spirit in obedience to his Father and in all his work knew no sin yet he himself was made sin His Father by a superiour Law judged him as the sinner and acquitted pardoned and justified them This is Christs way first reprove severely as a legal Minister purely and holily and finding that short or weak he layes down his life for them he had condemned And when he had administred the Law in its highest purity he then nailed it to the Cross as a weak thing that could not save and died under it to bring in a better Law of peace and forgiveness The fourth and last is the best the reproofs of the Spirit which Christ prefers above his own John 16.7 8 c. It is expedient that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgement Christ reproved of sin from righteousness The spirit reproved of sin and righteousness Christ reproved of sin in the flesh in weakness as under it and the Law and so grieved at it The Spirit reproved of sin and of righteousness in glory and power because saith Christ I go to my Father where he was glorified Being now exalted not only over their sins but by the worst of their sins by their crucifying of him The Son of man was lifted up His love and life overcame both Law Sin Death and the Devil having taken away their sins his Spirit could now manifest to them this one only sin unbelief That there was in him love peace pardon and salvation for them and their worst sins hatred of him that he had born them himself and was acquitted of them and so they were all done away and this sin only remained that they believed not this blessed and mighty grace that could overcome all that evil and bring forth glory to himself and good to them out of their sins and his death And this the Spirit did not only declare but convince so strongly that they could not resist it For his own descending upon them was an undeniable proof of it He convinces of righteousness by shewing that they had a righteousness as well as sin and that as their sins were Christs so his righteousness was theirs that their righteousness was with the Father in a heavenly invisible state because I go to the Father That this is true his own coming as Gods gift is a sufficient proof And therefore it is conviction with judgement or of Sin Righteousness and Judgement For except both the evil and the good be produced both Sin and Righteousness in the light and power of the Spirit there may be wrath administred but not Judgement It is said of Judgement because the Prince of this world is Judged And that is true Judgement that convinces the creature of Sin and of Righteousness and by the Spirit releases him and judges the wicked one the enemy that is the principal the author and worker of all this mischief This Judgement doth right to man to Christ and to God to man it humbles and abases him and brings him to God where his righteousness is It doth right to Christ and the sufficiency of his love life death and resurrection to save the world And it exalts God his love mercy fulness and justice that he hath the righteousness of the whole world with him and that he hath accepted Christ to it as Lord and Prince of the whole world as head of man and hath given him power and spirit to reveal and dispence that righteousness freely to whom he will Now it much concerns you and me and all men that are busie in reproving others to examine our selves by these things what kind of reproofs we do administer If you will admit your work to be tried which you now cannot avoid upon a little humble and sober consideration you will find that in the administration of condemnation upon the Magistracy and Ministry of Church and Kingdom persons and things officers and offices you are very much short of the second of these which I call a Legal or Angelical reproof and punishment for sin For true legal lawful or angelical justice is administred First upon men as Gods creatures made in his image and so his children though drawn away by Satan into the worst evils It is secondly not to ruine or destroy but to reform Thirdly it is by a just holy stable Law and not from mens uncertain and broken imaginations Fourthly it is from a just holy and godly life and nature If these things be true as they are then consider What spirit have you acted in Is it not mercy and justice to you and all men that this should be known That you dealt with them not as men but as brats of Antichrist And sought not to reform either persons or things but to destroy root branch abjure and curse for ever And that by no steddy known Law of God or man such you never could own or profess but by uncertain opinions and imaginations which you never were nor could be true to or agree in either for Church or Common-wealth yea generally ye acted besides all rule Law and authority only by that you call necessity self preservation and interest And this you did not from a pure nature as is too grosly manifest but from a mixture at least of pride envy malice covetousness and self-seeking seen now by your selves and all men If you fall so short of the second I know you will not presume once to think of the third kind which Christ our Lord administred in the flesh first to discover sin and then to bear the curse and punishment of it himself This was â—nce an example and the Saints of old were called to practise the same thing read 1 Pet. 2.19 20 c. and chap. 3.17 18. But alas you are not yet instructed in the doctrine of such a thing but are taught the contrary that this is only for Christ to do and not for men But you are sheep gone astray and led away by false spirits and for the present have lost the Sheeps nature and acted as Woolves When you return unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls chap. 2. v. 25. he will teach you another and more excellent way And therefore as you are short of the second so you are opposite to the third in the very form of your spirits For Christ the holy one dies for the ungodly your holiness serves only to punish and destroy the ungodly his holiness to your practice must needs seem either unrighteous or foolish and impolitick to suffer the just for the unjust and only for well-doing and to commit his cause to God Why did ne not justifie himself and condemn others Had he power in his hands Yes he could command legions and that of Angels Why then did he not cut off the wicked out of
it is that upholds this state and spirit of opposition in your minds In order to peace I must pursue this enemy and if I can beat him out of all his holds therefore bear with me it is the enemy I pursue not you if he have gotten possession of your minds gifts and cause he will destroy you and them For I constantly find that he is worse to the subject then the object he doth more mischief much to him in whom he lives them to him whom he kills And he that acts wrath must needs be worse then he that suffers it For he that acts it is the servant and subject of that enemy or enmity but thâ— patient by suffering from it is removed from it into the contrary state the Lamb therefore enmity when it gets into an active knowing zealous people it is dangerously seated If it be by war success and advantage gotten into your hearts affections and spirits though I do some violence to all these to remove him if I be not judged a friend I am sure I am so For none but a friend will pursue enmity it self and my war is with enmity it self and my endeavour is to destroy it Let us therefore consider what it is that engages your minds so stiffly in an opposition to and hatred of the present authority of the Nation It is some Spiritual and Religious thing that commands your consciences and over-rules your judgements to that which to sense and reason is so full of danger It hath the place and power of a God in you and requires this of you under the notion of godliness and as a service to him and his cause You being so engaged it must needs be a high provocation to you for a man to question your God Religion and Principles I need not wonder if you be enraged at me You were dull souls if you did not come forth against me with all the might and power of your Zeal and Religion to condemn me for blaspheming your Cause Indeed I do not blame you for being angry at me I rather blame you that you do like women fret and scold but do not bring forth your reason against me If there be any courage or strength in you I shall do what I can to engage it It may be a mercy to you to draw you off from a fleshly and worldly contest with the Nation which will ruine you to a spiritual and friendly strife about Gods Principles and Religions In which war we shall draw no blood wast no treasure destroy no families nothing will be hurt that is right and good nothing be lost but the chaff and dust With this fire and sword of Spirit and Word will God plead with all flesh This is truly and only the war of God for the cause of God And the weapons of this warfare are not carnal but spiritual mighty to pull down the strongest holds of the enemy With this fire and sword of the Word and Spirit God pleads with all flesh with all Parties with all opinions Episcopal Prosbyterian Independants Anabaptists A fleshly war by fleshly means in a fleshly spirit of pride envy impatience self-seeking c. may destroy men but encreases division multiplies corruption provokes sin in the subdued swells it in the conqueror fills all with misery But this war is of one God one life one peace one salvation against all men in their fleshly opposing one another and proud exalting themselves one over another and destroys no men nor sort of men but the evil and enmity of all it destroyes only him that destroyes the earth The standard that I do advance in this war is love the royal Law of love love to man to mankind to all men to humane nature love to sinners to enemies to the worst of sinners You are religiously and conscientiously engaged to oppose pray against curse and destroy the present Magistracy and Ministry of the Nation because it is corrupt and sinfull both persons and things This was your cause and spirit and still is except you repent and desert the principles in which you have been acted Against this spirit and religion do I advance this standard it was asserted in my former Book but not raised high enough to be publikely observed or dealt with It is more fully this Since God hath revealed his good will to mankind and his large mercy to all men to sinners and enemies not only to the godly but to the ungodly and unrighteous and made his own example a Law and Rule in his house to all his children He that hateth his brother is in darkness knows not lives not in the true light of Christ is not of Gods mind If he saith he is in the light and pretends to religion and the way of God he is a liar and is in darkness until now and knoweth not whither he goeth 1 John 2.9 11. I know this is exceeding strange and contrary to the whole frame of religion wherein you have been exercised these many years For of late all religion and light hath only served to hate and destroy and in this kind of religion the further and higher men go the more they hate and with more cruel hatred first hate the evil Council then the King then the Lords then the Commons First hate the Bishops then the Ministers then the Presbyterian equal to the Episcopal then the Independant and Anabaptist Churches then all Religion and so one generation of hatred ha h begot another worse and worse but no salvation no healing no pardoning any Sure this is very different from that large and universal good will that is declared by Christ This hatred is condemned here to darkness to the Prince of darkness who is the enemy the wicked or malignant one For if we walk in the light as God is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Christ cleanseth from us all sin He is in the light and in him is no darkness at all the darkness is no darkness to him he doth not stumble is not offended at it he is pure and holy and nothing can pollute and defile him he shines in darkness and the darkness comprehends him not thanks him not loves him not yet he shines still And they that have fellowship with him may be and are where he is and see as he sees do as he doth and not be polluted or offended he that is taught of God as God is so is he in this world he shines in darkness and is not comprehended by it nor subjected to it nor offended at it and therefore quarrels not with them that are in it but pitties pardons and relieves them yea though they are not only dark and ignorant but malitious and spitefull against him and would destroy him yet he sets not himself against them but on the contrary feeds clothes sustains their outward and inward man their bodies and souls And this he doth as an example and pattern to his
the intent of this Treatise to bring you off from that and to shew you a more excellent way Your former ministry is finished that state is perished you must have a new one Read diligently and you will find here is an entrance into that which will not fail I know the prejudices you have against me I know that there is weakness in what I write both may disadvantage my work I leave it to the Lord of all hearts and spirits The things I have written are I think just and it is just I should publish them The Law of love and truth in my mind led me to it and upheld me in it and therefore I am satisfied in my self And in the righteousness truth and faithfulness of God in whom I live and rest Yours W. S. The Contents SECT I. SHews the nature of the offences taken at the Inquisition and the Authors sense of them SECT II. Shews the justice due to them and the friendly way of dealing with them SECT III. Censures the Book and first for its unseasonableness with the cause of it and the Authors suffering for it SECT IV. Censures the multiplicity of things in the Inquisition and the sharpness of its reproofs Of several kinds of reproof SECT V. Opens the Allegories in the Inquisition and shews the thing intended in it A tryal of principles in order to peace SECT VI. Prosecutes the same thing of peace and shews the necessity and possibility of it And examines the ground upon which the opposition stands SECT VII Compares the Old Cause 1. With the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt 2. Out of Babylon 3. With the ministry of Christ and the Apostles SECT VIII Measures the same cause by the Propheticall Scriptures and compares it with Zion her self SECT IX Further examines the ground of the enmity and advances a standard of love SECT X. The original cause of the war it ceased SECT XI Hatred blinds the eyes else we may see that there is good in enemies with which we may agree There is good and evil in both Parties SECT XII Shews the root of enmity is the Devil How opposite it is to the Kingdom of Christ SECT XIII War and enmity are not for but against holiness SECT XIV Common liberty not to be in nor to be attained by war and opposition SECT XV. Liberty of Conscience animadverted Not to be obtained but by agreement with the Magistrate SECT XVI Animadverts the late sufferings and shews the nature and kind of them SECT XVII Considers the late Insurrection with respect to what hath been written and the use of it to both sides SECT XVIII Shews a rational and easie way for all opposite Parties to obtain a Treaty and by it an Agreement with his Majesty both for his security and their safety ANIMADVERSIONS Upon a Book entituled Inquisition for the Blood of our late Soveraign c. AND Upon the offence taken at it Sect. I. THat I did deny my name to go forth with that Book when it was first published was I think a foolish or weak niceness Possibly the want of that courage and confidence that was due both to my self and it may expose both to the greater contempt But I did resolve in my mind and promise that if ever it came to be questioned I would own it and either correct and amend it if it needed or else justifie and defend it if it deserved it What I promise is ordinarily required of me and if it be I am bound to perform it There is a justice due to things as well as to persons If to any thing then certainly to a mans own works which are his children and therefore he ought to Father them and either to call them home or maintain them abroad A mans Spirit Religion and Name are all tender things if I have any sense of any of them or of my self and what I have done I cannot but resent the grievous offence that is taken at that book and at me for writing of it The minds of many are exceedingly disturbed at it and the censures run as high against it and me as possibly they can It is judged the very Spirit of Antichrist and of the Devil the sin against the Holy-Ghost Apostacy Persecution Treachery Bloodiness and Cruelty And the condemnation is answerable the curse of horrour despair and self-destruction which are not only threatned and expected but reported to be already upon me These things are in their own nature weighty and they come thick upon me from all sects and sorts of people from friends and strangers and discharged at me from their very hearts with all the strength of their Religion with all their might in a bitter and angry Spirit sharp and fierce and in some with great seriousness and gravity yea in love to me And most of them solemnly in the name of God and for his cause as against an enemy to God to godliness and to his people This is the sense I have of them and I think the description is just and true These things being breathed forth from men friends Christians professing godliness and the Spirit of God besides the common rage that foames out Rogue Jesuite hang him c. They do requite and justly challenge from me that I should Animadvert and duly consider what these things are whence they come What they would have and what I am and have done to deserve them As these things drive me in to review both my self and book so they do peal and call me forth to shew in what Spirit and Light I live from what root this work came and upon what foundation that and my self stand so that I now count my self bound not only in honour and justice but in love freely to open and discover my self and my mind and spirit concerning my self my book and the great offence taken at it I confess I do feel that these censures are high and that men are hearty and serious in them and do lay them on with all their strength and with a sharp spirit angred and provoked And that they do sometimes sting and twinge a little and consequently stir some choler in me that I could be as heartily angry at others as others are at me But as yet I do not find that they go deep or abide long in me But on the contrary I have been well able to bear them yea to slight and neglect them as sick and sore passions which cannot live long and although they stumble at me and bruise me yet if I did but lie still I should quickly see them faln in their own dirt by their own darkness and weakness For that I find constantly to be the nature of Passion it is a blind thing that runs it self into ruin and needs no enemy to destroy it it is the Gunpowder of the mind while it is shot at another it doth crack stink and vanish As I must confess they do sometimes sting a little so I must
thing that opposed you was one and the same enemy In that troubled state you conclude I was turned to the world and backslidden to the present rising power Great guilt and great suffering meeting together must needs much disturb the mind of poor man If you in the trouble of your souls mistake me and if my mind be clear and at peace I may well bear it and pitty you and so I do My business was to be dayes-man between adverse parties I know I did not intrude into the office but refused and excused as Moses Who am I they will not believe nor hearken to my voice I am a man of no power or esteem and so put it off till I was compelled to appear and now I find the common fate of them that interpose to part the fray both parties fall upon him You think I am turned Courtier the Court thinks I am still a Fanatick T is but just I should receive both your neglects into me standing between you I am content to feel the evil of both because I love both and have in my soul good for both But you do not only judge me to be an enemy but worse an apostate brother and more wicked then your open adversaries for they only afflict the outward man I fall upon your spirits and principles We shall have occasion to discourse of spirits and principles hereafter but here I shall only mind you of two or three things First It is I confess a very difficult thing to judge of principles and spirits because they are inward and therefore strangers and enemies cannot judge of them It must be some friend or brother that hath conversed with them They that are still under them are judged by them and therefore they cannot judge of them It must be some that have travelled through them and have had experience of them spirits and principles are Gods and who can judge the Gods If any they that have been amongst them and tryed them you may from this find some reason why I should be chosen to do this service for you you generally know me my way and work hath been trying of spirits many years Secondly as it is difficult to judge spirits and principles so it is hard to bear the judgement of them Men can easier die and lay down their natural lives then suffer their principles to be touched Men of any common honesty do freely expose their flesh to death to save their Gods although they be but Idols But thirdly There are false Gods false spirits you know it and have familiarly accused others of it you know I know it I confess I do as we say to my cost it may be to your profit you have of late been hammering at a spiritual Antichrist an Antichrist within and it is most true many such there are can you think that you should be acting so many years against Antâ—christ all the while be ignorant of an Antichrist within who doth but now begin to peep â—ut and be discovered in you and you not guilty of receiving false principles or spirits Can all this smoke of confusion darkness and enmity be amongst you and no fire of false spirits Can there be so much reeling and staggering giddiness and instability and no wine of fornication no sophisticated or adulterated wine No spiritual harlots or false lovers Must all the corruption rotteness and filth he laid upon the poor flesh Is there no evil spirit that came in under the name of God to joyn with her to beget these bastard brood of hypocrisie covetousness and self-seeking Must man only bear the blame and not the unclean spirits that are gone out Or must God and his name only stand accused that he led his people by his Spirit into no better wayes Is it not then both justice to his name and mercy to man that these evil spirits and principles should be discovered and detected As it is proper for a friend or brother that hath been partaker with you in them and hath suffered greatly for it to discover them so it will be found a friendly and brotherly office to reprove them The plucking up these principles that lie deep and secret is I know terrible I have felt it so It seems to threaten the rooting out of religion and godliness it self I have found the same thing in my tryals God comes against them and his people engaged with them in great jealousie enraged as an enemy in fiery indignation and vengeance because nothing but his vengeance can destroy them but I have found great love in these fires of jealousie yea love to our nature and persons with forgiveness to our iniquities even then when he takes vengeance of our inventions I know you can neither be inwardly cleansed nor outwardly saved but by a death in your spirits and loss of these principles which have deluded you and brought you into this grievous snare and therefore shall in love and good will to man to your souls lives and liberties prosecute my purpose of manifesting those unsound principles that have deceived and mis-led you and shall not spare for your crying or frowardness SECT V. ANother objection against the Book is it is written much in Allegories because the present state of things is there represented in and by ancient Scriptures I acknowledge this to be a fault and possibly it might arise from the first great error of delay by keeping it in too long it might be thus overgrown with hair and get this dress or at least the same distrust that made me unwilling to write might make me willing to shrowd my mind under those coverings of Scripture wanting confidence to appear more open or strength to go without that help I might affirm that the things written are not meer allegories if they be so they are to me hatefull Idols for I know nothing more abominable then meer similitudes and forms of truth I may affirm that the same eternal spirit that brought forth those works in Adam and Noah of which you there read doth for ever keep the living image of them in himself and many ages after brought them forth in Moses mind and by Moses into writing so that the works done and the words writ are one and of one mind and spirit The same eternal spirit having in himself the same eternal image doth by it preserve the image written or the words and history The same eternal spirit eternally works and brings forth his own likness in all times and in our age and the same spirit that did them and writ them then doth them now and reveals them in that Book He that is wise will understand these things But let them go for Allegories and let me bear the blame of it I am content it should go so because I know we shall gain by all our miscarriages grow wise by mistakes For sin hath something of Physick in it many times if not alwayes it hath its own cure with it because
immediate conjunction and union And the Lamb is with her dwells in her she is the Mountain of God or the City of the living God 4. She is washed cleansed enlightened and filled with the Spirit of the Lord whereby she is established strengthened guided and kept in even and straight pathes she is adorned and beautified with righteousness wisdom peace honour and salvation and therefore when she appears she will be a praise in the earth 5. She is in all things ordered and ruled by the pure and perfect Law and Word of God whereby she walks steadily surely justly to God to men and to all creatures These things in word and notion are not strange to you that Zion is a Body a Nation a holy People united and compact according to the heavenly pattern joyned unto God sanctified established and adorned by the Spirit ruled by the eternal Word Then consider and compare your state with this Zion where is this body this holy matter or when was this body formed was it in the Parliament at what time though you sifted and purged it yet it was mixed unclean and corrupt and afterward rejected as chaff Or was the Army this holy body with all that vile and filthy rabble If this was the body how came it to be such an offence to you why did it at last cast you off and betray you and your cause Or is it all the godly people why then are you not drawn out united built into a holy Nation or City by your selves Zion and no Union Consistencie or Order No Magistrates nor publick Ministers Can you say when in which of the ten powers that you set up in twelve years you were formed by the Spirit or Word of God which state Oath Protestation Covenant or Engagement was made by the Word of God If all then you were led into contradictions if any one why did not that one judge and condemn all the rest and why doth it not still stand and defend it self and you It grieves my soul to think that you should be so drunk with the wine of your own gifts and success as to need such sensible demonstrations to convince you of the evil of your state We have briefly shewed you the beauty of Zion I can give you a view of your own state possibly you have not observed it as I have done now you have time and opportunity to think seriously of it It is this You are a confused heap raised from the earth by the tumults and commotions of the people being impatient of suffering and full of consultations for self-ease self-safety and advantage actuated and stirred by the Providence of God who can make use of all creatures natures and dispositions And sanctified by and furnished with a spirit and gifts fit to execute his displeasure upon the Nation for their sins Finding success beyond your expectations you grew into high opinions and conceits of your selves overthrew the Government of the Nation break all Oathes and Bonds prey upon the wealth of the Nation enrich and exalt your selves under a name and profession of Godliness for which you are rejected into misery and shame I do feel what effect this may have upon your minds some will think it very hard and severe so think all children when they are beaten Others will rage and gnash their teeâ—h yet it must be born Others will say this is true but why should it be published to all the world I would avoid it if it were possible but it cannot be otherwise how can one write to a people but all may read that will But alas I see it is most righteous and just that you should bear shame for you have put the Lord to open shame and your iniquities and abominations are discovered in the sight of all the Nations they cannot be hid and publick sins must have publick shame publick confession and repentance Eze. 16.52 Thou that hast judged thy sisters Samaria and Sodom bear thy own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable then they they are more righteous then thou yea be thou confounded also and bear thy shame in that thou hast justified thy sisters And know for certain that till you are ashamed and confounded for your abominations you never can never shall know a better state But when you see God pacified towards you it will make you to remember to be confounded and never more to open thy mouth And then will he lead you into a better state Therefore know this I do not charge all this upon some eminent persons of the Party as some do nor upon the persons of the whole Party as most do My soul pitties you I know you have a sore and grievous burden upon you and your personal sins are punished with personal judgements I do both pitty and forgive you and if I could prevent it I would It was the intent of the other Book and is the intent of this to take you off from your state and spirit of opposition to the power of the Nation from which you have do and will suffer so long as you persist in it The judgement I pass is upon the state in which you stand and the spirit by which you are acted This state which I have discoursed to you it is not Zion but Babylon Her filthiness is discovered in the sight of all the world and can no longer be hid In one hour is her judgement come Great is the Lord that judgeth her Righteous and true are his Judgements and they are made manifest God hath openly shewed what was in you it is seen known and felt that it is Babel confusion Therefore is the name of it called Babel because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth Gen. 11.9 Shall I need to apply it to you Do you not remember how much your language was confounded And do you not now feel how much you are scattered Doth it need to be said This is Babel As to your persons gifts and graces I do admit them to be the Lords and to belong to Zion But it is Zion that dwells with the daughter of Babylon Therefore I do write this to call you forth of Babylon Come out of her my people and be not partakers of her sins that ye receive not of her plagues Sword war blood killing persecuting wrath cursing and destroying are her sins and must be her plagues Neither you not any men can live in them but they will perish by them No man or men can act in them but they must suffer them It is the righteous jugdement of God against the beast and for the Lamb he that takes the sword shall perish by the sword and the meek suffering Lamb only shall reign If you had again or could recover all the power and force you had and an hundred times more you could hold it but one hour with
the beast And in one hour would you be made as desolate as you have been You neither could nor can resist it For strong is the Lord that judgeth For he that hath sworn he will bring down them that exalt themselves be they never so mighty and raise up the lowly the meek the Lamb who only trusteth in him and shall be saved by him If you could not resist this Judgement when you were great and strong why should you not be wise now and cease from that state and those wayes which lead you upon sensible ruine For what more certain destruction can there be then for a naked people to dash themselves against a rock of power and authority that is rooted and grounded in the Laws and minds of the Nation and now after proof and trial rises up strongly against all its enemies You are as to your persons part of the Israel of God I do most freely grant it to you But as yet but Israel after the flesh and no more And God hath used you and the fire of your fleshly Zeal Rev. 17.16 17. to hate the whore make her desolate and naked and to eat her flesh The war hath been of fleshly knowledge fleshly forms and fleshly wisdom by fleshly power policy and arms against outward and fleshly corruptions which God hath put into your hearts until the words of God should be fulfilled And during this Ministry you pleaded the cause of Zion and had the name title and success for that work But those words are fulfilled And then there appeared in this fleshly Israel and fleshly work a spiritual Antichrist which your own mouthes have acknowledged and a spiritual Sodom Egypt and Babylon which your works have manifested Sodoms pride idleness and fulness of bread Egypts falshood cunning and cruelty Babylons loftiness glorying and self-exaltation Where our Lord also was crucified As well as the flesh of the whore desolated It is this spiritual Antichrist this adulterated wine or wine of fornication in and with your fleshly gifts and fleshly success that bewitches your minds abuses your understandings and enrages your spirits into a foolish confidence and presumptuous opposition to the power of the Nation to your apparent ruine My endeavour is to redeem your understandings from those vain and rejected confidences and to recover your minds and reasons into a sober consideration of your selves and of your condition that you may not desperately throw away your lives and liberties in a heady drunken and rash zeal Friends I do earnestly desire you seriously to consider if you can or if your high conceits of your selves your principles and cause will admit of reason and consideration Then consider what is there in your present state which now lies under so great conviction in your consciences and so great condemnation from men that should make you disdain either a reproof or a proposal of trying your principles at a bar of Religion and Reason before the wisest justest largest and soberest men in the Church and Nation For that was the intent of that Book that you so fiercely and bitterly condemn It was humbly desired that the persons to be tried together with their principles might not be judged at least not finally by the Common Law but might have a Chancery And why should you not now be reconciled to it and seek it what should hinder you from petitioning it as a singular mercy To the utmost of my understanding it might be not only a means of saving your selves but a blessing to the Nation I am very confident that you and all men after you have wearied and spent your selves your peace and comfort in these unnatural and brutish violences will be glad to hearken to a brotherly and friendly debate of things When that pride that makes men scorn all mens Reason and Religion but their own is brought down For he that knows any thing of the general and large love of God and of Jesus to all men must conclude that that pride will as certainly be ruined and ruine it self as he knows God is just or mercifull SECT IX I Intended not to prosecute this point of accommodating the present distance and opposition that is betwixt you and this Government of the Church and Nation But being unexpectedly faln upon it and engaged in it and it being the end of my first Book and the constant frame of my mind to seek peace by a right understanding And there being still great need of it in respect of the great numbers that do suffer and possibly a better opportunity for it satisfaction being taken to the Law of the Land justice of the Nation upon them that have suffered The same love to you that led me at first to propound it continues still in me and leads me now to prosecute it The enmity is strong and great confirmed by a long and cruel war heightened and inflamed by many wrongs and injuries It is a fire that hath and doth burn fiercely in the minds of men It is now upon you if it be not quenched it doth and will utterly destroy you and all that cannot yield to the present Government of the Church except a new war relieve you And both you and the whole Nation have found by woful experience that war is no friend but an enemy to all Civil and Religious blessings And that fighting may destroy both the good and the evil without Judgement but save nothing I hope it is and will be the mind of all sober Christians and Englishmen that consider the effects of our late wars rather to suffer in their own particulars then to raise a new war whereby the whole Nation must suffer thousands be slain and at last they that raised it will be far worse then they were when they begun That Law and Sentence that came out of Christs lips first and was afterward confirmed by the Spirit in the Revelations as a divine Law to all ages is He that taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword And therefore wo be to that Party or Person that makes war and division his hope that longs to see the Kingdom in a flame that he may warm himself at the fire Or would have the whole ruined and Shipwracked that he might have a share of the pillage You have had the sword and could not keep it it is turned now against you and the strength of the Nation also all highly provoked by your evil dealings with them And yet you are the sharpest enemies to the Propositions of Peace I know no good reason why you should be so A good friend of yours and mine hath said again and again One side must yield why should not we first lie down and submit We that profess most knowledge of the Gospel and are most conversant with Scriptures should be most inclined to meekness and peace there is sure some notable evil spirit gotten in that makes the most gifted the most quarrelsome I am bound to examine what
that can be accursed for them It is his way it is his nature he dealt so with Christ and therefore must be justified and honoured for it And so I do with my soul And desire office and employment in his Church upon no other terms Blessed for ever be his holy name for it in my heart And blessed be his name in this Church and Nation And let all his people say Amen For he will establish only such ministers over them in his house as are of his and his Sons mind and spirit God may and doth for a time employ other spirits to do baser services to break afflict and punish so long as there is proud flesh to be subdued But none shall be admitted to minister healing life and salvation but such as are of this spirit The form or title is title and the question is not great who or which But this is the Nature and Spirit chosen of God to rule his people Lastly Let me assure you under the word and oath of Jesus Verily verily except you be born again you cannot see the Kingdom of God Joh. 3.3 Except you be born out of this earthly sensual darkness into heavenly light out of this heathenish or legal spirit into the largeness of heaven you cannot so much as see the Kingdom of God so long as you think that it consists in a multitude of prayers in the opening of Scriptures in fleshly striving for earthly liberty and earthly power you do not you cannot see the Kingdom of God Alas you admire your selves your zeal and intentions your gifts and notions But what are those to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ which is over all things in heaven in earth and under the earth Over all things first in heaven He employes innumerable Angels and all their holiness power and light in distinct ages and places And brings them forth successively to act their parts and to shew the utmost of their strength and wisdom in governing the world And when he hath done with them folds them up as a vesture layes them aside and changes them for others Possibly all that you have attained to may not amount tb one Angel Be it what it will you cannot but confess one Angel may do as much and more know as much and more speak as much and more then all you have done And that in greater holiness purity brightness and majesty And when he hath done it must bow down and be dismissed Why then should you be troubled at the fall of your works Secondly Christs Kingdom extends to all men in all Nations He hath power to spirit and anoint all men with what spirit he please to sanctifie them and gift them either as heathens so he did Cyrus and his Medes or as Jews so he did Saul or as Christians so he did the Saints of old And yet none of them must raign only minister and serve in those spirits He hath laid infinite variety of gifts in mans nature and knows how to use them all and will have a time for every purpose And as he will draw out the good of every man of what degree soever so the evil of every man All mens lusts and corruptions must be drawn out and judged In one state of things mens Religion and Gifts lie uppermost and cover their sins that Religion must have a time to work and have honour or reward for that work and when it is worn out it must as an old garment be laid aside And then that evil that is under that form of Godliness must be seen shewed forth and punished In another state the good may lie under the evil God hath a work and an object prepared for that evil when its work is done then the good will rise and have its time and place Thirdly As Christ rules all Angels and men so all Devils all infernal spirits and will bring them forth out of the bottomless pit into his own House and City and give them their time and place to shew forth all the evil that is in them And thereby judge them and then cast them into the Lake of fire for ever And there are various sorts and kinds of flesh or humane weakness for them to feed upon in the nature of man What is theirs they do challenge and must have first for words and actions and then for shame and punishment And if we do in the least see the Kingdom of Christ we shall be content to take our lot in any of these or in all of them as it pleases God to dispose of us If your minds were enlarged into the sight and view of the greatness of the Kingdom of God and the continuance of it in all ages everlastingly you would with submission and joy consider and behold the present works of God upon your selves and upon the Nation But so long as you are shut up in that narrow spirit and limit the Kingdom of Christ to such a poor inconsiderable temporary thing as your present dispensation and service you cannot understand any thing of it Therefore know that you are in darkness and know not whither you go you are quite out of the way to Christs Kingdom SECT XIII WE will suppose likewise that you do desire holiness and that your trouble is either that you or the Nation is no more holy And therefore in zeal for reformation you go forth against the present state of things as unholy denouncing wrath against it and seeking the destruction of it Herein likewise you are extreamly blinded by enmity For First That holiness which you profess and in which you live is not the holiness of Christ you are not holy as he is holy and therefore it cannot stand before him it neither is nor shall be accepted to raign with him It may do him service be a scourge in his hand it may stand before men before worse men in the field it may stand before mens worldly passions and lusts before the Laws of men and their punishments It may stand before prisons and chains yea before death it self And so will the holiness of moral men heathens or Jews and of all sorts of Christians But it cannot it shall not stand before God 1. It is impure 2. It is imperfect in its kind 3. It is fleshly and fading 4. It is not an holy nature 5. It is not holiness that can take away sin 6. It is not holiness that can take away the sins of the world And therefore not the holiness of God and Christ Secondly As it is short in its kind and insufficient to answer the perfect and good will of God either in your own souls or upon the Nation so it is corrupted openly defaced and for guilt rejected Because it is polluted it is not your rest To abide and persist in a way and state disowned and refused by God is not only sloth and ignorance but unbelief and disobedience God never pulls down one dispensation but he provides another If you were
and doth make these things uphold them and walk in them and in all the wayes and forms of men in the midst of all their vanity and iniquity and not be defiled with them And this Spirit when you are led by him will enable you to live either above them or besides them or in the secret of his Tabernacle which is within all there forms and that with purity peace and content And this Spirit that upholds and gives being to all forms and persons doth distinguish and perfectly judge between the good and the evil of all persons and things and doth eternally chuse and gather unto himself that which is holy in all and casts the chaff and dust to the Serpent and him and it into the Lake of fire If therefore you have this Spirit and will do that visibly which he doth eternally then you must by him first gather all these things and all the parts of the broken Church and Nation under his wings that he may do with our Chaos as he did when he made the world first sustain cherish and brood upon this desolate state and then form a new one For if you cannot receive all into your hearts and bowels of love you will never renew or reform any thing For love is the first moving cause of all good It is love only that hath in it that mercy that life that goodness that can heal and reform the poor diseased and decayed state of man and of the Church This excellent divine nature of God Love hath rejected with indignation your harsh and severe spirit of self-sasety and self-seeking into confusion and shame And hath taken the work out of your hands into his own after you have by violence and unskilfulness spoyled wasted and ruined he will himself save and restore And in order to it takes the whole frame of things in all its sin death curse and misery both persons parties forms and states into the bowels of his most tender compassions into himself and his own nature life and being who is Emanuel God with us In our flesh and so in and under our sins and curse bearing of them for us and from us He hath love to those persons that you would destroy finding his own image in them for they are his own creatures and children therefore he will save them and first pardon and then remove their iniquities In those offices that you would destroy he knows there is good in them and in the honour and riches belonging to them and therefore will take away the abuse and corruption of them And in that service that you so much vilifie there is heavenly excellency which must be preserved purified enlightened and all the death darkness and prophaneness separated from it The holy one of Israel will do this Therefore to conclude this point of holiness you may and must know That you were sanctified with a measure of gifts for a service for the execution of Gods displeasure Its work is finished the gifts corrupted and now as to publick work upon the Nation rejected and under a judicial blindness and confusion because of an evil spirit that did and doth still possess them It is the righteous judgement of the Spirit of God upon them who hath though your gifts and performances be many and solemn cast them as dung in your faces If you will retreat with them in humility and repentance to attend the purifying of your own souls and the purging away your own sins you will find mercy to your selves But if you think by them to exalt your selves again into dominion and power in the Nation you will but involve your selves in more misery and wrath and like a Bull in a net entangle your souls in greater errours and outward troubles The holy Spirit I know and have felt did bear you a long time as a heavy burden and at last eased himself of you as a clog and cumber to him And now I with joy feel that he is free to exercise his own power to effect and perfect what you have failed in It will be your only safety now to retire into deep silence and humility and leave the Church and Nation to him that is Lord of both who made both and I can assure you will perfectly reform both SECT XIV BEsides the two things mentioned of the Kingdom of God and of holiness there are some other things that you have sought in these late wars which are still in your minds As common liberty or the liberty of the people and liberty of conscience But it is most certainly true and by experience now manifested that these things are not in that spirit in which you have acted and still stand Nor is this way of strife and contention the way to obtain them but the contrary For as war and enmity is against the Kingdom of Christ which is a Kingdom of peace And as they harden pollute and vitiate the mind of man which is contrary to holiness So they do naturally exalt will and force rage and jealousie and so must necessarily eat up and devour all liberty and turn all into the worst kind of tyrannie if the Father of mercies and Spirits doth not enlarge mollifie and sweeten the nature of man which wrath and war doth imbitter and harden It is true common liberty is written in the common nature of man in some degree though it be very weak This liberty came forth in you in notion profession and affection beyond what it doth in other people and it hath been not only talked of but desired by you yet that spirit in which you rose and in which you seek it hath not any true liberty in it And if it hath not liberty in it it can neither attain it for you from others nor give it by you to others it never could do either Mind well what I write else you will not understand it For it is I know besides the common reason and apprehensions of men and therefore seems to be and is strange to the dark and private spirit of the world but you and all men must know that there is a divine reason in these things which ought to be and therefore shall be the rule of mans Reason Know then first That we began our wars upon this principle of delivering our selves from the yoak of the Law and Government of the Church and Kingdom being of another spirit and way from them And upon the same principle of self-safety and self-freedom was the war carried on and the whole business from step to step This seemed to us very just and righteous that we should have liberty to serve God according to what light and understanding he gave us And there is an undoubted right in it Yet we see to what infinite confusion and strange enmity and division this principle hath brought us And therefore there is some notable evil either in the principle or in the liberty or in both I think both will be found faulty I
Government Or else by a friendly agreement with these or any other Governours If you resolve upon the first to destroy all that are not according to your conscience that your conscience may have liberty Then you would destroy all mens consciences but your own and all men for their consciences which is the most contrary to liberty of Conscience that can be Most contrary because you will endure none but your selves and that you would raise a war that you might establish a Law of cruelty which is a thousand times worse then to persecute by an established Law and Authority That power that you would have must be thorow the lives of thousands of your enemies and after that thousands of your friends for they that strive for a power never did nor never will agree in the sharing or administring of it But when through blood and destruction of friends and foes you have gotten it If you should prevail and you in your own persons escape yet that power gotten by war in that spirit you and we in reason must expect that it will be most cruel because raised and begotten by cruelty Indeed it is so horrid and irrational that the bare proposing of it will make reasonable men abhor such a thought For nothing but irrational and blind zeal with discontent and passion can so much blind the nature of man as to lead him into such unnatural things If your spirits do indeed drive to this to the removing and destroying the present state of things as an accursed thing then the ingenuous and seek not liberty from them nor complain of them for not giving it For every such acknowledgement of them doth confirm them and so contradict your prayers and endeavours to destroy them Sometimes secretly and cunningly to curse them and another time openly and for advantage to acknowledge them is falshood and deceit And will attain nothing but shame and confusion For there is little but shame and confusion in it It is a vile thing in private and secret to pray or warily to preach against a State and openly to comply with it in so doing our lives contradict our prayers or our prayers our lives But if this be the drift of your spirits though never so warily carried do you think it is not felt and understood by them that you so oppose you cannot conceal it from them It is wise counsel Solomon gives Curse not the King no not in thy thought or conscience for a bird of the air shall carry the voice and that which hath wings shall tell the matter It must be understood spiritually for it cannot be meant literally Angels are intelligences and intelligencers they are principalities and powers and attend both the Throne and Altar they are present in dominion at Court and in your Closets at your devotions They are the birds and that which hath wings that tell the matter Publick authority hath publick ears and eyes and reach all corners Spiritual intelligencers as well as outward informers If they know and feel that you intend their destruction must they not abhor that spirit that under pretence of liberty of Conscience really endeavours liberty of destroying and of overthrowing Governments to exalt themselves And if they understand any thing they must think These men seek our destruction and as they pray for it and preach it so they will if they can or dare attempt it as they have done And therefore they having such a sense of you you cannot in reason expect but that they should labour to suppress you If they find rebellion war and wrath in the principles of it though in religious duties and conscience will they not suppress both the rebellion and conscience and the duties or worship in which it is And shall they not be justified in so doing I am sure your Law and Practise will justifie them For the same thing hath been done often and would be again if you had power while you are in this spirit When you shall recover either your own nature and reason or the nature of the Lamb out of this Spiritual drunkenness and cruel zeal you will find First That Antichrist the great enemy of Christ is also an enemy to man to his life peace civil order Law and to all humane Ordinances Secondly That this enemy is a spirit the Angel of the bottomless pit And therefore his chief seat and place is in spiritual things in conscience and in the spirits of men and in those things wherein spiritual men or the spirits of men are exercised in gifts religion and holy duties and his last and greatest strength is not in corrupt forms but in those that are most spiritual most lively zealous and gifted Others are but the flesh these the horns of the beast Thirdly And therefore conscience and the spirits of men even in Religion and in lively or spiritual Religion is grievously polluted by him This Templo of God is defiled by him You must come to know it and feel it as I have done Fourthly The nature of this beast is to destroy whence he hath his name Apollyon a destroyer His highest place is conscience gifted mens spirits enlightened and his highest work is to kill and destroy and in order to that to curse and blaspheme with those spiritual gifts Fifthly This spiritual beast this destroyer cannot but be seen and felt by the common reason of men although they cannot judge him yet they must have a sense of him as an enemy to that life and peace in which they live and to that Authority and Government which is committed to them Sixthly As they cannot but discern and feel the horns of this beast that pushes them and wounds them so they cannot but arm themselves with such weapons as they have against him If it be a State it will defend it self by Laws punishments policies and power Seventhly This self-defence though it be earthly cannot be denyed them yea they will be justified in it so far as it is rational humane and necessary and for the preservation of peace and common safety Wherein any are cruel and revengeful that is devilish also and then it is the beast against the beast But an humane care to maintain Law Authority and Peace though it be no more yet it is good against a destroying spirit that would bring in war and confusion under the highest notion of Religion and Reformation The ordinary and common Ordinances of man are to be justified in acting against a Religion Zeal that seeks the subverting of them The first is useful necessary and profitable the other is hurtful and destructive Eighthly The Law and Authority of a Nation defending it self from this spirit by its own weapons being outward must necessarily fall upon the persons lives and liberties of them that are ngaged in this spirit I am grieved in my soul for both both wound my heart both the agents and patients In love to mankind I am afflicted for them and feel the
109.16 c. Because he remembred not to shew mercy but persecuted the poor and needy man c. As he loved cursing so let it come unto him As he delighted not in blessing so let it be far from As he cloathed himself with cursing as with a garment so let it come into his bowels like water and like oyl into his bones c. Let this be the reward of mine Adversaries c. Of the adversaries of Christ and of the Lamb of God of Antichrist the beast and the false Prophet And of all that Kingdom of darkness let that cursed Kingdom sink from man and the Church into its own place let all cursing fall as water into those bowels of hell from whence they came and so be swallowed up by him that first brought them forth The Spirit of Christ that said this in David will 1. Do it himself he will take the curse upon himself and swallow it and hell and death into victory And 2. will require it of others to do it and will by his own power enable them to do it or do it in them and for them And thereby destroy him that hath destroyed the earth If we understand his holy and good will we shall all learn to bear and digest the curse and not inflict it According to that most excellent rule Bless them that persecute you bless and curse not Rom 12.14 Learn this bless and curse not no not the worst not persecutors not them that persecute the Saints None but Saints can learn this none are true Saints but such as do learn it The persecutors of the Saints must be blessed by the Saints by an holy true just righteous mind not feignedly and deceitfully but really and truly SECT XVI YOu are now in a sad and suffering condition With my soul I pitty you and would gladly relieve you It was my intent in my first and is the same in this to shew you the evil of that state and spirit that doth necessarily bring you into these miseries For truly I have a fellow-feeling both of your sins and sufferings and of all men but of yours especially having formerly been one with you And therefore cannot but labour and travel to bring you forth into a way and state of safety and of peace You are now in affliction which brings forth in you a Confession and a Profession 1. A Confession that you are justly and righteously punished for your sins And 2. A Profession of suffering for Christ and as Martyrs to the truth These two are very wide in their natures suffering for sin and suffering for Christ And therefore you should do well to consider how they come to meet together in your present state It is plain and visible to all men and I suppose now to your selves that Babel or confusion hath been in and upon all your wars counsels and designs As it was in your active part so it is in your passive part The truth is it hath and doth over-spread all the Nation and all the affairs wayes and actions of all Parties If there be Babylon confusion in your sufferings the smoak of her torment will more vex you then the sufferings themselves Because it is from the wrath of God and therefore doth more torment then any thing To be clear and clean in any thing is great ease to the soul of man because the mind is of it self a pure and clean thing Wherein it is true and resolved it can bear any thing but the darkness of confusion so distracts perplexes and confounds it that it is not able to relieve or support it self To be true and sound in the lowest condition is better far then to be false in the highest To be just humble honest and resolved in the first that is in that which you confess that this is a punishment of your iniquities is much better then to form up the second and to conceit that you suffer for Christ For if you once come to be true clean and right in any one thing you will by degrees be so in all things And this humble plainness and honest truth is the first step to safety peace and deliverance Therefore pray take heed how you confound these two Your Confession of thâ— justice of the hand and rod that is upon yoâ— for sin and your Profession of a higheâ— thing suffering for Christ I do the ratheâ— desire you to beware of it because confounding these two will not only entangle you minds but continue the affliction upon you and so involve you in it that you cannoâ— come forth of it For if this be a just correction for sin as you confess it is Then to chuse this and to glory in it as if it were thâ— Cross of Christ must necessarily fix it to you as much as your own choice can do it which certainly is not nothing And it wilâ— entangle you the longer because one is contrary to the other and works contrarily For if God chasten for sin the thing he intends is humiliation and a sense of sin which brings forth repentance prayers and tears and they bring forth deliverance But suffering for Christ is matter of great glory and rejoycing and is a strong justification of a person and state And therefore works contrary to the former If when Goâ— expects humiliation there be exaltation it doth ordinarily provoke more stripes Therefore pray consider seriously what I say because it tends toward deliverance which I do stilâ— prosecute The sufferings of Christ and of his body which did all conform to him their head were of this nature First they suffered voluntarily they offered themselves a sacrifice willingly and chearfully and not by constraint or necessity They did not first resist oppose war and suppress others and then suffer when they could fight no longer Secondly They were innocent as Lambs never attempted any evil upon any people Thirdly They loved their enemies and prayed for them Christ began Father forgive them they know not what they do the first that followed him Saint Stephen did the like Lord lay not this sin to their charge And so the rest And this in faith and in truth which made it effectual They were very far from designing the ruine of their enemies Fourthly They suffered all for one cause for the Kingdom and patience of Jesus to witness that this was the way to the Kingdom That as Christ died and rose again so they should likewise rise and raign with him if they suffered with him I could say more but I forbear Consider your selves and compare your present sufferings with his and the Saints of old If you do profess the Cross of Christ and to suffer with him do you not then desert either all or the chief of those things you call principles upon which you engaged Is not this contray to fighting for the Parliament or for the liberties of the people Is it not contrary to your taking up the sword and to your right of conquest
For every one that goes out of the world glorying in his righteousness makes a breath both in death and in the authority that inflicts it And when it comes to be easie and familiar as it will by a little practise Authority and Magistracy it self will be by such despised I shall commend to the Magistrate an Observation of mine own concerning the nature of man That he may consider what he governs and how he ought to govern him Man is a noble and stout creature There is so much of the majesty of the image of God in faln man that he retains much of the greatness though he have lost his goodness There lies raked up in this dust an invincible spirit that never will be subdued by force God could never break the rebellion of the Israelites by all his punishments upon them And therefore sayes Why should ye be stricken any more ye will revolt more and more Isa 1.5 All the terrours of the Law could never subject Paul but he sayes himself When the commandment came sin revived and I died Rom. 7.9 When the law came with terrour against him then fin roused up it self unto a desperate opposition There being such stoutness in mans heart that all the force of the Law could not subdue God sent his Son in love to this stout creature to take his flesh and so to soften and overcome it and in it to destroy both Law and sin This will shew us what is in man There is as much of this courage and greatness of spirit in the English as in any people under heaven which is very much awakened in these times both by the wars and by long liberty and a free exercise of their minds in Religion For first the people were inspired and impowered to execute the determined displeasure of God upon the Church and Nation which exalted them and subjected the Church and Nation under them Having as they think judged the former state of Religion they have opportunity and liberty to erect several new forms of Religion which is an act of spiritual principality and power and not without zeal for God and obedience to his Law By these things the genius of the Nation and the natural stoutness of the people is much lightened and encreased And therefore to reduce them into that state that they think they have judged and to destroy all their little principalities set up in their consciences only by outward force or by the meer letter of that Law which they have condemned without a superiour Law that judges them and their work to my reason seems not only impossible but dangerous Let the whole be considered and it will be found That meer legal and outward punishments upon such a people so spirited and principled so employed and exercised if their consciences and spirits be nor first fairly heard judged and convinced will inflame their minds into such a mad and desperate spirit as appeared in the late Insurrection into hardness and insensibility of death and danger which is the greatest enemy to Government that can be For it turns men into wild beasts not to be ruled by humane Laws And though they do attain nothing to themselves yet they may give disturbance and force the Magistrate from all humane and divine wayes of love and gentleness into violence and perpetual severity and fill the whole Nation with continual troubles and distractions It is true the Magistrate is bound by all bonds of Law of reason and nature to suppress and punish rebellion But when the seeds of rebellion lie in the mind and conscience the spiritual sword is as necessary as the secular and the one not effectual without the other What is written in this Treatise will I hope satisfie them that will read and consider that there is with us in the Church a spirit and understanding that will reach the root of rebellion in the mind and fully convince the conscience Which being joyned to the civil authority is sufficient to cure and heal the Church and Nation On the other side I must desire the present suffering Party that were so highly offended at my Book and at my proposition for the tryal of principles that they consider how much lower they are now faln There was certainly a loftiness and unsubjection of mind unsutable to their condition expressed in a glorying and boasting of their old cause and state which hath brought forth this contempt and suffering upon them I do believe that this late Insurrection was the work of a few rash and unreasonable men And do find that all sober men do express a great abhorrency of the act with resolution to wait patiently upon God for their deliverance Which truly I rejoyce in Yet the whole Party lying under the shame of these mens folly and madness they must seriously and deeply consider how far they yet stand unhumbled and unconvinced of those principles that carried these men into this practise Principles lie deep and when once they get rooting in the mind they are like ill weeds in a garden not presently destroyed Many times the judgement is enlightened against them yet they have a root in the heart which will spring up if not quite eradicated Their appearing in others and the evil fruit they bear is a good means to beget an utter detestation of them To make you sensible of the hand of God upon you and to help to clear your minds wholly of them I only propound these queries to you 1. First Whether those principles upon which they acted of the Cause and Kingdom of Christ and the honour and priviledge of the Saints above and against the world Have not been received into the minds and spirits of most men more or less that have erected new Churches and new Governments in the Nation Secondly Whether the same principles and the hopes of such things be not that which fills your heads and hearts with multitude of prayers and great confidences that you shall yet prevail and your enemies be destroyed And so though your understandings be more prudent then others yet whether the same things be not yet in your faith affections and duties Thirdly Whether these spirits and principles have not had a great influence upon the whole business a long time If so then if they be not rooted out by repentance and change of mind they lie not still in the heart though they seem not to act and appear Fourthly Whether men being upon an extraordinary bottom as the Saints of God distinct from others And exercising themselves in extraordinary duties with extraordinary hopes and confidences of extraordinary deliverances Are not thereby disposed and prepared to attempt extraordinary things to attain these extraordinary ends If so then you are drinking the same wine that intoxicated their heads that rose only they are weaker and you more able to bear it Remember Solomons counsel Who hath sorrow who hath contention who hath babling who hath wounds without cause They that tarry long
and set them at a greater distance one from another I do think he may have another view of them The matters contained in the book are very weighty concerning the great change and turn in the Nation by which the lives and liberties of thousands are in danger The things written and manner of writing them are not vulgar most people say they do not understand them They that have read it often say it hath in every new reading a new face When I review it my self I find more in it then I apprehended when I writ it I profess when I consider it I cannot think of mens slighting of it without an indignation I must deal freely with you when I hear of your unworthy and irrational scorn of it my soul doth upbraid and wonder at that shallowness and froward headiness that makes you so uncapable of the justice reason and mercy that is in it I do know and am able to write it upon mature deliberation and consultation That there is in it that love and righteousness that must and shall be considered and understood And that very fury that makes you impatient of the reason and rebuke of it will run you upon a foolish and desperate opposing the present Providence and Power and so bring you into misery And then you will repent of your too late considering as I have of my too late writing I could return scorn for scorn and auger for anger it is in me to do it you know you are liable to it and may know I am able to do it But such is my love to you that I cannot but earnestly desire you to mind and study the things I dare promise you you shall not lose your labour if that which is there written do not answer your time and pains do but complain of it to me and you shall have satisfaction It is but just you should and I have such opinion of my honesty and ability as to assure you if it doth not perform to you I will Another fault is found in the Book that it is too sharp and cutting in the reproofs of it It is a sensible complaint in some I have the more reason to Animadvert upon it because it is so If they be afflicted at it there is great reason it should afflict me also Of all repentings I find the easiest and sweetest is to repent of anger God hath made it easie and honourable by his own example who hath often repented of his just rebukes upon his people It is easie in it self for anger is no pleasant thing If it were not necessary no man could chuse it Indeed it is so mean a thing that few men enter into it in judgement Most men are thrust upon it without understanding I think I may say all It is so unruly and troublesom a guest that none but fools will entertain it Solomon sayes Eccles 7.9 Anger rests in the bosom of fools If it be just and good it is mean and poor but if it be malicious wicked and false then it is devilish Be it what it will I alwayes find it as yet an offence to my weak nature it alwayes wounds and stings me therefore I am inclined to be jealous of it and of my self for it If there be a sowr and severe spirit in it it may possibly arise from the first ill root deferring or delaying to give it forth in its season when t was tender the keeping it so long within made it more fierce But if the nails be too long we may pare them I will be better then scratching and clawing Angry and vehement reproofs do abound in this Age You reprove and condemn your adversaries to utter destruction and they condemn you I have rebuked you and you rebuke me as a man irrecoverably lost The Nation is so full of judgement that men can administer little else wrath is so strong that most men are quite drunk with it love and peace is so weak that they that incline to it find great difficulty in exercising any of it It may be for the good of all to understand the nature and kinds of rebuke There are four sorts of it subject to my observation The first and worst is devilish A malicious searching into and aggravating the sins of them we hate and accusing of them to make them odious that we may appear just or a finding but iniquity in them that are opposite to us that we may destroy them There is a great deal of this it is meet you and I should consider how far we have been in this spirit it is a very gross and common evil yet no discerned because them that we prosecute with such enmity we first paint them in our fancies as devils enemies to God and then think we do well to destroy them believing they are appointed to it But I hope this darkness will not last long For no parties now stand in opposition one to another at so great a distance as the children of God and the children of the Devil Because if any were indeed the children of God they would be like their Father Mat. 5.44 45. Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven c. How contrary is mens ordinary practice to this We say we are the children of God and therefore ought to destroy our and Gods enemies to do good to sinners and to them that hate us is Divine to hate accuse and destroy is certainly Diabolical The second kind of rebuke is Legal or Angelical To reprove and punish men as Gods children and creatures in a holy zeal for God and righteousness with intention to humble subject and reform and that from a holy and pure Law and from a just and godly nature and life This is no Christian or divine dispensation but a legal one yet who is there of you that can justifie himself by this Law Consider it seriously Do you reprove and punish men as men as brethren as Gods creatures and children though enemies Do you do it with intent to humble and reform or to ruine and destroy Do you do it from a holy pure Law or from your own conceptions of the Law which are broken uncertain and changeable Do you do it from a just and godly nature and life or is there not also envy covetousness self-seeking partiality and unrighteousness you may ponder these things in your hearts and measure your selves by this rule The third kind of rebuke or reproof is Evangelical that which was administred by Christ when he was in the flesh he was a Minister of the circumcision and did oncumcise in his Ministery he Ministerd sharply cuttingly but when he had done that he was lead by his Father to lay down his life for them that he had so reproved and after he had discovered sin in a holy