art in a great mistake in charging this to be a defect in the Quaker's Religion not to have such a Practice which is an unwarrantable human Invention And it is a great Defect in your Religion to perswade people that when you have Sprinkled a little Water on the Head or Face of a Child and signed it with the sign of the Cross it is thereby admitted into the Christian Church and call it Baptism when it is but Sprinkling and therefore a Defect throughout But thy Charge upon the Quakers Religion that we deny that of Baptism by which People are admitted into the Christian Church we affirm to be false For we own that Baptism according to what the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 12 13. For by one Spirit are we all Baptised into one Body whether we be Iews or Gentiles c. This we own to be Christ's Baptism And we also own Iohn's Ministration of Water to have been God's Ordinance in its day But yours we leave for thee to prove from whence you had it Secondly Thou sayst Nor that of the Lord's Supper by which they are strengthened and preserved in it Ans. Let all that are wise in Heart consider whether that which thou callest a Sacrament which you take hath such a great effect in it as to strengthen and preserve in the Christian Church which is Christ's Church For the Protestants do account it no more than a Sign of an inward Spiritual Grace But we are satisfied concerning what Christ did as in that Scripture thou quotest Luke 22. For he had regard to the fulfilling of the Law and his time drawing near that he was to be Sacrificed and so the true Passover as Paul saith 1 Cor. 5. 7. For even Christ our Passover is Sacrificed for us had a desire to eat the Figurative Passover with his Disciples before he suffered as thou mayst see Luke 22. and in eating the Passover he took the Cup and gave thanks and gave it to them and bid them divide it among themselves and likewise took Bread and brake it and gave it to them And after Supper again he took the Cup and gave them And thou mayst see what he said both of the Bread and the Cup the One was his Body which was given for us the other was the Cup of the New Testament in his Blood which was shed for us Which words import that his Body which is broken for us is the substance of that Unleavened Typical Bread and his Blood which was shed is the substance of that Cup. Not that the Bread and Wine was his Body and Blood for that was but Typical though some do ignorantly imagine that he meant the outward Bread and Wine was his real Body and Blood As the Iews thought he had meant the Temple made with hands when he spake of the Temple of his Body For we read that when the Passover was instituted they were to have a Lamb without blemish and unleavened Bread and the Door-Posts were to be sprinkled with the Blood of the Lamb which Passover was certainly a Type of Christ the immaculate Lamb whose Body is the true Bread that nourishes the Soul to Life eternal and his Blood sprinkles the Conscience from dead works to serve the Living God This is that we have an eye to that which was broken for us and shed for us and we think by thy Writing thou art not of the Papists mind for the Real Presence And if not then consider what that Bread and Drink was that was broken and shed for us which he spake of though he was then eating the Passover with his Disciples and then come on and see what the Apostle saith to the Mystery of it which was that which he preferred in the Church at Corinth 1 Cor. 10. there he tells them of the Fathers viz. the Church in the Wilderness and saith They did all eat of the same spiritual Meat and did all Drink of the same spiritual Drink for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ. So here thou mayst see the Meat was Spiritual and the Drink was Spiritual and the Rock was Spiritual that they drank of and that was Christ. So the Apostle speaking to Wise Men bids them judge what he saith as in ver 15. and in ver 16. saith he The Cup of Blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ And the Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ And ver 17. For we being many are one Bread and one Body for we are all partakers of that one Bread The Iudgment of this thou seest the Apostle referred to Wise Men and we know Wise Men will Iudge that it is this Spiritual Meat and Drink that strengthens and preserves in the Church of Christ what-ever thou may'st say to the contrary And so thou wrongest the Quakers in saying That we have not the Lora's Supper administred in our Religion for we greatly delight in the Lord's Supper to eat and drink that which strengthens and preserves us in the Church of Christ. And for your Practice that you use in your Church we demand your Example for it and whence it did arise For thou may'st see that Christ in the Figure did eat the Passover with his Disciples according to the Law and gave them the Cup both before and after Supper as a foresaid Thou pretendest Thou hast other notorious defects in our Religion but forbearest to bring them forth only one thou say'st thou canst not omit which is so great a one that it renders the generality of the Quakers almost no Christians at all And thou say'st Most of us are guilty and that is a defect in the very badg and mark of a Christian Disciple which say'st thou is Love and Charity and so quotest Christ's words John 13. 35. By this shall all Men know that you are my Disciples if ye love one another Ans. Thou dost in this as thou hast done in other things before charge us to be Guilty but dost not bring one Proof or Argument to prove the Guilt upon us from matter of fact unless thy saying It is so be either Proof or Argument which no wise Man will understand to be so Thou say'st Perhaps we have charity among our selves we love one the other who are of our Perswasion However that is well so far it answers this Text of Scripture which thou hast quoted we wish we might say in truth so much for all of your Perswasion But thou goest on to shew how we should love Enemies c. and tellest us what Iohn says That God is Love and the more a Man hath of Love the nearer he doth approach to the Nature of God and so tellest us what Paul saith of Charity c. But what doth all this towards the proving us to be defective in this great badg and mark of a Christian Disciple That this is both your and our Duty we
and worshipped I say when my heart was thus fitted and filled then did I endeavour to keep down my Spirit to the meltings of it and great was the care of my Soul that I might no ways miss nor abuse this Power nor let up a wrong thing into my Mind to be betrayed thereby and then I knew if I kept all that was wrong down sound Wisdom and a true Understanding would be grown into even of those Mysteries that the World was ignorant of for the Son of God being come it was he that did give the Understanding to know him that was true as Iohn said of old in his first Epistle and he was made Wisdom as Paul said 1 Cor. 1. 30. So I often observed and that with great care and diligence in those blessed and pleasant Seasons wherein the Lord did so wonderfully appear amongst us and filled our Hearts with the glorious Majesty of his Power how it was with my own Spirit and whether that was subject as it ought or no for I clearly saw the Enemy might beguile and lead up into the hights and unnecessary pride and vain-glorying in that which the Soul might soon be deprived of if it kept not humble for it 's the humble the Lord teacheth and the meek he guides in Judgment And thus in the greatest Enjoyments I saw there was need of care and fear to be kept in for as those that grew sluggish idle and careless in waiting in a Meeting for the Power did sit without the sense of it in a dead dry barren state even so such as weer not diligent to mind to keep low humble and tender and so to mind the Nature of the working of the Power and the Nature of their own Spirits under the Powers exercise and also to watch against the Enemies subtilty who lay in wait to betray might easily be led aside out of the Powers way by the Stranger even while the Power was a working and Joy was in the Heart And thus for want of true Fear and Care might the Soul come into a loss e're it be aware and I believe some have so done and can scarcely find the reason of it Great is the Mystery of Godliness it may truly be said even the great Mystery which Paul writes of in Colossians the first Christ in us the hope of glory c. And as he is there great is the Mystery of his working by his Spirit to the opening and clearing of the Understandings of all that rightly wait upon him and it is the Soul in the Sanctification and Oneness with the Life the true Unction that comes to be a Priest and so of the Royal Priesthood chosen and elected in God's Covenant that comes rightly and lawfully to eat of those holy things and so to partake of the sanctified holy Food This I did observe and therefore the Stranger is not to come nigh this was in the Figure signified the Stranger was not to eat of the Passover Exod. 12. 43. and the Command of God was to Aaron by Moses that no Stranger should eat of the holy things c. Lev. 22. 10. And Solomon saith The heart knoweth his own bitterness and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy Prov. 14. 10. Much might be said but this is the matter its Wisdom for the Heart that hath known his own bitterness in the Judgment and Distress and through it is come to this Peace and Joy to keep it and not to let that which would have no share with it there come to intermeddle with the Joy for if it do it will soon overthrow the Joy of the Soul and bring to another state and then have no more pity in the Day of Distress than the Iews had of Iudas when they bad him look to it what was that to them when he had betrayed his Master And thus I continued as I have said before for these four Years mostly following my outward Calling and attending and waiting upon the Lord in the workings of his holy Power in my Heart both in Meetings and at other times where-ever I was or whatever I had to do for I found that as my Heart was kept near the Power it kept me tender soft and living And besides I found as I was diligent in eying of it there was a constant sweet Stream that run softly in my Soul of Divine Peace Pleasure and Joy which far exceeded all other Delights and Satisfactions and this became the great Engager of my Soul to watch with such diligence for I did find the love of God to constrain And furthermore I did observe that if I neglected or let my Mind out after any thing else more than I ought and so forgot this I began to be like a Stranger and saw that I soon might lose my Interest in these Riches and Treasure and true Common-wealth of God's Spiritual Israel which Christ had purchased for me and given me the earnest of to inherit And thus being mindful of the opening Wisdom of God which was from above and heavenly and not from below earthly I was preserved and helped and succoured in the needful time and because of the Blessings and rich Mercies of the Lord that my Soul enjoyed I was willing to serve him in what I might and willingly received upon me a share of that Concern that became proper for me with others to take upon us in the Church that I might be helpful in all necessary things And thus I went on in the holy Fellowship of the Gospel of Life and Salvation with the rest of my Brethren and Sisters and many joyful Day we had together in the Power of the Holy Ghost that was richly and graciously continued amongst us and daily poured out upon us so that we still grew in favour with God and unity one with another and received daily strength from the Lord and an increase of his Divine Wisdom and Spirit which did greatly comfort us And in this our pleasant state I do well remember my Heart was satisfied and setled into a content where I was willing to abide but the Lord that had so dealt by me in Mercy as I have said began to stir in my Heart by his Spirit to arise and go forth in the strength of his Word and declare against the Hirelings that feed themselves and not the People and kept the People ignorant of those good things that he had made me and others Witnesses of And when the Word of the Lord came unto me with this Message it became a great Exercise unto me and I would willingly have shunned it and have dwelt in that Ease Peace and Pleasure the Lord had brought me into but there was none but in obeying the Lord and giving up to do his Will that I soon came to know for I was sure it was the Word of the Lord and then I yielded in Spirit and longed for the Day that I might clear my self and be eased of the Charge that was upon
the Rock Christ Iesus which by the Storms and Winds cannot be thrown down For the sure Foundation being kept unto you will abide and endure and the Lord will bless you with inward Peace in your Souls and true Pleasure in your Hearts and you will enjoy the true Riches and Heavenly Treasure and learn as you keep to the power of God in your Hearts to lay up this true Treasure in Heaven through the true Faith where the Thief cannot come to steal nor the Moth to waste or corrupt And then your Riches and Treasure that you trust and delight in being thus laid up in Safety your Hearts will be at quiet and in ease and setled in the Kingdom in Heaven where the Treasure is and then Christ's Words will be witnessed Where the Treasure is there will the Heart be also Oh my dear Friends how true are these things Happy are they that grow up into the experience thereof through the working operation and openings of the true living Heavenly Power in their Hearts such their Minds are kept free from that which would entangle and their Feet at liberty that they may run chearfully the Race that is set before them For the Riches the Price that their Hearts are upon being before them and the Mark also that they look at this draws them to look forward and press forward so that they are not of them that draw back to Perdition And thus Friends you may see where and in what your profitable Exercise is through your Day and where the lasting Gain Riches and Treasure is to be got that will endure and be your Portion when the Enemy and all his Instruments have done what they can And this made David say he would not fear what Man could do unto him for the Lord was his Shepherd he said and the Lord was the Portion of his Cup and the Lot of his Inheritance c. And therefore keep your Hearts out of the World and the Riches thereof which are uncertain and also above the delighting in the Glory thereof and let your delight be in the Lord and in the sweet and pleasant Enjoyment of his righteous peaceable Power all the Day long that you may still feel a Habitation therein and a place of Safety to fly unto in every needful time And wait you upon its holy springings in your Hearts that your Souls thereby being united unto God you may dwell in his Covenant and so in Unity with him and his blessed Son and so feel the Fellowship which is a Mystery held in a pure Conscience And dearly Beloved live at Peace among your selves and wait for the Spirit of Love and Concord to spring in all your Souls that the true Mark of Christ's Disciples may appear among you Remember what he said unto his of old By this shall all Men know that ye are my Disciples if you love one another And consider what the Apostle said He that dwells in God dwells in Love c. And therefore I intreat you wait for the power of it in your Hearts that you therein may serve one another and so the whole Body may be edified the weak strengthned the faint-hearted encouraged and the lame not turned out of the way but all helpt forward on their way And you all being thus in the righteous holy Power exercised for good which is that it will lead unto you will be a Strength and Comfort and Crown of Rejoycing one unto another and so helpers forward of one anothers Joy in the Lord Surely this is needful in this Day wherein Zion hath so many Enemies she had need to be as a City that 's at Peace within her self So the God of Peace keep you all in the Dominion of his Life that therein you may reign over every hurtful Thing and so dwell in the holy Mount of Safety where the Destroyer cannot come and upon the holy Hill of Zion about which he hath appointed Salvation for Walls and Bulwarks That so you may all witness Peace to be within her Walls and Prosperity within her Palaces And so you may every Day witness high Praises in your Hearts and Mouths unto her King who is King of Kings and reigns over all who only hath Immortality and dwells in the Light To whom be Glory and Eternal Praises saith my Soul for ever and for evermore Amen From your Friend and one that truly loves you in the Truth J. B. Dear R. S. UNTO thee with thy Dear Wife C. H. R. U. and theirs with the rest of Friends there in Prison with you doth the living sincere Love of my Heart truly reach and livingly flow forth for I can say of a truth that you are often near my Soul and livingly in my Heart and that in my nearest approach unto the Lord when my Life opens and my Spirit is let forth through the Power thereof and poured forth into his Bosom as blessed be his Name he gives us access by his own Spirit even then are you many times fresh in my Heart and Livingly before me as if I were present in Body with you and with great delight do I put up my Supplications upon your account unto the Lord our God rejoycing to feel the Lord so concerned for you that by his own Spirit he so often stirs up a remembrance of you in my Soul and that upon such Holy occasions Oh! blessed be his Name he is the Keeper of Israel that neither Slumbers nor Sleeps but remembers his People and his Eye is open to see their Afflictions and his Ear is open to hear their Complaints and tender Groanings and no doubt but he will arise in his own due time to work Deliverance and Salvation and they shall glorify him Oh! my dear Friends how is my Soul overcome in the weighty Love of God at this time unto you all who Suffer or are given up to Suffer for his Name 's sake that hath Loved you and values your Testimony above all things and so are of that number that love not your Lives unto Death but are given up to follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes Oh! my Heart is affected with you in your Testimony and can say as Debora of old My Heart is towards you who offer your selves willingly among the People now to Suffer in the Lambs Battle as they did to War in the outward War for that 's the way the Lamb and his followers do overcome he was made Perfect through Suffering And the Promise still is The Lamb shall have the Victory everlasting Glory and Honour and Praise to the Living God that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb who is worthy for ever more And therefore my dear Friends look not out look not back but to the Lord your Rock and Strength look for Help and for Deliverance for you know that its from him that Salvation comes and not from the Hills and Mountains for he is the God of the whole Earth and the Mountains shall Melt at his
and was a Peace-maker and he preacht in his Life and Conversation as well as his Words And he travelled with me from Maryland through the Wilderness and through many Rivers and Desperate Bogs where they said never English Man nor Horse had Travelled before where we lay out at Nights and sometimes in Indian Houses and many times were very hard put to it for Provisions but the Lord by his Eternal Arm and Power did support us and carry us through all Dangers Blessed be his Name for ever And he was an Elder and a Pillar in the House of God and the Name of the Righteous shall be had in Everlasting Remembrance but the Name of the Wicked will Rot. He was a Man Endued much with the Wisdom of God and in it had a Care of the Welfare of the Church of Christ to keep in Peace out of Strife and Contention and laboured with the Apostates and Back-sliders to turn them to Christ and his peaceable Truth So that they might Study to be Quiet and keep in the Unity of the Spirit which is the Bond of the King of Kings and Lord of Lord's Peace And much more I might write concerning our Dear Brother in the Lord I knowing him very well and his Travels and Service in the Lord's Power and Truth and so doth the Church of Christ among whom he will be missed But he is gone to his Rest and the Lord by his Eternal Arm and Power is able to Raise up others in his place The 13th of the 9th Month 1690. G. F. The Testimony of Friends in Cumberland COncerning that Faitful Servant of the Lord John Burnyeat belonging formerly to Pardsay-Meeting in Cumberland he was born at Crabtreebeck in the Parish of Lows-water in the said County his Parents were of good Repute and his Education was according to his Parentage The Lord visited him in his young and tender Years and inclined his heart after good things whereupon he gave himself to Reading the Scriptures that thereby he might be informed of those things that made for his Soul's Peace and going from one Man to another who were counted Men of Experience yet found no true Satisfaction until it pleased the Lord to send his Ministers to turn his Mind to the Invisible Word of Life which he gladly received into his heart and came to Wait in Humiliation to feel the Operation of it So that he was brought forth Early in the Day of the breaking forth of God's Light and Power in our Age when it pleased God to Visit many People in divers Nations of the World and to make known his Everlasting Truth in the North-Country which Day of Light and Truth and Grace many waited for and were in a readiness to Receive with Ioy and Gladness of Heart amongst whom this our Dear Friend J. B. being called by Grace to the Knowledge of the Lord his Truth and Power and receiving the same in Love Faith and Obedience he came to Witness the Effectual working thereof to his Sanctification and so became a Vessel of Honour fitted for his Master's Use even Christ and learned to Rule his own House well in washing first the Inside and the Outside appearing clean also Then his Light began to shine before Men to the Glory of God that called him And this being first done in him and for him to his particular peace and satisfaction in the Lord 's Eternal Truth then the Lord opened his Mouth in a few words in much tenderness which tended greatly to the comforting of his People he always being careful to wait for the Motion of the Word and to keep close with it whereby he grew in his Gift and was drawn forth to visit Friends in this County where we dearly loved him He was faithful in the discharge of his Duty when called to give Testimony against the Hireling-Priests in the Steeple-Houses to gather People from the Mouths of those Greedy Shepheards that feed themselves and not the Flock and did not profit the People at all And for these things he suffer'd Imprisonment a long time under a severe Goaler in a close nasty place For the Lord sent him forth in his joyful opening Power and Spirit to preach glad Tidings of Salvation by Christ Iesus sometimes to the Spirits in Prison and to them coming out of Prison and entring into the Glorious Liberty of the Sons of God and to them who walked stedfastly in that Glorious pure Liberty he that hath an Ear to hear let him hear whereby he was a blessed Instrument in the Hand of the Lord both for Convincing and Converting to God and for the Refreshing Comforting and Strengthening of them in the Faith Grace and Truth that they might be built on the Rock Christ the Foundation for all the Chosen of God in him throughout all Generations that Man might answer the End for which he was made even to Glorify God who is worthy of Glory and Praise for ever He was a Man of an Excellent Spirit and of deep Experience in the things of God and Mysteries of his Kingdom which were richly made manifest unto him And it was his Delight to be Meditating therein whereby his Experience was daily increased unto the Conclusion of his Days He was a Man tender of God's Glory and Earnestly sought the spreading and propagating of the Truth The Lord made his Travels successful and he saw the Fruit of his Labour and the Lord blessed him with the Fruits of his holy Spirit whereby he became well qualified for the Work of the Ministry a Nursing Father lending a hand of help to the feeble of the Flock and comforting the Mourners in Sion For his Doctrine did drop as the Dew and his Speech as the small Rain He was a Pattern of Righteousness to the Young Generation over whom he was very Tender and to the Aged he could give Counsel so that God made him a strong Pillar in his Church and cloathed him with Divine Wisdom that he was capable of speaking a Word in Season to all which was as a Nail fastned in a sure place He was one of the Lord's Worthies in his day of a quick Sight and clear Discerning of a strong Arm and skilful Hand whose Bow abode in strength and carried the Arrows to the Mark aimed at like as the Men of Benjamin that could sling Stones to a Hair's breadth so he fixed Judgment upon the head of the Transgressor And his Arrows returned not in vain particularly against that Wicked Spirit of Separation where-ever he met with it He was often concerned in Testimony against those that profess the Truth and Way of God and yet did incline to suit themselves to the vain Fashions and Customs of the World as Inlets to a wrong Spirit and became evil Precedents to others especially Young People that are too much employed in their Minds with foolish Dresses and Fashions that never knew the weighty Work of Truth and Power of God in their Hearts to work a Change
to shine For he was an Instrument of Good to many making a Difference saving some with Fear pulling them out of the Fire hating even the Garment spotted by the Flesh being found in that pure and undefiled Religion of Visiting the Fatherless and widows in their Affliction and through the Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ keeping himself Unspotted from the World and therefore knew how to Save upon Mount Zion and Judge upon Mount Esau. Much might be written concerning him for we know the very Desire of his Heart and Bent of his Spirit was that God through his Son might Reign in the House of Jacob and the Kingdom might be the Lord's He abhorred the Appearance of Gathering to himself and had Self of no Reputation therefore the Lord honour'd him with his Divine Presence and made his Company althô dreadful to the Back-sliders yet very desirable unto many especially those who knew his Integrity and Zeal for the Exaltation of the Name and Truth of God in whose Hearts he was highly esteemed for his Works sake which shall follow him althô he be at Rest from his Labour being got to his desired Haven where the Wicked cease from troubling where the Weary be at Rest. And there the Prisoners rest together they hear not the Voice of the Oppressor for the Accuser of the Brethren is cast down Temptations cannot prevail an Over-coming is known by the Blood of the Lamb and by the Word of their Testimony who have not loved their Lives unto Death And To him that overcomes saith Christ Iesus will I grant to sit with me in my Throne as I also overcame and am sate down with my Father in his Throne he shall not be hurt of the Second Death but with Abraham Isaac and Iacob and with all the Faithful in the Kingdom of God without ceasing sing Praises unto him who sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever-more who is Worthy O the great Loss we have of him How can we but Lament Yet it is his Everlasting Gain For he shall never Return to us but we may go to him And that Word of Life in which his Life was hid yet remains for our support which as we are careful to keep to will preserve us as it has done him to Enter into that Mansion of Glory the Lord hath in store for all the Faithful He was Dear unto us in the Lord with whom our Souls were bound up in God's Everlasting Covenant And thô his Body is gone to the Dust yet our Souls rejoice with many more in that we enjoy his Spirit and are come to the General Assembly and Church of the First-born and to God the Judge of all and to the Spirits of Just Men made Perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant and to the Blood of Sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel where our Ioy is full and our Spirits bowed and subjected to the Will of God where our Peace flows and the Life arises that fills our Hearts with Praises that Ascend as sweet Incense to the Lord God and to the Lamb who is blessed for evermore The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delighteth in his way Psal. 37. 23. And they that be Wise shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and they that turn many to Righteousness as the Stars for ever and ever Dan. 12. 3. Broughton in Cumberland the 22th of the 2d Month 1691. Margaret Fawcet Jane Wilson Margaret Head Jane Hall Mary Wilson Mary Bowman Sarah Fallowfield An Account by Way of Testimony concerning our Dear Friend and Brother Iohn Burnyeat WE will leave to others the Account of his Birth and Convincement that were his Neighbours and Kindred and shall speak of him only as some of us knew him from an Intimate Fellowship in divers Services for above Twenty Years He was a Choice and Seasoned Vessel of Christ the special Workmanship of his Power and Wisdom by which he was effectually qualified for the Ministry of his Everlasting Gospel throughly furnished may We say to every good Word and Work God called him unto Deep and Large in his Gift reaching what was seasonable to every State in Judgment sound free in Utterance Zealous for Holiness severe against Unsound and Dividing Spirits Most tender to Penitents and returning Prodigals affectionate to the Brethren und careful over the Flock of God that they might Answer their Heavenly Call and grow in the Truth Of a grave and steady Temper yet sweet Hardy in his Constitution and Undaunted and Unwearied in Mind He was the Father of many Children in Christ who through his Ministry were begot again to a Living Hope and the Builder up of more through the same in the pretious Faith of God's Elect. For this he often Travelled through this Nation and sometimes Scotland and the Plantations in America but Ireland in a more peculiar manner both at his first Entrance upon his Ministry and of latter Years where he Married and chiefly resided and where he laid down his Head in Peace with God and Love to his People and good Will to all men being about the 59th Year of his Age and is entred into Eternal Habitations to praise the God of his Mercies in the Living Family of the Spirits of the Just for ever He was indeed a Man of an Excellent Spirit and Divine Understanding from God and deep in the Knowledge of the Heavenly Mysteries of the Kingdom of God and also of the Depths Wiles and Subtil Workings of Satan wherein he lies in wait to beguile the Children of Men and the Lord many times opened him in his Heavenly Wisdom to declare of them that those who had regard to God and the Peace of their own Souls might be preserved out of Satan's Snares He was an able and powerful Minister of the Gospel of Salvation a Strengthener of the Weak and an Incourager of the Upright and Sincere-hearted to continue to the end But he was indeed dreadful to the Hypocrites and Rebellious and all the Opposers and Gainsayers of the Truth A skilful Marks-Man yea one of the Lord's Worthies of Israel a Valiant in the Camp of the Lord and an Undaunted Warrier in his Holy Host and his Bow abode in strength and Wisdom was given him to direct his Arrows to the very Mark so that the Sturdy were wounded the Meek were comforted the Tender in Spirit refreshed And was by the Lord made Instrumental to wound that Self-separating and Dividing Spirit thad had for want of Watchfulness in the Divine Light and Faithfulness to God's Spirit and Truth in the inward parts prevailed over some who notwithstanding in a disguise and under specious pretences endeavour to sow the Seeds of Dissension Discord Separation and Division among the Gathered of God And the Lord blessed his Labours greatly and so preserved him in a Holy Conversation and in a meek tender bearing healing Spirit that he promoted both
and so taught of the Lord according to that New Covenant promise They shall be all taught of the Lord Isa. 54. 13. Iohn 6. 4 5. Then was our Hearts inclined to hearken unto the Lord and our Ears which he had opened to hear was bent to hear what the Spirit 's Teaching was and what he said unto the Church who was the chief Shepherd and Bishop of the Soul And thus were we gathered into a right Gospel Exercise and Gospel Worship by him and through whose Name we had received Remission of Sins past and whose Blood had sprinkled our Hearts from an evil Conscience and who gave the pure Water that washed and made clean so that with true Hearts many began to draw nigh unto God in the full assurance of Faith as the ancient Saints did and was accepted and had access by that one Spirit by which we came to be baptized in one Body and so came to drink into one Spirit and was refreshed and greatly comforted and grew up together in the Mystery of the Gospel fellowship and so worshipped God who is a Spirit in the Spirit received from him which is the Gospel Worship according to Christ's appointment Iohn 4. 24. And then we came to see over all the Worships in the World which were set up either by Imitation or man's Invention and saw it to be in vain to worship God and teach for Doctrines the Commandments of men as our Lord had said Matth. 15. 9. and therefore were we constrained to withdraw from them and also many of us to go and bear witness against them in their invented and traditional Worships where they were ignorant of the Life and Power of God And thus being gathered by the Lord Jesus Christ that great Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls we became his Sheep and did learn to know his Voice and to follow him and he gave unto us Eternal Life and manifested the Riches of his Grace in our Hearts by which we were saved through Faith and delivered from that wrath fear and terrour which had been so weighty upon our Souls and in measure from the power of that Death that had reigned and made us miserable and wretched and came to partake of that Life wherein the blessedness doth consist and so then the Lord becoming our Shepherd he taught us and led us forth into green Pastures where we did feed and rest together with great delight O the Joy the Pleasure and the great Delight that our Hearts was overcome with many times in our reverent and holy Assemblies how was our Hearts melted as Wax and our Souls poured out as Water before the Lord and our Spirits as Oyl Frankincense and Myrrhe offered up unto the Lord as sweet Incense when not a word outwardly in all our Assembly has been uttered And then did the Lord delight to come down into his Garden and walk in the midst of the Beds of Spices and he caused the North-wind to awake and the South-wind to blow upon his Garden and the pleasant Showers to descend for the refreshing of his tender Plants that they might grow still more and more And now unto them that had known the Night of Sorrow was the joyful Morning come according to that ancient experience of David Psal. 30. 5. and such as had been in the foregoing deep Afflictions Tossings and Distresses came to witness the fulfilling of that great Gospel Promise O thou afflicted tossed with tempest and not comforted behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours and lay thy foundations with Saphires and I will make thy windows of Agates and thy gates of Carbuncles and all thy borders of pleasant Stones and all thy Children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy Children In righteousness shalt thou be established thou shalt be far from oppression for thou shalt not fear and from terrour for it shall not come near thee Isa. 54. 11 12 13 14. Thus then came we by him to be gathered into Covenant with God and to witness the fulfilling of the Promises of God in whom all the Promises are Yea and Amen and so come to sit together in heavenly places in him and so come to feed upon the heavenly food the Bread of Life that came down from Heaven which Christ the heavenly Shepherd did give unto us who had gathered us from amongst the Shepherds that fed themselves with Temporal Things from the Flock but knew not how to feed the Flock with Spiritual Food for they had it not And now we coming to be acquainted with the Power of the Lord Jesus Christ in our Hearts became great Lovers of it and Delighters in the Enjoyment thereof having already counted all things but as Dross and Dung in comparison of the Excellency that we saw therein and therefore was willing to suffer the loss of all that we might win him as it was with the Apostle of old and blessed be the Lord many obtained their desire they found their Beloved met with their Saviour witnessed his Saving health by which their Souls was healed and so became his Flock and Family or Houshold of Faith And thus then as his Children and blessed Family we still did continue to meet together twice in the Week or oftner and in his Name and holy Fear being gathered together his Promise we did witness according to Matth. 18. 20. he was in the midst of us and did honour our Assemblies with his heavenly Power and Presence and that was our great delight and the sweetness of it did wonderfully engage our Souls to love him and our Hearts to wait upon him for we did find the ancient experience of the Church true as testified in the Scripture because of the savour of thy good Ointments thy Name is as Ointment poured forth therefore do the Virgins love thee And growing thus into this Experience of the Goodness of the Lord and of the Sweetness Glory and Excellency of his Power in our Assemblies we grew in Strength and Zeal for our Meetings more and more and valued the benefit thereof more than any worldly Gain yea it was unto some more then our appointed Food And thus continuing we grew more and more into an understanding of Divine Things and Heavenly Mysteries through the Openings of the Power that was daily amongst us and wrought sweetly in our Hearts which still united us more and more unto God and knit us together in the perfect Bond of Love of Fellowship and Membership so that we became a Body compact made up of many Members whereof Christ himself became the Head who was with us and did rule over us and so further gave Gifts unto us by which we still came to be enlarged and further opened that we might answer the end for which he had raised us up and so far blessed us and sanctified us through his Word that dwelt in our Souls and so we keeping still in our Zeal and unto our first Love and
keeping our Meetings and not forsaking the assembling our selves together as the manner of some was of old whose Example the Apostle exhorted the Saints not to follow the Lord's Power still continued with us and was renewed daily in our Meetings by the Openings of which our Understandings was still more enlarged into the Mysteries of Life and hidden things of God so that many through the favour of God grew in their Gifts and had their Mouths opened and so became Instruments in the Lord's hand to bear witness unto the World of the Day of the Lord that was broken forth again even of the great and notable Day that Ioel had prophesied of and Peter bore witness unto and also they were sent to bear witness against the World and its evil Deeds with all the false Religions with which Mankind had covered themselves withal in the Darkness and Apostasie which had spread over them and now was seen and discovered by the Light and Day of God And thus the Truth grew and the Faithful in it and many was turned unto God and his Name and Fame and Glory and Power spread abroad and the Enemies Work and Kingdom was discovered and struck at by the Lamb and his Followers which made him begin to rage and stir up his Instruments to oppose the Lord's Work and with all subtilty to hinder People from following the Lamb or believing in his Light and so with Pen and Tongue and Hands also the Beast and his Followers began to war and to whipping and scourging and prisoning and spoiling of Goods with reproaching belying and slandering the way of Truth and all that they could do to hinder the Exaltation of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ blaspheming his Light and his Power calling his Light natural insufficient false Guide with many reproachful Names and calling his Power Diabolical and the operation and blessed work of it which was both to the renewing of the Spirit of the Mind and also to the reformation of the Conversation from Debauchery Wickedness Unrighteousness and Witchcraft even like them of old who said Christ cast out Devils by Beelzebub the Prince thereof But by this time they that kept faithful to the Lord and his Light and Spirit in their Hearts who had come forth through the deep Tribulation as before related was confirmed setled and satisfied and in the Life that was manifested established in which they saw over Death and all mens profession in it and where they were and what they sed upon that cried out so against the Light and Power of Christ that was thus with us and wrought thus in us in our Meetings and how they were but mocking at the same that those mocked at spoken of in the second of the Acts when they thought the Apostles were full of new Wine and so drunk for the high Professors of our days being ignorant of the Holy Ghost through their resisting of it blasphemed the Life and Power and in the Death at the best did but feed upon the Tree of Knowledge For this I still right-well remember that in my waiting upon the Lord in the deep Distress and weighty Judgment that was upon my Soul to see if he would appear and break through and open and give relief from under that which kept me down as Bars of Iron that I could not arise nor asscend nor have access although out of the Deep I cried unto him for deliverance I say I can remember that in the first notable inbreaking of the Power of God upon my Soul or pouring forth of the Holy Ghost upon me the first opening in the same unto me thereby was a true discovery of the Tree of Knowledge in the Mystery upon which I saw I had been feeding and all the Carnal Professors of Religion and how we had made a Profession of that which we had no possession of but our Souls in the Death feeding upon the Talk of that which the Saints of old did enjoy and then I saw there was no getting to the Tree of Life that our Souls might be healed by the Leaves of it and so feed upon the Fruit thereof that we might live for ever But as there was a coming under the wounding slaying Sword that Christ brings by which the Life of the Old man comes to be destroyed who would still live in sin and serve that and yet profess Faith in Christ and to be his Servant which is impossible according to Christ's own saying No man can serve two Masters c. Matth. 6. 24. and therefore I saw there was no remedy either I must be buried by that fiery Baptism of Christ's with him into Death or else there could be no rising with him into newness of Life there might be a rising into newness of Profession Notion and Words but that would not do it was newness of Life I must come to the other I had tried over and over I saw I must dye with him or be planted with him in the likeness of his Death that is dye unto sin if ever I came to be planted with him in the likeness of his Resurrection and so live unto God according to Romans the sixth Then when things thus opened in me I clearly saw we had all been deceived thinking while we did live in the Flesh and after the Flesh and so in the Death feeding upon the Tree of Knowledge which was forbidden for Food we might make such a Profession as might bring us to reap Life everlasting but I soon saw such as a man lived after such as a man sowed such should he reap and not what a man professed or what he talked of and then I was willing to bow to the Cross and come under the fiery Baptism of the Spirit and let that which was consumable be destroyed that my Soul might be saved and come to possess that which would endure and abide and could not be shaken Thus were the Heavens shaken also as well as the Earth that that which was not shakeable might remain according to Hebr. 12. 27. and so that which condemned the evil Fruits of the Flesh as they were owned by us so to be in our Profession both in our loose Conversation and also in the desires of our Hearts and fleshly Lusts that therein sprang unto the Judgment of which we did assent even so did that same Light and true Witness discover and condemn our fleshly Profession of Religion in that same Nature and Mind which brought forth Evil or in which Evil did dwell and Rule and so came our Heaven to be shaken and our Covering and Garment to be taken away and we left comfortless and naked destitute and without a Habitation and then we saw our sacrificing and our sinning to be alike in the sight of God for our Prayers was rejected and all loathed because both was done in one Nature and from one and the same Seed and corrupt Heart and therefore it came to be with us as with Iudah of
old as may be read Isa. 1. and Isa. 66. 3. where the Lord told Iudah their killing an Ox their sacrificing a Lamb their offering an Oblation and burning Incense was as the slaying of a Man cutting off a Dogs neck offering Swines blood blessing an Idol And thus we saw for want of Righteousness and keeping the Commandments of the Lord and forsaking of our own ways and that which was evil our Religion was loathed by the Lord and we rejected in all our doings and left in desolation and barrenness for whatever we might pretend that true saying must stand A good Tree cannot bring forth bad fruit nor a bad Tree good fruit the Tree is known by its fruit And thus things opened wonderfully in us and we saw not only common sins which all consess so to be though they live in them but also the hypocrisie and sinfulness of the Professors of Religion even in their Religion which was performed out of the true Spirit of Grace and Life which in the Mystery is the Salt that every Gospel Sacrifice is to be seasoned withal according to the Example in the Figure and therefore were we commanded to withdraw and be separated in our Worship and wait to have our Hearts sanctified and the Spirit of our Minds renewed that we might come before him with prepared Vessels for we soon learned to see this that it must be true in the Substance as in the Figure all the Vessels of the Tabernacle was to be sanctified consecrated or made holy and therefore did we come out from among such in their Worship that lived in Uncleanness and pleaded for Sin which made unholy and met together and waited together in silence may be some times not a word in our Meetings for Months but every one that was faithful waiting upon the living Word in our own Hearts to know Sanctification thereby and a through cleansing and renewing of our Hearts and inward Man and being cleansed and made meet we came to have a great delight in waiting upon the Word in our Hearts for the Milk thereof which Peter speaks of 1 Pet. 2. 2. in our so waiting we did receive the Milk or Vertue thereof and grew thereby and was sed with the heavenly Food that rightly nourished our Souls and so we came to receive more and more of the Spirit of Grace and Life from Christ our Saviour who is full of it in whom the Fulness dwells and in the Power thereof we did worship the Father who is a Spirit and waited upon the Teachings of his Grace in our Hearts and he taught us thereby to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live righteously godlily and soberly in this present evil World And so we came to know the true Teacher which the Saints of old did witness as saith the Apostle Titus 2. 12. and therefore wanted not a Teacher nor true Divine Instructions though we had left the Hireling-Priests and also other high-flown Notionists and sat down together in silence for that was our desire to have all Flesh silenc'd before the Lord and his Power both in our own Hearts and from without And as we thus came into true silence and inward stilness we began to hear the Voice of him who said he was the Resurrection and the Life and he said unto us Live and gave unto our Souls Life and this holy Gift which he hath given has been in us as a Well springing up unto eternal Life according to his promise and therefore hath it been our delight all along to wait upon it and draw nigh with our Spirits unto it both in our Meetings and also at other Times that we might both be taught and saved by it for by it the Saints were saved through Faith c. as Paul wrote unto them Ephes. 2. 8. Now from the Year 1653. as before hinted in which Year I was convinced of the blessed Truth and Way of Life Eternal unto the Year 1657. I was not much concerned abroad in Travels upon the account of the Truth save only to visit Friends that were Prisoners for the Truths Testimony but being mostly at home following my outward Calling I was very diligent to keep to our Meetings being given up in my Heart thereunto for I found great delight therein and many times when one Meeting was over and I at my outward Labour in which I was very diligent also I did in my Spirit long for the next Meeting-day that I might get to the Meeting to wait upon the Lord with the rest of his People And I can also with safety say that when I was there I was not sloathful but in true diligence set my Heart to wait upon the Lord for a Visitation from him by the Revelation of his Power in my Soul and as I waited in the Diligence Patience and Faith I can say this for the Lord and on his behalf with many more Witnesses we did not wait in vain he suffered not our Expectation to fail everlasting Glory and Honour and Praise to his worthy and honourable Name for ever The very remembrance of his Goodness and glorious Power in those days revealed and renewed overcomes my Soul And so then in diligence waiting and the Lord so in mercy visiting by his power in our Hearts my Soul was daily more and more affected with the Glory and Excellency and Sweetness of it and with the holy Dread with which it filled my Heart for that became pleasant and then my Spirit was bent to keep near unto it and to dwell in that holy Fear which the Father thereby placed in my Heart And then I came to see what David exhorted unto in the Second Psalm when he bid the Kings and Judges of the Earth be wise and. learned and further said Serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce with trembling O the bowings of my Soul O the pleasant dread that dwelt upon my Spirit and the reverent tremblings that came over my Heart which filled it with living Joy as with marrow and fatness And then could I say in my heart with David will wash my hands in innocency and compass thine Altar O Lord. O the pleasant drawing near unto the Altar of the Lord and that not unprepared by many whose Hearts were filled and their Souls and Spirits anointed with the true anointing from the holy One which Iohn speaks off in his first Epistle which is the substance of what was figured out in that Ointment Moses was commanded to make Exod. 30. 25. which all the Vessels of the Tabernacle were to be anointed withal Now when my Heart was thus fitted filled and furnished as it was many a time in our holy Assemblies with many more I know that sat under the same dread and power with me for our Temple and Tabernacle in which we worshipped that were Children of the New Ierusalem was but one even the Lord God and the Lamb as Iohn saw Rev. 21 22. And so it was in this Power that we sat
Then not long after in the same Year I was moved of the Lord by his Spirit to go to Briggham to speak to one Priest Denton who then was preaching in the Steeple-house to the People who in his Sermon which he had before hand prepared had many false Accusations Lyes and Slanders against Friends and the Principles of the Truth I stayed till he had done and then did speak to him but got little Answer but immediately some of his Hearers fell upon me and did beat me with their Bibles and with a Staff or Staffs all along out of the House and also out of the Grave-yard that the next day I was sore with the Blows and so the Priest commanded the Constable to secure me and a Friend that was with me and next day did cause him to carry us to Lancelot Fletcher of Talantyre who did order a Warrant to be written for us and so sent us from Constable to Constable to the common Goal in Carlisle where I was Prisoner three and twenty Weeks And when I wrote a Paper to the Priest wherein I answered his false Accusation and sent it to him by a Friend he would not read it but as I was told put it in the fire and burnt it Now while I was in Prison something came upon me for Scotland but I being a Prisoner and not yet deeply acquainted with the way and work of the Lord's Power and Spirit as in relation to such a Service great was the Exercise of my Spirit that I went under and for want of Experience and a clear Understanding I was swallowed up and for a time quite lost in the Deep where great was the Distress of my Soul beyond utterance but the merciful God by his powerful Arm and healing saving Word of Life did restore and bring up my Soul out of the Deep where it was for a time buried and renewed Life and Understanding and caused the Light of his Countenance to shine and the Sweetness of his Peace to spring so that I may truly say he caused the Bones that he had broken to rejoyce And then when he had thus crushed and humbled and let me see how he could make all things become as nothing again and so hide all Glory from Man then in his Goodness he revealed his Glory and Power and Presence and reviving Life and so opened to my Understanding his good Pleasure which with all readiness and willingness of mind I gave up unto in my Heart and Spirit So after my being kept about three and twenty Weeks in Prison I had my Liberty and so came home and followed my outward Calling that Summer and grew more and more into the Understanding of the Mind and Will of the Lord in that which I had a Sight of while I was in Prison And so keeping to Meetings and waiting upon the Lord in a true travel of Spirit after more acquaintance with him and more enjoyment of his Power and Word I grew not only into an Understanding but also into a degree of Strength and Ability sit to answer that Service which the Lord had called me unto And so then in the Faith that stood in God's Power about the beginning of the Eighth Month 1658. I took my Journey into Scotland and travelled in that Nation about Three Months and was both in the North and West of it as far North as Aberdeen and back again to Edinborough and so down West to Lithcow Hamilton Aire and as far as Port-Patrick and back to Aire and Duglass and our Service was at their Steeple-Houses and Markets and other places where we met with People and sometimes at Friends Meetings where there was any And our work was To call People to Repentance out of their lifeless hypocritical Profession and dead Formalities wherein they were setled in the Ignorance of the true and living God and so to turn them unto the true Light of Christ Iesus in their Hearts that therein they might come to know the Power of God and so come to know Remission of Sins and receive an Inheritance amongst the Sanctified And being thus clear of that Nation we returned into England and came over the water to Bowstead-hill the first day of the Eleventh Month 1658. Then returning home I followed my Calling or Trade again from that time until the Third Month 1659. and then I took shipping for Ireland according to what had been Opened unto me in the Truth when I was in Scotland and grew mightily in me through the Strength of the Power and Word of Life while I stayed at my Calling at home and kept to Meetings For the Lord often filled and enriched my Heart and Soul with his glorious Power and so sanctified and prepared me for that which he set before me For often in Spirit was I carried thither and had it sealed unto me that it was my place to go into that Nation to serve the Lord and bear witness unto the Truth and call People to Repentance and hold forth the Way of Life and Salvation unto them So I waited till the full Season came according to the blessed Counsel of God in which I found his leading Power with me and to go before me and so at the time aforesaid I took shipping at Whitehaven and landed at Dunacadee in the North of Ireland and travelled up to Lisbourne and so up to Lorgan and on to Kilmore in the County of Armagh and so up and down in the North for some time amongst Friends and had Meetings And many People came to Meetings and many Convinced and turned to God from the evil and vanity of their ways And then from thence I travelled up to Dublin and thence to Mountmeleck and so forward to Kilkenny and so on to Caperqueen and Tallow and so to Cork and Bandon and back to Cork and then to Toughal and to Waterford and to Ross and to Waxford and had Meetings along as I travelled and according to that Ability I received of God I was faithful and preached the Truth and true Faith of Jesus From Waxford I came to Carlough and Mountmeleck and so down into the North and spent some time there And so having gone through and in the fear of God published his Name and Truth as I had opportunity I then was willing to return home to England and for that end as I intended came down to Carrickfergus but before I got thither it came upon me that I should return back again to Lorgan and Kilmore and from thence to Londonderry And so I sent word to appoint a Meeting at Lorgan and went on to Carrickfergus and got a Meeting where there was many People at it and I did clear my self unto them in the fear of the Lord and then returned to Lorgan as I had appointed And there I met with Robert Lodge newly come out of England who had something in his Heart also to go to Londonderry this was about or near the beginning of the Seventh Month 1659.
did visit Friends And then took shipping at Whitehaven for Ireland and landed at Belfast in the North and spent that Winter in Ireland in the travels and labour of the Gospel and had blessed Service for the Lord and his People in that Nation and was richly comforted and refreshed amongst them in the gracious presence of the Lord that was with us who is the Recompencer and rich Rewarder of all that are given up in Faithfulness to serve him So that now none doth lose their Reward under the Ministration of the Gospel no more then they did under the Law in the Figure when he said Who is thère among you that would shut the Doors for nought neither do you kindle fire on mine Altar for nought Mal. 1. 10. To him be Glory and Honour and Praise over all for ever for he is worthy And when I was clear of that Nation I took shipping at Dublin and landed at Whitehaven in Cumberland and stayed a little time in Cumberland and then took my Journey for London to the yearly Meeting that was in the Spring of the Year 1670. and so spent a part of that Summer in London and thereabouts in the Service of the Truth until I could have a Conveniency to go for Barbadoes that being upon me And in the fifth Month all things being ready I and William Simpson went down to Gravesend with many Friends from London that did accompany us and staying there but a few days we set Sail from Gravesend the eighth day of the fifth Month 1670. and came to the Downs and stayed there some days and then set Sail from the Downs the twentieth day of the same Month and because of contrary Winds we put in at Falmouth and stayed two Nights there and then put to Sea again and so set Sail for the Barbadoes and arrived there the thirtieth day of the seventh Month so that we were twelve Weeks from Gravesend e're we got Barbadoes And then I stayed in the Barbadoes six Months and had great and weighty Service in that Island before I could be clear And my dear Companion William Simpson after he had been there was taken sick of a violent Fever that was very much among People at that time and very many died he was sick but about six days and then was taken away At his Death a very little before his Departure he gave a living heavenly Testimony unto the Truth with wholesome Advice unto them that were about him and departed in the Peace and Joy of the Lord an Account whereof may be further seen in a Book writ by one that was with him from his beginning to be sick until he departed I was with him very much but sometimes was constrained to leave him for the Service sake that was upon me He was a very Innocent man and full of fear and reverence and ordinarily very open in his Testimony and very sweet and pleasant we walked in great love and unity together for he was a humble man and had very low thoughts of himself and always under dread He had gone through great Sufferings and Afflictions and cruel Persecutions for his Testimony and Service sake that he was called unto he likewise had met with hard Buffetings from Satan's Messenger and sore Temptations by which he had been wounded and sore hurt through the wiles of Satan and his cunning slights of which he would be often speaking to me in our brotherly Fellowship and Communication wherein we would open our hearts and states one unto another and in the remembrance of things he was kept very low and tender and near the Lord and took great delight in his Power by which he had been redeemed and his Soul delivered and he raised up into a good degree of Dominion in which he reigned at the last and with great triumph departed this Life and is blessed for ever My Heart is well satisfied that it is even so and when he was taken away from me my Heart was broken within me my Spirit was bowed down greatly in the sense of my loss and I could not but mourn though not as such that have no hope for my hope was firm concerning his well-being and gain that he had obtained but great was my loss for I was left as one alone as I had been often before to bear the burthen my self which was very weighty upon me at that time considering the state of the Church in that Island and the care of it was upon me but the Lord was with me and his Power did assist me to go through my Charge and clear my self and free my self from the Blood of all Men and Women And so through all being guided by his Spirit in his Wisdom the Lord's Children and People were comforted and my Soul and Spirit refreshed and revived and so in peace clearness and gladness I came away and took shipping for New-England and set Sail the first of the second Month 1671. and arrived at New-York the 27 th day of the same Month and so did go from New-York unto Long-Island and did visit Friends on the Island and other places there-aways and was with them at their Half-years-Meeting at Oyster-Bay And so being clear of those Parts took shipping for Road-Island and was there at their Yearly-Meeting in 1671. which begins the ninth of the fourth Month every Year and continues for much of a Week and is a General Meeting once a year for all Friends in New-England And after that Meeting when I was clear of those Parts I took my Journey towards Sandwich and so did visit Friends all along at Tewkesbury Marshfield and Cittuate and so on to Boston and there had a Meeting and so on to Salem and Hampton and Piscataway all along visiting Friends and had many pretious Meetings and the Lord was with us and his Power was over all And from Piscatoway I returned back again the same way and had blessed Service and so through I came to Road-Island again and there I spent some time and went up to Providence and did visit Friends there and so returned again And when I was clear of those Parts I took shipping back again for Long-Island and landed at Oyster-Bay and had some Meetings and then went down to Flushing and so to Gravesand and had some Meetings And then went over to East-Iersey to visit Friends there and had some Meetings and then returned back again to Gravesand and from thence went back again to Oyster-Bay and was there at their Half-years-Meeting which began about the eighth day of the eighth Month and had a blessed time But in our Meeting for Business we had an Exercise with several that rose up in a wrong Spirit against the blessed Order of the Truth which by the Power of God Friends were gathered into and sweetly setling in And chiefly their Envy and Bitterness was against George Fox and his Papers of Wholsome Advice which he in the Love of God had sent amongst Friends and in
up a Separate Meeting and so had withdrawn themselves from the rest of their Brethren and broken the Christian Fellowship which thing when understood by the Brethren there assembled was a grief unto them And thefore under the sence thereof and in that Brotherly Love with which their Hearts were filled towards them were there Two Epistles writ from the Meeting one to I. S. and I. W. warning and advising them as Heads and Leaders in that Sedition and Schism to endeavour to break up that Separate Meeting and to be Reconciled unto their Brethren before they did go abroad to offer their Gift And the other was writ to the Meeting as Advice unto them to Return to their former Fellowship with Friends and lay that Separate Meeting down and joyn with their Brethren in the Unity of the Truth c. But all this did not prevail with them but still they grew higher and harder and went on in the strong Resolutions of their Wills Only there were divers Particulars that were for a time concerned in that Opposition and Separation whose Understandings the Lord opened so that they did see the Snare of the Enemy and returned and under a sense of the Lord's Iudgments did give forth divers Testimonies in Writing against that Spirit by which they had been Seduced with a Confession of the Errour they were led into and so returned into the true Fellowship and Unity with the Church of Christ and were received with Gladness Glory to the Lord who is the Saviour and Healer of his People who now heals and saves by his Word as he did of old I. Burnyeate A Paper of John Burnyeat's that came to hand since his Works were Printed The 27th Day of the 8th Month 1677. IN the Morning as I was Laying upon my Bed and my Soul greatly Afflicted under the View and Consideration of the State of things as it was among Friends in the City of Bristol and some parts adjacent because of the great Contention and Opposition and when I was under the Exercise and my Life appeared Grieved even until my Soul was brought into sore Anguish at times and Grief to see how Hard some were and Unruly and Obstinate In this Travel of Spirit my Heart being bowed I said within my self and before the Lord and unto him I matter not what I be nor how much I be Abased For we must pass through good and bad Report as the Faithful in former times did And then when I was thus gone down into the Grave of Self-denial where I thought I could Lye and be Troden upon the Lord God signified unto me by his Holy Spirit on this wise Though thou be willing so to be yet will not I be Troden under and further said There are some of them that are as Dead Men before me because they have lifted up their Heel against me and have rejected my Word and slighted or set at naught my Reproof And further the Lord God signified unto me That the Spirit of Core and Balaam had entred which would shut Truth out of Doors and pluck Christ from his Throne and lead away the Minds of People after their own Inventions to worship the Works of their own Hands And He further signified unto me how that the Plague of Leprosy and sore Judgment of Hardness of Heart was upon them and they had lost their Beauty and were not sit to come nigh the Altar of the Lord nor to be in the Lord's Congregation and that he would Decide the matter And further he signified to my Comfort There was a Priest to stand between the Living and the Dead with a Holy Censer and pure Incense to make an Atonement and the Eyes of all the Tender and Sensible were to be towards him that they might Receive the Law from his Mouth and that his Lips might preserve their Knowledge And further there was something also of the Spirit of Cain which did appear had Entred even that which did Envy Abel's Acceptance When I had seen these things from the Lord and it was shewed me I should speak forth the Matter unto the People my Heart was wonderfully broken within me And I cried and said Wo is me must I be the Messenger to carry this Message unto this People And when I was under this Exercise the Lord did signifie unto me If I Delivered his Word Faithfully then should I Deliver my own Soul but if not I should Die for it my Life should go for theirs Then did the Dread of the Lord's Word and his Majesty strike me down and made me willing to be given up without any more Reasoning Blessed be the Lord for ever who both gives the Word and Power to Deliver it J. B. AN ABSTRACT Of some of Iohn Burnyeat HIS LETTERS TO HIS Brother T. A. of LONDON Which is a Continuation of his Travels for the last Eight Years of his Life being all his own Hand-writing Dublin the 28th of the 8th Month 1682. I Am arrived here safe from Cumberland and was at all those Meetings I had appointed in Westmorland viz. I had a large Meeting at Camsgill on the third day of the Week it being the General Meeting it was a most pleasant day the Meeting out of doors very large Friends so generally came in And indeed the Lord's Power was with us my Heart greatly enlarged unto Friends The fourth day following I was at Sedber the Meeting without Doors by the Meeting-House the Doors being shut up by the Officers but quiet and large The fifth day I was at Grayrig sixth day at the Hight first day at Swartmore and on the third day at Hawkes-head and had a blessed Meeting my Heart was comforted The fourth day we had a great Flood hindred me from getting home that day but got to Keswick in Cumberland and fifth day got home to our Meeting at Pardsay and was also there the first day where the Lord enlarged my Heart to clear my self heartily that day The third day I was at the Mens-Meeting where the Lord was richly with us Everlasting Glory be to him for ever The fourth day early I came down to Whitehaven several Friends came with me but the Ship being ready could not stay So went on Board and the next day in the Evening arrived safe here at Dublin where all is well I left all our Friends well in Cumberland Dublin the 13th of the 9th Month 1682. It greatly pleases me to hear of Friends in England and how it is with them this Trying day For as we love the Truth and one another therein we have a Concern upon us for one another and for the Truth in General And therefore I delight in the Truth 's prevailing and in Friends prospering therein The Lord stir up all concerned in their Places to be Faithful that none may shrink in the Day of Trial c. Last Week was our Half-Years-Meeting many Friends here and a blessed Season we had through the enriching Vertue of the Lord's
goodness and exceeding pretious is the Fountain of endless mercies which he hath opened in this day for the refreshing of his own dear Children whose whole trust and confidence is in him alone Therefore let none again incline in their minds after the things in this Creation or desire further to enjoy it or any thing in it then you may enjoy them in the Covenant of God This my dear Friends is truly in my Heart from the Lord to lay it before you and to warn you of in his Name and Fear I say Friends that ye who have tasted of the Lord's goodness in any measure and have felt the working of his heavenly Power to the redeeming of your minds out of all visible things and to give you an entrance into the Inheritance that never fades away That ye may not look back again into the Glory of the things of this Creation now in this day of Trial of your Faith but that all may be offered freely into the Will of the Lord that whatsoever you enjoy it may be in his Covenant that his blessing may richly be felt in your inward parts and his peace sweetly enjoyed in your Hearts Or else truly otherwise if any seek in the declining mind to hold any thing out of his Covenant and pure fear the blessing will not be upon that heart but it will be unto them as the spoil which the Children of Israel fell upon contrary to the Word of the Lord and like unto Achan's wedge of Gold which became a Curse in the Camp of Israel Therefore let all with their all be freely offered up unto the Lord in Righteousness with an upright heart which is but a Service reasonable in this day from us who have so largely been made partakers of the richness of his Loving-kindness and Mercies that so every heart may stand open purely waiting for the heavenly vertue and for the renewing of the heavenly gift that every one may be strengthened by the same in the inward man that so we may all together with one heart truly rejoyce in the Salvation and Consolation of the Lord our God which we feel and enjoy in Spirit And furthermore my dear Friends that you all who feel your hearts and all freely given up unto the Lord both you and yours into his Will Mind the Power which hath made you willing and dwell and abide in the sensible feeling of that continually that so every mind may be kept low and humble before the Lord sensible of the Rock of their Salvation and of the Arm of their strength and preservation that so all fleshly boasting and glorying may for ever be excluded out of the Salvation Preservation and Keeping of all the Redeemed of the Lord that he alone who is the Salvation of his People and the Keeper of Israel may have the Honour and Glory and the Praise from the Work of his own Hands who is God over all blessed for ever and ever whose Works will for ever praise him in all his Children From me your Brother who is now Prisoner in the Dungeon in Rippon Common-Goal where I am separated from having Liberty to be amongst the rest of my Fellow-Prisoners only because the Lord opened my Mouth among them in our Meeting when we were together waiting upon the Lord. Iohn Burnyeat Written the fourth day of the sixth Month 1662. Barbadoes the third day of the first Month 1665. Dearly Beloved UNto whom the pure love of my heart in the Covenant of Life doth plentiously flow forth at this time my Soul dearly Salutes you all who are faithful unto the Lord without respect of Persons whose Minds are kept faithful unto the unchangeable Power of Life and Vertue wherein your Souls have been refreshed and by which you have been gathered into the belief of the Truth and to the Acknowledgment of the same which in a good degree hath been made manifest in and among you My Exhortation as a Brother in the Bowels of Love unfeigned unto you whom my Soul dearly loves is That as the Lord hath appeared and made manifest his Power in your Hearts even so wait ye that your dwelling ye may come to witness to be in the same For Friends ye know that it is not sufficient only to know that he hath Appeared but that ye feel your Dwelling to be in the Power and so in the daily sense of the renewing of his appearing in your Hearts that by it your Hearts may be kept open unto him and so you from day to day may know the renewing of his Presence and the Vertue of his own Life in you O! my dear Friends this is that by which every heart may be kept sweet and living and vertuous and open unto the Lord so that the Issues of his Love will become as a Refreshing River unto every Soul that keeps faithful unto him Therefore Friends all mind your standing and your dwelling in the Power and wait for the Inward Operation of it in your Hearts that by its dwelling in you and living in you your Hearts may be kept tender and contrite and broken before the Lord. And Friands beware of hardness of heart I warn you in God's Fear for therein the deceitful Worker gets advantage and Unbelief comes to enter and so such will come short of the Rest that God hath prepared for his People who through the deceitfulness of sin come to be hardned And so Friends least this should come upon any one of you and so ye fall short of the Rest Watch in the Fear of God and keep down to the tender Principle of Life every one of you in your own particulars by which your hearts may be kept out of the hardness in the tender and brokenness of heart in which state the Lord is witnessed to dwell with man and in man according to his promise And so will you know the growing of the holy Seed in you into the pure Dominion by which that which would darken or harden will be subjected and kept in the subjection and so your Souls kept in the freedom of the Seed in God's Covenant where life and peace is witnessed and so Heirs of the Promise and of the Blessing being come into the promised Seed Children of the Promise and so of Abraham through Faith unto whom the Promise was made and so blessed with him who is the Father of all the Faithful through which we come to be Heirs of the Kingdom and so in it according to the promise come to sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in this day of the Gathering of the Gentiles and bringing home of the lost Sheep of the House of Israel Therefore Friends mind your standing in the Seed Christ the true Vine that you may have life abundantly and know its abounding in you For whosoever goes from him the Life the Seed the Vine Christ Iesus the Power of God shall wither and decay and die and in the end be fit for nothing but the
fire And that shall such know who in the day of the Lord 's Gathering and tender Visiting in Mercy and Loving-kindness will not be won and gained into Faithfulness but slight the Day of their Visitation Therefore my dear Friends be faithful unto the Lord every particular of you in that which you have receiv'd from him and wait to be guided by that in your own hearts And keep low and down to the Principle of Life in your own hearts that you may never become stiff-necked nor hardned in your hearts again For this was Israel's Sin of old whose hearts were hardned and whose neck was become like an Iron sinew that it could not bend unto God's Toke For which he was wroth with his People and cast off his Inheritance in that day so that their Enemies had power over them and laid their Dwellings desolate Those things are left unto us for an Example that we might not fall after the same manner of Unbelief but fear lest a Promise being left us of entring into his Rest we should fall short through Unbelief and so loose the Inheritance and so by the Enemy have our Habitations luid desolate and so be carried Captives out of our Dwelling-place These things my Friends and Brethren I lay before you in the fear and love of God which is weigty in my heart towards you all and so desire that the Lord may preserve you all faithful unto himself in the feeling of his life and good presence by which your hearts may be kept open unto him and so open in true Love one towards another that as a Family in the love of God you may dwell together In which love my Soul dearly Salutes you all and so in it remain To my dear Friends in the North of Ireland about Kilmore Lurgan and that way Your Brother and Companion in the Tribulation and Patience of Christ Jesus I. B. Bristol the 25th day of the 11th Month 1667. Dearly Beloved WIth whom in the Covenant of Life Light and Peace I am one wherein I am with you and in Spirit do reach unto you in that love which many waters cannot quench in which my Soul at this time doth very dearly salute you all ye Children of the Covenant which have been born again of the Word Immortal and in the life of the true Seed remain unto you all without respect of Persons doth the love of my Soul reach with the Salutation of my life in the power that is endless In which my desire is that the Lord may preserve you all that as living Plants in the Vineyard of God you may flourish and bring forth righteous Fruits and so be a honour unto the Lord in your generation and then you need not doubt but the Lord will honour you in the glory of his Kingdom that is without end And therefore Friends the life of Righteousness in the power that is without end do you all mind to live in that fruits of holiness in a godly conversation may be brought forth by you all by which the Gospel of Peace and Salvation comes te be adorned and so the effects of Righteousness you will all come to know which is peace and assurance for ever Which is that you ought all to be mindful of that the evidence of peace by the testimony of the living Spirit in all your hearts ye may feel renewed daily which will not be without an abiding and living in the life of Righteousness whatsoever Notion of Profession may be held in the wrong mind and not in the power and life of Righteousness For this Testimony is true and living searching narrowly under all Coverings and breaking through all Vails entring into the inner Court and breaking through into the Secret Chambers to see what may have a being there or be worshipped So that in vain it is to cover any thing in this day wherein the searcher of all hearts hath appeared and he is come whose Fan is in his hand who sits as Resiners fire and as Fullers sope to cleanse and to purifie his chosen Tribe that they may be a peculiar People a chosen Generation and a Royal Priesthood to shew forth the Praises of him who hath called out of darkness into his marvellous light And therefore My dear Friends with open hearts and nakedness of Spirit do you all walk before the Lord not seeking any Covering but that of the Spirit in the life of Righteousness that its Testimony and witness you may all have in your hearts to bear witness with you unto Justification that so ye may be cloathed with the white Robe of Righteousness in the power of the Lamb and so become Kings and Priests unto God reigning over that in the power of the Lamb's Spirit which can never offer a Sacrifice acceptable before which the hearkening and obedience hath acceptance and so will the life of the true Priest be known to spring in you in which you are accepted and so in the life of him that is a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedeck according to the word of the promise and of the oath you will be a Royal Priest-hood offering up an acceptable Sacrifice unto the Lord. And so my dearly beloved unto whom my heart in pure love is opened keep your habitations in the Life of the Son in the Life of the Priest that lives for ever that you may never be rejected in him is the Father well pleased in him are all our Offerings accepted and without him ye can do nothing All Coverings and Robes without him are but as filthy Rags and all Garments without his power and life of righteousness are no better than a Menstruous Cloath and abomination in the sight of the Lord. And therefore keep your Garments clean your hearts pure before the Lord that the acceptance you may never lose and mind the living of the power in your hearts and your living in it unto God the Father that as we have been quickened together in the Resurrection of the Life even so in the same we may worship the Father for evermore And so in this Friends doth my heart's love reach unto you all in which my Soul doth once more very dearly salute you all ye Children of the Covenant and of the blessed day of God Almighty who walk in the Light my heart is ravished with pure love in the Remembrance of you O ye dearly beloved of my Soul I have not forgotten you neither have I been unmindful of you though outwardly we have been separated but the antient love hath lived in my heart yea and doth live towards you all which draws forth strong desires in me unto the Lord that in his Will I might see your faces which I hope will be answered in his time and until then I am freely given up into his Will to stand out of time being satisfied with the invisible union and fellowship in the Spirit that I have with you which time nor distance of places can never
wear out because that life and power which is eternal is known and that love which changes not is injoyed in which I am one with you and remain Your Brother in the Covenant where Sin is blotted out and Everlasting Righteousness is brought forth in which we worship the Father acceptably I. Burnyeat Barbadoes the 30th of the 11th Month 1670. Dear Friends I Have had a great Exercise upon my Spirit concerning this late Observation of a Day or Fast which was set forth and pretended unto and seeing the pride and vanity that people was in not like true Mourners and Fasters and such as would have the Iudgment removed and also seeing the bitter Cruelty that appeared as a part of the fruits of it and furthermore seeing the difference that did seem to appear in Friends minds about the owning or not owning of it by submitting unto their Requirings or doing to the contrary as a testimony against it after I had passed under a deep Exercise in Spirit for some time at last the Lord God by his Eternal Word raised up my Spirit in the zeal thereof and did smite against all such Mockeries and then in a heavenly Revelation my Understanding being opened and closing with the Word he shewed unto me that it was to be Witnessed against by all that stood in the Testimony of God and that those that would weaken the Spirits of any in their Testimony in this or other things wherein Friends have a Testimony for God it was plainly shewed me from the Lord how they would draw a vail over the pure in themselves and in others and in a cowardly underly Spirit by the corrupted sallen wisdom would put the Candle that God hath lighted under a Bushel or under a Bed and so cover it for a while until at last it would be put out so that we like other Professors at last by this Spirit would be led to yield to any thing rather than suffer and so then the offence of the Cross might cease And then also there was another thing which had been very long under my consideration of which I was not hasty to judge or meddle wherein Friends have somewhat differed but at this time was not minded by me because of the other that was upon me But when the Lord had cleared the other to me he brought up this also before my mind which is about Sending Men Horse and Arms to the Training Trooping or Playing which is folly as to us for which many that could not send have suffered the spoiling of their Goods And the Lord then plainly satisfied me that it was his Testimony wherein Friends were to stand and that they that bore another Testimony either in words or action it was from that Spirit and in that Wisdom that would put a bushel over the lighted Candle and by degrees would put it out and would lead us to crouch to the Spirit of the World until its large wing of Darkness would over-shadow us and become our Covering and then we should be like others that have lost their Testimony And then when the Lord had thus done oh how my Soul was filled with heavenly divine love towards all the willing Sufferers for the Lord's Testimony So that I can say it was with me as it was with Deborah when she said her heart was towards the Governours of Israel who offered themselves willingly among the people and then I could not but praise the Lord. And so this is the Testimony that the Lord did put into my heart which I am moved of him to give forth for the comfort and satisfaction of all that desire to serve the Lord in their Generation and to keep their Consciences pure and their Garments unspotted And therefore Friends keep in the first for he is the last and shall stand when all others shall fail And reason not with flesh and blood but wait for the power that it may open you and as you are kept open thereby the wonderful things of God in it will be made known unto you and the depths of Satan will be seen also and there will be a growing in righteousness For in the power is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith by which the just lives which cannot be witnessed where the Testimony is let fall and the Light covered and the Talent laid in the earth though it may be tied in a white Napkin of fair Profession For the Gift or Talent is neither to be hid in the Earth nor bound by any in any thing but to have its liberty until by its own power all be subjected unto it self that God may be all in us all This is the Testimony that I am to leave with you in these matters and so being eased in Spirit in the lasting love of God I remain Your Brother Iohn Burnyeat Salem in New-England the 30th of the 4th Month 1671. Dear and Well-beloved YOU whom the Lord hath called to believe and to be partakers of his Divine Nature and of his manifold Mercies that through the strength thereof you might bear witness to his Name and testifie to his Truth in your Day for which the God of Wisdom suffers you to be tried and your faith to be proved as it hath been his way in all Ages for the proof of his people that their hearts might be tried and their Love appear how weighty it is to him that hath loved them whereby the Glory of the Truth and the Excellency of it might be made manifest And now my Friends this is your day and hour of your Trial wherein the Lord by you I believe shall be honour'd and you rewarded with that good Reward which shall out-ballance all the present Sufferings unto which the Glory of the present World is not to be compared And though from you it is my Lot to be separated and so in the like kind not to suffer among you yet I cannot say but that I suffer with you for my Spirit is not without a feeling of your sufferings O! you dear Lambs of the Shepherd's fold is it so that the Wolf seeks to devour and is the Lion and devouring Bear let loose that would snatch up the Lambs Fear not though in his Mouth We have a Shepherd that will deliver and like David will save from the power of the Destroyer so that your Life shall not come under his power For God is on Israel's side to preserve though they would swallow up quick And therefore let your Trust be in the Arm of his strength for ever and you shall know that he is able to make up all to you again Dearly beloved My very Heart and Soul salutes you all in the Reach of that Life which by nothing that is visible can be stopped and in the sense and enjoyment of that I am spiritually with you wherein I may say I do partake with you both of the Sufferings and Tribulations and also of the Ioy and Consolation that abounds in your
Souls as the Reward of your Obedience and Faithfulness unto the Lord that hath called you thereunto and raised you up for that purpose And therefore let none look back nor be dismayed for the Cause is the Lord's and he will stand by you and will plead your Cause with all that rise up against you and will bring your Righteousness to light more and more and shew who are his and approved in his sight And he will also discover and lay open the Cruelty of such and manifest them who outwardly would shew themselves to be Sheep but are inwardly Ravenous and so Ravening Wolves and so labour to lay waste the Heritage of the Lord to spoil his Flock They are such who would not have the Lambs seed quietly in the green Pasture of the Lord's pleasure nor to lie still in the Fold of true Rest. But blessed be the Lord for ever and ever he hath brought many to the Mountain of his Holiness where they shall not hurt nor destroy even as he hath promised And therefore let all mind their dwelling there and be not moved and the Treasure will be known and the Riches received which all the Spoilers from Babylon and Men of War from Egypt shall not rob you of For it is from thence they all come to spoil Zion and to rob her of her Glory But the Lord is her defender and her King is in the midst of her and Salvation is round about her for Walls and Bulwarks Glory and Honour and Praises to the Lord our God for ever and ever For he hath taken to himself his great power and is going on Conquering and to Conquer And will effect his own purposes and bring to pass his own Designs in despite of all his Adversaries so that when they think to pull down he is building up and in that way which they think to destroy he will establish and so repair the Streets of Zion in troublesome times and build up her Desolations and repair her Breaches as before hath been prophesied And seeing it is certainly thus let us all trust in him for ever and wait upon him that his power by us may be felt and his Love and vertue may be fed upon which nourisheth up the Soul to Eternal Life Dear Friends the Aboundings of the Love of God which is in my Heart towards you all I cannot but signifie unto you amongst whom I have been a partaker of such pretious Mercy and rich Blessings as we have enjoyed together and as I am satisfied still abounds in your Hearts from the God of our Mercies And so Friends this is a Testimony of my love unto you all do you receive it in particular as if I had writ unto you all one by one For this it is the Lord hath made one in his Son and brought us into Unity as we abide in him there is no Separation therefore cannot we be forgotten one by another Dear Friends by this you may understand that I am very well every way and going on in the Service into which I am called The last day but yesterday I had a Meeting in Boston but very few of the People came they are still under the fear of them who are like them and of that Generation unto whom Christ said would neither enter-in themselves nor suffer others However we had a very comfortable and peaceable Meeting and Truth is over them and will bring them under and confound their Inventions From Your Friend and Brother Iohn Burnyeat To the Rulers Ministers and People of the Island of Barbadoes who see and take notice in any measure of the Hand of the Lord that is upon them and have desires in them to have his Iudgments removed FRIENDS IT is Sin that provokes the Lord and causeth his Judgments in his wrath to come upon a Nation a People or a particular and for that doth the Lord visit with his Rod and many times smite with his sore Judgments And while that is lived in the Lord will not hear though man may cry and make many Prayers as you may see in the Scriptures of Truth Read Isaiah the 1 st and see what the Lord said unto Israel when they were revolted and become a sinful Nation a People laden with Iniquity Tho they offered Sacrifices and burnt Offerings and called Assemblies and observed the new Moons and the appointed Feasts the Prophet called them the Rulers of Sodom and said Hear the Word of the Lord ye Rulers of Sodom give Ear unto the Law of our God ye People of Gomorrah to what purpose is the multitude of your Sacrifices saith the Lord c. And further told them That though they spread forth their Hands he would hide his Eyes from them and when they did make many Prayers he would not hear their Hands were full of Blood And therefore commanded them to wash make clean and put away the Evil of their doings from before his Eyes and cease to do evil and learn to do well seek Judgment relieve the Oppressed judge the Fatherless plead for the Widow and then come and let us reason together saith the Lord. So here you may see this is the way for Man to cease from doing Evil and to learn to do well whereby he may come into acquaintance with the Lord and to have his Prayers to be heard and his Requests to be answered and so the Judgment to be removed And also Daniel's Counsel to the King was that he should break off his Sins by Righteousness and his Iniquities by shewing Mercy to the poor that it might be a lengthening to his Tranquillity Dan. 4. 27. And all along in the Scriptures of truth you may see that Sin was the cause why the Lord was angry with any People and why his Wrath came upon any Nation and that the Lord though he spared long many times would not be reconciled unto them till they obeyed his call in turning from the Evil of their ways and if they would not be turned at last he brought his Judgments upon them to cut them off As you may see concerning Israel many times both in the Wilderness where the unbelieving and disobedient were cut off and perished and also after they were come into the Land of Promise how often because of their Sins he brought his Judgments over them and Destruction upon them after that he had warned them and by his Prophets called unto them to leave their Wickedness and to learn to do righteously and to amend their ways and their doings And because they would not hear but continued in their Sin the Lord brought his sore Judgments upon them and rejected them and cut them off and laid the Land desolate notwithstanding the multitude of their Sacrifices of their Prayers and of their Observations So that he that killed an Ox was as if he slew a Man and he that sacrificed a Lamb as if he cut off a Dog's neck and he that offered an Oblation as if he offered Swines
you may grow in and be guided by it in your further Travels in the Heavenly Journey towards the blessed Heavenly Canaan which is still before you as the Price of the high Calling of God in Christ Jesus And therefore observe the true Mark and still press forward towards the same as the Apostles and ancient Saints did And take heed I intreat you unto your selves and the exercise of your Minds lest your Eye inwardly be drawn forth to look at another Mark for if you do then will not the Price be the same that was theirs who was faithful unto Death and so continued unto the end and obtained the Crown Therefore be you all watchful to keep the Enemy of your Souls out of your Hearts that he may reign who is your Friend for ever who seeks your good and brings Life and Peace unto your Souls under whose Government and peaceable Dominion you will find Rest and Pleasure for your inward Man And now my dear Friends since it is the Lord's Truth you have received and his Holy Power that you have felt in these Countries even as his People in other parts dwell you with it and in it with careful Minds that you may therein live unto God as such that have a part in the first Resurrection that you may reign for ever and ever over the Power of the Second Death And all take heed of the mysterious Workings of the wicked one who works in Deceit by Guile in every transformed Appearance to draw the Mind out of the pure Center in the true Power to the Likeness and Image which hath no Life in it where there can be no stedfastness nor true reigning over the Will that is unruly and foolish Therefore my dear Friends keep your Watch every one in your own Hearts continually that you may not be betrayed from that pure Life that yields vertue unto your Souls and nourisheth up to Eternal Life For I know that the wicked one in his deceitful Workings you have been acquainted with and his evil Design the Lord by his Power in his Light hath discovered unto many of you so that you by the same have escaped his hurtful Snares and yet lives in that which must reign at last over all And therefore keep your Habitation in the Power that is unchangeable wherein you may live for ever without fading for the Power fades not but abides in its Glory for ever so that the first is the last the Root and Off-spring Blessed are they that have kept their first Love and have stayed in their Righteous Habitation into which the Power did redeem them they do still witness a growing from Grace to Grace from Strength to Strength and from one degree of Holiness unto another until they come to be purely like him who is their Redeemer who shall change them and bring them from Glory to Glory till they bear the Image of the Heavenly Man and be like him that is altogether glorious who is putting of his Glory richly upon his Church which is his People in this Day And therefore you that have received the Spirit of the Lord and are acquainted with it do you follow it in all its pure leadings with faithful Hearts for it will certainly lead all the Faithful to know an increase of Glory And take heed of the Spirit of the World which is not of God but leads from him that Spirit where it prevails causeth to wither and sade and brings Barrenness upon the Soul and Darkness and Death and then the Glory is lost and the Image of the Heavenly then is not born nor no Man in that is Heir of the Heavenly Inheritance Therefore it doth behoove all to look to their standing in that wherein the Heirship is that none may come short of that Crown which Paul said was laid for him and all them that loved the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the God of Love and Peace keep you all in his Love Fear and Wisdom that your Dwellings for ever may be in his Peace which the World cannot take away nor rob you of that so with the rest of his Heritage you may shine in the Light of his Glory and dwell in the Richness of his Kingdom for ever and ever Amen Bristol the 9th of the 10th Month 1675. This is the Desire of my Soul for you all whom I truly love and in the Life Salute wherein I am your Friend and Brother J. B. Taunton the 7th of the 2d Month 1677. My dear Friends in Cumberland UNto you my Love and Life reaches and purely flows forth in that which Lives for ever wherein I do in the Innoceney and Life of Righteousness truly Salute you all whom the Lord hath raised and called to be a part of the first Fruits unto himself in this day of ours wherein the Glory of his hidden Life he hath Revealed unto a Remnant even that which from the Wise and Prudent of this World is still hid and from such as turn back into that Wisdom it comes again to be Vailed so that the Light of the Glory of it they lose again though they had a view thereof And therefore blessed are all who keep their Habitation in that Power which never Changeth nor Decays the Glory of the Heavenly things will be still in their view by which their Hearts will be enlarged towards the Lord both in Love unto him and a Living People to his Honour in all things that his Name may be Exalted and the Testimony of his Truth in its own pure Nature in every thing kept up according to its Brightness and Glory as by the power thereof we were raised up in the beginning as the life of Holiness grew in us dear Friends that which quickned and raised us from the Dead in years past through which we Live unto God and as we keep in the same we shall for ever be accepted by him and be well pleasing in his sight but out of that you know none shall be regarded by him though ye might do much for he did not regard them in the days of old for all they could do that did not keep in the Life of Righteousness though they might go far even to the covering of the Altar with Tears And therefore as I said that by which you were first quickned and raised is that in which for ever we must be accepted so that every one is to mind and wait for an increase and by experience of the growth of that wherein there is a coming upwards from a Child's State to a farther growth and still it is in the same Nature without degeneration from that which was first and so the first is witnessed to be last and ye grow more and more into the fulness of Christ in whom all fulness dwells And therefore my dearly Beloved in all your Meetings upon the Truth 's account have an eye unto and wait for an Injoyment of his Blessed and Heavenly and Heart-breaking Power
And then will you feel the holy Dew abide upon your Spirits throughout your Age that will preserve you from withering your Leaf from fading and so your Fruit shall be ripe in due season and not be untimely brought forth in that which will not endure For that in which we have believed will endure for ever The Heavenly Power which God hath revealed in our Hearts and made manifest for a standing Foundation that 's sure for ever upon which as you all abide stedfast the Gates of Hell with all the power of Darkness shall not prevail against you but you shall be able to withstand him and keep your Habitations in the Dominion thereof and dwell in Peace upon the Rock of safety in the midst of all Storms and sing for joy of Heart when those that forsake this Rock shall howl and lament for vexation of Spirit For the Lord God will bring his Day and his Power over all and upon all that fly to any shelter or seek any other defence that have once known his Truth and he will be unto such as a Moth and as Rottenness and their Strength he will waste and their Garment and Clothing he will destroy and their Beauty and Glory he will cause to fade though they have been as a beautiful Flower in the head of the fat Valley yet will fading come upon them even dryness at the Root and withering and decaying upon the beauty of their Blossoms And therefore let all keep unto that and in that which will not decay come to nothing nor never be turned into Darkness but abide in its vertue and glory in and by which the Lord hath visited you and through which his Day hath dawned upon your Souls the Morning whereof you have known bright and clear as without Clouds in which you have seen the Son in his Glory to appear unto your Souls with his Heavenly healing warmness and vertue Now Friends this is that which for ever is to be kept too that the Day may be known to increase in the light and glory of it in its own clearness without mixture not mixing with it your own Wisdom Thoughts or carnal Imaginations which do prove such Clouds where they are suffered to arise that they bring Darkness over the understanding and make the Day cloudy and dark and so occasion wandering and to some turn the very Eye-lids of the Morning into the Shadow of Death And through such things hath the Enemy so prevailed over some that he hath brought them again into the Night of Everlasting Darkness and Confusion ere they have been aware whither he would lead and thus as a Man void of Understanding over whom the Whorish Woman hath prevailed and so led down to the Chambers of Death have many followed those Steps that have taken hold on Hell where Misery is sure to be met withall Dear Friends that which preserves from these Dangers is that Arm and Power which God revealed in the beginning by which as we are Witnesses he redeemed our Souls out of many afflictions And therefore let it be every ones care to wait for a clear and sensible feeling of that same Power in its own pure Nature to spring in all your Hearts every Day and then will your delight be so in it and your acquaintance in a clear Understanding will be so with it that you will never be deceived so as to take any other for it Then to your comfort will your Heavenly Peace spring under the Power and Government of him that is the Prince of true Peace and so will your Hearts be made truly glad and weighty and ponderous and not to be carried about with every Wind For in this is the true and sure Establishment of the Soul with Grace in the Covenant of Life for ever and these are they whose Peace is of a standing nature who are not given to change But this I have always observed that where there is an uncertain Spirit or Mind though in some states into which at times they may come they may have Peace and feel some Refreshment yet for want of constancy and stedfastness which is preserved through a true watchful and diligent attendance upon that which doth not change which is sure for ever they lose their Habitation and their state of Peace and come to be tossed in their Minds and afflicted in their Spirits and also are the occasion of tossing affliction and distress unto others who not being aware may sometimes be in danger to suffer with them when they fly from the Word that should uphold as it was with Ionah in the days of old And therefore it is good for every one to have their Hearts established with Grace and in the Grace wait for a settlement that under the pure teachings thereof they may be preserved from going into those things that will procure Woe and so shall every ones State in that which is good be more and more constant and then will there be a growing and going forward and not backward For that which doth occasion any to linger or draw back is Carelesness Unbelief and Disobedience and in such the Lord's Soul doth take no pleasure And therefore in that which doth not change all live by which all changeable and mutable Thoughts and Imaginations and Desires will be judged down and the spring of Life over all will slow and the First will be the last for in that the Beauty and Glory doth stand for ever And all that abide not in it to grow in the vertue thereof whatever they have been at the best will be but as a fading Flower in the head of the fat Valley as it was with Ephraim the Lord will take no delight in them but reject them and cast them out as such whose Beauty is gone whose Gold is become dim and whose Wine is mixt with Water And so as reprobate Silver shall they be esteemed even of Men because the Lord hath rejected them So the Lord God keep and preserve you all in that which was from the beginning and will endure unto the end that in that ye may flourish and grow as the Lilly of the Valley and the Tree by the Rivers of Water This is the desire of my Soul for you all who truly love you in the love of God wherein I remain one with you and am London the 10th of the 3d Month 1677. Your Brother in the Truth J. B. Let Copies of this be sent to New-England Virginia Maryland and Barbados Upon the 2d of the 10th Month 1677. ONE Oliver Morross an Informer came into a Meeting in Mahuntleth in Mountgomery in Wales where Iohn Burnyeat in the fear of God was speaking unto the People and Preaching the Gospel of Peace and Salvation unto them for their good as he had received from the Lord the said Oliver Morross Informer with several Constables and many other Rude People came twice into the Meeting to break up the Meeting and made a great disturbance But
Friends in quietness sitting still only one who reasoned the matter with him he at last went out and all his Company to the Stable and there took all the Horses and Friends Horses all they could find in the Town But after Meeting we got them again they being then taken without any colour of Law But the next day being the 3 d day of the 10 th Month the said Informer went to one William Pugh of Mathauern a Justice of Peace so called who came along with him and met Iohn Burnyeat and Thomas Ellis upon the Road and stopt them both and caused them to turn back to an Ale-house where this Informer and another Man which was William Pugh's Bayliff Swore against them for Preaching at the aforesaid Meeting for which the Justice Fined them and wrote a Warrant and sent for a Constable who by that Warrant seised upon Iohn Burnyeat's Mare and Thomas Ellis's Horse with Saddles and Bridles and so they were constrained to Travel on their Way on Foot till they could get to an Ale-house to get Lodging This Reward the Lord's Servants Received at their Hands for their Love and Good will to the Souls of People Iohn Burnyeat's Mare was worth about 8 l. Thomas Ellis's Horse about 3 l. 10 s. Iohn Burnyeat's Mare Dyed within an hour and an half after Seizure and the other Friends took the Mange and Dyed in the Informer's Hands within six Months time J. B. Dear and Well-beloved in the Lord WITH you my Soul hath Precious Unity in the Spiritual Fellowship and Nearness and Heavenly Oneness which stands in that Life by which we were first Quickened in which we Live and in the Increase of which we grow into a Heavenly Understanding and true Soundness in Discerning and Judgment whereby the Faithful come to be more and more accomplished for their Places and fitted for every good Work that so they may answer their Office and Membership in the true Body whereof Christ Jesus is the Head of which Body we are made living Members through his Love who hath called us and in his Son chosen us to be Heirs of Life Dear Friends your selves know that he who through his Bounty hath blessed us with Spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus so that we are made Stewards of his Manifold Graces who now doth require answerable Service from us all according to our gifts received from him and whosoever is found Faithful to their Gifts and Places shall certainly witness an Increase and so grow in Grace and in the Knowledg of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and so come more and more into true soundness and to the Spirit of a sound Mind For you know how richly the Power of Christ was Manifested in us and among us in the beginning and how wonderful it did work for the Redeeming of our Hearts out of the World the Vanity and Pleasures of it that we might Love and Affect Heavenly things and delight in the glory of that which comes from Heaven And in that day you may remember the glorious and Heavenly Raptures we many times were raised up into and with admiration were ready to turn about and say We will Behold this Wonder the Bush which Burns and is not Consumed But since that time many have been the Exercises and weighty have been the Tryals that have been met with in our Spiritual Progress through which the Lord hath led us and many Temptations hath the Lord delivered us from and led us out of and many Weaknesses hath he passed by and Trespasses hath he in his great Mercy forgiven so that to this day we remain and that in covenant with him Therefore have we cause to Praise him and to Sing unto him Now our present state and capacity to which he hath brought us is to be minded and our duty therein for now many are come to be Free from being Servants or Slaves unto the old Task-masters and though but in our Journey yet there is something to be done which was truly Figured out in Israel's Travel they were to fit the Tabernacle with all the Services and Ornaments belonging thereunto though in the Wilderness in their Travel and the Men and Women were both concerned as you may read in the work to prepare for the Fitting of the Tabernacle according to the Command of the Lord. And this was after the Lord had appeared unto Moses shewed his Wonders in Egypt wrought that great Salvation at the Red Sea and manifested his dreadful Presence upon Mount Sinai and given forth his Holy Law and his Manifestations by which he Taught Israel to do his Will so that in the observation of which they were blessed a lively Figure of what our Souls are Witnesses of in the Heavenly Substance So that now we are not to be negligent for it would not have been well in Israel to have answered Moses when according to the Command of God he put the People upon it both Men and Women to Work for the Fitting of the Tabernacle We had no such thing when we came out of Egypt we had no such thing put upon us when we began our Iourney we will do as we did in the beginning This would have been Rebellion against him that by the Hand of Moses brought them out of Egypt and freed them out of Bondage And you know what Judgments and Destruction he brought upon them that did rebel and gainsay as Corah and his Company who withstood the Ordinance of God Oh! my dear Friends methinks I am as if I were talking with you of the Lord's Mercies and former Loving Kindnesses and Dealings with us and being also under a present sense of our present state and capacities to which he hath brought us my Bowels within me are even Melted with a Holy Love and Tenderness towards you and in that Love I send these Lines as the Salutation of my Soul in that which Lives for ever and as a signification of that entire love which in my Heart lives towards you Wherein I desire that both you and I forever may so mind our present state and our growth and the increase of the Mercies of our God unto us as to answer them by a Faithful Serving of him and one another in that love which thinks no Evil and is never weary of doing good and yet will not vaunt it self Now this is that which lives in my view the Power of Christ which was so Richly Manifested in the beginning did then Work to the preparing of us to be a People fit to do his Will and so it wrought unto a Cleansing Washing and Sanctifying of us that we might be Holy Vessels fit for his use Now being Prepared the same power in the Faithful works mightily to the Fitting and Furnishing of us unto every Good Work that we might be to the praise of his grace who hath called us and if we so be to his praise we must grow in Grace and in the knowledg of our Lord and Saviour
drowning surfeiting Cares and Pleasures of it that you may neither be choaked nor surfeited with the excess of that nor so led up into the worldly Pleasures and Liberty out of the Truth which that draws into as thereby and therein to forget the Lord and overlook your inward State For if any so do they lose the Glory the Beauty and Sweetness of their Heavenly condition and then they grow weary of the Way of the Lord and ready to say as some of old What profit is there in serving of God or in keeping of his Ordinances And therefore the God of Life stir you up and awaken all unto Watchfulness and Diligence that you may grow rich in the inward Man and be replenished with the Vertues and Graces of God that you may be a fruitful People in those parts of the World to the Honour and Glory of him who hath called and visited you who is Worthy of all Glory and Honour Praise and Dominion for ever And dear Friends my Heart's love reacheth unto you all who love and fear the Lord and in the Love of God I dearly salute you all and send this as a Testimony of that Love that still lives in my Heart unto you and therein I remain London 1680. Your Friend and Brother I. B. Dear Friends THE Love of my Heart and Soul is richly extended forth unto you and surely my Heart is affected with you in the Exercise you are under and do endure in this Day wherein the Lord seems to be pleased to try you as in a Furnace of Affliction and to prove your Faith and Patience that you may come to know the value of it even of that which is more precious than Gold that perisheth And truly my Heart believes that the Lord doth not suffer it to come upon you to destroy you but to try you and when his good Will is fulfilled in that and they have filled up their measure whose Hearts are hardened in their Cruelty he will find a way to deliver and bring forth his tryed and proved People whose Hearts are right before him and whose Souls are wisely set to seek him unto such shall all things be rightly sanctified and the Blessing and the Peace and Glory shall rest upon their inward Man with the richness of that Life which comes from Heaven for which you suffer for it is your innocent suffering for this as you have the Witness thereof in your selves that brings the Crown and Diademe of Glory to be put upon the Head of your inward Man So that the saying of the Apostle comes to be witnessed The Spirit of God and of Glory shall rest upon you Oh my most dearly beloved Friends How is my Soul melted into tenderness and my Heart broken within me in the meltings of the love of God towards you and in the sense of your long and weighty Trials that you have endured and gone through and yet for all must they seem as if they were but beginning Is the strength of the hard-hearted such that they are resolved to make a full end or to try what the Lord can do Will they prove their Arm to the utmost Well the Lord in his own time will manifest that it is but Flesh and not Spirit and therefore that which must decay and wither and be dried up and so prove weak at last when the unseen Arm of the Lord which they see not nor know not shall be revealed and stretched out and made bare which you that look not at things that are seen have a Faith in which Faith is that by which you live and in which you have your Victory and in which your Hope doth fasten as an Anchor both sure and stedfast So that though the Winds do blow and the raging Waves do swell high yet you are preserved and kept from being overthrown and destroyed Dearly Beloved methinks I find a Word of sweet Exhortation in my Heart unto you whom my Soul loves who may be or are tryed in this exercising Day with Bonds or Imprisonments In the first place get into a quiet frame of Spirit and Mind within your selves every one and into a resignedness freely up into the Will of God out of time looking as little at that as you can for if you do it will make your Exercises worse and harder For this I have experienced that when a Man is freeliest resigned into the Will of God and in a right Spirit most given up to suffer for him he is fittest to have his Liberty and most commonly it is the nearest unto him Dear Lambs I know there is sometimes a Travel in Spirit to get into a right place with the inward Man when the outward Man is in Bonds but when the Heart once gets thither all things are made easie and comfortable by him who said his Yoke was easie and his Burthen light And now be all concerned thus to get through in your Spirits and then you will feel that the Word of God is not bound but free and your Souls will be free in it and its holy Power and so be fed by the Milk of it that your Souls will draw spiritually from the blessed Breasts thereof by which you have been born again And being thus in your inward Man renewed unto God and up into his Life where the Habitation of Peace and Quietness is for your Souls that they cannot reach to bring a Disturbance to and there feeling your Ease Joy Peace and Pleasure to be such that you can in your Prison-House sing joyful Praises unto the Lord then my Friends be vvatchful tender and kind one unto another and over one another that Love Peace and Joy may be maintained among you all who suffer rightly and innocently for the Truth of our God that so you may be one anothers Ioy and Crown of Rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ your Life and Strength And dear Friends where there is innocency and simplicity bear one with another and help one another that in your sufferings you may have fellowship one with another and so keep in the fellowship of the sufferings of Jesus Christ where all may be humble and tender that so while others are striving to provoke you to come out of your places and to offend the Lord you may not provoke one another nor be an occasion unto any one to go out of their place in the Truth and so to lose their Peace with the Lord and in his Spirit For I have observed that there is a care to be amongst Friends at such times and in such conditions when they are kept up together that all things may be kept sweet and pleasant and that they may even join together in bearing the Burthen that is laid upon them and those that are more grown and deeper in their experience of what they are called unto may help the weak and so fulfil the Law of Love And dear Friends let not unprofitable Discourse be gone into for that may lead into
of this peaceable Spirit you Living and Walking you may then come to be rightly concerned to God's glory in the Blessed Order which the Truth hath led into and by the Power of God is now set up in the Churches of Christ for the keeping of all out and down that are unclean unruly and unholy and preserving of the Camp of God in that Purity that is proper for it that he that is holy may delight to dwell there and abide in the midst thereof And dear Friends all you that keep your habitations in the Lord's Power neglect not your Gifts received from Christ but be you all concerned in your places and according to your abilities for the Honour of Truth that every thing that would bring Dishonour to that worthy name by which ye have been called and give Occasion of stumbling unto the weak may be removed in the Wisdom of God or at least by the tender power of God Judged out from among you that the Camp may be kept clean and Righteousness may run down and the glory of the Lord break forth upon you and you therein may shine to his Praise and Glory for ever more Dear Friends I also was willing to let you know that our Meeting this year at London was very quiet and peaceable and blessed Unity and comfortable Fellowship in the Power and Love of God was Witnessed among us and we gathered up in that together into that care and concern which the state of the Churches of Christ in this trying day did require For many of our Friends in divers places of this Nation are under great Sufferings for their Testimony But otherwise the Truth doth prevail and gain upon many Hearts and through these Tryals God will Magnifie his Power in the end and Crown his People with Dominion for through Sufferings will the Lamb and his Humble and Faithful Followers have the Victory We had also account from divers Countries of the Prosperity of Truth and the State of Friends at the Yearly Meeting now lately over as Holland and the Country that way and from Ireland and Scotland and so had an account in Letters to the Yearly Meeting of the state of things and the affairs of Truth to our great Comfort And therefore it is desired that if the Lord should so order that we may Meet together as hitherto we have done and intend if he permit to do that you in America would endeavour to send over against that time from your several Countries an account of the Prosperity of Truth and how it is among you as to the Affairs thereof that at that Meeting Friends may have an account from you as we have from other Parts And for this end it was desired by Dear G. F. whom many of you know hath a general Care upon him for the good of the whole Body that at your Half-years-Meeting in the latter part of the year you might draw up an Epistle which might be sent to be at London at the Yearly Meeting every year and so from your Half-years-Meeting in every place there may be an account given yearly which will be a refreshment and comfort to Friends And therefore it is desired that if this come in time to your Half-years-Meeting you would be mindful of it and answer the desire of Friends and let Copies of this be sent to Virginia Maryland Pensylvania and New-Iersey and to Long-Island and Road-Island and to Sandwich and where there may be a Service or to Scituate if the Half-years-Meeting be there and to Barbadoes or the Leeward-Islands So with my Love to you all in that wherein all the Faithful have Fellowship I conclude and remain Your Friend and Brother in the Truth I. B. Hartford the 19th of the 4th Month 1682. An Epistle to Friends of Bristol Directed to C. J. Dear C. J. IN that everlasting Truth and Seed of Life through which the God of Truth hath reached us and visited us is the living Love and true endeared Affection of my Heart and Spirit Richly and Sweetly let forth and extended unto thee with thy dear Wife and your Children as also unto the Faithful and true-Hearted to the Lord in that City who in this Trying day are given up unto God both to Do and Suffer for his Name 's sake My Soul I can still say is deeply Affected with your Suffering state and be sure you are many times livingly in my Remembrance and that in the near Approaches of my Spirit unto the Lord for in that in which the access and the true drawing nigh unto him is experienced do you live upon my Heart and are brought very often into my view together with your Suffering State under which it is the Pleasure of your Heavenly Father to Try you and to prove your Faith and Confidence and to let you know the preciousness thereof in the time of need And now my dearly Beloved see all of you that you keep in the Faith that gives the Victory and truly saves and defends and know that ancient saying true for ever The very hairs of your Head are all numbered and not one shall fall to the ground without your Father's Providence And therefore let your Eyes be unto him both for Salvation and Preservation and know that he both can and will deliver when he sees good for you know him that is the living God that reigns and will reign over all and in due time make all know that he can do whatsoever he pleaseth in Heaven and in the Earth And therefore mind your acquaintance with him and your knowledg of him in that which may be known of him in your Hearts and your Unity with his Life in your Souls that you may all feel the Peace thereof and the Holy Spring therein which Man by all his Cruelty cannot reach to put a stop unto But when they that seek to destroy you and to take all Comfort from you have done all they can this Spring being open in your Hearts you have Comfort Peace and Joy that they neither know of nor can keep from you Oh! you dear Suffering Children and tender Babes of the Almighty who are called unto this day and hour of Temptation or Trial how doth my Soul Love you how is my very Heart's Love let forth unto you at this time as at many other times The Lord the God of Strength be with you and strengthen and fill your tender Souls with the Glory of his Life and the sweetness of his Presence that your Spirits with gladness may Praise him in the midst of all these Exercises with which you are compassed And now my dear Friends you being so in my Heart with a living Sense of your Trials that are upon you methinks I see the Wall with which the God of Israel doth compass you about over which the Adversary cannot shoot an Arrow tho his Boasting may be great what he will do as of Old it was Oh! happy are they that abide within the compass of it
and so retire and spread their Cause before the Lord who is the living God Remember the King of Old who commanded silence and said Answer him not a Word and so returned to the Temple and to the Altar of the Lord and spread the Cause before him and confessed the weakness of the Daughter of Sion to bring forth and also his Faith in the sufficiency of God's Power when he said Thou art able to Save c. Oh! my dear Friends Live up to the Lord in your Spirits and be Faithful and keep your Peace with him in the inner-Man and mind your Unity with his Spirit and take heed of that which would obstruct your Fellowship with his Life let no Fair Pretences over you Prevail that may have any tendency to bring your Spirits into Bondage or any straitness over your Hearts for that Bondage will prove the greatest Slavery and this I do believe you right well know And now my Dear Friends all of you minding your inward Freedom and your Spiritual Ease in the Freedom and Liberty given you of God through Christ your Saviour you will have a Dwelling and Habitation filled with Glory Riches and Comfort over which the Enemies Cloud cannot come and in that you will see through to the end of all that would either Darken or bring Distress And so you will see how good it is to trust in the Lord and to rely upon his Power and be given up freely into his Will And so dear Hearts my Love is truly unto you all and in the Love with which I have anciently Loved you and in which I Love you as much as ever do I very dearly Salute you all you tender Suffering Children and with my Soul and Spirit desire that God in Mercy and Kindness may bless you with Spiritual Blessing in Christ Jesus and enrich your Souls with the Divine Fatness of his House and Pleasure of his Life that you may have Joy every day and delight every Morning in your Bosoms that so your Strength may be renewed and your Ability so encreased that you may be able to bear what is upon you till the Lord see good to Work your Deliverance and case you of the yoak and Burthen that you bear Which the Lord in Mercy take off if it be his pleasure is the desire of Your Friend and Brother in the Fellowship of the Sufferings and Tribulation and also of the Consolation which we are called unto through Christ Jesus our Lord. I. B. The Copy of an Epistle sent to Friends at Bristol in the time of their Sufferings Written at Eaglesfield in Cumberland the 1st of the 6th Month 1682. Cork the 25th of the 10th Month 1682. Dear Friends IN the Everlasting Covenant of Life and Peace and in the pure spring of Divine Love in the same do I remember you and in Spirit reach unto you and very dearly salute you all who in the Faith that gives the Victory do remain and stand stedfast and so keep your Habitations and Dwellings in the Heavenly places in Christ Jesus your Redeemer who hath redeemed you out of the Wickedness that is in the World unto himself and so into his own Power and Nature which is righteous that you might become the Righteousness of God in him and so be restored into the Image Nature and State in which Man was Created by him that made all things good and Man in his own Image that he might delight in Man and that Man might honour and glorifie him Now this Work of Restauration you know God hath sent his Son to effect and accomplish in Man and for Man that again Man might honour his Creator and become the delight of his Maker whose delight is to dwell in the Habitable parts of the Earth even among the Sons of Men. And therefore that you may be his Delight and that he may take Pleasure in you do you all keep in that which hath Renewed or doth Renew and change the Heart and Spirit of the mind that in the Newness thereof you may serve and honour and glorifie him from whom the renewing Power and Word doth come that so the new Creation the new Heavens and Earth may be known wherein Righteousness doth dwell and that you may have your Conversation there and so shine as Lights among this crooked and perverse Generation in whose Heaven and Earth Unrighteousness doth dwell And therefore will the Lord as the Apostle said not only shake the Earth but the Heavens also that that which cannot be shaken may remain And truly I do believe that many ones Heaven will be shaken before this searching winnowing trying Day be over that 's growing on upon the Nations and People for the Heavens of many are grown over and covered with Darkness and thick Clouds and the Glory thereof is gone and the brightness and stedfastness thereof is lost not a Star to be seen except a Wanderer out of its course out of the Covenant that hath greatly lost its Light and so in the Clouds of Darkness driven to and fro by the variable uncertain Winds that are and may be suffered to blow to shake that which is shakable and remove that which will not endure that that which cannot be shaken may remain and the Glory of that may appear which will endure Dear Friends God hath manifested that which is sure for ever and will endure and stand and last and you have known the power of it and as you keep in the holy sense thereof you will be stedfast constant and firm in your Minds and not soon shaken nor removed from your Habitation and stedfastness in the Gospel of Christ Jesus our Lord which is the power of God which is above all Powers Thrones and Dominions and will stand and cannot be shaken For it s above Iohn's Ministration the Gospel Power and Kingdom is and he that 's least there is greater than Iohn and is come to that which is surer than a Reed that may be shaken with the Wind though it be not broken yet it may be shaken And therefore they that would dwell there and not come on to Christ the Rock that cannot be shaken their Dwelling is not safe their Habitation will be thrown down and their House made a Desolation Methinks I see it so in our Days upon such that have sitten down short of the Eternal Substance that ended all Shadows Iohn's as well as those that were before him And therefore dearly Beloved you that have known the Eternal Substance the living Power of the Lord Iesus Christ manifested in your Hearts by which you have been quickned raised up and made alive unto God keep to the Power in your Souls and mind its living in you that you therein may live unto God and so abide a living People through your Age God's living Witnesses in your Day without Alteration and so be such as have not only been Hearers of the Word but Doers also and so such whose House is built upon
Presence and before him shall the Hills Fly yea the Sea also shall Fly and Iordan shall be Driven back that his Ransomed may pass on his Redeemed People may Enter into their Rest. Oh! theresore let us Cleave unto the Lord our Saviour and so sollow Christ our Redeemer who can cut a passage through the great Deep let us not be dismayed at any thing that may rise up in our way to oppose us so long as our Leader is with us and our blessed Rock attends us and we feel our dwelling within the Munition thereof our Bread will be sure and our Water will not fail and our Hearts will not be barren nor our Souls will not be faint but we shall grow through the blessing of Israel's God and Live when with all their cunning the enemies of the Truth have contrived our overthrow For there is nothing can hurt us more in the Trying Day than want of Faith in God's Power and Arm of strength which never failed them that put their trust therein And therefore my dearly Beloved with whom my Soul is bound up in the Covenant of Life wherein I have Unity with you and can say although you bear the Burden yet my Heart is concerned for you and also with you in your Godly concern and Testimony for which you Suffer and therefore cannot you be forgotten by me For as we Love the Truth and the Holy Testimony thereof for which you Suffer and are in Bonds in Spirit we are often as Bound with you and fellow-feelers of your Burthens And furthermore we cannot propose to our selves any other than e're long to be Sharers with you to be Partakers of the like Sufferings Trials and Exercises and therefore still it is our safety to be Prepared in our Hearts and into the Will of God to be given up to Do or Suffer for his Name 's sake For our days do seem to be like the Days of Old wherein the Apostle said they were Killed all the Day long and accounted as Sheep for the Slaughter If we look into the Scriptures we have a Cloud of Witnesses and so through what was Written aforetime which was Written for our Learning we may have Comfort and our hope Strengthened and so be Encouraged to Trust in the Lord our Strength and in whom our Hope is And now it is still to be our care as Lambs or Sheep to Live in Innocency and so as Lambs to Suffer for our Innocency and for our Testimony which we are called unto and surely I often consider what more Innocent Practice can we ever be found in than in our Peaceable Meetings to Wait upon the Living God and to Worship him in his peaceable Spirit by which our Hearts come to be cleansed of all Evil and our Spirits gathered into the Peace and Love of God in which we Love God again and not only so but have our hearts filled with Love and Good will towards all Men in the Peace and Sweetness of which we are enabled to Pray for the Good of All even our Enemies And if this must be misinterpreted and our Righteous and Godly Intents counted a Transgression of the Law and a Breach of the Peace I do not know what such who so do can call Innocency For surely every one whose Heart is rightly Exercised in this Godly Duty which the Living God calls us unto must needs be Innocent before God and in that Frame of Spirit wherein we cannot nay dare not desire the Hurt of any but as the Truth ariseth Pray for all Men both for Rulers and People Thus I know under the Exercise of the Righteous Power of Christ in our Meetings are our Hearts qualified and then if we must Suffer for Well doing under the name of Evil-doers we shall be happy and may satisfy our selves with what Christ of old said The Servant is not greater than his Lord For if they accounted him a Blasphemer and said he had a Devil and so Persecuted him we may well look unto him and Comfort our selves in following such an Example And therefore be ye Comforted you Faithful Sufferers with Christ and for him and Comfort your Hearts in the Recompence of Reward which is with God for you and wait for the Spirit of God and of Glory that it may rest upon you And never look out for your Cause is Good it is that which God hath called you unto and you are happy in your Nobility and Valour and whosoever shrinks from their Innocent Testimony in this matter will suffer Loss in their Inward Condition for if any draw back such shall know the Lord will not go with them nor have any Pleasure in them nor be their Comforter but Reprover And therefore my Soul desires that all may be Valiant for the Truth and stand in the Power thereof unto what the Lord hath called unto that so you may be together as a City set on a Hill that cannot be hid For though the Foxes have Holes and the Fowls of the Air have Nests yet remember what Christ said to the Man that said he would follow him And so the Lord give you all Valour and Strength and Enrich you with true Patience which the Tribulation worketh into in the right Exercise that so you may all grow up into the true Experience and so into the Hope which makes not ashamed that the Love of God may be shed abroad in your Hearts every day by his Spirit which he hath given you And then will you all feel a dwelling in his Covenant and in his Peace And so in this Covenant Peace and Love I very dearly Salute you all and in it do I still remain Your Friend and Brother I. B. Castle-Salem in the West of Ireland the 30th of the 10th Month 1682. J. B's Epistle to Friends in Glocester-Prison Dear Friends UNTO you who are Faithful Sufferers in that City with the rest of the Faithful in that City and Country who in your Hearts are given up to Suffer for the holy Name of the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour who hath Called and Redeemed Chosen and given you Hearts not only to believe but also to suffer for his Name 's sake and thus hath counted you worthy as Vessels of his Choice unto you all I say in the Name and Love of Christ Jesus our Lord I send Greeting and with-all the tender Salutation of my Soul and Spirit in that near Affection and holy Union into which by the power of the Holy Ghost we have been gathered and united So that as Members of that one Body into which we have been Baptized by that one Spirit wherein the true access unto God doth stand we have our Fellowship together and so drink together into that one Spirit and are refreshed with the Water that flows from the living Rock that followed Israel of Old who is the Rock of our Age the stay of the Generation of the Righteous in this Day that upon which we have our sure standing so
that we cannot easily be moved Though the Winds do blow and the Waters swell and toss and the unestablished be driven to and fro and so afflicted in their Spirits yet this Rock abides for a Habitation and Being of Safety unto all them that keep firm thereunto and so do abide near in their Spirit unto the holy Power thereof they find the living Spring of that Grace from the same in their Souls that the World cannot take away whose Treasure the Thief cannot steal nor the Moth waste for its Heavenly and kept by a Heavenly Hand And such who mind this will be ready to offer up their Earthly Substance and also themselves into his Hand and Will out of which no Man is able to pluck And surely in this Day there is no true Rest nor Satisfaction to the Souls or Spirits of Friends but as they get hither in the Faith with their Hearts and Spirits And when we are here spiritually oh this holy Shield how doth it defend Oh the holy Rock how do we sit under the shadow of it Oh the holy Ioy that the Dwellers upon this do feel in their Spirits though the Tempest be great Oh the God of Heaven keep us all in the holy sense of this that our Spirits may be born up from sinking under our Exercises in the Trial that so we may all glorify him in our Day Dearly Beloved you tender suffering Children whose Hearts are tender of God's Glory and therefore are willing to give up your selves and your all for his Name 's sake that you may be of that number who following the Lamb whithersoever he goes and not loving your Lives unto Death that may stand with him upon Mount Sion My Heart and Soul is knit unto you and you are near me and in the unity of the antient Life I feeling Love abundantly to flow unto you you have had a proof of the sincerity of my Love of old unto you And truly you that stand in your innocent Testimony faithfully do ingage my Heart still more and more in Love unto you Oh the tender meltings of my Spirit in the sweetness of the Love of God in which I reach you and rejoyce with you in your Ioy which all the Wrath of Man cannot put a stop unto I know your Hearts are at ease and your Spirits free and the Weights and Burdens from off you who are freely given up to suffer though in these Bonds outwardly But there can be no such spiritual Portion received by any that shrink from their Testimony in this Day of Trial. For the Word is true for ever They that suffer with him shall reign with him He the Captain was made perfect through Sufferings he must be followed by all that come in the fulness to pertake with him of his Glory And such who draw back and would find a place of Safety for themselves to escape their Sufferings for their Testimony though they should fly to the uttermost parts of the Earth the Lord's hand will find them out and there will not only be a holding back of the Portion but a spiritual Pain will overtake where the Heart is tender and because thereof uneasie will every ones place be unto their Spirits And therefore my dear Friends keep in the Faith and Word that Iustifies and then will you reign in the Seed that 's heir for ever wherein you will Overcome and Inherit and be Conquerors and so Triumph with the Lamb that must have the Victory before whose Feet the Crowns of all the Mighty must be laid down unto whom the Kings of the Earth and all Flesh must bow in him we trust his Heavenly Kingdom we wait for and pray for the coming of that even such as are our Enemies by the power thereof may be Converted unto God and so have an Inheritance with us in that Kingdom that hath no End That so Mankind might rest together in that Hope that makes not ashamed where the Love of God might be shed abroad in all Hearts by his Spirit Thus God is filling the Hearts of his Children with good Will towards all The Lord keep us therein for ever Dear Friends by this know that I am well and am now come to have a share with you of the Sufferings that attend for the Gospel's sake I have been three Weeks a Prisoner here in the Marshalsee of Dublin So in the true Fellowship of the Gospel am a Partaker with you both of the Sufferings and Consolation that attend us for the Testimony thereof I remain From the Marshals in the City of Dublin the 25 th of the 6 th Month 1683. Your Brother I. B. Dublin the 19th of the 6th Month 1685. Dear J. Banck UNTO thee with thy fellow-Prisoners who suffer for the blessed Testimony of that precious Truth in which we have believed doth the real and tender Affection and Love of my Heart and Soul flow forth at this time and in the sweetness and peaceableness of that which is our Life do I dearly salute you and in the unity thereof tenderly greet you all whose Hearts are kept up in that and under the holy conduct of it for which you suffer In this have we our unity which in it self lives and reigns over all and shall reign in its own pure Dominion and Dignity even the Power of our Lord Iesus Christ to whom Principalities and Thrones and Dominions must be subject It is for the Testimony of him you know that you suffer to wit the Testimony of Iesus which you have received from him by his Spirit and thereby have it sealed in your Hearts Though many do not understand the weight and certainty of your Testimony for which you suffer and therefore may look lightly upon it yet you who are enjoyers of the Power and so have received the Spirit of Iesus which is the Spirit of Prophesy and so his Testimony therein you feel the Weight of it and know the Certainty of the Testimony for which you suffer and so in your Sufferings have your Peace and Iustification And therefore my dearly Beloved in the Lord see that you all hold that fast in all your Hearts in the inward rich Possession of it for which you suffer that you may feel your Reward with you and your Comforter in you to bear up your Spirits over all your Sufferings and so you will have a Satisfaction in your selves that whatever others say or may think of your Sufferings and the reason thereof you know within your selves that it is for the Truth and its Testimony that you suffer and for the keeping of your Consciences clear in the sight of God And so in the hidden Man of the Heart you rest in quietness in that hidden Life which you receive from Christ and here is your Peace and Comfort which no Man can take from you no nor Man knows of it but such as are in Fellowship with you who live in and love the same Testimony And therefore those that know
not your Reward your Crown nor your Peace cannot reach to take it a way and that is our Joy that we have a Crown and Inheritance that is out of their sight and so out of their reach Oh therefore let all take heed that through carelesness or looseness of Spirit or any other thing you be not beguiled or betrayed from that to the losing of it while you are suffering for it You know my Friends it is possible such things have been even in our Age that while some have been suffering for the Truth they have been betrayed from the Truth and the Innocency and Simplicity of it in their Hearts and so have lost the Truth even that for which they were called to suffer For you know it is an inward thing and must be held in the inward unity of the Mind in a spiritual Fellowship and if there be not a care even while we are in one thing doing for the Truth in the outward in the inward we may lose it and our Justification by it and then whither shall we go for our Peace and Recompence The God of my Life give you all Wisdom and Fear and fill you with holy Reverence that you may still stand in awe before him and be watchful over your spiritual Path and the Feet of your Souls and Minds that you may invisibly tread in the invisible way of Peace and Righteousness And Dear Friends live in Peace and Love together amongst your selves and in a holy solid Life before all Men keeping out of the Spirit of the World in all things that as it is upon a Religious Account that you suffer you may appear in all other things to be Religious Men or otherwise you know the Truth cannot be honoured by your suffering For if Men that suffer for or upon the account of Religion appear not to be Religious Men this overthrows the Glory and Beauty of their Religion and brings it into Dis-esteem amongst Men And therefore did Christ command that our Light should shine before Men by their seeing of our good Works c. And Dear Friends have a care of provoking one another unto any thing that is Evil but endeavour to stir up and provoke one another unto Love and good Works that you may build up one another therein and so help to bear one anothers Burthen and fulfill the Law of Christ that you may all be kept up together in the Iustification and Peace And so Dear Friends my Heart's Love being unto you I send these few lines as a Testimony thereof by which you may know you are in my remembrance in the Love of God and my Heart hath an honourable Esteem of your Testimony and your Sufferings in Righteousness for the same I desire to be remembred to Friends in the Country both below Carlisle and above and Friends in the City to Io. Carlisle and Family with the rest My Wife 's dear Love is to you all My Love is with you Farewell From your Friend I. B. Dublin the 12 th of the 8 th Month 1685. Dear Friends IN the universal Spirit of Life and Truth and of Righteousness and Peace doth the tender Affection and pure Love of my Heart flow forth and reach unto you all who are true Lovers of the Power and the Holiness of the same wherein alone it is that we bear the Image of him whose Name is Holiness and his Nature and Being is Purity so that in that only we do draw and may draw near unto him and have Fellowship with him and enjoy his Presence who is our God our Life and Salvation And therefore in the Unity of that whereby we have been quickened and through which we Live unto him that hath quickned us do I exhort and beseech you all to mind with Reverence his secret and sweet Visitations by his Holy Power upon your Spirits in your Hearts that you feel that to appear there and so through the brightness of its appearing to destroy him whose coming is after the Working of Satan with all Power c. and with all Deceivableness of Unrighteousness in them that Perish And not only to appear and destroy him and his Works but also to abide with you and dwell in you and so make you his dwelling-place And then you being Watchful shall not Watch in vain because the Lord then will be your keeper and then as one said of old He keeping the City the Watch-man watcheth not in vain Thus you may see it fulfilled in your own Hearts unto your own Souls and so have Comfort and Confidence with Holy David and with him Live above the fear of Evil though you might walk through the Shadow of Death as he said because of the Lord 's being with you And therefore Friends see that you all be mindful of him in his Appearing by his Power and Spirit of Grace in your Hearts and let him have Room there and not to be straitned or thronged up or oppressed for he delights to dwell alone there and have the whole Heart to himself and at his own disposing that he may Fill it with that which he takes Pleasure in and in which he only may be Glorified and Honoured And therefore doth he require the Heart saying My Son give me thy Heart And Christ Commands That we should Love him with all our Hearts c. So as I said let him have room in your Hearts and take heed that with this World the Spirit of it Nature of it and Love to the things therein your Hearts be not filled and so taken up that there be not room for him whose coming is with such Glory and Fulness that he fitls all that are rightly poor and empty with that Fulness Richness and Glory that there can be no want to them that have him for their Portion and Inheritance and so keep single in their Hearts before him But where the Heart is filled with Delight in or desire after other things out of the Covenant of God which is out of his Favour there the Lord will not have delight to Dwell there is not room nay he will not have delight to appear there because it will be his Grief and an Oppression unto him Was it not so of old when he took up his Complaint against both Iudah and Israel As you may see Amos 2. how the Lord pleads with them and threatens them what he would bring upon them for their Sins that he reckons up against them and withall to aggravate their Crimes as he might justly do he also reckons up and tells them what he had done for them how he had destroyed the Amorites for their sakes brought them out of the Land of Egypt led them in the Wilderness given them the Land of the Amorites to Possess raised of their Sons to be Prophets and their young Men to be Nazarites But saith he unto them Ye gave my Nazarites Wine to Drink and commanded my Prophets saying Prophesy not behold I am pressed under
you as a Cart is pressed that is full of Sheaves saith he Hence it may be understood that when he hath been at work and hath done good by his glorious Power who worketh wonderfully for them and now in them also that believe in his Power if there be a going from him and a letting in of other things into the Heart where he should Rule and have his Dwelling in Man and so with Man it becomes a Grief and an Oppression unto him and so a Provocation that he will not always bear it nor spare Man though he is long-suffering as may be seen very fully in that Prophesy of Amos and more at large through the Scripture which was written for our Learning that we might be warned and thereby be stirred up unto that diligence care and watchfulness which may tend to our preservation And now considering these things that were of old and observing how that in our Age the Lord hath made known his wonted goodness unto us even that which doth far exceed the outward Priviledges of outward Israel for that which he blesseth us withall is a Possession and Enjoyment of a degree of his own Life who is the Creator by which he Created all things which is more than the Enjoyment of the Creature the Loss of which was the great penalty laid upon Adam if he broke the Command which he having lost is again restored unto us through Christ Iesus the Second Adam the Lord from Heaven which we having received do thereby live unto God and therein serve him And so Dear Friends the thing that is chiefly in my mind unto you in the reach of the Heavenly Bowels is To intreat and beseech you all To be tender in your Hearts and careful over your Spirits that you may not let in nor join with any thing that will bring Grief or Oppression upon your Life or lead you into the Transgression of the Law thereof Mind the Exhortation of the Apostle Grieve not the Spirit by which you are Sealed c. And so as you are careful watchful and wise to take heed unto the Holy Conduct and Blessed Leadings and Direction of this Spirit and the Law thereof your Souls will dwell in Peace and your Feet will tread in a safe Path even the Path of Peace and your Steps will not Slide but you will witness what David said of old to be true The Righteous shall inherit the Land and dwell therein forever for saith he The mouth of the Righteous speaketh Wisdom and his Tongue talks of Iudgment The Law of his God is in his Heart none of his steps shall slide So here you see what it is that keeps from Sliding the Law of God which is in the Heart this preserved David for it was as a Lanthorn to his Feet and a Light unto his Paths Oh! my Dear Friends you may be happy yea we may all be happy if we be as careful as we ought to walk by this Rule Oh! the Sweetness Peace and Glory that he fills the Hearts of all his People with that take heed unto his Law the Spirit is not grieved the Life of the Soul is not Oppressed the Soul Life or Spirit of Man is at ease and so in the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God and so in that state where it can Sing unto the Lord and Praise him And therefore all of you mind your Dwelling and inward Liberty and Spiritual Freedom from all the Corruptions of the World and of the Flesh both inwardly in your selves and all Temptations from without that you may reign in the Dominion of the Seed Christ Iesus for ever and so with him be Co-heirs of that Heavenly Inheritance and Possession which he hath Purchased for you And so in the Unity of that Life which reigns over all do I very dearly Salute you all who Love the Truth and in that do I desire that the God of Life may bear up your Spirits by his Power over and a top of all that would Defile or Oppress that you may be preserved to remain the Sons and Daughters of God without Rebuke in and among this Crooked and Perverse Generation amongst whom do you Shine as Lights to the Glory of him who hath called you out of Darkness into his Marvellous Light who over all is worthy of Glory and Honour and Dominion World without End From Your Friend and Brother in the Truth I. B. Dublin the 23 d of the 11 th Month 1685. Dear R. R. IN the Love and Unity of the Blessed Truth which lives and abides for Ever do I very dearly Salute thee and thy Wife and therein is my Heart's desire for you unto the Lord that by his blessed Hand and Power you may be born up and supported under all Exercises that may attend and in your minds Preserved with an invisible Eye unto the Lord taking notice of his Orderings as it is his Hand that brings to pass what he sees Good and then in his Fear and Love there will be a Reverent Submitting unto his Will without Murmuring or Repining at what the Lord doth Though Nature in the True and Natural Affection which good Men and Women cannot be without may be broken and greatly bowed down yet as long as the mind is preserved from Murmuring at what the Lord doth it will be well there will be a Heart Capable of giving him his due as it was with Iob. Dear R. I must needs say my Heart is concerned for you both upon thy own Account having heard of thy great Weakness there and Affliction thou hast been under and also because of the Loss of thy Dear and Tender Daughter who in your Absence is taken away both from you and us But what shall I say It is so and the Lord hath done it and it is not safe to Dispute the Case with him or say Why hath he done so But tenderly submit unto his Will and bless him that gives and takes away as he sees good However this I think I may say to thee and thy Wife with safety you need not sorrow as such who have no Hope because of the ground God hath given for a sure Hope of her Eternal Well-being which is the Mark we are all Pressing towards and they are happy that do obtain it For I was with her that same day that she Dyed in the Afternoon and had a serious weighty season with her She sent for me and told me as soon as I came to her That now she was satisfied she must Die and her Heart was wholly set after her Assurance of Peace with the Lord and her desires to us to wit her Husband and me was That the Doctor might not trouble her or meddle with her for she was not willing to be molested or hindred from a quiet Departure For her Heart was set after a peaceable Departure out of this World as was evident from her words several times And she was very sensible and did speak to me with
bring you to a Reformation that the People you may lead in Errour no longer We conclude and remain Desirers of the Good of all Men. Dated the 13th of the 4th Month 1688. Iohn Burnyeat Iohn Watson An Addition of two Epistles of Iohn Burnyeat's to Friends in Long-Island and Barbadoes which came to Hand since the Printing of the former Long-Island the 23d of the 5th Month 1666. Dearly Beloved WHO are called to be Saints and to believe in the only Begotten of God the Father which he hath raised to be the Horn of Salvation in the House of his Servant David to rule over the Redeemed in Israel for ever unto you are my Bowels opened in pure unfained Love and in the plentiful flowing of the same at this time doth my Soul dearly salute you all who keep faithful unto the Beloved and live in the power of his Salvation over all the fallen Spirits which are in the World which brings into bondage With you my Soul hath Unity in the Life which was before Transgression and the Fall was and in that My Friends are you written in my heart and often in my remembrance even when my Supplication is poured forth unto the Lord in the behalf of his People that you in that place among the rest of his heavenly Flock and Sheep of his own Pasture may be safely kept by the right hand of his power from the Devourer and from the deceitful Snares of the Enemy which are laid as Traps by the cunning flight of Satan to ensnare the Simple and betray the Innocent from the simplicity of the Gospel which ye have received in Christ Jesus our Lord in which as ye have believed ye have found Salvation and Peace and Rest unto your Immortal Souls I even as a Brother and one that entirely loves you with that unfeigned love which thinks no evil do at this time beseech you all in the fear of God to see that ye Walk Circumspectly answerable unto the Gospel of Christ Iesus in which ye have believed that ye may adorn the same in your Lives and Conversations as Children of the Light and of the Day bringing forth the Fruits of the Spirit in Righteousness and true Holiness and not the Fruits of the Flesh in the night and in the darkness in which they walk who follow not the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore My Friends stand fast in your Liberty in which Christ Jesus hath made you free and be not entangled with the Yoak of Bondage but mind purely the operation of the Eternal Spirit and invisible power of the everlasting God which he hath made manifest and revealed in your hearts by which you have in measure known Liberty from the Bondage of Corruption the corruptible Bond and have tasted of the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God in which your Souls have found pleasure I say Friends mind all its lively Operation in your hearts and wait upon it with diligence that your hearts may be kept clear and the eye of your Understandings single that you may purely distinguish and put a difference between the pretious and the vile between that in which the Lord is to be Worshipped and that in which there is no Acceptance with God And so will you come more and more to know how to chuse the good and refuse the evil And Friends in the freedom of God's Spirit and in his fear I warn you all Take heed of a fleshly Liberty beyond or above the pure fear which keeps the heart clean for that will let in Pollutions and bring the Just into Bondage and your Souls into death again where there will be a want of the pure presence of God to refresh them although the Boaster may boast of liberty and promise it as they did in the Apostles days who themselves were the Servants of Corruption And so My Dear Friends whom my Soul loves with the heavenly love that seeks the good of all you who have tasted of the love of God and of the power of the World which is to come and of the power of that life which is without end Keep Constant in the Faith unto the Beloved of your Soul and gad not abroad to change your way like her whose Feet abides not in her house but runs out after other Lovers and so lose the first Love For this the Lord reproved the Church in the days of the entrance of the Apostacy when they begun to decline from the purity of the Gospel And therefore as ye have received that which is unchangeable live in it that your Souls may never die from the sense of God's Love and the feeling of his vertuous presence that in the joy and peace that is unspeakable and full of glory you may abide and for ever live where your Souls may be refreshed from day unto day and from time unto time through the multiplying of his numberless Mercies by which he nourisheth all them that fear him and wait upon him And so will you all keep lively and vertuous in a growing and flourishing Condition fruitful bringing forth fruit to his praise who hath called you And as you keep unto the power of God which is the Cross unto that part which would be out and dwell in it your mind will be setled and stayed and kept clear and the understanding open whereby you may behold the Glory of God and be kept in Covenant with him and so feed upon his Mercies with all his Lambs and Children and lye down in the fold of Rest and Safety with the Sheep of his pasture in Covenant with him for evermore In which I remain Your Friend and Brother J. B. For Friends in the Barbadoes New-England Virginia and Maryland the Signification of my purest Love unto you all amongst whom I have travel'd in those parts Friends IN the eternal Truth and Power of the Lord God dwell and keep your Habitations in that which changes not in the power of an endless life where there is no shadow of turning All you that have known the Lord and have been sensible of the Word of his Eternal Power in your hearts by which you have been quickned unto him so that with the rest of his beloved ones you have been made Partakers of that heavenly treasure of Life and Vertue which is in him and through his Son is manifested unto us by whom Life and Immortality is brought to Light unto you all without respect of Persons doth the Love of my Soul reach and the Salutation of my Life at this time having you fresh in my Rememberance In the Bowels of true Love is my Heart opened and my Spirit drawn forth in this word of Exhortation unto you all who have tasted that the Lord is gracious That you all take heed of turning from the Grace of God into Wantonness Laciviousness or any vanity whatsoever by which your Hearts may be defiled But that ye all watch unto the Truth and wait upon the preserving power of the Lord
God that ye may reign in the dominion of the same over all the evil Lusts of the Flesh which would arise in your hearts to war against the Spirit of Holiness and so would hinder your Sanctification This of a truth Friends you ought to take heed unto even the Spirit of Holiness and Power of the Lord our God which in this latter Age he hath largely manifested for to sanctifie his People that so your hearts may be kept clean and preserved according to Christ's Command out of the surfeiting with the Cares of this Life and from being overcome with and drowned in the Pleasures and Vanities of this World that you may never lose the excellency and glory of these heavenly things which God the Father in the bountifulness of his loving kindness hath been pleased to manifest with which all the glory of this present World is not to be compared And so my Dear Friends you that feel the Lord and his goodness in your hearts Walk Circumspectly as before him with Reverence and Godly Fear in the holy Awe that you may not provoke him at any time nor grieve his holy Spirit by which you are Sealed but with tenderness of heart and pureness of mind wait upon him at all times So will your Peace spring up as a River and your Righteousness be multiplied as the Waves of the Sea and so over all the choaking Cares of this Life and drowning Pleasures of this present vain World you will be preserved to have a being in the power of that life which is without end In which as there is a dwelling faithfully you will all grow and increase in the dominion over all hurtful Lusts that war against the Soul in your own particulars And also there will be a growing over all hurtful Spirits that have entred since the beginning whose Life is in the Fall and not in the pure Redemption nor in the redeeming Power that brings out of the Fall And so to the Lord God Friends be ye all faithful in your places that you may be a blessing in your Generation in those Countries and Places where ye dwell that the Nations may be seasoned that your savory life may sweeten the People And Friends have an eye to the Glory of God and the Honour of his Truth in all your undertakings I even command you in his fear it being upon me by his Spirit that the Lord's name may not be blasphemed among the Heathen through your unfaithfulness For truly my love being great towards you I am jealous over you with a godly jealousie and therefore am constrained to use great plainness as having a sense of your state And therefore be ye provoked unto Love and to good Works in a faithful obedience and serving of the power for it s in that that all accepted And lay aside all Wrath and Clamour and evil Speaking with all bitterness and receive with meekness the ingrafted Word which is able to save your Souls And in the power of that dwell and it will divide aright between the Pretious and the Vile and so will cut off all that is not of God not regarding what may be professed where the living vertue is wanting This pure living Word is your Preserver that keep faithful in it and will keep you from all deceiveableness and lying Spirits which are not of the Father but of the World and from the God of the same in the dark power beguiling the unstable Soul through his lying Signs and Wonders in the power of darkness without living vertue And this Word which you have received will live in your hearts and minister daily of its own vertue into your Souls for their refreshment if you keep faithful unto the same But if the Thorny Cares of this life and the choaking Pleasures of this vain World take root and place in your hearts then the freshness is lost the issue of living vertue is stopt the ministring word and power is with-drawn the Fountain again is sealed up and the dry Winds and the scorching heat comes and dries up and causes to wither the green Blade before the Corn comes to perfection So that the harvest and time of gathering never comes Therefore O my Friends be faithful unto the Lord and be not drawn aside from the stedfastness of the Gospel neither on the one hand nor on the other but step in the straight path of Life Peace and Salvation which the Lord hath prepared for your feet that the Weak may be strengthned and the Lame recovered and none turned out of the way For truly there is much upon you I feel it in this matter even you that feel the Lord in any measure that you all be vigilant and diligent in your places that you may be a strength unto the Weak And therefore am I moved once more to warn you now you even you that know the Lord To take heed unto the power of the Lord God in your hearts and with that keep down the earthly worldly Spirit that so you live over it in the Spirit and Power of the Lord may draw more unto you or else I feel it you will not only be guilty of your own Blood but the Blood of others also which stumble at your unfaithfulness who have been call'd and accounted as the first Fruits unto God and unto the Lamb in those parts of the World in this blessed day of the Lord in which he hath appeared and gathered by his power and also doth preserve and nourish by the vertue of the same all that he hath gathered whose trust and confidence is in him And so My Friends this may give you to understand that I am safely arrived in England and am perfectly well every way And Friends here are generally well Meetings very large and the Truth in good esteem among many People who are not yet of us And great openness in all places where I have been in the hearts of all People and great desires to hear the Truth for it is of good Report This from Me who remain Your Friend and Brother J. B. The END 1671. In our going down to Virginia we were in great danger and had like to have been Castaway with a North-west Storm 1672. 1673. 1674. 1675. 1676. * * The Earl of Arran This was Amos Strettel's Marriage As at large may be seen in George Bishop's two Books entituled New-England judged * * Iohn Smith Witness Thomas Smith Iohn Kelson Thomas Cole