or I do not understand it or What do you mean by this or that passage T is strange totally condemned but not examined in any parts of it I may say in my case as Job chap. 31. v. 35 36 37. That mine adversary had written a Book surely I would take it upon my shoulder and bind it as a crown to me I would declare to him the number of my steps c. Had his reproofs been heavy true or false I would have taken them upon my shoulder and born either my own or his infirmities I have done it and by the same grace of God I can do it again Or had his book been more true righteous or mercifull then mine I can boldly say I should have put it upon my head openly worn his understanding professed it and gloried in it as a crown I know I have in me that authority over my self and have been so conversant in self-judging and retracting what I have seen to be short and also such a love to truth that it would be a glory and crown to me to meet with a light that could convince mine of darkness yea I have this experience of my self I can prefer another before me and give honour time and place to my adversaries even when I know they are the weaker But I may and do think that men are not able to deal with the reason of the Book and therefore it is left to my self to Animadvert upon it and possibly I may deal as severely with it as another The first thing that I blame the book for is its untimeliness it came too late I have in my heart a love to manknid to all English men and to the opposite parties in the Nation my place and work is to heal unite and reconcile and so to prevent ruine and destruction if I might be heard none should execute it nor any suffer it Many things did offer themselves in my mind that did tend to a universal peace and a composing all differences to the great advantage of the whole and of every part They have been long conceived in my mind and did offer themselves to birth at the beginning of this great change but I delaid so long till another spirit had stepped in and engaged the minds of men both in doing and suffering so that what was proposed towards mother course could not be heard by either and for this I suffered a very sharp rebuke from the Lord before the Book came forth t was like that to Moses Exod. 4.24 God met him and sought to kill him A more dangerous assault I have not received a long time nor a deâ—per wound I have still a frequent sense of it which keeps me in an awe of God My evil was suppressing a that light of love and peace which did arise in my mind from the divine nature This we must know and I declare it from a living sense That God is in his nature most gracious tender and patient yet he knows how to take vengeance on all iniquity even in his dearest children Where there is the greatest love there is the greatest authority and majesty yea the greatest jealousie and severity I find it so in his constant dealings with me The supreme Law of God is himself Love and with it peace salvation forgiveness good-will to man The very nature and Law of this love is to do good and communicate none receives it for himself only but to give forth to others of all things it must not be confined nor imprisoned being in its own nature infinitely large You have freely received freely give If this be the highest Law it doth punish accordingly being offended or transgressed against it requires the sorest punishment which is to take away that love They that have felt love must needs have the sharpest sense of the want of it and its nature being large and communicating that evil servant that hides and buries this talent of love and peace and not communicate it it shall be taken from him This was my danger All men live under a Law the Law of love is the exactest and severest where it is in life and power or the Law of the spirit of life which is in Jesus it is there the quickest and sharpest and works most fully and strongly where it is engraven and written upon the heart and put in the inward parts Every stroke of a Law of eternal life in the most inward parts must needs be terrible threatning eternal death I write this not only that you may know that I live under a Law and exact discipline but that all may learn to fear the Lord and his goodness For know assuredly that God will be known and feared of all and that in great mercy and severity For his love and grace where it is in its truth and power will not be abused and turned into looseness and wantonness you may abuse and corrupt lesser favour but it will rise and be revenged and at last have that absoluteness in it that it will rule and give Law to us else it cannot save us My suppressing the movings of general and healing love was thus it often rose up in my mind and required to be written and published I did attempt and essay to do it but what I did one day I disliked the second or third day either from the weakness of my mind or from a growing spring of light or both but finding larger and deeper discoveries I refused and rejected the former and so in hope of doing better more strongly more certainly and completely I delayed to do what was present till the season was past There is in this a great evil for which I received a great rebuke and yet am I not wholly delivered from the snare for the further enlargement of my mind and the instruction of others I will examine the particulars of it In not giving forth truth light and love as it arises naturally in our minds but deferring till it be more accomplished and compleat or till we can give it a finer dress which may render it the more acceptable to others that so the fruit may be more certain and our selves more honoured and justified In this there is a great transgression against the Law of love and life First it is a fin against that truth or light an undervaluing of it as if it were not worthy to be seen and looked upon by men in its own natural form wherein there is the greatest beauty it is sufficiently if not most lovely in it self and in its own naked and native goodness All light hath a natural Majestie in it and is best when purest and unmixed it commands by its own brightness but above all the light of love is absolute and perfect It hath in it a sufficiency of glory to take away the spots and defects of other things and therefore it self needs no accomplishments All additions to light and love do darken and ecclipse them both for they give
Animadversions Upon a BOOK Entituled Inquisition for the Blood of our late SOVERAIGN c. AND Upon the offence taken at it Wherein in order to Peace The Ground Reason and End of our Wars are discovered The Old Cause stated and determined The late Insurrection Animadverted And a way of Peace propounded By William Sedgwicke LONDON Printed for the Author and are to be sold in St. Pauls Church-yard Fleetstreet and Westminster-Hall 1661. AN EPISTLE To them that are offended at the Inquisition and to all that now suffer for their opposing the present Government YOur offence and anger begot this Treatise And therefore it is yours intended for you Not only to remove the offence but to instruct you into a way of peace and love Your anger was the Father of it but love conceived it and is its Mother It being begotten of anger and love you may well expect both natures in it And must receive them both together for they cannot be separated Severity and kindness are one in their Original and End They meet in the present Providence of God upon you They are bound up together in this little volume If your minds be as large as it or in any measure suitable to your present condition you will easily comprehend and digest both If you cannot agree with some sharpness you will neither agree with your selves nor with God For you have been and are so to others and God is now so to you I write both against and for all Against and for my self Against and for you And against and for your adversaries Because there is some good and evil in all My quarrel is only at malice which makes all the quarrels in the earth And at that because it destroyes If I meet with any in that way of enmity and destruction I do not forbear them You will I hope find in the reading of it that the root and spring of it is love the design of it in all the parts of it is to unite divided Parties and the conclusion is peace I would gladly that you should have the honour of being the first movers in and seekers of peace Your Profession of the Gospel and Kingdom of peace should incline you to it You have proved war and it at last fails you Your present sufferings press you to meekness and patience It is to me evident and in this Book I think demonstrated that those good things you expected by war you can obtain and inherit only by love and peace and in the good spirit of Jesus And therefore I have endeavoured to search the roots of your state and standing in enmity as deeply as I can that they being slain you may be free to go forth from your present captivity into largeness and so into peace and deliverance There are two things which I suspect may deny you the benefit of what I have written First I doubt the things here written may not at least not in all parts be fully and clearly understood Because my mind having long travelled in the pursuit of the reason and principles of things lies at some distance from mens ordinary apprehensions of things and therefore may not be so readily conceived I am sensible also that by reason of my long retirement there is a cloud upon my spirit that I cannot yet come forth with that evidence that I would and I believe shall I know likewise that mens understandings live much abroad in outward things and are little conversant with the inward reason and spirit of things And that at this time your minds are like troubled waters disturbed and not clear To remedy these defects both in your selves and me let me prevail with you to read this small Treatise with a little more then ordinary diligence and consideration I am sensible of the obscurity of the former Book which made it so liable to mistakes And have endeavoured all plainness here even to coursness and have taken liberty rather to write the same things again then to be too short Yet I doubt some parts of it may be vail'd to thee If thou meet with any places that are so Possibly the greatest treasure of truth may lie hid there True wisdom yet lies deep and is hardly found hardly expressed and hardly understood If thou wilt dig for her by a little study she will reward thy pains If therefore there be a curtain drawn before any part do but rouse up thy reason and press in upon it you may have admittance by a little consideration and labour My second doubt is lest you meeting with something that may cross your opinion of your selves and way you should turn away from the justice and truth of reproof But consider if you will hear nothing against you you can never come to know your faults If you will receive nothing but what agrees with your present apprehensions you must resolve never to be wiser If thou meetest with a strange different or opposite notion to thine own consider it is either true or false If it be true then it is a dangerous thing for thy soul to refuse a truth and embrace a lie For no man can be happy but in truth If it be false do but throughly examine it and thou wilt find the falshood of it and then it will be a great confirmation and enlargement to truth in thy mindâ— Therefore turn not from it nor reject it but rather search it and subdue it For no lie can long stand out against a true mind If an errour have gotten some shew of reason or truth to cover it if it be by a just mind searched and tried that reason and truth will come over to that just mind and leave the lie naked and destitute such conquests are very much to the advantage of truth The experience I have of this thing makes me love the exercise of opposition and to delight to read above all things those that are contrary to my judgement For I constantly find that things said and done against the truth do as our Lord promised his Disciples It shall turn unto you for a testimony I know and feel that sore travel is upon you pangs have taken hold of you It is that you may be born again into a new state and life more holy large merciful and heavenly then that wherein you have lived and acted It is that I labour with you for in this Treatise If you could once come to understand this design of God in his present afflicting of you That it is not to upbraid much less to destroy the Party or your persons for your or others personal sins no he pitties and forgives But it is that carnal and corrupt state of war enmity and destroying that is accursed of God If you could but discern this and turn away from that fleshly corrupted and now perished state you would quickly find ease rest and safety for your souls and escape much of the guilt and curse that yet sorely afflicts you It is
spirit in obedience to his Father and in all his work knew no sin yet he himself was made sin His Father by a superiour Law judged him as the sinner and acquitted pardoned and justified them This is Christs way first reprove severely as a legal Minister purely and holily and finding that short or weak he layes down his life for them he had condemned And when he had administred the Law in its highest purity he then nailed it to the Cross as a weak thing that could not save and died under it to bring in a better Law of peace and forgiveness The fourth and last is the best the reproofs of the Spirit which Christ prefers above his own John 16.7 8 c. It is expedient that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgement Christ reproved of sin from righteousness The spirit reproved of sin and righteousness Christ reproved of sin in the flesh in weakness as under it and the Law and so grieved at it The Spirit reproved of sin and of righteousness in glory and power because saith Christ I go to my Father where he was glorified Being now exalted not only over their sins but by the worst of their sins by their crucifying of him The Son of man was lifted up His love and life overcame both Law Sin Death and the Devil having taken away their sins his Spirit could now manifest to them this one only sin unbelief That there was in him love peace pardon and salvation for them and their worst sins hatred of him that he had born them himself and was acquitted of them and so they were all done away and this sin only remained that they believed not this blessed and mighty grace that could overcome all that evil and bring forth glory to himself and good to them out of their sins and his death And this the Spirit did not only declare but convince so strongly that they could not resist it For his own descending upon them was an undeniable proof of it He convinces of righteousness by shewing that they had a righteousness as well as sin and that as their sins were Christs so his righteousness was theirs that their righteousness was with the Father in a heavenly invisible state because I go to the Father That this is true his own coming as Gods gift is a sufficient proof And therefore it is conviction with judgement or of Sin Righteousness and Judgement For except both the evil and the good be produced both Sin and Righteousness in the light and power of the Spirit there may be wrath administred but not Judgement It is said of Judgement because the Prince of this world is Judged And that is true Judgement that convinces the creature of Sin and of Righteousness and by the Spirit releases him and judges the wicked one the enemy that is the principal the author and worker of all this mischief This Judgement doth right to man to Christ and to God to man it humbles and abases him and brings him to God where his righteousness is It doth right to Christ and the sufficiency of his love life death and resurrection to save the world And it exalts God his love mercy fulness and justice that he hath the righteousness of the whole world with him and that he hath accepted Christ to it as Lord and Prince of the whole world as head of man and hath given him power and spirit to reveal and dispence that righteousness freely to whom he will Now it much concerns you and me and all men that are busie in reproving others to examine our selves by these things what kind of reproofs we do administer If you will admit your work to be tried which you now cannot avoid upon a little humble and sober consideration you will find that in the administration of condemnation upon the Magistracy and Ministry of Church and Kingdom persons and things officers and offices you are very much short of the second of these which I call a Legal or Angelical reproof and punishment for sin For true legal lawful or angelical justice is administred First upon men as Gods creatures made in his image and so his children though drawn away by Satan into the worst evils It is secondly not to ruine or destroy but to reform Thirdly it is by a just holy stable Law and not from mens uncertain and broken imaginations Fourthly it is from a just holy and godly life and nature If these things be true as they are then consider What spirit have you acted in Is it not mercy and justice to you and all men that this should be known That you dealt with them not as men but as brats of Antichrist And sought not to reform either persons or things but to destroy root branch abjure and curse for ever And that by no steddy known Law of God or man such you never could own or profess but by uncertain opinions and imaginations which you never were nor could be true to or agree in either for Church or Common-wealth yea generally ye acted besides all rule Law and authority only by that you call necessity self preservation and interest And this you did not from a pure nature as is too grosly manifest but from a mixture at least of pride envy malice covetousness and self-seeking seen now by your selves and all men If you fall so short of the second I know you will not presume once to think of the third kind which Christ our Lord administred in the flesh first to discover sin and then to bear the curse and punishment of it himself This was â—nce an example and the Saints of old were called to practise the same thing read 1 Pet. 2.19 20 c. and chap. 3.17 18. But alas you are not yet instructed in the doctrine of such a thing but are taught the contrary that this is only for Christ to do and not for men But you are sheep gone astray and led away by false spirits and for the present have lost the Sheeps nature and acted as Woolves When you return unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls chap. 2. v. 25. he will teach you another and more excellent way And therefore as you are short of the second so you are opposite to the third in the very form of your spirits For Christ the holy one dies for the ungodly your holiness serves only to punish and destroy the ungodly his holiness to your practice must needs seem either unrighteous or foolish and impolitick to suffer the just for the unjust and only for well-doing and to commit his cause to God Why did ne not justifie himself and condemn others Had he power in his hands Yes he could command legions and that of Angels Why then did he not cut off the wicked out of
the land and plant himself and followers in it because he came not to destroy but to save mens lives Because he was Lord and owner 〈◊〉 the world and not a thief therefore he would not destroy it but suffered for it he had the life of the world in him and therefore shed his blood for them Because he would not gain it to himself but by death bring it to God because he knew he had an eternal life and could lay down his present life in the flesh But they had only a fleshly and sinful life and could not die therefore he chose to die for them In fine he died for sinners because he loved man though faln sinful and enemies to him and because he would be like his Father he chose by death to go to God that is be and do as God is and doth suffer for the ungodly Certainly if God loves you as I believe he doth he will bring you to more acquaintance with himself and son and shew you what it is that makes you such strangers or enemies to the Cross of Christ As you are short of the second and opposite to the third so totally ignorant of the fourth Indeed where is among us that Messenger that Interpreter that one of a thousand to shew to man his uprightness Job 33.23 26. That will pray unto God and he will be favourable unto him and render unto man his righteousness This Messenger sent from God this Adâ—â—cate and Interpreter is the holy Spirit who knows how to make crooked things straight unsound things whole and to plead out an uprightness in man to which God the Father of this uprightness will be favourable and render his righteousness for all our righteousness is with him But alas we are either wholly ignorant of this or do but stammer it out know not how to interpret it plainly You believe you have an uprightness and I believe you have a righteousness with God which he will render to you in his season But when you come to know the righteousness that is with the Father you will see Kings and Bishops have a Father also in heaven and that Christ with God is both King and Bishop and the King of Kings and Bishop of Bishops nay possibly you may come to know and see their righteousness before your own and be glad of it and willing to have your part and share with them but you never yet were in heaven nor have you seen it opened to you but you measure things by an earthly and outward rule You may easily make a conclusion if you will You are short of the second opposite to the third and ignorant of the fourth kind of reproof then sure you act much in the first which is the worsâ— Turn back and look what it is If I declare this as a Law to you I am very unjust if I do not submit to it my self Therefore know this that I do acknowledge that reproof only to be spiritual and from heaven which convinces of sin righteousness and judgement and therefore if I do write either contrary to it or short of it I justly suffer condemnation for it and am willingly subject to it yea pleased and satisfied that nothing shall stand in the earth neither in my self nor any others but what is measured by this righteous mercifull and perfect standard knowing the equity authority and majesty of it and subjecting my own life to it I may justly require that all men and Angels should submit to it as the only rule of all censures and administrations of justice and so I do But observe and learn this also that as I would make the highest the rule of my practice as I ought if I be spiritual and as is due to it being the heavenly pattern and therefore admit of the second and third only in order to this yet would I submit to the lowest I would administer only for God in his spirit but bear that reproof which comes from the Devil with patience as comeing through Satan fâ—â—m God so David entertained Shimei his bitter curses so far as I am willing or able to do the one I am equally willing and able to bear the other But plainly the question now is Have I so done Formerly when this act of taking away the life of the King was committing which is since punished I did reprove the Army then of sin in one book and of righteousness in another but they did refuse both and neither repent of the sin nor rceive the righteousness And therefore sure it was not conviction or not in judgement T is true and because I administred it not in power nor in judgement but in weakness I have first suffered that judgement my self in my own spirit but yet there was that truth in both which God hath since justified and they fulfilled For this last book the reproofs of it are I know so clear and convincing that no man doth or can deny or resist them I never heard any question the truth of one syllable of them none rise s up to plead a word no not of excuse for the reproved As to reason and righteousness mens mouths are stopped and opened only in wrathfull and angry reviling and fretting against the hand that smites which is a proof of the truth and weight of them And so I accept your passions against mâ— as a witness that you have life in you and a sense of your reproof The sore is launced and the corruption comes forth And know this that as there is reproof of sin so there is of righteousness more then you are able to plead for your selves Indeed if a reproof be just and righteous the righteousness of God is in it and that only is the righteousness of the creature After your anguish is over search for it there it is you will find that there which you will be glad to make use of to cover your selves if the weather proves cold and sharp as it is likely to be That which makes you sensible of the reproof of sin only in the book and not of righteousness is this It fell upon you in the very nick of time when you were under judgement and condemnation from the Magistrate which is I confess a very bitter cup for men to fall of a sudden from the highest of rule and reigning to shame and punishment you were so drunk and drowned with this wine of wrath and so full of anguish that you had no sense of any thing but wrath Men drunk with passion while the fit lasts are not capable of the love or reason of friends but thrust them away as enemies which renews my sense of my first and grâ—â—â— error in delaying till you were uncapable of the reason of it by reason of sore and grevious bondage During the extremity you could hear but one thing and that only which was against you so you thought that all were your enemies that did not say as you said and that every
heaven c. This was the Law of his whole Life and Death He that will be my Disciple must deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me Alas alas how can you look into this glass and not blush to see the deformities of your whole work how directly contrary yours is to this Instead of blessing you have cursed What he blessed you reject the meek the mourners the merciful the peace-makers the persecuted you begun this war because you would not endure persecution Instead of not resisting evil you have inflicted evil and would not be resisted in it Instead of loving enemies you have hated and destroyed them Instead of blessing them you curse as bitterly as you can Instead of bearing persecution you persecute Instead of denying self you sight for self Instead of taking up the Cross you flie to force to avoid it and load others with it make others bear it So hath the blessed God set things that they that are not with him are against him And they who refuse to bear the Cross must become Crucifiers of others All men that will not endure persecution they will persecute they that cannot or will not be killed will kill So have you done and therefore been enemies to the Cross of Christ and so enemies to Christ himself for he is crucified in all crucifying And they that hate the flesh of the whore and burn her with fire they make war with the Lamb also Rev. 16.14 So have you made war with the Lamb with his doctrine nature life and death 2. Christ our Lord humbled himself and became a servant to others you have exalted your selves as far as you could into all kinds of places of honour He became poor that he might make others rich you have made others poor that you may be rich He suffered the errors and contradictions of sinners but sinners those that you have judged sinners have suffered your contradictions in your several Oathes and Impositions He bore the infirmities and diseases of the whole Nation the whole Nation have born your infirmities and diseases your blindness haltings and staggerings He bore the sins and curse of the people The poor people have born yours both sin and curse He died that others might live You kill others that you may live your selves He suffered the just for the unjust but others have suffered from you because they resisted your unjust power and will I believe you have been misled by an evil spirit and therefore I pitty you Alas you have walked in darkness and not known whether you have gone You did not think your way and work had been so contrary to the way of Christ you found it weak and short but now you will see that it is in the whole from the rise of it to the end of it contrary to the nature and spirit of the Lamb and to his Law and Doctrine 3. Christ in the Gospel brought forth a new Creation a new and Spiritual Kingdom a new Law new Ordinances new Ministers new Worship And this not in opposition to nor to the destruction or disturbance of any authority either of the Jews or Gentiles but he taught and practised obedience to both But you have only disturbed and destroyed what you could of the Government of the Nation but have brought forth no better no new Kingdom or new Law for the people and what forms of worship you have made for your selves and several Parties are but some broken pieces of the letter of the old Apostolical frame set up in another spirit Let us compare your work and way with the Spirit and his holy and pure Ministrie He came from Heaven himself cloathed with an outward and visible appearance in great Majestie and Power openly manifesting himself to all Nations in mighty signs and wonders that were his own and not anothers He did truly glorifie Christ and set him up above his enemies making them know that Jesus was the Son of God and that the Kingdom of God was with men And this to the face and in the consciences of all the powers of the earth He formed and built a Church upon the rock from the heavenly pattern He came from heaven and carried the Saints into heaven and made them sit down together with Christ in the heavenly He led them into the holiest and brought them to Mount Zion indeed the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly c. Have you had the substance and truth of any of these things with you You have been able to talk of them to notion fancy or prophesie something of them which others could not But had you had this heavenly glory you needed not your earthly Armies nor worldly Polities nor the help of profane and loose people and practices to save you The Spirit had his own manifestation his union his own tongues interpretation of tongues his own signs and miracles his own power and glory pure holy and clear his own anointing was sufficient to lead into all truth But instead of manifesting you have by your wayes extreamly darkened others your selves and the name of Christ and Religion which you professed Instead of tongues and interpretation to others you were in such confusion that you could not your selves understand one another you pretended to signal mercies and successes but they are not spiritual but such as are common to others so is victory in battle Instead of being led into all truth alas you were led into all kinds of contradictions and into many erroneous wayes which proved to be lyes and delusions to you And therefore you must not any longer boast of the Spirit of God You cannot shew that he is descended upon you or that he hath led you as he did the Apostles into a heavenly state You are still in the world in the gross uncleanness of the world in the wrath malice destruction pride covetousness deceit of the world You are and have been under the Ministrie or Judgement of the Spirit In his giving you up to corruption that you may be manifest to be but men and not born from on high In blowing upon and infatuating your Counsels In scattering and dividing your spirits In rejecting your work and way as not his own as abominable to his purity goodness truth and righteousness In judging of you in the sight of all the world for abusing his name and in kindling a sire upon all your riches honours and works a fire of jealousie that burns like an Oven which will purifie you And therefore you are in this day nearer to the Spirit of God then you were from the first day you engaged Consider now what ground you stand upon in your present opposition to this Power and Providence You cannot stand up with Moses and Aaron in their Office for you have not led us out of Egypt into Canaan but have been intangled and fettered in Egyptian darkness Nor can
Religion is not according to Scripture nor is any form of Religion now in the Nation All build something of their own and therefore they differ None are exactly according to the pattern of the Apostles neither in form nor power As all are sharers in the evil so in the good also You are not Angels of light nor they Devils you are all men Englishmen weak and sinful men You have personal gifts but an ill state They have personal defects they have a better state an outward at least They are upon the foundation of Law whether spiritually or no is the question It is not with you it may he found among them You have suffered they have suffered But they are not better by sufferings It is well this is an objection for by this there appears an expectation that they should mend Nor are you better by mercies And mercies are more Gospel and effectual means of Grace then judgements Israel was punished and was worse by it and yet not utterly rejected You suffered for conscience so did they But their sufferings are not for a pure conscidence neither are yours purely for conscience Not only for well-doing there is a mixture in both yours and theirs There is great reason why you should come to know one another for one Party succeeds another and is content to let the other be their rule and pattern You learned of your enemies lordlinses gentility wayes and forms of state of greatness they come after you and learn your wayes of finding plots disturbing meetings discountenancing disgracing imprisoning Adversaries They are and do now where you were and as you did not long since They ride upon you as you rode upon them They crush you as you crushed them You afflicted and vexed them they do the same things to you Must not the word of Christ be fulfilled Mat. 7. 1 2. Judge not that you be not judged For with what judgement you judge you shall be judged And with what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again This I declared to you when you began this judging and oppressing way that it would return upon you you would not bear then will you understand now Then know this and let all men learn by it First you began this hardness in them against your selves You reap what you sowed spoyling imprisonment hatred death Secondly God acts and rules in all mens spirits in these things and that justly and therefore be not wrathful against them but submit to God in it The Lord hath said Curse Thirdly And may we not say as Rom. 11.28 They are enemies for your sakes but as touching the election they are beloved for the Fathers sake It is for your sakes that they are acted thus against you to make you sensible of the work you have done What a goodly thing it is to ride upon men and to watch over them for evil When you come to a right sense and repentance of that work and spirit you yet glory in then will that spirit cease to afflict you because it is for your sakes For God delighteth not in afflicting If he doth send evil it is for good As it is the just fruit of your own doings so certainly will repentance remove it Be not therefore angry at the hand but feel the staff of Gods indignation in their hand And when you come to mourn over your selves that you have been so acted your will pitty them that succeed you in that kind of employment For it must be found on all sides to be but a sad service to be a tormentor of others And when you come to pitty them that they should be made enemies for your sakes that they should be made a rod because you want chastening and be that rod to you that you were to them You will then see that both you and they are beloved for the Fathers sake neither for your own sakes And may also see that they have a good root and will bring forth better fruit in its season When we are fit to partake of it SECT XII HAtred so blinds men that they know not themselves nor their enemies It makes men worse then otherwayes they would be and yet to think better of themselves then ever they were It makes men think their enemies worse then they are and it makes those enemies worse then they would be And therefore the third thing follows they that hate their Brethren darkness hath blinded their eyes and they know not whither they go Enmity is of the Devil and he is in darkness God hath with-held light from him he hath neither the light of Christ nor of Angels no nor of men All his wayes and all the wayes of men that are acted in his spirit are most irrational and absurd things All men so far as they are led by malice are hurried and driven by the wrath of God blowing up their passions unto unreasonable things without any judgement or understanding Let us look back upon our wars Did any of us know when we begun whither we should go or did we once dream or imagine the things we have since done and the strange paths we have trodden Have we not been driven beyond all our purposes Declarations and Vows into crooked and contrary wayes which our Reason and Religion did at first condemn and will again when we recover either the one or the other Was there ever such a heap of inconsistencies and independencies such a mass of confusion in Church and state And if we were blinded then we are so still if we persist For we are not better but worse now then at first we have multiplied notions and opinions but have decayed both in innocency and love We were then more simple more moderate and less guilty and bloody And are now more enraged more hardened and more polluted Therefore the further we go in this way the worse we are and the deeper shall we plunge our selves in misery The whole Party that stand out in opposition to the present Governors and Government of the Nation are divided in all things and in the kind or degree at least of their enmity Some are more gross and carnal and thirst for war and blood but many are taken off in part from hopes of any good by war but yet their spirits are still in enmity preaching against praying against or cursing reviling and condemning them as enemies to God and his people and denouncing and expecting judgements from heaven against them Both these are of the same nature are from the same root or fountain and will If there be occasion fall into the same Channel Indeed all strife and envy though it be but in the heart yet it is in the judgement of the holy Apostle James chap. 3.15 earthly sensual and devilish And therefore it doth darken pollute and defile the soul And by how much more inward or seeming spiritual it is it is by so much the more dangerous because more devilish And being so no man
shall only charge the principle that is our seeking self liberty or liberty for our selves Whatever good is in the thing it doth and will miscarry so long as it is upon this bottom self Such is the large and good nature of the God and Father of all that he will blast and wither every private and particular spirit It is contrary to him hath no root in him and therefore though he do sometimes feed it awhile and make use of it yet he will at last reject it and never suffer it to stand up with him in his Kingdom He may and doth admit it to work and act in some low remote and dark state But if he be true to his own Good nature or to the nature of his Son the Saviour of the world he must not admit it to raign with him nor will he Yea though it cloath it self with salvation either of our own of others souls which is a thing most agreeable to the mercy of God yet will he never save any in that spirit But resist and oppose that salvation and all the graces and gifts whereby men seek it till he kill that root of self For he hath given it as a Law to Christ and so by Christ to men he that will save his life shall lost it and he only that will lose his life shall save it It was the great lesson he taught his Son and the first that Christ teaches his Disciples Let him deny himself If Christ and his Disciples must deny so excellent and holy life and self that they may ascend unto the Father of all If that holy and blessed state must be abjured and renounced and so come to the curse What can you think of self-seeking of an out ward liberty and freedom from outward sufferings it is no wonder to see tins brought to shame and confusion God hath pursued this root of self-seeking even in spiritual things by many sore and severe tryals in my spirit By which I came to understand what an irreconcileable and desperate enemy it is to God and what deadly poyson there is in the nature of it and how dangerously it will corrupt the best things in men Where ever it is admitted it will and doth kill the life of Grace if God kill â—ot it And though at first it seem zealous and holy yet it will break out into gross self-seeking For he that prayes preaches believes studies and receives the promises of eternal life to himself or to a party which is but a large self will at last in all things mind himself and so will be cruel covetous ambitious and any thing that self suggests to him And this I find to be the root of all that narrowness that was in this Party and of that gross self-seeking that all men take notice of There is at the bottom of the whole business and at the root of all their Religion a spirit to seek their own salvation liberty exaltation and honour And being fixed and bound to this principle they could never enlarge themselves to the good of the whole nor were they ever capable of any larger principles nor can they be till this state be slain in them And though they shift from one thing to another they will find no rest till they subject this state to loss and thereby come to partake of the largeness of the love of God and Christ Who teaches us to seek not our own but the things of others not our own liberty or salvation but the liberty and salvation of others And therefore the Lord of all that he might discover judge and destroy this principle so contrary to his own love and life hath so ordered it That he that will not deny himself his life liberty and salvation for the good of others in conformity unto Christ and in obedience to his Gospel They will be found to be persecutors cruel destroyers of others lives and liberties and so be brought to shame and destruction They that will not suffer for and from others others must suffer from them And they that cannot give their life will take away others life It is and will be resolved into this that men must either live in the merciful and saving spirit of Christ or in the cruel spirit of the Devil And no shew or form of godliness nor pretence of right or religion can evade this judgement For strong is the Lord that thus judges It is therefore evident and God will make it good that there is not common salvation nor good will to man in any private spirit of any Party but in the Spirit of Christ the Saviour of the world And that this true publick spirit where ever it is it shews it self by this it will suffer for and from others and not make others suffer from it it will and doth give life and liberty and not take it away The first step into freedom is out of our selves and the beginning of all ingenuity is to be able to examine try and judge our selves If by experience and by what is here written you attain the least spark of true freedom and can but reflect upon your selves and remember the first rise of your work that it was to deliver your selves and that in the whole progress of it it was terminated and bounded in self either in a finer or a grosser way and could do nothing but prefer or exalt your selves and Party or them that would confirm and strengthen your selves by serving of you And that all the while you were busie in this work you could not but oppress others not only your enemies but the whole Nation And that none of you could ever produce any publick ease liberty or advantage to the people but on the contrary taxes and burdens If you have but so much ingenuity as to judge your selves state and spirit and justifie God and Christ we shall soon agree If you do so and come forth of that hole that pit of a narrow private Religion that self or party holiness and salvation which is really now a pit and snare whatever exaltation it hath had If you can now but look out of it and view things in the light of the universal goodness of God your reason will tell you That for you that are but a small part of the Nation it may be a tenth either for number or quality a tenth that is a more active vigilant more spirited part of the whole For you in times of trouble to get the sword into your hands and to overthrow the Government and Governors of the whole which the whole chuse and rest satisfied in and to seclude the nine parts of the representative of the whole and admit of none to rule but your own tithe To subdue the civil Government and exalt the sword To depose one natural chosen beloved and one in judgement and affection with the nine parts And to set up many in many various wayes and opinions all strange to the whole Nation if
boasting glorying and quarrelling and then where bread is they must bow for it and will and then the Bishop and Shepheard that can feed them will be honoured by them But if England be still a Church or there be a Church in England of old and late and all men professing faith in Christ are members and neither the worst nor best are dismembred but all continue one body though broken and under confusion Then as every particular member is apart so parties united by any bond of spirit perswasion or opinion must needs be a great part an integral part And if so there can be no peace nor building but of all these parties And it is easier for a workman to constitute a house of all then for another to make a shed or hovel of some parts But there will never be any harmony nor health in the body if every joint supply not its place It is love only can unite and heal and only an intire love or a love of the whole to the whole If any part be rejected there is want of love or love is not in that agreement that leaves out any part and if love be not there the agreement will not hold Love the more the divisions the wider and greater the distance the more able it is to unite and the more pleased to do it because it is infinite And the greater the variety is the more wisdom delights to shew its skill in ordering and composing of them into harmony and the more excellent will the musick be when composed It is not imaginable that any one Party can comprehend the whole nor can any one Party comprehend any other Party And therefore every person and Party will in their divided state think and conclude an union impossible But as it is impossible for any party or few parties to agree or to think how to agree so it is impossible but the whole must agree because she comprehends all the parts and they all do consist in her and she consists only by and in all Therefore as the reason of any or many parts be they eminent parts cannot unite the whole while they stand as parts divided from any of the whole So the reason of the whole cannot but comprehend and gather into it all the parts and consequently must unite all For all do already meet in that universall reason wherein and whereby both all the parts and the whole subsist This is the reason of the liberty of conscience that is in my mind I would that all may have liberty to come forth to come together and to agree and to agree first in this point of liberty For it is impossible that ever we should agree or consent by force No man will agree to be beaten If we give not liberty to men to profess enquire and bring forth their minds we deny them liberty to consent For there cannot be a free consent till there be all freedom to profess and to debate and of all means both of professing and trying all things What is restrained and imprisoned by jealousie and enmity is thereby shut up in division and denyed both the first step to and the right means of agreement And is thereby enforced to dwell in it self and to maintain its own private divided state being thrust out from all fellowship with the whole The admitting all to come abroad into open light and profession with liberty to try is the beginning of peace and agreement But as I would give this liberty of conscience so I expect and may justly challenge a liberty to deal with this conscience in the way of conscience For therefore would I that their consciences may come forth that they may be convinced and instructed Sure then you will not deny me liberty to reprove and rebuke and if I can to wound and afflict your consciences if they be guilty If they be not guilty I cannot hurt them if they be it must be known felt and discovered else they cannot be healed It is a freedom that God hath given me to reprove and reform I shall use it and I hope so use it as not to be denyed the exercise of it At this time I would examine this plea of liberty of conscience as it hath been urged all along in our late troubles I do very much suspect this title and claim of conscience to liberty or liberty for conscience as it hath been and still is promoted by many that there is some notable evil in it more then hath been yet discovered For First Where the whole is unsound the parts must needs be so also And therefore if there hath been deceit and hypocrisie in the whole state and spirit of this work this of liberty of conscience being a great part of the business must necessarily partake of the corruption of the whole Secondly I cannot derive it from any antient and honourable root The Jews while they were in their own land they needed not liberty for they were under a Law of necessity and duty I do not remember that ever they desired it when they were in captivity In Aegypt they would not sacrifice Lo shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Aegyptians before their eyes and will they not stone us Gen. 8.26 And in Babylon they said How shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land Psal 137.4 I am sure if you had been as sensible of your spiritual al captivity as they were of their outward you would not have made such haste to sacrifice and set up so many notes or songs When you feel the confusion that is in your spirits you will find you are still in Babylon and hang up your harps and mourn instead of singing I am most certain of this there hath been a whorish impudency in the great liberty taken to pray profess build Churches Ministries and Worship And for this spiritual whoredom is liberty pleaded as well as for conscience Neither did the Apostles or the Primitive Christians seek for liberty of conscience from the Princes of the world But having commission from Christ the supream Lord to preach the Gospel they executed it boldly and freely They were called both to preach and suffer and therefore did not seek liberty from the cross A true spiritual Ministry derives it self immediately from the person of Christ who is exalted far above all principalities and powers And being far above them they need not cannot rightly seek for a licence from them to obey the commands of a superiour Lord. If the powers of the world be only worldly and the life and religion of the Saints heavenly the heavenly is above the earthly and may justly bless preserve and instruct the earthly and the earthly is to submit to the spiritual and heavenly If the powers of the world are as they were then in the wicked one then it was not only in vain but a wicked thing for the servants of Christ to seek to his enemy the devil and his enemies wicked
against the truth Jam. 3.14 So long as you suffer to bring others to suffering and are willing to endure for a time that others might utterly be destroyed So long as you pursue your old design of destroying though it be by and through this deep counsel of your own suffering first Glory not as if it were the Gross of Christ You lye against the truth against the true and meek suffering of the Lamb of God which is not to destroy but to save mens lives Therefore neither your life nor death is like his neither your Religion Worship nor suffering The rebuke of our Lord to his Disciples is proper for you when they would have had fire from heaven to consume their enemies the Samaritans because they opposed them in their way it is said Luke 9.55 He turned and rebuked them and said Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of I am certain you know not what spirit it is that leads you in all this Therefore as I have been and am against your actings so I am against your sufferings not only because they are impure and not evangelical but because I pi ty both you that suffer and them that inflict them I know the nature of man and of Christ is sorely and grievously injured in both And therefore it concerns me and every good Christian to do what we can to deliver you and them from this turmoyl It is my desire and must be my endeavour SECT XVII I Had now concluded with a proposal for peace had not this late Insurrection drawn forth my mind to a consideration of it Which although it be a very monstrous and strange thing yet it doth so much agree to what I have written in this Treatise that I cannot but animadvert upon it and enquire into the nature and reason of it I have largely discoursed of this spirit of wrath and opposition And shewed the evil and danger of it That if it be admitted into the mind and into Religious exercises in deprecating cursing and condemning it will raign and not be confined but will break out into war and open hostility in pag. 162 163. these words are opened Out of the Serpents root comes forth a Cock trice and his fruit is a fiery flying Serpent The old Serpent the Devil is the root of all malice from him and his spawn comes forth this hissing Adder or Cockatrice cursing If this be hatched in Religion and fed with zeal and holy duties it will soon get wings and flame forth in attempts to war This is I think a natural and true description on of this fiery flying Serpent that flamed out and flew abroad in this late Insurrection It seems while I was writing against it the thing was hatching I was by a secret spring in my mind directed to write of that subject not only beyond my thoughts when I began to write but contrary to the disposition of my soul which did often turn away from the consideration of such black dark and hellish spirits and practises But though my mind be very averse from taking pleasure in raking in such filthy sores yet I could not resist the power and justice of that reason that led me into a discourse of them I see there is a secret intercourse betwixt reason and the causes or principles of things True understanding knows things as fully in their causes as sense doth in their effects There is nothing so deep or dark but it is subject to be seen and over-seen by the light of right reason True reason is the image of God and one with that supream wisdom that rules all things And therefore will be justified and fulfilled by him that is the head and Father of it This I write not in the subtilty of wit and Philosophical observation but in authority And do require of all men not only consideration of but subjection to the righteousness and truth of what is written I know I am alone in what I write and not only singular but something strange and different from all mens present notion of things I know also my person is mean and contemptible Yet there is that justice and truth of reason in what I write that I dare challenge in the sight of God and man that it should be considered What is truly reasonable or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is both humane and divine and therefore they that refuse it must first sin against their own mercy their own life For the word or reason of God is our life and tha◠by which all men Nations and Kingdoms subsist Therefore to depart from the rule and reason of our beings must necessarily be the confusion and destruction of that life and being And secondly to refuse the truth of reason is a sin against the most high who is Lord and Father of that reason And therefore if he fulfill his own image his word and reason in man then he must bow all states and powers to it Which he will certainly do in justice to his own mind and law and in mercy to men For nothing is better for man then that he should be ruled by the law of his own nature and by his reason enlightened from and in union with the divine and eternal mind I have some reason to urge this because in the Inquisition I proposed unto his Majesty and desired a tryal of mens opinions spirits and principles by spiritual persons and by the Law of God and reason As the only way of curing the distmpers of the Nation which lie in the spirits and judgements of men And are the roots that bring forth these ill fruits of rebellion But it seems the proposal I made was either unseasonable or otherwise so weak and obscure I would blame none but my self that it was not considered or if considered it was rejected by his Majesty As it was neglected by his Majesty so the other side did exceedingly scorn and revile it and me for writing of it Whatever weakness there be in the things there written for which it may justly suffer both neglect and contempt yet there is that truth and reason in it as will stand before God and must be acknowledged by men For what is reason and truth agrees with the rule and Law of the most high God and therefore must sway and rule all States and Kingdoms And what is truth and reason and so one with the eternal mind will be either more true or more evidently so to morrow then to day And consequently that which refuses it will be found weaker and worse by refusing of it I sensibly find that both Parties are farther from that great blessing of peace and happiness then they were before they refused it and the Nation more disturbed Let us enquire into the reason on both sides and then possibly another Proposition of peace may find better acceptance If reason be so weak as not to prevail it will be confirmed and strengthened by experience And so our losses will