matters promised in the Scriptures and drunk into your thoughts should cause you to adhere to your former opposition and so divert you from the plain path of peace and safety To answer you in this Know 1. The things that you expect both are and will be manifested and far more and greater then you imagine 2. But never to be obtained by enmity and wrath but by love peace and by the good Spirit of Christ 3. It is a false Prophet that holds forth greater and future things to restrain from an exercise of present and plain duties 4. I desire you to consider and remember that though these high strains have got up into your prayers and private discourses yet they never were of any power in your great business You will find that the strength of your cause as it was urged by the Parliament against the King and the Army against the Parliament lay in these low and common things of safety necessity and the interest of the honest Party and at the highest providence and success Consider now Whether the same principles do not now urge you to peace that carried you to war and more strongly and justly For safety and necessity it is both seen and felt that if you persist in an opposition to the present Government you will ruine your selves and families except a miracle appear for you You have no true ground nor faith for miracles if you have any you may sooner expect them in a Gospel way of peace reconciliation and perswasion then of war And for Providence it now directs you to agree with his Majesty For the great Providence of his restoration hath eaten up all your lesser Providences as Aarons rod eat up the Egyptian Magicians rod And all your success is now in the belly of this If then safety necessity interest and providence could then lead you to make war and the same things cannot now prevail with you to seek peace it will seem a dangerous and foul spirit To delight in war that is bloody and spoyling unclean and filthy and to decline the humble and meek way of reason and treaty is not Christian The second thing I doubt is your confidence in the multitude and earnestness of your prayers And to that I propound the words of our Lord which are of eternal authority Mat. 5.23 24. If thou bring thy gift to the Altar and there rememberest that thy Brother hath ought against thee Leave there thy gift before the Altar and go thy way first be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift The divine reason of it is this God is the Lord and Father of all men they are all his family if any one of his children or servants injure another and the injured person cry to him this cry comes up to him and is there put in as a bar or plea against that mans prayers till he make satisfaction For God is just and doth right to all men Now you know there is a cry gone up against you for the oppression of the Nation All Parties as well as your adversaries have something yea much against you And therefore mark what I say I speak it as a Priest unto God that do minister in his presence and as a Minister of the Word of Jesus till you can do these two things First forgive your enemies as heartily and truly as you desire God to forgive you And secondly ask forgiveness of them wherein they have ought against you Till these two things be done I put in a bar against all your prayers were they ten thousand times more then they are they shall not prevail Read but what follows ver 25 26. Agree with thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way Lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge and the judge deliver thee to the officer and thou be cast in prison Verily I say unto thee thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing Your adversary is your judge the more reason to agree with him You must either agree compound or stand it out If you stand out you must pay for all those years of trouble and vexation that you inflicted upon your enemies for all the poverty ruine and destruction you laid upon them and their families If you stand upon your righteousness all must be paid to the utmost farthing It is a great debt Except by forgiving and seeking forgiveness you agree troubles and disturbance will offend the Nation and then jealousies bonds and imprisonments will attend you Till satisfaction be made for former injuries to the last farthing If you desire peace and safety read this last Section diligently till you have made it your own If you desire either further satisfaction or my assistance I am ready to serve you Reader I Promised thee in the beginning of this Treatise a discovery of my life and state Thou hast some parts of it scattered here and there But the whole I must reserve to some further opportunity Because this hath swelled into a greater bigness then I did at first intend it And the matter of it is such that I judge it necessary to be first published FINIS
the intent of this Treatise to bring you off from that and to shew you a more excellent way Your former ministry is finished that state is perished you must have a new one Read diligently and you will find here is an entrance into that which will not fail I know the prejudices you have against me I know that there is weakness in what I write both may disadvantage my work I leave it to the Lord of all hearts and spirits The things I have written are I think just and it is just I should publish them The Law of love and truth in my mind led me to it and upheld me in it and therefore I am satisfied in my self And in the righteousness truth and faithfulness of God in whom I live and rest Yours W. S. The Contents SECT I. SHews the nature of the offences taken at the Inquisition and the Authors sense of them SECT II. Shews the justice due to them and the friendly way of dealing with them SECT III. Censures the Book and first for its unseasonableness with the cause of it and the Authors suffering for it SECT IV. Censures the multiplicity of things in the Inquisition and the sharpness of its reproofs Of several kinds of reproof SECT V. Opens the Allegories in the Inquisition and shews the thing intended in it A tryal of principles in order to peace SECT VI. Prosecutes the same thing of peace and shews the necessity and possibility of it And examines the ground upon which the opposition stands SECT VII Compares the Old Cause 1. With the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt 2. Out of Babylon 3. With the ministry of Christ and the Apostles SECT VIII Measures the same cause by the Propheticall Scriptures and compares it with Zion her self SECT IX Further examines the ground of the enmity and advances a standard of love SECT X. The original cause of the war it ceased SECT XI Hatred blinds the eyes else we may see that there is good in enemies with which we may agree There is good and evil in both Parties SECT XII Shews the root of enmity is the Devil How opposite it is to the Kingdom of Christ SECT XIII War and enmity are not for but against holiness SECT XIV Common liberty not to be in nor to be attained by war and opposition SECT XV. Liberty of Conscience animadverted Not to be obtained but by agreement with the Magistrate SECT XVI Animadverts the late sufferings and shews the nature and kind of them SECT XVII Considers the late Insurrection with respect to what hath been written and the use of it to both sides SECT XVIII Shews a rational and easie way for all opposite Parties to obtain a Treaty and by it an Agreement with his Majesty both for his security and their safety ANIMADVERSIONS Upon a Book entituled Inquisition for the Blood of our late Soveraign c. AND Upon the offence taken at it Sect. I. THat I did deny my name to go forth with that Book when it was first published was I think a foolish or weak niceness Possibly the want of that courage and confidence that was due both to my self and it may expose both to the greater contempt But I did resolve in my mind and promise that if ever it came to be questioned I would own it and either correct and amend it if it needed or else justifie and defend it if it deserved it What I promise is ordinarily required of me and if it be I am bound to perform it There is a justice due to things as well as to persons If to any thing then certainly to a mans own works which are his children and therefore he ought to Father them and either to call them home or maintain them abroad A mans Spirit Religion and Name are all tender things if I have any sense of any of them or of my self and what I have done I cannot but resent the grievous offence that is taken at that book and at me for writing of it The minds of many are exceedingly disturbed at it and the censures run as high against it and me as possibly they can It is judged the very Spirit of Antichrist and of the Devil the sin against the Holy-Ghost Apostacy Persecution Treachery Bloodiness and Cruelty And the condemnation is answerable the curse of horrour despair and self-destruction which are not only threatned and expected but reported to be already upon me These things are in their own nature weighty and they come thick upon me from all sects and sorts of people from friends and strangers and discharged at me from their very hearts with all the strength of their Religion with all their might in a bitter and angry Spirit sharp and fierce and in some with great seriousness and gravity yea in love to me And most of them solemnly in the name of God and for his cause as against an enemy to God to godliness and to his people This is the sense I have of them and I think the description is just and true These things being breathed forth from men friends Christians professing godliness and the Spirit of God besides the common rage that foames out Rogue Jesuite hang him c. They do requite and justly challenge from me that I should Animadvert and duly consider what these things are whence they come What they would have and what I am and have done to deserve them As these things drive me in to review both my self and book so they do peal and call me forth to shew in what Spirit and Light I live from what root this work came and upon what foundation that and my self stand so that I now count my self bound not only in honour and justice but in love freely to open and discover my self and my mind and spirit concerning my self my book and the great offence taken at it I confess I do feel that these censures are high and that men are hearty and serious in them and do lay them on with all their strength and with a sharp spirit angred and provoked And that they do sometimes sting and twinge a little and consequently stir some choler in me that I could be as heartily angry at others as others are at me But as yet I do not find that they go deep or abide long in me But on the contrary I have been well able to bear them yea to slight and neglect them as sick and sore passions which cannot live long and although they stumble at me and bruise me yet if I did but lie still I should quickly see them faln in their own dirt by their own darkness and weakness For that I find constantly to be the nature of Passion it is a blind thing that runs it self into ruin and needs no enemy to destroy it it is the Gunpowder of the mind while it is shot at another it doth crack stink and vanish As I must confess they do sometimes sting a little so I must
having written some part of it I offered it to the Press by the Book-seller that printed the Inquisition Upon consideration he told me that there was that rage kindled in mens minds against the other Book that his men durst not shew them in the shop and that nothing of mine would pass till that spirit was laid and therefore he durst not meddle with this to print it My mind being very weak and tender and apt to take check at such things this did not only put me to a stand but turned my mind quite about to hearken more attentively to this cry that did thus earnestly pursue me And to consider that sure this mouth that was thus opened against me did require something of me And that I could not fairly nor justly slight and neglect it any longer And that I could not proceed in my intended work till I had answered this plea against me SECT II. T IS a position in my mind that no persons or things that we converse with are absolutely evil but there is some good in every thing else it could not be and therefore nothing is to be reprobated or not till it be first sifted and tried By my own rule I am bound to think that though these angry speeches against me are my enemies yet sure there is some just reason in them such sounds at these are not without their significancy If so then I must not reject them because opposite and unpleasing but must admit them to the bar of my own reason and not only give them a fair hearing but all the advantage also that I can because the Court is my own mind where they are strangers and being weak distempered things I ought to humble my self to them though mine enemies and to descend from my own right to hear and satisfie them if I can or at least to do them justice For I consider though they be dark passions yet they are humane and every man is honourable and every affection in man though sick and distempered is of value besides they are zealous serious brethren friends Christians therefore I must query Have I not erred against them have I not done them wrong have I not detained something from them that is their due We have professed a Kingdom of Heaven within us if it be there indeed then we have in us a throne of judgement which must do right to all things that come before us In this Kingdom there is also sufficient to answer every plea and claim that is made to it or against it and therefore we need not fear to admit the greatest and strongest accusation to a full and fair hearing Where there is authority to judge and sufficiency to answer there is likewise wisdom to understand what there is in these clamours though they be of themselves very dark and confused things for the mind may taste and try all things throughly and every thing that comes into it must be opened and seen in that light that is in it because the mind is a supream light to which all things are subject that come before it Therefore setting my self to examine and consider these things I found first that although there was just reason in the book yet there was something that hindered men from the seeing of it and though there was love and good in it yet there was something also that denyed men the benefit of it and therefore t is righteous that it should be animadverted and endure a tryal And secondly I find that there is some thing in my self that is justly due both to my friends and brethren and to the Book it self that was not therein communicated which is my life and spirit the ground upon which I stand upon which I wrote and by which I am enabled to assert things so different from others As these high challenges of my spirit and peace do tell me that this is the thing wanting and now demanded of me so I am upon this review of things conscious to my self that I have not fully opened my self and my mind but have in a great measure concealed it as well as my name And therefore I must thus far justifie the plea against me That if a man bring forth a notion of things different from and contrary to the life of others they may justly refuse that notion if the Author do not bring forth his own life spirit and peace which only can maintain those notions and satisfie for that life that he would take away by those notions This is for you and therefore I hope you will well observe the justice of it I am content to condemn what I have done as guilty of this capital offence It may possibly stand as a Law to me and others hereafter That if any man write be it never so good reason and with good intention if he do not produce the head of the spring from whence it comes and his own heart soul and peace with it let it wither and be rejected truly I believe it will There is a further justice in the persons offended If any man utter his matters to his friends and conceal himself he deals injuriously with them in bringing forth the weaker and worse and hiding the better part which the royal Law of love will condemn as a great wrong for certainly if there be any thing worthy in a man t is his spiritual life and therefore I justifie your anger you do like friends and men not to take words notions and reason if there be a better thing in me your own life and peace being aimed at you may well challenge me to shew a better I have this relief against this charge that though I am guilty in not discovering the best yet the best is still with me and being my own as yet it will support and justifie me Neither can I complain justly of any injury done to me by these sharp censures for if any man will put on an appearance strange to his neighbours and withal cover his face t is no wonder if men beat him and the dogs bark at him if he be ill used he may thank himself and his covering There is this remedy also if hiding the life and face be the fault that enmity that is occasioned by it will rend that vayl and then the quarrel will be ended If I have a right sense of the offence that is against me it being at me and upon me it sure belongs to me to feel and understand it then I am called forth to give a judgement of my Book and to hold forth to the view of all the world my spirit and life from whence it came and to shew what righteousness and power is with me that can maintain me and others in the receiving and practising such things as I have writ I have been very inward and retired in my spirit a long time not without some motions to look out but I have suppressed them and till now declined all publick appearance
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
and set them at a greater distance one from another I do think he may have another view of them The matters contained in the book are very weighty concerning the great change and turn in the Nation by which the lives and liberties of thousands are in danger The things written and manner of writing them are not vulgar most people say they do not understand them They that have read it often say it hath in every new reading a new face When I review it my self I find more in it then I apprehended when I writ it I profess when I consider it I cannot think of mens slighting of it without an indignation I must deal freely with you when I hear of your unworthy and irrational scorn of it my soul doth upbraid and wonder at that shallowness and froward headiness that makes you so uncapable of the justice reason and mercy that is in it I do know and am able to write it upon mature deliberation and consultation That there is in it that love and righteousness that must and shall be considered and understood And that very fury that makes you impatient of the reason and rebuke of it will run you upon a foolish and desperate opposing the present Providence and Power and so bring you into misery And then you will repent of your too late considering as I have of my too late writing I could return scorn for scorn and auger for anger it is in me to do it you know you are liable to it and may know I am able to do it But such is my love to you that I cannot but earnestly desire you to mind and study the things I dare promise you you shall not lose your labour if that which is there written do not answer your time and pains do but complain of it to me and you shall have satisfaction It is but just you should and I have such opinion of my honesty and ability as to assure you if it doth not perform to you I will Another fault is found in the Book that it is too sharp and cutting in the reproofs of it It is a sensible complaint in some I have the more reason to Animadvert upon it because it is so If they be afflicted at it there is great reason it should afflict me also Of all repentings I find the easiest and sweetest is to repent of anger God hath made it easie and honourable by his own example who hath often repented of his just rebukes upon his people It is easie in it self for anger is no pleasant thing If it were not necessary no man could chuse it Indeed it is so mean a thing that few men enter into it in judgement Most men are thrust upon it without understanding I think I may say all It is so unruly and troublesom a guest that none but fools will entertain it Solomon sayes Eccles 7.9 Anger rests in the bosom of fools If it be just and good it is mean and poor but if it be malicious wicked and false then it is devilish Be it what it will I alwayes find it as yet an offence to my weak nature it alwayes wounds and stings me therefore I am inclined to be jealous of it and of my self for it If there be a sowr and severe spirit in it it may possibly arise from the first ill root deferring or delaying to give it forth in its season when t was tender the keeping it so long within made it more fierce But if the nails be too long we may pare them I will be better then scratching and clawing Angry and vehement reproofs do abound in this Age You reprove and condemn your adversaries to utter destruction and they condemn you I have rebuked you and you rebuke me as a man irrecoverably lost The Nation is so full of judgement that men can administer little else wrath is so strong that most men are quite drunk with it love and peace is so weak that they that incline to it find great difficulty in exercising any of it It may be for the good of all to understand the nature and kinds of rebuke There are four sorts of it subject to my observation The first and worst is devilish A malicious searching into and aggravating the sins of them we hate and accusing of them to make them odious that we may appear just or a finding but iniquity in them that are opposite to us that we may destroy them There is a great deal of this it is meet you and I should consider how far we have been in this spirit it is a very gross and common evil yet no discerned because them that we prosecute with such enmity we first paint them in our fancies as devils enemies to God and then think we do well to destroy them believing they are appointed to it But I hope this darkness will not last long For no parties now stand in opposition one to another at so great a distance as the children of God and the children of the Devil Because if any were indeed the children of God they would be like their Father Mat. 5.44 45. Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven c. How contrary is mens ordinary practice to this We say we are the children of God and therefore ought to destroy our and Gods enemies to do good to sinners and to them that hate us is Divine to hate accuse and destroy is certainly Diabolical The second kind of rebuke is Legal or Angelical To reprove and punish men as Gods children and creatures in a holy zeal for God and righteousness with intention to humble subject and reform and that from a holy and pure Law and from a just and godly nature and life This is no Christian or divine dispensation but a legal one yet who is there of you that can justifie himself by this Law Consider it seriously Do you reprove and punish men as men as brethren as Gods creatures and children though enemies Do you do it with intent to humble and reform or to ruine and destroy Do you do it from a holy pure Law or from your own conceptions of the Law which are broken uncertain and changeable Do you do it from a just and godly nature and life or is there not also envy covetousness self-seeking partiality and unrighteousness you may ponder these things in your hearts and measure your selves by this rule The third kind of rebuke or reproof is Evangelical that which was administred by Christ when he was in the flesh he was a Minister of the circumcision and did oncumcise in his Ministery he Ministerd sharply cuttingly but when he had done that he was lead by his Father to lay down his life for them that he had so reproved and after he had discovered sin in a holy
the beast And in one hour would you be made as desolate as you have been You neither could nor can resist it For strong is the Lord that judgeth For he that hath sworn he will bring down them that exalt themselves be they never so mighty and raise up the lowly the meek the Lamb who only trusteth in him and shall be saved by him If you could not resist this Judgement when you were great and strong why should you not be wise now and cease from that state and those wayes which lead you upon sensible ruine For what more certain destruction can there be then for a naked people to dash themselves against a rock of power and authority that is rooted and grounded in the Laws and minds of the Nation and now after proof and trial rises up strongly against all its enemies You are as to your persons part of the Israel of God I do most freely grant it to you But as yet but Israel after the flesh and no more And God hath used you and the fire of your fleshly Zeal Rev. 17.16 17. to hate the whore make her desolate and naked and to eat her flesh The war hath been of fleshly knowledge fleshly forms and fleshly wisdom by fleshly power policy and arms against outward and fleshly corruptions which God hath put into your hearts until the words of God should be fulfilled And during this Ministry you pleaded the cause of Zion and had the name title and success for that work But those words are fulfilled And then there appeared in this fleshly Israel and fleshly work a spiritual Antichrist which your own mouthes have acknowledged and a spiritual Sodom Egypt and Babylon which your works have manifested Sodoms pride idleness and fulness of bread Egypts falshood cunning and cruelty Babylons loftiness glorying and self-exaltation Where our Lord also was crucified As well as the flesh of the whore desolated It is this spiritual Antichrist this adulterated wine or wine of fornication in and with your fleshly gifts and fleshly success that bewitches your minds abuses your understandings and enrages your spirits into a foolish confidence and presumptuous opposition to the power of the Nation to your apparent ruine My endeavour is to redeem your understandings from those vain and rejected confidences and to recover your minds and reasons into a sober consideration of your selves and of your condition that you may not desperately throw away your lives and liberties in a heady drunken and rash zeal Friends I do earnestly desire you seriously to consider if you can or if your high conceits of your selves your principles and cause will admit of reason and consideration Then consider what is there in your present state which now lies under so great conviction in your consciences and so great condemnation from men that should make you disdain either a reproof or a proposal of trying your principles at a bar of Religion and Reason before the wisest justest largest and soberest men in the Church and Nation For that was the intent of that Book that you so fiercely and bitterly condemn It was humbly desired that the persons to be tried together with their principles might not be judged at least not finally by the Common Law but might have a Chancery And why should you not now be reconciled to it and seek it what should hinder you from petitioning it as a singular mercy To the utmost of my understanding it might be not only a means of saving your selves but a blessing to the Nation I am very confident that you and all men after you have wearied and spent your selves your peace and comfort in these unnatural and brutish violences will be glad to hearken to a brotherly and friendly debate of things When that pride that makes men scorn all mens Reason and Religion but their own is brought down For he that knows any thing of the general and large love of God and of Jesus to all men must conclude that that pride will as certainly be ruined and ruine it self as he knows God is just or mercifull SECT IX I Intended not to prosecute this point of accommodating the present distance and opposition that is betwixt you and this Government of the Church and Nation But being unexpectedly faln upon it and engaged in it and it being the end of my first Book and the constant frame of my mind to seek peace by a right understanding And there being still great need of it in respect of the great numbers that do suffer and possibly a better opportunity for it satisfaction being taken to the Law of the Land justice of the Nation upon them that have suffered The same love to you that led me at first to propound it continues still in me and leads me now to prosecute it The enmity is strong and great confirmed by a long and cruel war heightened and inflamed by many wrongs and injuries It is a fire that hath and doth burn fiercely in the minds of men It is now upon you if it be not quenched it doth and will utterly destroy you and all that cannot yield to the present Government of the Church except a new war relieve you And both you and the whole Nation have found by woful experience that war is no friend but an enemy to all Civil and Religious blessings And that fighting may destroy both the good and the evil without Judgement but save nothing I hope it is and will be the mind of all sober Christians and Englishmen that consider the effects of our late wars rather to suffer in their own particulars then to raise a new war whereby the whole Nation must suffer thousands be slain and at last they that raised it will be far worse then they were when they begun That Law and Sentence that came out of Christs lips first and was afterward confirmed by the Spirit in the Revelations as a divine Law to all ages is He that taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword And therefore wo be to that Party or Person that makes war and division his hope that longs to see the Kingdom in a flame that he may warm himself at the fire Or would have the whole ruined and Shipwracked that he might have a share of the pillage You have had the sword and could not keep it it is turned now against you and the strength of the Nation also all highly provoked by your evil dealings with them And yet you are the sharpest enemies to the Propositions of Peace I know no good reason why you should be so A good friend of yours and mine hath said again and again One side must yield why should not we first lie down and submit We that profess most knowledge of the Gospel and are most conversant with Scriptures should be most inclined to meekness and peace there is sure some notable evil spirit gotten in that makes the most gifted the most quarrelsome I am bound to examine what
sort of men because they are against them and their wayes they will exercise the same to all that oppose their way He that will kill a Cavaleer because he is not godly will likewise kill a Presbyterian Independant Anabaptist or any other if he cross his way and notion be he never so near to him in the kind of his life And he that will kill an Episcopal person or party for his own safety or for the Cause of God will for the same Cause kill his Brother Independent or Anabaptist Fourthly This kind of corruption of a body or society of people into deadly hatred and exercise of their spirits and gifts against each other is the worst kind of corruption that can be of Holiness or Religion Because 1. it is against love which is the supream Law 2. It tends to a dissolution For a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand if not a Civil then much less a Religious Kingdom 3. Where this sin is all others are also For where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work Jam. 3.16 Therefore if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not and lie not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual and devilish ver 14 15. The wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie ver 17. From all which we must conclude that the Religion and Holiness in which you glory and upon which you stand is earthly and sensual It began in strife and self-seeking and its end is devilish It is corrupted and faln As great and greater things then these have corrupted the Scripture witnesses it I testifie it upon experimental knowledge and your works manifest this of yours to be faln If you glory in this and think there is not a better you lie against the truth as the Apostle saith I know there is a more excellent heavenly and perfect state which now judges this of yours and you will know it also when you are ashamed of this SECT XI LEt me mind you what we are upon He that hateth his Brother is in darkness walketh in darkness and knoweth not whither he goeth because darkeness hath blinded his eyes I am proving that the darkness of hatred hath blinded your eyes that you know not 1. What you are 2. What your enemies are 3. What the way is you are going or whither you go You are blinded as to your selves and in a mist of strife and confusion have lost 1. your Cause 2. your Religion you retain the form or carkass of both but have lost the justice of one and the life of the other I shall now shew you how you are blinded concerning your enemies that you do not cannot understand them in the present state in which you stand I will not urge upon you my apprehensions of them which I have declared in my Book They are there published and let them abide the tryal I meet with nothing yet that is of sufficient authority to make me retract them You wonder and are offended at the good that I have written of the King from those antient foundations of rest and grace in Gods sight laid in Noah My authority for it I tell you pag. 65. in these words My love is my first and chief guide in this application to your Majestie I believe it will uphold and justifie me against that weakness or strangeness which either is in it or may seem to others to be in it For I do in my soul give unto love the most absolute authority as the most supream royal Law in heaven and in earth the most certain and infallible rule For that only is without errour that is able to cover the errours and supply the defects of all things else I only advance it as a standard let it stand naked by it self I do it to invite you to deal with it Both reason and sense are against it Overthrow it if you can I do desire it may be throughly tryed because I know it is a stranger in the world You have other thoughts of this application that it comes from the vile and base principle of flattery I profess the most honourable principle of love if you have I any strength of truth and righteousness in you suffer not so gross an evil as this to pass uncorrected My business with you is to slay that enmity that is in you to the present power and to take you off from that dangerous opposition in which you are engaged that so you may come to live a quiet and sober life under it And to let you see how hatred hath blinded your eyes No man that hates ought to judge while he hates he cannot judge All passions darken the judgement above all hatred which is a foul black devilish thing it is of the wicked one whom God hath cast down from all authority of rule and judgement And made him a slave a vile Executioner of his wrath I pleaded this in my Book in the behalf of them that since have suffered pag. 152. and now plead it with you And shall I hope never cease to plead it with God and with men and with God in man till this base spirit of malice be cast out of all power both Civil and Religious For I know that hatred though it seem to judge and to be very forward in judging yet it hath neither true right nor light to judge any Only it is a servant to the justice of God It is true God hath given this beast a kingdom greatness and power but it is only in wrath and destruction Foolish man is deceived miserably by him poor dust if he can get up into any kind of power though it be only to plague and destroy yet he thinks it a great attainment if he hath so much knowledge religion or power as to inflict punishment he fancies himself a god because he administers divine displeasure But if ever you come to so much light of God as to know what you do you will abhor your selves for that which you now glory in If you will shew your selves men and but exercise your reason you will quickly see that you cannot judge of your enemies that you hate and therefore that they are not what you judge them to be while you judge in hatred First No man can judge when he hates or after he hates For when men hate they suppose those they hate are to be destroyed and therefore they are already judged and condemned For hatred is the executing of one condemned and that with the worst condemnation unto the utmost and irrevocable ruine Men think when they hate there remains nothing to do but to prosecute to utter destruction to spoil pull down shame disgrace and ruine them And it is impossible that they should judge that are thus employed to execute For to judge a person or
and fill the mind with more enmity and consequently with more blindness How much is poor man to be pittied whose zeal for God and the worship of God is so miserably distracted and misled as to be made use of only to destroy one another And that Religion which is the Law of love peace and salvation should become the great engine of death wrath and destruction and no remedy against it Sure it will be considered That truth is one in Christ That Jesus is the head of man and that mans nature reason and understanding is his own body and spouse That Religion unites and binds this head and body in a Covenant of marriage That love life and truth are only in this union And that therefore truth life and love are together and they that leave one they leave all If so then they that love not err from the truth and they that by their opinions are taught to hate and kill live neither in love nor truth but in death and darkness Error and enmity do destroy and they that do destroy are most in destruction because to them may be applyed that title given to Satan Heb. 2.4 he that had power of death for they that in malice inflict it have power of it All truth is most beautiful and lovely even unto the reason of man and all errour is a lye and monstrous even to the mind of man both in it self and in the foul and devilish effects of it When the light shall shine forth to manifest this men will of themselves fly from errour avoid hatred and love the truth Satisfie your selves therefore you that seem to be zealous for truth of any side or party and know That as mens souls and consciences are the body and Spouse of Christ so they are his care and charge He hath with him a Law wherewith to govern this body and power over all conscience and severe punishment for them that are proud and rebellious He hath a spiritual Court and a spiritual Law with power and authority to execute Spiritual judgements And conscience is most sensible of his strokes and most easily subjected to him and therefore will be ruled by him To him it doth belong to do it and to him alone and he will do it Upon these grounds I do in my spirit give liberty to all perswasions having a perswasion and reason that comprehends them all in one And knowing that one mercy and goodness upholds saves and forgives all and that one truth and one Gospel is under all and in all And being sensible of that one enemy that doth abuse all by engaging them in zeal for some part of truth against their brethren knowing likewise that light that will scattter this darkness and unite all in one in one heart and in one way These things being true there is reason all should have liberty to challenge and plead their right in order to agreement Which must as certainly have its time as confusion hath had his time There is order in and under this confusion and will arise out of it yea this confusion is to this end that a more large and excellent love and light might come forth to reduce all this into order and harmony And when it doth manifest it self it will not only joyn some parts that are nearest one to another but will unite all I absolutely think it impossible to make any true union betwixt any two or three parties or sects in the Nation leaving out the rest as it is impossible to build an house of some parts of the frame of some posts and pillars excluding and denying other parts There is a Church of England or in England it is I think all one If ever there was one there is still one if there be among us the profession and Faith of Jesus Because the Church is built upon a rock and the Gates of hell cannot prevail against it If hell should take it captive and either carry the Church into hell or hell come forth and possess the Church with all its filthyness wickedness darkness and confusion Yet it would be still the body of Christ and therefore it still is not only safe in all this but beloved and honoured by him Antichrist may and doth sit in the Temple of God and defile this temple of God but it is still the temple of God And the Gentiles may enter into the holy City and trample it underfoot but it is still and ever shall be the holy City If we deny there is or was a Church I am sure no man among us hath power to plant a Church For no Church of God was ever planted in the earth but by power and authority from heaven and by a pattern from the Mount Men cannot so much as repair a decayed Church without an heavenly annointing Therefore if there was no Church there is none For our new Churches challenge not from heaven but from the letter If there be a Church of England then all English men that profess faith in Jesus are members of it Till this Church cast them out till they be judicially proceeded against by the Church her self Be they never so corrupt they are corrupt members of her corrupt body till she recover her power to cast them out And she and all her parts must own them and bear them and all their filth and guilt till they be cut off It is not in the power of any parts except they have the power of the whole to cast out any It is much less in the power of any parts to cast out the whole Church or to unchurch the Church Nor is it in the power of any to dismember himself they may like froward children run away when they are ill used but that doth not dissolve the relation betwixt parents and children nor acquit either from their duty All the separations and abjurations of all the Independants Anabaptists and Quakers doth not make them no members of the Church of England Neither are they thereby no children of the true Fathers of the Church Nor must we therefore cease loving of them instructing of them because they have like the prodigal got a portion and gone from their Fathers house If the relation holds the duties of that relation will be required of Fathers authority wisdom justice and love and of children obedience and subjection And no ill affection or desposition can dissolve a relation An ignorant weak decayed old man is a Father and a forward bold rebellious Son is a Son The way to bring wandring sheep to the fold is to seek them out And the way to reduce prodigals is to suffer them to want There are both these simplicity to be sought out and conceited prodigality and this will starve and come to great want And then if there be bread in our Fathers house they will be compelled to seek it I know certainly they will be in great necessity of spiritual food that spend so prodigally in harlots houses in
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
unhappiness of them that are under a Law and necessity of so acting and them that are under a Law and necessity of so suffering If either my labour and pains or my knowledge and experience yea or my life if self may do any thing to cure this evil and quench this flame I should gladly expend them all And for you my friends to whom in love and mercy this is directed I know it will not only seem strange to you but be very grievous to bear to find so great a spiritual enemy in the midst of your spiritual gifts and enjoyments I know you little expected it and as little thought to find me the discoverer of it to you whom you have so much slighted But know this is the fruit of my long travels and dangerous encounters with this enemy With whom I have endured a long and tedious warfare with great expence of life and blood even in my soul and spirit and have received many desperate wounds in my inward man while you lived at case and in pleasure both outward and inward You now have that cheap which cost me dear For alas how much easier it is for you to receive this conviction from the hand of a weak broken man in love and compassion to you Then to receive it as I have done from an angry and jealous God How much easier is it for you to bear reproof from the experience of a friend then to conflict with this destroyer hand to hand and to graple with all his malice darkness and wrath in your own naked souls and spirits which God knows I have done again and again I know you have had strange thoughts of me I forgive you you might well think strangely of me when you beheld me encompassed with the darkness and smoak of this bottomless pit and sensibly lost and swallowed up by this enemy But I have by the mighty power and goodness of God escaped thorow many deaths and dangers and yet live to communicate to you the benefit of my conflicts sufferings and deliverance If you say you intend not war and destruction to them which you oppose but their repentance See that you be true to this I do believe many are wholly taken off from war by the great experience we have had of the beastly deceit the horrible cruelty and corruption that hath attended it And that the same honesty that led them out at first to engage in it leads them now to abhor it and to chuse rather to suffer then by war to seek a deliverance For the clearing and strengthening their spirits in that way of peace are these things writ And to inform and instruct others that are yet unconvinced We will then suppose that you intend not to get liberty of Conscience by violence and war which was our first branch but by a friendly agreement with the present Magistrates and Governours this is our second branch If we desire liberty first know That it must be from the Magistrate for all liberty Civil and Spiritual is in his power either to give or restrain Liberty is the fruit that grows only upon the tree of Government Law and Authority or is enjoyed only under the protection of them Take away Authority and Magistracy and all kind of liberty ceases we are presently exposed to the lusts of wilde and brutish men Therefore they that are truly conscientious are most faithful to Magistracy 1. Because they are bound to obey not only for wrath as others but for conscience sake in obedience to God who hath instituted Magistracy and ordained that power And they know and feel the Providence and goodness of God in the Magistrate as well as the weight of his Scepter 2. Because they may receive more benefit from him then others liberty not only for their outward man but for their spiritual man also which others need not 3. Because they being conscientious are more tender then others and so more subject to injury then those that are not bound by conscience The loose and prophane need the Magistrate to restrain and subdue their wills the conscientious is his own Law as to restraint and needs the Magistrate only for his protection So that indeed the sword of Authority if rightly understood the edge of it is against the loose and lawless life and the peace and favour of it is to the good and the godly The enemy of man and author of confusion hath brought forth much mischief amongst us both to the Magistrate and to the conscientious in dividing one from the other and setting of them against each other which have but one root For the Magistrate is the Minister of God for good Rom. 13.4 And conscience binds a man to subject to all the words and works of God and to all things that are administred from him or by him Upon a little sober consideration this mist of errour and mistake will be scattered But if the Magistrate give us this liberty of Conscience then in reason and conscience we are bound to defend the Magistrate that defends us in this liberty And if we desire liberty of him it is but equal and reasonable that we should profess that it is our judgements and consciences so to do For we cannot expect he should give liberty to a conscience that would destroy him and his Government Wherefore when men have professed conscience in destroying and changing of Governments there should be a Declaration and Profession against it answerable to the evil done by it or sufficient to wipe off that scandal Secondly If we desire liberty of Conscience from the Magistrate it must be either in a way of Reason or Religion or both if we seek it from him in a way of reason we must admit him a man a reasonable creature else it is in vain to seek reason of him If the Magistrate be man he hath the image of God as man and as Magistrate which is to be beloved honoured and defended by us not opposed hated and destroyed If there be man and reason it is possible and likely we may agree with and unite to man because we also are men of the same flesh and blood with him and he with us If we do not agree with our own nature though under many defects there is something unnatural in us which we may call Spiritual but if it be Spiritual it is not divine nor Christian for God loves man is reconciled to man Christ is a man and loves his Brethren If we confess them to be men then we are to deal humanely with them and to exercise reason to them openly clearly fairly If we think they err we are in reason to go to them and to inform them if we can or to receive information from them If we need anything of them we should reasonably propound our request to them If both parties be men and will exercise reason to each other there will be an understanding and agreement for there is but one reason in all
it That his Majesty needs and may justly require security cannot be denied That no means sufficient is yet used is manifest that the people are willing to do it hath been proved and that it is possible to do in this case what men are ready to do is not to be questioned That this means propounded by a Treaty is probable It will appear if we consider the advantage of a Treaty both as to right understanding removing objections and communicating affections whereby ordinarily enmity is expelled good will union and agreement of hearts and minds is obtained but besides these generals this main thing is to be considered That in such a Treaty it will not be hard to bring forth the roots seeds and principles of all the war and contention that hath been and consequently of future rebellion in the Nation and to offer them up to his Majesty The reason why it will not be hard to do this is because First The judgement decreed upon the Church and Nation is executed the ministry of wrath and war is ceased 2ly The state and spirit in which and by which it was administred is corrupted and by spiritual men loathed and abhorred 3ly And consequently the enmity at the root of it is slain though it still disturbs yet in the hearts and judgements of sober men it hath received a deep and irrecoverable wound Therefore it is very possible and easie to produce the cause and reason of the late war with the righteousness and unrighteousness of both sides And with it all the seeds and principles of civil enmity and division which may possibly beget any disturbance for the future If these roots of war be pulled up and sacrificed it will be the best bone-fire that ever was made in England And will give the fullest satisfaction to his Majesty that can be desired For by it his Majesty will be secured of the hearts and minds of his subjects If his Majesty shall be pleased to answer such a petition and to appoint certain moderate and understanding persons acceptable to these people and so apt to entertain a Treaty with them We may in reason expect that such a door of safety being open all parties will be glad to enter in at it And if the chief of them can gather up the rest of the people into a consent and agreement with them in this work they will be able to offer a valuable consideration for their safety and protection That may really deserve both liberty and subsistence also out of their purchases If this be carried on by judgement and conscience and from a mind enlightened and convinced We have no cause to fear that it will not be understood received and believed by his Majesty For what is done in light is evident to all An Epistle seen and read of all men When the mind is truly convinced it is easie for it to give forth such a declaration of it as is sufficient to convince another that it is convinced And such a declaration coming from reason and from the heart his Majesties heart cannot but feel it and rejoyce in it It being the only thing in the earth wanting to make his Government fully happy Security being given or ready to be given by these people the second thing their liberty and safety comes naturally Indeed it is already granted and declared by his Majesty it only wants to be by such a Treaty and some Articles so explained and confirmed that the people may receive the benefit of it If these two things which are truly and really conceived in the hearts and natures of both sides may be brought forth it will be a blessed foundation of great good to the Nation and Church And a present ease to the minds of his Majesty and of his people and will fill the whole Nation with pleasure and content For of all things love and peace have the greatest felicity in them to a people As discord betwixt brethren or relations is most grievous so love that unites enemies is the most pleasant and contentful Such a meeting of hearts and minds in peace will bring forth some more then ordinary good to the English Nation which are from their own dispositions inclined to love and to an encrease of it unto a kind of excess when once they begin It is said Isa 9.5 Every battle of the warriour is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood Such yet is the staâ—e of the Nation confused noise there is and garments rolled in blood which do disturb the minds of men and makes them uncapable of the government and peace of Christs Kingdom But if by this means propounded a civil peace may be obtained it will be a beginning and foundation of a more heavenly and spiritual peace in the Church It is true this seems to be first necessary but if this were obtained I could demonstrate the other as rational and possible as this and more Because the Law and reason of Religion is more large more forgiving healing and uniting then Civil Law or Reason A union and peace in the Church is promised and commanded in the Scripture Nothing is promised that we may not challenge and expect nothing commanded but what is practicable Something I may affirm upon my particular experience For I have gone as far in the way of separation from the Church of England I think as most men and prosecuted it as heartily And yet my mind is now and hath been long enlarged to own and embrace the Church of England and Episcopal government I did not alter as a knave as a fool nor as an enemy to them that differ from me Not as a knave for my mind altered when Episcopacy was at lowest and hath so continued ever since in many troubles without change Nor as a fool I confess I have received it from heaven yet so as is fully demonstrated to me from reason and Scripture Nor as enemy For Episcopacy as I understand it is a tree so high and large that all these birds that now she from it may make their nests in the branches of it and be nourished by the fruit of it And that not by clipping the outward honour of it but by enlarging and exalting of it into its own true heavenly light and glory This I find and know by experience what several sects seek in their private and divided wayes they shall never enjoy but in the Church there only they will find rest for their souls But these things shall rest till their season be to come forth The thing that is here propounded to you that are my Brethren and now in suffering is so essentially necessary in my judgement for your safety and the peace of the Nation that if I knew any thing that might hinder you from accepting and prosecuting it as the means of your deliverance I would remove it There are but two things that I suspect The first thing I doubt is lest your high apprehensions of some extraordinary
children If you see God going before you in restoring delivering forgiving and instead of following his example you be angry at it fret and curse and think that your wrath should lead him and your prayer call forth his vengeance This is not like the Gospel nor like his Sons There is another principle which I will set at the foot of this standard Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life in him John 3.15 He that hateth his brother is a murderer then he that murdereth his brother hates him why else doth he murder him He then that hates and out of hatred endeavours the destroying or removing by death them that he hates is a hatefull murderer And then to prepare war is hatred and murder by the Law of love It is not just or good because it is commonly done It is not good because it is done by many but worse If it be murder for one man to kill another it is more murder for one party to kill another party If it be done by a more religious party upon a more prophane party it is still worse Wars for Religion are worse then for Civil rights because by such wars not only men suffer death but the peace purity and love of Religion which is the Law of Christ is violated Wars raised by a better people upon a worse if we be Christians is still worse then for a worse to raise war upon the better For according to the Law and example of Christ The strong ought to bear the infirmities of the Weak and not to please themselves Rom. 15.1 and the just to suffer for the unjust It follows no murderer hath eternal life in him For if any man have eternal life in him he need not he cannot out of fear that another will take away his life destroy him Neither can he prey upon anothers life to maintain his own Nor can he take away the sinfull life of another to secure his eternal life it is contrary to divine reason and goodness But he that hath eternal life will be enabled to lay down his life for others because he knows his life is eternal and cannot be lost This is according to our pattern ver 16. Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren By this we perceive that his love was the love of God that he could lay down his life for us and that his life was the life of God that it could lay down it self for us And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren If this be truly and only the nature of the love and life of God and a rule to us Then that only is true godliness that answers to this pattern And what is contrary to it is of the wicked one You cannot you must not think to slight and scorn the authority and Majesty of this standard if ever you be saved you must come to it if you be saved by it you must also be judged and ruled by it I am able to say it doth save and shall judge and rule you and all men and therefore by this I must and will try and measure your present state and cause You profess in this state of opposition and enmity wherein you have been and are still engaged the cause of God and godliness Is there a cause of God that differs from himself from his life and love or another godliness then that which is born of him and conformed to him Doth he lay down his life for us that are sinners and enemies and give the same life to us which he laid down for us that we might be like him and shall we because we are his children destroy others that are not so If this be light and a rule then your enmity in which you stand is darkness and you are lead into it by a false God by an evil spirit and by a crooked rule SECT X. ALL enmity is betwixt two parties this enmity being in darkness there is a false judgement of both He that hates is ignorant of himself and of him or them that he hates in both respects the darkness of malice blinds his eyes and he knows not whither he goes In your present enmity you are guilty of both mistaken and deceived 1. In your selves And 2. In your enemies If there be these two errors there must be a third also ignorance of the way that you are in in prosecuting these enemies You think you are engaged in the cause of God and that you move in the way of God against the enemies of God But you will find that you are blinded by the enemies in all three and that you are not what you think you are nor are your enemies that which your hatred suggests they are nor is the way of opposing and destroying what your enmity imagines it is In all your eyes are blinded and you know not whither you go It will be a mercy to you if God please to open your eyes and to turn you from this way of wrath into the Way of peace we shall endeavour it First for your selves you take it for granted 1. That the cause in which you stand is the cause of God 2. You conclude that that religion and holiness in which you live is the only godliness and Christianity I doubt you are deceived in both For the first of these the cause it is cryed up among you as the Jews cried up the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord I fear your cry hath less ground then theirs However while the sound of it lives in your spirits it is no wonder if it over-powers you For there is certainly nothing more high and honourable then to be engaged in the cause of God to be his friends and champions and to be imployed in recovering of a Kingdom for Christ and setting him upon the throne All that are called to this work may well be zealous in it and freely adventure their lives for it knowing they shall have a great reward for it and whatever their lives or sins are they shall at least go to heaven if they dye in the quarrel the service is enough to answer for all Besides what we have said in the seventh and eighth Section That this cause as you have managed it agrees to no rule or example of Scripture Not to the way or work of God in delivering Israel out of Aegypt nor to that of bringing them out of Babylon much less to the way of the Gospel in Christ and the Apostles nor to the prophetical Scriptures nor to the thing it self which you profess as we have I think convincingly shewed And besides that standard of the love and life of God set up in the last Section all which you must either overthrow or subject to I shall now desire you more particularly and closely to consider First Whether this
cry of the cause be not only a great sound or more sound then substance Empty vessels give the greatest sound Most noise least truth and substance is very common Or things when they go off make the greatest report This I have observed of this cause it floats like Wine in mens heads fills mens Prayers and Sermons flies about in Books and Discourses and so raises a smoak of talk zeal and affection But in all this time First It never attained or gathered a body into any consistency but mens minds are still blown about like dust one people talk this and another that but there never was any consent or agreement about it 2. As it never could gain a body so it never had any form it was never yet stated by any man or by any company of men only confused thoughts and talks there are about it Thirdly it never yet attained any power in the Nation it never was owned as the cause of God by either Parliament or Army Men in their private prayers and Sermons talk of the Kingdom of God of the fall of Babylon and building Zion but those powers owned nothing but necessity safety interest of the people and such like things And therefore you may well think what a bottom it is that you adventure your selves in or rather how bottomless it is Many words many affections many duties multitudes of sacrifices many Scriptures quoted preached on But what power and substance is there in these What heavenly glory is there in them or among you that is able to convince your enemies Or what earthly strength is there in them that can defend and support a poor naked people against a strong and mighty Prince against a standing Law and Authority My reason experience and knowledge tells me that as you are so you will be left in confusion in any engagement for such a cause that hath no more solid body state or power in it And therefore be perswaded to retire from the noise that you make in each others ears and affections and enquire within in your own reasons and memories And remember if you can where had you this Cause from whence came it where and when was it born in what year of these late changes in which of them was it brought forth Or from what Scripture do you derive it is there such a thing spoken or named there as the Cause of God God pleads the Cause of his people by outward Judgements and by his Spirit the Advocate and by Christ their Counsellor But his Cause is not now at the Bar no he hath set Christ upon the throne and he is exalted far above all principalities and powers He is now actually judging and ruling the world he pulleth down and setteth up whom he will You may feel his power and authority he judges you for your unrighteousness and sets up your enemies above you What is it that thus blinds your eyes that you should contend or that which is already done for Christs Kingdom doth not the enemy abuse your understandings and perswade you it is the Cause of God and his Kingdom when indeed it is your own honour dominion and greatness But hath there not been a cause of God in this Nation Yes there hath been that which we may call so and it was this The Church and Kingdom of England stood in a very dark fleshly and corrupt state and the Governors of it were also corrupt and had sinned against God For which God had a Controversie both with their persons and standing And therefore sanctified you with a fleshly holiness against their fleshly corruption and called you forth for the executing of his judgement upon them And therein you were justified being engaged to speak in your language in the cause of God or being employed to administer that judgement which he had given in the cause Thus much I can grant to you and it will be found the right of the case But if the Judgement decreed be executed and the measure of outward punishment be fulfilled then your cause ceases If this kind of wrath by war blood and spoil be finished why should not you be content to be discharged from this employment First it is a mean service to be the Executioners of an outward destruction It is O Assyrian the rod of my anger and the staff in their hand is my indignation I will send him against an hypocritical Nation and against the people of my wrath will I give him change to take the spoil and to take the prey and to tread down like the mire of the streets Isa 10.5 6. Secondly as it is a vile service so it hath been vilely polluted It is a filthy thing to destroy and the filthiness of it is manifested It is Babylonian and the confusion is sufficiently discovered The brightness and cleanness of it and all the honour and glory of it was the wrath and justice of God when that was finished then it presently shewed its vile nature covetousness self-seeking pride and cruelty Nothing but ignorance or a love of the prey and spoil can make men to doat upon it and desire to continue in it Thirdly being it self unclean it cannot purifie nor reform the Nation It reaches but to the out-side to the outward life honour and greatness It never touches the spirit and therefore may waste and spoil and so restrain for a time the fleshly part but the nature and spirit of the thing still remains yea confirmed and strengthened It may tread down in the mire but its unclean feet of wrath and pastion pollute more then purge and so make worse Fourthly to purifie is left to the fire of of his own Spirit which will thorowly purge with the spirit of judgement and burning You administred 1. without judgement you could not discern between the gold and the dross And 2. without burning for if the dross be not separated from the gold it cannot be consumed as yet we have had neither separation nor burning for want of both these their dross still remains after all the wrath administred But doubt not the holy purpose and power of God He will certainly purge both you and them by the breath of his mouth and the brightness of his appearing This pure heavenly fire is descended is kindled is set as a refiners fire and no iniquity shall escape the flame of it For it is holy mighty effectual and eternal it doth and will burn for ever You have heard the sound of it in your spirits ye are in the smoak of it and so is the whole Nation which is the reason of the present blackness darkness and confusion But when the evil is brought forth and discovered he will certainly destroy it yea it is actually destroying and in destruction in being brought forth Fifthly That outward wrath which you administred you could nor but execute it you could not cease from it till it was finished but you have since turned from that cause and made