was no Temple nor needed any Sun or Moon which as I apprehend was but that there should be such glorious and spiritual dispensations and discoveries of God in the Saints and that they should enjoy such a life as that they should not worship in any outward external way or forme And should not need to be taught by men or meanes or of any outward Administrations or Ordinances But that the Lord God and the Lamb should be their light and they should be immediatly taught by him and therefore it is said there was no Temple in it the Lord and the Lamb being the light glory Temple and all which condition is glorious and cannot but be Heaven to him that doth enjoy it and into which I know some are brought and have received the accomplishment of all those promises and Prophesies which are spoken of in Scripture and have received that new name which none know but they that have it And thus have I shewed you Heaven as it appeares in my spirit and for my part I see no otherwise of it however men judge I am willing to let fall any carnall apprehension of a visible or corporeal enjoyment of God or any expectation of a happy condition out of God after this life and dayes are ended being willing to resigne and give up to God what he is in me in flesh that so God may be all and advanced above all in the spirit And for my part I see the Lord so framing my spirit that I am content to be nothing that he may be all though I must confess when I think seriously of it there is nothing so grievous to flesh and blood in me as to think that all the glory and happiness that I expected to have had in a corporal and sensible enjoyment must be terminated in God onely This I am sure of that if there be any such thing I shall have my share among the rest which for the present I think ridiculous to looke for onely this I wait what the Lord will do in my spirit for the present And being sweetly refreshed in the spirituall Disovery of himself in me which is to me Heaven Concerning the Angels FOr the Angels I see the world as much mistaken in them as in the former for I really see that man lives in the Angelicall nature and that the Angels are also Spirituall and in man and herein man is honoured in that God tooke humane nature and not the Angelicall For had he confined his own glory in himself he had missed one of his opportunities of magnifying himself and therefore he took the humane nature and so was God manifest in flesh as well as seen of Angels and as the divine nature is in man so is the Angelicall and as the one acts so doth the other for may we not see the Angels of God ascending and discending in man Are not the motions of mans spirit here and there in a moment cannot man ascend into the hights and discend into the depths Are not the motions of a mans spirit at one end of the World at one time and at another end of it instantly again Doth not God make his Angels spirits and his Ministers a flame of fire Is not every spirit of illumination and spirituall discovery of God an Angell of God to convey some light and influence to the Creature whence is it that all those sweet and spiritual assistances and consolations are flowing in the spirit but by the power and presence of these Angels It is said the Devill left Christ and Angels came and ministred to him and comforted him In which I really see every spirituall support and comfortable appearance of God is an Angel of God How do the Angels pitch their Tents about them that fear the Lord which is no other but that all providences and passages watch about them and administer comfort unto them I do not as I have conceived that they are created spirituall substances distinct from God and waiting upon God as serving men about their Lord to see what his pleasure is and yet this I know all accidents that are good or evill crosse or pleasing are of God and are his Angels and do his will These are the Angels on which God rides in triumph by which he plagues the World and doth great things in Heaven and Earth and therefore I looke upon every glorious manifestation of the power and wisdom of God to be an Angell when I read of Gods coming with thousands of his Angels It refreshes my spirit to think that there will be times of more pure and spirituall glory manifested Now there is here and there an Angel or spiritual discovery of God then will the world be full of his glory and all flesh shall see the salvation of God I cannot conceive they have any fleshly forme or shape though it is said Lot received two Angels which is spiritually true for there was something more then ordinary of Gods mind discovered to him And when I read of the Angel of the Lord smiting the Campe of the Assyrians that there fell so many thousands in one night I do not believe there was any visible appearance but that there was an extraordinary appearance of Gods power which is called an Angell And so whereever we read of Angels appearing to this or that Servant of God I cannot look upon them otherwise then some more glorious appearance or manifestation of God and his will and pleasure concerning things or persons And whereas the Scripture speaks of good and bad Angels I see onely this in them that the one is pure discovery of God the other the more impure dark for where as man had a glorious enjoyment of God and lived in Gods light when he left that went to live in a self-being out of God There were Angels Hell and his discoveries of God became dark and confused and so brought him into bondage so that the dark and carnall knowing of God is the evill Angel and the glorious and pure manifestation of God is the good Angel So likewise the providences that fall out in the world that tend to the comfort or well-being of Creatures they are the good Angels the crosse providences occurrences that do afflict and grieve a people or person they are the evill Angells or Angels of wrath and displeasure not that they are so indeed but because the Creature doth misapprehend the mind of God in them for all things whether Angels good or evill principalities powers life or death things present or to come are for good to them that are called of God When I read of Michael and his Angels and the Dragon and his Angels fighting against one another I see nothing there but the fleshly and dark apprehensions of God against the pure and spirituall and as Michael overcame the Dragon so the more pure and spiritual dispensations of God shall over-power the dark and carnall and so those Angels of darkness shall
grosse and carnall conceit of God But I shall not enter upon any thing controvertall onely I shall give you what is made out in me and I conceive no other what the Scripture holds out in the letter and so it is true that there are three that bear record in Heaven and yet these three but one He doth not speak three persons but three and that thus as farre as I conceive The Father is God from all eternity who 's Being was in himself having all Beings wrapt up in himself This God letting himself and his Being in severall formes of flesh is God the Son For I do not apprehend that God was onely manifest in the flesh of Christ or the man called Christ but that he as really and substantially dwells in the flesh of other men and Creatures as well as in the man Christ though as the Scripture speaks he was the most express Image and that the fulnesse of the God-head dwelt bodily in him that is in respect of manifestation but otherwise I conceive that God who cannot admit of degrees can be said to dwell in him more then another and I might shew that his Being in spirit is much more glorious then his Being in flesh the one being but a shadow and Type of the other But I forbear because it may afford another discourse of it self and returne to what we have in hand and that is that God the Sonne is God manifest in flesh Now that we call Holy Ghost is God living in Spirit and all these are not three distinct Beings onely one Being made out in three severall tearmes To make it a little plainer the Scripture saith God is Love and yet it tells us of a threefold Love The first is Gods Love to us the second is our Love to God the third is our Love to one another Now it is plaine these are not three but one For by the same Love that God loves us by the same Love we love him we love him because he loves us and it is the same Love by which we love one another and therefore the Apostle saith He that loves not his brother loves not God And so we have communion with God when we have communion with one another So that Gods Love to us and our Love to him and to one another are not three loves but one so in like manner Love is the Father this Love manifested in Flesh is the Sonne this Love loving the loved is the Holy Ghost and these three are one The Father is God forming all things the Son is God who is formed and manifested in Flesh the Holy Ghost is God manifesting or revealing the manifested thus the Father Son and Holy Ghost are not three persons but one intire Being made out in severall expressions And thus I have done with this subject concerning God being willing to loose my self in the thoughts of him as knowing that he cannot be known and that all words or expressions of Scripture or man come short of Him and do but confound and darken the glory of that great Creator who hath done all things according to reason and is himself the reason and ground of all things for in him they live and move and have their Being and therefore to Him be the Glory for evermore Concerning Heaven NOw for that which we call Heaven I cannot conceive it any locall place because God is not confined or hath his Being 〈◊〉 station in our setled compasse and therefore I see that true which the Letter speakes The Kingdom of Heaven is within you and so I see Heaven to be there where God displaies his own glory and excellency For Heaven is nothing but God at large or God making out himself in Spirit and Glory And so I really see that then men are in Heaven or Heaven in men when God appeares in his glorious and pure manifestations of himself in Love and Grace in Peace and rest in the Spirit when God shewes himself to be all the happiness comfort and reward and so this Heaven is not outward or a place of any outward or carnall bodily happines as men dream of but it consists in righteousness joy peace in the Holy Ghost all which are spirituall and terminated in God alone I do not as I have carnally conceived that when Paul was rapt up into the third Heaven and heard and saw things unutterable that he was bodily taken up or heard God with an audible voice No but I rather conceive it some extraordinary appearance of God filling the Spirit with glorious amazements and admirations of its own excellency So that when God doth gloriously appeare to the silencing of flesh and over-powering the selfish Being in man and fils the spirit with its own glory then is God and his Heaven come in the spirit and such an estate some may be have bin sensible of that they have so felt the over-powering of God in their spirits that they could not tell whether they were in the body or out of the body as was Pauls condition And this Heaven the Land of Canaan was a lively Type of wherein God after he had by a strong hand brought the Children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt and through many dangers of the Wildernesse and red Sea God at last brought them to a Land of rest in which this is really made out to me that it is the over-ruling power of God in us that takes us from the Egyptian bondage of self and flesh and through the Wildernesse and Sea much toyling and tossing up and downe in selfe-Workes and hard duties outward and carnall services the Law still beating us to Workes of prayer humiliation making us to make Brick without Straw and setting hard and cruell Task-masters over us so that we may say through many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but when Gods power is destroying these enemies of our Peace and brings us into that Land of rest that spirituall Canaan which we speak of then do we cease from these labours But truly this I speake from experience so long as men are under Moses they cannot enjoy neither must they come into this Land And therefore I do not wonder that the Scripture speaks Many shall seek to enter and not be able and straight and rarrow is the gate and few there be that finde it I would not speak to discourage any but I really apprehend the greatest pretenders to Heaven scarce know what it is or will ever enjoy it but shall with Moses onely see it a farre off God not being willing to do any great workes in their spirits because of their unbelief but what happyness and comfort they do enjoy to whom God appeares thus spiritually in none know but themselves This is that heavenly Jerusalem spoken of in the Hebrewes into which the souls of just men made perfect are come into The text doth not say we shall come to it hereafter but that we are come
unto it and that we have full and actuall possession of it and so saith the Apostle Our conversation is in Heaven which is nothing but the glorious appearance of God in our spirits when of naturall we are made spirituall we shall see the Scripture speaks of no other Heaven but what is spirituall and not consisting of any corporall or bodily felicity as men conceive God being all the glory and happiness of the creature and so he that believeth hath everlasting life within him and abiding in him because God there gloriously makes out himself to be the Life and happiness To look for a carnall and sensible enjoyment of God distinct from that pure and divine Being of God savours to me of a carnall spirit because it sets up something beside God when there is nothing that lives and is glorious to all eternity but God For as I said before there is nothing in the creature capable of God or to enjoy his glory nor nothing is of God but is God because God cannot be devided nor none can share with him in his Glory he having not given any glory to any creature out of himself but what ever the creature apprehends to be its own glory it is truly and spiritually no other but Gods one Being and glory But the truth is as men fancy a high God though yet very carnally so they fancy a high place for him above the Starrs I know not where herein indeed God condescends to the weaknesse of men in the Scripture to set himself and his glorious presence out to us as if they were properly in one place more then another when as we know a Spirit is not any where confined but the God of Spirits is in all and through you all And so Heaven is his Throne the Earth his Foot-stool That is God is in low and dark appearances as well as in the most glorious God is the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity and not any circumscribed place and so he is in low Spirits And the truth is where God is highest in the Spirit he is so low in that Spirit that they do not desire any glory out of himself but are willing to be nothing that he may be all It is very true that the Scripture saith We looke for new Heaven and new Earth wherein dwells Righteousnesse And truly I find that where God dwells and is come and hath taken men up and wrapt them up into the Spirit there is a new Heaven and a new Earth all the Heaven I look ever to enjoy is to have my earthly and dark apprehensions of God to cease and to live no other life then what Christ spiritually lives in me The Scripture speakes likewise of a Kingdom and a City and Mantions and that Christ went to prepare a place for the Saints all which are true in the Spirit For when God raigns in the Spirit he brings all into subjection under him and so he is King and Kingdom himself and Christ went to prepare and to make out himself in Spirit and so he left the flesh to live in the Spirit and his spirituall coming was much more glorious then his carnall and visible presence with them And the truth is the one was but a predarative and fore-runner of the other so it so it is spiritually true that he that was least in the kingdom of Heaven was greater then John the Baptist where note that those carnall and outward observations of Baptisme and other administrations that John was in they were but the preparatives fore-runners of a more spirituall condition the Kingdom of Heaven not consisting in them And therefore it was reasoned Why do the Disciples of John Fast and Pray Luke 9. and thy Disciples Fast not and Christ gives them the reason It was his presence which is not to be understood of his carnall presence with them but of his spirituall presence which he promised to appear in them and therefore the Baptisme of the Holy Ghost and fire was the substance of which the water Baptisme was but a shadow and so he that was least in the spiritual Kingdom and had a spiritual enjoyment of him was greater then he that was the greatest and most strictest in the Observation of the outward Duties and Ordinances that John was under so that it is plain to me that the spiritual presence of Christ or God in the spirit is the Kingdom of Heaven into which whomsoever is entered he ceases from the outward and formal use of outward Administrations and Ordinances and to sits down spiritually in the Kingdom of the Father and is as the Apostle saith allready set down in the heavenly places and when God thus spiritually appears in you then you will be content with me to sit down and enter with me into an eternall nothingness and be willing to let God advance himself glorifie himself unto all eternity and so cast down your Crownes at his feet in everlasting silence Into which condition when you are brought you shall not need to expect any other Heaven for then shall you enter into that rest wherein you shall cease from that labour and toile of outward and formall duties as seeing God to be that in you which you expected in self If any shall say these things are true but these conditions and this estate is reserved for another life We cannot expect to be perfect here while we are in the flesh I answer that it is true we shall not that is there is nothing of us that is capable of this spirituall enjoyment and therefore we must know that our perfection lies not in any thing that the Creature is but it lies in God and in that respect unless you will say God is not so perfect here as he will be we are as perfect as ever we shall be so that though this spirituall condition be not of us yet it is in us and what Heaven or Estate God will be in when he ceases to live in the flesh I think is as vain for us to imagine as impossible to apprehend Yet if any man can tell me how he was before there was a World I shall with as much ease tell him how he will be when the World ceases to be and however men are so carnal women like that they dream of a Heaven wherein they shall sit one at the Right hand of God and another at the left and hope to have much outward felicity and glory when they have glorified bodies as they imagine yet for my part I look for no such condition and I see nothing in the Scripture to strengthen me in such a conceit For however it speakes of a City that hath twelve gates and streetes paved with Gold and yet I suppose all do but point out the glorious condition that God will appear in upon Earth and therefore I mind that there was a Jerusalem that it is said came down from God out of Heaven In which there
place so they will be sure to make Hell the lowest and therefore being as carnall in the one as the other make it to be the lowest part of the Earth Others because they find a place speaking of the Devill calling him the Prince of the Aire they will make Hell in the Ayre I know not where But as the Devill rules onely in Aierie and light spirits so I look upon this to be a Aierie fancy For as the Devill is and hath his Throne and Seat in every man so is his Hell truly for my part I think they cannot be separated and therefore I conceive any man that is in bondage to his own lust nay further he that is under the Law or in any formal or outward duty is so possessed with a spirit of bondage that he must be so and so do so and so or else he must be damned and in the doing of such and such things he shall be saved this man is in Hell and Hell in him and needes no other Devill to torment him but his own false and carnall apprehension of God for as the spirituall appearance of God doth necessarily and formally make Heaven and cause joy and peace in the spirit So the dark and carnall conceit or knowledge of God must needes cause sorrow and lamentation and makes Hell I do not much wonder at the carnall Papist no more then at the carnall Protestant the one fancying a carnall purgatory the other a carnall Hell And I think the one gets as much money for frighting men with the one and making them believe they can show them the way to avoid it and bring them to Heaven as the other doth in frighting them with purgatory and making the poor people believe they can keep them from that But I let that passe And however the Scripture speaks of Hell and expresses it by fire and brimstone and the worme dying not and many other expressions It speakes as in other cases after the manner of men not that there is such visible and material formes of punishment But that as fire and brimstone are the most fearful things to the nature of man so doth the Scripture set out the miserable and fearfull Estate of a carnall condition and what miseries and torments do accompany such an Estate And what consequences have followed the outward man from being in such darkness and what the absence of God hath caused in the spirit the Scriptures and many daily examples do abundantly testifie whose terrors and distractions in their spirits have been such as have been easeless and remediless and made them willing to become their own Butchers and all this hath been from a misapprehension and confused knowledge of God The truth is I shall speak from my own experience so long as I was in bondage to dayes times and set times that I must pray so often and do so much frequent such Ordinances so long I was in trouble and sorrow for I really saw there was this and that failing and miscarriage in every duty that I suffered torment in my spirit for fear I should never attain my end which was a carnall and sensible enjoyment of some happiness which I called Heaven and when I was inlarged in this and that duty I thought then all was well and that I should go to Heaven And so I was continually suffering the torment of Hell and tossed up and down being condemned of my self And this is all the condemnation that I see is come into the World that men love darkness rather then light because their deeds are evill That men live in love the dark and fleshly Being and not in the light in the divine being this is the condemnation not causally but formally And this is that I found til God appeared spiritually and shewed me that he was all the glory and happiness himself and that flesh was nothing and should enjoy nothing and then I could not but cease from my former fleshly actings which caused nothing but fear and trouble and saw God or rather God made out himself in me joy and peace and brought me into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God whereas I was before in bondage to sin law an accusing Conscience which is Hell And yet I cannot exclude God in all this for if we descend into Hell he is there He is in the dark though we see it not as well as in the light that we see He is in wrath and severity and we are wisht to behold him in both let there be never such confusions of spirit never such terrors and Hell let there be darkness and no light yet there God is there is some glimps of himself in as much as there is a secret going out of the spirit towards God and all the distractions the Creature lies under is because it cannot enjoy the presence love of God yet God is there amidst all that darkness and raignes in the midst of his enemies and so he descends into Hell and returnes with a glorious tryumph rising with abundance of joy and peace in the spirit So that though the Earth be moved and the great mountains which the Creature had made to it self be tumbled up and down and the Creature have no rest but is easeless and restless yet God is there as a Rock unshaken of any storme but is sweetly refreshing and delighting himself with himself and so enters into the strong mans house and disarmes him and bindes him hand and foote and casts him into utter darkness And to summe up all if there be any that think this is not Hell enough to be inwardly and spiritually tormented Let them but consult with those that have been under spirituall desertions as they are called and have cryed out as if their bones had been broken and would have chosen death rather then life and thought they could have indured many burnings to have been rid of such a condition And I think they will tell them there is no other or need be no other Hell and all this comes from a dark and carnall knowledg or rather ignorance of God for certain it is God condemns none But the condemnation is of a mans self and in a mans self If any shall say all this is nothing I care not if this be all the Hell and that it lasts no longer then this life But is there not a Hell hereafter that is the Hell to think of Eternity and that the Creat re shall be everlastingly tormented and indure the wrath of God to all Eternity For answer hereunto I must professe I do not know of any such thing nor do I conceive what should be thus tormented for that which men call a soule I had thought to have made it a particular of the present discourse but I shall referr it to further consideration onely to stay any mans appetite that desires my opinion of it I shall onely give him this morsell to chew upon and that is this I
The Light and Dark sides of GOD Or a plain and brief DISCOURSE OF The light side God Heaven and Angels The dark side Devill Sin and Hell As also of the Resurrection and Scripture All which are set forth in their Severall Natures and Beings according to the spirituality of the Scripture Written by Jacob Bauthumley I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to Babes even so it is thy pleasure The spirituall man judgeth all things and he himself is judged of none LONDON Printed for William Learner at the Black-more in Bishopsgate-streete 1650. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER I Have onely directed my discourse to thee though I know the most unto whose hand it may come cannot read it But that it will be a Barbarian to them and they to It. However if I be beside them yet I am not beside my selfe If I be it is to God The reason why I have not directed it to any particular man or sort of men what ever as is usuall in things of this nature is because I desire not any mans approbation of it as knowing I am not subject to mans judgement neither would I have any man to subject himself to mine neither shall I be ashamed to own what I have writ for the present or to cast it away for the future if God shall lead me thereunto I have cast up my accounts what all will amount unto upon either of the former considerations and so have sweet peace in my spirit in my present thoughts and apprehensions leaving the issue of all to the wise disposing providence All I desire is that those to whom these few lines may come would if they can be so charitable of me as to conceive and judge that I have not writ any thing with any spirit of opposition to any sort of men under what forme of godlinesse soever as knowing that there is a sweet appearance of God in them All. And however my person and parts be meane in the Worlds Eye and so may cast an odium upon the things that I hold forth yet I shall runne the hazard in that kinde and leave the Lord to gaine his own Honour and Glory in it as seeing by sweet experience it is one of his greatest designes in the World to confound the high and mighty things thereof by the most meanâ— and contemptible And so though men be not satisfied yet herein I shall receive sweet content in my own spirit that my worke shall either burne and consume or else abide the fiery tryall of mens indignation And as I shall wish no man to embrace it or condemne me So I shall neither thank them that do the one or condemne them that do the other For the subject matter of the Discourse I must confesse they are things of that nature that are not obvious to every capacity and so lye obnoxious unto their censure and when time was I should have been as ready to have sat in Judgement against the Maintainer of such Principles yet to me they are such as wherein the Mystery of godlynesse mainly consists and so are not to be slighted And however I do not looke that I or any man else shall receive much by this or any other Booke which had almost perswaded me to have been silent in this kind yet was I inwardly enforced thereunto to ease the burden that lay upon my spirit which was one great motive to me to act my part so publickly Besides having converst with men under severall formes and administrations not to speake of those of the inferiour sort as Papists Episcoparians and Presbyterians But those that are got to the highest as Independents an a Anabaptists commonly so called and seriously viewing the carnall apprehention of things in themselves and there mis-apprehenâ—ion of the minde of God held forth by others condemning them as Heriticall and Blasphemous in whom the Mysteryes of the Kingdome are most clearly revealed and they themselves placeing Religion and the Mystery of godlinesse in outward Ordinances and administrations of which they are all but Shaddowes Having a strong conceite of a Creature happynesse and selfe injoyment and so are acted to attaine to the End In all these respects I could not but gratifie them so farre as to set forth what is held out by a certaine Generation of Men and Woemen in the World That if it may be there may be such a favourable opinion of us from them that we neither deny there is a GOD Heaven or Hell Resurrection or Scripture as the World is made to believe we do And I thinke they are all as plainly and briefly made out as they themselves could desire And further I know by experience that there are some with whom my spirit sweetly closed in the Vnity thereof and that travell with me in the same birth yet are not able to bring forth their conceptions for so much as many times the Truth suffers by a weake delivery and for their sakes have I held this Glasse before them that so they may be the better able to describe themselves to others and to help them to bring forth that out of their mouths which perhaps may lye in the bottome of their hearts For these Reasons have I taken the boldnesse to set pen to Paper though otherwise I was unwilling desiring that and no more of others then what I would do to them which is to let every man stand and fall to his own Master One thing I thought fit to premise onely to satisfie any that shall be so weake as to make it a matter of offence to them In that I have not set downe the chapter and verse of many places of Scripture which I do hint upon all along the Discourse To answer them and so to salve up that pretended soare I found things of such a Mysterious nature as they are that while I was looking for them in the Letter of the Scripture I was at a great losse in the present delivery of my selfe of those things which I found spiritually and secretly conveyed to me in the Spirit and so rather then I would loose or let passe what was spiritually discovered in me I was willing to omit the outward viewing of them in a chapter or verse Besides there is nothing laide downe by me by way of Argument or formall dispute which might ingage me to an outward proofe of things as men usually do in matters of controversie and what is positively affirmed there is punctually Scripture for But my designe was mainly to deliver my private Meditations and apprehension of such things which are most carnally conceived of I thought it not therefore necessary to trouble my self or the Reader wiâ—h multiplicity of places of Scripture to prove those things of which I hed so reall and spirituall a Testimony of in my own spirit and which I am confident that the most spirituall man can set
his seale unto And yet I dare affirme to the most rigid spirit that workes in any man at this day against the things asserted That there is not any thing positively affirmed but I could with more ease prove the truth of them by divers Testimonies of Scripture and reason then he could with any truth or Scripture oppose them and any man that shall impartially weigh things may see that there is nothing in the Treatise then the very Language and correspondency of Scripture in the Letter of it will easily speake and sweetly comply with in a spirituall sence So much I thought good to premise by way of Preface to the Discourse All that GOD aimes at in such things as are of this nature is but to make out his owne Honour and Glory before men and to gaine esteeme from them And all I aime at is that we might resolve all the Comforts Glory and future felicity into GOD againe and so to make GOD All and the Creature nothing and if in the Discourse I shall detract or prevaricate from either of the Ends I am much mistaken and shall willingly confesse with that Prophet O Lord thou hast deceived me and I was deceived And so I leave the Discourse and thee together and if you happyly agree it is all the fruire of my labour that I expect to Reape If not I shall willingly waite an opportunity to make you both Friends As I am to every man J. B. THE Light and dark sides OF GOD. Concerning God O God what shall I say thou art when thou canst not be named what shall I speak of thee when in speaking of thee I speak nothing but contradiction For if I say I see thee it is nothing but thy seeing of thy selfe for there is nothing in me capable of seeing thee but thy self If I say I know thee that is no other but the know 〈…〉 thy self for I am rather known of thee then know thee If I say I love thee it is nothing so for there is nothing in me can love thee but thy self and therefore thou dost but love thy self My seeking of thee is no other but thy seeking of thy selfe My delighting enjoying thee is no other but thy delighting in thy selfe and enjoying of thy selfe after a most unconceivable manner If I say I prayse thee blesse or magnifie thee it is no other but thy praysing blessing and magnifying of thy self I say thou art infinite but what that is I cannot tell because I am finite And therefore I am led to believe that whatsoever thy Scripture or any man else speaks of thee it is but thy meer condescention to speak to us in the language of men and so we speak of thee to one another For this I know that whatsoever the Scripture or any man else speakes what thou art I know thou art not that because no man can say what thou art And therefore when the Scripture saith thou art a spirit It is because a spirit is the highest thing or tearme that men can give or apprehend For thou art beyond any expression and therefore thou art pleased to cloathe thy self with such Titles and Expressions of spirit love mercy power strength or whatsoever is amiable or high in esteeme among men to honour thy self and beget an high esteeme and lawfull respect of thy self from men And therefore whatsoever I speak or write of thee it is from thy writing and speaking in me for I really see that thou dost not speek to men but in men because there is nothing in man capable of thy speaking or hearing but thy self onely this man declares outwardly what he hath heard and seen inwardly and yet that outward Declaration is of God also for thou being the life and substance of all Creatures they speak and move yea live in thee and whatever any Creature is it is that as it is in thee And therefore thou art pleased to give thy self that Title I Am. This therefore I can say of thee That thou onely art and there is none beside thee But what thou art I cannot tell Onely this I see that there is nothing hath a Being but thy Being is in it and it is thy Being in it that gives it a Being and so I am ready to say with thy Servant Lord whither shall I go from thy presence for it is thy presence and Being that is the subsistance and Being of all Creatures and things and fills Heaven and Earth and all other places And therefore I cannot as I have carnally conceived and as men generally do that God hath his personall being and presence in one place more then another or that he hath a simple pure glorious and intire being circumscribed or confined in a place above the Starres and Firmament which the men of the World call Heaven And that all Creatures here below are the products of that Being and had their Being of him and yet distinct from him But the spirit in me speakes otherwise and saith I must not ascend up to Heaven to fetch Christ thence nor descend into the depth to fetch him from thence for the Word is even in you which Word is God and God is the Word Nay I see that God is in all Creatures Man and Beast Fish and Fowle and every green thing from the highest Cedar to the Ivey on the wall and that God is the life and being of them all and that God doth really dwell and if you will personally if he may admit so low an expression in them all and hath his Being no where else out of the Creatures Further I see that all the Beings in the World are but that our Being and so he may well be said to be every where as he is and so I cannot exclude him from Man or Beast or any other Creature Every Creature and thing having that Being living in it and there is no difference betwixt Man and Beast but as Man carries a more lively Image of the divine Being then any other Creature For I see the Power Wisdom and Glory of God in one as well as another onely in that Creature called Man God appeares more gloriously in then the rest And truly I find by experience the grand reason why I have and many others do now use set times of prayer and run to formall duties and other outward and low services of God the reason hath been and is because men look upon a God as being without them and remote from them at a great distance as if he were locally in Heaven and sitting there onely and would not let down any blessing or good things but by such and such a way and meanes But Lord how carnall was I thus to fancie thee Nay I am confident that there is never a man under the Sun that lookes upon God in such a forme but must be a grosse Idolator and fancie some corporall shape of him though they may call it spiritual Did men see that that God was in