Free Gift of our God and no Inchantment shall now stand against God's Spiritual Host nor Divination against the Redeemed of the Lord who have known his Wonders in the Deep and known the Out-goings of God's Power against Pharaoh and all his Host in the Red Sea of his Fiery Indignation And now will God be exalted in Judgment and avenged in Righteousness upon all Nations and People under Heaven who hold the Truth in Unrighteousness and will not that God's Holy Son Christ Jesus the Light should Reign though he be come to Reign and Judge in the Earth For to him the Light who lighteth every Man that cometh into the World is all Power in Heaven and Earth given and his Light shines freely into all your Hearts O all People of the Earth and shineth in the thickest Darkness making manifest the Creator's Will to all your Consciences through your Darkness tho' People comprehend it not but it comprehends you and all your dark Ways and destroying Thoughts and lets you see plainly that for all your great Workings and toilsom Labours in an outside Profession in your earthly Wills you have wrought no Deliverance in the Earth but your Soul's Enemies still stand in strength and it lets you see plainly that for all your striving and sighting and killing and spoiling and destroying one another about earthly things you have done no good at all but brought God's Judgments upon all your Souls and pierced your selves through with many Sorrows And therefore the Heavenly Voice sounds through the Earth and calls aloud in your Ears and knocks at the Door of your Hearts O all People of the World High and Low Professor and Prophane Jews and Gentiles Christianâ— and Turks arise arise awake awake turn in your Minds to the pure Light of Jesus Christ the Judge of Quick and Dead the Son of the Eternal God Creator of Heaven and Earth who Died for your Sins and Rose again to give you a New Holy and Everlasting Life in himself through Faith in his Name And behold he lives for Evermore and all see and search diligently in your selves what you know of his Holy Life made manifest in you to destroy the Body of Sin and Death in you which in the Days of Darkness hath filled your Vessel and brought your very Soul Mind and Heart into the Thraldom of that wicked One who is called the Devil and Satan and compassed with Terrours and Fears and Affrightments your very Life and whole Man because of the Wrath of the Almighty which you by your sinful unrighteous and unholy and cruel doings both against God and your Neighbour have stirred up against you And behold the Earth languisheth because of these things and the Children of Light who are Redeemed to God out of these sore Evils and grievous Plagues do mourn for you and bewail your Misery Night and Day as well knowing in the Light of the Lord what your woful End will be if these Briars and Thorns and noisom Weeds the proper Fruit of the Curse be still suffered to grow in you and cumber God's Ground O how nigh unto Cursing is that Field which God's Rain rains upon and yet brings forth no better Fruit than Killing and Slaying and Spoiling and Cousening and Cheating and Defiling and Oppressing one another besides Lving and Swearing and Cursing and Drunkenness and Pride and Persecution of God's Righteous Seed with all other Abominations of the World against the holy Light and Checks and Reproofs of the good Spirit of the Almighty both in their own Consciences and the Mouth of God's Servants and Holy Witness of Truth in the Scriptures which notwithstanding all these their Abominations many of them profess to be their Rule But know O Man whosoever thou art or whatsoever Profession thou art of that that 's thy God and Ruler and Father and Teacher and Way whose Commands thou lovest and whose Works thou doest and whose Will in the inward of thy Mind thou closest with as Christ said to those Liars false Accusers and Murtherers in his Day John 8.44 c. Ye are of your Father the Devil for his Works ye will do he was a Liar and a Murtherer from the beginning so thou that goes from the Light of God in thee which shews thee thy Sin and the evil Lustings and Desires of thy Flesh and Mind thou goes from God and from his Fear and from the Way of Peace and so thou going from this and joining to evil Motions of Sin in thy Flesh or Corrupted Mind thou joins to the Devil and so brings forth Sin which is the Devil's Work and the Wages of every such Work is Death and so in the very Moment of time in which thou dost the evil Work whatsoever it be contrary to God's Light in thee thou diest the Death and so remainest Dead from the Life of God and his Blessed Righteousness until the Day of true Repentance and Amendment of Life and then what will it profit thee to have gained the World or Victory over thy Neighbour or Satisfaction to thy Lusts in the Loss of thy Soul's Life therefore arise arise awake awake O all Nations and People come forth to the Judgment of this great Day of God Almighty for now is the effect of every Vision to be known and felt in the Earth and the high Towers of the City of Confusion the Mystery Babylon the Great Whore the Mother of Harlots shall fall to the Ground and the Mountain of the House of the Lord shall be exalted over all yea the Lord alone and his Righteousness and Truth and Peaceable Kingdom on the top of all shall stand and no Weapon formed against him and his People shall ever prosper And how is it O all Nations Kings and People that ye are not yet willing after so many Years knocking at the Gates of your Cities and Doors of your Hearts that you will not open to the King of Glory Christ Jesus the Light that lightneth every Man that cometh into the World that he may come in and be Judge and Lawgiver and King in the midst of you that the Desire of all Nations may come and be Head in all For what is it that the Soul which God hath made in all Nations doth desire but to see it self unburthened of that grievous Corruption which hath defiled it and to be delivered from that Body of Sin and Death which hath and doth so Embondage it from the beginning until Christ's Power be known within to work the Work of God and to destroy the Work of the Devil and to save the Soul from its Sin and present it spotless to God which is the true Salvation indeed Now this is my Witness for God amongst the Servants and Redeemed of the Lord this Day whom the World in Scorn call Quakers who suffer for Righteousness sake That there is none that can thus know the Day of Christ's Power to Salvation but as they believe and receive that Light of God and
your Flesh Nay nay it is most manifest in your Lives as your words before set down prove against you to be otherwise So in God's fear give over Mocking of God and deceiving your own Souls and the little Infants and turn to the Lord in Spirit that he may teach you lest his Wrath break forth upon you as it did upon the People of old who went on in their Sins and there be no Remedy Thomas Taylor Concerning Burying and Churching of Women c. AT the casting Mold upon the Corpse in the Grave the Priest shall say in the Burial these words For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great Mercy to take unto himself the Soul of our dear Brother here departed we therefore commit his Body to the Ground Earth to Earth Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal Life c. And now lest any should say they do not here say this in a particular Application of these words to that present Dead in the Collect afterwards in the same Burial they say That when we shall depart this Life we may rest in him as our hope is this our Brother doth And that at the general Resurrection at the last day they may be found acceptable in his sight c. In their Churching of Women There is read the 116 Psalm or the 127 instead of that which in former times was read wherein The Sun shall not burn thee by day nor the Moon by night But still to understand the Woman whatever she be must be considered of the same Heart and Soul as David was when he wrote these words which is very often as contrary as Light is from Darkness for afterwards they say without fear Save this Woman thy Servant and answers which putteth her trust in thee And afterwards pretend to give Thanks for the Delivery of that Woman whoever she be which they call God's Servant from the Pain and Peril of Child-birth c. Then the Woman must offer the accustomed Offering now what these are I know not but the Priest it seems doth But why do they not enjoyn them the Offerings of Moses seeing you have your Pattern from thence For in all the New Testament I never read of a Priest Churching of Women In their Weddings they Swear c. saying both the Man and the Woman and that after they have promised before all to live together as Man and Wife which one would think were sufficient but what can be sufficient where Truth is wanting they must say And thereto I plight thee my Troth and yet not content with this neither It is there said Then shall they again loose their Hands and the Man shall give to the Woman a Ring laying the same upon the Book with the accustomed Duty to the Priest and Clerk O here is the Business this is that Wheel that carries all on to wit Money and all is for Money amongst the Hirelings And the Priest taking the Ring shall deliver it unto the Man to put upon the fourth Finger of the Womans left Hand what Sorcery is here and the Man holding the Ring there and taught by the Priest it may well be said such a Priest as this that 's blind for it 's certain God never taught such a thing as this shall say With this Ring I thee Wed with my Body I thee Worship and with all my Worldly Goods I thee endow And this they must pretend to do In the Name of the Father c. Thus taking God's Name continually in Vain in their vain and uncircumcised Lips Visitation of the Sick And in this the Priest of the Parish be he never so Notorious a Sinner himself yet he must say coming in Peace be to this House and why because Christ said to such as he sent in the Power of his own Spirit that they going upon the Message of the Gospel might say where they entred Peace be to this House or so But really God will not be mocked for what have Hirelings and wicked Men who abide not in Christ's Doctrine to do with Peace What because Paul by the Power of Jesus cast out Devils out of People must therefore the Exorcists the Sons of Seva though he was chief of the Priests do so Nay but must be given to know through Judgment their bold Presumption see Acts 19.13 c. And here must the Sick Man though never so bad be prayed for thus O Lord Save thy Servant which putteth his Trust in thee c. But what O bold Priest if the Lord should even then call thee to Judgment and say to thee How dost thou know he is my Servant and putteth his Trust in me What signs of this hath he given in his Life and Conversation or since thou came in for the Tree is known by his Fruits Would not the Priest be struck Dumb Yea as surely as ever the Man was who dared to come to the Wedding without a Wedding-Garment O what dawbing with untempered Mortar is in all heir Doings The Lord will ease himself of all such Burdens as these Men and Things are to his holy Soul and ever blessed pure Spirit But some may say it 's left to the Priest's liberty whether he will so Pray for him before he have Confessed him or nay Grant it be but what then O may the People or Priest say the Creed was read to him and he asked punctually whether he did believe it or no and the Sick Man answered That all that he did stedfastly believe I answer Did he so Then see in the Book how that came about even by their own means for the Book saith That after the Priest hath asked the Sick Party whether he believe those Articles of the Creed that the Sick Person shall answer All this I stedfastly believe Then it seems he must say so right or wrong O these Men made Forms and Customs of Praying Confessings and Professions what Havock they have made in the World And afterwards it 's so that if the Party feel himself burdened with Sin and confess it and desire Absolution the Priest shall Absolve him in these words Our Lord Jesus Christ who hath left Power in his Church to Absolve all Sinners who truly repent and believe in him of his great Mercy forgive thee thine Offences And by his Authority committed to me I Absolve thee from all thy Sins In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And yet in the next words called the Collect Pray for the Forgiveness of his Sins as though nothing were done as indeed there is not O Confusion The last thing in the old Service is the Commination or Denouncing of God's Judgments against Sinners to be used on the first day of Lent or at other times as the Ordinary shall appoint Thomas Taylor A Testimony against Bull and Bear-Baiting O Ye Magistrates of Stafford my Heart was grieved for ye and your Town to see and hear Bulls
is above all and over all who was before the World was and hath brought us to reign with him eternally above the World Now here is the Joy and cause of our Rejoycing who have followed the Lamb through great Tribulation and are brought above the Tribulations to dwell in the Presence of the Living God This is Joy unspeakable and full of Glory which shall never have an end Hallelujah to our King for evermore By a Friend Thomas Taylor Watching for Sin WO to you that wake to Sin and watch for Iniquity that spend their Days in Vanity and so bring themselves with Sorrow to the Graves and their Souls to the Pit of Destruction The Trumpet of the Lord is sounding to awaken you to the Judgment of his great Day which burns as an Oven against all the Workers of Iniquity upon the Face of the whole Earth The Apostle saith Awake to Righteousness and Sin not But you that observe these Popish Wakes and Antichristian Revels you awake to Sin and Unrighteousness with the Strength and Delight of your uncircumcised Hearts like the Heathen that know not God The Papists appointed a Feast at the Dedication of their old dead Mass-houses and you their Children who uphold these Wakes bear witness against your selves that you were never yet in heart truly separated from their Idolatries O the Blindness and Deadness of your Teachers that cannot bark against this dead Idol And therefore doth the Lord warn you all to stand up from the Dead that Christ may be your Light to see such wretched and Soul destroying Vanities as these Wakes are that so through Repentance for them you may find Mercy and not perish with them that perish from the right way Rests God's Servant Thomas Taylor A Warning to the NATIONS To Layaside all Prejudice and Enmity The Ground of Strife and Wars And to come and Embrace the Light of Christ Jesus that they may see themselves and come to be Saved and Healed and United in the Love of God THE Indignation of the Lord is upon all Nations and his Fury upon all their Armies he will greatly distress the Inhabitants of the World he will now plead the Cause of his Covenant of Light against all those that withstand his Glorious Appearance and Work of Restoration in this the day of his Mighty Power wherein he is giving 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-shears 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 arisen and 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 Free Gift of our God and no Inchantment shall now stand against God's Spiritual Host nor Divination against the Redeemed of the Lord who have known his Wonders in the Deep and known the Out-goings of God's Power against Pharaoh and all his Host in the Red Sea of his Fiery Indignation And now will God be exalted in Judgment and avenged in Righteousness upon all Nations and People under Heaven who hold the Truth in Unrighteousness and will not that God's Holy Son Christ Jesus the Light should reign though he be come to Reign and Judge in the Earth For to him the Light who lighteth every Man that cometh into the World is all Power in Heaven and Earth given And his Light shines freely into all your Hearts O all People of the Earth and shineth in the thickest Darkness to make manifest the Creator's Will to all your Consciences though your Darkness O People comprehends it not but it comprehends you and all your dark Ways and destroying Phoughts and lets you see plainly That for all your great Workings and toilsom Labour in an Out-side Profession in your Earthly Wills you have wrought no Deliverance in the Earth but your Souls Enemies still stand in strength And it lets you see that for all your Striving and Fighting and Killing and Spoiling and Destroying one another about Earthly Things you have done no good at all but brought God's Judgments upon all your Souls and pierced your selves through with many Sorrows And therefore the Heavenly Voice sounds through the Earth and calls aloud in your Ears and knocks at the Door of your Hearts O all People of the World High and Low Professor and Prophane Jews and Gentiles Christians so called and Turks Arise Arise Awake Awake turn in your Minds to the pure Light of Jesus Christ the Judge of Quick and Dead the Son of the eternal God Creator of Heaven and Earth who died for your Sins and rose again to give you a New Holy and Everlasting Life in himself through Faith in his Name And behold he lives for evermore And all see and search diligently in your selves what you know of his Holy Life made manifest in you to destroy the Body of Sin and Death in you which in the days of Darkness hath filled your Vessel and brought your very Soul Mind and Heart into the Thraldom of that Wicked One who is called the Devil and Satan and compassed with Terrors and Fears and Affrightments your very Life and whole Man because of the Wrath of the Almighty which you by your Sinful and Unrighteous and Unholy and Cruel Doings both against God and your Neighbour have stirred up against you And behold the Earth languisheth because of these things and the Children of Light who are redeemed to God out of these sore Evils and grievous Plagues do mourn for you and bewail your Misery Night and Day as well knowing in the Light of the Lord what your woful End will be if these Bryars and Thorns and noisom Weeds the proper Fruits of the Curse be still suffered to grow in you and cumber God's Ground Oh! how nigh unto Cursing is that Field which God's Rain rains upon and yet brings forth no better Fruit than Killing and Slaying and Spoiling and Cousening and Cheating and Defiling and Oppressing one another besides Lying and Swearing and Cursing and Drunkenness and Pride and Persecution of God's Righteous Seed with all other Abominations of the World against the Holy Light c. Checks and Reproofs of the good Spirit of the
Almighty both in their own Consciences and the Mouth of God's Servants and Holy Witness of Truth in the Scriptures which notwithstanding all these their Abominations many of them profess to be their Rule But know O Man whoever thou art or whatsoever Profession thou art of that that 's thy God and Ruler and Father and Teacher and Way whose Commands thou lovest and whose Works thou dost and whose Will in the inward of thy Mind thou clofest with As Christ said to those Lyars false Accusers and Murderers in his Day John 8.44 c. Ye are of your Father the Devil for his Works ye will do he was a Lyar and Murderer from the beginning So thou that goest from the Light of God in thee which shews thee thy Sin and the evil Lustings and Desires of thy Flesh and Mind thou goest from God and from his Fear and from the Way of Peace And so thou going from this and joyning to evil Motions of Sin in thy Flesh and corrupted Mind thou joynest to the Devil and so bringest forth Sin which is the Devil's Work and the Wages of every such Work is Death And so in the very moment of time in which thou dost the evil Work whatsoever it be contrary to God's Light in thee thou dyest the Death and so remainest dead from the Life of God and his blessed Righteousness until the Day of true Repentance and Amendment of Life And then what will it profit thee to have gained the World or Victory over thy Neighbour or Satisfaction to thy Lusts to the Loss of thy Soul's Life Therefore Arise Arise Awake Awake O all Nations and People Come forth to the Judgment of this great Day of God Almighty For now is the effect of every Vision to be known and felt in the Earth and the High Towers of the City of Confusion the Mystery Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots shall fall to the Ground and the Mountain of the House of the Lord shall be exalted over all yea the Lord alone and his Righteousness and Truth and Peaceable Kingdom on the Top of all shall stand and no Weapon formed against him and his People shall ever prosper any more And how is it O all Nations Kings and People that ye are not yet willing after so long a time knocking at the Gates of your Cities and Doors of your Hearts that ye will not open to the King of Glory Christ Jesus the Light that lighteth every one that cometh into the World that he may come in and be Judge Lawgiver and King in the midst of you that the Desire of all Nations may come and be Head in all For what is it that the Soul that God hath made in all Nations doth desire but to see it self unburthened of that grievous Corruption which hath defiled it and to be delivered from that Body of Sin and Death which hath and doth so imbondage it from the beginning until the Day of Christ's Power be known within to work the Work of God and to destroy the Work of the Devil and to save the Soul from its Sin and to present it spotless to God which is the true Salvation indeed Now this is my Witness for God amongst the Servants and Redeemed of the Lord this Day whom the World in Scorn calls Quakers who am a Sufferer with them for the Kingdom of God's sake That there is none can thus know the Day of Christ's Power to Salvation but as they believe and receive that Light of God and Christ which they be freely enlightened withal which shines in their very Hearts and Consciences which searcheth their very Hearts and Reins and maketh 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 Thorghts 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 Chriff and then the Night cometh in which no Man can work But the Door will be shut upon all who have slighted and neglected the Day of their Visitation Oh 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 out off and then where are the great Emperors and Kings with all their Crowns And where are the great Captains and Commanders with all their Bloody Victories And where are the Wise Achitophel's and Cunning Counsellors of the Earth with all their Admirers And where are 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 might 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
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
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
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
a Reformation is this If this be not amended surely God's Hand will be stretched out against you still But you present Parish-Teachers that practice this thing Answer this sober and necessary Question Do you believe this your own Doctrine and Practice to be good or you rather do it because this is the way to please the Times and so to get Money If the former then are you blind Guides indeed If the latter then are you Covetous indeed And Covetousness saith the Apostle is Idolatry And then let all judge whether either of these be fit to guide and teach others And next in their Marrying of People besides their manifold taking of God's Name in vain as in their other doings and besides their evil Custom of the Ring do not they teach the People to swear and commit Idolatry in saying With this Ring I thee Wed with my Body I thee Worship and with all my worldly Goods I thee Endow and at the conclusion of their Work must plight their Troth one to another Is this sound Doctrine These Priests use to say the Scripture is their Rule But no Scripture is there for certain for such doings as this but against it if this be an Oath for Christ saith Swear not at all but these Priests not only break this Commandment themselves but teach others so to do also and so as Christ saith are least in the Kingdom of Heaven And Christ saith Thou shalt Worship the Lord thy God only but these teach People to Worship one another And doth the Priest examine whether this be true which he teacheth the Man to say to the Woman With all my Worldly Goods I thee Endow Or they matter not what they do so as they can stubber over the business and get Money But that which makes all this the worse is that it must be declared to be done in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost though never so unscriptural and corrupt And therefore will the Lord visit for this thing also But from the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Revelations I do not find that there is any Command from God either for Priests under the Law or Ministers under the Gospel to Marry People nor so much as an Example that they did it But the true Gospel Minister keeps himself pure to Christ out of the World 's Evil Customs and Self-Ends lest he come under Condemnation for partaking with them in their Sins For now is the Cry gone forth from the Lord Come out of Babylon my People lest partaking with her in her Sins ye partake also of her Plagues And therefore when People that pretend much run into things without the Heavenly Call it 's no wonder to see so much Evil attend their doings And Lastly when they come to Bury People having begun so badly they continue so to the end for having ushered in the dead Body in their Superstitious Surplice to the Grave they must say Earth to Earth Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dust in sure and certain hope of Resurrection to Life Eternal of all they so Bury Is not this a sore Evil to conclude so directly against Christ's words who saith John 5.29 That some not all shall come forth to the Resurrection of Life and some to the Resurrection of Damnation But you say all at least all that come under your hands thus to be Buried though they live and dye never so badly Nay these Buriers profess that they have a sure and certain hope of it too though oftentimes it so falls out that they have no knowledge of the Party so Buried neither of the Person Life nor Death But what shall be said to such Priests and People whose Eyes are so blinded with Evil Custom and Covetousness that they heed not much what they say or do but heap up Wrath against the day of Wrath against their poor Souls But the true Spiritual Man the true Christian who is a new Creature in Christ Jesus sees all these things and judges them and avoids them And now as for the Sermons Prayings and Preachings of such corrupt Men as these what are they good for or what benefit hath or can your Souls O People expect to reap from them Can a corrupt Tree bring forth good Fruit can Chaff Feed Peoples Souls And he that hath not the Word it self which is Spirit and Life and as a Hammer and Fire though he may have and run with the Words that declare of it as the False Prophets of old did for filthy Lucre yet he is but a Dreamer and a Deceiver of his own and others Souls Jer. 23. And though for Witnessing against such as these do I suffer Imprisonment yet herein is my Joy that the Lord hath deliver'd my Soul from the trouble which they lye in and that I am accounted worthy to speak for God against Deceit So all People consider what you have to do for this is the day of the Revelation of all things reprovable and so whatever hath been hid in Darkness is now by the true Light to be made manifest And though the Wicked in their several dark Forms dig as deep as Hell and think to hide their Counsels and their Doings never so deep in the Dark yet to this Day of God which is already Dawned and in great Power arisen must they all come forth to be judged and to receive every one a Reward according to their Doigns without respect of Persons or Professions as testifies his good Spirit in and by his Servant Thomas Taylor And what also shall be said to that one thing amongst many in your Communion where it is said to the Receiver of the Bread and Wine when the Priest delivers it The Body or Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy Body and Soul unto Eternal or Everlasting Life Is this holding the Form of Scripture Words or of sound Words as the Apostle Exhorts Do you pray in Faith when you say these words O Priests or may it not be said rather to you who hath required this at your Hands And do you consider what Bodies and Souls these People have that you would have thus preserved are they clean are they pure perfect and Holy For such as are preserved unto everlasting Life must first be such because no unclean thing enters God's Kingdom And the Church that Christ presents to himself is such as are Sanctified and throughly Washed by his Word from all Spot and Stain of Sin Ephes 5.25 26 27. But what have you to do here you miserable Offenders who by your own daily and customary Confession have no Spiritual Health in you So as Israel's outward Lepers were shut out of the Camp by the Law so out of the Fellowship of God's Spiritual Israel must the inward and Spiritual Lepers be kept this day It is so To the Jury-Men of Appleby ALL ye of the Jury which is by Interpretation Swearers or Sworn-Men who are not yet come to Christ's Doctrine where the
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
at the Branches but now Christ's Axe is laid again to the Root of the Evil Tree Glory to his Name to cut it up Root and Branch that the right Heavenly Root and Branch of his own planting may bring forth Fruit to his Glory and Endless Praise who is worthy who is over all God Blessed for Ever So be it The next thing after the Children are grown up to Men and Women at least to Sixteen Years of Age or upwards and have passed the Bishops Hands as is before-mentioned they are invited to the Communion which they call the other Sacrament wherein they eat Bread and drink Wine in remembrance of Christ's Death as they say until he come But here you must understand a great Mystery of Deceit which hath crept in amongst the People called Christians since the Apostles time in the Apostacy and great Darkness of Antichrist to wit that though they tell of remembring Christ's Death till he come yet they do not believe nor would have any others ever to believe that this coming of Christ shall be whilst People are in this Body upon the Earth but they must be eating Bread and drinking Wine as a Sign and never come to see it fulfilled to them in the coming of the Substance to wit Christ in Life and Power to dwell with them and in them as he promised to them that looked for him as Christ said concerning the Fruit of the Vine that he would drink it new with his Disciples in his Father's Kingdom And as Christ taught them amongst other things to pray that the Father's Kingdom might come and is not this to be known in People whilst here Yea yea and so to feel Christ supping with them and they with him and being unto them their daily Bread as he saith in the sixth of John I am the Bread of Life thus I say they remain out of the Faith of Christ and so without Faith it 's impossible to please God Also here is to be noted another grand Deceit of the Enemy in this their Sacrament so called in that he makes them believe the Bread and Wine is not holy enough and sufficient for that Business unless the Man-made Priest have said some words over it which they call Consecration and so Consecrated it as they speak with his unholy Hands unholy I call them and that appears from their own Confession for they daily say they have no Health in them by reason of their grievous Offences but if they had not in words confessed it yet their Lives makes it manifest that they are of unclean Lips and defiled Hands which whilst so are not fit to meddle with Holy Things no more than the Lepers under the Law were fit in their Leprosie to enter into the Temple or meddle with any Holy Thing And for those words they use unto all that Communicate Hand over Head which say The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy Body and Soul unto Everlasting Life It is demanded where they had them for I never read any such in Christ's giving that Bread and Wine at his last Supper nor in Paul's words to the Corinthians afterwards speaking of it where then had they them Surely they have either Invented them out of their own Heads or had them out of some Popish Book or the like For it is certain from the Lord Jesus they came not seeing they are such a Burden to the Souls of his Redeemed Ones this Day But again these words Preserve thy Body and Soul signifies the Blind Priest takes it for granted that all that he gives this Bread unto are in a good and safe Condition at present though the Lord knows and they themselves confess they remain Miserable Offenders and have no Health in them O what sad work is here amongst them O what grievous daubing First they tell them that by their sprinkling they were made so and so as is before-mentioned and in their Bishoping confirmed in it and now therefore by this eating and drinking they are preserved though to the Grief of the Spirit of God they live in their Sins and in the broad way of the Old and Evil World where the true sprinkling of the Blood of Christ is not known for saith the Apostle If we walk in the Light as he to wit God is in the Light them have we Fellowship one with another and the Blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin 1 John 1.6 7. Then it must needs be that such as walk in Darkness know not Christ nor the cleansing of his Blood for he is only the Author of Life to all that obey him but the unclean World eat and drink Damnation to themselves whatsoever to the contrary they may Imagine But whence came this Custom of Consecrating Bread and Wine if not from those of Rome who falsly imagine the Real Presence as they call it to be after their Consecration For Christ's giving of Thanks at his last Supper before his giving of Bread and Wine is nothing to your Custom Also seeing you pretend to give all the Vertue to the Thing signified and not to the Signs you spoil your own Doctrine of Consecration But Popery is easilier gotten out of the Profession than out of the Heart It would be long to tell of all the bold and strange Passages they have in this their Communion as in the other of their Observations But this one more only may be mentioned and so pass on and it is this Therefore with Angels and Archangels and with all the Company of Heaven say they we laud and magnifie thy Glorious Name Evermore praising thee and saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy Glory Now all People whose Minds are tender towards God I Appeal to God's Witness in you whether such words as these do any way suit or agree with the Condition of the Parishes of England who thus use them For what Fellowship have such Miserable Offenders and Unhealed Souls with Angels and Archangels and all the Heavenly Company Nay nay no more than Light and Darkness hath But here the Whore that fits upon many Waters which by Exposition of the Spirit are Multitudes of People hath lifted up their Minds into a Conceit that they are Real Christians and so of the Heavenly Company because of Words when Alas they are for the most part such as the Apostle wrote unto weeping Who so walk as that they are Enemies to the Cross of Christ whose God is their Bellies and glory in their shame minding earthly things Phil. 3. And what shall I say of their Ring and plighting of their Troth and Worshipping one another in their Form of Wedding when they say With this Ring I thee Wed and with my Body I thee Worship but even take up a Lamentation for the People whose Eye is so blinded by the God of this World that they will not see the things that belong unto their Peace in this the Day
heavy Burdens that lye upon Soul or Body and so in Deed and Truth to let the Oppressed go free and to break every Yoke and to be Merciful Pittiful and Tender-hearted one to another according to Jesus Christ O! this is the Fast that pleaseth God that which his Soul and the Soul of the Righteous Loveth But to see People gather together for a few Hours of a Day and in a few or many Formal Words Confess Sin and Wickedness and yet Live in it this is Abominable in the sight of God and all good Men. Therefore all Awake Arise and stand up to Judgment O all ye People of the Earth who are found in such Deceitful Worship for God is not Mocked neither will he be at all Reconciled to you until you from the Heart put away all your Sins whereby his Glory this Day is so much stained and until you bring forth Fruits of Righteousness and such Words and Works daily as are worthy amendment of Life Thomas Taylor Something in Answer to some Passages in that naughty Book called A Looking-Glass for Ladies HE saith in Page 89 and 90. There are two sorts of Love One Legal The other Evangelical The First which is Legal is to Love God with all our Hearts all our Souls and all our Might This saith this Man no Man can attain unto in this Life no not the Regenerate themselves To which I Answer That this Man shews plainly that he knows not what he saith but is not only a False Witness against God and his Work in his Regenerate People but also a manifest Contradicter of himself for saith he Evangelical Love is when a Man begins here truly to Love God 2. When he doth daily grow and increase in this Love 3. When he is Constant in the same to the end so that nothing can draw him from God This he and all that sort will in words confess the Regenerate in this Life may do and yet not love God with that Love the Law requires What Contradiction is this Is not this Love perfect and answerable to God's Law when one First Loves God truly Secondly Grows and Increases daily in this true Love and Thirdly When one is so constant in the same that nothing can draw the Soul from it And therefore saith the Apostle Rom. 8.3 c. That which 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 him in the Flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Now let any who knows God give in his Witness if this Man do not deny the very End of Christ's Coming in the Flesh which was as the Apostle saith here to fulfil the Law in and for his People that they might love the Lord their God in Christ Jesus with all their Heart Soul and Might according to his Holy Law as one well said That which the Law requireth the Gospel fulfilleth But such Men as this who flatters the faln Sons and Daughters of Adam by pleading for respect to their Persons knows nothing of the Matter in themselves but only as they imagine from the Letter without they tell every Man his Dream to his Neighbour and so by their false Doctrines and Self-contradictions as is manifest here do daily make the shame of their Nakedness appear and their Envy to the Servants of God whom they Reproach under the Name of Quakers appears very much in such sayings as he there sets down saying This serves to reprove the Quakers who are possessed of Perfection through Satan's Pride and adds O that ever a poor Worm of the Earth a very Lump of Sin and Corruption to think that he dare look God in the Face in a sinless Condition These need not a Psalm of Mercy saith the Lying Spirit in this Sam. Smith that writ that Book these will not be beholding to Christ To which I answer and say First It 's Blasphemy to say That the Regenerate Man's sinless Perfection is proud Satan's Work For it is Christ's Blessed Work to perfect his Saints as Eph. 4.12 13 14. and Chap. 5.25 26 27. And Secondly It 's a false Slander and unjust Accusation of us whom the World calls Quakers to say That we either say or think that any Worm of the Earth or Lump of Sin and Corruption either dares or ever possibly can look God in the Face or ever attain to a sinless Condition for Earth Sin and Corruption cannot enter into God's Kingdom or inherit Incorruption But this we say That the Regenerate who are Born again even Born of God of the Incorruptible Seed of his Heavenly Ever-living Word are sinless and perfect in Christ Jesus with whom they are one and in him do in all Holy Humility and Acceptance with the Father stand before his Throne where no Earth nor lumps of Sin and Corruption nor no false Accuser of the Brethren nor Respecter of Persons can ever come Again whereas this Man Sam. Smith saith The Evangelical Love before described is far short of that Love the Law requireth is a false Witness and Accuser of Christ as though he came to destroy or make void the Law But do not think saith Christ that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets but to fulfil And is not this the great Thing and Sum of all the Law and the Prophets thou shalt love the Lord God with all thy Soul Mind and Strength And doth not Christ the Power of God fulfil this in his Members Yea yea as Paul said expresly in Rom 8.4 before mentioned That the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit But now such as profess the Letter and want the Life and so walk not after the Spirit but the Flesh these do not love wholly nay not at all in Truth and so with this Smith are Breakers of the Law of God and so not at all in the Kingdom of God The next thing observable in this wretched Man's Book aforesaid called The Looking-glass is his grievous Opposition against the Doctrine of Perfection Where he saith That there is none so Godly Righteous or Religious here in this Life or can attain to that Measure of Grace to be Perfect but stands in need of the Exhortation Prayers and Godly Advice of others To which I answer and say That though godly Exhortation Prayers and Advice amongst Brethren of Christ be lovely yet for him to say There is none so perfect but stands in an absolute Necessity of these from Man is not true for the Apostle speaking not to the Teachers only but to the Brethren of Christ in general 1 John 2.27 These Things I have written to you concerning them that seduce you but the anointing which ye have of God the Holy One teacheth you all things and you need not that any Man teach
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
Pulpit in that Profession before either he or they was clearly Convinced of or Come to the Eternal Truth and awakened by the Power of God And in as much as that while he was a Publick Priest he would not Baptize his Children at the Font nor Sign them with the Sign of the Cross so that the other Priests were offended at him and upon some Discourse about it they agreed upon a Dispute to be held at Kendall Parish Steeple-house where was a very great Auditory and Three Priests appeared against him to prove Baptizing of Infants by Scripture which they could not do and he came over them all and some of the Hearers run up Kendall-street crying Mr. Taylor hath got the Day Mr. Taylor hath got the Day which Outcry grieved the Priests This was in the Year 1650. And about Two Years after George Fox came into Westmoreland and Preached the Everlasting Gospel and Power of God in the Demonstration of the Spirit of Eternal Life and many of those called Puritans was Convinced and Broken by the Power of God And the said Thomas Taylor was almost left alone it being a very great Cross to become a Fool to the World and lose his Benefit his Wife being a pretty high Woman having Six young Children and nothing else to live on yet he gave up all laying aside all superfluity of Naughtiness and received with Meekness the Ingrafted Word which is able to save the Soul and sanctifie throughout in Body Soul and Spirit And shortly after Margaret his Wife was Convinced and laid aside all her finery of Apparel and trusted Providence for a Livelihood for her self and small Children and became a very good Friend and kept the Faith and laid down her Head in Peace in the Town of Stafford a Year or more after her Dear Husband Died who Died and was Buried in the same Town of Stafford So Thomas Taylor having received the Truth of God in the Love of it and denied himself in all things for the sake of it in a short time he had his Mouth opened by the Opening and Inspiration of the Word of Life by which his Soul was then quickened and he concerned in the Motion of God and Authority of his Name to describe the Darkness of the Parish Hirelings so that they rose up against him and by the Aid of the then Unbelieving Magistrates got him to Prison in Appleby Goal where he grew in the Knowledge of God and Government of Christ Jesus and after he was released out of Prison Travelled abroad and was a Living Instrument in the Hand of the Lord to the Convincing of many And he being a Man full of Zeal and Integrity and being filled with the Spirit was always in Truth 's Service that when he had been going on the Road he commonly had a Word of Caution to Professor and Prophane and some of his Old Hearers who did not receive Truth I have seen him speak to them on the Market-day in Kendall street and sometime go to their Houses to exhort admonish and reprove as the Lord directed or if he had been Travelling on the High-way and seeing Boys playing on the First Day in the Summer-time and their Barents or Old People sitting besides them he would Preach to them so that he was always concerned for God's Glory and Truth 's Praise and Propagating of his Glorious Gospel of Peace He was a Man I loved when he was a Priest and more abundantly when he was a Gospel Preacher He was a Comely Man of Person Fair and Ruddy his Hair Gray before he Died being of a Good Old Age. I was at his Funeral in the Town of Stafford where was divers Hundreds of People and I was concerned in Testimony in the Lord's Power among them And though it had been a dark Persecuting Town â—et divers of the Priest's Hearers being his Neighbours whose Children he had Taught in the Prison they did there give their Testimonies and said He was a good Man and his Words and Counsel they believed should never be forgot and further said They had not such another to Bury in the Town of Stafford And as he Lived Honestly he Died Honourably yea even in the Lord and his good Works follows him the Reward whereof he is in the Possession of a Life that 's Everlasting out of the reach of his Adversaries Robert Barrow London the 9th of the 11th Month 1690 â— William Fallowfield's TESTIMONY Concerning Thomas Taylor THis short Testimony is with me to give concerning Thomas Taylor having good knowledge of him that he was a Man of a harmless Life and Conversation in which he was a good Savour his Conversation confirming his Doctrine God had undoubtedly indued him with Patience and had committed to him a Dispensation of the Gospel which he was both a Preacher of and a great Sufferer for his Patience in his Sufferings manifested his Christianity he never sought his Liberty by any indirect Means but waited patiently till the Lord effected it and when at Liberty he Travelled much abroad and Laboured much for Truth 's Prosperity God that called him did in all things fit him for that Work in which he imployed him and his Labour therein was very Effectual both for the Comforting and Establishing those already Convinced as also for the Convincing of many as many Living Witnesses that he hath left behind can Testifie also the stopping of the Mouths of many Opposers He had a Word of Counsel to the Weak and Feeble and a sharp Reprover of Disobedient Loose-minded ones he was altogether Accomplished for that Work whereunto his Lord called him And what shall I say but that I have Dear Unity with that Spirit that he was acted by and doth see him in that which is Immutable his Bow was always bent and retained its strength his Arrows were sharp and often pierced the Uncircumcised and as one well skilled he mist not his Mark the Churches amongst whom he was Conversant wants him for he was a Faithful Labourer in his Day he sought not his own but others good walking according to the Example of him that called him in which he was fervent and diligent Preaching the Word both in Season and out of Season and though he be taken from us as to Visibility yet his Life and Memory lives with us several sweet Expressions came from him in the time of his Illness and was very sweetly kept in that time of his Weakness he lay ill not long though for a considerable time an Indisposition of Body did attend him yet his Love and Good-will was such to the Truth that as one striving against his Distemper he kept not his Chamber long but went to Meetings and visited Friends but at last it prevailed over him and brought him to his Bed where he Died the 18th of the First Month 1681. in the Sixty-fifth Year of â—is Age I had Dear Unity with him and with those good savoury Expressions that proceeded from him which tended
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
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
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
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
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
His limitless Nature to a creatural Form like thy self as the Wicked do who know him not And so of that Beast and mysterious Babylon thou art who this day with their many Heads and Horns and Forms of False Knowledge and Worships and Churches so called do all with one Consent push and fight against the Lamb the Light and Son of the Incomprehensible and Infinite Father and his Faithful Followers but the Lamb both hath and ever shall have the Victory and the Mouth of all Iniquity shall be stopped saith my Soul And so well had it been for thee if thou hadst continued Faithful amongst us but a Wanderer and Unfaithful in Heart hast thou been many a day and so the Whore that watched in the Evening for the unwary young Man hath caught thee in her Net and there thou art a Slave in the Bands of Darkness to the great Wounding of thy poor imprisoned Soul Thomas Taylor TO George Ward And those that had Fellowship with him GEorge Ward to thy self and those in Fellowship with thee whether Speakers or Hearers a few Words from the Movings of God in my Heart You are weighed in the Ballance and are found wanting and the Glory of the Holy Kingdom of God you are fallen short of in your Unbelief and have not a Heart as yet to walk in the strait and narrow Way that leads unto it You have not suffered your Minds and Souls to be guided by the pure Light of Jesus Christ that hath Visited you in great Love in these Days but have rather chosen to follow your own Thoughts and wrong Expositions of Scripture to your great hurt And because you have Preached and Professed that washing the outward Water is the only Gate in the Christian Fellowship you are both to loose your Credit amongst Men by owning the more Excellent and Everlasting Way though it be most plainly declared and by the Spirit demonstrated to you in these Days And so you go about to Establish that which makes nothing perfect in Opposition to the Power of God which only makes Perfect And so you resemble them of old who stuck in the Shadows of the Law in Opposition to him that was the End of the Law and came to fulfil it Christ Jesus over all God Blessed for ever And so if I could have found in you a true Desire after God's Kingdom may be I might have gotten a little Liberty to have Reasoned with you at this time of the things thereof But seeing there hath been so many Endeavours and Desires in us after your Eternal Good and ye will not come to Christ to know him in you that you may have Life for this time I thus rest in Peace with my God the Righteous Judge believing that in his own Way and Time he will Silence every Tongue that moves against his Blessed Truth the Light and those that love it and follow it in the Regeneration in this Day of his Power wherein the willing People are brought up through the Death of the Flesh to serve the Lord in the Land of the Living in new Jerusalem as our Souls do this Day ever Praised be his Name the Arm of his Holiness for it is worthy And now where is the Disputer of this World who pleads for seen things which Quicken not the Souls and will not have the Invisible God who is the Resurrection of the Life to Rule in them but are glad when they can get any thing seemingly that makes for them in their perishing Way But our Work is Praised be God to hold the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints in a pure Conscience and in the Ability that God giveth us to help to bring People to God where is the true Rest for ever And those that will not submit their Minds Hearts and Souls to the Light of the Eternal Word which is nigh in the Heart shall never be Established in Righteousness and Peace but shall weary themselves in the very Fires for Vanity and this we have Learned through many Tribulations Blessed be God for his Unspeakable Gift and so if you be Wise be Wise for your Souls and Learn with us to sit in Silence at Jesus Feet to know what he requires of you and cease your running and doing without him for you have spent too much time in Vain already seeing the Spirit of the World is unfallen in you Rests your Souls Friend and a Lover of the whole Creation of God being become a willing Sufferer for the Holy Seeds Sake And whereas you or some of you seem Offended that Widdow Cock hath left you and come amongst us and say she hath done it and yet given you no sufficient Reason and Satisfaction for her so doing I say that Reason I suppose she hath shown sufficient to some of you but to give Satisfaction to you in it that is hard seeing you Speak Evil of the Good Way of God which she hath tasted of amongst us for of a Truth the Lord and his Power and Presence is with us Blessed be his Name for ever And she stayed too long upon the barren Mountains where your Flocks Feed Thomas Taylor TO A Plundering Priest YOUNG Man all thy Prayers Preachings and Praises are Abomination to God so long as thou keepest the Just in Bondage Thou being but newly as it were come on to the Stage of the World begins thy part very badly if thou hadst been as an old over-grown Tree in Customs of Covetousness less could not be expected from thee than what some in Swaledale have sound But thou being as I hear a young Man under the Notion of a Schollar nay more of a Minister of the Gospel to fall on a Suing People at Law and putting in Prison upon account of Hire quite stains all thy Glory and blasts thy Reputation with the Odium of a Hireling and Fersecutor Thou might consider if the God of this World had not blinded thy Mind what thou daily as it were reads in the Scripture Whatsoever ye would that Men should do unto you even so do unto them for this is the Law and the Prophets And if thou be not come so far as the Law and the Prophets thou art most unfit to take the Gospel into thy Mouth For without all question if thy Condition had been Michael Râ—w's thou would have accounted it hard Measure to have been so dealt withall as thou hast dealt with him A Man with a Wife and ten or eleven Children depending much upon his Labour for their Maintenance and this Man to be put into Prison and there kept from year to year for nothing at all but because for Conscience-sake to God he cannot put into thy Mouth What a Cry this hath and will have in the Ears of God it concerns thee deeply to consider for he is well known not to with-hold Right from any where it is due But though his Sufferings for time be long yet thine if thou repent not will be very
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
the Ditch they are both in this day of God manifested to be and that which makes their Sin out of measure sinful is their Unwillingness to come out of it though one do reach never so loving a hand of help unto them Also by this we know that they are no Messengers of God who cannot put a difference betwixt the Precious and the Vile to wit between such as are under the Curse of the Law and such as are under Grace to wit betwixt such as are born after the Flesh and such as are born after the Spirit But here the Apostle John a true Minister of Jesus put the real difference when he said in the forementioned Epistle and Chapter Ver. 7 8 10. Little Children let no Man deceive you He that doth Righteousness is Righteous even as he to wit Christ is Righteous He that commiâ—teth Sin is of the Devil for the Devil sinneth from the beginning For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the Works of the Devil And in this the Children of God are manifest and the Children of the Devil Whosoever doth not Righteousness is not of God So Wo to all evil Doers and unclean-hearted hearted ones who believe not the Truth nor receive the Truth as it is in Jesus but in your Hearts suffer Madness and Folly to rest and in your Hearts continue full of Evil while you live and so with the Dead lye down in Sorrow But on the other hand Blessed and Happy for ever are all you who have believed in the Light Christ Jesus and abide in him with Thanksgiving your Cup daily overflows with Heavenly Blessings from his Heavenly Fullness and ye are Compleat in him who is the Head of all Principality and Power and in whom are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge and in him abiding you daily witness his Circumcision in you which is made without Hands in putting off the Body of the Sins of the Flesh and not keeping on you the Body of the Sins of the Flesh as the Hypocrites do who only talk of Christ but in his Life do not walk So all Dear People who love your own Souls and would know the Salvation that is in and by Christ Jesus come out from amongst them that plead for the Devil's hold which is Sin Folly and Madness to be in Peoples Hearts while they live as though the Son of God were not come to destroy the Devil's Work which is Sin and so to cleanse the Heart Soul and Conscience to God from Sin And being come out from amongst these Blind Guides you will come Savingly in the Light of Jesus that leads forth from them all you that follow the Light to know daily more and more the things that belong to your Eternal Peace Also to set forth the Fruits of these Teachers how little they prosit them that follow them because they have run and God never sent them I shall mention one Passage which I had with some of these Nonconforming-Priests Followers at Stafford for I being moved of the Lord to go amongst them they did not only violently hawâ— me forth with their hands and threatning Persecution to me from the Mayor but also opposed the Blessed Doctrine of Sinless Perfection by Christ with an Argument directly one in nature with that which Priest Osland one of their Teachers yesterday brought to the same end as is said and it was this Rom. 3.10 c. There is none Righteous no not one There is none that understandeth there is none that seeketh after God None that doth good nor knows the way of Peace nor have any fear of God before their Eyes but Destruction and Misery are in all their ways c. Now when they had brought this I could not but somewhat wonder to see such gross Ignorance of the Gospel in such a Professing People for who could so have abused and wrested Scripture as to bring the wretched State of such as are manifestly declared by their Works to be under the Law and Curse to prove against the Happy State of such as by Christ are delivered from both and stated into the Holy Life of God's own Righteousness And so these Professors who know not God nor Christ are laying all these heavy Charges upon God's Elect whom he justifieth What have Christ's Members no fear of God before their Eyes And do not they know the way of Peace but Destruction and Misery in all their Ways like the wicked World whose Mouths must be stopped yea yea praised be the Lord for Ever the Day-spring from on high hath vilited us that sate in Darkness and the true Light now shineth that hath led the Zion of God out of all those Condemnable Things before-mentioned into the Way of Life Truth Holiness and Peace Glory to his Name for Ever And so by this it appears how like these Priests and their Followers are all sucking at the Breasts of that Mystical Whore and Dragon that opposes the Lamb and his Followers but the Lamb shall always have the Victory as he hath this Day Glory to his Name over all For a Voice came out of the Throne saith John Rev. 19.5 saying Praise our God all ye his Servants and all yet hat fear him small and great And I heard as it were the Voice of a great Multitude and as the Vâ—ice of many Waters and as the Voice of mighty Thunderings saying Alleluja for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth Let us be glad and rejoice and give honour to him for the Marriage of the Lamb is come and his Wife hath made her self ready and to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine Linnen clean and white for the fine Linnen is the Righteousness of Saints And is not this Garment sinless and without spot Yea yea And blessed are they that are called to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Amen Thomas Taylor To all that are Worshipping in the Outward Court without God in the World in diverse Forms THE ETernal Truth of God is now making iâ—self manifest in Sons and Daughters Servants and Handmaids according to Scripture and the Lord God of Heaven and Earth to his own Glory is raifing up his own Seed by his own Power and in this Day of ours working that Work and Wonder which the Children of the Night cannot believe though it be told them And now is the Searcher of Hearts appeared and the hidden things of Esau are in searching up and Judgment bâ—gins to take hold upon Old Ely's House and the Vengeance of the Almighty upon his Prophaâ—e Sons And now that these things are in doing the Powers of Darkness band themselves together to keep out the Judgment but all in vain for the Consumption decreed must overflow in Righteousness and the Hall shall sweep away the Refuge of Lies in Priest and People and all Fellow ships and Communions of People whose Hearts are in the Earth and who are covered but not with the Spirit of
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
in shaking its Foundations and burning it up with the Increase thereof thou wilt find something in thee strongly Gainsaying yea even Fighting and Opposing to Death which yet thou art not acquainted with and secretly wishing that the way were not so narrow but that thy Ishmael might live before him how much more in the swelling of Jordan will it be hard when Isaac is called for also but thou must witness a forsaking of the World and the Religion thereof before thou see thy Isaac Born as did Abraham the forsaking of his own old Country and the rejection of his fleshly Begetting his Bond-Child Ishmael before the promised Seed appeared now if thy Ear be opened thou wilt this also hear And for so many being besotted with the lofty Notions and Expressions of some refined Monks thou speaks of thou had dealt Ingeniously if thou hadst told wherein either I or others with whom I have Fellowship in the Gospel of the dear Son of God are found Guilty for if the Scripture Expressions be such we cannot deny them though a Monk should say the same but I know thou canst not from any sound Ground in thy self believe that we have Intimacy with such as are called Monks but thou art cousened into this Conceit by the false Reports of the envious and blind World who do what they can to hinder the pure Truths progress as they ever did by all means possible together with what thy own misapprehension of us hath suggested to thee But herein is our Joy that Men speak all manner of Evil of us falsly for the Names sake of Jesus Christ whom alone through Grace we own for our Saviour and Guide and not another and therefore it is that the World hates us because we cannot follow them in their Obedience to the Spirit of this World as they do And therefore as I said before so in love I advise thee again not to trust in that vain Religion that thou art yet unseperated from which stands in outward Observations which hath not so much as a promise of Perfection in it where there is yet lo here and lo there is Christ where there is a Temple made with Hands and a mention of Sins untaken away continually as in the time of Moses's Law which was a shadow for a time and could make nothing perfect seeing perfection was to be brought to Light in Jesus Christ the substance of all Shadows Types and Figures And they that were Preachers of the Gospel preached Perfection in him And where Christ the Substance the Lamb of God was manifested in any it was for the taking away of Sin and perfecting in Holiness and so they could direct others And â—rith the Scripture Eph. 4 10 c. He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all Heavens that he might fill all things and he gave some Apostles some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers he himself gave them and not Men for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying the Body of Christ till we all come to the Vnity of the Faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect Man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ And this being so it is something strange thou shouldst so far forget as to say thou knew not of any Text in the whole Book of God which doth promise to the People of God Perfection in this Life For though as in Heb. 7.19 The Law which stood in outward Observations made nothing perfect yet the bringing in of a better hope which hope is Christ in the Saints a hope of Glory did by which they draw nigh unto God Having their Hearts sprinkled from an evil Conscience and their Bodies washed with pure Water Heb. 10.22 And therefore there was a necessity of disanulling of the Letter Commandment going before because of the weakness and unprofitableness of it as in the 18. ver of that 7. cap. And so Friend the reason of thine and all the World's Imperfection is unbelief and disobedience to the Spirits teaching within whereby the Soul is kept in the outward Court and Temple and so not coming through the Vail the Flesh which only is rent in the Death of Christ the Holiest of all is not come into where there is Perfection which Perfection indeed is not known in the Life and Glory which is of the first Man which stands in the Law of a carnal Commandment but in the Power of an endless Life without begining or end of Days which also if thou hast an Ear thou may'st hear and the Lord give thee understanding that thy Soul may live and not remain in Death for the Letter Killeth but the Spirit gives Life And for my own Attainments which thou calls Imaginary Transcendent thou knows I said nothing of my self in particular and therefore be advised to beware of that Spirit that pats off wholsome Advice by evil Judgings and Surmisings concerning the Advisers For for my own part I acknowledge my self to have nothing of my own to boast of but to be by the Grace of God what I truly am and that Grace is my Sufficiency and rejoyce in this to see the strength of Christ perfected in my Weakness but Wickedness he Destroys and will not allow of any work of Iniquity in any and so in my Condition am I pressing forward to the Resurrection from the Dead through the daily Death and though I have not fully attained yet I see every Gift of God to be perfect and those that rest in Christ rest from Sin and there are perfect and so whom the Son sets free are free indeed from Sin and that where Christ is received there is Power received to become a Child of God and there the work of the Devil is destroyed which is Sin seeing he that commits Sin is not born of God but is a Servant of Sin and so a Child of the Devil And therefore it is time for all to hast out of the Spiritual Sodom and Egypt of Sin and separation from God lest the Wrath that hangs over fall on and there being no Remedy nor Escape And for that thou entreats me to beware of the confused Notions and great words of Jacob Bewman and such like frothy Scriblers as thou in disdain art pleas'd to term them who thou say'st may hereafter prove broken Reeds to those who now admire them thou may'st know that those who follow the Light of Jesus Christ wherewith he hath enlightned them in Spirit which leads them orderly up out of the fall'n Estate of Sin and Separation from God into the Kingdom of perfect Righteousness and Fellowship with himself and lean not to any Man that can Deceive but have all one Master and Teacher which is Christ in them all the Head and they need not that any Man teach them but as the Anointing leads them they are safe and this the Scripture witnesseth And by the
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
alone But I will arise saith God I will execute Righteous Judgment in thee with fire and sword will I plead with thee and thy mighty Men shall fall with thee who sing thy Song and take part with thy Lewdness and strengthen thy ungodly hands in thy wicked ways and say in their hearts O this is a good day these are good Subjects this is the time we have long looked for now we reign now we may do what we will and who shall controul us who who shall hinder us from filling our selves with all manner of delights now we are settled in our way now will we Build our decayed Houses and Restore our fallen Worships now will we Repair the broken Fences of our Parks that we may have Game to the full now shall our Horses be well fed for the Race that they may fully please us now let the Cock-Pits be looked to for that cruel Sport and let our Bowling-Alleys be well Dressed for our daily Recreation now shall the Stage-players for our delight have their full Liberty and all the Sons of Vanity have due Encouragement for the Old things we Love and that which is New though never so much the Better our souls Loath We like the Old Ways of our Fathers because when they had Lord-Bishops and their Minister Services with Mattens and Evensongs with Organs and Singing-boys and such like Things then there was Peace and Plenty and when the Neighbourhood could meet together and sit about a Bone-fire or May-pole or under a Bower and drink strong Drink and tell Stories and Sing and Roar then there was Love and Agreement And when Plays and Pastimes and Wakes were duly frequented and observed then was it a Merry Time and a Joyful Land and all went well in all those Days when such Things were on foot And when those that said they scared the Lord and so could not join with us but rather Witnessed against us and Reproved us for such Things were taken a Course withal O then was it a good Day say many And as it was then so would we have it now saith your vain and wicked Hearts O ye fallen Sons and Daughters of Adam And I see you saith the Lord God with both your bands endeavouring these Things and abusing my Power if possible to set up the Devil's Kingdom with it And thus quite contrary to my Ordinance saith the Lord are you become as a Terrour to the Good and â—n Encouragement to them that do Evil and mine Eye seeth you right well and my Heart considereth you thorowly and I cannot Love you for Prophaneness and Hypocrisie is your Covering and you are as the cloaths of a Menstruous Woman in my sight Away with your vain Worships saith God my soul loaths your Sabbaths and Services thereon yea your Sacraments are a burden to me I hate your Prayers Praises Professions and Confessions for you mend not your lives and doings at all I will stir up my Jealousie and it shall kindle like flames of fire upon you and utterly consume the joy of your Hearts and for joy the bitterest of sorrows shall seize upon you and you shall become a burden to your selves except you speedily Repent and turn to the Lord God from whom you are far gone away For I have a long time held my Peace saith the Lord but now I will cry like a Travelling Woman I will destroy and devour at once I will lay waste the Mountains and the Hills because they have not answered my Power with fruits of Righteousness to me And the Multitudes of People who are as Grashoppers in thy Bowels devouring every green thing and spending my Creatures upon their Lusts not regarding my Glory at all shall be as heaps of Fuel for the fire of my Jealousie and it shall kindle upon them and none shall quench it neither shall it cease burning till I have consumed thy Dross and appeased my Wrath in the Consumption of thy Wicked Ones saith the Lord God For Tophet is prepared of old for the Purposes of my Heart according to the Scriptures saith the Holy One through his Servant Thomas Taylor A Faithful Warning to Outside Professors and Loose Pretenders to Christianity of all sorts COme all ye Professors of Scripture upon the Face of the whole Earth under what form soever what have ye learned hitherto of all ye profess Have ye learned to Fear God and keep his Commandments Have ye learned thus to Love God And do you love your Neighbour as your selves Do ye not profess to love God above all things and your Neighbour as your selves Is this done What will a profession of words commend you to God where the Obedience is a wanting O thou that art called Christendom how art thou fallen How art thou become the Plant of a degenerate Vine How are thy Grapes become as those of Sodom who shall bring healing to thee who hast rejected the Balm of Gilead that the Father brought to thee O thou foolish Child how hast thou trifled out thy precious Time about Toys and Trifles and hast not regarded the Voice of thy Maker who hath waited all day long to gather thee and to do thee good but thou wouldst not Thou hast chosen the worse part in that thou hast forsaken the Lord the Fountain of Living Waters and hast hewed and chosen to thy self a Cistern that will hold no Water Thou art gone into the ways of the Old World upon whom the Flood came And which of those Sins for which Sodom burned are a wanting in thee O! the pure River of Life that would quench thy Thirst how is it slighted and neglected by thee and therefore art thou utterly unsatisfied in whatsoever thou dost or attempts to do Thou art never able to satiate thy Soul with husks Thou must come into the Father's House before thou hast Bread enough But thou say'st in thy Heart Thou art a Queen yea That thou art Rich and indued with Goods and hast need of nothing When as alas in the true Light thou art seen to be Miserable Poor Wretched Blind and Naked A long Course hast thou run but the promised end thou hast not reached Thou hast been like a bewildred Sheep running from Mountain to Hill to find a resting place where no rest is Thou camest indeed a little out of Egypt But O! how soon didst thou turn back again thither from whence thou came and loved the Flesh-Pots of Egypt yea the Onions and Garlick better than God's Manna in the Wilderness Thou should'st have followed the Lord perfectly unto the Land of Rest in Patience and silence of Spirit under his voice and teachings But thou grew weary of waiting upon thy God and saw Images of things on Earth and Images of things in Heaven and bowed thy Heart to them and didst not keep thy Heart to the power that broke thro' the Darkness for thee Nor didst thou keep thy Eye to the Light of Life that freely shined out of Darkness for to
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
be too late for this is the day of the Visitation from a Servant of God and Lover of your Souls Thomas Taylor An Exhortation to all People O People where is your ascending with Christ who are not yet arisen up out of your earthly and vain Conversation What benefit can you have by any thing of Christ whilst you remain Strangers to the Life of Christ in the broad way of the World Are you not in the broad way of the World whilst your Lives are wholly fashioned to the course of the World Your observing of a Day and calling it Holy will do you no good so long as you abide in your old wonted Unholiness and Sins So seeing Christ is not only risen and ascended but also come again by his blessed Spirit as he promised to gather his Saints to himself Arise consider see where you are and fear the Lord and repent of all your false Ways and Worships lest you be eternally shut out of his blessed Kingdom withall Hypocrites who in Words profess Christ but in Deeds deny him rests a Lover of your Souls Thomas Taylor To the Teachers and Magistrates of Tamworth O Ye Magistrates Teachers Fathers and Masters of the People of this Town of Tamworth How is it that in all this long Profession of Christian Religion you are not come to a better sence and feeling in your Hearts than to suffer if not to countenance this vain and foolish Custom of Ringing and Jangling of Bells and especially in your House of Worship to the grief and burdening of the good Spirit of God and the tender Souls of God's People who are redeemed from such Vanities O! consider consider how you will give account to God for your Selves and the People especially the Young-Men who are so greatly Corrupted and kept from God by such Practices for they seeing you that are Rulers over them suffering of them if not delighted with it they go on perswading themselves that they do no Evil in spending their precious Time and Strength upon such Vanities For it 's manifest that all such as are exercised in such Vanities spending several Hours in them and that so often delight in them and are Lovers of Pleasures more than Lovers of God and so no Friends but Enemies to the Gospel of Peace so Repent all and turn to the Lord 's tender Spirit of Light and Life and suffer it to have Place and Rule in in you and it will not suffer you to live in such things as these which not the true God but the Evil Spirit of this wicked World hath set up and keeps up to the Dishonour of God and Blemish of the Profession you make Rests a Lover of your Souls and a Witness for God against all vain Inventions Thomas Taylor To Sinful People AH sinful People who in the blindness of your Hearts and unbelief are scattered upon the face of the whole Earth from God's Way into the ways of Destruction whose Delights is not at all in the Law of the Lord neither are you afraid of the Judgments of our God the pure and holy One who Dwelleth in unspeakable Glory and powerful Majesty whose Voice is uttered amongst you and of whose terrible Judgments for Sin poured forth upon the Generations of the Wicked from whose Loyns you are sprung you cannot be wholly Ignorant you are a corrupt Seed a People in whom the Lord God of Heaven can have no delight for in the ways of God which are Holy you delight not but in your own ways which are altogether Corrupt you daily defile your selves Hear the Word of the Lord God ye Rebellious ones the Day of the Lord 's fierce Wrath is nigh to come upon you his Soul loaths all your Meetings yea your best Works are Abomination to him your Prayers and Praises of your Temple are Sin your Weddings Joy and Mirth is brutish as your Lusts are from which they proceed you Buy and Sell and Marry and Meet together to Worship and all in the Accursed Thing the Nature of the wicked One which Christ came to destroy and yet you are not ashamed to say Did not Christ Institute our Marriages and our Religion Ah foolish People when will you learn Wisdom When shall Folly depart from ye When shall the pure Voice of God and his Wisdom be heard which cries to you for Repentance in the Streets in your Hearts and in all your Meetings What will you make of Christ Was he or is do you judge such a one altogether as your selves are Does his Spirit delight in your Pipings Dancings Drinkings Ramblings Fooleries unbridled Tongues vain Religion Is there any Time now left by him for such Things Nay verily ever since he suffered upon the Cross and ascended into Glory the Times of the World's Mirth he hath put to an end and for ever condemned it and your Glory is no more neither shall ever your sinful Hands find that any more that shall help you but now you are called into the Cross of Christ to deny your selves and forsake the Vanities and Wretchednesses ye delight and live in and ye are exhorted to enter in at the strait Gate and so to follow Christ in the Regeneration and new Life where the Vanities of the World are judged and put off with its false Flattering Religion and double Tongue that would deceive God with the Lord Lord in the words when the Heart is after every evil Lust and the works of the Devil daily brought forth amongst you to his Dishonour Now you are again warned to remember it and now you have time to Repent in prize it lest the Door be shut And unto you O wretched Men the Teachers of this People who have caused them to err by your Lies and by your Lightness and by your destroying wrestings of Scripture who have received here of this vain People and who receive Honour from this wretched Multitude and they call you Masters and you receive it and indeed their Masters you are and lead them Captive at your Will after your blind Doctrines and Practices to where they are even Strangers with you to the Life Food The Piper or Fidler brings you a couple of Carnal People to the Steeple-House and they come in to you to be Wedded and in a few deceitful Words you join them together for filthy Lucre and says Whom God hath joined together let no Man seperate and then you send them forth again with their Train and the vain Man the Fidler or Piper or Waits who brought them to you receives them again and goes with them to the place of Feasting Drunkenness and Sportings where the great God of Heaven and Earth and Jesus Christ his Son is most highly Dishonoured with old and young all the Day and Night after if not longer and thus Lust begins the Match and Lust carries it on and finishes it and you are all but dead Men in God's sight with all your doings and will you call this a joining in the
to take it from them whether they will or no I say is not this a manifest Token that such Ministers are not sent of Christ seeing he said to his Freely ye have received freely give and the Apostle said We seek not yours but you But if you say the same Apostle also said If we have ministred to you Spiritual Things is it a great Matter if we partake of your Carnal Things 3. Then I Query to let pass the Question here concerning what you minister whether it is Spiritual or Carnal whether ever the Apostle or any true Minister of God and Christ either under the Law or Gospel did ever use any other Means for that they had allowed them of God but the Power of the Word only Or did ever the Apostle or any Minister of Christ receive much less compel by worldly Force any Maintenance for Preaching from such as denied them to be true Ministers And so such now as not only compel Wages from their own Hearers but even from such as they do no Work for do plainly manifest by their Fruits that they have run and God never sent them and are so far from being Successors of the Apostles in their Spiritual and Heavenly Ministry as that they Merit to be accounted of the Kind of Old Eli's Sons who by their Doings caused the Offerings of the Lord to be abâ—oâ—red 1 Sam. 2. from Ver. 12 to 18. 4. Whether such as cannot content themselves with the Incomes of one Parish though it be Sixty Eighty or One Hundred Pounds a Year but seek after one or more Parishes or Places of Revenue besides are not out of Measure Covetous and so palpably out of the Doctrine of Christ and so Idolaters seeing the Apostle saith Covetousness is Idolatry Eâ—â— â— 5. 5. Whether did ever any Minister of Christ's sending Preach up the Tenth of Peoples Labour or Encrease of the Earth and earthly Things as a standing Gospel-maintenance for his Ministers seeing the Apostles Writings are wholly silent in the thing And now if any of you in your high Minds think much or strange to be question'd concerning these things such may know that these are the latter Days spoken of by Jeremiah Chap. 23.20 21. wherein God hath done and is doing great things for his People And in these latter Days saith the Prophet there you shall consider perfectly of the pouring forth of God's Wrathful Indignation upon the false Prophets and Teachers who have run and God never sent them as also throughout that whole 23d Chapter of Jeremiah is to be seen Also concerning the false Prophets and Teachers you may read John 10.1 c. Isa 56.9 c. Ezek. 34.1 Mic. 3. 2 Pet. 2. with divers other Scriptures which speak of the false Prophets and Teachers also of the true Ones from all which these few amongst many plain and necessary Conclusions following may be gathered viz. 1. The true Prophet Messenger or Teacher is sent of God as before in the Power and Spirit of God with the living Word of God which is as a Hammer and a Fire to break the hard Hearts in sunder and to burn up the Chaff and Dross in the Minds of Disobedient People who know God's Will but do it not but hold the Truth in Unrighteousness The false Prophet or Teacher he runs in his own Will and having stolen the Word from his Neighbour useth his Tongue to say the Lord saith when the Lord never sent him and so with good Words and fair Speeches deceives the Hearts of the unwary Hearers making glad the Hearts of Hypocrites and crying Peace when the Lord hath not spoken it 2. The true Prophet Teacher or Minister as he hath received freely so he ministers freely but the false Teacher as he runs in his own Will so he ministers for a Self-end and if People put into his Mouth he cries Peace but if otherwise he prepares War against them and out of his corrupt Heart cries Give and can never have enough 3. The true Minister hath a Mouth always open for God and against Sin and Evil in every Appearance of it without respect of Persons and like a true Watcher gives notice of the Wolf's approach and doth not flee when the Wolf comes but opposes him in the Loss of all because Christ's Sheep are dear to him But the Hireling fleeth because he is a Hireling and careth not for the Sheep and as concerning Sin it may live in People for Ever for him for he cannot bark against Sin he is so full of it himself for how can he that is an Unclean Covetous Proud Person himself with a Face stand against such Sins in others nay nay the barking of such must needs be against such as do from the Heart depart from Iniquity and so separate from such as live in it according to the Call of the Lord. 4. The true Prophet Minister or Teacher fights the good Fight of Faith and his Weapons are Spiritual and not Carnal and so he sights not with Flesh and Blood to destroy Mens Persons Liberties or Estates but his War is with the wicked Devil the Power of Darkness in Men that separates Mens Minds Hearts and Souls from God and brings them into Sin 's Captivity and so under God's Wrath and so the true Minister's Work is to Preach People out of that woful Condition into the Liberty of the Sons of God But the false Teacher or Minister his Weapons are Carnal and he runs to the worldly Powers to help him against such as oppose his evil Doctrine and Practice crying Men of England c. help as the Jews cried out against Paul Men of Israel help and so matter not though they weary the Magistrate and set all the World in an Uproar to keep themselves up in their high Places of Deceit and so prove the greatest Enemies against God's Truth and his Servants of all other as is abundantly to be seen in Scripture concerning the Priests and their Confederates who Presecuted Christ to Death and raged against his Followers because of their holy Testimony for God against their Soul-destroying Ways 5. The true Messengers and Ministers of Jesus Christ as they are powerfully sent of God so they work effectually for God for the edifying of the Body of Christ and perfecting of his People in Holiness to God But the false Teacher as he hath run without God so his Work is for strengthning that Part in Man to wit the Serpent's Wisdom which is against God and wars against the Simplicity of Christ and Good of the Soul in all and so they being themselves out of that Heavenly Power which perfects the Soul to God and gives it perfect Victory over all Sin they cry No Perfection here no perfect Victory over Sin on this side the Grave and so they lead about a People laden with Sin and Lust silly as Woman in the Transgression ever learning and never able by their Means to come to the Knowledge of the Truth itself
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
a hint of what certainly is and will be And so having cleared my Conscience to God and paid my debt of Love to you in this matter I leave all to him who is the righteous Judge and the true Pleader of the Cause of the Innocent in all Generations and the Avenger of all Wrongs that are done upon the Earth and rests his Servant in whose Love is my Souls Life who am a Sufferer for the Testimony of the Everlasting Truth amongst the Despised People of God whom the World in Scorn call Quakers yet the Reproach of Christ to us is great Riches Thomas Taylor An Exhortation to remember the Judgments of God HOW long O ye People of this present time will ye grieve and burden the Spirit of the Lord with your Works How long shall he suffer your Manners unpunished Is it not high time for the Lord to lay to his Hand seeing you have so covered his Law with your Traditions and vain Customs that the poor People can hardly find any one thing you do savouring of Pure Christian Doctrine or the Apostles Practice But the Hand of the Man of Sin is the Worker in you and by the power of the Earth is your Building upheld But Wo to the Building which the Lord hath not builded and Wo to the Builders of that House wherein all the Wicked of the World inhabit lye down and are at ease and bring forth their Young Is this the Church of God Nay nay this is the Synagogue of Satan and not of the Living God for the House of God is Holy and nothing but Holiness dwells there nothing that defileth can enter this day into God's Temple for Holiness is the Ornament of God's House for ever So Wo to the false Builders and Daubers that cry Peace to People in their Sins the Lord speaks no Peace to any Sinners but Judgments Plagues and Woes to Priests and People who live in their Sins and plead for a Continuance in Sin as long as they live as at this day Wo to the unspiritual Men that bind heavy Burdens upon others and will not touch them with one of their Fingers that bind the poor Men whom they call Wardens of their Church by Oath to do impossible things and punish them that make Conscience of their Ways and dare not Swear nor Forswear but would keep their Hearts clean to Christ in whose Church is neither Swearing nor Forswearing this day but the Yea is Yea and the Nay is Nay in all things in Truth and Righteousness But Wo to the wicked World that takes God's Name in their polluted Lips the Lord is arisen to judge thee in Flames of Fire for the day of the Lord is dawned upon thee and thy building will he thrown down and a visible downfall shall Babylon have upon the Face of all the Earth for the Pastors have not gathered in nor visited with Truth the good Seed but with Force and Violence over it do they Rule and therefore is the Lord arisen to plead the Cause of the Poor and Innocent as the Mouth of the Lord hath said So be it And let all the Earth fear and tremble before the Lord this day fâ—r our God the true God is a consuming Fire and will by no meaâ—s acquit the Guilty Thomas Taylor To the Unclean Communicants YOU that tell of a Communion and say you eat Bread and drink Wine in remembrance of Christ's Death and yet live in your Sins confessing with your own Mouths that you daily leave undone that which you ought to have done and do what you ought not to do and that there is no Health in you Consider of your Ways and see in what your Fellowship and Communion stands Doth it not stand in Sin and Disobedience And examine your selves what you eat Do you not eat Damnation to your selves not discerning the Lord's Body For the Lord's Body is Holy but you are Unholy and live in Unholiness as your selves confess and as is manifest in your Lives and Conversations so you have cut your selves off from being of Christ's Holy Body you that live in your Sins and do your own Wills and leave undone that which he wills now to do for no unholy or unclean thing can be joyned to Christ's holy Body Again Christ's Body is a sound and healthful Body and no Leper in it but you have no Health in you as you confess and so you are of that Body and Number who have not as yet so much as touched the Hem of Christ's Garment with a true Heart but are in the Mud and Filth and Diseasedness of this sinful lost World through which the wholsom Waters of God's Sanctuary have not run to cleanse you So all you do in this your sinful State is unclean in the sight of God and he can take no pleasure in your seeming Services because of your Sins For as the Leperous Bodies under the Law were shut out of the outward typical holy Place so the Spiritually Defiled are altogether unfit in this day to enter into or have Communion with any thing of Christ's Kingdom Thomas Taylor God's Virtue and Goodness Extolled O Thou pure God of all Heavenly Glory Virtue and Goodness how Holy are all thy Ways and Righteous all thy Judgments O how plainly and clearly hast thou manifested thy Mind and Will to Mankind in all Generations and especially since the first publishing of thy Gospel and in this of ours and yet alas with grief of Heart may it be said never was the Earth more burthened with the Evil of her Inhabitants than at this day never was there more provoking of God by evil Customs and bad Doings than now They spend their Days in satisfying the Lusts of the Flesh and of the Mind that is Earthly Sensual and Devilish and say in their Hearts unto God Depart from us for we desire not the Knowledge of thy Ways The strait way of Christ they perfectly hate and the broad way of the World which leads to Destruction they willingly chuse because their Hearts are evil and to Christ's Light they will not bring their Deeds because they be so evil that the Light will utterly condemn them And thus in the Blindness of their uncircumcised Hearts they heap up Wrath against the Day of Wrath and Revelation of God's just Judgments upon them And though the Trumpet of the Lord hath been plentifully sounded amongst them yet they will not hear nor awaken to Judgment but say in their Hearts Yet a little more Sleep yet a little more folding of the Hands to Slumber the Judgment is far off we will not forego our present Pleasures and worldly Delights for Glory to come Where is he that 's come from the Dead to tell us what 's in another World Let 's Eat and Drink and take our Fill of Pleasures for to-morrow we Dye and are not say they O the Wretched O the Atheistical Hearts of the Men of this present evil and adulterous Generation The Lord
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
other Unholy Doctrines he saith as is before mentioned from Page 195. That there is no Man alive that worshâ—ppeth God without some sin and adds Do you ever pray your selves in secret or in your Families without sin And a better State than this he doth not believe that any shall here come unto and for being free from the Corruption of the Times what hast thou to do O R. B to talk of this who art one with the Corrupt pleading for Conformity even with the Persecutors of Godliness it self Yea seeking to make such as good and excuseable before the Lord in their Persecutions of the Godly as the Godly themselves are who in Obedience to God do separate from them What! Is Praying to God with sin in your Hearts the highest Degree of your Godliness Oh Hypocrites Yea it is And is your Conforming to the Worship-Actions of the Persecutors who take God's Name in vain when ever they mention it in that State no Corruption And not only so but your Oneness with the Times in many of their Corrupt Customs of daily Conversation as every Eye sees no Corruptions But above all Corruption is gone forth over all the Land even from the Teachers such as this R. B. is who in words can tell others of forsaking it for what greater Corruption than for the Priests to love to be called of Men Masters and to Preach for Hire and Divine for Money and to cry Peace Peace to the Wicked especially such as put into their Mouths But if any put not into their Mouths then they prepare War against them as both in Oliver's time and since they have done to the impoverishing and spoiling them that fear God of their Goods and imprisoning several to Death upon the same account What would Christ Mat. 23. and the Prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah and Micah and the rest have cried so vehemently against such things if they had not been grievous Corruptions of the Times See Jer. 5.30 31. Isa 56. Micah 3.5 c. And so when the Priests are Proud and Covetous and Cruel what can their Followers be but like them It is not the Priests telling People they must desire after Holiness and forsake the Corruptions of the Times that will do any good so long as the Teachers themselves live in Unholiness and Corruptions and smite with the Fist of Wickedness for doth not that in the Conscience say to such Thou that teachest another why doest not thou teach thy self But they have run and God hath not sent them therefore they are such Briars and Thistles and cannot profit the People at all Jer. 23. And they say to every one that walks after the Imaginations of their evil Hearts ye shall have Peace But for these things the Lord hath and yet will severely judge them Head and Tail Root and Branch in his great Day And now to that which he saith to his Disciples Be not odd and singular from ordinary Christians in lawful things if it be to go in a meaner Garb than others or not to put off the Hat or to go bare-foot or in a distinguishing Habit this gratifieth Pride Answ To this I may say Wo be to them that call Evil Good and Good Evil that account keeping on the Hat in simplicity of Heart to God as we do our other Garments without Contempt to any I say that account and call this Evil and yet account putting off the Hat in Honour to Proud Flesh Good the Apostle James saith He that hath respect to Persons committeth Sin and is convinced of the Law as a Transgressor Jam. 2.9 But R.B. in this his pleading for the Hat saith it is lawful but to keep Christ's Commands in having respect to Christ and not to the Persons of Men oddness and singularity though this Man and his Fellows condemn us for this yet Christ justifies us and so we have Peace with God And for going in a meaner Garb than others whosoever he intends by this we know that he and all such Proud Masterly Teachers are far enough from this for they are quite out in the other Extream for if you will find Pride and Prodigality who more Notorious in the Land than the Priests and their Families who live in Pride Idleness Fulness of Bread and the poor People see it though they are forced to labour and drudge for them as the Israelites in Egypt And so they spend their Money for that which is not Bread and their Labours for that which satisfies not their Souls as the Prophet of Old complain'd and that which is most sad they must do it by force for if the People do see them to be totally void of Grace in their Lives yet according to R. B's Doctrine they must not take them for no Ministers however they must be at cost with them to maintain them in their Pride and Idleness or else look for a Prison or spoiling of their Goods or the like but the Lord hath shaken his Hand at such dishonest Gain But as for a distinguishing Habit which this R. B. Charges upon the Friars how is it that he could not see himself and his Brethren in their distinguishing Habits of Black Gowns Black Cloths Tippets Hoods Surplices and the like Oh! these Unjust Men who are all Eye abroad and none at home but this was ever the Nature of such as were out of Christ's Doctrine Also whereas this R. B. by these words That all may see and say this is a singular Person in Religion doth endeavour to make People believe that our not putting off our Hats which we do meerly in Obedience to God who commands us not to honour proud Flesh is done for a selfish End and in our own Wills to get a Name is such a piece of Haughtiness and Foolishness in him that nothing but meer Envy could have taught him such a piece of Unreasonableness for who is there that sees not the contrary Effect to come of our not putting off our Hat to what R. B. here sets down For it is so far from getting us a Name of being Religious amongst Men that they do as it were with one Mouth cry out against us unmannerly Fellows and the like for it And truly but that the pure Fear of God strengthens us it were impossible for us to bear the Reproaches Finings and Beatings and daily Cross that attends this very same thing so that to cross proud Flesh in this one thing exposes the poor Creature to great Trials in these degenerate Days even amongst them that profess Christ who made himself of no Reputation in this World from whom one might expect better usage for so harmless a thing But as Christ and his Apostles and Disciples found no better usage amongst the professing Jews of those Days for doing the Will of God So we are even made content to undergo all things for the Truth 's sake from our own Country-men and Professors in these Days even from all who profess the Letter and want
the Children of Men there will neither be Peace nor Establishment of any good thing but as a Wheel will the whole Earth be from Generation to Generation saith the Spirit who is the sweet Orderer in all things for the Holy Seed's sake Glory to his Name for ever And so in the Love and Kindness of the Lord God have I been thus enabled for the Truth and the poor Peoples sake to lay open something of the Deceits and gross Hypocrisie of these two Men called R. B. and Bryan who have long under a Cover or Vizard of Holiness deceived the unstable Souls of many But now the Covering being rent off their Wolfish Nature is fully manifest Glory to the Lord the good Work-man over all for ever So be it Thomas Taylor Some Gentle Remarks on a Book Entituled A Discourse concerning the Idolatry Practised in the Church of Rome A Book coming to my Hands called A Discourse concerning the Idolatry Practised in the Church of Rome Written by E. S. Stiled D. D. And finding the Man Zealous against that Romish Idolatry which is Commendable in him E. S. in his Book Orig. Sacra Page 4. hath these words God Created the Souls of Men not only Capable of finding out the Truth of things but furnished him with a Sufficient Teacher to discover Truth from Falshood by a LIGHT set up in his Vnderstanding which if he had attended to he might have secured himself from all Impostors and Deceit And also finding in his Principles towards the latter end of his Book such a saying as this to wit his fifth Priciple There can be no other means Imagined whereby we are to judge of the Truth of Divine Revelation but a faculty in us discerning Truth and Falshood in Matters Proposed to our Vnderstandings which if we do not Exercise in Judging the Truth of Divine Revelation we must be imposed upon by every thing that pretends to be so And in Article 13. The Holy Scriptures may be understood Infallibly by all Persons who sincerely endeavour to know the meaning of them in all such things as are necessary for their Salvation This is the Scope of the latter part of that Article And in Article 13. And there can be no sufficient Reason given why that may not serve in matters of Faith which God himself hath made use of as the means to keep Men from Sin in their Lives unless any imagine that Errors in Opinion are far more Dangerous to Mens Souls than a vicious Life is and therefore that God is bound to take more Care to prevent the one than the other And in his Fourth and Fifth Conclusion upon his Articles saith The more absurd any Opinions are and Repugnant to the first Principles of Sense and Reason which any Church Obtrudes upon the Faith of Men The greater Reason Men still have to reject the pretence of Infallibility in that Church as a grand Imposture And so to disown what is so Taught by such a Church is not to question the Veracity of God but so firmly to adhere to it as to what he hath Revealed in Scriptures that Men dare not out of Love to their Souls reject what is so taught Yet finding this E. S. making several Reflections upon us whom the World Scorn under the Nick name of Quakers I say us whom the Lord hath drawn out of the many Waters of Mystery Babylon into the Light of his Son that most inward Principle Faculty and alone Ability in Man to try all Doctrines and Works by I could not but thus write something to him that he might see his Mistake of us and not lose his Reward of standing against Romish Delusions by withstanding or Speaking against the Truth of God made manifest to us in our Hearts and Shining forth in our Lives to the Praise of his Glory and the Good of all who do rightly understand us and receive our Testimony I say that if possible he may understand a little and feel of that inward Principle or Faculty as he calls it which he is aiming at and which he saith must be antecedently supposed viz. necessarily to all Divine Revelation are these things writ Now that part of his Book where he some-what smites at us is that where he Treats of the Fanaticism of the Roman Church As one may see Page 249. where he says Who will not take pains to see how Faithfully I have Translated these Words out of Eymericus would imagine I have borrowed some of the canting Language of the Modern Quakers Look * where he goes on Now What is this some of this canting Language That part of Petrus Johannis's Relation of St. Francis as he calls him runs thus That those who Opposed this Order to wit of that Francis were the Carnal Persecuting Clergy in whom the Seat of the Beast is much more than in the People that in the time of the Mystical Antichrist the Carnal Church shall oppose the Doctrine Life and Zeal of the Saints and burn as it were with Fire against them but it shall be dried up from all Spiritual Wisdom and Grace and the Riches of Christ and be Exposed to Errors and Delusion and as it was with the Jews and Greeks Thus far there To which I Answer What is this kind of Language Canting where it is truly applied in any Age dost not thou Edward Stillingfleet believe that there both was and is a Carnal Church that did and doth oppose the Doctrine Life and Zeal of the Saints c. as is there sâ—t down To let Francis and his Applauders alone we know both the Holy Prophets and Apostles of Jesus Christ mentioned in Scripture as also Christ himself did vehemently Cry against a Carnal Church or Fleshly Company of Professors in those days for he that was born after the Flesh did always Persecute him that was born after the Spirit both before and in the Apostles Days And so it hath been since no question all along downwards and as we for certain find it so in these our days not only by the Papists but even amongst them called Protestants also And was those many Sharp Reproofs and large Discoveries of the False Teachers in the Prophets and Apostles time Canting O Man take heed thou knows not what thou dost when thou judges our Witness against the False Teachers and Carnal Professors of this Age no better than Canting But certainly though some of you may put it off at present as a light thing and look at it Scornfully as no better than Canting as they did who said He is Mad and hath a Devil why hear ye him but the time will come when it will be otherwise even then when the Books are opened and every one receives a Reward according to their Deeds It is strange this Doctor who seems to be so much Read should Read our Principles no better and pretending to so much Wisdom if he have Read our Books that he should no better understand us than to compare us
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
thou wilt not follow nor be led by them And then these Ignorant Sureties of what sort soever being fore-instructed by the Priest must Answer I Renounce them all What! People are ye all Dead or fast asleep that ye never consider such things as these but rush like a Horse into the Battel without fear into such weighty Matters as these Were it not fit that such who promise so boldly so great Matters for others were first looked into whether ever they did half nay the hundredth part of so much for themselves but where the Blind leads the Blind what less than such Pits can be expected And further these Bold Sureties on the Child's behalf being asked concerning his Belief of the Articles of Faith called the Creed go on and being taught of Man are not afraid to say any thing and affirm That all that they stedfastly believe though in their Heart the Knowledge of God is not And being further asked Whether be will obediently keep God's Holy Will and Commandments and walk in the same all the Days of his Life The Answer is without stop or lett without asking Counsel of God at all I will O what a thing is Man left to himself What a heap of Confusion and Contradiction is he O what Task-masters of Egypt are these Blind Guides to bind that on others which they will not touch with one of their Fingers for they themselves neither forsake the Devil nor his Works as is manifest nor believe in God nor Christ stedfastly for how should they trust God for their Souls who dare not trust him for their Bellies as their Covetous Practices shews And how can they be said to keep God's Holy Will and Commandments all their Days who are doing what they should not do by their own Confession all their Lives long And when the Priests have thus far taken God's Name in vain and deceived themselves and the Parents by making them believe that they are what they are not by this their sorry doing they proceed to give Charge to the God-fathers and God-mothers so called that they bring the Child when it can say for it must be noted that their Religion stands in saying the Creed the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments in the Vulgar Tongue that they bring it to the Bishop to be Confirmed by him O sad O sad that ever Men should thus dare to trifle with Holy Things For Regeneration is a Holy Thing but is neither wrought by outward Washings nor vain Mens Words nor Promises nor their Prayers but only by Jesus Christ the great and true Baptizer according to the working of his Heavenly Power and Spirit of Life in the Will of God as he saith The Wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but knowest not whence it comes nor whither it goes so is every one that is Born of God's Spirit John 3.8 And to shut up this Business that none may be ignorant of the grosness of Darkness that goes all along in this thing and so ends it they say It is certain by God's Word that Children which are Baptized dying before they commit Actual Sin are undoubtedly Saved Understand thus Baptized as aforesaid Now to this I say that if People can be wrought into such Darkness as to believe this and to rest satisfied that it is according to the Word of God when it is a meer Invention of the Nations in the Apostacy and so no Scripture of Truth at all for it it 's no wonder if they can get them into the Belief of lesser Errors And also it 's no wonder to see the Poor People thus deluded make such haste to get their Infants to the Priest when they perceive them in any danger of dying For these that lay so much stress upon this outward Sprinkling or Baptism as they call it must needs have dismal Thoughts concerning such as Die without the same to wit that they are little less if not altogether Damned And as also may easily be gathered from the Words before their Burial of their Dead which runs thus Here is to be noted say they that the Office ensuing to wit of their manner of their Burial of the Dead which they call Christian Burial is not to be used for any that Die unbaptized to wit unsprinkled by the Priest as aforesaid or Excommunicate or have laid violent Hands upon themselves O what Darkness what Destruction and Misery is in all their Ways who account not People worthy of Christian Burial who are either Excommunicate by these Wretched Men and that may be for not paying a Groat or two for Repair of their Steeple house or high Place Or will not nay cannot for Conscience-sake come under their Sprinkling But as for the Man they speak of who hath laid violent Hands upon himself what if it prove one that they say has been made Inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven yea confirmed in it by their Office and was never Excommunicated by them must not he have Christian Burial neither O strange confused doings Then it seems the Gates of Hell may prevail against such as are of your Faith though they be confirmed in it never so much And by this it also appears that you are such Sinners as God hears not as was said before for you prayed after your wretched Fashion in your sprinkling of them that the Old Adam might die in them but lo here he lives and hath laid violent Hands upon the Body you prayed for Power over the Devil for them but lo here the Devil hath overcome them you prayed that those Dedicated by your Ministry might be Everlastingly Rewarded with good but lo here your Child is become a Man and a Self-murderer and not thought worthy of Christian Burial as you call it But the Lord sees all your grievous doings your End is come and coming and the Lord Jesus Christ himself the Everlasting High-priest is at Work Baptizing with his Holy Spirit and Fire O! his Fan is in his Hand throughly to purge the Floor But you Mer-made Priests who have presumed to speak and he never sent you you are not as his Mouth or Messengers for you put no difference neither know ye how to put difference betwixt the Precious and the Vile You bring in the uncircumcised and unclean you matter not what you do you weigh not your Doings nor Words in God's Ballance but the Love of Money the Root of all Evil hath so blinded your Eyes that you will see nothing at all of Truth for your Eye being Evil your whole Body is full of Darkness as Christ saith your Skirts are discovered the Books are opened and now will the Lord give you according to your Deeds as you have grieved and burdened his good Spirit so will he burden you with his Plagues and Terrors And though you may cry to the Rocks and the Mountains yet nothing shall hide you from his Wrath as Truth hath said it is so Some have been lopping
say They will not pay us they will not put into our Mouths they will buy none of our Merchandize any more Alas alas our great City But for all their Crying God will not hear nor help them for they have left off to do good and God hath shaken his Hand at their dishonest Gain and the Son of God in his Ever-blessed Light is arisen and is at Work to lead out of Darkness the Souls of the Simple that they may know him alone to be their Priest Minister and Teacher and may not be a Prey any longer to the Wolf in the Sheep's Clothing the Wolf who is inwardly gone from God and ravenned into the dark Wilderness and hath stollen the Saints and Christ's Words and makes a Trade on them to deceive withal for filthy Lâ—cre Wo unto them they have gone in the Way of Cain and after the Error of Balaam for worldly Ends 2 Pet. 2. throughout Rev. 12.7 5 10. and shall pâ—rish iâ— the gainsaying of the Truth as Core did And the Lamb shall have the Victory and the Lord is at Work leading his Flock by the Streams of Living Waters Glory to his Name for ever And what shall I only complain of the Unrighteousness and declare of the Downfall of the Kingdom of false Teachers and Hirelings amongst the Turks or of the Proud Imperious Prelates of the dark Seed of Rome Or shall I not rather come nearer home to wit to the Place of my outward Nativity the Land of Old England who pretend to be neither of the Spirit of Turks nor Papists but People of the Reformed Religion called Protestants as who should say Protesters against Romish Usurpations and Antichristian Innovations But alas to the Shame of thy Nakedness O England England there is found in thee a Conspiracy a Company of lewd and treacherous Men Jer. 13. who stand over thee as Teachers covered with black both inwardly and outwardly who wear a black Garment now as the false Prophets of old wore a rough Garment to deceive who cry Give give and can never have enough for they are as Graves and if one put not into their Mouths they bite with their Teech and prepare War against them Micah 3. Suing People at Law for Wages for whom they do Work most unreasonable of all Men and contrary to all other People Reaping where they never Sowed neither Spiritual nor Temporal Seed they claim the Tenth of such Men's Labours and Increase as they themselves excommunicate out of their Synagogues and in their false Judgment judge to Hell What! doth not the Destruction of their Souls seem enough but you must destroy their Estates and Families and sometimes their Body and Life also by long and unheard-of Imprisonments and Plunderings Shall not the Nations of the World who profess not as you the Priests and Prelates of England do rise up in Judgment against you For which of the Priests in Turkey or Rome are more eager for their Bellies than you are What Means do you leave unessayed against those who for Conscience sake cannot put into your Mouths Will any whose Eyes are open believe you to be Ministers of the Gospel who rather than lose a little of the Earth will expose both your selves and your Gospel to all the Blame and Shame that may be The very Name of Tythes shews you to be Jewish and of Easter-Reckonings and such like to be Popish and now where is your Reformation You may well confess there is no Health in you who have so palpably done and do what you ought not to have done Isa 14.5 and left undone what you ought to have done as in your Custom you confess Health nay nay how should you have any Spiritual Health in you who live in such manifest Oppâ—siâ—ion to the Spirit of Christ Jesus the Heavenly Physician Christ Jesus saith to his Disciples Freely you have received freely give but you are all for Money and great Farthly Revenues that you may live in Pride Idleness and Fulness of Bread Christ saith Seek ye first the Kingdom of God but your Care is how to get great Livings and Fat Benefices and as for the Heavenly Kingdom Mat. 13. which Christ compared to a Grain of Mustard-seed you neither know it nor are willing to learn you will neither enter into it your selves Mat. 23. nor suffer others but by your Traditions you shut it up against Men. Christ saith to his Swear not at all but you teach for Doctrine that Christians may Swear Mat. 5.34 37. James 5.12 and you do Swear not only before the Magistrates but even some of you in your ordinary Communication yea and which is most Abominable in your very Church-Service compelling the Men called Church-wardens to Swear and that oftentimes with an Unwillingness of Heart and Condemnation of Conscience to perform your Church-Offices which lays a kind of Impossibility upon them Oh sad may it not be said The Land mourns because of Oaths What have you no Shame nor Care of your Credit that can do such things in the open Sun â—os 4.2 3. and not blush Will you never open your Eyes a little to see your Works What do you mean to do Or where will you hide your selves in the Day of God's Judgments when he calls you to an Account and pleads with you in Flames of Fire for all your mighty Sins Do you indeed believe 2 Thess 1.8 as in words you say That you regenerate the little Infants by sprinkling a little Water on its Face and speaking a â—ew words of your own devising over it which it knows nothing of Go you indeed I say believe That by this kind of Baptism they are made the Children of God the Members of Christ and Inheritors of the Kingdom of God Or do you not rather do these Things to get Money by Oh Cursed Covetousness Mat. 13.15 the Root of all Evil Oh how it hath drowned your Souls in Perdition how it hath blinded your Hearts that you can see nothing of the Kingdom of God You bring in a Company of poor deluded Souls who follow you blind Guides to promise for the little Infant That it shall forsake the Devil and all his Works then what shall these bold Promisers suffer if the Child do not so Will they or you their Teachers for them be content to suffer the Pains of Hell the Reward of such as break Covenant with God And when will you see that this Custom of undertaking for the little Infants greatly derogates from the Honour of Christ who is the only Undertaker for Man towards God But what if a Child through Grace be so strengthned when it grows up as to see your Wretchedness and so to forsake and bear Testimony against all the Works of the Evil One that are done amongst you Will you not call him Heretick and put him out of your Synagogues Yea yea for you can have no Fellowship with any that have Health
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
Scripture is fulfilled which saith They hated me without a Cause Thomas Taylor To the People at and about Stafford a Testimony for God and his Truth and against Deceit and Deceivers especially the Hireling Priests as a Warning Information and Instruction in Righteousness to them and all People elsewhere concerned by the Spirit of the Lord in his Suffering Servant Thomas Taylor Hear O People and Fear for the LORD hath spoken THE false Teacher the Hireling who hath run and God never sent him but Preaches for Hire and Divines for Money can never profit your Souls O People at all but with their selfe Dreams and lying Divinations and empty Sounds they deceive your poor Souls For what can the dead words of a dâ—â—d Man dead in Sins raise up your dead Souls from Death to Life No they cannot they have no Life in them and such who have no Spiritual Health nor Soundness by their own Confession in them but are Miserable Offenders can they minister any healthful or sound Doctrine to your Souls Nay these cannot for what is their Chaff to the Wheat their frothy Words to the powerful Word of God For sow a Field with Chaff and what a Crop can you expect But as the Prophet saith They sow the Wind and reap the Whirlwind So cease from them you that love God and your own Souls and turn to God for I Testifie for God That the True Ministry the Soul-saving Ministry of Christ Jesus is not with the Parish-Hirelings of these Days for neither their long Black Robes nor long White Surplices nor their Humane Learning nor the Ordination of Man Men of like Nature with themselves doth any more conduce to the making of them able Ministers of the New Covenant the Gospel of Christ the Everlasting Covenant of God than the Grey or Brown Coat of the Plow-man or Artificer or the Skill of the Husbandman in Husbandry or the Cunning of the Cunning Worker in Wood Brass or Iron doth furnish them for Gospel-service for the Vision of God's Kingdom to all the World this Day both Wise and Foolish is like a Book sealed as the Prophet saith which is given to the Worldly-wise to read and he cannot read it because it 's seal'd and to the Foolish and he cannot read it because he is unlearned Isa 29.10 11 12. so though in the World there is a difference betwixt the Wise and Foolish yet as to the Kingdom of God there is none for the Wisdom of this World is foolishness with God 1 Cor. 1.10 c. for that which lyeth hid from all Flesh God reveals to his by his Spirit for the Spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.6 7 8. And People the time of quickning and raising up of many that were dead in Sins is come again after a long Night of Darkness and the Dead this Day hear the Voice of the Son of God not of main Man and they that hear do live John 5.25 So People look to your Souls for though your Parish-Teachers who Preach for Hire and Divine for Money and love to go in their Long and White Robes do boast of their being come out of Popery yet upon the Popish Maintenance of Tythes Glebe-lands Easter-reckonings Mortuaries and Moneys for Preaching over and Burying the Dead and such like things they live and make a Prey upon not willing to come to Christ to this Day as the first Christians did for a thorough Reformation and so not a little but a great deal of the Old Soure Popish Leaven being yet found amongst them both in Doctrine and Practice how should their whole Lump but be very sour As appears by their Fruits and the Fruits of such as follow them And so for witnessing in Christ against them for these evil things 〈◊〉 suffer Imprisonment yet through God's Mercy inabling me thereunto I rejoice and can truly from my Heart praise the Lord that hath deliver'd my Soul from that horrible Pit that these ungodly Men yet remain in and will not be helped out of And ye People of Stafford for your sakes it was that the Lord by my Mouth rebuked the Hireling that you might not always be deceived and kept in Death with such Dreamers but that you might turn to the Lord God from all such to know his Word and Spirit that made you in you to teach you and to lead your Immortal Souls to the Springs of Living Waters for you have too long dwelt in the Wilderness of Sin Ignorance and Vnbelief and now it is high time for you to Repent and come to know the Baptism of the Holy Ghost and Fire which is Christ's proper Baptism Mat. 3.10 11 12. for alas you have but hitherto been carried on by the Pharisees in the outward Shadows and Figures of Things which reach not the Soul to purifie and perfect it unto God and therefore is the Lord come in Mighty Power this Day to break in sunder all the Graven Images of the People whether under the Profession of the Popish or Protestant Religion for the Lord is on his Throne to make all things new again as in the beginning when all the Sons of God in Holiness sung for Joy and rejoiced in the Lord for the Blessed Victory they had got through the Blood of the Lamb over all their Souls Enemies But Wo and Alas for you the Poor People of Stafford and of many other Places who are under the Teachings of Worldly-minded Men Miserable Offenders like your selves always doing what ye should not do and leaving undone what ye should do and so without all Spiritual Health in the Miserable Captivity of Sin my Soul mourns for you and my Sufferings are for you and my Soul prays for you that you may be recover'd out of the Snare of your Soul's Enemy by which ye are led Captive at his Will for many Days and Years hath my Soul mourned for you and been oppressed and the Lord hath called to you early and late to Repent and lay things to Heart but O the hardness of many of your Hearts and the carelesness of the rest O why will ye Die Why will ye linger and remain still in Spiritual Sodom and Egypt where the Witnesses lay slain Rev. 11. So whilst ye have time prize it left the Lord lay you upon a Bed of Sorrows where no Ease is and say unto you in his Wrath I gave them time to Repent and they Repenâ—ed not In the Year 1679. Thomas Taylor HEAR the Word of the Lord all you that fear to offend the Lord and who breathe after Righteousness in any measure and yet in your Ignorance are seeking the Living among the Dead the Living God in Dead Observations which by Tradition you have received one from another and not from the Lord Jesus The Day is come wherein by the Spirit of Jesus it is witnessed in and by his Living Members That he that was dead is now alive and lives for Evermore and is
saith Again saith this Popish Book asking this Question Is the Church visible He answers She is and must be visible at all times as consisting of a Hierarchy of Pastors Governing Teaching and Administring Sacraments to the Worlds end and of other People governed taught and receiving Sacraments at their Hands all publickly professing the same Faith all which things are visible And for this brings Ephes 4.11 12. Mat. 5.14 15. Answer Now to this I say that the true Church the Spouse of Christ and not the Adulterer the Popedom are visible and known to God and its own Members but invisible to the World as such as the Apostle saith 1 John 3.1 Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us that we should be called the Sons of God therefore the World knows us not because it knew not him to wit Christ Jesus their Head though he did appear in Flesh and so the Flesh was the Vail by which he was hid from the World then as the Flesh is the Vail by which the true Saints are hid from the World now And this makes manifest that that Scripture Ephes 4.11 12. makes nothing for his Purpose at all And as for that other Scripture Mat. 5.14 15. where it is said Ye are the Light of the World a City set on a Hill which speaks of them that were truly so and kept their savour and not at all for the Pope or his great Army of Apostates nor of any other who have the Name only of Christians but have lost the good savour and so want the true Christian Life and so having put the Candle under a Bushel though they may have a shew in outward Observances of their own devising of a Church yet still wanting the true heavenly savoury Life I say they are to be trodden under Foot of Men as unsavoury Salt and so this Scripture makes nothing for them neither But some may say Though this makes not for the Pope or any false Church yet doth it not make something for the visibility of the true Church I answer No not in the Popish or Worldly Sense at all for though the good Life of the true Church be very savoury to that of God in every Man and the same Holy Life shining before Men is of great Service to Men and Glory to God and so because they separate from the World not only in the inward but outwardly also therefore they cannot be hid if they do any thing contrary to their Holy Profession and Separation yet still the Apostle 1 John 3.1 stands firm in his Testimony to which my Spirit agrees Therefore the World knows us not because they knew not Christ For how can the World who are in the False Life and Religion and yet think it is true know or believe them to be the True Church of Christ who separate from them and bear witness against them And this farther appears if we consider how the True Church as Christ himself was ever hated and persecuted of the World Rev. 12.6 c. and many other Scriptures And wherefore is all this Enmity but even because the World knew them not as they were but even accounted them through their great Ignorance as the Off-scouring of all things As it is reported also concerning the Christians in the Heathenish Persecutions after Christ Sejanus vir bonus sed est Christianus Such a one is a good Man but he is a Christian So amongst and by you called Papists Such a one is a good Man but he is a Protestant And amongst the common Protestants Such a one is a good Man but he is a Quaker Thus hath the true living Seed been vailed from the World under some Reproach or other through Ages and Generations as at this day And so to conclude I say That which is here said of the Invisibility of the True Church is not as this Popish Book would wickedly Insinuate Because there were none called Protestants before Luther's Time or because others since Luther's Time have had other Names but because the Truth according to the Scripture of Truth so judges as is here in a few words set down But to return the Wickedness of these Popish Pleaders upon their own Heads it may be truly said That the End of their Pleading so much for the Visibility of the Church is Because they have little in their Religion if any thing at all but what the blind and evil World can both see and exercise themselves in and yet continue still in their sinful Nature So that the Pope's Daughter the Popish Synagogue is most unlike the Heavenly King's Daughter the True Church which is all Glorious within but the Pope and his Daughter the False Church is all Foul within and only Glorious on the out fiâ—e and that not with a true out-side Comliness or Glory neither but even with the rotten filthy Rays and menstruous Clouts of Humane Traditions and Carnal Ordinances and Observations of their own Devising beautiful only to the Adulterous Eye but not with the Ornament of a truly Godly Life and Holy Conversation which is the True Churches Golden Ornament or Rayment which is truly Beautiful in the Eye of God and his Saints It is so as saith God's Good Spirit in his Servant A Warning to the Papists at Stafford Thomas Taylor a Servant of the True and Everliving God in the Everlasting Gospel and Kingdom of his Son sendeth Greeting and a Warning unto you from him in whose Hand is your Breath and the Breath of all the Living I say unto you who call your selves Catholicks or Roman Catholicks here about Stafford Awake Awake look into your selves Trim your Lamps and see whether the true Oyl be in you which the first Christians witnessed in them which they had of God whereby they knew all things for if you would be found true Catholicks Members of the Universal Church the Heavenly Body this you must have for the Cry is gone forth Behold the Bridegroom cometh and it 's none but the Wise in Heart the pure Virgin Souls can enter God's Kingdom it 's not enough for you to say We are Catholicks or Roman Catholicks and our Religion is old or so for it is not how Old but how Good for how much old an Error or Way of Evil is by so much the worse it is and to imagine that God will receive you because of your many Outside Observations and Carnal Ordinances you are very much mistaken so long as the inside is unwashed for it 's a pure Heart and a right Spiritual Worship from the same that God Requires And did not the Apostle to the Galatians say He was afraid of them because they thought to Please God in observing Days and Months and Times and Years after Christ was come in the Flesh and Offered up to end all such Shadows and all of like Nature that can be brought in since then as a part of God's Worship and to bring in Everlasting Righteousness even 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
his Vials Seven times Seven Upon the Seat of that proud Beast and Whore Who hate his Truth and would his Lambs devour And would set up that Worship which he hates And all that Bow unto it Desolates And will not suffer Light and Life to Reign But Preach and Pray and all for filthy Gain God shakes his Hands against you for such things And He 's the Lord of Lords and King of Kings Who will not be o'er-top'd by Mortal Birth Whose Origin and Root is from the Earth But will be Honour'd as a Heavenly King Or else his Judgments through the Earth shall Ring With Terrors great he will his Foes Confound Who have wrought all their Works as under Ground And in their Hearts have said Tush none doth see But we shall Rule and Reign and only we O turn your Ears and listen then a while Let not the Serpent always you Beguile He that deceiv'd the simple one at first Doth after all your Souls and Spirits thirst He leads you out to love the Perishing things Which swiftly fly away with Eagles Wings Which answer not the Heavenly Minds desire But leaves your Spirits scorch'd as with a Fire You seem to Eat and sumptuously to Fare But when awake you Lean and Hungry are You spend your Money for poor empty Shells And go to Drink at Springless empty Wells And when your Minds with Wind and Air are fill'd And you a little in School-Learning Skill'd Then do you Jude your selves fit Guides to be Unto the poor Unskilful Commonalty Who do not know the difference 'twixt the Wheat And Chaff which to the Soul was never Meat But hark what is it now my Mind doth see Sad Oaths impos'd on Men that should be free That should their Office do as Christians did In former times as great Jehovah bid And not as Worldly Men whose Will 's their Law Who with their Fines and Threats still kept in A we The silly Multitude which knows not God But are more Fearful of the Tyrants Rod And are in Earthly-mindedness so deep That they will lose the Soul before their Sheep And are so Ignorant of things Divine That they will part with Truth before their Swine And what Religion is it that such Men For Worldly Ends will not Profess but when The Tide of Times doth turn and changes Face Then they will leave you all unto Disgrace And that which now seems as an Iron Post Will then forsake you and be gone and lost For it 's their Bodies that by force is gain'd When as their Souls i' th' change of Sin 's detain'd So that a perfect Man you cannot bring Of all your Number unto God to Sing And Sound forth Holy Praises ' mongst the Choire Of Holy Ones who burn in pure Desire Of setting up the Lamb upon his Throne Of Highest Glory and all Sorrows gone Then what 's your Work and where will you appear When you have Slept and Slumb'red Year by Year And in mean while have suffer'd Souls to Pine For want of Heavenly Bread and Spiritual Wine And would them neither Feed nor suffer such As God hath sent to Feed them but do grutch That any but your selves should have a share I' th' Work of Feeding such as to God precious are But this be known unto you all this Day That Israel's Holy One none limit may If Christ an Amos or a Peter will Have in his Vineyard Work his Word 's their skill By which without Book-Learning they do know ' Gainst Satan's Kingdom how to bend their Bow And if proud Scribes and Pharisees Disdain Their mean Appearance and their Language plain Then doth their Master plead their Innocent Cause And soon delivers them from Tyrants Jaws And makes the Earth to know that maugre spight He 's able to secure the Harmless Wight Who trusts unto his Strength and walks the Ways Of Truth and Holiness unto his Praise And that the Earthly Man with all his Power Shall not secure himself from Heaven's sharp Shower Of Hail-stones which upon the Wicked must Be Rained down as thick as any Dust But stay a little to the present Work A Word or two in Love that does no hurt A Visitation's talk'd of in these Towns Wherein the Priests must come with Long Black Gowns To make Appearance but whose Will to do They best can tell who perfectly do know Then I demand in plainness that you may Prove by the Scripture what you do this day Why doth your Bishop Ride in so great State As if to Kings and Princes he were Mate And yet will say to others they must Dye To Worldly Pomp and Earthly Vanity Why are you Teachers now call'd Masters when Christ saith Be ye not Masters call'd of Men And why your Courts which Spiritual are by Name Do Trouble Men for carnal Things O shame That you should Read so long the Scripture Letter And yet your selves and Business do no better Why is your Maint'nance forc'd when th' Gospel's free And God's pure Day is dawn'd that all may see That those that dare not trust the Lord for that Are such as Minister they know not what For such in the Beginning that did Preach The Everlasting Gospel and did Teach Men to observe Christ's Doctrine knew not how At all by outward force to make Men Bow But said Our Weapons are not of the Earth But Spiritual Powerful from that Heavenly Breath That Fans and Winnows and doth not beguile But separates the Precious from the Vile And so into Subjection they did bring By force of Truth unto their Holy King They sought not Earthly Honours nor did crave The Earthly Riches but the Soul to save You have received freely freely give Saith Christ who took the Care how they should Live And be maintain'd and did not bid them take Wages of Heathens who the Truth do hate But now you have a Custom sad to see To force your Wages both from Bond and Free You force your own Disciples yea and those That are as Heathens Judged by your Laws Which if your Spirit were not over-base You would soon reckon it a foul Disgrace Can any Man that 's Noble in his Heart Take Hire of such as from the Lord depart And not Require it only but compel Them to Maintain you Judge is this done well May not such truly say You Love your Pride More than the Gospel and all things beside For sure a little will serve Natures turn But what can satisfie where Lust doth Burn For when in Pride and Fulness Men will Live Then comes the Horse-leach Daughters crying Give Give give yea which is ill yea worst of all We 'll have it or we 'll bring you into Thrall We 'll have your Tythes we 'll have your Easter's Dues We 'll have them all you's neither Will nor Chuse And thus old Eli's Sons are still alive Which in this World nor that to come will thrive What! Preach the Gospel and yet Sue to such For Maintenance as
And as for the danger the Apostle reasoneth in his Epistle to the Hebrews quite contrary to this T. H. for saith the Apostle Heb. 12.25 See that ye refuse not him to wit Christ that speaketh for if they escaped noâ— that refused him that spake on Earth much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from Heaven Also see Heb. 2.1 c. See what thou hast chosen Tho. Hall How thou hast chosen the Earthly before the Heavenly the Killing Letter before the Heavenly Spirit of the Lord Jesus which giveth Life and the Shadowing Law of the Servant before the Living Law of the Master Jesus Christ who was counted worthy of more Glory than Moses in as much as he that Builded the House is more worthy than the House See Heb. 3.3 But when we say that Moses's Law is a killing Letter and made nothing perfect this T. Hall like a wicked Man is ready to cry out of us as though we broached some new or strange Doctrine when as it is no other than the plain downright Doctrine of the Holy Apostles and Servants of the Lord Jesus set down in Scripture as you may read without our adding or diminishing any thing at all And to this purpose see 2 Cor. 3. where are these words Verse 6 c. Who also hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth Life But if the Ministration of Death written and engraven in Stones was glorious Mark this though he calls the Law glorious in its time yet he calls it the Ministration of Death so that the Children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the Glory of his Countenance which Glory was to be done away How shall not the Ministration of the Spirit be rather Glorious For if the Ministration of Condemnation be Glory much more doth the Ministration of Righteousness exceed in Glory For even that which was made glorious had no Glory in this respect by reason of the Glory that excelleth For 〈◊〉 that which is done away was glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious Seeing then that we have such hope we use great plainness of Speech And not as Moses which put a Vail over his Face that the Children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished But their Minds were blinded For until this day remaineth the same Vail untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament which Vail is done away in Christ But even unto this day when Moses is read the Vail is upon their Heart Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord the Vail shall be taken away Now the Lord is that Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty But we all with open face beholding as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Here this T. Hall might as well have condemned Paul as us for I say that here is more spoken for a Jewish Spirit to catch at than in our Writings for I say nothing comparable to this can be brought out of our Writings for a seeming denial and making void of Moses's Law for here he calls it not only a killing Letter but even a Ministration of Death and Condemnation done away and abolished and never able to remove the Vail of the Heart from any in reading of it And so whereas this Hall is used to bring Psal 19 4 7 c. for establishing his Dreams about Moses's Law where it is said The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the Soul He might easily see it was not Moses's Letter Ministration or Law which Paul here says was Kâ—lling and Condemning to all that came under it to get Life by it But David speaks there of the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus which opened the blind Eyes of his Mind and wrought the Holy Fear of God in his Heart and so converted his straying Soul to follow the Lord through Faith in his Name as it is with the Faithful at this day as the Apostle saith Rom. 8.1 c. There is now therefore no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit For the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath set me free from the Law of Sin and Death For that which the Law could not do in that it was weak through the Flesh Christ doth in us and for us And that the Law of Moses made nothing perfect it is the Apostles express words also Heb. 7.18 19. For there is verily a disanulling of the Commandment going before that is as he reasons all along in this Chapter the Law of Moses in the Letter for the Weakness and Vnprofitableness of it suitable to that before mentioned in Rom. 8.3 For the Law made nothing perfect but the bringing in of a better Hope did by which we draw nigh unto God Now if any be ignorant of what this Better Hope is which makes perfect and by which Believers draw nigh to God they may know it is Christ Jesus the Lord of Life and Glory that quickning Spirit also by which the Vail of the Heart is rent away in them that believe which the Old Covenant made with the Jews at their coming out of Egypt could not do because it was weak through the Flesh as is said before And so thou T. Hall and all the Unbelieving World going out from the Spirit into the Letter in your Fleshly Minds and Wills which is Enmity to God and is neither subject to the Law of God nor indeed can be as Paul saith Rom. 8. you bring in nothing but Condemnation to your poor Souls for you are so proud in Heart that you will not come to Christ that meek lowly Lamb to be taught by his Light and Spirit which shineth in your Consciences reproving you daily for your Unbelief But you think by your exercising of your selves in your own Wills and Times in some outward Observations of your own devising called Religion to get Acceptance unto God in them though to his Son you are utter Enemies But truly instead of Life you bring Death for the Wages of these your sinful Doings and defiled Worships is Death And that thou T. Hall art an Enemy to Christ and his Blessed Spirits Teaching thy words in thy Papers will still fully and more abundantiy shew which are these which I shall now set down for thou T. Hall in Page 11. wickedly sayst Be it known unto you Quakers God and Christ had no such an intention to answer the Question of the Man in the Gospel in any such like manner to seek to the true Worshipping of God in Spirit and Truth but Christ instead of directing the Desire of the Man for the good of his Soul and Glory of
thee who wilt not have it to rule in thee the Lord hath no respect nor to thy Offering So prize your Time O all ye Strangers to the Life of God and make supplication to your Judge Christ Jesus that Lights every Man that comes into the World for this is the condemnation that Light is come into the World and Men Loved and do Love their evil deeds and hate the Light for every evil Doer hates the Light saith Christ yea it is so whatsoever the Hypocrite the Evil-Doer with his Mouth may say to the contrary And all ye Children of the Light walk in the Light and be thankful for the Lord is Arisen in Mighty Power to Crown you with his Glory his Glorious Righteous Wisdom Holiness and Salvation he is come indeed to fulfil all his Promises in you and for you to the Glorifying of the Arm of his own Power and for your Souls endless comfort and why should any of you be afraid of what Man can do against you seeing you fear God and love the Children of Men and you are not of them that seek to destroy Mens Lives but to save them as much as in you lieth Arise Arise break forth into singing ye Sons and Daughters of the Heavenly King the Lord our Righteousness for thy Light is come and the Glory of the Lord is risen upon thee And thou shalt no more be termed desolate for thy Maker is thy Husband and thy Land is married indeed And thy Plants grow and thy Gardens cast a Sweet Smell Oh! Happy are they who Believe in thy Light and walk in the clear Sun-shine of thy Day No Stumbling nor ocasion of Stumbling is on thy Mountain nor in thy Valleys but on the Dark Mountains whereon the Haters of Christ walk is all the Stumbling of this present World Thou who art come in at the true Door Christ Jesus the Light of the World thy Kingdom is not of this World but is a Kingdom without End which cannot be shaken wherein dwels Righteousness indeed and thy Pasture is Fresh and green all the Year bong being wet with the Dew of Heaven yea in thy Happy Lot are both the upper and nether Springs and Bread of Life for evermore where rests with thee in the Purest Love thy Brother in the Joys and Sufferings of the Gospel Thomas Taylor In the 12 of the 6th Month 1669. A Message of Truth to Professors WO to the Teachers of the People that daub with untemper'd Morter and cry Peace Peace when the Lord hath not spoken Peace For the Lord speaks Peace to none in their Sins but they Teach for Doctrine That none can Live out of Sin whil'st on this side the Grave and so they Minister for Antichrist the Man of Sin and not for Christ who is without Sin in Gods Righteousness And he that keepeth Christ's Commandments dwelleth in him and he in him and his Commandments are not Grievous saith John And again He that is Born of Christ Sinneth not for the Everlasting Father of the Vnspotted Generation it he And herein saith the same John and all the Living Members of Christ is our Love made Perfect that we may have Boldness in the Day of Judgment because as he is so are we in this World But the Masterly Teachers of this world cry out O the Commands of Christ who is God are hard none can keep them we must â—ive in Sin whilst on Earth no Perfection here no Victory over all while on this side the outward Grave These have their Eyes abroad and Judge after the Flesh and the things of Gods Spirit are Foolishness to them The Grave of Sir 〈◊〉 lie dead in and know not the Resurrection from it and so 〈◊〉 norant of Christ who is the Resurrection and the Life And the â—â—r in such is shut as yet that should hear the Sons Voice whose Vâ—â—â—e raiseth the Dead O Foolish and Slow of Heart to believe all that Christ and his Prophets have spoken Doth not Christ say The hour is coming and now is when the Dead shall hear the Voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall Live For as the Father hath Life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have Life in himself John 5.26 And in another place He that Liveth and Believeth in me shall never die for God is not the God of the Dead but of the Living for the Dead cannot Praise him And And I will Ransom them from the Power of the Grace I will Redeem them from Death O Death I will be thy Flagnes O Grave I will be thy Destruction Hos 13.14 And again Ezek. 27.12 c. Thus saith the Lord God Behold O my People I will open your Graves and cause you to come up out of your Graves and ye shall know that I am the Lord and I will Place my Sanctuary in the midst of you for evermore These Words are Faithful and True and the Israel of God who are risen with Christ know them and in the Birth Immortal being passed from Death to Life do set to their Seal That God is a Faithful Performer of his Promises this Day For Life and Immortality is brought to Light through the Gospel which is the Power of God to Salvation in all that believe in God and know his Christ in them who is the Death of Death and Destruction of Sin and Life Eternal to enjoy Glory to his Name for ever And against this Living Faith and Quickning Power the Gates of Hâ—ll shall never be able no prevail But as any said before Wo to the Teachers of the People who Daub with Untempâ—â—ed Morter who look outward and judge of things according to the Flesâ— and outward appearance of things and plead for the Life of Sin during the whole time of Mans being upon Earth and look at the Grave without and Death without and so lie Dead in Sin and Buried in the Grave of their Spiritual Wickedness themselves and so leâ—d about a People filly as Women in Matters Spiritual laden like themselves with divers Sins and Lusts always learning but never able to come to the Knowledge of the Truth For who know the Truth as it is in Jesus are set free by it For if you be set free by the Truth then are ye free indeed saith Christ This is more than all outward Knowledge and Profession to be so free as not to be under the Power of any Sin Lust Temptation Will of Man nor any of the Powers of Darkness whatsoever but Free as Christ is Free who is over all God Blessed forever But now that Christ is come to set up this his Holy Glorious Kingdom in the Hearts of the Children of Men where is this Faith to be found on Earth But the Multitudes of Earthly Professors cry the Kingdom of Heaven hereafter the Kingdom of Glory hereafter no Perfection on this side the outward Grave none can overcome or put off the Body of Sin whilst here and the
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
that we are sufficient of our selves to think a good Thought but our Ability is of God who hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter kills but the Spirit gives Life And that which the Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor hath entred into the Heart of Man or Humane Heart to conceive hath God reveal'd to us by his Spirit for the Spirit searcheth all things yea the Deep Things of God and which Things we Preach or Speak not in the words which Man 's or Humane Wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual 1 Cor. 2. But this R. B. comparing Spiritual Things with Carnal is not wise who because Old Men and long Students in Arts and worldly Sciences are most Wise or likely to be so therefore they that Labour and Study most in Books of Divinity so call'd get most of the Spirit 's Teaching O sad that ever the Minds of the Children of Men should be so cover'd with Darkness and yet read the Scripture of Truth which witnesses to no one thing more than to the Free Teachings of the Spirit of God without Humane Helps For all the Help that is Humane or that Man who is ab humo that is from the Earth can afford is but Natural and of this World which comes to nought therefore is it said That none of the Princes that is the Chief Men of this World knew the Mystery of Christ and his Kingdom then which made them so Band against him see the 2d Psalm And the Natural Man with all his Natural Means discerns not the things of the Spirit of God because they are spiritually discern'd So every one that would know the Mind of the Spirit of God must come to feel through the Most Holy Faith a measure of it in themselves For after ye believ'd ye were Seal'd with the Spirit of Promise saith Paul And the Word is nigh thee even in thy Heart and Mouth O thou that hast an Ear to hear hear what the Spirit speaks even the Word of Faith which we Preach Therefore go not forth from the Anointing of God in thy Heart to hear the frothy and false Doctrine of such as R. B. who have run and set up themselves by their Humane Helps in the Place of Teachers and God never sent them and therefore they cannot profit the People at all but lead them about like silly Women laden with divers Sins and Lusts yea in their Prayers and best Performances as is manifest and so not being sent and enabled by God's Spirit they can never lead you to it but from it as is manifest Also R. B. in Page 6. before-mention'd saith The Objection hath much Confusion in it And how proves he that But by saying 1. It confoundeth the Spirit 's teaching us by inditing the Scripture with the Spirit 's teaching us the meaning of the Scriptures 2. And it confoundeth the Common Knowledge of Divinity with the Saving Knowledge of it No Man cometh to a Common Knowledge fit for a Teacher of others without the Spirit 's teaching by the Scriptures for that was the first part of the Spirit 's teaching us to inspire the Prophets and Apostles to deliver a Teaching Word to the Churches by which we might all be taught of God through all Generations But many Men have Excellent Common Knowledge by this Word and by the Common Help of the Spirit without that Special Help which begetteth Saving Knowledge And all Knowledge requireth Time and Labour to obtain it though the Spirit giveth it and though it may be sanctified to us in a little time but that may be a means of saving others which saveth not the Man that hath it And in Page 114. farther saith Take them not for no Ministers that want Grace totally And marvel not that Gifts are more necessary to the validity of Ministration than Grace is he may perform the Office of a Minister to the Benefit of the Church that hath no Saving Grace at all Thus far R. B. O! What Sorcery and Egyptian-darkness is here to make void the New Covenant and Free Gracious Teachings of the Spirit of God in these Days and to Establish the Letter in the room and stead thereof which only witnesses to is and is a Declaration concerning what the Spirit of God did in them and in the World before Christ's coming in the Flesh and what was done during his being in it and what the Spirit would do in the Believing Souls and in the World after that time But this the Hirelings do that they by their trading with and giving their false meanings upon the Scriptures they may keep the People in Blindness and so from the Anointing and Teaching and Enjoyment of that Spirit that was in them that gave forth Scriptures that they may not see their deceitful Doctrines and Merchandizes lest they should buy no more of them For no Man that knows the badness of Babylon will buy them any more and then will the Merchants of Souls mourn For they that know the Lord and his Spirit 's Teaching in them which is the Good Old Way yea and the ever New Fresh Profitable and Living VVAY will follow no more such Men as would bring in and establish a Graceless Ministry as this R. B. doth here to his Shame But such Graceless Priests the Lord will have none of nor his People neither For my Sheep hear my Voice saith Christ and a stranger they will not hear Surely a Graceless Man is this Stranger They to wit graceless Men saith John 1 Epist 4. are of the World and the World hear them we are of God Stewards of the manifold Grace of God 1 Pet. 4.10 And they that are of God hear us And so Ever Bless'd and Prais'd be the Great and Glorious Name of the Lord Jesus who hath restor'd to them that Obey him the Glorious Doctrine of the Spirit 's Teaching as was in the Apostles Days according to his true Promise where all in the Truth of which we the People of God in Scorn call'd Quakers are Members is done in and by the Holy Spirit prais'd be God and nothing own'd amongst us but what is so done Here is Praying in and by the Spirit and Preaching in and by the Spirit and Singing in and by the Spirit of our Holy Lord God and so the Head being Spiritual and the Members of the Body every one Spiritual for we are all Baptized by one Holy Spirit into the one Heavenly Body our Food is also Spiritual Heavenly Bread and Heavenly Wine and the Water Spiritual that sanctifies us and makâ—s us clean to God in all our Sacrifices and Services For Christ gave himself for his Church which is his Body that he might wash it and present it spotless to himself and without all Deformity by the washing of Water even the Water of Life in the Word of Life the Creating Word of the
Everlasting Father which is Spirit and Life the Resurrection and the Life in every believing Soul for we are Redeemed from Death thereby that we might for Ever hereafter serve God in the newness of his own Spirit and not in the oldness of the Letter as all such do as know no other Teaching Word but the Letter as this R. B. doth and so they having gotten a little Brain-knowledge by their Humane Helps and not by the Spirit of Truth they wrest Scripture to their own and others Destruction desiring and boasting themselves to be Masters and Teachers of others whilst themselves need teaching what the very Principles or beginning Doctrines of the true Christian Religion is as is plainly manifested by his seeking to bring in a graceless Minister or Wolf into Christ's Fold surely the Wolf comes not but to rob and destroy All that ever came before me saith Christ are Thieves and Robbers and never came in by the Door as its plain the Graceless Man doth not but hath climb'd up another way by his Humane Helps as Baxter speaks and to this purpose see John the 10th and Mat. 23. where Christ at large sets forth such Wolfish Teachers who can perk themselves up in Places of Teachers by the World's help outwardly but will neither enter into the Kingdom of God themselves nor suffer others but shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against Men by such deceitful Doctrine and Antichristian Inventions as this R. B. hath by saying That Gifts are more necessary to the validity of Ministration than Grace is and that he may perform the Office of a Minister to the Benefit of the Church that hath no Saving Grace at all And all Knowledge requireth Time and Labour to obtain it though the Spirit giveth it which last saying doth directly thwart and contradict the Scripture which saith I was found of them that sought me not Isa 65.1 And Paul sets believing and working in this great Matter of the Knowledge of God and Christ to Salvation one against the other as the way of the Law and Gospel for to him that worketh saith he is the Reward reckon'd of Debt not Gift of Grace but to him that Believeth it is of Grace to the Glory of God's great Love to Man for saith the Scripture God so loved the World that he gave his Son that whosoever on him believe should not perish but have Life Eternal And none can truly say but those are the best knowers and wisest People that have Eternal Life in them though they never laboured for it nor sought for it and so such as this R. B. who looks at all as obtain'd by Time and Labour they are those Spiritual Proud Ones who are swelâ—ed so big with Spiritual Pride that Self-idolizing Sin which as himself saith in his second Direction so called is the great Rebel against God the chief part of the Devil's Image that one Sin which breaketh every Commandment the Heart of the Old Man the Root and Parent and Summary of all other Sin the Antichristian Vice which is most directly contrary to the Life of Christ c. and these Letter-wise Men that have parched together a Garment of Fig-leaves to cover their sinful Nakedness are Proud of meer supposed Spiritual Excellencies for the way of the Blessed Spirit and its free Gifts and free Workings in the Children of Men they are strangers unto and then through their Humane Learning and lost Labour having gotten a little or a great deal of talk from the Letter of the Scripture concerning Religion in their Earthly Spirits which sees nothing of the Kingdom of God they condemn the Generation of the Just whom God teacheth and Blesseth with all Spiritual Knowledge in Heavenly Things and call them Spiritually Proud because they cannot but speak very highly and yet in the truest humility of Heart concerning the great Things that God hath done for their Souls and because they cannot join with the Wicked whom God abhorreth neither in their Worship nor other sinful Customs And so out of that Old Bottel come all those unsavoury Expressions of R. B. before-mentioned against the free Teachings of God's Spirit yea so great an Enemy he is to the wholsom Doctrine of Free Grace that Page 7. he saith Is it not Blaspheming of God's Spirit to make it the Patron of Mens sloth and idleness under pretence of Magnifying Grace To which I answer That pretending we deny and truly say with the Apostle That God who commanded Light to shine out of Darkness hath shined in our Hearts to give us yea most freely without our own La-Labour or any Humane Help The Knowledge of the Glory of his Kingdom and those that call this Doctrine either in the Apostle or us a Patronizing of Sloth and Idleness are those that do really Blaspheme God's Spirit which teacheth it But many Texts saith R. B. commands us diligence and sloth is a great Sin To which I say the Scripture indeed commands a diligent Improvement and holy Exercise of the free Gifts which the Spirit hath given the Faithful But the Scripture never said that Humane Labour and Helps are the Means to be used for getting the Spirit 's Teachings and without which no Knowledge in Spiritual Matters is now received Stir up the Gift of God in thee saith Paul to Timothy so say I but he no where puts the Humane or Carnal Man to Work or Labour to get the Spirit for that is quite contrary to this Scripture Gal. 3.2 as also Rom. 9.16 Obj. But this R. B. asks this Question Why hath God setled a Teaching Office in his Church and commanded all to attend and hear and learn if we are taught by the Spirit without Man's help Why were the Apostles sent forth into all the World c Answer Here is the great stumbling of these Unbelievers the Worldly-wise Ones indeed what because God in his free unlimited Spirit did begift Men and in his own Spiritual Power sent them forth to preach and publish all abroad the Glory of his Kingdom and Good Will to Men cannot People therefore be taught by the Spirit without Man's help What Reasoning's this When the Scripture expresly saith That all the Gifts and Abilities Helps and Means of bringing People to God and the Knowledge and Enjoyment of all the Good Things of his Kingdom are meerly solely and wholly from God and his Blessed Spirit 's free Gift in Christ and not from Man at all And therefore when the Corinthians began to look at Man whether Paul or Apollo or Cephas he calls it Carnal and said Christ was not divided signifying plainly it was Christ and the Spirit of his Power that alone did all in all as Christ said Joh. 15. Without me you can do nothing for in the True Church Christ ever was and ever will be all in all and and Man nothing as Paul said of himself Paul is nothing But in the False Church where R. B. is pleading for Man yea Graceless Ministers Man
God Christ dees not send him or bid him go to the Spirit of Truth and wait for it Had Christ done so he might then have sent or directed the Man out of the way to get Life Eternal and so further from God than before for then the Man had not come through the Father to him according to John 6.44 45. And Page 15 further erroniously thou say'st You Quakers cannot find as that Christ the Prophet did give any Command to any People as was in ignorance of the Ways to Salvation or Life Eternal that they should leave off to be taught of Moses or his Law or Precepts and go to learn of the Spirit of Truth and let that teach or lead them God forbid O miserable Blindness and Ignorance That ever any Professing God or Scripture should thus belch out their Enmity against the Spirit of Truth The glorious Promise of the Father without which all Knowledge and all Profession is a meer Nothing but a heap of Darkness and Confusion and without which there had never been any true Prophet nor Scripture of Truth for Holy Men of God spoke not in their own Wills or Times but as they were moved by the Holy Ghost the Spirit of Truth without which never Man did nor never Man can come to any Saving Knowledge of God or Christ or the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God and Christ and therefore saith Paul after many Years zealous Profession of Moses's killing Letter That which the Eye hath not seen nor the Ear heard nor hath entred into Man's Heart to conceive God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit for the Spirit of God that Spirit of Truth searcheth all things even the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.9 10. And therefore saith the same Paul 2 Cor. 3.6 God hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth Life And therefore saith Christ John 16.7 It is expedient for you that I go away that the Spirit of Truth which leads into all Truth may come who is the Saints Comforter And this is that means by which the Father draws to Christ even the Spirit of Truth and not as thou ignorantly Dreamest the Letter of Moses's Law John 6.44 45. And so T. Hall thou art not far from that unpardonable Sin of Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost who says That if Christ had directed the Man in the Gospel to go to the Spirit of Truth and wait for it he had directed him out of the way of Life O sad that ever such a Monster of Men should appear in these days when the Lord is so graciously arising with his Healing Wing of Light Life and Spirit to save his Israel out of the Hands of their Souls Enemies And thou T. Hall say'st farther God forbid that Christ should send or direct People that were in Ignorance of the ways of Salvation to go and learn of the Holy Spirit of Truth to be taught of it and not at Moses 's Law I say again This proceeds from the same bitter Root of Error and Blasphemy in thee that the former did and so Wo Wo Wo to that Nest that hatches such Venomous Birds and Cockatrice Eggs as thou dost And if that People of whom thou professest thy self a Member should see these things and not deny thee for them they would be as much to blame as thy self who hast plunged thy self so deep into the Pit of Destruction that no less than a Miracle of Mercy can help thee to see and acknowledge the Truth of God whom thou hast Blasphemed For O thou full of all Unrighteousness What must ignorant People come to know the things of God by but only by the Spirit of Truth as Paul says No Man knows the things of God but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2.11 And saith Paul Gal. 3.2 to some of like mind with this T. H. concerning Moses's Law This only would I learn of you Received ye the Spirit by the Works of the Law or by the Hearing of Faith And Verse 3. Are ye so foolish having begun in the Spirit are ye now made perfect by the Flesh Thus he shews That the Spirit of God is received into the Believing Soul through the hearing of Faith preach'd and not by any fleshly conforming to Moses's Letter of that Law for saith he in Ver. 10. of that Chapter As many as are of the Works of the Law are under the Curse For it is written Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them See T. Hall what thou hast done for thy self and wouldst do for others by pleading for Moses's Letter of the Law to be over Christian People thou hast brought thy self under the Curse for they that come under that Covenant of Works must not only do all things written in the Book but they must continue therein without Sinning or Offending against it otherwise they are Cursed as the Apostle James in another place saith He that keepeth the whole Law and sinneth in one Point is guilty of all And so as I instanced to thee in that of the Sabbath day for though in thy blind Mind thou wouldst be a Teacher of the Law yet thou neither knowest what thou say'st nor whereof thou affirmest for the Sabbath-day which Moses commanded to the People under that Covenant was the Seventh day of the Week which thou neither keepest thy self nor any of thy Fellows and so you are guilty of breaking the whole Law and so under the Curse And whereas you think to save your Heads by saying You keep the next day being the First day of the Week for a Sabbath that will help you nothing at all for the Law admitted of no change of the day which was the Seventh from the Creation into another day And so the Apostles meeting together on the First day of the Week was so far from establishing the legal Sabbath that it was on purpose done to shew that Christ the end of the Law and everlasting Sabbath of Rest to his People was come And so to thee T. Hall and all of like mind with thee I say as Paul to the Galatians Chap. 4.21 c. Tell me ye that desire to be under the Law Do ye not hear the Law For it is written Abraham had two Sons the one by a Bond-woman the other by a Free But he who was of the Bond-woman was born after the Flesh but he of the Free woman was by promise Which things are an Allegory for these are the two Covenants the one from Mount Sinai which gendereth to Bondage which is Agar For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answereth to Jerusalem which now is and is in Bondage with her Children But Jerusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all For it is written Rejoyce thou barren that bearest not break forth and cry thou that