to the end perfecting Holiness in the fear of God and so working out their Salvation with fear and trembling knowing it is God of his own good pleasure that worketh in us to will and to do O Friends how true we find it in God's Light that it is not of him that willeth nor runneth but of the Mercifulness of our God in Christ Jesus to them that believe and in pure Holiness and Simplicity of Heart wait upon him at all times and this puts to silence all Flesh and keeps down all Boasting and fleshly Confidence and Conceitedness to the unspeakable Glory of the Pure Eternal Holy Name of the Living God our Father who siâ—s upon the Throne and is worthy of all Honour Submission and Obedience for Evermore For now is the Lord God suckling the Babes of his Love with the pure Milk of his Living Word and feeding the Men of his House with the strong Meat of his overcoming Truth and giving them the well-refined Wine of his Kingdom to make glad their Hearts over all the Trials and Tribulations of this present Life so that through the Overcoming Love of our God we are more than Conquerors and shall never be ashamed abiding in his Love for the Righteous are bold as a Lion and through the help of our God we shall for ever leap over all the Walls of Opposition that the Enemy makes to hinder us in our way for it 's the Fearful Unbelieving and Disobedient in Heart that cannot enter that cannot come into and sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God this Day But Praises to the Lord in the height of Heaven for all his unspeakable Goodness who over all gives us the Victory by Jesus Christ our Lord to whom be Glory Everlasting and Kingdom for Evermore And so Dear Friends into the Arms of the Lord 's unspeakable Love committing you all rests your Dearly Loving in the Truth of God a Friend and Brother Thomas Taylor Also Friends you may know that my Wife hath her very Dear and Tender Love remembred unto you all and is dearly affected upon every remembrance of you considering what sweet Refreshment she hath sound amongst you in your Holy Assemblies where the Presence of the Lord hath been abundantly witnessed by many and I hope Ever will be meeting together in his Fear to wait upon him as you do And as for our Condition here praised be the Lord it is well for though my Bonds for the Gospel in this Place be yet continued yet some little Liberty of being with my Wife and Family sometimes at her Hired House in this Town through the Tender Mercy of our God is granted me and so we are made content and all is good in the Good-will of God and so our Souls are at rest in his Love where we pray that yours and all the Holy Ones of God in every place may rest for Ever and be abundantly satisfied Amen and Amen And so we shall be glad to hear of all your Welfare in the Lord as he makes way TO FRIENDS Richard Boothman and Robert Clough DEARLY Beloved in the Lord and his Everlasting Truth which hath redeemed our Souls and doth daily Comfort our Hearts as we abide in it my very Dear Love and tender Affections Salutes you and all the Dear Flock of God about you giving you all to know of my Health in the Fountain of Health where in the midst of all these Bonds Tryals and Afflictions which in Common with all Saints for the Gospels sake on Earth is ordered for us my Soul is more than a Conqueror Praises to our God for ever And we may not let fall our Holy Hope and trust in the least for any thing that Flesh can do against us but by all means let us keep fast in our Hearts the living Faith of the Lord Jesus which in God's blessed Sight is of greatest Esteem for thereby we may effectually in all things overcome yea and be well able also to quench all the fiery Darts of the Devil For upon our Watch must we needs stand in all things clothed with the whole Armour of Light that no Enemy at all may come between us and our God to deprive us of his precious Life or hinder our Fellowship with his Holy Spirit in the least The living powerful Presence of his Glory in the Face of Jesus Christ be with all your Spirits to Sanctifie Bless Keep and Preserve you all my Dear Friends in Body Soul and Spirit Pure Spotless and altogether Blameless before him in Love Rests yours in the Dear Fellowship of God's ever blessed Truth Thomas Taylor Stafford the 20th of the Eighth Month 1668. And thus Dear Friends I could not but thus in a few words breath out of my true and tender Love amongst you desiring also as opportunity is to hear of your State THE Day of the Lord Is DAWNED THE Ever-blessed Day of the Lord God is dawned let all the Children of the Night fear for they are now fully to be made manifest and brought to Judgment and now where will the Workers of Iniquity hide themselves from the Lord's Justice Rocks nor Mountains will not cover them they must come forth this Day to the Righteous Judgment of the Great God the Just Judge of Heaven and Earth of Quick and Dead Rotten Raggs and Fig-leaves of empty and filthy Profession must now be stripped off and the shameful Nakedness of all Hypocrites and unclean outside Professors and Professions must now be laid open to the Glory of that Powerful God who hath long waited upon People to teach them and to do them good but they would not and therefore Desolation upon Desolation Overturning upon Overturning will come upon Thee O thou Corrupted Earth with thy Inhabâ—â—ants who are crying Lord Lord but never come to do the Will of the Holy Lord God in Earth as it is done in Heaven nay nor have so much as a Mind thereunto but are angry with such as do it And therefore because these Inhabitants of the Corrupt Earth rebel against the Light some under the Name of Papists and some under the Name of Protestants and yet say in their Hearts We shall have Peace and be Established in our way the Lord hath said They shall have no Peace nor be Established in their defiled Ways for God's Establishing of People is now manifested to be in Righteousness and in nothing else The Lord Jesus Christ is now to Reign and the Scepter of his Kingdom is a Scepter of Righteousness and the Kingdoms of this World must be the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ and he must Reign whose Right it is for Ever and Ever according to Prophesie And now it is of the greatest Concernment for Kings and Princes Priests and Prelates High and Low Rich and Poor to Kiss the Son lest his Anger which they have kindled against themselves by their sinning against his Light and grieving of his good Spirit by their manifest
to Unity and Concord amongst Friends which while he lived he was Careful to preserve he had a great Delight in it and laboured much for it In a word he was a Man of Peace and as he Delighted in it now is a Possessor of it and of that Joy that is Immutable in which he lives with his God a Possessor of that Blessedness and Reward which through the same Faith and Patience we that are yet behind shall assuredly obtain as therein we keep in the Lord's time Many good things he wrote in his Day if thou read this Book thou wilt perceive and meet with good Exhortations in it which will I hope tend to thy Strength and Incouragement William Fallowfield A short TESTIMONY Concerning that Faithful Servant of the Lord Thomas Taylor Whose Memory is Blessed DEAR Tho Taylor he was a Man who loved the Truth with a sincere Mind and sought the Honour thereof and not himself He was ready at all times to speak a word for God as there was occasion to inform the Minds of People to that which would stand them in stead when time here shall be no more He was a very good Instrument amongst us and a blessed Example in his Conversation which did bespeak him to be the Servant of Christ Jesus He loved the Prosperity of Truth more than all other things whatsoever and for that was he given up in Soul Body and Spirit to serve the Lord and his Generation Faithfully Travelling from Place to Place for that end and as he lived in the Truth so he finished his Testimony in the same And though his Body be removed from us and gone to the Earth from whence it came yet his Spirit lives amongst us and his Life shall never die Truly I am not without a living Sence upon my Spirit what a Loss we have of him amongst us who was always ready to serve the Truth and the least in it and Sorrow is ready to seize upon me in the Consideration thereof yet when I consider that it is according to the Will of the Lord I am therein well content knowing that he hath this Advantage of us that are left behind viz. Is freed from Danger of falling into the Snares of this World which we are liable to whilst in this Body except we keep in that which is only able to keep us whilst we remain here And I do believe that the Lord will raise up the same Life in others to Testifie to the same Truth which he lived in and that the Testimony thereof shall never fall This is great Comfort to me and all who love the Lord to whom be living Praises Honour Glory and Obedience given for ever and for ever more from my living Soul which he hath quickned to himself by his Living Power and Heavenly Life to him I say be all the Glory given now and always Amen Mary Comberford The 26th of the First Month 1681. Thomas Taylor 's EPISTLES TO FRIENDS MY Dear Friends and longed after in the Lord whose Minds are turned in by the Light of Jesus Christ from the Worlds Worships and Ways in measure to wait upon God that you may learn by the Teaching of his Spirit in you how to worship him in Spirit and Truth who is the Fountain of all your Soul's Happiness prize his great Love to your Souls every one of you in particular and wait to receive the Law from his own Mouth to the quickning and reviving your Souls out of the Death and for the daily watering and refreshing that which lives of himself in you for if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead dwell in you he shall by that Spirit quicken your Mortal Bodies for all whose Hearts are purisied through the Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ are in the Covenant of that Everlasting Love of the Father which gives to all that waith on him a full Possession of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light but Wo and Misery from the Lord to the Unclean in the Earth And therefore mind your Soul's Guide which is pure Light of Jesus Christ and be Faithful unto the Lord in whatever he makes manifest in you to be his Will and let not the Worlds Frowns or Smiles cause you to draw back from the Truth in any thing which the Saints have so great Recompence of Reward in but be simple be pure be harmless be innocent be Lambs and walk as Lights amongst a Generation of crooked and devouring Minds and think not strange concerning any Trial but imbrace the Cross which is the Saints Rejoicing and in Patience wait to see the Fleshly Mind Crucified with it which would have ease below God and do all things in the fear of God and let not the Ear be open to the Enemy but mind that which shows you the strait way continually and learn to love one another more and more for Love is of God but none can love as Brethren of Christ but those that love God and keep the Commandments and as you follow Christ in the way of his Cross and Sufferings you will Delight in one anothers Fellowship but as any depart from the Light and Iniquity abounds in any the Love in that Person waxeth cold So God Almighty Bless you with his Everlasting Mercy to set free your Minds from all your Sins to run the way of his Holy Commandments so rests Thomas Taylor TO FRIENDS AT Stickland-head DEAR and precious Friends of God who into the Fellowship of the everlasting Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God the Light of the World that Lighteth every Man that cometh into the World are called and who have tasted of that Heaventy Gift and upon that true Bread do feed Grace Mercy and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be among you and in you all every where in every place multiplied with the Increases of the eternal Power of the Holy Spirit in all your Hearts Amen Thomas Taylor your Brother and Companion in the Patience Sufferings and Kingdom of Christ unto you all sendeth Greeting and by the Spirit of the Lord God doth hereby give you all to understand That it is the true Grace of God and Power of Life into which you are called and which you have received and wherein you stand and whereby you are inlightned and have been given to see the old dead way of Sin and Formality to avoid it and the good and living way of Truth and Righteousness in Spirit to embrace and follow it to the Praise of our Holy Heavenly Father World without end And this Grace of God that hath thus brought Salvation to us and is our Teacher and Guide in the good Way is the same that would teach all and would have all Men to be Saved and to that purpose hath appeared to all Men to leave all without Excuse So Dear Hearts all in the Light and Power of this Pure Truth of our God made manifest in us
dwell and therein let every Soul bathe it self and drink thereof abundantly and therewith be covered that as an Helmet Sword and Buckler it may be unto all our Souls against all Assâ—ults of the Enemy and a sure Hiding-place from Storm and Tempest And the Lord God of Glory upon this Rock of Ages you all preserve that living Water and living Bread even the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ your Souls may here feed upon and be perfectly nourished with it up into the Fullness of Life and Perfection of Peace for ever more That so upon the Wing of this living Spirit and Power of our God in Christ we may be all continually carried and under the Shadow thereof be warmed and caused to grow triumph and rejoyce over all Weaknesses Wants and Powers of Darkness whatsoever For greater is he Dear Hearts that is in us and for us the glorious God in Light and Righteousness Ruling and Saving than he that is in the World the Power of Darkness raging and destroying And the World with its Strength Joy and Glory which deceiveth and is deceived is to be trampled upon and kept under foot as a thing that perisheth and passeth away with the Fashion Trouble and Remembrance of it But the Glory of our God and Goodness of his Love with the Power of his Truth Fatness of his House and Peace and Fullness of his Christ and Kingdom endures for ever dearly to be prized of us Praises Praises everlasting Praises to his Holy Glorious Arm of powerful Love for evermore And let every Creature in Heaven and Earth Praise him and all his wonderous Works in us and for us where these shall come and in all his redeemed Ones every where glorifie him in Pureness in the Immortal Mansions of Light and Love that cannot change nor be taken from us for ever and ever So again all Dear Hearts Brethren and Sisters in the Covenant of Life Children and Servants of the Most High God in the Life and Strength of God and his everlasting Light of Truth manifest dwell and walk in it indeed grow over all the World and Powers of Darkness and Wickedness whatsoever that the Seed of the Promise inheriting and the Seed of the Serpent and Transgression cast out you may indeed be true Witnesses of to the Glory of the Lord God and Good of your precious Souls for ever For he that Believes and in the pure Faith truly waits hath and knows the Witness in himself the Spirit which he hath of God for his everlasting Comforter but the Witness of God and his Face is against him that doth Evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile But the Love of God and Glory to such as continue Faithful and Patient in the Well doing bearing the Cross and enduring it to the End And Blessed are all that keep the Commandments of Life that they may witness a daily Access and Freedom to the Tree of Life and Throne of Mercy to feed thereon and Live for ever For now is the Life arisen and the true Light that lighteth every Man that cometh into the World appeared and of his Fullness have all we received even Grace for Grace and his Commandments are not now to us Grievous Praise to his Name for ever And our Rock is not like the World's Rock even many of themselves already being Judges all Holy Praises to him that hath not cast us off for former Ignorance and Unbelief but hath in this his day of endless Mercy stretched out his Arm of Power for us and his Wing of Love over us even to everlasting Salvation So be it Thomas Taylor From the place of my outward Bonds here at Appleby in Westmoreland in the first Month 1658. Let this be Communicated amongst the Faithful of the Lord in their Meetings or otherwise as Freedom within and Movings are TO FRIENDS IN Warwick-shire and Stafford-shire c. MY Dear Friends in Christ Jesus in Warwick-shire Stafford-shire Worcester-shire and Hereford-shire with the parts thereunto adjoyning where my service in the Lord hath been my tender Love in the Bowels of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ doth dearly Salute ye all Praying in the Spirit for you all and for all Saints that as ye have received the Truth of God through the Persecutions and Reproaches of the present times so you may all with the abounding of the Grace Mercy and Peace of the Everlasting God amongst you be found therein Continuing and Walking to the Glory of his Name to the End to the receiving of a full Reward and finishing the Testimony of Christ amongst you to all Joy and holy Rejoycing in the Spirit and to the full assurance of Faith in the sight of God our Father Blessed for ever who hath chosen us and called us out of the Death in the Powerful Word of Truth to be his Children and Servants to bring forth Living Fruits of Righteousness to his Glory and to bear his Name thro' the daily Cross and Sufferings of his Son before the People of the World that he in all things may be Honoured who is the Head Christ Jesus and we his Members through the Operation of his Power in us may be given daily to feel the Glory of his Love which shed it self abroad in every part of the Body by Vertue of Union with him and Fellowship in the Eternal Spirit of Life And this is the Portion of the Living Branches who Faithful in his Work of Faith are found and abide not looking back at the Glory of Egypt nor murmur at the hardness of the way but pressing forward to the Mark set before them in Righteousness which is of God where the man of the Earth comes not but is shut out for ever So God Almighty your Hearts keep clean and your Understandings always open to discern the things that differ and to chuse the things of the Spirit of God which will be to your Everlasting Peace and Glory in the Kingdom of our Heavenly Father to whom be all Glory and Honour for ever Amen And now dear Friends as for my outward Condition you may hereby know that it was so ordered that within two or three Days after I was got to my outward Being in the edge of York shire here was an Assizes to be at this Town called Appleby in Westmoreland some Fourteen or Fifteen Miles North of it whether I had movings to come not knowing my service in particular until I came there and therefore when I was come to the Town after pretty Service in the Town amongst the Country People I was ordered to go into their Steeple-house at the time when the Sermon before the Judges as they call it was in hand and there waiting in the Will of God and hearing unsound Doctrine delivered I was moved in Spirit Publickly upon a Seat amongst them all immediately after the Man had done to declare against it for which they pu'lld me down and to fulfil the Scripture hawled me
precious Faith Grace Mercy and Power from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ be abundantly multiplied in you and the Blessed Arm of his Power support you and carry you through all the present and future Tryals for the Gospels sake on Earth for us hath the Lord drawn out of the many Waters and set our Feet upon the sure Rock of Ages the tryed Foundation and brought our Souls into the unmoveable Rest Glory to his Name for ever that we might be to his Praise and Glory and Honour for ever that he might dwell in us and we in him for ever and so be safe for ever under his Wing where the Wicked cannot come because of Unbelief and that great Violence whereby they have stopt the way of all good from their Souls But now Dear Hearts and Beloved in the Lord you who have loved the Light and received the Power which makes all manifest and cleanseth from all Sin you are Blessed even the Blessed of the Lord God of Heaven and Earth who loves your Souls with a perfect Love and fills your Hearts day by day with his Infinite Goodness Therefore as a Recompence for all his Mercies give up your selves to his Holy Will in all things and love the Lord the same our everlasting God and Father with all your Hearts Souls Mind and Strength and he will do abundantly for you and us all even his whole Israel in every place beyond all that we can ask or think Look not out at the World nor their Love nor Hatred for they are Men and not Gods but keep in the Sanctuary of God the Spirit of Christ and there is Safety with him is the Well of Life which refreshes our Souls continually and makes all things easie and possible to us through Faith in his Name and Patience So let Patience have its perfect Work for we have daily need of it that we may continually see and feel the Love of the Lord in the Land of the Living and not be clouded with the Spirit of this World which gendreth to Bondage in any thing For if Lot's Wife look back she is presently turned into a Pillar of Salt and if the Israelite turn back but in his Heart into Egypt he is snared in Unbelief So my Dear Friends look up to the Lord in Spirit and Truth and wait continually to feel his living Presence in you to keep you open and single to him that of the powerful Spirit of his Holiness which slays the Sin and quickens the Soul to God you may be Witnesses and so come to possess the Immortal Kingdom where Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost only reigneth So with the Dear Salvation of my Love unto you all I commend you to the Lord to bless keep and water with his Goodness continually to his Glory who only is Holy and gives us freely every good thing to enjoy both for Soul and Body who is near to the Righteous in every Necessity to Help and Save to the uttermost To whom be Glory and Immortal Praise Even so rests with you in the full Assurance of his Tender Mercies in Christ Jesus your Dear Brother Thomas Taylor TO FRIENDS TO the Called and Chosen of God the Dear Vessels of Life and Glory in all the Earth doth the Tender Salutation of me your Dear Brother reach who as a feeling Member in the Holy Body of the Lord Jesus do daily partake with you of the Blessed Joys of Life Eternal and of the present Sufferings for the same who therefore cannot but continually through the pure Love and Lifes Motion breathe out amongst you the Happy state of our Innocent Souls because of Truth upon every Occasion to the stirring up and refreshing of the tender good thing the Heavenly Mind in all to the joint Praising Blessing and Magnifying of the Lord 's great Name for his abundant kindness towards every Particular Faithful Ones for Ever and Ever for he is good to Israel unspeakably unalterably true to them for Ever And now Dear Friends seeing God hath been so gracious to us above all the People of the Earth as to set his Name upon us in Righteousness to the Amazement and Astonishment of many and hath caused our Rod that was dry even as others to flourish and bear Fruits in the midst of the Earth to the Praise of his Living Power as a Token of his Acceptance and Choice And seeing God hath so graciously performed his Promises to us his Seed made to his Israel of Old in bringing up our Souls from Death and our Life from the devouring Sword and hath unloosed our Tongues to speak of his Wonders in the great Congregation why shall we not then speak good of this the Name of our God the true Everliving God in Comparison of whom the whole World with their many Idols Gods and Lords are nothing We may not be hindred by the Adversary from breathing forth our pure Life given us of God for his Glory in a continual mention of his Holiness for if we should be silent the very Stones would do it for now is the Lord Jesus arisen indeed and ascended far above all Heavens Principalities Powers Names and Greatnesses whatsoever and come again to our Spirits according to his Blessed Promise that of his unspeakable Fulness we might all partake in abundance to the causing of our Cup to overflow with all Holy and Heavenly Consolations and Praises for the perfect Salvation of our God to the watering of every tender holy Plant in Israel that waits for the same For as the Dew to the tender Herbs so is thy Blessing O Immanuel to the Garden of thy own planting thy Beloved Plants that waits for thee amongst whom the pourings forth of thy Name is as sweet Ointment And Blessed are all that wait for thee who hast inclosed thy Beloved People in the Arms of thy own Almightiness and filled them with thy own Blessed Kingdom and Righteousness who hungred after thee even so Father of Life be it for Evermore to thy own unspeakable Glory who alone art worthy So now Dear Friends into the Unity of the Holy Life Power and Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ let every Soul of us gather and retire it self to be nourished up thereby and preserved to a daily and perfect Victory over all Temptations and Provocations whatsoever that upon the very Head of the Serpent we may tread and let us not look at the seen things for therein lyes the Wiles and Temptations but let us eye and feel the Blessed Invisible Life and Powerful Heavenly Spirit of our God to carry us through and over all to his Glory who hath said That he will never leave nor forsake his tender breathing Seed that waits on him so Blessed are all that are found in this his Covenant and follow him as Dear Children and Obedient Servants in the sure and safe way of the daily Cross and Self-denial to a perfect mortifying and subduing of the fleshly
their own Members them of their own polluted Church who divers of them are left in Prison upon other accounts as well as over thee And so unless thou be provided for otherwise thou mayst remain there in Misery and Want or Perish there as well as they for any Care they will have of thee for thou must not look that they that hate their own Flesh can love thine But the Righteous cannot be forsaken for their Keeper is the Lord God of Truth and Love So O Prophet be content and wait in the Will of God in thy Condition for Blessed are they that Suffer for Righteousness sake and the Scripture must be fulfilled which saith They shall hawl you out of their Synagogues and many other ways evil intreat you yea some of you they shall put to Death and think therein they do God Service And so wait to see the Sins of Gilead full and then in the Judgment shalt thou O Prophet of God and all thy Suffering Brethren rejoyce and all the Workers of Iniquity be Confounded with all that Thirst for Blood and into the Holy City shall none such enter but the pure in Heart who have come through the great Tribulation and have washed their Garments white in the Blood of the Lamb shall only enter and alone inherit to the Glory of the eternal righteous God for evermore to whom all Honour and Glory is due for ever and ever Amen and Amen And now for the Use of these Doctrines oh Priests and People that make a Trade of talking of the Scripture of Truth and Uses from it now and then in your high Places but make none of walking in the Truth in your daily Conversation it is to let you see That there were Wolves in Sheeps Clothing formerly and so to find such now is no new or strange thing And That under a Profession of God People may be found Workers of Iniquity and full of Blood And That a whorish Spirit in a Teacher is a murtherous Spirit and will draw others from God into Wheredoms and Death and so by all means to be taken heed of And it is to let you see oh all People what evil use the Priests and Leaders of you the People in these days as formerly make of the Scripture for whereas as you may see here it was given forth by the Holy Men of God a Witness against the Enemies of God and for the Servants of God such People and Priests as formerly so now abuse and wrest it from its proper Mind Use and End going about what in them lieth to make it speak for Deceit and its Upholders and against Truth and its Followers as is manifest For whereas the Scripture speaks of no Worship now nor Worshippers to be acceptable to God and Christ but that which is in Spirit and Truth they wrest and force the Scripture for carrying on a Worship which stands in outward Ceremonies carnal Ordinances Types and Shadows and a Kingdom to come in outward Observations as Lo here lo there like the Jews which a Man of Flesh a Câ—in or an Ishmael or an Esau or a Haman or a Dives or a Judas may conform unto and be accepted with them just contrary to Scripture and so in effect deny Christ the Substance to be come and as the Scribes and Pharisees which came to Christ and said Why dost thou and thy Disciples break the Traditions of the Elders in eating with unwashen hands To whom Christ said Why do you make void the Law of God by your Traditions mentioning in particular their Corban So when the Priests the Teachers heaped up over the People in this Age say unto us whom God by his mighty Power and out-stretched Arm hath delivered out of Mystery Babylon yea Sodom and Egypt Spiritual where the Witnesses lay flain and where our Lord also was Crucified to worship him in Spirit and in Truth I say When they object and say unto us Why do you not observe but transgress the Tradition of the Elders in not bringing your Infants to Baptism in not frequenting the Meeting at the Steeple-house called the Church And why pay you not the Priest now called Minster his Tythes Easter-Reckonings and other like things called his Dues And why observe you not the Customs of the World in Swearing at Courts and bowing the Hat and Knee and giving flattering Titles to Men Job 32.21 22. and bidding God speed to the Wicked and the like 2 John v. 9 c. Our Answer to all such is Why do you break the Commands of God by your Traditions teaching for Doctrine these and the like things which are meerly your own Commandments and evil Customs and not the Commands of God For we put you all Teachers and People to prove by Scripture where we are commanded these things you put upon us to do and if you do not which we know you cannot then I say your gathering together in Companies and going about to establish such things by a Law for any People to observe which Christ hath not commanded See how you can free your selves from the Charge which the Prophet here lays upon the People of Gilead and the Priests thereof and therefore why may not the words be turned upon you and applied to your Condition with the Names only changed after this manner that is England is a Nation of them that work Iniquity and is polluted with Blood and as Troops of Robbers wait for a Man so the Company of Hireling Teachers called of Men Ministers and Masters murther in the way by consent for they commit Lewdness And therefore high time for you all People who love your Souls and would not be murthered to look about you and in the Light which-Christ hath lighted you with to watch and take heed that you be â—ot robbed and spoiled of the Heavenly Treasure by these Layers in wait as you would be careful to avoid a Troop of Robbers that wait for a Man so all having time prize it and come out from among them and know Christ in you to be your Teacher for he is the true Light that lighteth every Man that cometh into the World that all in him should believe and he is come to teach his People himself and to deliver them by his Power and Spirit from the Hands and Mouths of all such as have made and would still make a Prey upon them according as he promised of old by his Servants who spoke and wrote from his Mouth of these things as you may read in Scripture all abroad and namely in Deut. 18.15 c. Isa 54.13 Ezek. 34. throughout Jer. 31.33 34. Heb. 8. John 6.45 1 John 2.20 27. Rom. 8.14 Rev. 21. throughout And the Scripture cannot be broken For behold the days come saith the Lord that I will perform the good thing which I have promised to the House of Israel and to the House of Judah Jer. 33.14 Now all People know that these are the days of fulfilling these Scriptures
Christ's Lambs it cannot be well with you Your Teachers may tell you of Sin in the general to be the cause of these Plagues but they tell you not nakedly and truly for what the Hand of the Lord is lifted up against you neither indeed can they because of the Blindness of their Hearts and the Spirit of deep Sleep that is fallen upon them So Friend these things are on me as from the Lord to advertise thee and you all of in love to thy Soul and you all and to desire you in the Name of the Lord to lay them to Heart and ponder of them and not to pass over them slightly as too many have done because they come from such a one as I who am as a Man rejected by you Yet the Lord loves my Soul and cares for me praised be his Name and in the Patience and Joy and Strength of the Peace of God's Blessed Spirit am I kept and preserved in these continued Bonds and Sufferings for his Names sake and the Love of Christ constrains me to seek all your Good and Welfare in the Lord though the more I do this I be the more hated and persecuted of some for my Good Will but this I impute not here to thee but desires that thou maist more and more keep thy Heart and Hands clean from the great Offence to wit the Hatred of Goodness and good Men which hath sunk Nations and Kingdoms into the Pit And my desire is That the King and all in Authority may timely know and consider of these things as things of most Concernment to their Immortal Souls Rests God's Servant Thomas Taylor Wo to the World because of Iniquity WO to the World because of the great Iniquity that lyeth upon it O how are the People of this present time wholly loose in their Hearts to all manner of Vanity The Lord seeth and well pondereth of these things though you O poor deceived People will not see it For O how the Enemy of your Souls through long Custom hath blinded your Minds so that the Good which God hath commanded you you like not at all but the Evil which your own Hearts have devised you call Good and so bring your felves under the Wo Wo Wo to the cursed Customs of the World which are many Your Races both by Men and Beasts where Multitudes meet together to spend their precious Time and to satisfie their Vain Covetous and Drunken Minds the Lord is against it and Judgment from Heaven lingreth not you will not be warned until you feel it Rests God's Servant and Witness against all vain Inventions Thomas Taylor An Apology from the Harmless against the Unjust And to the King and his Magistrates against Plotting WE who are of the World called Quakers do testifie as in the sight of the Blessed Lord God of Heaven and Earth that we are clear in our Hearts from all Plottings or Contrivings of Evil or Mischief against the King or any of his Subjects and that our Meeting apart from the Steeple-house Worship is meerly in Obedience to God and at his Command who saith Come out from amongst them who live in Sin and plead for the continuance of the Body of it Yea in the Regenerate themselves during tearm of Life And so while we touched the unclean thing with you we could not be accepted of God and therefore the Lord called us out that we might meet together as we do and have done these many years in his holy Name and Fear to worship him in Spirit and Truth not in a Pretence but in the real Truth of the thing And we have found his Heavenly Presence with us and his Holy Promise fulfilled amongst us which saith Where two or three are gathered together in Christ's Name he will be in the midst of them Praises to him for ever And now as concerning those People called Monarchy-Men who are Fighters with Carnal Weapon and it seems did rise up to disturb the Peace of the Nation by outward Force we do utterly deny and not only them but all others who think the Kingdom of Christ can be set up with a Carnal Weapon or that his Church can be preserved and kept clean by worldly Force for God hath given us graciously to see beyond all such things and hath manifested in us that Blessed Heavenly Power and Spirit of Christ by which his Church which is his Body is raised up and preserved and builded up for evermore and the Sword of this Blessed Spirit of Jesus which is the Word of God we know for the cutting down not of Persons but Sins Praised be God and so to the outward Fightings and Warrings our Hearts are dead and we dare not avenge our selves as the wicked World doth but to God to we commit our Cause in Well-doing for he is the Avenger of all Wrongs and Pleader of the Innocent Cause of his People in all Generations Glory to his Name over all And therefore it cannot be but a most unjust thing that we should suffer by a Law that was made against Plotters and Seditious Conventiclers I say we who through the Grace of Christ are made to witness against all such things from our very Hearts and therefore it concerns all who are in Authority to see what they do and to distinguish rightly of Matters lest they cause the Innocent to suffer as some to their own Hurt have done and so bring God's Judgments upon them for not the greatest that ever were upon the Earth could escape God's Judgments who wronged his People witness Ahab's House and all the great Kings of the Nations in all Ages who touched God's People who were as dear to him as the apple of his Eye Do you not remember what they did to Daniel for the Worship of his God and how the Lord delivered him and the Pit devoured his Adversaries with the Informers and false Accusers Daniel could not worship but according to the Law of the God of Heaven and so we cannot worship but according to the Law of the Spirit of Life which is in Christ Jesus Must we therefore suffer well we are helped by the Love of God to rejoyce and bear patiently the Will of the Lord until he plead our Innocent Cause and judge in Righteousness betwixt us and our Adversaries for in his Judgment is our Boldness Glory to God for ever but the Haters of the Good cannot stand before him The Jews said They had a Law and by their Law Christ ought to die Was that a good Law which condemned the Innocent So whatever Men pretend as a Cloak to cover their Doings from Men yet God sees the Hearts of all Persecutors of the Righteous and will judge them as such Rests Thomas Taylor Against May-poles O People of Penkridge and the Places thereabout who had a Heart or Hand in the setting up of these Heathenish May-poles especially this second time you have shamed your selves and your Religion thereby in the sight of all and
have guided thee through the dark howling Wilderness to Sion But thou being careless and felfish thou lent thy Ear to the voice of the Stranger and cryed Lo here and Lo there and so wast thou led out of the Way into By-Paths of Sin and Death where thou hast been lost from the true Life and true Light and Spirit that wrought in thee in the beginning And thou hast not to this day throughly considered thy loss nay very little is thy Nakedness and Wretchedness laid to Heart in thee And now therefore thou that art called Christendom What is the Wood of thy Vine seeing thou hast left off to bear Fruit to the Lord better than the Wood of another Tree nay it is not so good as any For if the Salt that should season other things have lost its Savour wherewith shall it be salted and of what use is it but even to be trodden under Feet of Men. O! that thou wert wise to consider at least in this thy day the things of thy Peace in this great Day wherein the Bridegroom which hath been as one travelled into a far Country is come again and is appeared in his ancient Love Power and Perfection to visit thee and to seek thee out of every place where thou hast been scattered through Sin in the long Night of Apostacy to see if any of the pure Love that was in thee in the day of thy Espousals may be recovered to himself that he may know how to do thee good and how to make manifest his ancient love unto thee which bowed the Hearts of his simple Israel into such love of his goodness as to follow the Lamb wheresoever he went in the beginning But O! thou polluted Woman how art thou wandred away from the true Sheep-fold How art thou gone a whoring from thy God! How art thou covered with the shades of Night And how art thou lost amongst the Countries and mingled with the Heathen yea thou hast chosen thy own ways and worshipped the works of thy own Hands and hast cast the pure Law of God behind thy back Yea the Light of the Glorious Gospel of Christ which hath shined to thee and would have gathered thee up to God thou hast rejected and hast not liked to retain God nor his Light in thy Knowledge And so thou art become vain in thy Mind and thy foolish Heart is become so dark that thou worships thou knows not what like those that know not God and art become a Prey to every Beast of the Field and art bowed in thy Heart to the Creatures more than to the living God the Creator And therefore will he arise in great Majesty and dreadful Power and will yet again bring to pass his Act his strange Act in thee And he will not meet thee as a Man but as a consuming Fire Because thou hast rejected his Goodness Patience and Forbearance And hast heaped to thy self Teachers after thy own Heart who have rocked thee asleep with their false Voices crying Peace Peace when there was no Peace for there is no Peace to any wicked one saith the true God profess what they may For the Lord is come to look for Fruits And now Wo Wo to the Fruitless Trees to the Briars and Thorns for the Fire of the Lord God will consume them And now will the Lord God bring to nothing all thy Might Wisdom Glory and Greatness whereby thou host exalted thy self and dishonoured him and the Meek shall Inherit Heaven and Earth And blessed is he that overcometh that Evil and wicked Spirit that so much reigns and rages in thee for he shall be called God's Son and shall Inherit all things as saith the Scripture For the end cometh And who shall stop the course of the everlasting Sun of Righteousness whose Day is dawned blessed for evermore O thou Corrupted Earth who wallows in the Blood of thine Iniquity who art become Deaf to the Heavenly Voice and art become an Enemy to nothing so much as to that good thing that would unburden thee of thy Corruptions O O how hath Hell inlarged it self for the multitude of those wilful Transgressors in thee that are posting on in their sins this day to the Chambers of Death who are making Provision for the fleshly Lusts which War against the Soul who will not believe what their miserable State shall be though one come from the dead to declare it in true Experience to them But O thou little Remnant of Wheat amongst such a heap of Chaff O thou lovely Seed of God which brings forth Fruit of Righteousness to his Glory and so shines forth as Lights in the fore-said dark World Do thou rejoyce and be thou glad for ever in the Lord thy Saviour who hath loved thee with an everlasting Love and by his Arm of Power hath raised thee up to be his Servant and hath gathered thee into his Bosom of Safety to lie down and rest in Peace with himself for evermore So be it even so be it saith the Spirit and the Bride So do thou O Lovely Holy Seed begotten to God in Righteousness do thou trust â—nd rejoyce in the Lord thy God for ever And be not troubled nor dismay'd at the roarings of the Waters of Babylon but be still be still be at rest and Peace in the Arms of the Lord God Almighty blessed blessed for evermore From a Lover of God's Everlasting Truth Thomas Taylor PEOPLE THIS know that the Entrance into Righteousness is the Only and Alone Entrance into the Kingdom of God and there is not another Christ is God's Righteousness and so the Door He that entereth not in by me saith Christ is a Thief and a Robber So see all People where you are I am the Way the Truth and the Life also saith Christ and no Man cometh to the Father but by me So consider all People Is Christ your Way And is nothing Truth to you like Christ And have you a Life in nothing at all as in Christ Deal honestly with your own Souls and deceive not your selves for God will not be mocked Bring your Deeds to the Light and seek not to hide your Sins from the Lord For there is nothing secret which shall not be made manifest Drunkard bring thy Deeds to the Light Thou knowest by the Light thou shouldst not be Drunk nor spend God's Creatures upon thy Lust Here thou hast learned thy Condemnation and the Wrath of God abides upon thee in this Condition profess what thou may'st And all thy Prayers and Performances are Abomination to the Pure God whilst thou abidest in the Lust of Drunkenness for it defiles And all ye Vnclean-hearted Ones who burn in your Lusts one towards another and are as the Brute Beasts who know neither Guide nor Rule over your Minds but are in the Evil Liberty to follow your own Evil Hearts Bring your Deeds to the Light and it will let you see you should not be so It will tell you That the
the Kingdom of his own Son over all to whom every Knee shall how and every Tongue confess for he is worthy The Springs of Life gush out apace from the Presence of the Lord into the Hearts of the Righteous and Righteousness runs down like a Stream through the Valleys of Israel to bring forth the Heavenly Fruits of Righteousness to the Glory and Praise of the Great and Good Husbandman who is over all God Blessed for Ever of whose Holy Reign Kingdom and Government there never shall be end But of the Kingdom of the Man of Sin and all Antichrists there shall be an utter end and Death and Hell shall be cast into the Lake of Fire and the Judgment of the Living and Everlasting Truth of our Heavenly Father shall go forth more and more for the discovering and consuming the false Hope and lying Refuges of all Hypocrites who have covered themselves and not with the Spirit of the Lord the Zeal of the Lord of Life will perform this that his Name over all may be exalted who is worthy whose Appearance in Glory this Day the Children of the Night have greatly withstood and the Dragon hath made great War against the Lamb but praised be the Lord the Lamb hath got the Victory and the Lamb's Followers are this Day with their Feet upon the Holy Mountain where none can make them afraid rejoicing in this that they have found the Lord whom their Souls loved and do love for Evermore So be it Thomas Taylor To some of T. Hicks's Friends YE Hicks's Hearers of Tixall-hall and elsewhere who Read his Defiled and Defiling Book called A Dialogue between a Christian and a Quaker Fear the Lord God of Heaven and Earth for I do affirm in the Truth of Christ that it is a meer Work and Invention of the Wicked One in that Servant of his called T. Hicks who goes under the Name and Profession of an Anabaptist as they are termed I say this Man was put on by the Wicked One who is called the Devil and Satan who was a Lier and False Accuser of the Brethren of Christ from the beginning to Render us the Servants of the Lord called Quakers Odious to the World For the very first Words and Title of his Book is an absolute Lie for never was there such a Dialogue between a Christian and a Quaker but it is a meer Fiction of his own naughty Heart and Head for Rendring us and the Truth we hold Odious and it is a False and Wicked Representation of us and our Religion to the World for the which God will severely Judge him And indeed by this manner of way that he takes who or what kind of Profession is there that he can miss grosly to abuse Seeing he takes upon him like a Prevaricator or Stage-player both to ask the Question and give the Answer so as may serve most for his own wicked End and Purpose and make his Opposite infamous O the Wickedness of such Actors and their Work but Praised be the Lord we are out of the reach of his Malice for under the Holy Wing of God's Power and Protection are our Souls gathered by the Eternal Power of his Living Word in Christ Jesus our Lord And you that Read this Book whether called Papists or Protestants if this Hicks had a Mind to Render you Odious could he not this way he takes do it as Plausibly as against us and so I would not have you hurt your selves so as to strengthen your selves against us and the Truth which we Live in by such bad Books and Endeavours as this Hicks hath come forth in for if that your Minds stand open to receive them you will never want them for the Enemy of your Souls and ours yea of all Mankind will never be wanting to furnish you with Lies for Strengthening his Kingdom in you and hindering you from entring into the Kingdom of God And if you would know the Reason of his thus rising up against us I say it is because through the Grace of God given us we Preach the Mystery of the Kingdom of God even the Wisdom of God in a Mystery as Scripture speaks And that Striking at his carnal Conceptions of things and his Idolatrous Thoughts of outward Water-Baptism hath stirred up the Venom in him which by this his Book he hath Vented but the Lord is the Pleader of his People's Cause which is our Joy and our Armour against all the fiery Darts of all wicked Ones for the Birth Life Death Resurrection Ascention Glorification of Christ and his Coming again to us according to the Scriptures of Truth and Heavenly Promises through the Power of God to our Souls Eternal Salvation and Comfort we Witness Glory to the Lord for ever whatsoever this Book or any thing of like nature can or may say to the contrary so as Christ said to one of our Brethren in times past The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against us And so in the Peaceable Habitation of the Love of God in Christ Jesus do we lye down together with all Holy Souls and Spirits of Just Men made Perfect Hallelujah for the Lord God Omnipotent Reigneth in Mount Zion and before his Ancients Gloriously And so let the Mouth of all Iniquity be stopped for ever saith my Soul Thomas Taylor Something concerning that called the Common-Prayer AND Now all People that you may see we do not without cause Cry against the Priests and deny to joyn with them in the present Common Service now in use amongst the Parish Teachers of England which you are enjoyned upon several Penalties to submit unto I shall in the strength of Truth unbowel it a little unto you that you may at least in part see the true inside of it and not be deceived with the outward Appearance any longer for the Lord is arisen in his mighty Glorious Power to scatter all those Clouds of Ignorance and Error that have long vailed and covered the Minds of People and to be himself the Teacher of his People how to Worship him For his Spirit is greatly burdened with the Manners of the People who take his Name so continually in vain as such do as are only Confessors of their Sins but never forsake them but all their Lives long doing what they should not do and so instead of lessening their Sins are daily adding Sin to Sin covering with a vain verbal unfeeling Confession of Sin but not with the Spirit of the Lord. And so in the very entrance into their Work their Foundation is seen for they manifest themselves not to be in the New Covenant of the Spirit of the God of Life but in the Old Covenant of the Letter saying The Scripture moves them to confess their manifold Sins and Trespasses But when will it be seen that the Scripture moves them to forsake them for a Confession of Sin in Words we hear amongst them but the time of forsaking them never as yet come to be seen
lose their whole Faith if they believe it not as before In the Ninth Article speaking of the Church he saith The Church is the Congregation of all the Faithful under Christ their Invisible Head and his Vicar upon Earth the Pope But how proves he this Neither by Scripture nor Apostolical Tradition for which he brings neither for there is none for certain for the Church hath not two Heads the Church is not a Monster with two Heads one Visible to wit The Pope or such-like and another invisible to wit Christ Neither is the Church an Adulteress with two Husbands one visible and another invisible For saith the Apostle I have espoused you to one Husband even Christ So all others are Antichrist And then this wicked Book farther asks What are the Essential parts of the Church And to that it answers A Pope or Supreme Head Bishops Pastors and the Laity To this I say It is rank Popish Poison And what Scripture have they for this Surely none nor Apostolical Tradition-neither for the Apostles could not contradict their own Writings the Scriptures of Truth as is said before And the Scripture doth no where make the Church of Christ consist of such Essentials for God's Church are his Cleroi that is his choice ones his Lot his Heritage his Flock all of them 1 Pet. 5.3 God's Flock are every one of them sound Sheep and Lambs and they are Men God's Cleroi that is Clergy and not Laity and the word Laity is Popish and Antichristian as well as the Pope And for the true Overseers and Pastors Feeders in and of the true Church What have you to do with them unless it be to Persecute them as your Custom hath been all along ever since Night and Darkness came upon you for your great Apostasie Then this blind Guide goes on asking How prove you St. Peter and the Pope his Successor to be the visible Head of the Church He answers First out of John 21.16 17 18. Where Christ saith he for a Reward of his special Faith and Love gave Peter absolute Power to feed and govern his whole Flock yea even the Apostles themselves to be his Sheep and he their Head and Pastor I answer This is a most shameless Lie For Christ was so far in those words from giving Peter charge of Feeding and Governing his whole Church in general much less the Apostles in particular who were his Equals that the same Charge that is given here is also given to the rest of the Apostles though not in the same express words as here yet in words of the same import fully as not only when he first called them to be Fellow Apostles but also and that most plainly when he departed from them as in Matt. 28.18 19 20. where it is said And Jesus came and spake unto them that is to say to the Eleven for Judas was gone to his place saying All power in Heaven and Earth is given to me Go ye therefore not Peter only but all the rest as well as he and teach all Nations Baptizing them in or rather into as the Greek there truly signifies the Name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you And lo I am with you to wit all of you not Peter only alway even to the end of the World Amen And whereas this Liar says It was for Peter 's special Faith and Love I say Peter had no Faith nor Love but what was common to all the rest of the Apostles But if all things may be reckoned he had but little Faith nor Love neither when he denied his Master And though Christ said Lovest thou me more than these He was taught by his former forwardness not to say Yea I love thee more than they all but humbly in the sence of his former weakness Lord thou knowest that I love thee And great cause had he to love Christ greatly seeing he had Dishonoured Christ and Wounded his own Soul by Denying and Forswearing Christ more than they all And so no Merit in Peter for any thing can be looked at but God's great and free Mercy in not only forgiving him but also in imploying him in his Service again So let your unclean Mouths be stopt for Ever ye Idolizers of Creatures For as Paul said to the Corinthians so may I say to you and all the World who are striving about Men What is Paul Or what is Apollos So what is Peter or others that God made use then or makes use of now as Instruments in his Hand for Peoples good but even as nothing seeing Christ is all and in all And with him there conclude Neither is he that planteth nor watereth any thing but God that giveth the increase 1 Cor. 1.11 c. and Chap. 3.3 4 c. His other Proof for Peter's Supremacy is out of Mat. 16.18 Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church therefore saith he the rest of the Apostles were built on him and hence it is saith he as often as they are mentioned in Scripture he is named first To which I answer and say It is no less than Blasphemy to say That either the Apostles or the rest of the Faithful were Built upon Peter as a Man for it contradicts all Scripture which every where give the Glory of being the Rock the Foundation yea and Corner-stone of the whole Building of the Church of God to Christ alone and not to Peter at all as a Man for what is said here of Peter hath relation only and altogether to the Faith of Christ the Rock here confessed only unto by Peter but given of the Father And Peter himself says expresly that the rest of the Faithful in those Days had obtained like Precious Faith with him and the rest of the Apostles See 2 Pet. 1.1 And the Apostle blames them greatly in 1 Cor. 1. before-mentioned for saying I am of Paul and I of Apollos and I of Cephas that is Peter and I of Christ as though Christ were divided For they all should have kept the one Head Christ without mentioning any Man's Name in this Matter For as Peter also said in Acts 4.12 There is no other Name but that of Christ Jesus by which Men can be saved then say I of Necessity there can be no other Rock And whereas this Imaginer would make something for Peter's Supremacy from his being named first often in Scripture when the Apostles are mentioned I say though it were always as he says it makes nothing at all for his purpose but is a meer childish empty Conceit not worthy a Man much less one professing Religion to talk on for some of them must be mentioned first but that thus mentioning Peter in Scripture had any such Intention in it as he here Dreams of I and not only I but all Saints with me do utterly deny And as for the word Supremacy it is inconsistent with the Nature of true
Destroying one another So I rest in the Blessed Peace of my God a Sufferer for his Blessed Truth Blessed for ever be his Name who hath called me and counted me worthy thereunto But it will not be well with such as hate the righteous Man as saith Scripture But my Heart can say Father forgive them for they know not what they do And concerning Kings and all that are in Authority my Heart hath said according to the Holy Doctrine of the Apostle Lord Grant that they may Rule well that it may be well with them in the latter End and that we thy People whom thou hast redeemed to thy self may lead a quiet and peaceable Life in all Honesty and Godliness under them to thy Praise And for this Cause pay we Tribute c. This his own Sincere Account appears truly agreeable to what the Holy Apostle saith in the like case 2 Cor. 1.12 For our Rejoycing is this the Testimony of our Conscience that in Simplicity and Godly Sincerity not with fleshly Wisdom but by the Grace of God we have had our Conversation in the World and more abundantly to you-wards These things are recommended to all Serious and Well-inclined Readers who desire to seek the Lord his Kingdom and the Righteousness thereof to weigh and consider knowing that 't is all our Concerns tenderly to mark and behold the perfect and upright Man for the End of that Man is Peace as was the End of this Innocent and Upright-hearted Man whose Memorial is Blessed Divers Friends have been for some time concerned that the following Collections were not publish'd some Years ago but many Occasions and Exercises intervening have thus long prevented the Persons concerned in Collecting Inspecting and Placing his Writings in Order as they could find them and as might most tend to future Service Admonition or Warning that they might be preserved for Ages to come We have great Cause to Praise the Worthy Name of the Lord our God that he hath raised and sent so many Faithful Witnesses in our Days who have not been as Clouds without Rain but Divinely Replenished and Qualified with Life Wisdom and Sanctity for the Work which the Lord hath called them unto And therefore Wo will be to those Enemies Apostates and Back-sliders who Contemn Reproach or Harm any such who are the Lord 's Anointed ones Prophets or Faithful Servants either while Living or Dead And it highly concerns all the Lord's People who profess his Light and Truth sincerely to approve their Hearts unto him with unblameable Lives and Conversations walking before him in true Love and Christian Charity and truly to prize the Mercy of the present Day and Dispensation of Grace and fervently to pray the Lord of the Harvest to raise up and send forth more Faithful Labourers thereinto that his Gospel-harvest-Day and Work may go on and prosper both in this Age and the Ages to come to his Eternal Praise and Renown and his Church's great Joy and Comfort in him for ever Amen WE being satisfied and having Vnity with the foregoing Preface with Relation to and in behalf of our deceased Friend and Brother Thomas Taylor his Service Labours and Travels in the Gospel of Christ do hereunto Subscribe our Names Theodore Eccleston William Ellis Samuel Waldenfield George Bowles Charles Marshall Thomas Lower John Bowater Joshua Middleton Richard Needham John Field I Am Concerned to give this further Account The said Thomas Taylor after other Imprisonments being Twice Imprisoned at Stafford for his Tender Conscience to Christ In the first Imprisonment there he was near Eleven Years a Prisoner as I Remember and the Second Imprisonment there was for a short time being Threatned Reviled and Falsly Aspersed and called a Jesuite-Rogue by the Deputy's Steward of the Court I was made Instrumental in God's Hand for his Release both times the First in 1672. by Solicitation for him and many others whom thereupon K. Charles the Second Released And the Second by Endeavouring for himself about 1679. Manifesting him to be no Jesuite nor Papist but a Peaceable Harmless Man in his Conversation and a Dissenting Protestant Distinguished under the Name Quaker to clear him from the False Aspersions cast upon him in which my Solicitation and Endeavours for his Liberty I had great Peace and Comfort and the more in obtaining the same for him and others for I truly Loved him for his Innocency Integrity and Love to the Lord and his People G. Whitehead London the 20th of the 3d Month 1697. AN INDEX OF THE CHIEF HEADS Contained in this BOOK I. A Testimony concerning our Dear Friend and Brother Thomas Taylor who was Convinced of the Lord's Everlasting Truth and Received it in the Year 1652. II. Christopher Taylor 's Testimony concerning Thomas Taylor III. Thomas Taylor 's Testimony concerning his Father IV. A short Testimony of Hannah Taylor concerning her Dear Father Thomas Taylor V. Robert Barrow 's Testimony concerning Thomas Taylor VI. William Fallowfield 's Testimony concerning Thomas Taylor VII A short Testiâ—oâ—y concerning that Faithful Servant of the Lord Thomas Taylor whose Memory is Blessed THomas Taylor 's Epistles To Friends Page 2 To Friends at Strickland head Page 4 To Friends in Warwick-shire and Stafford-shire c. Page 7 To Friends Page 10 A Loving and Seasonable Advice to the Children of Light from a Brother Thomas Taylor Page 11 To Friends that abide in the Truth as also to such as are gone from it Page 15 To Friends Page 17 To Israel 's Babes Page 20 Of Prayers Page 22 Concerning Zion Page 23 The Life more than Cloaths and Meat ibid. To the Vnsatiable Devourers of Strong Drink Page 24 To my Dear Friends every where Page 26 To Friends Page 28 To Friends in London Page 30 To Friends of Sadbury side Page 32 To Friends Richard Boothman and Robert Clough Page 34 The Day of the Lord is Dawned Page 35 Some Prison-Meditations in the 7th Month 1657. being a Free-gift Sermon mainly touching the Religious Robbers or Spiritual Murtherers the Sermon and Prayer-sellers of the former latter and present Times even to the whole Company of Mystery Babylon 's Merchants and Members a Warning Page 37 To the Judges Justices Juries Teachers and People of the Nation who Profess themselves to be Christians and the Scriptures to be their Rule and yet account themselves disturbed if any speak unto them and cry against them in their Assemblies or Streets in the Name and Word of the Lord without any Authority from Man a few Queries Page 50 To those of Manchester that are Zealous for their Sabbath Page 53 To a Wandering Apostate Page 55 To George Ward and those that had Fellowship with him Page 56 To a Plundering Priest Page 58 To those that Rejoice in Bells and Bonefires Page 59 To them that plays the Fool upon the Stage Page 60 Against Mass Times Page 61 To the Bear ward Page 62 To the Dancers on the Ropes Page 63 A Warning to all People ibid. For the
out of their Synagogue and as I passed in their Hands amongst the Croud through the Grave-yard and into the Streets I Sounded forth the Day of the Lord and the Judgments of our God upon all the Wicked Head and Tail and for that together for what was done in the Steeple-house they further hawled me by Command as they said to the Prison the common Goal where I remained till the next Day and then afterwards was led amongst the Fettered Felons as they call them to their Judgment Seat three several times Thus was I numbred among the Trangsgressors and made contented to bear Christ's Reproach And though the Enemies did not only prepare a Bill of Indictment against me and by their Juries as they call them Judged me guilty as they call it of a Disturbance but also the Judge whom God will Judge did set Five Marks Fine upon me and Imprisonment until I should pay it though indeed the Disturbance and Offence was on their part for they Disturbed me in the Precious Work of the Lord and have kept me hitherto in the Goal for my good Will towards them the Lord forgive them for they do they know not what and so what in them lieth provoke the Wrath of God against themselves But Blessed be the Lord tho' they have and do use me as is said yet the Truth both at the time of my Examination and since hath had Dominion over them and the Friends of Truth in the Country rather encouraged to go on in the Truth than any way daunted the Glorious God of our Life and Peace be Magnified And so let all your Hearts dear Friends in the Living Power and Truth of our God be Comforted and Established even to you I Speak who know the goodness of the Cross of Christ and submit willingly unto it in all things not to be Terrified at all by the Enemies endeavours knowing that through many Tribulations we must daily pass to the Kingdom And this is a Faithful Saying that If we Suffer with Christ we shall Reign with him And truly Friends the Love of God to my Soul hath been so preciously and is daily Manifested in this Prison-Condition that if it could be Expressed you would never be much troubled after it at the Sufferings for the Truths Sake So all in the Light Walk and in the Power of Truth Dwell that you may bring forth Fruits in all things to the Living God that in Peace you may lay down your Heads and with joy give in your Accounts to God continually as Good and Faithful Stewards and Servants in his Vineyard and work whereunto you are called And the Lord God of Fulness supply what may seem wanting unto you or any of you in regard of mine or other Friends in the Ministry our absence in this time knowing that we are not our own but in the disposing of Him who Rules and Orders all according to the good Pleasure of His own Will and that for good in all things to such as Fear Him and in Spirit truly wait For truly Friends I had thoughts of being up amongst you again may be before this time if this or the like had not hindered So Rests your dear Brother in the Faith and Service of the Gospel Thomas Taylor TO FRIENDS Dear Friends MY Tender Love in the Lord Jesus Christ doth dearly salute you all wishing and desiring even from the Bowels of our Tender Father's Love all pure Refreshings and holy powerful Strengthning unto all your Souls that you may be born up and carried on in the way of his pure Fear and heavenly Righteousness which he hath brought you into and blessed you in to do his Will and to glorifie his Name for Ever that our Souls may live together in the sweet Unity of Love Life and Peace with our God out of the reach of the present Evil World to sound forth his holy Praises World without end even in and under our own Vine and Fig-tree Christ Jesus where none can come to make us afraid and where the Troublers of Israel neither do nor ever shall come to disturb our Happy Peace and Rest World without end For Dear Hearts however things seem to be in the outward yet truly God is good to Israel even such as are of a broken contrite pure and clean Heart So God Almighty you all keep and preserve even so in his pure Love for Ever rests yours all Dearly in the Love of our Father Thomas Taylor A Loving and Seasonable Advice TO THE Children of Light From a BROTHER Thomas Taylor YE Children of the Most High Begotten to God by the Word of his Power which liveth and endureth for Ever and who through the Leadings of his Heavenly Hand are brought through the Vail that is the Flesh into the Holiest of all the Banqueting-house of the Father where his Banner over you is Love all Day long and so are come to read your Names written in the Book of Life which is a Mystery hid from all the Wisdom of the World I say unto you O all ye Children of the Heavenly Wisdom keep your Habitation keep in the Wisdom and Strength of the Lord God Almighty your Father and give not your holy Things to Dogs nor cast your Pearls before the Swine for the Dogs will turn again and rent you and the Swine will tread the Pearl under their Feet So be ye wise in the dispensing and dealing out of your Heavenly Father's Treasures which he hath betrusted you withal and made ye Stewards of for his Glory O stand in awe and sin not in this weighty Matter be not too lavish amongst the wicked Contenders of your Master 's Choice Goods to get a Praise to your selves but be content to be as Fools before them rather than to let the Babylonians into your Treasures yea though they make a dissembling shew of Love lest a Judgment follow as it did to Hezekiah of whom you may read Isa 39. Chapter throughout O my Friends the Serpent is Subtle and Herod is Cruel and therefore wait in the dread of the Lord God to feel and savour the Serpent's Voice in all for no more will any that are guided by the Serpent receive Truth in the Love of it though it be never so plainly told them where it is and what it is in it self and what it will be to those that receive it in Love I say no more will they love it than Herod did the young Child whom he only enquired after that he might slay him So we may daily see that the Contenders and vain Enquirers of this present time are of Herod and the Serpent's Race who cannot endure to hear of the Birth of that Seed that is above every other Seed and is King of the true Jews in Spirit and to whom all the Fleshly Births under what Name or Profession soever must be subjected and bow And as the love of the Lord doth indeed constrain us as freely and abundantly to Communicate of
perfect was because it could not take away Sin and so that Perfection that is not sinless is no Perfection at all therefore it 's said That Christ by One-offering hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified Heb. 10.14 And behold the Lamb of God that takes away the Sin of the World Amen TO FRIENDS That Abide in the Truth AS ALSO To such as are gone from it FRIENDS all still mind the Light of God in you even that which is not of this World but leads out of the World and the Worships Lusts Customs Fashions Traditions and Inventions thereof up to God from whom it comes which Light was preached unto you in the Beginning and as your Minds were turned to it and believed in it true Judgment was executed upon the Man of Sin in you and through the Light wherein God's Saving Power is felt you became more than Conquerours over the World and the Mind thereof and so you became Lovely in the Eye of the Lord the Father of Light and so he entred into Covenant with you and you became his and he yours in Truth Power and Righteousness and his Banner over you was Love and is Love to all who have kept their first Love and have continued Faithful to his Witness and have brought forth Fruits to God you have reaped Life because you have lived in the Spirit and walked in the Spirit and sown to the Spirit of Life which God hath freely given you to profit withall and to be a Blessing unto you in the midst of the Earth But to such amongst you who came out of Egypt with you and saw God's wonderful Working at the Red Sea and came through the Sea to the dry Land amongst the Israclites of God but are now fallen a Lusting in the Wilderness and with your Hearts turned back again into Egypt and so cannot enter Rest with God's People because of Unbelief I say your Condition is Sad and greatly to be lamented and your Bondage is great that after all your Experiences of Pharoah's Oppression and the Mourning of the Seed under his Yoke and your Knowledge of God's great Power for you at the Red Sea that you should so soon forget your own Miseries yea and the Mercies of God also in delivering of you so Miraculously from under the Enemies Power that you would be yea are in the Brick-kills again What Is it the Onyons and Garlick of Egypt and Flesh-pots that hath bewitched you that you are so weary of the Lord's Yoke that the Heavenly Manna hath no Savour to you O Foolish People How are you bewitched that you should not love nor like to follow the Truth which hath wrought such Wonders for you O the Treacherousness of your Unbelieving Hearts How have they deceived your selves and all who looked for Good from you How Foolish and Unwise are you become to sell the Hope of eternal good Things for that which you have seen to be nothing but meer Husks Shadows and Vanity But now therefore if it be possible call in your Minds consider in your Hearts what it is that the Lord requireth of you you cannot be Happy without God and his Truth but he can be eternally Happy and Glorious without you he can cloth himself and wrap up himself in eternal Light Life Power Fullness and unspeakable Glory and Satisfaction without you but you without him cannot enjoy one dram of Light Life Comfort Satisfaction or any Good for in Christ the Light God's Gift all Fullness dwells and out of him or without him nothing but Emptiness Misery Disappointment and endless Woe yea Vanity of Vanities and a sore Travel as all things under the Sun in your best Condition without Truth whilst here and endless Woe without all Comfort when gone hence Without me saith Christ ye can do nothing And so say I Without Christ ye are nothing nor have nothing but are meer Beggars Prodigals Lost Undone Blind Wretched and Naked Out casts profitable for nothing so Return Return Renent Repent saith my Soul in the Light of the Living to you all So be it TO FRIENDS MY Dear Friends in Christ Jesus who are Faithful in God's Covenant of Light and Life to dwell grow and increase yea and to bring forth Fruit of Righteousness to God's Glory abundantly my true and tender Love salutes you all and my Spirit in God rejoyceth because of you all and I cannot but evermore upon every remembrance of you Praise Laud and Magnifie the great and glorious Name of our Heavenly Father for his tender Love and tender Mercy to you all and for the Power of his Love in Christ whereby he hath reached help to your Souls in the needful time when all help of Creatures was at an end and hath raised you up from the Dead to be his living Witnesses in the Day of his Love to Israel and hath chosen you for his People and to bear the Name of Sons and Daughters Servants and Hand-maids in his House to do his Service and to bear his Name in Righteousness before the Children of Men. O my Soul is even filled with the sweet heavenly Vertue of this Love of God upon every Remembrance of you even of you all and every Member of the Holy Body of Jesus Christ in every place For who can express the Beauty of your Life and Fullness of your Treasure which you possess in his Love O Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath chosen us and set his pure Love upon us whereby it comes to pass that we are more than Conquerors over all the things of Darkness and Powers of Evil that would separate us from his pure Love O Glory Glory to his great Name who by his pure Love hath begotten us again from the Dead into the Image of his living pure and holy Nature of Love to love one another and to reach forth pure Love in Spirit and Truth unto all yea unto Enemies for at the Birth of Jesus this was sounded forth by the Heavenly even Peace on Earth Good Will to Men. So that when Men have us and speak Evil of us we know they have no Cause for it for if they know our Love and good Will to them they would love us and much more the Father of our precious Life by whom we are begotten into such a pure heavenly Love as even labours and travels night and day how we may fulfil that great Service of Love and continual Duty of good Will that we owe to the whole Creation of God For Oh how great is the Bondage of a great part of it as yet being so burdened with the weight of Corruption that lyes upon it that it ever cries unto God by reason of Oppression and waits for the Manifestation and Enjoyment of the pure and holy Liberty of the Sons of God wherein God alone may be glorified and the Creature set free to run in the ways of his Commandments with Joy and the wicked one
may be put under into the Pit of everlasting Woe there to remain for ever So my Dear Friends and Fellow-Citizens of the New and Heavenly Jerusalem ye True and Faithful Seed and Servants of the everliving and true God do you rejoyce and lift up your Heads for from the eternal Fountain of Life and Love is your Salvation come your Portion is upon a Fat and Fruitful Land not as Egypt watered by Mortal Man but as the Promised Land watered from Heaven and made to excel all Lands in Goodness and Fruitfulness yea I know you Faithful ones are able to read in the Mystery where the Fullness of all is enjoyed and all Barrenness and Disappointment done away So my Dear Fellow-Members in the Heavenly Body and Faithful Branches of the living Vine do you rejoyce and lift up your tender Souls in God's Name and in his living Mercies at all times trust trust not in any thing but in the Name and merciful Power of the ever-living God our tender Father and in this Faith will be your Victory in all things by this Faith will your Hearts be kept clean to God alone out of all Defilements and Worldly Intanglements whatsoever yea and by this Faith will you be kept so continually a top of all Powers of Darkness and Spiritual Wickedness whatsoever that in Freedom of Mind and Joy of Heart you may offer your selves to your Maker and Redeemer as a reasonable Service and pure Offering of Obedience to his Praise as is due for ever and ever So my Beloved in God's pure and precious Truth I am your Brother and Fellow-Sufferer for the Elections sake well satisfied in this through the unerring Spirit that as we abide Faithful to God in our Conditions we shall never want the Support Joy and Comfort and daily Supply of his abundant Love and all-sufficient Grace so that we need not fear the Terrors of the Night nor noysom Plagues that destroys at Noon-day nor the Doing of Mortal Men because the Lord is become our sure and safe Hiding-place and Castle of Defence as he was to our Brethren in the Faith in all fore-going Ages And what if they say That we are a Poor Deceived and Contemptible People it matters not seeing we have God's certain Truth in us the Foundation of our Building and God's gracious Acceptance of us in Christ for our Strength and Glory And what if Mens Decrees be against the Liberty of our Holy and Spiritual Worship We must not be dismay'd for such things for so it was in the days of his Flesh who said The Servant is not greater than his Lord and he endured such Contradictions against himself for our sakes and he beheld his Father's Power and in it stood to the overcoming of all Enemies and so hath given a good Example what to do in Times of Trouble and whither to go in Times of Need for he that hath promised is near to all that fly to him for Succour who both hath and daily doth make fully manifest his Kindness and Faithfulness in us and for us that we might be to him a People and he to us a God for evermore So into the Arms of his eternal Power and Bowels of everlasting Love I commend you all to be kept comforted and carried over all that would hurt you or hinder you from walking in his good Way and rests your dear and tender loving Brother in the Patience and Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ as bound yet Free Glory to his Name everlasting So be it even Amen Hallelujah Praise the Lord saith my Spirit in the Unity of your precious Life which we have in his Love Thomas Taylor TO Israel's Babes THis this shall be the Everlasting Song Of Israel 's Babes who Lillie like among The pleasant Meadows grow and as the Rose Send forth their sweetest Smells and do repose Their tender Heads on their dear Mothers Knee The new Jerusalem for ever free Free from all Sin and Sorrow yea from all That doth the Soul Imbondage or Inthral As Fears and Cares and Earthly-mindedness Which as an Heritage Men's Hearts possess But Zion's Birth is free and kept in Peace Abiding in the Fathers House Increase And fitting under his pure shaddowing Love Even all day long whilst he their Faith doth prove They are in safety kept within the Just Not lending any Ear to the earthly Lust They knowing that in Heaven is a surer Rest Reserved for them ay to be possest Hallelujah Praise the Lord give thanks unto his Name say ye O Holy Seed of Israel The Lord God Almighty our Father is Good and his Mercies Everlasting and his Love unto us as Endless as Himself who is the same yesterday to day and for ever over all Blessed for evermore But Howlings Misery Wo will be the cup Of all the Earth who in their minds are up Exalted over that that 's meek i' th' Heart And on it trampling these must ever smart These these are they that Heavens fierce Wrath must feel These must be shivered with a Rod of Steel Will God Almighty ever wink at such That of his Glory due him so much grutch And will not suffer him the Earth to Inherit Which by his Sufferings as his right did Merit And through his Cross and Death became right Heir Of every Substance Jewel Precious Rare Above the Heaven and in the Earth below And in the deeps that in great Measure flow He 's Heir Apparent of all things and Chief Sure holden and possest i' th' Saints Belief Though the Wickâ—d and Vngodly will not yield That he should Rule or his pure Scepter Wield As Lord and King yet sure his Name shall spread From East to West from North to South with dread He shall arise as Lions to the prey He shall proceed in his Might and will not stay Or stop his Work for all the flattering Cries Of Hypocrites his wicked Enemies He will not then regard their feigned Voice Who have not nor yet will make Moses Choice But with the Esaus of the World chuse rather I' th' loss of all that 's Heavenly the Earth to gather And say within themselves Give give these things That we may have our Lusts and reign as Kings In this time present which with Eye we see For we believe not what shall after be We like not such harsh Doctrine as doth tell Of Abrahams Bosom and the Gluttons Hell For Pastimes Pleasures and such Recreations As feed our Sences with Prevarications Of all sorts sizes manner form and fashion That can be found in City Town or Nation Is our vain Minds Desire and Hearts Delight Here here 's the Crown for which we Strive and Fight For which both Night and Day we Ward and Watch And thus at Shadows all the World doth Catch Even all the World Professors and Prophane Who that pure thing Christ Light within Disdain And for the Light put Letters Sounds and Forms And for the Substance Shadows Over-worn In this they all
agree to set at naught The living Virtue by which Saints are taught And so at large the wicked Mind is left In Vnbeliâ—vers to make up by theft And stealth in their out-side and vain Profession What they of Truth do want in true Possession But Babes of Zion feed upon that Bread The real Substance Jesus Christ their Head Which came from Heaven and thither hath them led With him to rest in his Eternal Bâ—d They feed upon him in the Mistery Hid from the Raven and the Vulters Eye For where the Body is the Saints Resort And there are kept secure as in a Fort Of Brass or Iron where the Table 's Ready All day full fraught with Dainties for the Needy Yea for the Needy and the Hungry Soul To take and freely Feed without Controul When false prophane Professors in the double Mind Much seem and dream they Eat but all 's but Air and Wind. Of Prayers WHen as a tuned Instrument my Mind is in the Lord Well set and with his Power Assist O then I can Record The mighty Acts and wonders great of him that Rules on High And of his great Magnificence from whom the Heavens do fly And Earth also when he is pleased to make his Power known In Mercies and in Judgments deep for such as are his own When â—â—e an Arm of Help doth reach unto the needy Soul When he the daring Power of the Enemy doth Controul O then I say what Treasure can before his Presence stand Before his Glorious Face who is the Lord of Sea and Land Where Kings and Princes are as Dust and nothing in his sight Yea all who in their carnal Minds against his Glory fight Yet he doth make his Residence with every humble Heart That loves his Name and from his Truth by no means can depart His presence is their perfect stay and they in him can say He is our Rock that nothing shall our Spirits much dismay Yea though our Troubles for a Night or so upon us lye Yet in the Morning we are Saved as we to him did cry So be it Concerning ZION IF I Jerusalem forget a People sav'd from Pride Then let my Skilful Hand forget the warbling Harp to guide And if Mount Zion in my Joy I do not still set up Then let my Tongue cleave to my Mouth and taste of Sorrows Cup. said David So shall the Seed of David now in Heart and Pen endeavour The Praise of Zion to Record and of her God for ever And Blessed are those Men on Earth that with us now take part In this our Work of Innocence when all the rest must smart For how can Israel 's Kingdom be the Portion of such Wights As will not have God's Truth to Raign but still against it Fights The Life more than Cloaths and Meat O Lord God my Life is in thy Service and my Soul 's Everlasting Peace and Satisfaction in thy Love all the Things of this World are of an empty fading Nature and yield not the least true Content unto the Immortal Soul but only answer a Mortal Necessity as the Apostle saith Meat 's for the Belly and the Belly for Meats but God will destroy both iâ— and them so Cloaths for the Back and the Back for Cloaths but God will destroy both it and them and so for other things of the World they serve but only for Worldly and Temporal Necessities but now Man made in the Image of God breaths after a more Excellent Good than this World hath to give for in the Soul which is Mortal there abides an Immortal Desire and from that an Immortal Cry after that Holy and Heavenly Food of Life which is in the full Hand of God to give and so when that is received and digested in the pure Mind then goes forth Praises and Thanksgivings to the Lord the pure and fall Fountain of all Everlasting and Eternal good Things and so happy they who come through the Obedience of the Truth to have their Hearts seasoned with this Heavenly Salt of the Word of God the Living Word which abides for Ever For in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and that Word was God and is the Lise and Light of Man and all places in Man which is not filled with this Living Light is full of Darkness and the dark places of the Earth are full of the Habitations of Unrighteousness and Cruelty and there is engendred all the Ravenous Birds and Beasts of Prey all the fiery stinging Serpents and every Venemous Thing which annoys hurts and disquiets the Living Plant which God hath planted in the Paradise of his Pleasure and seeks to devour the Man-child as soon as it is Born but into the Arms of the Eternal Power of Life is the Babe taken and by the Choicest Angel is the Plant watered and defended and so the wicked is disappointed of his Prey and therefore doth he retreat into his Den of Darkness gnawing his Tongue because of his Plagues So be it O Lord our Strength and mighty Joy How Glorious is thy Name within our Hearts We cannot cease to Preach thy Truth Though for it at us Satan shoot his Darts Though Hell be broken loose upon the Earth To vent its Malice for a little time And make the Righteous Man his Butt to shoot at Yet God will Plague them for their mighty Crime The greatness of their Evil passeth thought Their Sins in number far exceeds the Sand And therefore will the Lord against them plead With all his Judgments in his Wrathful Hand And though great Trials be to try the Faith Of pure and upright hearted People now Yet that pure holy Power will us defend Who makes the very Devils fear and bow To the Unsatiable Devourers of Strong Drink WHat Hellish Spark is that in your Inflamed Brest Which neither suffer's God nor Man to Rest But doth disorder even the whole Creation Bringing God's Judgments thick on every Nation Ye will not hear nor learn the thing that 's good But eat and drink up Sin your daily Food Be filthy still ye filthy Ones and when Your Measure is full your dreadful Doom comes then Thomas Taylor HE that to Glory would attain And many Happy Days would see His Tongue from Evil must refrain And eke his Heart from Sin keep free He must both watch and ward in Heart And persevere in that good deed Lest Satan wound him with his Dart As he doth all that take not heed Such must not promise to themselves Great things on Earth as Sinners do Who build and plant and root therein As from it they would never go But he that to the Heavens would come To dwell in that which never fades Must not in the World set up his Rest Nor shelter under Mortal shades TO MY Dear Friends every where O My Friends and Faithful to God whose Hearts are Tender and Zealous after the Lord and his Honour in this day of the Tryal of our most
evil part and a full Resurrection of the spiritual over it so rests your Dear Brother in the Unity of the same Blessed Living Victorious Faith Thomas Taylor From the Place of my Confinement for the Everliving Testimony of Jesus in the Fifth Month 1664. TO Friends in LONDON OYE my Dear Friends and Beloved of the Lord in the City of London my Love in the Lord Our Life is drawn out at this time to salute you with an Epistle of pure and unfeigned Love because you are Dear and near unto my very Heart in the feeling Life which hath given us the Blessed Victory over all Sin and Works and Words of Death to serve the Will of our Heavenly Father with all Fervency and Perseverance in our Day Age and Generation to the Praise and Glory of his Grace in Jesus Christ our Lord whom our Souls can never cease to love because the Savour of his good Oyntment is ever fresh upon our Souls and his Law of Life it is that we daily seel to have set us free and to keep us free from the Law of Sin and Death Praised be the God of our Salvation for his unspeakable Gift though the Enemy of one hand say we are no Christians and on the other hand call us a Form and bark at our Holy Unity and Blessed Agreement in the ever-living Truth and exercise of it for the good one of another and Service of all Yet over all these unclean and unrighteous Spirits and all others of like nature we are more than Conquerors and like a Rock unmoveable which the Enemy may split himself with dashing against Yet Praised be the Lord our Rock stands sure for it is Holy Pure and Everlasting and the Gates of Hell shall never be able in the least to prevail against it nor us as we upon it continue rooted and grounded in the Love of God and one of another in his Seed where all the Promises of Life and Salvation are Yea and Amen for ever And so you my Dear Friends and much longed after in the Lord when I consider the many Tryals and great Contradiction of Sinners of all sorts which for the Love and Zeal of our Holy Lord God and his unchangeable Truth you have endured from the beginning my Heart is greatly affected with the Glory and cannot but Praise the Lord for you that you are even become as a Bullwark of his Truth in the midst of a crooked degenerate and Back-sliding Nation who though like Sampson's Foxes they look with Faces several ways yet in Heart are one every one with Firebrands and Stings in their Tails like Scorpions to do Mischief by stirring up the bad part in People against the Simplicity of the Gospel of Love and Life of our Lord Jesus Christ which would gather unite and heal all of all their Soul-Maladies for ever if they did not make themselves unworthy of But O how the Truth to you doth still abide in its Lustre and Glory without Alteration knowing that you as we your Brethren in the same every where are set for the Defence of the Gospel The Lord hath set his Love upon us and it is from Everlasting to Everlasting and therefore in his Name and perfect Goodness may we safely trust and Storms will be over and his unspeakable Peace and Joy which is with us and hath so unspeakably refreshed us shall be with us for ever We need not go to the Egyptians for help as the Wicked do for in the God of Israel is our Hope and Help who keeps Mercy and Covenant with his Dear People for ever and ever And when I also consider how the Samballat and Tobias of this Age say on one hand What will these silly returning Captives do And on the other when I see the little Horn with a Countenance more stout than his Fellows in his very Words of Reproach and Work of Scattering tell of your Scattering whom God hath gathered I cannot but say O Lord Bless thy People whom thou hast so powerfully delivered and govern and keep their Hearts in perfect Peace with thee through all and over all even as thou dost this day for ever and ever that many may come to the Brightness of our day and Glory of our Kingdom which is not of this World but of God eternal our Father who is over all Blessed for ever So under the Shadow of his ever-blessed Wing my Dear Brethren and Sisters dwell and here is the true Munition of Rocks where the Living Bread is sure and the Living Waters never fail rests your Dear Brother in the Patience and Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ at present in outward Bonds for the Testimony of his Truth in this place Thomas Taylor Stafford 21st of the 12th Month 1667. And I desire that this may be communicated as the Nature of it requires to the whole Flock of God in and about the City in the precious Wisdom of God with Bowels of Love unto you all So be it TO Friends of SUDBURY Side DEar Friends and Well-beloved in the Lord Brethren and Sisters in the Holy Covenant of his Everlasting Love my very Heart and Soul doth dearly salute you all and often do I remember you in the Dearest Affections of unfeigned Love as is meet knowing your Love and Tenderness to God's Truth and me your Dear Friend and Brother for the Truth 's sake from the beginning and how the Lord of his Infinite Love in Christ Jesus hath separated us from the present evil World for himself to hold forth his Vertues before the Children of Men in a pure Life and so to feed at his Table as the Faithful do in the unspeakable Fellowship of his Eternal Spirit of Life and Peace whereby O how often yea how continually he hath and daily doth refresh feed and strengthen our pure Minds as in the simplicity of our Hearts together or asunder as to the outward we have and do daily wait upon him and in his Light are staid upon his Power in our inward Man to the Praise of his Glory which makes us that we cannot but love him and one another in and for him and so we cannot but remember him and one another and so pray for and rejoice in one another's welfare as living Members of his Heavenly Body who is over all God Blessed for Ever who is the Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls and therefore we shall not want nor miscarry as we abide in his Love and this we know Dear Hearts that as we keep his Commandments we do abide in his Love and are at Rest in his Power Many from the Letter may say God is their Shepherd or so and therefore they shall not want but truly Friends there is none can say this in Truth but who are led by him and subject to him in Heart and Life they are the Sheep of Christ who hear his Voice and follow him in the Regeneration not losing their first Love but growing and continuing in it
and the Destruction of Antichrist and the setting up of the Kingdom of Christ not by might nor by Power but by the Spirit of the living Lord God believed and witnessed by and amongst us who are reproached by many for the Truth 's sake under the name of Quakers but the Reproach of Christ is to us great Riches and the Scorners God will judge And again all People when you see the Company of Priests the Parish Teachers gather together on heaps upon every occasion at the Foot of the Great Men of the Earth to get their Conclusions and Doctrines Established by a Law for binding under Darkness the dark People who are Ignorant of their Wiles and unacquainted with their Ends and for the Ensnaring of Tender Consciences who are come to the Teachings of Christ and his Spirit and so have found the true Shepherd and Bishop of their Souls and so through Grace have escaped the layers in wait I say when you now see them gathering together by Troops for these evil Purposes and the like Self-ends marvel not at the matter for it is no new thing but one of the old things under the Sun as you see here for the World's Teachers set up in the Will of Man have always been many and evil kept up by the evil Power but the true Prophets not so but rather few and faithful and those preserved by the Power of God yea often found that the Prophets of Baal are Four Hundred and Fifty and the Prophets of the Groves Four Hundred which eat Meat at Jezebel's Table for one Elijah the Prophet of the true God who feeds upon the true Bread and ministers it forth as he hath received it freely to others without Self ends See 1 King 18 Chap. Ezek. 34. Jer. 23. 2 Tim. 4.3 1 John 4.1 And so the false Teachers under Antichrist are set forth bâ— an Army of Locusts the sound of whose Wings was as the sound of Chariots and of many Horses running to Battel Rev. 9. from 1 to 12. Ver. when the true Witnesses are set forth under a small number even two Rev. 11. And so those many Locusts and Frogs the false Teachers are the unclean Spirits of Devils working in his Servants his Ministers going forth unto the Kings of the Earth and of the whole World to gather them to the Battel of that Great Day of God Almighty being thereunto fitted in a Miraculous manner being trained up in the Wisdom of the Serpent and Sorceries of Egypt for that purpose so that none can avoid following them but such as are in the holy Anointing whose Names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life see Rev. 16.13 14 2 Tim. 8.9 1 John 2.20 27. Rev. 20. last And of the truth of this to wit of the great number and swarms of Locusts false Teachers of all Coats Black c. and of all Names and Orders Popes Cardinals Bishops Deans Deans and Chapters Prebendaries Priests Parsons Vicars Curates Rectors Ministers c. let thy many Thousands of Soldiers of this kind fighting daily against the Lamb and his Army under Satan's Banner and in constant known Pay as Hirelings in thee O England Scotland France Ireland Spain Germany Italy and other Lands be witness And therefore O whole Earth and World How art thou Corrupted How great is thy Misery What Lamentation shall be taken up for thee A wonderful and horrible thing is committed all abroad in thee Thy Prophets Prophesie falsly and thy Teachers are Lewd and Treacherous Men bearing Rule by their means over thee fleecing thee in that greedy Mind that seeks the Gain from the Quarter and can never have enough crying Peace Peace to thee when the Lord hath not spoken it and preaching unto thee a Vision of their own Head and Heart and not from the Mouth of the Lord and so strengthning thy Hands in thy Wickedness and stirring thee up to Wrath and Persecutions against the Innocent and thou lovest to have it so and what will ye all do in the end of these things Will not the Lord invade you with his Troop Will he not come upon ye O Princes as Clay And tread you down under his Glorious Power Oh People as Mire is trodden down under Foot in the Streets And who of all the false Spirits and Teachers that you in your Rebellions against God have followed shall deliver you out of his Hand So all be warned and repent and return to Jesus Christ the one Head Shepherd and Bishop of the Soul and as was said before know him in you to be your Teacher that out of the Hands of all Devils you may be delivered And now having time prize it for this is assuredly the Day of your Visitation and after that the Judgment upon you all for Wo Wo Wo both is and will be more upon you all who puts the Day of the Lord afar off and who love Darkness rather than Light because your Deeds are evil and your Head and Leader is not Christ but he that came up out of the Bottomless Pit and shall go into Perdition with all his confounded Followers the Children of Darkness And therefore on the other hand all ye Servants of the Lord my Brethren and Sisters in the Truth of Jesus Christ every where who are Sufferers for his Names sake be encouraged for stronger is he that is in us than he that is in the World and there are more with us than them though we be not known to the World nor our aid 1 John 3.1 2 Kings 6.16 c. for little Children we are of God and the whole World lyes in Wickedness and so one single Elijah and two Witnesses being God's Troop are well able to encounter with all the Troops of the Wicked for Truth shall prevail for ever and ever and all Iniquity shall stop her Mouth and so shall the due Praises be sung from off Mount Zion our Holy Hill unto our God the Holy One of Israel World without end for his Goodness to us even for evermore Amen and Amen For now is the Day of the Lord appearing and Fire goeth out of his Witnesses wouths and who of all the Adversaries can stand before him who is a consuming Fire and to the Wicked everlasting Burning Isa 33.13 14. Given forth for the Good of all People by the Spirit of Truth in a Servant of the Lord who for witnessing forth Truth as he was moved of God in the publick Assembly of all sorts of People at Appleby Steeple-house in Westmoreland in the Assize Week there in the sixth Month 1675 against the Deceit there uttered though not until the Priest had done his Oration or Sermon as they call it yet was hawled out of that Synagogue and so being hurried along into the Streets and declaring the Day of the Lord and warning them all and calling them all to Repentance was sent from thence by command from some it's aike by an Officer to the Common Goal for my good Will and
ye gone and there are amongst the Heathen worshipping the Works of your own Hands and falling down to that which your Fingers have framed and you delight in a thing of naught and the Lord the Light that made you you are become Strangers unto and is accounted by you as a weak natural thing that cannot help And his Day Power and Kingdom is put far away from you and instead thereof the Seat of Violence is drawn near to you and in the Seat of the Scorners and Mocker of the Last Times have you placed your selves saying Where is the Promise of his Coming when as him Christ Jesus the Light in whom all the Promises of God are Yea and Amen is rejected by you even by your Builders Thomas Taylor To the Bear-ward UNTO thee O Man who art called the Bear-ward do these words come Fear and tremble before the Lord God who is against all such wicked and ungodly Men as thy self is who contrary to the Law of God and the Nation goest up and down the Country keeping this great Evil of Bear-baiting on foot to the Corrupting of the Country for thy own filthy Lucre and abominable Covetousness which is the Root of all Evil And the Lord's Hand hath been long stretched out against all such Lewd Men but you go on in your Wickedness and repent not and therefore nothing can you expect as a Reward of your evil Work but everlasting Wo and Misery And to all you Foolish and Heathenish-minded People who are the Upholders and Spectators of these Brutish Customs of Bear-baiting yea and can spend your precious Time Strength and Money in the thing the Lord is against you also and his Soul is greatly grieved and burthened with you and will assuredly visit with his Wrath these and all your lewd and wicked Practices So if there be in any of you any Heart left for the Good repent lest you Perish in your Sins with such as hates to be reformed Rests the Lord's Servant who cannot but Sorrow to see you thus from time to time go on in your Sins without Remorse Thomas Taylor To the Dancers on the Ropes WO to the Dancers upon the Ropes and Tempters of God with their wicked Inventions and Wo to the Man that maintains and upholds such for filthy Lucre to draw the Peoples Minds from God O Repent Repent the Day of the Lord is at hand a Day of bitter Howling and Lamentation to all such Workers of Iniquity will it be Did ever any Child of God or any that had any Fear of God in them go up and down the Country with vain Fellows at their heels disfiguring themselves and playing Tricks upon Stages and Ropes like the Heathen that knew not God and all meerly to draw the Minds of the Multitude after them for filthy Lucre. O Cursed Covetousness What hast thou done in all the Earth the Root of all Evil well may it be called and Idolatry which whosoever follows do separate their Souls from the Glory of God and all the Good that is in his Kingdom And then O ye deceitful and vain People What will it profit you to gain the whole World and lose your Souls Rests God's Servant and a Witness in his Power against all vain and wicked Inventions of Faln Man Thomas Taylor A Warning to all People WEEP not for the Dead but Weep for the Living even for those that remain in the Body upon the Earth because of the Miseries Plagues and Judgments that are come and coming upon all the Wicked Sinful and Unholy People in all Lands for the Lord hath a Controversie with all Nations and great will be the Desolations because of Iniquity and Violence that is grown up to so great a height that it hath even as it were filled the whole Earth and the Lord seeth all your Doings O People and your secretest Workings when in your Minds ye Plot against the Lamb's Life which would redeem out of all the many Snares of the Devil whereby the Ungodly are kept fast at his Will But the Men of Nineveh shall rise up in Judgment against the Impenitent in the whole Earth for they repented at the Preaching of Jonah but behold a greater than all is come into the World even Jesus Christ the Righteous and they believe him not neither repent of their evil and violent Doings but harden their Hearts against his Holy Spirit 's Reproof to their own Destruction Thomas Taylor For the People of England to Weep WEEP thou England Howl Howl ye People for the Dreadful Day of the Lord God is at hand it is at the Door as an armed Man coming swiftly upon you to break down and tread under feet thy Pomp Glory Pride and Strength Thou hast exceeded in thy Sins and art grown monstrous in thine Iniquities so the Lord will be exceeding Terrible unto thee Thou hast suffered the Wicked in thee to have liberty and to take their Fill of Sin when the Voice of the Righteous cannot be endured in thee but he that departs from Iniquity and would perswade others so to do also is even made a Prey of by ungodly and unreasonable Men their Bodies imprisoned and banished and Estates spoiled and many sorts of Injuries done them for thy Name and Truths sake O Lord God And therefore will the Lord God arise to take Vengeance for these things yea his Soul will certainly be avenged on such a Nation as this saith his Spirit in his Servant Thomas Taylor And moreover because you have said in your Hearts We have compassed them about with an Act and now none shall worship God but as we please Therefore will the Lord the mighty God compass you about with his Terrors and you shall find no place to hide your selves in from his Wrath because of the Pride of your Heart and Evil of your Doings O all ye People of the Land who are guilty in these things saith the Lord God To the Comers and Goers by the Prison-Window of both Sorts ALL simple-hearted People who have any thing of the true Fear of God moving upon your Hearts and whose Desires are in any measure purely after God and Goodness and are not altogether hardned against the Lord and Good of your Souls Consider and ponder a little and unbethink you well as in the Presence of God what hath been from time to time declared to you and all People out of the Prison-Window Hath not the Witness of God in his Servant declared amongst you the Dreadful Day of the Lord God which will assuredly come upon all the Wicked and such as are covered and not with the Spirit of the Lord whether Priests or People And hath not the same Voice in great Love and Tenderness freely proclaimed Peace and Good Will to the Penitent and the most acceptable Day of the Lord to the Broken-hearted and such as Mourn under the Sense of Sin and Burthen of Unrighteousness without respect of Persons And are not these things to be
laid to Heart and not at all to be slighted And therefore I say unto you O People even you that love your Souls and are not yet come to the true Rest Christ Jesus in Spirit but are wandering from Mountain to Hill after the Hireling-Teachers one day after another and yet are not satisfied with their empty Words but are dead dry and barren in Heart as to the Power of Godliness after all your Money spent and Labour taken I said Is not this an evident Sign that it is not Bread that hath by them been ministred to you but the Chaff of Mens Inventions For saith the Lord Does not my words do good to them that desire after me But alas People the Hireling's Words which he sells you for Money are not the Word of God but only what he hath gathered and conceived from the Letter of another Man's Line and so cannot profit you though you should hear never so much of it no more than Chaff can feed And so do not say the Fault is not in our Teachers but only in us For I say unto you in the Spirit of Truth the Fault is now in you both for the Day of God is dawned and now you are both warned and so are left both without Excuse There was a Time of Darkness and Ignorance which God winked at but now the Life is manifest and the true Light that enlightens being broken forth through the Clouds you are hereby warned and all every where exhorted to Repent So harken to the measure of that Light that shines in your dark Hearts which convinceth you of Sin and Unbelief and would lead you from them this is the Word of the Spirit of God that is nigh you where-ever you are and from whose sight you can hide nothing though never so secret Here is your Guide to God and Life eternal if you love it and here is the Door that shuts you out from God and his Glory if you hate it so prize your time and while you have time learn to know this Light of Christ in your Consciences to be your Teacher and only Guide For why will ye die why cease you not from Man whose breath is in his Nostrils that broken Cistern Time will come when Fools will wish they had been wiser and when God's Witness will be remembred and when such as now Suffer for Righteousness sake will be had in Honour Rests as always your Friend Thomas Taylor And you that go carelesly by this Window and do not regard the Word of the Lord Hear the Word of the Lord ye Careless ones ye go and come from the Steeple-house and in your Minds secretly conclude that you shall have Peace and no Evil shall come upon you when the Lord God hath spoken no Peace to you for there is no Peace to the Wicked and there you are even in the Wickedness under the Wrath of God for the Wrath of God abides upon all the Children of Disobedience And verily the Lord is arising in mighty Power to Judge the World by Jesus Christ whom ye have Crucified and whose Counsels you have set at naught and have chosen rather to follow the Hireling-Teacher and his ways than the way of the Lord God So consider what is here said and run not head-long to your own Destruction for what account can ye give to a pure God in the day of his fierce Wrath who are not yet at all cleansed from your Unrighteousness Will your crying Lord Lord Save ye who are found doing your own Wills and satisfying your own Lushs without Repentance To that in your Conscience I speak which in the day when the Book of your Conscience is opened will justifie the Truth of these things against you all who in the broad way are found at that day to Condemnation and the Day is at hand and the Judge is at the Door and Wo will be to such as put it far off Rests the Lord's Servant still in this Prison but the Truth cannot be bound Thomas Taylor To King Charles the Second concerning Persecution c. IT is in my Heart as from the Lord God of Heaven and Earth to warn thee to stop the Current of that grievous Persecution which is raised up against us the Harmless People of God in Scorn called Quakers for our pure Conscience sake at this day For of a Truth the Lord God hath raised us up in his eternal Love to be his People to bear his Name in Righteousness before the Children of Men and so to exercise our Consciences in a pure Love and true Good Will towards God and all Men as he hath taught us and doth teach all that come to him And therefore weigh things well in thy Heart in the cool of the day and be not a means of injuring us for this the Exercise of our pure Conscience for truly the Lord Jesus Christ is highly displeased already for what is done against us O consider consider Doth not his Holy Eye behold and his Heavenly Heart consider the great Wrongs that are daily done us for his Names sake our Bodies imprisoned our Estates spoiled our Meeting-houses pulled down yea whole Families ruined as to the outward World for no other cause but because we cannot cease to meet together in his Name as he requires us and required his in a most harmless and peaceable manner as his People in former Ages did and as we have always done since we were to God a People And never let it be said that Charles the Second disappointed the Good People of the Land under his Government of their Expectations for behold we looked for the Continuance of Good Things from thee because of some words passed out of thy Mouth but behold great Evil hath ensued O let not the Evil Counsel of thy own Heart or of others cause thee to go on in that which will certainly bring God's Judgments upon thy Soul and Body and the whole Nation if it be persisted in as this present undertaking against us will do We desire not your Ruin no more than our own but this we know certainly and the Scripture of Truth abundantly witnesses it That never did any Prosper who did or suffered to be done so great Injury against a Harmless and Innocent People as we are known to God to be O let not the King believe any longer the vain and false Suggestions of evil Men against us If we had had any Mind against the King's Welfare we should not have had that Boldness that we have in God's sight and thine but now knowing in our Consciences that all our Endeavours have been from the beginning how to gloâ—ifie God and to serve all Men in Love to this day therefore are our Hearts in God's Truth greatly strengthened and emboldened to hold forth our Innocency before thee and all Men For the Righteous are bold as a Lyon praised be God for ever And why should it seem strange to thee or any at this day that
the Lord must be cast out and have their Portion with the Hypocrites where is weeping and wailing and gnashing of Teeth for Ever And now that Christ Jesus the True Light is arising the Children of the Night Who love Darkness rather than Light because their Deeds are evil are inventing all manner of false Covers and false Arguments to hide their Nakedness and Shame withal but the Judgment of this Light they cannot avoid for it is to give to every Man according to his Deeds And now therefore all ye Teachers of the People awake and arise to Judgment and bring your Deeds to the Light and you Principal of the Flock come forth for the words of the Lord by Jeremy his Prophet Chap. 25. Ver. 34 35 36. are now to have their perfect Accomplishment upon you And these are the words Howl ye Shepherds and cry and wallow your selves in the Ashes ye Principal of the Flock for the Days of your slaughter and your Dispersions are accomplished and ye shall fall like a pleasant Vessel and the Shepherds shall have no way to flee nor the Principal of the Flock to escape A voice of the Cry of the Shepherds and an Howling of the Principal of the Flock shall be heard for the Lord hath spoiled their Pasture Now he that hath an Ear let him hear what the Spirit of the Lord hath here commanded to be left in writing And see and consider all you that are under the Wo of these words even all you who are called of Men Masters with your Elders and Officers and Repent for where will you hide your selves And where will ye leave your Glory For the Lion of the Tribe of Judah is arisen and it is God and not Man Spirit and not Flesh that is pleading with ye and the Powers of the Earth and the Wisdom of the Beast will not shelter you nor secure you from the Wrath of him that sits upon the Throne and of the Lamb. For now though you be changed as to the outward form somewhat from the way of your Forefathers yet in the same Nature and Steps as to the substance of Things are ye found for were they justly cast out for feeding themselves and not the Flock Ezek. 34. And is it not so with you And did not their House become desolate because they stuck to the Shadows and denied yea Crucified the Lord of Life the Substance in his Appearance Luke 13.34 35. And is it not so with you And was not the Spirit of the Lord grieved then to see that filthy and horrible thing committed in the Land to wit to see the Prophets prophesie falsly and to see the Priests bear rule by their means and to see the People love to have it so Jer. 5.30 31. And is it not so found now with you And was it not the Spirit of the Lord that moved to Cry against such then as stood for Watchmen over the People and yet were Blind and Ignorant yea as Dumb Dogs and greedy which could never have enough such Shepherds as could not understand who all of them looked to their own way every one for his Gain from his Quarter Isa 56.10.11 And is it not with you so now And were not the People a prey to the Enemy of the Soul when things were thus with them then as it is now And was it not for the Covetousness and Cruelty of the Teachers of the People that the Lord brought his Judgments upon them so that they had no Answer of God Micah 3.5 6 7. As it is now And what was it that made the Priests contemptible and base in the Eyes of the People but their horrible Breach of God's Covenant Mal. 2.8 9. As it is now And therefore ye Proud Men called Ministers and Teachers of the People in the High Places in England and elsewhere who have made a Covenant with Hell and Death as those of Old did in Jerusalem earthly hearken and give ear for the Lord hath a Controversie with you as he had with your Fathers who were in Covenant with the Powers of Darkness to keep the People in Blindness and Ignorance from the true Light and Life then as is your continued Custom now for saith Hosea in his Day by the Spirit of the Lord As a Troop of Robbers wait for a Man so the Company of Priests Murther in the way by consent for they commit lewdness Hos 6.9 And is it not so with you now See and try and let that of God in all Consciences give Judgment and both your selves and all your Congregations see and consider and fear the Lord and be not Mockers lest your Bands be made strong Is it not so with you now as it was with them of Old which the Lord sent Isaiah his Prophet to declare against Chap. 29. to whom these words were sent Ver. 9 c. Stay your selves and wonder c. Here the words to the 15th Verse were written at large and after them see and consider is not this your Condition And are you not worshipping in the oldness of the Letter and the earthly Spirit and not in the newness of the Spirit of Christ and the Heavenly Wisdom which is pure peaceable and full of the Fruits of Righteousness without Partiality without Hypocrisie And therefore will the Fire of the Lord be hard to endure by you for now the Sinners in Sion are afraid and fearfulness surprizeth the Hypocrites because of the Everlasting Burnings see Isa 33.14 And take warning while time is for this is the Day of the Lord's Visitation and witnessed by his Spirit in his Servant Thomas Taylor To William Thornton called Justice at Hipswell in York-shire Divulged for the Information of other moderate Enquirers after the Lord. FRIEND I have received thy Lines in answer to those I sent thee and thou dost rightly conceive of the ground of my writing them to thee for it was indeed out of pure Love to that which lieth in the Death in thee thy Soul unto which I spoke though in the Death to hearken to the Light of God that shines in thy dark Heart for the Gospel is Preached to the Imprisoned Souls who are dead in Sins and Trespasses that the dead may hear the voice of the Son of God even of Jesus Christ who is the Gospel it self the true Light and Life of Men who shines in Darkness though the Darkness do not comprehend it and so live And if thou hast an Ear within open thou may'st hear what here is spoken and so there will be no contradiction in directing thee to a pure Principle to attend to the pure Light of God within freely given to guide to himself but thou wilt if thou be'st once indeed turned to the Teachings of that Light of God in thee which shows thee thy Sin and Death daily and calls to Repentance and Faith see clearly that the Contradiction lies in the disobedient Nature within in thy self as in all others without Exception of what
the great People of the Earth who love the Pleasures of Sin these TO you that are great in the Earth and in the Glory of the World exalted the Word of the Lord God is to you come down come down to the Light of the Lord Jesus Christ in your Consciences which shows you Sin and Evil and it will let you see how you have spent your time and how your Hearts are taken up with the Love of the World and the Lusts thereof that the one thing necessary is not so minded by you as the worth of your Precious Souls requires but you eat and drink and sport your selves with the Pleasures of Sin and feed your minds with the vain Delights thereof so fat and so full of Self love are you that there is no place empty for Christ in you wherein to lodge or whereon to lay his Head but as a Stranger in you and in your Families is the pure Son of God found and an empty Profession of him that is heavenly in your earthly Minds is all the Food that he can find amongst you Alas Alas For you poor Careless People what will ye do in the Day of the Lord when an Account is required of you of all that ever hath been done in your Body Is not Christ a Stranger amongst you and not taken in Sick and in Prison and ye visit him not Read within Oh how often hath the Lord knocked at your Door and he is not yet in Love entertained in the Heart 's full of other Lovers he cannot Sup there with you and so you Sup not with him but you eat your own Supper and prefers that before his and so discerns not the Lord's Body and so Condemnation is near Do you not to that in your Conscience I speak Do you not I say sit down to eat and drink and rise up to play Is not all Places where you are found Witnesses against you that you serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but your own vain Minds and perishing Lusts rather Doth not your Houses your Diet your Changeable Suits of Apparel and your daily New Fashions with your manner of going abroad whether upon Horse or in Coach and your many unnecessary Attendants and their Attire show you to be so far from Christ's Doctrine and out of his Life that scarce any thing of the true Christianity is to be found amongst you For where is the daily Cross to your Wills and Lusts taken up by you Or where is the Crucifying of the World to you and you to the World witnessed amongst you Or any such thing as the pure Worship of God which stands in Spirit and Truth wherein he only delights But this poor Soul doth mostly satisfie you to wit to get a Carnal Man who loves to be called of Men Master to say over a few devised words or so which he calls Praying and Preaching to please your itching Ears but neither he nor you doing the things which Christ Commands you nor do you live the Life of what in words you profess and so to your other Sins you add that great Sin of Hypocrisie which is in words to profess the Knowledge of God but in deeds to deny it But better it were for you all to mind the Fear of the Lord and to consider what end the Lord made you for and not to pass away your precious time so without the Fear of the Lord God in your Careless Minds as you do for this you should know that the Lord of Glory who respects no Man's Person will not be mocked neither can the respecters of Persons who love the Praise of Men and seek the Worlds Glory live with him for such are Unbelievers as receive Honour one of another and seek not that Honour that comes from God only See John 5. toward the end And now that you have time prize it and lay aside your vain Thoughts a little and in the cool of your Minds consider and let that of God in your Consciences speak if it be not the greatest Folly in the World to Gain the Lusts of the World with the Loss of your Precious Souls And are you not in great danger of being found in this state so long as the true Prophet Christ Jesus whom God hath sent a Light into the World that all through him should come out of Sin is no more regarded by you So now having time prize it and know this Day of your Visitation and what indeed belongs unto your Eternal Peace Rests Thomas Taylor Concerning Bread and Wine THE Lord Jesus never ordained that the unbelieving evil World should eat Bread and drink Wine in remembrance of him when they daily deny him in their Life and Conversation for that were Abomination Carry such an Offering to the Governour and see if he will accept thee will he be pleased with thy words when he sees thy deeds daily contrary to his Mind and Will And how much less then can the pure God accept thee or thine Offering whilst thou only in thy words seems for him but in the whole Course of thy Life art directly contrary to Him and his Holiness O thou that art in the state of Sin and Corruption whose Fruits manifest thy Nature and Inside to be evil how canst thou endure the Trial of this Day of God which is as Fire wherein all that are proud and do wickedly are as Stubble to be burnt up Root and Branch he that hath an Ear let him hear what the Spirit saith Thomas Taylor The Indignation of the Lord upon all Nations THE Indignation of the Lord is upon all Nations and his Fury upon all their Armies he shall greatly distress the Inhabitants of the World he will now plead the Cause of his Covenant against all those that withstand his Glorious Appearance and Work of Restoration in this the Day of his Mighty Power wherein he is Restoring the Kingdom of his Everlasting Peace to Israel's Seed under the whole Heavens who fear his great Name and tremble at his Almighty Word of Life which shakes not only Earth but Heaven also And now is the Lord God Almighty bringing forth his Glory to light and Creating the New Heavens and New Earth wherein dwells Righteousness according to his Promise Isa 65.17 c. wherein the People beat their Swords into Plow-shares and their Spears into Pruning-hooks never to learn War any more but every one now that believes in the Truth Christ Jesus the Light and true King of Righteousness and Peace shall sit under him the true Vine and none to make them afraid Isa 2.2 c And now even now is the Lord God Almighty got up into his High Throne of Majesty and Everlasting Glory to Reign and of this his Peaceable Kingdom which he hath begun to set up in his Trembling People there never shall be end The true Israel of God is now coming up out of the Spiritual Egypt indeed to possess the true Land of Promise the Inheritance and
Christ which they be freely inlightned withal which shines in their very Hearts and Consciences which searches their very Hearts and Reins and makes manifest to Man his Thoughts and from which none can hide any thing but all things are naked and bare before him the Light Christ Jesus who lighteth every Man that cometh into the World Jew and Gentile one and other who searcheth the most hidden things of Man and brings them forth to the Judgment of his Righteousness for though the Night may hide the Adulterer and the Thief from Man it hides them not from God there is one nigh in the Heart and Conscience that tells Man and Woman all that ever they have done and do daily do even their secret Thoughts is not this the Christ of God the true Messiah that was to come and is come and dwells amongst us and we look not for another And of his Fulness have all we received and do daily receive who believe in his Light which shines in our Hearts according to the Scriptures of Truth And this the Fulness of our Blessed God and Saviour Jesus Christ the Light is it which filleth all that come to him with all Spiritual Blessings and Heavenly Good Things and without whom all is Darkness Emptiness Death and Desolation as all the poor deceived lost Sons and Daughters of the faln Adam do sooner or later know and are made to confess But Blessed are they that consider of things in time and lay things to Heart before it be too late for there are but Twelve Hours in a Day in which Men may work saith Christ and then the Night cometh in which none can work but the Door will be shut upon all who have slighted and neglected the Day of their Visitation O England England and all Lands far and near that you had known or could yet believe the things that belong to your Everlasting Peace before they be hid from your Eyes therefore turn ye turn ye at the Reproofs of God's Wisdom and Spirit of Light and Truth which sounds through all and lets you see the Vanity and Evil of all your Works and Frailty of all your Lives how soon the Thread of your Life is cut off And then where is the great Emperors and Kings with all their Crowns And where is the great Captains and Commanders with all their Bloody Victories And where is the Wise Achitophel's and Cunning Counsellors of the Earth with all their Admirers And where is the Covetous Oppressors with all their Houses full of the Spoils of the Innocent Yea in that Day where is all the Glory and Lusts of the World with all the Lovers of it Surely in Darkness and Misery shall they lye down together and Death shall have Dominion over them even all who have not believed in the Light Christ Jesus and who have not followed him in the Regeneration that they may be saved but have spent their Days in the Pleasures and Lusts of the present evil World to Destruction Now therefore O all People hearken to the Counsel of the Lord in this your Day and learn of the Lamb the Light who calls you to Repentance from all your grievous Ways How long shall the Spirit of the Lord strive with you When will you cease learning War and Destruction and Oppression and Spoil O when will you beat your Swords into Plow-shares and your Spears into Pruning-hooks O when will you go and say one to another one Neighbour to another and one Nation to another Come let us all be humbled before the Lord God of Heaven and Earth who made us all of one Blood to dwell together upon the Face of the Earth in Truth Goodness and Love to serve one another and so as Branches of one Tree to receive Life and Vertue and Power from our God into our Souls to strengthen us unto his holy Work who came not to destroy Mens Lives but to save them whose Kingdom is not of this World and therefore is not set up or maintained with Carnal Weapons Violence and Spoil but by the Eternal Spirit of our God whose Fruit is in all Goodness and Righteousness and Truth and let not the wicked Devil the Destroyer deceive us any more by his Lies and Delusions but let us all with one Heart and Soul resist his Temptations when he perswades us to seek to be great in the Earth and be avenged on them we count our Enemies let us not hearken to him but let us overcome their Evil with Goodness and not to seek the Destruction of their Persons or Spoil of their Estates as the Heathen do that know not God but let us follow the Example of Jesus Christ God manifested in Flesh who when he was reviled reviled not again but pray'd for such as despitefully used him O come let us follow this meek Lamb in Righteousness and Truth and let us learn of him in our Hearts who is meek and lowly that we may find rest for our Souls who rebuked his Disciples who would have had Fire to come down from Heaven to destroy the Samaritans who would not at that time receive Christ for what knowest thou O Man but the Samaritans may in time come to a better Mind and then thou wilt see it was thy Will and not God's that desired their Destruction in their Sins for Christ would have all to be Saved and to come to the Knowledge of his Truth but many will not come to him that they might have Life and so their Destruction is of themselves and their Condemnation just And who are now therefore those that withstand the Doctrine of the Truth which saith Love your Enemies and seek not the Destruction of their Persons and Estates but seek them by good Doctrine and good Life to bring them out of their Sins And if they will not but rather hate thee for thy Good-will be content thou hast quitted thy own Soul and art clear of their Blood and so thou becomes a Sufferer with Jesus Christ and shalt Reign with him in due time I say who are these now on the Earth that are against the good Self-denying Doctrine of Christ and continue in the hateful destroying ways of the old Jews and Gentiles but such as will not be counselled by the Lamb of God the suffering Seed who said Learn of me for I am meek and lowly of Heart but ye are Men of corrupt Minds and account Gain and worldly Honours and Promotions more than Godliness who cry Peace Peace to themselves in their Sins And that same Spirit in them which creates that false Peace in them is the same that stirs them up to kill destroy oppress and spoil one another for selfish and worldly Ends but the Lord is arisen to Judge all these Evil things and to redeem a Seed to serve him as in the beginning of the Gospel before Antichrist the Murtherer got up amongst them that professed Christ in Words but denied him in Deeds and so had a Name
caused me to be first called up and spoken to as being all along accounted the greatest Offender because God had pleased to make use of me in his Service more than of some others Judge He to wit the Judge asked me If I had considered of things Ans Yea and it 's my daily Work in Christ to keep my Conscience pure to God And I perceive what is purposed by you if I yield not to Man's Will contrary to that in my Conscience in this thing even the loss of what is called mine in the outward World c. But that Law was made against Papists c. Judge But not only against them And so caused that Stat. 7 Jac. to be read Ans But I look at the words of the Oath and it appears plainly it was made against them Yet I do not hear that it is executed against any of them now though they be the Parties thereby intended Judge You may be Jesuitical or so Ans Concerning Popery I have truly declared against it before and I have it under their own hand that we called Quakers are accounted by them their worst Adversaries And I have also by me to shew in seventeen main Particulars wherein we are made by the Truth to oppose them in their Way or Religion And so I say what thou dost against me consider and fear the Lord God for if thou be a means of taking that from me which my Wife and Children should outwardly live on and put it into the King's Treasures it will not be a Blessing there but a Curse for I openly declare that if I Suffer now upon this account or so it is for the Truths sake And so do what thou dost in the fear of the Lord. Judge Here he said faintly I hope I do and I am loath to do it Ans Mind that which makes thee loath to do it and it will never suffer thee to do it Yet notwithstanding this he broke through all and gave Sentence against the Innocent and so filled up his measure adjudging me to the loss of outward Estate Liberty or so and all this as is said meerly for Truths sake Then it came through me The Lord gives and the Lord takes away Blessed be the Name of the Lord. Then being spoken unto to go away from the Bar as I was going down it was fresh in me as from the Lord God to exhort them on the Bench c. to Repentance and to take heed of such Doings as these for which and the like a great Cloud of Judgments hang over the Land And so staying amongst the rest of the Prisoners till they were all dismissed and sending away it was further upon me from the Lord in the Peace of my Spirit and pitty to their Souls to look upon the great Multitude of People there present and to speak to them to mind the Fear of the Lord God and the Day of their Visitation and to turn to the Lord whilst they had time or so And for this Work of the Lord the Judge and some other great ones there were all so troubled and so I was commanded and carried away and down out of the Hall into the Street towards the Goal And then the Word of the Lord arose in me in great Majesty Dread and Power and went forth amongst the Multitudes of People there and to all People in the way to the very Goal door to let all Workers of Iniquity know of the dreadful and terrible Day of the Lord that is risen and arising and come and coming upon them to leave all without Excuse And to let those also that fear God know of the Love of God to their Souls And so I was received into Prison where I rest a Free-man of the Lord Jesus Christ Blessed for ever more The other three of my Brethren were Fined two of them Five Pounds a piece and the other Twenty Shillings because they had been together with some other Friends of the Truth at a Meeting to wait upon the Lord to hear his Voice and to Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem according to Scripture Something might be said also of the Nakedness and Wretchedness of their Judges and Prosecutors in their Proceedings against them in this Matter but hoping of their Repentance it may be let alone here The Fine for not putting off our Hats mentioned in the beginning it seems fell and came to nothing for we heard no more of it Thomas Taylor To the Jury men of Stafford that brought him in Guilty YOU that are to be the Jury to bring in that called the Verdict concerning the Servant of the Lord Thomas Taylor I say before you conclude any thing consider in the Fear of the Lord God of Heaven and Earth what you do You have heard things Debated and you may know and that in your Consciences will also tell you that I am not really Guilty of the Breach of that Law concerning that Oath called Allegiance For it was made as you may see expresly against the Papists who hold it seems such wicked things against Kings as is there expressed But you might or should hear that I declared against them yea and my Declaration was from the Truth of the Heart the Searcher of Hearts knows it And I also expressed my real Innocency and good Desires concerning the King and all Men Insomuch that the Judge himself confessed I had as it were confessed to the thing in the Substance And so you may see if I Suffer it is for Formalities and not for Substance For I believe that that Custom of Swearing upon and Kissing a Book was first invented in the Dark Time of Popery when Mens Minds were wholly as it were alienated from the Life and pure Knowledge of God and gone into Idolatry And so be not ye guilty of Sinning against God in this Matter Neither let any of you have a hand in Oppressing a Man and his House a Man and his Family For if you be wise you will see that taking that which God hath lent me in this World for the Service of my Outward Man and Family will not be a Blessing in the King's Treasures For it 's Righteousness upholds the King's Throne and nothing of the contrary So rests in the Will of God Thomas Taylor To King Charles the Second On the Third Day of the Fifth Month One Thousand Six Hundred Sixty and One in the Morning the Movings of God were in me to the effect following to Write AND now O Charles Stuart King in these Islands whose height is grown great and who art in the Heart of a Multitude as if thou wert some Deity unto thee and to thy Nobles thy Councils thy Parliaments thy Judges and Justices and all under Officers of that Nature Thy Bishops and Clergy so called and all Officers and under Officers of that Nature And to thy Captains of Hundreds and Thousands and all under Officers of that Nature unto you all saith the Son of God who is King
which it is gone forth and by calling in all such Acts and Decrees as are gone forth either before or since its Writing whereby the pure Seed of God in these Islands either have been or may be imbondaged and the good Spirit of God limited For it is not fit that the Lord God of Glory should be stinted or limited in his Way For he is a free Spirit and will not be tyed or bound up to any outward Form whatsoever but will have his People Worship him in Spirit and Truth and to be acted forth in the World in such a form â—s he himself by his Holy Spirit pleaseth to order them unto And this is was and ever must be the order of the true Church in God built up of lively Stones Elect and Precious of Abraham's Seed 〈…〉 for ever By a Servant of Jesus Christ and a Well-wisher to th◠〈…〉 and all People upon Earth earnestly desiring the Welfare of all God's Creation that it may be delivered from the Bondage of Corruption and my Weapons are not Carnal but Spiritual For if my Enemy Hunger I am taught to feed him if he Thirst to give him Drink if he seek to do me any Evil to overcome his Evil with Goodness as the Lord hath dealt with me and not to avenge my self because it belongs to the Lord God for ever who is worthy of all pure Obedience for evermore Thomas Taylor This last part dated in the Fourth Month 1662. Against Lotteries IS it not sad O all People to see such wicked and deceitful Inventions as these Lotteries still on Foot and passing too and fro in the Land uncontrouled after all the late Manifestations of God's Anger against the Nation and People thereof O! when will People lay God's Judgments to Heart and cease to Cousen and Deceive one another Is there any so blind that they see not these filthy things called Lotteries to be one of those Abominations that have come out of the bottomless Pit to deceive the People withal and so to defile the Nations to the pulling down God's heavy Judments upon you O all People who are either the Inventers or Upholders of them so cease cease from all such sinful and ungodly Things whose Foundation is Covetousness the very Root of all Evil and mind the fear of the Lord God lest the day of his Patience pass away from you and you be shut up in that woful Darkness and Hell of Misery for all your Sins where is nothing but weeping and wailing and gnashing of Teeth for evermore Rests a Witness for God in his Power against the Sin of all People without respect of Persons and blessed are all who take warning betime for the Lord is arisen out of his Holy Place to ease him of all his Adversities Thomas Taylor To Stafford O Stafford Stafford thy Judgment lingreth not thy Condemnation slumbreth not thine Iniquity aboundeth and thy Transgressions are multiplied daily as the Sand of the Sea yea thou makes haste to fill up the measure of thine Iniquities that the Indignation when it cometh and behold it cometh swiftly and the Wrath of the Almighty whom thou hast grieved may be seen justly to come upon thee in the sight of all O the mighty Patience and Long sufferance of God hath been great towards thee in sparing thee hitherto 〈◊〉 but thou hast not at all answered the Goodness of God towards thee thou art a Stage for all manner of Sin and Sinners to act their Part in thee and thou a Partaker with the Ungodly in all their Ways and so must thou assuredly partake with them of their Plagues as sure as ever thou hast been of one Mind and Heart with them in their Sin O the haâ—d-heartedness of thine Inhabitants that could never Repent nor lay things to Heart for your good unto this Day nor say within your selves What have we done though the Lord hath made me a Warner and a Reprover unto you all this Fifteen Years both by Words and Writing in Love Truth and Faithfulness that your Souls might live and not dye shewing unto you the Evil of your Doings that you might Repent and turn from them but you would not hear nor amend your Lives to this Day but have increased your Sins as the Old World whom God destroyed with Water and Sodom whom the Lord consumed with Fire and like Jerusalem whom God gave into the hands of a cruel Enemy for all their mighty Sins over whom the Prophet Jeremiah lamented because they would not hear and over whom Christ wept because they would not believe And so my Soul hath long and yet shall weep in Secret for your Pride if you will not now at length before it be too late humble your selves and repent of all your unholy Ways and Worships whereby God's Soul is burden'd for you are most manifestly of those that say Lord Lord in a dead form of words out do not at all what he by his Spirit requires of you but the contrary and so you taking his Holy Name so manifoldly in vain he will not hold you guiltless in his Judgment Day so wo wo will unavoidable be your Portion from the Lord God and everlasting Banishment from his Holy Presence of Life except as is said ye speedily Repent in the deepest Humility and Godly Fear as saith his Spirit in his Servant Thomas Taylor To the Mayor of Stafford AND now to the Mayor of Stafford who so busieth and troubleâ—h himself without cause about the Harmless and Peaceable Meetings of the People of God in their own Houses if he would get true Praise with God and good Men and Comfort to his own Soul let him look into the Streets and open places of the Town and use his Authority to the restraining and hindering of that great Wickedness and abominable Debauchery and Heathenish Practices that are committed there at such times as these called Christmas i. e. in the face of the Sun And let him now stand up for God who is grieved and burthened with such things if he would find Mercy to his Soul for an Account to God must all give of their Stewardship For what bad Customs shall one find amongst the Heathens which at such times as these are not practiced by the People of England who in words profess Christ But alas what will such a Profession do where the Life and Power of Godliliness is wanting Rests God's Servant and all your Souls Friend Thomas Taylor For them that Rule in Stafford O Unrighteous People What will ye do in the Day of the Lord when the Just and Holy God who lives for Ever doth call you 20 Account for all your doings Do you judge it an Evil and punishable by the Law for one of us though never so truly moved of God to come amongst you when you are at your Worship to speak a few words in a peaceable manner for your good and yet can see no Evil in your selves to come in great Companies amongst us
the People of God when we are gathered together to worship God in his own free Spirit as he hath taught us and not only speak to us but hawl and pull us hither and thither some one way some another without all Fear of God yea though you find us on our Knees praying to God or other wise preaching the Everlasting Gospel O how is it that you never seriously lay these things to Heart and smite upon your Thigh in Godly Sorrow saying What have we done How have we Transgressed God's Righteous Law How shall we stand before the Judgment-seat of Jesus Christ where all must appear as well the High as the Low Doth not Christ the Judge say Whatsoever ye would that Men should do to you even so do ye to them for this is the Law and the Prophets And therefore never boast of such a Law and Religion as is not one with the Law and Prophets of God to the Witness of God in you all I speak Would ye be done unto your selves as you do by us in the foresaid Business Nay nay we see by Experience the contrary And so you think to carry things on with a high Hand but God is higher than all therefore fear him for if you still go on offending against God who shall plead for you O say not within your selves We have Power and therefore who shall question us and controul us I say there is no true Power but of God and to him you must give Account for it and the true Power is for the praise and protecting of them that do so well as to Worship God in his Good Spirit and Truth as Blessed be the Lord we do and all our Adversaries never could nor never can make it appear to the contrary And so you that are in Power see that your Law be laid upon the Lawless and not upon the Innocent lest their Cry come up into the Ears of the Lord against you and your Power be taken from you for your Abuse of it for the Lord's Heart is for the Righteous and against the Evil-doers in all Generations without respect of Persons Rests your Soul's Friend though for my Good-will to you I be too much hated by you but for you I can say praised be the Lord Father forgive them they do not well know what they do Thomas Taylor So be not Proud for the Lord hath spoken and a Consumption from the Lord will certainly come upon all that will not know God nor be subject to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ To the Kings and Rulers O Ye Kings and Rulers of the Earth who profess the Name of God and Christ ought ye not to Rule for God and Christ to whom ye must give Account of your Stewardship And do you not read in the Scripture of Truth that it is said All Power in Heaven and Earth is given to Christ and he doth what he sees good in Heaven and Earth and all his Ways are Righteousness and Holiness for Ever and that without him ye can do nothing ought ye not therefore to take Counsel at his Spirit in all things and so to be very Careful that you do nothing against him nor his Children for this Lord Jesus Christ the Supream and Great Ruler over all hath a Generation of Just Men and Women upon the Earth who are his Children and as near and dear to him as the Apple of his Eye and he that offends the least of these offends against a Member of Christ's Body and he will Recompence Tribulation to such as Trouble them and every Knee to him shall bow for God respects no Man's Person he is higher than Agag and King Saul himself though he be taller by the Head than any Man in Israel must down if he disobey God's Voice and the Mighty Kingdom from Rehoboam must be rent if he take Counsel of the Wicked to Oppress God's Heritage and Great Nebuchadnezzar into a Beast shall be turned if he grow Proud and Rob God of his Honour and Overturned shall all Kingdoms be who Rule not in Righteousness for the Lord is determined that Truth and Righteousness-shall Rule and have Dominion upon the Earth and nothing else and that Nation and People that will not now submit to Truth 's Scepter shall come to nought And seeing the Apostle saith That such Magistrates as are God's Ordinance are a Terror to evil Doers and a Praise to such as do well Then whose are they that do altogether discourage the Good and encourage the Evil They must needs be of the Number of those for whom the Lord by his Prophet complains of against Israel saying They have set up Kings but not by me and Princes but I knew it not These Kings and Princes were such as set up and carried on Idolatry in those days and were even made glad with the Lyes of the False Priests and Prophets For in that day as Troops of Robbers waited for a Man so the Company of Priests murthered in the way by consent See Hos 6.9 And in the days of those Kings saith Daniel shall the Lord God of Heaven set up a Kingdom and it shall be for ever And ought not all People who profess Christ and hope to have Benefit and Comfort by his Appearance and Kingdom to search and see how they may come into Favour with this King and be Heirs of this Kingdom For behold I shew you a Mystery every Subject of this Kingdom is an Heir of this Kingdom Thomas Taylor Concerning his being taken Prisoner of seven Years Continuance THomas Taylor Prisoner of the Lord who oweth nothing but Love and Good-will to the Creation of God hath been a Sufferer here at Stafford for no Evil at all but because in Conscience to God he could not Swear above seven whole Years being taken as I was on my Journey with my Wife as I was going into Worcestershire to see a Son that we had Apprentice there and so the two Men called Justice Layn and Justice Pierchouse being put on it seems by a wicked Man came upon me as I was standing without the Door of a House at Tipton-Green where a few Friends and I had been for a little Season waiting upon God and so the Meeting being broken up and I with the rest of Friends ready to depart every one to their place and I on my Journey as is said they laid violent hands upon me and caused a Constable to search me as though I had been some dangerous Person when as the Lord knows I bore no Carnal Weapons for this four and twenty Years space neither did I Plot or Contrive an Evil to any Man in the least but have as much as in me laid sought the Good of all Men in Word and Deed. And yet for my Good Will was I thus apprehended as is said by the two Men before-named who since are both dead and by them forthwith committed to the common Goal at Stafford for not Swearing as is said
one Neighbour to another and one Nation to another Come let us all be humbled before the Lord God of Heaven and Earth who made us all of one Blood to dwell together upon the Face of the Earth in Truth Goodness and Love to serve one another and so as Branches of one Tree to receive Life and Vertue and Power from our God into our Souls to strengthen us unto his holy Work who came not to destroy Mens Lives but to save them whose Kingdom is not of this World and therefore is not set up or maintained with Carnal Weapons Violence and Spoil but by the Eternal Spirit of our God whose Fruit is in all Goodness and Righteousness and Truth And let not the wicked Devil the Destroyer deceive us any more by his Lies and Delusions but let us all with one Heart and Soul resist his Temptations When he perswades us to seek to be great in the Earth and be avenged on them we count our Enemies let us not hearken to him but let us over come their Evil with Goodness and not to seek the Destruction of their Persons or Spoil of their Estates as the Heathens do that know not God but let us follow the Example of Jesus Christ God manifest in Flesh who when he was reviled reviled not again but prayed for such as despitefully used him O come let us follow this meek Lamb in Righteousness and Truth and learn of him in our Heart who is Meek and Lowly that we may find Rest for our Souls who rebuked his Disciples who would have had Fire to come down from Heaven to destroy the Samaritans that would not at that time receive Christ For what knowest thou O Man but the Samaritans may in time come to a better Mind and then thou wilt see it was thy Will and not God's that desired their Destruction in their Sins For Christ would have all to be saved and come to the Knowledge of his Truth But many will not come to him that they might have Life and so their Destruction is of themselves and their Condemnation just And who are those now therefore that withstand the Doctrine of the Truth which said Love your Enemies and seek not the Destruction of their Persons and the Spoil of their Estates but seek by good Doctrine and good Life to bring them out of their Sins And if they will not but rather hate thee for thy good Will be content thou hast quitted thy own Soul and art clear of their Blood and so thou becomest a Sufferer with Jesus Christ and shalt Reign with him in due time I say who are these now on the Earth that withstand Truth and continue in the hateful destroying Ways of the Old Jews and Gentiles but such as will not be counselled by the Lamb of God the Suffering Seed who said Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in Heart But are Men of Corrupt Minds who account Gain and Worldly Honour and Promotions more than Godliness who cries Peace to themselves in their Sins And that same Spirit in them which crieâ— that false Peace in them is the same that stirs them up to Kill Destroy Oppress and Spoil one another for Selfish and Worldly Ends. But the Lord is arisen to Judge all these Evil Things and to Redeem a Seed to serve him as in the beginning of the Gospel before Antichrist the Murderer got up amongst them that professed Christ in Words but denied him in Deeds who had a Name that they lived but were dead from that true Life which was in Christ Jesus whom in Words they professed And though the Passage we seel now to be as hard of coming from amongst the false Christians and Turks as it was for the first true Christians to come from amongst the Jews and Gentiles yet the Almighty Power of our God is able over all and through all to carry us on to the end whom he hath called and saved with a mighty Salvation ever-praised be his Name and who will yet save his Beloved Seed Israel and gather them from the East and West and from the North and South to sit down with Christ in his Kingdom And this is no ill News to any but who are glewed to Deceit and married to Iniquity but it is Glad-tidings indeed to all that love their Souls and the Honour and Glory of Truth more than the things of this perishing World And I could desire that all who are apt to reason as the Jews did when they heard the Declaration of the Gospel of Peace and Kingdom of God which stands in Righteousness and Peace saying If we let this go on then the Romans or Others will come and take our Place and Nation I say that they would consider That the very Course which they to wit the Jews in the Denial of the Truth took for saving of themselves brought utter Destruction upon them and their Nation But what shall vain Man in his foolish faln Wisdom and earthly Reasoning think to be Wiser than God and to have a greater Care and Love to the Creation than God himself who made it hath What! shall Angels at the Birth of Christâ—sing Glory to God on high and Good-will to Men and yet when the way of God in Christ is published for bringing this great Work of Salvation to pass vain Man must come in with his false Mind and say This is the way to confound all Order and destroy all Good And that this Doctrine turneth the World up-side down And that the Messengers of Christ are pestilent Fellows and Movers of Sedition O Earth Earth Tremble before the Lord for thou shalt never have Peace in thy own Ways thou shalt never be Saved by thy own Strength thou shalt never be Established by thy own Counsels thou shalt never have true Peace nor any Plenty within thy Borders until thou believest the Gospel which saith Learn of Christ whose Kingdom is not of this World and whose Weapons are not Carnal but Spiritual Mighty through God not for the pulling down of Outward Walls and Bodies but for razing and pulling down and destroying the strong Holds of Sin and Satan in the Hearts and Lives of the Children of Men For after that saith the Apostle The World by Wisdom knew not God it pleased God by the Foolishness of Preaching to wit such Doctrine as this which is a Cross and Stumbling-block to all Corrupt Flesh to save them that believe So lay things to heart ye People of the World and Inhabitants of all the Earth for God's Purpose is not to exalt any Man or Men of this World or to glorifie any Flesh but to exalt his own Son Christ Jesus the heavenly Man the Lord from Heaven the Truth over all of whose Kingdom and Government there shall be no End And all that obey his Voice and for Obedience thereunto are made willing to Suffer with him shall reign with him for evermore But all others whether they be called Christians or Turks
Provision for the Flesh to satisfie it in the Lusts thereof with Meats Drinks Pleasures Pastimes and all manner of foolish Inventions but that People should abstain from Fleshly Lusts because they War against the Soul And did not the Apostle weep for such as made a God of their Belly and Gloried in their Shame and minded Earthly Things and plainly tells them That they were â—nemies to the Cross of Christ and their End was Destruction Phil. 3. And so thou whoever thou art that pretends to Honour Christ by making Provision for thy Fleshly Part to satisfie it in the Lusts thereof thou art no Servant of God and Christ in this but a denyer of his Truth and so instead of following Christ in the Regeneration and daily Cross and Self denlal thou follows Christ's Enemy the great Antichrist and Satan who hath seduced the Minds of People from Christ's Doctrine and Life into the Doctrine and Life of all Unrighteousness and so they that Eat and Drink and Game and Sport after the Custome of the Heathenish World their Professing of Christ in Words will do them no good in the Day of the Lord when God will Reward every Man according to their Deeds for now instead of a Holy Pure Righteous Self-denying Life which God requires thou offers him an unclean Sacrifice of an unholy and corrupt Life which he will not accept And so many shall come in that Day and say Lord Lord Open unto us to whom he will Answer I know ye not depart ye Workers of Iniquity O dreadful Sentence to such as it hits who like Esau sell their Birth-right for a mess of Pottage and chuse rather to follow the Fleshly Sinful World in the broad way to Destruction than the Lambs of Christ in the streight way that leads to Life Eternal So all Awake and Arise from your dead defiled Customs and Practices of Sin to the pure clean Fear and Worship of God for God is a Spirit and Christ is a Spiritual Lord and will be Worshipped and Served in Spirit and Truth and who is this Day seeking such to Worship him who shall bring forth Fruits to him worthy amendment of Life And one thing is needful saith Christ and Mary that sate at his Feet hearing his Word chused that good Part which shall never be taken from her but Martha was cumbred about much in the outward as too many are now and that in a Heart far from that of Mary's Heart to their Souls great disadvantage So he that hath an Ear let him hear for these Words are Faithful and True Thomas Taylor To the King O That the King and all his Councils the Parliament and the Rest would hear and believe these Words for in the Truth of God's Spirit and Uprightness of my Heart are they thus written and sent to them for that purpose Consider of your ways for thus saith the Lord the Holy One Creator of Heaven and Earth Mine Anger is kindled against you because you have not made a Separation betwixt the Precious and the Vile but have numbred my People who tremble at my Word with the Transgressors and will not hear the Voice of my Mouth to let my Israel have their Liberty to meet together in my own free Spirit as I have Taught them to wait upon me and to Edify one another in their most Holy Faith but you will Punish them and Afflict them and evil Intreat them for this and surely if you go on in this Work and think to destroy this my Heritage from being a People upon the Earth and to Root them up from bearing a Testimony to my Name in their Holy Assemblies before the Children of Men I will Work Wonders yea I will Work Wonders and make all the Earth to know that these your Thoughts and your Doings are against the Lord and his People as truly as ever Pharoah and Egypt and the Nations there abouts in that Day of Israel 's Oppressions and Deliverances did know have you no Vnderstanding that you would eat up my People as Bread saith the Lord in whose hand is your Breath Oh! that you could once lay things to Heart what you have done and what you should do and not still take Counsel at a wrong Spirit which hurries you thus on in a way that is not good to the grief of God's Spirit and in the end if continued in your own Destruction have you not Heard and do not you Read what God hath done in former times to great Kings and strong Nations for their Doings against his People and do you not know that the same Evil Spirit which causes you in other things to do what you ought not to do and to leave undone what you ought to do is the putter of you forward in this grievous Work of Persecuting the Seed of God who Fear and Tremble at his Word and work out their Salvation with Fear and Trembling as the Lord Commands and who in their Meetings never had nor at this Day have any other end but to Glorifie their God the true God over all in obeying his Voice with a true good Will in our Hearts towards all Men without the least thought of Evil to any as God's true God over all Men without the least thought of Evil to any as God's true Witness in all Consciences where it is harkened unto doth plainly Testifie at this Day as it hath done ever since we were to God a People For from War Bloodshed Wrong and Spoil hath the Lord called and delivered our Souls into his Holy Habitation of Truth Peace and Love that as Lambs we might in the midst of the Earth stand in Christ's Innocency to hold forth the Virtues of God who hath Blessed us in Christ Jesus with the Knowledge of himself whom to know is Life Eternal And so if you hate us because God loves us what will be the end O Consider consider this matter is of the weightiest Nature And so though at present by reason of the Darkness that is upon your Minds you do not see us as we are but present us to your selves as Evil-doers or so yet seeing you know in your own Consciences as in Words also you often Confess that in other things you are miserable Offenders you ought to be more Moderate Sparing and Careful what you do in this present matter concerning us because where Sin is and remains there must of necessity be a want of Ability as to the right judging and discerning of Men and Matters Spiritual as Christ foretold of some that through the Error of their Minds should think they did God Service when they were Killing his Children This was a sad Mistake Therefore let this be upon your Hearts when you lye down and when you rise up and when you sit in Counsel and walk by the Way to keep you from Sinning this great Sin against God for never did any strive against God and Prosper and thus in God's Spirit having given you in a few Words
prove the Pope and Papists to be a Church and all them to blame who have separated from him in outward Church-Fellowship upon any Pretence whatsoever So foolish is the World's Wisdom when it is set against Truth But this R. B. having laid his wrong Ground That all that are called Christians are in the right in all Points essential to Christianity and in the certain Way of Life he may easily conclude that to be unwarrantable Separation which goeth from such But then I say How will the Protestants warrant their first Separation from Popery Or how did this R. B. with his Presbyterians in Oliver's time with their Directory excuse their separating from the Bishops and their Common-prayer And how will he salve his old Non-conforming Brethrens Flight into New-England where since they have shed the Blood of certain Martyrs of Christ from the former Bishops But now his false Ground and Foundation being overturned it is most manifest that that Separation is most lawful which is from such who call Good Evil and Evil Good put Light for Darkness and Darkness for Light as the Wicked do from whom the People of God in these days separate And so in obeying the Voice of our God who saith Come out of Mystery Babylon my People lest ye partake of her Sins and so of her Plagues we are justified for the Sins of the Wicked who in words profess God and Christ but in Deeds deny all is reached Heaven at this day And doth not the Apostle say If any Man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or an Idolator and Covetousness by the Apostle's Doctrine is Idolatry or a Railer or a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such not to keep company no not as to eat with them 1 Cor. 5.11 And doth he not say in another place Have no Fellowship with the unfruitful Works of Darkness nor with the unfruitful Workers in Darkness as before but rather reprove them Eph. 5.14 must we not yet separate from them yea yea in their very Worship-Actions as well as others and when even the greater number are so far defiled and tainted with the Leprosie of Unrighteousness and they are so far from amending that they persecute all that will not be as bad as themselves Surely when the Lord hath spued out a People as he threatned to do luke-warm Laodicea Rev. 3.16 yea and cast them off for their resisting of his good Spirit as he did the Jews 't is no time for his People to stay amongst them then and to continue with them in their Worship-Actions as he calls them but every one to deliver his own Soul by coming out of such Babylonish Worships whose Prayers are Abomination to God as all sinful Prayers are and neither this R. B. nor any one that he knoweth upon the Earth prayeth without Sin as himself before hath confessed and so all of them together do daily and continually that which they should not do and leave undone what the Lord commands them and so have no Health in them And so now that the True Light shines so clear again from under the long Cloud of Antichristian Apostacy it is the Wisdom of all that love God and their own Souls to joyn to the Lord in the Covenant of his Light and Spirit where no Committers of Sin can joyn for Darkness and the Workers thereof can never joyn with the Light and the Workers thereof So now that the Trumpet hath founded all ought to come to the Holy Worship of God amongst the Holy Worshippers that Worship in the Spirit of Holiness and Truth where no Worker of Iniquity nor Hypocrite can come out of all the Defiled Worship of the World whatsoever or under what Name soever in the Fall But this R. B. is in such love of Hypocrisie that he makes a Necessity of the Hypocrites being amongst the true Members of Christ as though they knew not how to do without them as if the good Corn could not grow so well if the Weeds were wanting saying Page 56. It is more for the sake of the truly Faithful than for themselves that the Hypocrites have their Station and Priviledges in the Church God makes use of their Gifts and Profession for his Elect to many great Services of the Church To which I answer That this Language betrays thee further to be of Babylon and not of Zion What R. B. with all his seeming Zeal for Reformation in Oliver's days become now a Pleader for Hypocrites and their great Service in the Church But this is but like his Doctrine of his Graceless Ministers which he pleads for Page 114 of his Book so R. B. and his Hypocrites and Graceless Brethren with their Gifts or rather Thefts void of Grace have been so far from being serviceable to the Elect True Church that they have done it and ever did all the Injury that ever they can by their wicked Doctrines Ungodly Lives and heaps of Lyes and false Accusations and cruel Persecutions insomuch that the Growth of the Heavenly Seed the Lillies of God the true Heirs of the Kingdom hath been and is as a Lilly among Thorns But Christ and R. B. are directly contrary in their Judgment one to the other for Christ would not suffer the Devil in the Man to preach him but commanded him to come out and hold his peace because Christ never had need of Devils or wicked Men or Hypocrites to preach him but saith to such What hast thou to do to take my Laws and Covenant in thy Mouth and hatest to be reformed Psal 50.16 c. and so far are Graceless Priests and Hypocrites from being serviceable in this matter to his Church that he saith My Sheep hear my Voice and they follow me but the Graceless Minister and Hypocrite who is a Stranger to me they will not hear for such come but to rob and destroy read John 10. and see if ever R. B. understood Scripture who talks so contrary to it As did those Pharisees of old whom Christ cried out so many times Wo against Matt. 23. Who would neither enter into the Kingdom of Heaven themselves nor suffer others And those in Ezekiel who sowed Pillows under Mens Elbows making glad the Hearts of the wicked Hirelings by perswading People that they must not disown them from being Ministers though they be totally void of obeying Saving Grace and that Hypocrites have a Station in the Church for great Services with their pretended Gifts to the Elect and by pleading for Games and Fashions of Apparel yea and the Opinions in Religion of bad People yea to such a measure that he is not ashamed to say That many an Error is taken up by going too far from other Mens Faults as is to be seen in Page 224 of his Book with many such like Heathenish Sayings up and down his Book a few whereof I only touch here and there that by those the Reader may see the nature of that wretched Spirit that hath long
lurked in him under a Cloak of Zeal for Reformation when the World pretended to such things but now that the World is for a manifest Establishing of their old dark Stuff he turns about and is all for them as it were and against Zeal against Reformation Separation Immediate Revelation or any thing that may manifest People to have a care of their Souls But Oh the Misery the Misery the unspeakable Misery of such as are not yet redeemed from under the Slavery and Egyptian Bondage of such Men But the Lord will break the Rod of the Oppressor as in times of old as in the days of Midian and Egypt where both Jannes and Jambres who withstood the Lord's Servant Moses in his calling Israel out of Egypt were made manifest and their Folly by all clearly seen as this R. B's is by every open Eye Praised be the Lord for his Infinite Love in all things But the Hearts of the Righteous whom God delights to comfort he doth all he can to make Sad by perswading the dark cruel World that the cause of all the Miseries of the late years yea and at present in these Islands is much what if not mostly occasioned by those who in tenderness of Conscience to God could not nor cannot joyn with nor uphold the Popish Customs and Imposition in Matters relating to Religion and the Soul which is more pretious to them that know it than all the World And in the Truth we may say that if we should come amongst the Steeple-house Worshippers or any other Company who are only separated from them in Form and not in Life and Power and their exercise not in the Gift and Heavenly Holy Worship and Service to the Lord Jesus Christ our God we should even Sacrifice the Abomination of the Egyptians before their Eyes and now would you not Stone us or Imprison us or otherwise evilly iâ—treat us even as you do and ever have done Yea yea and as they dealt with the Prophet Isaiah for saying Chap. 66.3 He that killeth an Ox is as if he slew a Man he that sacrificeth a Lamb as if he cut off a Dog's Neck c. and Chap. 1.11 c. To what purpose is the multitude of your Sacrifices unto me saith the Lord I am full of them and who hath required it at your hands to tread my Courts Bring no more vain Oblations c. For which it is said they slew him so they would deal with us And what measure have the dear Servants of God in New-England met withal not long since for the like witness against those Hypocrites but Death and cruel Whippings and Banishment and in old England lately but most Savage and Cruel Usage And would this R. B. yet have us yea and those he counts his Brethren and of his Flock who have any Tenderness in them to communicate with such whose Hands are full of Blood If he were as the Mouth of God he would put a difference between the Clean and Unclean But he being of another Spirit is for leading People back again into Egypt not for bringing them out of Egypt into the Promised Land which Work and Endeavour is rejected of God and of all that know God who are escaped out of Sodom and Egypt and Babylon Spiritual where our Lord was Crucified And to us the Lord hath said Let them return to you ye Saved People but return not you to them For their Pastors are become brutish and have not sought the Lord therefore they shall not prosper and all their Flocks shall be scattered Jer. 10.21 He that hath Ears let him hear and he that readeth let him understand for the time is at hand for the Lord is arisen to plead with all the False Worshippers upon Earth and with him is no respect of Persons And now is the Lord God of ever blessed Power and love appeared in the Earth after the long Night of Apostacy to restore all things and now are the Virgins called upon through the whole World to trim their Lamps for behold the Bridegroom is come and coming and now the foolish Virgins who have been long sleeping and slumbering in a dead Profession of Christ and the Scriptures are found wanting in their Faith Holiness Love and all other Christian Virtues and so in their Unholiness shut out yea and though they run to the Hirelings that set all things to Sale to Buy yet still before they come the Door is shut for whilst the Lord stood waiting upon them with his pure free and full Grace and Spirit they would have none of it but rather chosed to go their own ways of Carnal Endeavours and Man-commanded Religion and so like the Jews of old going about to Establish their own Righteousness have not submitted to the Righteousness of God which is by Faith in Christ Jesus But the wise Virgns who are of an honest Heart to fear God and wait for the Lord Jesus Christ to appear in their Spirits to set up his heavenly and everlasting Kingdom in them they receive daily of his Fullness which filleth all in all where the true Oyl of the Kingdom is found in their Holy Lamps to the Praise of the Glory of the unspeakable Love and free Grace of the Almighty Father So be it Again to that part of this R. B's former Answer where he saith That in all Ages God giveth to some few Men more excellent Natural Parts than others and he engageth some in deeper and more laborious Studies and he blesseth some Mens Studies more than other and therefore there are still some few who know more than the rest of the Country or Mankind and it were well for the rest if they knew these and would learn of them Query But how may one know these hard and laborious Studiers as he calls them Oh saith this R. B. They are such as give proof of their Knowledge they pretend to and they are such as imploy their Knowledge to the preserving of the Peace and Concord of Believers and do not proudly make a stir with it to set up their own Names though thereby they set the World on fire To which I answer and say It is still more and more manifest that this R. B. lays the weight and stress upon Natural Parts and hard Studies as though the Kingdom of God were not at all come nor the Promise of God concerning the Free Gifts and plentiful pouring forth of the Spirit yet fulfilled and so a necessity of learning at the feet of Gamaliel and earthly Doctors still But now that the Spirit of Truth according to God's blessed Promise is come and witnessed amongst us that believe praised be God we cannot go to such as this R. B. with all their Natural Parts and hard Studies for the Spirit of Truth leads us and all that obey it into all Truth but this R. B. and such as he leads are in an Error as is manifest for they are of those that lead about a Company of
Follies and false Doctrines I may here mention as one may read it in that Book of his that I have under hand to wit in Page 114. are these words It may be unlawful saith he in a Ruler to command a thing that will do no good because it is a Vain Command and maketh Men spend that time in vain and yet be the Subject's Duty to do it Answ This is such Doctrine as Paul's Enemies taught who said Men might do evil that good might come of it whose Condemnation was just So to avoid Sufferings from Men he would have us to obey Unlawful Commands which will do no good but rather a great Evil to wit make People spend pretious Time in vain Away with such Ant christ an and Heathenish Stuff for all true Christians abhor it in their Hearts as the Lord the good Shepherd hath Commanded them And now R. B. to that part of thy feigned Prayer Page 252. where in words thou seemest to desire That God would stir up some Faithful Friend to tell thee with convincing Evidence where it is that thou hast Miscarried that Contrition may prepare thee for the Peace of Remission Here the Lord hath contrary to thy will and desire stirred up one in Faithfulness and Love to thy Soul and the Souls of the poor deluded People whom thou hast deceived to tell thee plainly of thy Faults and grievous Miscarriages as by what is convincingly in these Lines set down doth appear and might be more abundantly if all the Miscariages in this Book only to let pass all thy other were answered unto in particular but these in this Answer of mine being as it were least of what the rest are may satisfie at present And Oh that the Righteous Judgments of God may come upon thy Heart and the Hearts of all them who are in the same false fleshly Confidence with thy self whose very Prayers are not without Sin that you may never have Peace Day nor Night until you humble your selves before the Lord and Repent of all your hard Speeches and Evil Deeds that you have spoken and done against him and his Servants for the Truth 's sake that if it be possible you may be saved from the Wrath that will certainly come upon you if you Repent not for that old wicked Paper full of Lies as I made manifest before thee and some of thy Company in thy Study to thy Shame at Kidder minster which thou writ'st in the Pride of thy Heart against us in Oliver's Days when thou wast lifted up Entituled Reasons to Perswade why no Reasonable Man can be a Quaker amongst the rest of that kind which thou art not Humbled for to this Day as I perceive by this Book do all stand upon Record before the Lord the Righteous Judge against thee for in those thy doings and all that kind against the manifest and manifold Appearances of Christ in his People of every degree thou hast plainly declared thy self to be of Rabshekah's Spirit who Railed against the Living God and his despised Israel and of that Spirit that Jannes and Jambres who withstood Moses in his work under God of calling Israel out of Egypt and as the Lord Pleaded the Cause of his People in those Days so will he as he hath for ever plead our Innocent Cause against thee and all his Enemies for of a truth the Lord God Blessed for ever hath raised us up to be his Servanâ— Sons and Daughters to bear his Name in Righteousness before the Children of Men in a pure Holy Witness against all the false Ways and Worships of false Men so be it and so it will be as hard for thee and all to kick against the Pricks as it was in Persecuting Saul Acts 9. Read and consider lest the Day pass over you as it did from the unbelieving Jews who would not receive God come and manifest in the Flesh in those days to whom Christ said Ye will not come to me that ye might have Life but they would seek it in the killing Letter and as it were by the works of the Law until mid-night Darkness and utter Desolation came upon them For Oh how the Earth is filled with Violence because of such Doctrines and Teachings as this R. B. and such Men brings forth for behold how the Field of his Followers and Admirers are all overgrown with Briers and Thorns and noysom Weeds as the proper Fruit of their accursed Doctrines as this R. B. himself sets down in his 48th Direction Page 236. of his Book in these words that is to say Oh Friends how bad are we our selves What Pride is in our Hearts What Ignorance in our Minds So wanting are we even in the lowest Grace Humility that we have scarce enough to make us take patiently as now we are giving out upon others So Selfish as Dishonoureth our Profession with the Brand of Contradictedness and Partiality so weak that our Duties are lyable to greater Censures than we can bear and our inward Graces weaker than our outward Duties This must needs be so in the Duties of the Graceless Minister thou pleads for of such ungoverned Thoughts that Confusion and Tumult instead of Order and Fruitful Improvement are the daily Temper and Imployment of our Imaginations This must needs be so in you that Live in such Opposition to the Life of God manifest in his Children at this Day So Passionate Impatient and Corrupt that we are a trouble to our selves and others This must needs proceed from such a corrupt Fountain and a Dishonour to the Gospel it is so and a hinderance to the Conversion of those whom our holy Exemplary Lives should win to God So strange to Heaven as if we had never well believed it that is so and therefore the Sheep of Christ deny your Voice you who are such Strangers to him And to say all in one so empty of Love to our dear Redeemer and to the God of Love that our Hearts lye vacant to entertain the Love of Worldly Vanities ye Hypocrites what have you to do to name Christ who are thus Unbelieving and Unredeemed and to fly back from the serious Thoughts of God which should be our daily Work and Pleasure and fly from the Face of Death as if we should be the worst when nearest to our God Oh Hypocrites how can you for shame call God yours when you are thus beyond measure bad when Scripture saith He that saith he knows God and keeps not his Commandments is a Lyer and the Truth is not in him see 1 John 2.4 And Repent lest ye all perish together Priests and People for the Lord is arisen to Judgment and none can stand before him which hath unclean and filthy Garments as you are covered with whom R. B. here puts on to be Teachers of others and yet remain your selves with him under such woful Sins and Condemnation as is here spoken of But surely if you did believe and feel inwardly that it were so bad
Antichrist there shall be Overturnings and Commotions by which the Carnal Church shall be terribly stirred up and moved against the Evangelical Spirit of Christ but that the Whore of Babylon the Carnal Church shall fall in which time the Saints shall preach saying From this time it is no longer the Church of Christ but the Synagogue of Satan and the Habitation of Devils which before said in the Pride of her Heart I sit as a Queen in great Honour and Glory I Rule over my Kingdom I sit at ease I am no Widow i. e. I have Bishops and Kings on my side That the Roman Church is that Great Whore spoken of in the Revelations which hath committed Fornication with this World having departed from the Worship and sincere Love and Delights of Christ her Spouse and embraced the World the Riches and Pleasures of it and the Devil and Kings and Princes and Prelates and all the Lovers of this World Also Page 285. For if we have no other Helps for the understanding of their Prayer of Contemplation than what Mr. Cressy gives in his Preface we may as well hope to understand the Quakers Canting as Mr. Cressy ' s. And this Author Page 289. saith Christ and his Apostles taught Men a plain and intelligible way of serving God and bid them look for Perfection in another World Also Page 295. telling of some Romish Phanaticks says Did not they deliver this for their Doctrine that Men ought to harken to the immediate Impulses of the Spirit of God within them and that now God doth acquaint his own People with his Mind and Will in a way peculiar to themselves And says afterwards That our Enthusiasts do not boast of so many Raptures Visions and Revelations as those of the Church of Rome have done Now to this I say that when any of those that pretend to be Head of the Protestant Church are come to such a pass and measure of Darkness as that they cannot allow that Christians ought to harken to the immediate Impulses of the Spirit of God within them or that now God doth acquaint his own People c. I say it is sad and the Times may well be said to be perilous indeed What! Doth either the Scripture without or the inward Faculty which thou says must be Antecedent to all Divine Revelation Dictate to thee that these Sayings are Phanatical What! Are not the Children of God led by the Spirit of God which is in them And must they not harken to the Doctrine and Movings of their Teacher and Leader And doth not Christ say to you to wit my peculiar People and Disciples it is given to know the Mystery of the Kingdom of God but to others it is not given to wit to those that are without that follow their Wisdom and not Christ's Spirit But both the Carnal Church of Papists and Protestants deny to harken to the inward Movings or Impulses as are here called of God's Spirit that they may Establish their own Traditions some in one way some in another but all in vain for the Lamb shall have the Victory and a little Child shall lead them and the Meek shall increase their Joy in the Lord and he the Lord whom the World despises shall lead them by the Fountain of Living Water But let me ask this Doctor this Serious Question whether he accounts that part of Romish Phanaticism here set down or the Common Tenets of them called the Orthodox among them the better Doctrine Surely of the Two this he calls Phanaticism is the more favoured by Scripture and so consequently the more Orthodox and may I not say the more Protestant too For the first Reformers pretended to take Scripture for their Rule though in many things they missed it sadly And are not we that go amongst them under the Name of Quakers counted Phanaticks at this Day from this very ground because we Preach Scripture Doctrine and Speak Scripture Language at this Day As for instance because we say Christ lighteth every man that cometh into the World according to John 1.9 And because we say this Light or Grace and Truth of God which hath appeared unto all Men is the Saints Teacher and would be a sufficient Teacher and Leader into Life to all Men if they did not resist it and rebel against the Motions of it And because we say that the Saints who are in this Anointing of the Holy One know all things necessary to Salvation according to 1 John 2. And because we say that People ought not to have the Faith of Christ with respect of Persons but such as respect Persons commit Sin according to Lev. 19.15 And because we say the Work of the true Ministry is for perfecting the Body of Christ Eph. 4. And the false Ministry perfects nothing but keeps People always Learning and never brings them to the Knowledge of the Truth And because we say thee and thou to a particular Person according to Scripture I say for these and many the like Doctrines doth the present evil World of Papists and Protestants Professors and Prophane hate us and deride us and persecute us to their own shame who would be accounted Owners of Scripture Thomas Taylor The Day is Dawned that makes all Wickedness manifest FOR now even now the Day is Dawned which makes all things manifest Praises to the Lord God of Heaven and Earth and now no Worker of Iniquity can be hid any more for now the Glory of the Lord fills the Earth and the Knowledge of God covers the Earth as the Waters do the Sea And now the pure Truth of the Ever-living God hath lift up its Head above all the Clouds and Floods of Error and over all the Mists and Fogs of the dark perishing World Glory to the God of Truth our Life and Light this Day who is appeared in the Riches of his Bounty to gather our Souls to himself and to unite our very Hearts and Souls unto him in the Covenant of his Life and Love never to be broken nor forgot And now the Kingdom of God is come indeed to the Believers in the Light according to the Promise of the Lord and the Saints Prayer into which no unclean thing can enter but the unbelieving World stand without wondring despising and perishing in their manifold Opposition to the Truth and Light of this Day of God the true God over all Blessed for Evermore And now all those who will not take Warning by the harms of such Gainsayers of the Light as are gone before them will fall with a double Destruction because they would not apply their Hearts to that pure Wisdom that comes so plentifully from God in the Light of his Son this Day to learn his fear therein but take more pleasure in the Works of their own deceived Hearts and unclean Hands than in the pure Law and Handy-work of the Ever-living Blessed Lord God that gives Life and Breath and all things who is this Day indeed exalting
against you and his Vials of Wrath is he pouring forth upon you and he will not fail nor be discouraged until his Judgments be brought forth to Victory over you And now to you the Magistrates and Powers who Rule in this Nation of England lend not your Power much less give it to this dead Image uphold not this Ministry which cannot profit you nor the People at all lest God plead with you in his Wrath for your Abuse of it for though they may perswade you that Christ is not against them yet such as God hath Redeemed from amongst them know them to be no Ministers of Christ but Hirelings who have run without Christ's sending and so not going Christ's Message they cannot be content with Christ's Maintenance but cry unto you Acts 21.28 O Magistrates help help the People will not Pay us their Tythes and the like lend us your Laws your Prisons c. O Rulers Consider consider what Teachers these are who instead of compelling People to Love and contribute to them by the Power of the Word are glad to run to the Worldly Magistrates Sword is not God against them that are thus against him O leave them Leave them to try and prove themselves to the Peoples Conscience to be true Ministers by a free and powerful Ministry of the Word not of Man but of God unto them or never own them for Christ's ancient and true Ministers had freely received and therefore could freely give and did Plant before they Eat Mat. 10.8 and Fed the Flock before they had the Milk thereof but these Buy their Words and therefore Sell them like Merchants of Babylon Ezok. 34. They eat the Fat and clothe with the Wooll and kill them that are fed as the Prophet speaks but God's Flock they feed not but persecute them calling them Hereticks and all that 's naught as the Old Jews who persecuted Christ and his Followers did Acts 24.14 But after the Way that they call Heresie so worship we the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ believing his Living Word which perfects us to himself and the Scriptures which testifie thereof Glory to his Name for Ever And all ye Peoplâ—y who are Lovers and Followers and Upholders of this false Ministry which keeps you always learning 2 Tim. 3.5 5 and never brings you to the Knowledge of the Truth as it is in Jesus which alone perfects to God cease from it and the Masterly Teachers in it and from them turn to God Jer. 23.28 29. for what are their Dreams to the Living and Eternal Word of God which is as a Hammer and a Fire in the Hearts of all that receive it Ezek. 18.23 Ezek. 32.11 And what are their Inventions to the Ordinances of Christ The Lord loves your Sâ—als he hath no Pleasure in your Death it is not his Will that your Precious Souls should be lost for the pleasing of vain Men and answering their ungodly Lusts Jer. 30.17 What is there no Bulm in Gilead Is there no Christ no Physician in England that the Breach which Sin hath made betwixt God and your Souls can never be made up Hos 4.2 but the Wound must stand open still like a Bloody-Issue running out the very Life of your Souls so that you have no Power no Victory over Sin but Sin stands still in its Strength and perfect Dominion over you O when O when will you come to the Light that your Eyes may be opened to see the dangerous Paths that you are in Rev. 3.18 by following these Blind Guides Mat. 23.13 who having shut up the Kingdom of God against Men will neither enter into it themselves nor suffer others Oh! why will ye Die ye People of England Exod. 10.21 22 23. Isa 11.10 Joh. 3.19 20 Gen. 31 4. Why will ye sit in Egypt's Darkness still and the Land of God's People so full of Light The Lord God hath listed up the Standard of his Truth in the midst of you but you chuse rather to Fight under the Banner of the Power of Darkness because of your Love to the World to your Hurt and so the Old Dragon who beguiled Eve leads you Captive at his Will who will not have Christ the true Light the good Shepherd and Bishop of the Soul to rule in you The Word of the Lord God unto you all both Priests Magistrates and People Awake Awake the great and mighty terrible Day of the Lord God is at Hand 2 Pet. 3.16 2 Thes 5.2 3. Prov. 1.27 Mal. 2.1 Rom. 1.18 is very nigh to come upon you like a Thief in the Night like an Armed Man like a terrible Tempest to scatter you to spoil you of your Glory to leave you neither Root nor Branch For now is the Lord Jesus Christ Mighty in Power arisen to plead with you in his Wrath because you have made void his Law and transgressed the Everlasting Covenant of his Gracious Light and instead thereof have set up a dead Image Rev. 13.14 a liveless Form of Man's devising the Image of Jealousie a Religion and Worship which makes nothing perfect to God your Root is seen and judged by the true Light Christ Jesus the Root and Off-spring of David It is so And if you still continue in your vain Thoughts thinking to please God with such a Life wherein you are daily doing what you ought not to do and leaving undone what God commands you and never come out of that wretched and miserably defiled State but think a customary Confession of Sins without forsaking of them is a Worship worthy the pure God who is of purer Eyes than to behold Iniquity I say if these Thoughts and this Heart continue in you Hos 1.6 9. the Lord will cast you off and will utterly forsake you and bring his sore Plagues upon you and you shall know in that Day that God will not be mocked but will be sanctified and exalted in his Judgments over all his Enemies especially over such as you who take his Name daily in your Mouths in vain saying Lord Lord and living in a continual Breach of his most Holy Commandments and who instead of waiting for his Holy Spirit to kindle a pure heavenly Zeal in you towards God and Christ Lev. 10.1 2. do offer the false Fire of your own Blind Zeal as Nadab and Abihu did whom God in his Jealousie consumed with a grievous Destruction And now unto you the two Mothers of these Priests of this Nation of England called Oxford and Cambridge Isa 1.4 fee what you have brought forth and nourished at your Breasts O! a sad Generation it is O! what a Generation of Evil-doers are your Children whom you have given Suck unto become How have you with your Heathenish Arts and Sciences strengthned them against the Simplicity of the Everlasting Gospel which Christ hath restored unto us in this his glorious Day Col. 2.8 Isa 1.26 Rev.
14.6 7. after the long Night of Apostacy The Lord Jesus Christ never ordained such Ways and Means as you use for the furnishing and enabling of his Servants for the Work of his Ministry But when he ascended up on high he gave Gifts unto Men some Apostles some Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers for the edifying of his Heavenly Body and perfecting of his Holy Ones Ephes 4. But what can you edifie or perfect to God Jam. 3.15 16. 1 Cor. 2. from Ver. 1. to the end whose Wisdom is from below and whose Studies and Exercises for the most part run in the Channel of the Heathenish Philosophy and Vain Deceit of the World's Spirit which can neither receive in nor minister forth any Thing of Christ's Kingdom And so we are given by the Lord's Blessed Light and Spirit in this Day of the Lord to see and declare That you are gone from Christ and the Way of the true Ancient Christians into the Way of the Heathens who know not God as the Apostle said The World by Wisdom knew not God And so the People of the Country are greatly deceived by you and their Children extreamly wronged and corrupted by you for many send up their Youth to learn some Good amongst you but Alas how can you that are so evil bring forth good Fruit Nay nay for if any come amongst you and conform not to the filthy and bad Customs of your Universities how are they looked upon as strange Things How are they hooted at as Owls in a Desart You are altogether corrupt Isa 1.4 5 6. from the Crown of the Head to the Sole of the Foot no Soundness in you Oh! What Lewdness and Debauchery hath mine Eyes beheld in you Isa 2.17 Isa 31.4 5. Jer. 6.15 The Lord will ease himself of you your high Looks and high Towers he will pull down your Theatre that you Glory in shall be a Curse and the Lord will deliver his Lambs from your Teeth What a Face have you that you cannot Blush What will you never give over provoking God with your Acts and Degrees What Heathenish Stuff is this to find you at this time a-day telling of and glorying in Your Batchelers of Art and Masters of the same Batchelers of Divinity and Doctors of Divinity and such like but if any come amongst you who through the Grace of God hath attained to that Blessed Degree of a true living Member of Jesus Christ and Man of God to Preach the Mystery of God's Kingdom Isa 56.10 to awaken you out of your deep Slumbers of Sin and Death him you persecute him you disallow as your Fore-fathers the Old Scribes and Pharisees Mat. 27.21 22. rejected Christ Jesus the true Foundation and Corner-Stone of the Heavenly Building with his Blessed Followers And therefore will God's Controversie be with you for Ever until you Repent of your Sorceries and great Abominations wherewith you have burdened his good Spirit Days without Number Rev. 1â— 6 But the Everlasting Gospel of God's Light and Love shall spread and the Branch thereof shall over all your Walls grow up to his Praise who is come in this Day of his Power to Judge the Great Whore's Works in England as well as in other Countries that the Earth may be swept Isa 11.9 and filled with the Knowledge of God as the Waters cover the Sea So be it so be it saith my Spirit Thomas Taylor And now the Heavenly Free Mother Rev. 21.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Gal. 4.26 with her Happy Children is come and coming down from God out of Heaven to possess inherit and everlastingly to enjoy the Kingdom of his Endless Love Peace Righteousness and Joy where Mystery Babylon with all her false Mothers and sinful Children shall have no Name nor Place at all for at the Downfal of Mystery Babylon doth arise in the Saints the pure unspeakable Joy which none of the Children of the dark World understand any thing of at all It is so See Rev. 2.17 and Rev. 7. from Ver. 9 to the end and Rev. 11. from Ver. 15 to the end and Rev. 12.7 8 9 10 11. and Rev. 14. from Ver. 1 to Ver. 13. and Rev. 15.1 2 3 4. and Rev. 16.17 18 19. and Rev. 17.18 and Rev. 18.24 and Rev. 19. from Ver. 1 to Ver. 10. It is done HALLELUJAH The true Fast from the False Isaiah 58.4 Ye shall not Fast as ye do this Day THE Lord Speaks this to the Ungodly People in those Days who made a Vain and Hypocritical Shew of Fasting but the Lord Regarded them not and the same Lord the Everlasting God who was angry then with that False-hearted People is Angry and fore Displeased with the like Generation of Evil and Ungodly Men at this Day who when any Plague or Calamity comes upon the Nation so that the Hand of God cannot but be seen against them then they will call a Fast for a Day in a Week or a Month or so and so make a Shew of Humbling themselves in the outward but in the mean time the Sin of their Souls and Evil of their Lives is not departed from but in their Words and Deeds they are the same both in the sight of God and Man after their Fast Yea many of them in the very Day of their Fast as they were before Were they Drunkards before they continue so still were they given to Swearing and taking God's Holy Name in Vain they are found the same still for all their Fasting as they were before Were they Proud and Covetous given to Oppress Extort and Over-reach the Poor and Over-reach their Neighbours in their Bargainings and Dealings that they may be Rich and so Live like the Rich Glutton in all manner of Excess of Meat Drink and Cloaths they are found the same alas the very same if not worse after the Fast as they were before Or were they Guilty of laying heavy Burdens upon the Tender-Conscienced People yea and of Imprisoning such as in Conscience to God could not Bow to every thing that Man's Will set up Alas to the Grief of God's Holy Spirit they are found in the same Steps still and therefore saith the Lord from time to time Ye shall not thus Fast as ye do this Day to cause your Voice to be heard on High Is it such a Fast that I have chosen a Day for a Man to Afflict his Soul Is it to bow down his Head like a Bull-rush or so Wilt thou call this a Fast an acceptable Day to the Lord Nay nay this is not the Fast that God hath chosen but this is only that which vain deceived Man in his Ignorance and Blindness chooseth For the true Fast even that which the Holy God in all Ages and from all People Requireth is that every one depart from the Evil of his Way and from the Violence that is in his Heart and Hands and so to loose the Bands of Wickedness and to undo the
true Standing and ever Continuing Worship of God which is in Spirit and Truth For saith Christ God is a Spirit and they that Worship him must do it in Spirit even in his own Spirit and Truth So then they that are in the Flesh the Carnal Mind cannot Perform this Worship and so cannot Please God but a Carnal-minded One can observe your Days whether Fasts or Feasts and say all your Prayers and do all your Devotions which you are outwardly Exercised in from the one end of the Year to the other and so get a Name yet this avails nothing to the Kingdom of God Nay Paul the Apostle speaks further If I give all my Goods to Feed the Poor and my Body to be Burnt and have not the Love of God the true Charity Understanding within to Purge thy Heart from Sinful Self in the matter it is nothing For true Christians do not do good Works noâ— suffer for well doing that they may merit Salvation thereby but being saved freely by Grace through the Redemption which is in Christ Jesus they do good Works from the Heavenly Nature of that Holy Root that bears them and brings them forth as good Trees to Glorifie God in their Bodies and Souls which are his Tit. 3.8 And the Apostle Charging Titus to Exhort Believers to good Works was not because they were Saviours but because they were Profitable to Men as well as the Prophets And as for our Religion which the World and all the outside Professors of it look so slightly at and speak so Contemptibly of we would have you as well as the rest to know that it is truly Ancient Catholick Christian and Apostolical as having its Rise and Foundation in and from the Eternal Word which is Christ in us the Hope of our Glory whom the Apostle to the Colossians Preached as a Mystery formerly hid but then Revealed to the Gentiles even Christ in the Flesh the Hope of their Glory through Faith in his Name and this is God's Foundation the Foundation of Christ's Church another Foundation can no Man lay than this which God hath laid and this is the Rock not Peter but Christ who Peter by the Revelation of the Father Confessed unto And so through Faith in this Word Christ the Foundation and Rock of all the Righteous that ever were or ever shall be do we deny all the false Faiths and Works of all who have gotten the Name but want the Nature of true Christian People and so in the true Faith which gives Victory over the World and in the Name of Christ which is above every Name do we separate from them and meet together to Worship God in Spirit and Truth as he Requires us and his Blessed Presence in the midst of us according to Promise do we abundantly feel and witness to the great Rejoycing and Establishing of our Souls in Righteousness when thus met together And therefore do we Exhort all that Name Christ whether call'd Papists or Protestants to have Fellowship with us because our Fellowship is thus truly with the Father and the Son Therefore Awake Awake stand up from your Dead Faculties and Dead Worships that Christ who is the true Everlasting Way you may walk in and Worship in where no Uncircumcised or Unclean in Heart can come and if this you do not believe and bow your Heart accordingly to obey let me tell you as one who hath received Mercy to be Faithful you can never be Established with the Establishment of the Righteous for this is the Day that burns as an Oven where in all the Proud Wicked and False Professors and Confessors must be as Stubble and neither Root nor Branch must be left them because they will not have him the true Promised Seed and Heir of all things to Reign and Sway his Righteous Scepter in them and on them O! Look up to the Lord in a Trembling Soul and True Contrite Spirit to find Favour in his sight before the Door be shut and you stand without saying Lord Lord open to us And he Answer you in his Wrath because of your Unbelief and Disobedience saying Depart from me I know you not Workers of Iniquity for all are Workers of Iniquity in their highest Performances and greatest Conceits of themselves whose Works are not wrought in God that Spirit and Holy Power that Cleanses the Heart from all Sin and so brings Life to Light for God to be Praised in for the Dead cannot Praise him So consider what I say and be not Proud lest your Bands be made strong and your Feet stumble and then Fall upon the Dark Mountains where you have been too long Wandering Neither be so Foolish as to say This is but a Quaker who hath gotten some new Upstart Religion or so for in good Earnest I tell you the Truth which will stand when all Deceit and Devices of Men of corrupt Minds will come to naught for in the true Poverty of my Spirit hath the Lord according to Promise manifest his Blessed Kingdom in me and the pure Hunger and Thirst of my Soul which was after him and his Righteousness that he Graciously satisfied And therefore am Constrained in pure Love to your Souls to invite you as well as others to come out of the Prodigal State into the Heavenly Fathers House Christ Jesus as himself said My Father is in me and I in him and as the Apostle said It pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell in him for in this House and no where else is there Bread enough true Living Bread for the Hunger of the Immortal Soul as he said of himself in John 6. before any thing was spoken concerning the Bread and Wine at his last Supper I am the Living Bread the Heavenly Bread and when the Hearers Carnally Questioned How he could give them his Flesh to Eat he told them The Flesh Profiâ—ed nothing it was the Spirit that Quickened So come away Come away from your Carnal Conceivings of a Heavenly Man the Lord from Heaven to be Comprehended in a little Earthly Bread or Wine seeing the Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens contain him not much less outward Temples and outward Elements of Bread or Wine For unto his Light that is night you which shineth in your Dark Hearts though your Darkness Comprehend it not must you come and there wait for the Day to dawn in you or these Mysteries of his Kingdom you can never truly Know but in your Darkness grope and stumble for ever as People without Eyes and though this Heavenly Seed the Word the Light appear little in you yet despise it not for in it is the Blessing and if you receive it and in it abide you will know all this and it will work in you as Leaven in Meal till your whole Lumpâ— ' Heavenly Sweet and Pure and so as Christ said If thy Eye be single to wit single in and to the Lord in his Light to Believe and Walk then thy whole
of the Faithful who naturally only proceed from such as do but in general only profess the Christian Religion though their Lives even in your Judgment are judged to be no better some if not many of them to be I say no better than Heathens is such a piece of Darkness and Wretchedness that the Earth groans under it and the Spirit of the Lord is burdened with your Doings as a Cart under Sheaves And whereas thou brings that Scripture Mat. 18.10 to prove that by little Children he intends the Natural Infants is so gross that it shews thou wilt not see for those little ones whose Angels Christ said did always behold the Face of his Father are plainly said to be such as believed in him Ver. 6. and humbled themselves like a little Child and so he still brought little Children as Figures and Examples to Men that they might come to the Birth of God in them which Heirs his Kingdom according to what is said before Rom. 9.8 and John 3. That which is Born of the Flesh is Flesh and that which is Born of the Spirit is Spirit Also as to that which thou brings against our Objection from Mat. 28.18 concerning Infant Baptism it is nothing but thy groundless Argument drawn from a falfe Supposition of our understanding of the place as though we understood the reason wherefore Teaching is to go before Baptizing because of the meer standing of the words in the Sentence and so troubles thy self to prove by other Scripture That Precedency of Action is not always deducible from the Precedency of Words For thou maist know that we do not say that Teaching goes before Baptism meerly because it is placed so in words though in that place that is true but especially because of the Nature of the Thing as is manifest amongst many other Reasons 1. By your own Confession that the Sacraments do not beget Faith but only confirm and that Faith cometh by hearing the Word Preached 2. From the Practice of those that Baptized with Water in the first Times as is to be seen in Scripture where none were Baptized with Water but upon Teaching first going to the Understanding of such whatsoever you imagine to the contrary from the Goaler's or Stephana's Families 3. From the Judgment of those that Compiled that Catechism which saith What is required of Persons to be Baptized The Answer is Faith and Repentance And so because they in their dark Minds and Self-will would needs have Children into that Ceremony right or wrong they devised that strange and unheard of and unreasonable Custom of Sureties or Godfathers and Godmothers to Promise that for the Children which the Lord never required of them and indeed is most unreasonable to think possible for can any Promise for another that they shall do such things as forsake the Devil and all his Works c. especially for Infants whose Minds and Hearts are wholly hid from such Presumptuous Promisers But what if the Lord should require the Performance of this Promise in the Day of Judgment on behalf of such Infants that when they come to Years are found following the Devil and all his Works Would'st thou be content to suffer the Punishment of such Disobedient Ones for their Sin Were it not just thou should'st seeing thou wast the Surety or Undertaker for them and they have failed Must it not therefore fall on thee except thou Repent And so if thou be Damned do not say that we Damn thee for it 's thy self that art the Cause and God and his Servants are clear of all your Blood And do not trifle and say as one of you said See these Men can bring a Proof out of our Catechism and therefore it is so and so and drew this wretched word forth from it The Spider draws Poyson out of the same Flower the Bee draws Honey The Heathens might have said so to Paul who brought their own Authors against them And did his bringing some true words out of their heaps of false prove all to be good and he a Spider for so doing any more than our present Work make us Spiders or allow of all that 's written in that Catechism Nay nay the Lord is Judge between us and he sees who are in Heart true Lovers of him and his Truth and who are not and will give every one according to their Works and that is our Joy Glory to his Name for Ever and so at this time rests the Lord's Servant Thomas Taylor This Writ upon Occasion of a Visitation so called UNto you who are called Divines In Love are sent these following Lines And so if you are Wise you 'll not Disdain A few plain Verses from a Heart that 's plain They 'll serve as Monitors unto that part In you which is grown dull with weight of Art And evil Customs in these lazy Times Wherein the Truth 's Extirpate Prose and Rhimes Wherein Ambition Pride and Cruelty Is like a Fiery Flame advanc'd so High That if with Moistning showers it go not out It will consume the Tree both Branch and Root Wo to the Shepherds that lead the Flock amiss And follow Cursed Covetousness what 's this Save gross Idolatry to give to th' Earth Your Hearts which is the due of him that gives you Breath And Wo to People when even for a Word A Man's Offender made then comes the Sword Then comes the Plagues of God upon that Land To cut off Sinners who against him stand And Wo to People when their Bishop's Blind That neither sees nor knows their Sores to Bind Who feeds himself with Thoughts of Worldly Glory And knows not that his Life 's an empty Story And knows not that the Holy One Beholds How such the Sheep impound in dirty Folds How they the Fleece and not the Flock do seek Howl howl ye Shepherds Roar Lament and Weep The Day of your Dispersions is at Hand You shall no more the Lambs Tear Kill and Rend But Heaven and Earth shall Joy the Day to see Wherein the Sheep from Bondage shall go free Weep Weep and Wall all strong and stout of Heart Who with Proud Babel's Whore have taken part Upon a Bed of Sorrow you must lye Because the Cursing thing you come so nigh What Madness is in Men in these bad Days That will not heed what Christ and Scripture says That will not once believe that God will come And give upon your Deeds a Righteous Doom What are your Ears and Eyes so clos'd that ye God's Truth will neither Practice Hear nor see Hath Midnight Darkness all your Senses drown'd That of God's Truth you 'll not endure the Sound Must every vain Invention Suffered be And with a Brasen Face i' th' Land go free And only such as do Proclaim God's Day Be stopt and from your presence sent away Into some nasty Prison or such Place To spend their Days in Sorrow with Disgrace As though the Great and Holy One of Heaven Would not pour out
that he saith A New Covenant he hath made the first Old Now that whichâ—d cayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away This is the Apostle's Conclusion from the former words as is to be seen in the last Verse of that 8th Chapter to the Hebrews Now mind whoever thou art that reads these words that the Covenant which here he calls Old was that which God made with the Fleshly Seed of Abraham at their coming out of Egypt which is mentioned in the Writings of Moses as you may read and part of this Covenant was the Two Tables of Stone which the Lord by his Angel delivered Moses for that People to observe and keep with the rest of what Moses had in Charge for them and set down in the outward Book to be done and which the Children of Israel did Promise and Covenant that they would observe and do but they broke Covenant with God as all Flesh ever did and doth at this Day and so the Lord regarded them not for no Flesh can do what the Pure Spiritual Lord God commands them having no more help thereto but what a Law or Letter without can furnish them withal and therefore the Lord God in love to Man's Soul sent Christ into the World to be his own Arm and Power to and in Man to bring forth that Righteousness and Holiness which he required and therefore saith Paul after he saw his own utter unableness to do the Will of God with all the outward Helps that ever he had he concludes that they that are in the Flesh cannot please God let them turn which way they can for the Enmity against the Law whilst in that Principle and in that thou T. H. art still remains against the Spiritual Law of God as he saith Rom. 8.7 For the Carnal Mind is not subject to the Law of God nor indeed can be And therefore as Paul so must all come to Christ the Lord that Spirit to know him in them to destroy the Enmity out of them that so the Will of God and Law of his Mouth which is Spiritual may be done in them and so come to witness as Paul there in Rom. 8.2 did That the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made them free from the Law of Sin and Death And the Ground or Reason of the Lord 's gracious Dealing with Man in the next Verse e sets down saying For what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the Flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful Flesh and for Sin condemned Sin in the Flesh And the end of all this he shews in the next Verse saying That the Righteousness of God's Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit And thus he stops the Mouths of all the Enemies of Christ who with Tho Hall would object That with Preaching of Christ and his Light and hi Spirit in Man to be all in all they make void the Law Answ Nay nay I say By Preaching Christ we establish the Law to the Glory of God in Christ over all And so thou Tho. Hall hast been he which hath not hitherto either truly heard Moses nor the Prophets nor Christ nor his Apostles or his Spirit in these days and so canst not in that wretched Mind believe though one come from the Dead And so for the Truths sake and to stop the Errors and Blasphemies of this Thomas Hall who ceaseth not to pour forth his Ignorance against the Lord Jesus Christ and his blessed Spirit of Light and Life in Man the only Teacher of God's People in these Gospel days have I writ these Lines that the Truth of the Gospel against his and all such Unbelieving Jewish Persecuting Spirits in these days may stand cear over all their Heads and triumph for ever in the Hearts and Consciences of all tender and honest-minded People whose Desires 〈◊〉 continually after the Kingdom of God and the Righteousness thereof whose Kingdom is everlasting and the Righteousness thereof is Pure Spotless and Undefiled of God and endureth for ever And this is our Righteousness and the Righteousness of all Saints Praised be God for ever and for whose Name and Truths sake and for bearing Testimony thereof in this World do we suffer Reproach and Persecutions from the present evil World not only of the Prophane but even of many such unreasonable professing vain Talkers as this T. Hall who would be Teachers of the Law not knowing what they say nor whereof they affirm as Paul the Apostle of Christ witnessed of such in his days who would never be quiet from opposing the Gospel with their False Interpretations of the Law until God cut them off and cast them away for their Wickedness But we know saith the same Apostle in that place to wit 1 Tim. 1.5 6 7 c. that the Law is good if a Man use it lawfully I nowing this that the Law is not made for a righteous Man but for the Lawless and Disobedient for the Vngodly and for Sinner c. So say we and so the Law of God we love and honour â—s God's Ordinance for good to restrain limit and condemn such ungodly and unreasonable Spirits as this T. Hall is for those that will not believe nor obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ must be ruled and bruised and condemned with the Iron Rod of God's righteous Law which whatsoever it saith it saith to them that are under it that every sinful Mouth may be stopped and all the World of wicked unbelieving Men may be found guilty before God Glory to his Name for ever who giveth us the Victory by Jesus Christ our Lord who is our Light Life Wisdom Righteousness and Salvation for ever whose Grace alone is able to keep us and preserve us and present us and all that believe in his Light and know him in them unto himself without Spot and Wrinkle and unreprovable in everlasting Peace Rests a Lover of the Soul of Man which is in great Captivity until it come to the Liberty of God's Sons and who in a patient quiet Suffering way do wait to do it good as a Servant of God wherein I may be known amongst Men by the Name of Thomas Taylor but in the New Name which is of God and not of this World which the Father hath given me doth my Soul rejoyce And though I be set a-part for Sufferings amongst the reproached despised People of God called Quakers by the World yet we are Happier than our Persecutors in that the Lord is on our sides and justifies us in his way which is Christ while his Holy Spirit testifies against our Adversaries because they are his Adversaries He that hath an Ear to hear let him hear and give Glory to God by believing for these words are Faithful and True Thomas Taylor FINIS A Testimony for the Lord God and His Work in the Earth HEar O EARTH and hearken ye
HEAVENS for the Lord hath spoken even the Lord God mighty in Power and excellent in Wisdom Loving-kindness and Mercies have appeared and are made manifest in the Children of men and the Isles of the Gentiles do feel his Power and partake of his Promise in the Light in the Life in the Eternal Covenant of his Peace and Truth whereby Japhat is perswaded in the Tents of Shem to dwell And this is the Lords own doing and it is marvellous in the pure eyes of all that behold it and the eye that seeth is Blessed and the Soul that heareth and beleiveth is Blessed and shall be Blessed for the Lord the faithful God is Arisen and his appearance is like the Sun when it Ariseth and Shineth in the Brightness of its Glory and therefore are we refreshed and caused to live in his sight and to bring forth the living fruits of Righteousness to his praise and glory Glory glory for ever for the Heaven gives now its dew and the Earth yeilds its encrease and the blessing is upon the People and the Nations of the World shall bow and the Inhabitants of the Earth do tremble at the Glory of the Lord at the Majesty of his Appearance in this his glorious day wherein he hath Visited and his Visiting his Seed and calling his Servants out of Egypt and delivering his Beloved out of the hands of him that was too strong for them and putting a new Song into our Mouths And his Rest is Glorious and his Praise is Holy and his Renown is spread abroad and his Foes become his Foot-stool and the Ransomed of the Lord do unto Zion return and in the Light of the living God do all the day rejoyce and praise him upon the truly Spiritual and well tuned loud Cymbals in the heights of Israel in the Holy Temple in the Promised Land in the Purchased Possession in the Holy Mount even the Mountain of God's everlasting Love in CHRIST JESUS where his eternal Arm of Power and Faithfulness is truly witnessed And this is the Mountain of Gods House and Holiness indeed which is now on the top of all Mountains and here the Lord is fully seen and his living Power daily felt and his everlasting Love continually enjoyed for watering and refreshing the Babes and living Plants of the New Jerusalem glory glory for ever glory to the Righteous for this is comly And now is the day of the Lords gathering and his Angels are gone forth and his Trumpet hath sounded the Alarm out of the holy Mountain Place these Sheets after Page 130. unto all the Inhabitants of the Earth And now if any Old or Young High or Low can come forth and stand before the God of the whole Earth they are warned and called upon to bring their deeds to the LIGHT to the day of the Lamb that true Light that lighteth every man that cometh unto the World John 1.9 For now indeed is the day of the Lord God appeared and the Lamb is come and who may stand before him who can abide this day of his coming for he cometh in the thousands of his Holy Ones to Judge the World even all that are Proud and do Wickedly in his sight and to convince them of all their ungodly deeds and hard speeches which they ungodlily have spoken against him and whereby they have slandred the foot steps of his Anointed Ones and blasphemed his Heavenly Tabernacle which he hath pitched amongst men that he might dwell amongst them and be glorified for evermore So WOE is to the Wicked and much Wrath will be upon the people who now stand out and strive against the Lord even the Lord the habitation of Justice in whose hands is their â—â—eath who are careless Children and do not regard this day of their Visitation So all having time prize it and bow to the Lord God and know this day of your Visitation for the Lord in his Glory is Arisen and his Eye beholds and with his own pure Light is trying the children of men And now even now shall the Mouth of Iniquity be stopped and the Righteous shall rejoiyce and be glad as the Scripture hath said Yea the high praises of God is already heard in their Mouths and the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God is felt going forth Conquering and to Conquer And the Mountains are moved and the lesser Hills are afraid and the hearts of the Hypocrites do melt for fear at the presence of the Lord at the appearance of our God the true God the everlasting Father who is exalting his own Name and seting up the Kingdom of his dear Son and shaking terribly the earth glory glory to him for ever and for ever for he is good and his Mercy endureth for ever and of his faithfulness there is no end All flesh is grass but that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit and shall inherit and sound forth the living Praises of the living God for evermore as it is at this day So be it Given forth in the movings of the Lord as a Witness to his Truth in this his Day by one who bears the Reproach of Christ amonst many Brethren by he evil World under the name of Quaker Thomas Taylor Ignorance and Error REPROVED BEING AN ANSWER TO SOME QUERIES That one JOHN REYNOLDS Wrote to Two of the People called QUAKERS By THOMAS TAYLOR LONDON Printed and Sold by T. Sowle next Door to the Meeting-house in White-Hart-Court in Gracious-street and at the Bible in Leaden-hall-street near the Market 1697. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER WHEN the Lord God of Eternal Power began by his Spirit to move in these Nations in the late times of Trouble and there was an Opening in the times for the Zeal of the Heart to work out it self then every one betook themselves to that Fellowship and People that agreed most with the Working-Principle that was in them and so there came a distinguishing and knowledge of those seeking Souls according to some thing most obvious to the Eye of the World and so they called some by the name of Presbyterians some Independent and the like For as for those called Prelatical they were not of such a pressing Nature as to seek forward much after the Spiritual Kingdom but rather Breathed after their Old Form how they might come to that again without the former Troubles to lye down in that But those called Presbyterian or mixed Independent in answer to whose Queries or one of them the ensuing sheets are they seemed so Zealous while the Worlds Power countenanced them as though they would have taken Heaven as it were by force and not only so but even of late also since the Second Charles came in and they began to be put out of their high Places by some old Incumbent as they call them or upon some other Account as Zealor so yet did some of them keep up their Custom of Preaching amongst People in publick where they could get place
or Testimony at all for the Law is Spiritual and Inward and the Testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophesie as saith Scripture Declaration and by that Spiritual Law Paul came to the knowledge of his Sin to Humiliation but while he was but a Professor of the Law in the Letter he was alive without Law but when the Commandment in Spirit came to be felt nigh in the Heart then Sin Revived and he Died And so will John Reynolds dye when the Law indeed he comes to feel but he is yet alive without Law and from that Ground comes all these Queries of his to stop if possible the Holy Seed from coming out of Egypt but the Lord will break all Bonds for his Elect sake so that in a few words take away from this John Reynolds the Letter and by his own words he is as blind as a Beetle for he Questions how a Man can either know the true Spirit or Sin or the Works or Fruits of either good Spirit or bad but by the Letter so that his Eye is in the outward Book and so no Letter no Preacher For John Reynolds did the Apostles hold forth a Letter without them to be an Eye to the World Nay nay they were to turn the People to the Light of Christ within them that thereby they might see the Light out of all Darkness and false Worships For in thy Light saith David we shall see Light O the Riches of the Grace of God that hath delivereâ— John Fince and John Payton from this Blind Guide John Reynolds whose Eye within is yet shut by the god of the World 2 Cor. 4.3 4. Qu. 4. Thou Queriest whether the Saints in your times are more perfect than Saints in Scripture times And the rest of this Query is to plead for Sin and against sinless Perfection and in the Conclusion of it thou say'st we cannot shew you one Man that ever attained it Answ Yea to this I say Through the Lord's great Love we are able to hold forth to thee and all the World one perfect Man yea such a One in whose Mouth there was and is no Guil who did and doth good and sinned not nor doth sin who was in a sinless Perfection and of such a Man will we glory not of Self nor of Flesh but in him who is made unto us of God Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption who is more perfect than Thousands under the Law were Go to then to stop all Mouths the Gospel-day is Witnessed Praised be the Lord and in Perfection of Beauty do true Believers now Worship and the Righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in such who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit so John Reynolds to thee and thy Company I say Arise stand up from the Dead come out of your own times where there is none perfect for your times pass away into nothing but for Scripture times that 's large it is not as thou would'st Insinuate ended yet for the Scripture is the Lord daily fulfilling and will do it until time shall be no more which he that hath an Ear to hear â—et him hear and not only they but a Hundred Forty Four Thousand sinless perfect Ones are mentioned Rev. 14.25 with many more see also Chap. 7. Vers 9.14 an Innumerable Number Qu. 5. And for thy fifth Query where thou say'st If those that are called Quakers esteem themselves the only true Christians in the World then would I know where hath been their Church this 1600 Years Answ To this I say here thou manifests thy self again what stumbling is here in thy dark Mind This is like the Papists Arguments to Protestants but to this may be easily answered that if it be manifest to the Conscience of any as Praised be God it is to many that we are of God such a one will never ask such a Question as this But now to you who cannot own the Light in your Consciences we cannot be manifest because the World knows us not and then ask where hath your Church been I say it hath been ever where it is at this day to wit the Church which is in God and Christ which when thou comest to the Light of Christ within thee then thou wilt see but till then we must be content to lye hid from thee and all Dark Minds and so to bear Christ's Reproach but to all my dear Brethren in Christ I say Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed on us that we should be called the Sons of God Fellow-Citizens in the Heavenly Jerusalem with all the Church of God First-born of God whose Names are written in Heaven therefore the World knows us not because it knew not our Head first 1 John 3. Heb. 12. But as for thy telling of Esteeming Self and the name Quaker and the like thou may'st take those words in again from whence they came for Self and Names of Mens giving we deny and Glory in the Cross of Christ where the Name of God is known and as for the rest of thy Queries which tell of our unableness to give a Proof of such People as we before the last twenty Years or so who placed Religion in Thouing and Theeing and refusing to put off their Hats and wear Decent Ornaments in their Apparel and it is such frothy stuff that it Shames thee and thy Profession but thou may'st know that though you may do what you will that are without Law to God yet we are taught to fear the Lord and whatsoever is pure to mind that and so our Religion stands in Christ not in outward Appearances though the outward be all thou canst see and so stumbles at the meanness of it but what are those Decent Ornaments in Apparel thou tell'st on Is needless Points and Laces and Ribonds and such filth Then surely all Saints are one with us here but for that thou say'st we Rail against Priests Tythes Idols Temples and Idols Worship being such as yours I say though Railing we deny yet we can easily prove by Scripture that Holy Men Cried Vehemently against false Worships and Worshâ—ppers who were guided as you are in all Ages but as for that thou say'st We Rail against Baptism and the Lord's Supper and Singing of Psalms thou art found a great and false Slanderer in this for to let pass the word Railing we deny that we so much as speak against Christ's Baptism or Supper or his Singing or that we take upon our selves to condemn any to Hell but this we say That no Vnrighteous One or Hypocrite hath any Inheritance in the Kingdom of God or of Christ and he that is not with us is against us which Words will-be hard and heavy for many to bear and as for Christ's Baptism and Supper and Singing in and with the Spirit we dearly own but the Hypocrite and their Leaven we deny Qu. 6. The next Query is something to the former purpose and so that which is said may serve for
Honouring all it must be understood as in some place is mentioned in the Lord and that is not with Cap and Knee and false Flattering Titles and Gestures as the World useth but in Heart and Truth as the Spirit of God moveth So that a Man must first be in the Lord out of the first fall'n false Mind otherwise he knows not at all how to Honour either God or Man but is a Dissembling Wretch making fair Shews outwardly of Love where nothing but War and Self-love is in the Heart See 2 Sam. 20.9 10. Jude 16. Thus Children being in the Lord do through the Lord Honour Parents aright thus Servants in the Lord Honour their Masters after the Flesh aright and so Church-members the Elders Wives their Husbands the Ruled the Rulers Yea thus they Honour their Faithful Brethren aright and in a Word all Men and so the Scripture is fulfilled in them But what Honour do these Faithful Ones look for from Men Nay nay they believe and seek for that Honour that comes from God only and so the Scripture will not help the fall'n Man now to his Honour which is his Life but as the Scripture saith He that would save his Life must loose it And so all you Hypocrites of the World who are giving Honour to Proud Flesh and receiving Honour from it cease your Work and let Christ have his due or verily he will break you all in pieces with his Iron Rod. But in the end of thy Query thy Conscience a little checking thee for this vain Work thou wouldst daub over the matter by telling People the Honour from below which thou hast been pleading for must not be in Opposition to but in Subordination to God's Honour Nay nay I say the true Christ the Son of God is come and all Power in Heaven and Earth is given to him and so all Honour and Glory and Worship is his due and the due of none else to whom be it given of all his Angels and Servants both now and for evermore So all People hearken and hear a word for your good would ye be Honoured Then Honour the Lord by obeying his Voice and he will Honour you in due time though for doing his Will you loose the Worlds Honour as assuredly ye will if once ye be Faithful Qu. 12. The next Query Consisteth of a great Boast of the Ministry as though it were Unrebukeable And thou queriest whether that Ministry can be lawfully Condemned as Antichristian which the Lord hath owned and sealed with the Conversion of many Souls Answ To which I say if your Ministry were such as this thou speakest of then indeed it were not safe to condemn it But where are these Converts thou speakest of to be a Convert is to be turned from Darkness to Light and from the Power of Satan unto God bring forth the Man that can witness thee to be a Minister of the Gospel this way that he may give us an Account of the true Hope if he have it in him But Men cannot gather Grapes of Thorns nor Figs of Thistles so thou being such an Evil Tree as thou hast manifested thy self in these Queries to be how can a true Convert be expected from such a Ministry But thou say'st it s in Power c. and that many stubborn Sinners have been brought down unto their Faces and to confess that God is in you of a Truth But I say it will be hard for thee to bring forth such a Man for when I use to come amongst you to declare Truth against your Deceit as the Lord ordered me I found a heap of hard-hearted Sinners more like to destroy the Creature than to be Witnesses of Truth O shameless Men that bring forth such bad Fruit And yet with a Whores Fore-head dare take the Scripture which speaks of Prophets in God's Church in God's Power and apply it to your selves who deny the sufficiency of Christ's Light in Man and know nothing but meerly by the Letter without as thou for thy own particular hast made manifest and so are sensual not having the Spirit as was noted in the third Query I observe also in this present Twelfth Query the Ignorance of the Grace of God for when thou hast falsly Boasted of your Ministry what it hath done thou say'st is not this the Grace of God that bringeth Salvation Tit. 2.11 12. I say no your Ministry not being the true is far from being the Grace of God there spoken of But if it were the true Ministry it were not that Grace there spoken of for the true Ministry is but a service to that Grace not the Grace it self for the Grace of God is that which hath appeared unto all Men and that which brought Salvation to Jew and Gentile as God's Gift without Words or Works and which was the Teacher of the Apostles themselves as well as others And so when People would have been setting up Paul for his Ministry's sake he denied it as nothing in comparison of the All-sufficiency of the Grace of God and the Word thereof to which only at best he was but a Servant But if it could be manifest that any under or amongst you were Convinced of the Evil of their Ways in some measure and so in their Dark Minds set upon a seeking after the unknown God which is the most can be found amongst you and that rarely neither this is no warrant either for them to stay with you who are Ignorant of the Way out of Sin unto God neither is it any proof for you to be Gospel-Ministers nor your Ministry to be a Gospel-Ministry For the Gospel-Ministry is not only Convincing but Converting and Perfecting Eph. 4.11 12 13. which work ye have utterly denied and so shut out your selves for ever from the Gospel-Ministry and amongst the Priests of the Letter Law at best must you be reckoned which made nothing Perfect and hence it is that you are such bitter Enemies to the Spiritual Ministration or New Covenant mentioned Rev. 8. And such earnest Contenders for the outward Shadows outward Law Tythes Temples Days Priests c. as is now every where found But for the True Power and Gospel-Ministration it is risen above all your Languages and Tongues and hath darkened the Glory of all your Fleshly Forms and Likenesses And the Babes of God are in Obedience to God turned and turning from you unto this his Power that perfects to God for ever And Pharoah and all his Host will not now be able to hinder Praises to the Lord God for ever Qu. 13. In this next Query thou goest on seeking false Covers to hide thine and your Nakedness asking How can the Quakers Condemn your Congregations because of some Wicked Unprofitable Hearers when Christ himself say'st thou did not Convert all his Hearers And for this thou bringest Mat. 11.20 and Mat. 23.37 and Isa 49.4 I say all this will not cover your Nakedness Oh ye Teachers nor your Congregations for what have you
Spirit and with Understanding But thou bringest several places out of the Writings of the Apostles and Luke as in Acts Corinthians and Hebrews to prove that the Apostles and Saints use Praying Preaching Psalms and Blessing amongst them Yea but what is that to you that deny that Infallible Spirit of God to be Head in you that guided them and so get the Worlds Wisdom Acts and Helps instead thereof to make you Ministers and Saints by You have indeed in some things a Form of their Works but the Power being found not only wanting amongst you but denied by you the Children of Light are necessitated to turn away from you and thus to witness against you But thou say'st Christ did not only Read the Letter in the Jews Synagogues but also Preached from a Text of it To which I answer For his Reading he did upon account of being a Jew to fulfil all that Righteousness of the Law in his day till his Offering up but that he Preached from a Text as you Priests do I utterly deny For his doing at that time was only this He being Reading in the Prophet as is mentioned in that Fourth of Luke and in providence meeting with that place which said The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he hath Anointed me to Preach the Gospel he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted c. And the Spirit of the Lord arising in him in Life and Power and Witnessing in him to the fulfilling of that Scripture in himself He was overcome with Love and Glory and so closed the Book and gave it again to the Servant and sate down and so the Eyes of the People were fastened on him through Admiration and Ravishments of Love and Spirit that was upon him and so as that Living Spirit gave him Utterance in the Silence of all Flesh he spoke to them and Preached in many Gracious Words the fulfilling of that Scripture in the Ears of that Day And this was Christs doing there But O you poor naked Teachers of England c. What have you to do to boast of this Example for warranting your Practice There was no choosing a Verse in a Chapter in the Will of Man which you think you can raise most words from and so consult with your own Imaginations and old rusty Books how you may raise an Hours Discourse from it and so divine to please the itching Ears of Carnal Professors that they may give you outward Honour Glebe-lands Tythes Augmentations Easter-Reckonings and the like to please your Lusts and if need be to Fight for you and lay their Sword and Law upon all that will not hold you up and Cry Peace to you O Hypocrites How have you deceived the poor People with your long wrestings of Scriptures But now that the Spirit of Truth is come it is leading us into all Truth without your help Praised be the Lord for ever And so for Christ his Expounding out of Moses and the Prophets and opening the Understanding of the Disciples to know the Scripture mentioned Luke 24. And Paul's Expounding and Testifying of the Kingdom of God and Perswading the Jews concerning Jesus both out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets mentioned Acts 28. is nothing to you who now a-days instead of Testifying to the Kingdom of God and opening the Understanding to know Scriptures and the Light of the World which they witnessed unto do Testifie of this World Pleading for your Carnal Ordinances Set Places Set Times Bowing one to another and the like as is manifest in these Queries and so instead of opening shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against Men and so with these of old will neither enter into the Kingdom of God your selves nor suffer others but are under the Wo as you and the People may Read all along in Mat. 23. And for Singing of Psalms it doth not say that the Saints Sung the very words of David and no other and that in Rhime and Meeâ—er in Worldly Tunes after Mens Inventions or with Organs or so but they Sâ—ng as the Spirit gave them utterance in plain words as thou may'st Read in Acts. 4.24 c. Which thou bringest for Singing if that may be called Singing this was a Song by the Persecuted not the Persecutors which in the Persecuted Church of God at this day is often Sung worthy Consideration but a shame for all Persecuting Priests and Professers to take these words into their Mouths And the same Apostle in that place 1 Cor. 14.26 that saith every one hath a Psalm saith I will Sing with the Spirit and with Vnderstanding so then a Psalm was a Gift of the Spirit spoken forth from the Understanding to the Edifying of the Hearer and they were to be silent when that Gift was Exercised as well as others but your Confused Noises and Temple-songs is but as Howling in God's Ears and his Childrens Ears in this day for there the Proud and Scornful Sing Falsly and say that they are not Proud and Scornful because David said so Psal 131. and so with and amongst you is David's Psalms in words used but the Holy Life and Innocent Love that he Lived in in Deeds denied and so the Lord can take no Pleasure in you And for that Scripture thou bringest of Aaron and his Sons Blessing the Tribes of Israel in the Name of God And Paul's commending of the Churches in the closure of his Epistles to the Grace of God makes as little for your customary Blessings of and speaking Peace to the Wicked for self-ends as the Preaching of Christ doth for your Daubing and Divining for Mony for you are neither of Aaron's Order nor of Christ's Anointing and so wash you and make you clean and put away the Evil of your Doings and God will Bless you but not otherwise and better will it be for you to have the lowest place in that Blessing than the uppermost Room where you stand in the Cursed Ground Qu. 17. Thy Seventeenth and next Query is Hath not Christ Jesus sent out his Ministers to Disciple him all Nations and to Baptize them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and Promised to be with them to the end of the World Mat. 28.19 20. Is not that Baptism with Water And having set down some Scriptures that speaks of washing with Water thou criest Are not they then contrary to Christ and his Apostles that deny Water-Baptism Answ To which I answer That all this if it were granted thee is nothing at all to thine and thy Brethrens Practice who take a little Water and sprinkle it on a Childs Face calling it Christ's Baptism for there was Discipling and Confessing of Faith and the Holy Ghost before Baptizing which cannot groundedly by you be said of Infants of a day old or so and this thou sawest which made thee so busie in the words of that Query there following to proâ—e Infants sprinkling And first Thou goest about to prove it by saying
and no better than Offering Swines Blood or cutting off a Dogs Neck and for the endeavouring to keep up your Custom of Praying and Singing in mixt Congregations from the Example of Jews or them that follow Christ I say your Hypocritical Praying and Singing is good no where but Rejected of God and I see thy Pâ—ide all along that would be computing your Congregations to those that followed Christ Nay nay for though there was One Devil yet there was Eleven Saints but when you are searched scarce One of many Twelves that hath any true Fear of God before their Eyeâ— is to be found amongst you Qu. 20 And whereas in thy last Query thou askest Whether those Persons that have Experienced the Operation of the Spirit of God in the Gospels Preaching and Administrations Convincing their Consciences Melting the Hearts Humbling the Spirits and Turning them from Darkness to Light and have afterwards Tasted much Sweetness and have felt Soul-Ravishing Comforts in the Enjoyment of God in Ordinances have not the Witness in themselves that God doth own these and Bless these Priviledges to them I answer Yea it is thus with all that in Truth have the Witness in themselves that God doth own these and Bless these Priviledges to them But those People that go under the Name Quakers have to the Praise of God's free Love the Witness in themselves of such Fruits as thâ—se amongst them from the Virtue of the Everlasting Gospel and its Administration And therefore we can Witness that John Reynolds and all such as Condemn this Ministry and Work of God amongst us as Heresie or so are Deceivers and that they are Strangers to Spiritual Communion with God whatever in words they may Boast who cannot meet with and enjoy God where we to his Immortal Praise be it in Truth spoken do experience that loving Kindness and Goodness which is better than Life it self And therefore how long may this John Reynolds or any other Seducer or painted Sepulchre talk before ever they can perswade these whom the Lord hath so loved not to believe their own Spiritual Senses and Experiencies But to conclude Whereas this John Reynolds in his high swelling Words of his last Query and the 12th boasts much of his own and his Fellows Experiencies of Spiritual things I refer the Reader to the rest of his Queries and especially the 3 5 8 10 11 14 15 16 and to the answers to them all and to weigh all in the Ballance of Just Judgment and it will appear to him beyond words what may be Judged of them and us Thomas Taylor A Testimony to the True and Spiritual Worship And a Word of Consolation to the Children of Light GOD is a Spirit all Pure Holy Just and True and therefore in Spirit Purely Holy and Truly will he be Worshiped of all that come to him and therefore all that Worship which stands in the Impure Unholy nature of the flesh is of no acceptance with him Cain may Sacrifice and Israel may be Circumcised and Judas do something like an Apostle but so long as the Murderous Scoffing Covetous Trayterous Nature of the Flesh stands all is nothing The Lord God Blessed for ever hath in this day of his Powerful Love made manifest himself amongst the Children of Men on Earth and now Sons and Daughters do Prophesie and Old and Young do Sing of his Praise and Sound forth with Joyful Hearts of the worthy noble Acts of his Right-Hand because his Kingdom is come and his Glory in Sion is appeared and the Tabernacle of God is indeed with Men and he himself not a Shadow or a Figure or ontward Representation of him but he himself who is over all God Blessed for ever dwells in and with his People his dearly beloved Sâ—ed who have believed in Light that true Light that Lighteth every Man that cometh into the World and have not despised the day of Small Things but have waited in the Light in the Faith of his Holy Power for the fulfilling of his Promises and so through Faith and Patience have received the Promises of Everlasting Life and Salvation fulfilled in them whereby the Mountains are thrown down and Vallies lifted up and all made Plain Pure and Perfect for the Holy God and Father of all Mercy and Goodness to dwell in and walk in Glory Glory to his great Name who hath not left himself without a Witness of his Faithfulness this day nor left the Throne of Davids Kingdom without an Heir to sit upon it to Order and Establish it in Righteousness And now even now in this our Day the Day which the Lord hath made is the Blessed Fountain of the great Depth of the Love of God in Christ Jesus truly opened and the Waters of the Heavenly Temple are so deep that a Man may swim in them and it is not now as sometimes in times past here a line and there a line here a little and there a little but now hath the Lord our God according to his excellent Loving-kindness fully opened to Judah and the Children of the Heavenly Mother Jerusalem the Mystery of his Will and Fountain of his Eternal Goodness in Christ Jesus the Light whereby our Souls are satisfied and Sin and Transgression done away and the Everlasting Righteousness which makes Pure and Perfect the very Heart Soul and Conscience to God brought in ever Blessed be his Glorious Name for his unspeakable Gift Amen and Amen And now are all false Religions seen and by the Light which makes them manifest Judged for the false Births which are of the great Whore Mystery Babilon whose Religions are carried on by the will of the Flesh as by the Fleshly Wisdom they were Invented stand all in the Curse where nothing is perfect but their own Misery and Wretchedness Remains and therefore it is that both Priest and People in this Wretched State do all with one consent cry out against the perfect Work of Jesus Christ in his People saying None can be Perfect here And so do in a Word deny the very End for which Christ came and the End for which the Ministry of Christ was given for Christ gave himself for his People That he might wash them in the Word of Life and so present them to himself a Glorious Congregation without Spot or Wrinkle or any such thing Ephes 5.25 c. And thou art all Fair my Love saith Christ to his Spouse And there is no Spot in thee And the Law made nothing Perfect but the bringing in of a better Hope Christ in us the Hope of Glory Col. 1.27 Heb. 7.19 And the very end of the Ministry was for the Edifying and Perfecting the Saints who are Christs Body Eph. 4.12 And we labour to present every Man Perfect to God in Christ Col. 1.28 And John 17.23 I in them and thou in me that they may be made Perfect in one But now the false Ministry which stands in the Flesh in which no good thing
and Temple and the Word of the Lord Prospers in our Hand and in our Hearts And though they say we deny the Ordinances of God because we cannot plead for or put confidence in a Shadow or Figure yet holding the Head Christ Jesus the Light and Life Eternal we are safe enough and have the Witness of God in our Hearts Justifying us and Sealing in our Hearts our Acceptance with his Majesty which is our Peace and Assurance for ever for Praised be the Name of God for ever who hath given us an understanding to know him that is true the Son of God and we are in him that is true who is the Everlasting Ordinance of God and in him are we Baptized with a Baptism made without Hands and our Supper is with the Lord in Spirit and Truth where we are daily given to feed freely at his Table whose Body is Meat indeed who said I am the Living Bread that gives Life for ever John 6. And he that Believeth in me and feedeth on me shall never Dye chap. 6.50 51. God gave the Children of Israel Manna in the Wilderness and they died notwithstanding but my Father giveth you the true Bread For God so loved the World that he gave his Son to be the Light and Life of Man and so to as many as Received him then and do Receive him now to dwell in their Hearts by Faith to them he gave and daily doth give Power to become the Sons of God whose Birth is not of the Mortal Seed of Flesh and Blood nor the Mind or Will or Words thereof but of the Incorruptible Seed of the Word of God Eternal Real and Essential which Lives and Endures for Ever which perishes not with Using as mortal thing do but it Lives and Triumphs in its own Creating saving Sustaining Upholding Comforting and satisfying Virtue and Power for evermore well witnessed in the Hearts of Spiritual Believers this day For in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and by it wore all things made and it was and is the Light and Life of Man and he Delighted and doth also this day greatly Rejoyce and Delight in the habitable parts of his Creation For I will dwell in them and walk in them who open unto me saith the Lord who by his Servant said Behold I stand at the door and knock and by his Servant also now saith Behold the Lord stands at the door of your Hearts all People and whosoever opens unto him he will come in unto them and the pure in Heart shall see the pure and Holy God supping with them and they with him and they shall drink abundantly of the Heavenly Wine with Jesus Christ in the Fathers Kingdom fresh and Living for now is the Lord rending away the Vail the Covering that hath been upon the hearts of People and making to all People the Feasts of fat things full of Marrow and of Wine upon the Lees well Refined And now is the Lord God Blessed for ever fulfilling the Promises of his Great Love in Christ Jesus which have been since the World began in this day of the pouring forth of his Holy Spirit whereby the Holy City New Jerusalem is felt come down from God out of Heaven and God himself dwelling with Men even the Tabernacle of God with Man as was said before all Holy Praises to his Name Yea he that sits upon the Throne hath made and is daily making all things New and now the Lamb is known to be the Light of his People and they need no other for the Anointing which they have of him Teacheth all things and now is Jerusalem a rejoycing indeed and her People a joy but now the Uncircumcised in Heart and Ear who do always resist the Holy Ghost are greatly troubled and offended by reason of the great Darkness and enmity of their Hearts because they cannot in their unclean mind enter in for into this City no unclean thing nor any that loves or makes a Lie can enter for now the Serpents meat is Dust and his Head is bruised Glory to God for ever See Isa 65.17 c. Rev. 21.1 c. Acts 7.51 52. And now are all the Climers who have not come in by the door but are Climed up another way in their unclean minds whom Christ calls Thieves and Robbers â—seen and by the same that discovers them Judged and Condemned these are they that have taken away the Key of Knowledge and will neither enter into the Kingdom of God themselves nor suffer those that are entring into enter These are they whom Christ-cries wo against who love to be called of Men Master heady and high minded Men with the great Train of their seduced Followers who Plead for them and Fight for them because they cry Peace to them in their Sins and tell them they must never be Perfâ—ct whil'st they are here but must carry about them a Body of Sin without all Hope of ever being free'd from it whil'st on Earth and so in effect deny the end of Christ's coming who came to set free the Soul by destroying the Body of Sin also they deny the very end the very end of Christ's Ministry for when he Ascended up on High he gave gifts to Men for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ and for the Perfecting of the Saints Ephes 4. Come ye Contenders against Truth Is not the Perfecting of the Saints in Holiness by bringing them out of Unholiness and in Faith out of Unbelief and into the Spirit out of the Flesh and all Fleshly and Perishing Observations And doth not the Ministry of Christ which is the true Spiritual Ministry attain its end and do its work to the utmost Yea yea though the Ministers of Antichrist Fret and Foam and Gainsay and Contradict and Blaspheme and spend their strength in Vain and perfect nothing but their Sins yet the Work of the Lord goes on and Prospers and the Body of Christ is Built up and the Songs of Sion Sung in the Holy Land and none can take part therein but the Redeemed of the Lord who are redeemed from the Earth into the Heavenly Society and Church of the First-born whose Names are written in Heaven and who follow the Lamb whither soever he goes these are not Defiled with the Cup of the great Whore for they are Virgins and have Oil in their Lamps and so need not go to the Merchants of Babylen to buy And so all People bow to Truth in the inward parts for obedience to that is the Sacrifice which God requireth and better than all other Sacrifices all your Sabboth out of this are but meer Druggeries and all your Will worship Ceremonies and Traditions being out of this are but meer mock Services yea out of this to wit the Light and Truth in the inward parts your very Faith is vain and your Hope of none effect and your Prayers Sin for unto
perswade you and all People in Love to your Souls to take heed of dallying with God who is a consuming Fire for his Judgments are manifest and who can stand before his Wrath O be not Proud lest your bands be made strong but be Meek and Lowly and Gentle in Heart to Learn of him that is so that you may find rest for your Souls for there is no Peace to the Wicked saith my God the true God that made Heaven and Earth whose Wrath from Heaven is perfect revealed against all Vngodliness and Vnrighteousness of Men without respect of Persons or Professions who hold the Truth in any manner of Vnrighteousness So be it In the 2d Month 1670. Thomas Taylor WEEP thou England Houl Houl ye People for the Dreadful Day of the Lord God is at Hand it is at the Door as an Armed Man coming swiftly upon you to break down and tread under feet thy Pomp Glory and Strength Thou hast exceeded in thy Sins and art grown Monstrous in thine Iniquities so the Lord will be exceeding Terrible unto thee Thou hast suffered the Wicked in thee to have Liberty and to take their fill of Sin when the Voice of the Righteous cannot be endured in thee but he that departs from Iniquity and would perswade others so to do is even made a Prey of by Ungodly and Unreasonable Men their Bodies Imprisoned and Banished and Estates spoiled and many Injuries done them for God's Name and Truth 's Sake And therefore will the Lord God arise to take Vengeance for these things Yea his Soul will certainly be avenged on such a Nation as this saith his Spirit in his Servant if they do not repent and amend AND moreover because you have said in your Hearts We have compassed them about with an Act and none shall Worship God but as we please Therefore will the Lord the mighty God compass you about with his Terrors and you shall find no place to hide your selves in from his Wrath because of the Pride of your Hearts and Evil of your Doings O all ye People of the Land saith the Lord God who are guilty of these things Thomas Taylor THE Lord even the Lord God of infinite endless Glorious Power and Truth plead our Cause our Innocent Cause against you the Rulers of this Nation and of all the World who hate us and Persecute us without a cause The Lord hath raised us up in Righteousness ever Praised be his Name to bear our Testimony for God and his Christ against all the Ways and False Worships of Fallen Man and therefore it is that such as are in the fall through the Ignorance and Evil that is in them number us with the Transgressors and account all manner of Punishments and Grievances too little for us Yea Banishment Imprisonment Spoiling of our Goods and Death it self is Judged not less than we deserve So the Scripture is fulfilled see John 16.2 3. And all this for no manner of Evil at all but meerly because we cannot cease to Worship and Serve the Living and True God our Father as he hath taught us and doth teach all that come to him For our Worship to God is pure in Spirit and Truth And this is the True Standing and established Worship for evermore and God is now Mightily seeking such to Worship him And so the Lord the Ever-blessed and True God Plead our Holy Cause against you who hate us without a Cause We have laid before you the Truth and Righteousness of our Cause and our Good-will to all men and how it is not in our Hearts and Hands in the least to injure you or any but to this Day you will not hear but stop your Ears to our Innocent Cries and therefore to the Lord God of Heaven and Earth do we call and before him who is KING of Kings and LORD of Lords and RULER of Rulers and JUDGE of Judges do we lay our Innocent Cause O that you had known at least in this your Day the things of your Peace but you will not and therefore how can ye expect less than a Forsaking and Casting off by the Lord as the People of Old called Israel found who would not hear the Voice of the Lord and his Servants Crying and Calling unto them in those Days Read the Prophesie of Hosea Hos 1.6 8 9. and see what Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi signifie and humble your selves greatly before the Lord for assuredly great Wrath is gone out from the presence of the Eternal Majesty of Heaven and Earth against you and nothing can stay it but your ceasing from Persecuting the Blessed Truth of God which we the People of God in Scorn called Quakers do Love and Live in It is so Thomas Taylor
our Heavenly Treasure to the pure in Heart who hunger and thirst after Righteousness as we have received them even so doth the same Love and the Wisdom thereof engage us to do as our Heavenly Father doth who hides the things of his Kingdom from the Serpent's Seed the Wise and Prudent of the World and so the Cross is the safe way and so as we stand in the Cross our preaching is to the Jew outward a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness as in former Times 1 Cor. 1. And so in all our Disputings and Reasoning with the World about the Things of God's Kingdom we must mind the Cross lest for want of a Hedge the wild Boar of the Forrest get in and hurt the tender Plants of God Friends strive not in your Wills for Victory but wait in the Light to feel the Spiritual Weapon the sharp Two-edged Sword of the Spirit of God to cut down the Adversary There came one to Christ and said Are there few that shall be saved And he said Strive thou to enter in at the strait Gate so his Answer was in the Cross and he minded more the Edification of the Man's Soul than to please the busiebody's curious Mind so we must dwell in his Wisdom and that will lead into Christ's Work Another asked him What he must do to enter into Life He answered What readest thou So to such as profess Scripture to be their Rule or so to bring them to the Obedience and Judgment of their Rule and if they cannot believe Scripture which they acknowledge to be true how can they believe our words whom they look upon to be as Hereticks and Deceivers The Servant of God saith the Apostle must not strive but in Meekness instructing them that oppose themselves to the Truth must seek to bring them to the Truth that thereby they may be delivered out of the Snares of Satan whom their Ignorance are led Captive by him at his Will Now the Servant of God in this weighty Matter may consider what manner of Opposers these are whether they stand in a lower or higher place of wickedness for some are wicked in a high measure who will neither enter into the Kingdom of God themselves nor suffer others as Elimas the Sorcerer Acts 13.9 10. who withstood Paul seeking to draw the Deputy from the Faith These may be more severely reproved as was thereby the Apostle but still with this Cantion that all be done by the pure Sword of God's Spirit and not by the Wrath of Man for the Wrath of Man works not the Righteousness of God And such Opposers as this had Christ to do withal against whom he pronounced so many Woes declaring their wicked Root by calling them Vipers and Serpents and Children of their Father the Devil Mat. 23. throughout and John 8.44 But to others who are not so high and strong in their Wickedness much Wisdom Tenderness and Patience must be used that if God may at any time give them Repentance that from the Darkness to the Light of God they may be turned as Jude saith in his Epistle Ver. 22 23. Of some have compassion making a difference and others save with fear pulling them out of the Fire hating even the Garments spotted by the Flesh And all my Dear Friends in Christ Jesus who are at any time called forth by the Power of the Lord God to Encounter your Spiritual Adversaries the Disputers of this World who Goliah like are so wise and strong in their own Conceit and have so armed themselves with their Carnal Weapons that they are not afraid to defie Israel yea Israel's God I say keep in the Power of God and trust not to Saul's Armour but wait to feel the little Stone cut out of the Mountain without hands to hit the Enemy in the Forehead and to bruise his Head and to strike at his Feet that the false Foundation whereon he standeth may be removed and so the Image may fall into nothing at once And in this great Business to wit the Lord's Controversie my Friends always mind your own Standing and Foundation to keep close to it and not to be driven from it by any means for the Enemy will seek to draw you from your sure Ground the measure of Life and Experienced Truth in you into vain Janglings and fruitless Disputes to gratifie their Corrupt Minds wherein is no Edification to the Soul which the Servant of God must wait in all things to edifie and though for our Work herein we may be accounted as Fools by the World who cannot judge but by the outward Appearance of things yet with God shall we be accepted because Doers of his Will and our Jay in his Sight and Presence shall abide and none shall take it from us as thus we abide in God's Will Work and Covenant who is over all Blessed for Evermore And Friends of Scorners we must beware for their Root is Rottenness and their Ground Accursed and the good Seed in them hath no place to grow And of such as Professing Scripture and Wisdom and neither can nor will believe that Christ lighteth every Man that cometh into the World with sufficient Grace or Light though John saith expresly That in the Word Christ Jesus was Life and that Life is the Light of Men and the Light of that Life shineth in Darkness to wit in Men lighting every Man that cometh into the World and that such as received him in that his Appearance to them he gave Power to become Sons of God John the first Chapter I say of these Unbelievers before-mentioned it may be truly said they are Children of Darkness and so much is not to be said to them but even to bring them to Christ's Light in them to know it and learn of it for till then they will never understand Also such Professors as have been long Reading Scripture and have heard the like Testimony of the Kingdom of God from the Spirit of God in his Servants in these Days and yet plead for outward Shadows and Sounds and things that perish with them to be the Way and Means of the Kingdom and are Ignorant of the Mystery of it in Man and so deny the Word and Power of God nigh in the Heart and yet in this their Darkness separate themselves in Profession from others thinking themselves to be something when indeed they are nothing these are to be turned away from and judged As also such as deny sinless Perfection and so know not the Birth of God in Man but will plead for Sin yea in the Regenerate during term of Life as though Christ were a Minister of Sin and could make nothing perfect like the weak Figures of the Law Though the Scripture saith expresly The Birth of God sins not and he that abides in Christ sinneth not and that Christ the better Hope makes perfect See Heb 7.19 and 1 John 1.5 6 7 8 9 10. Now the Reason why the Law could make nothing
be hated of all men whether Professors or Prophane who are out of that Life and Holy Worship even for Christs very Name and Life's sake because it is a Cross and Offence to all the World who are in their own Wills under what Form or Profession soever who are gotten into a Profession of Christ without Christ and the daily Cross which his Followers bear Therefore all who are climed up into the Tree of an outward Profession without the true real seeling and Spiritual acquaintance with the daily Cross and fiery Law of the Lord and flaming Sword which Guards the Tree of Life which is in the Hand of the Angel of the Covenant for the cutting down of the Man of Sin that the Birth Immortal which is Holy may onter in and possess the Inheritance must come down again I say they must come to the beginning from which in their fallen Wisdom they are wandred to learn of him in Silence who speaks from Heaven whose Word is nigh in the Heart before ever they be established for except you become as little Children not in Talk but in Truth ye cannot enter God's Kingdom O ye People hearken awhile whether Teachers or Hearers You who have been feeding upon the Tree of Knowledg and never came through Gods Judgments the Flaming Sword to the Tree of Life Your Food is Death your-Works will Burn and your Fig leaf-Covers will fall off you and you be left Naked and Bare to the shame of your Nakedness as in the day that you were Born For what is any Covering unless it be that of the Spirit of Christ The Lord God who is of Purer Eyes than to behold Iniquity will bring your Deeds to the Light of his Judgments from which you cannot flee and before him will nothing stand but that which is Pure Your defiled Preachings Prayings Singings Hearings Readings will be rejected and cast out as Dung from the Presence of the Pure Holy God that is a consuming Fire You have multiplied words without Knowledge Ye have not been neither yet are ye Doers of Gods Will to the Witness of God in your Consciences I speak therefore in vain do you say Lord Lord and he will not hold them Guiltless that take his name in Vain Your Garment is not of the Pure White Linnen which is the Saints Righteousness but Linnen and Woollen is your Covering a thing forbidden by Gods Law Your Field is not sowen with the one Heavenly kind of Grain the Good Wheat but another Seed have you mingled with it and the mixture is so great that the Bad hath almost choaked and covered the Good in you If you will work you must into Gods Vineyard and be exceeding Diligent and Laborious in Spirit in plucking up the Weeds by the Roots in you the Light of Christ in your Conscience waiting in it will give thee Understanding But Wo will be to them who call the Light Darkness and put Darkness for Light and so suffer the Good in them to wither and nourish the Bad Part in them which is like the Grave that never hath enough but is always learning at Man without and not at Christ within and Ministring from the outward Dead Spirit of the World and not from the measure of the Living Spirit of Christ and so not taking heed to the Word of Faith which is nigh in the Heart the Word of Christ which is Spirit and Life they never get Victory over their Sin as is manifest but go laden Teacher and Hearer all their Life long with divers Sins and Lusts as was said before So Wo to the selfish Workers who speak their own words and think their own thoughts on this the Holy Sabbath Day of the Lord God wherein he hath given his People rest from all their weary Labour and Burdens The outward Day the first Day of the Week shall not Cover you nor be a Sabbath to you but in the breach of Gods Holy and Everlasting Spiritual Sabbath of Rest you being found you must bear his Judgment Behold all ye that kindle a Fire this Day and that compass about your selves with Sparks walk in the Light of your Fire and in the Sparks that ye have kindled yet know that your reward from the Lords Hand is to lie down in Sorrow I say all you who feed upon and whose Faith stands in the wisdom of Vain Mans words raised up in the subtility to please the itching Ear and not in the Power of God which washeth the inside a Day of Scattering cometh upon you it cometh and a grievious Whirl-wind from the Lord and the Pleasant Breasts of Mystery Babylon which you so much delight in shall be dried up for the Lord hath rejected your Confidence because you have rejected his Good Word and Counsel and chosen your own Delusion and evil entreated his Servants whom he sent rising up early and sending them time after time to warn you to come out of all your Dead Forms and Dead Faith into the Living Virtue and Power of his eternal Spirit of Truth to Worship him there and to know it in you but you would not therefore the Lord will yet do that Great Work and Wonder amongst you he will confound the Wisdom of your Wise and bring to nought the understanding of your Prudent Men and they shall be as Women weak and feeble the Mouth of the Lord hath spoken it and the Songs of your Temple shall be Howlings in that Day because of the Vine of Sodom that will bear no more Grapes but so many as have drunk of the Wine of her Fornication must Drink of the Cup of Gods Wrath. And all you who talk of your Faith and suffering Condition and yet Live in your Sin you know not what Spirit you are of for the same mind that you think to suffer in is it which by Transgression grieves the Spirit of God and stands against the setting up of his Kingdom in your selves and the Testimony thereof in his redeemed Ones this Day And so if you could give your Bodies to be burnt in this your Unsaved and Unsanctified Condition it would prosit you nothing at all Wherefore come out from amongst them all you that would be happy and touch no unclean thing but give your Hearts to the Lord to know his Light in you to teach you and he will receive you and hide you from the Wrath that is to come upon all that are not in him as saith his Spirit in his Servant This is a Message of Truth to all you in and about Stafford and those of like Spirit with you elswhere who go under the Name of Presbyterians Teachers and Hearers to Read and Ponder in the cool mind that you may know what the Lords Mind is concerning you in this his day wherein he is manifest with his Fan in his Hand to purge the Floor that he may gather to himself the good Wheat and burn up the Chaff For we knowing the Terrors of the Lord