cannot say that thou wilt not reveale thy self to any one because thou doest not reveal thy truth to many a one but if thou wilt reveal what thou hast hid and hide what thou hast revealed thy will be done the generations of the world are servants to thy Mysticall glory and to thy incomprehensible Majesty draw me up unto that supereminent life in the truth of apprehension and understanding that so I may live in that life though I am kill'd with the sword Also I see a further accomplishment and in the accomplishing I behold even in the temporarie world a horrible persecution and affliction upon the exteriour formes and natures of things methought I saw violence on every side persecution and affliction under all formes to stifle the
was to be with Jesus Christ who was manifested in the flesh or when the body is exercised according to the life power and will of the supreame Lord in Communion with those that have the same spirit of the most high in knowing and understanding then the Saints must not feare them that can kill the body viz magistracy but they must walk as the divine supereminent Saviour Lord King Judge wil have them Suppose that a Magistrate commands my body to do one thing but the invisible God in the understanding he that is God of body and soule commands another thing whether is it lawfull to obey God or man Judge ye 6. Suppose there is such a Magistrate in the world that does truely and really conceive that there is one eternall God the judge the absolute God the Lawgiver in the conscience and he according to rationality doth endeavour to demonstrate it can he make another beleeve it if any conforme to what he saieth not knowing it is not he an ignorant doer of what he would have him to do or a dissembling person But Aug. one of Gangraena's Fathers saith Simulata sanctitas est duplex iniquitas But the Magistrates and Priests of the earth have led the world in a string and they are at the sensuall beck and will of every base lust and that rule is verified amongst them qui nescit dissimulare nescit vivere But Oh! how excellent will it be when Saints shall more and more live to the supreame absolute God! 7. Whether a man may not have a word of God to deliver to a Magistrate as well as a Magistrate to another man Formerly I know God called some to speake to Kings and Potentates of the earth But we are better then our Fathers Is not the spirit of forbearance as good in a Magistrate as it is in another man if the Magistrate hath had experience that no man can make him beleeve the truths of God that he can not make any one likewise why should he use violence bitterness and wrath But we call it not wrath we call it Justice But the absolute distinguisher sees what it is and he will call that wrath and anger in you which you call justice But we will contrive a great many fine words to waue it But there is nothing hath power but what is given to it nothing enjoyes it longer then he that gave it pleaseth neither shall any thing be waved but what he will wave even that absolute I am But oh Lord supereminent if thou callest me causest me to speak of thee to manifest thee though magistracy heape up words against me strengthen their mouthes according to the judgement of Causidicks Synods of the earth though they hale me teare me in their ire sharpen their eys at me yet let it be sufficient that thou lovest when soever I see man let me be drawn to God let me say with Iob in the spirit of understanding without respect of persons Iob 20.4 5 6 7. Knowest thou not this of old since man was placed upon the earth that the triumph of the wicked is short and the joy of the wicked is but for a moment Though his Excellencie mount up to the heavens and his head reach to the clouds yet he shall perish for ever like his owne dung they which have seen him shall say where is he 8. Those that the Magistrates endeavour to compell to the Laws wills Ordinances interpretations of Scriptures the Magistrates being and confessing themselves fallible may for ought the Magistrates know have an obligation and an absolute understanding ingagement upon their spirits as to God to live to Gods owne interpretation Law will and ordinance which may be contrary to the Magistrate For God is the absolute originall of all things that are and that are to be interpreted 9. The People shall not suffer for the Magistrates sins but their owne nor the Magistrates for the peoples sins but their owne But the soule that sinneth shall die But yet in a common calamity the one may suffer as well as the other though not for the sins of another 18 Eezekiel 1 2 3 4. c. There is a declaration as from the Lord. And the word of the Lord came to me saying What meane ye that ye Use this Proverb concerning the Land of Israel saying the Fathers have eaten sower Grapes and the childrens Teeth are set on edge As I live saith the Lord ye shall not have occasion any more to use this Proverb in Israel Behold all souls are mine as the soule of the Father so also the soule of the sonne is mine The soule that sinneth it shall die you may reade the whole Chapter This was a glorious Prophesie of the time that should be when God should peculiarly manifest himselfe when God would be no more vayled by a man when God would manifest himselfe to be the absolute Lord me thinks a Magistrate confessing himselfe fallible should feare to desire much more to command another to that which that other is not satisfied of God For the soule of the person that the Magistrate commands is Gods It was no argument for a poor soule when the absolute supreame entred into judgement to say that the Magistrate gave me and I did eate nor an argument for the Magistrate to say that a companie of people invested me with this and that authority as I thought or desired this or that thing and I did eate I had received a Petition from the people or from the Major part to release one Barabbas crucifie Jesus Christ I received a Petition to deprive such and such People of their liberties being such as they when they did petition confessed God had honoured in doing them good estates priviledges and benefits of living in the world unlesse they indeed were not perswaded of in their own consciences If it was an Argument inexcusable that Adam and Eve used to God this may also hardly be They had an infallible Ministration what should be death and life But the Magistracy of the world and Synods of the times confess themselves fallible It was an Argument in that most certain case for Satan to use to suggest to poor weak Eve as it was presented to deceive God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof your eys shall be opened and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil But oh Lord I let me seek unto thee with thee and from thee though that Devil tempts me to unite and manifest my self to that and in that way of darkness and man-sinning in the world whatsoever specious and fallacious pretences I shall receive from the men of the world and from my own soul as considered in its way of operations contrary to the body of Jesus Christ Let me though I hear men in the world pretend to the glorious mysteries of the Eternall God and the honour and glory of him try things with thy self alone and therefore be