Physick and to them Christ becometh a Physician Luke 5.31 by the shedding of his blood or love out of the Divine nature into these Soules by vertue of which they come to be restored to health Secondly His blood issuing out of the Divine Nature becometh purifying and purgeth the soul from that which is the cause of all its diseases and pain viz. sin and selfness for that is the cause of all sorrow and where this love of God or blood of the Divine Nature is shed in the hearts there sin becometh purged out by the power of faith which worketh by love And this faith God useth as an instrument in the purging by love which made the Apostle say that God put no difference between the Gentile and the Jew purifying their hearts by faith Acts 15.9 Now this faith is always accompanied with suffering as in nature purging is some cause of pain but this faith which is grounded in love overcometh the World with all the glory thereof 1 Joh. 5.4 And it beareth up the heart in all afflictions and tribulations making one vertue to arise out of another as tribulation begetteth patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in your hearts Rom. 5.4 5. So as the soul is purged from sin both in affection and action so is the conscience purged from its blindness by which it kept the soul in bondage to outward actings and the captivity of weak ordinances which cause the soul to look at Christ in a fleshly way and in its blindness tormented the soul when it would not know Christ so and the truth of this purging the Apostle witnesseth as you may see in Heb 9.14 And whosoever hath this love of God or blood of the Divine Nature shed in their hearts the vertue thereof doth ingraft that soul into Christ in his Divine Nature by the way of pure loving and pure beleeving as the Branch into the Vine and every branch so ingrafted into him and bearing fruit in him he purgeth and maketh it bring out more fruit Joh. 15.2 Thirdly The property of this blood of the Divine Nature is to comfort and revive the soul for whom and in whom it is shed for when the soul hath undergone the bitterness of purging out of sin by way of affliction and have passed through all the sorrows and sufferings of death devil and hell whereby the powers of the soul became much weakned and the heart broken to peeces c. then by the vertual property of this blood the spirit is revived and comforted as may be seen Isai 61.1 2 3 c. And this was that water that Christ spake of to the woman of Samaria John 4.10 And thus his blood becometh drink indeed John 6.55 And who so eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood in this manner live in the Divine Nature of Christ and Christ by the Divine Nature dwelleth in that soul and such a soul shall not see death Iohn 8.51 But whoso eateth or drinketh the Body and Blood of Jesus any other way the same becometh a stumbling block to them and as the effect of Wine is to hurt and breed ill humor and dazel the brain when it is not taken in moderation with wisdom in its vertual properties but when mens lust causeth them to drink the same then do they befool themselves in it for want of wisdom and so thereby they oft become to be made weak and sickly yea and many are brought to death thereby Even so the Blood of Christ being drunk in a wrong sence viz. by way of the Historical faith which looketh upon Christ in the flesh and making applications of what he suffered in the flesh and so taketh the efficacy from the Divine Nature and giveth the same to the humane or corporal nature This Faith or looking upon or eating or drinking of his flesh and blood becometh to work no other work in these souls but onely keepeth lust sin or selfness alive and so by this false faith Christ is made the cloak of sin and the Minister thereof Gal. 2.14 And because the sons of men have neither wills nor wisdom to examine themselves in this very thing therefore much weakness is in their understanding that they cannot know the truth as it is in Jesus and much weakness is in their wills in fighting against sin and therefore that sin being unpurged out it becometh cause of much sickness viz. the soul having an issue of blood because the veins thereof is loosened and so it is carried out to love seek and live in created or things acted and by this means such sickness if not cured bringeth death And this was the very thing that the Apostle Paul would have the people to take heed of when they were to observe this Type 1 Cor. 9.28 c. But for the matters in this Type I will let them pass with these small hints and will proceed and speak a word of the manner of this Type or the Form Christ used therein viz. He took bread and blessed it and brake it c. By which blessing is to be understood sanctifying which holds out the power and vertue of the God-head in it self which vertue and power was in himself and by the same he sanctified himself Ioh. 19.17 by which he blesseth and sanctifieth all who live in him and he in them and in this case he is our sanctification 1 Cor. And likewise he brake the bread breaking being the parting of a thing into peeces whereby many may be partakers of the same which holdeth out the fulness and wholeness of the Divine Nature which doth freely and liberally disperse it self into several particulars that many may be made partakers thereof not that the Divine Nature is or can be parted or divided in itself no more then the Sun in the Firmament which remaineth whole in it self yet all are partakers of the light and heat thereof So the Divine Nature is whole and undividable in it self but by its fulness doth fill so many particular Creatures and herein standeth the division in respect of the corporallity of the Creature and the fulness of the Divine Nature is whole in it self and by its fulness and freeness doth fill all particular souls And this truth Iohn Baptist verifieth where he saith Of his fulness have we all received c. Iohn 1.16 And the fulness of the Divine Nature issuing out of it self into any soul doth draw the same into its own nature whereby the same is made fit to live in the same nature and by the living in it that soul becometh rooted and grounded in the same whereby it is made able to comprehend with all Saints what is the bredth and length height and depth c. And so becometh to be filled with all the fulness of God Eph. 3.17 18 c. And when he had shewed the Disciples the freeness of the fulness of the Divine Nature breaking
also how many ways you will object against what I have written to you but I warrant you I have an answer for every one of your objections and I would have answered them all before I had left you but that I know if you will not lay this to heart it had but been follie in me to write any more for if I as I make no doubt but I very wel could have stopped all your mouths in what you could object yet I know your will is so bent in the way that when you had nothing to say you would stone me to death if you durst for you are of the same generation with whom Stephen had to do who was not able to resist his spirit he spake with yet they could stone him to death Acts 7.58 For the truth is that the God of your Fathers whom you worship viz. Self-pride self-praise self-profit self-wisdom self-power self-righteousness c. Self being the first person in the Trinity who by his spirit of wisdom doth so inspire you and in obedience to the same you become always resisters of the Holy Ghost Acts 7.51 But being past hopes of doing good to the generality of you because I know your blindness and hardness of heart at present I will adde no more to what I have said for to you who are sealed up for destruction here is too much but if happily there be some amongst you who are not sealed and setled in blindness having some want and emptiness in their souls and the same lying upon their spirits in making them to finde little but ease comfort or content in any thing they either act or speak and that can finde nothing but wo and sorrow in all they go about either in the world or their forms of Religion I say if there be any such souls amongst you I know they have that within them that will cause them to close with what I here have offered to them and confess that I have said nothing but that which is as true as truth it self And to such souls this I know will be useful for one reproof enters more into a wiseman then a hundred stripes doth into a fool Prov. 17.10 But for all other before-said they are but fools and will not believe and therefore I leave them to be destroyed by their own folly and will return to the poor deluded people under them and give them a friendly advice and shew them how they have been cheated and cousened by these foul Beasts whom the Devil hath most subtilly brought into the Ministery and have reigned by his means so many hundred years whereby the true knowledge of God is worn out from amongst the sons of men and all under a form of faith in Christ and a brain-knowledge of God and performing some duties which they tell you is holy and therein have they strangled your souls and made you believe you were in the ways of God when alas you were but in your own ways and the way of God as yet you never knew Then hearken O ye poor deluded souls who have a desire to know your own deceit and have a willingness in you to know what the way of God is and where this God is and where the way to meet with your God is and see and know that your ways you have lived in and rejoyced in how they are but poor weak beggerly things and so long as you live in them you live but in your self and as long as you live in them you are not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven neither to know the Mysteries of God nor the misery of the sin that is in you and without you know that you shall not know the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God As I have shewed you the original of the Ministers from whence they came so I will shew you your Religion and your duties and observations from whence they came and upon what grounds your forms are pitched and what is all that you can reap out of the very best of your forms and how far you may act in your forms and yet have your spirits deprived of the love of God which is the salvation of all souls that are saved and I will shew you from what principles your performances arise and by what power they are performed And first for your Religion I finde it to be nothing else but a feigned fantastick thing raised up by and through the vain conceits of your blinde Ministers who have no grounds for what they affirm but onely false conclusions which they draw from true principles in others and likewise the best grounds they have for any thing contained in the profession it is no more but examples from others who had command to observe such things and know the minde of him who commanded these things and observed these things according to the minde and intent of him who gave them command to observe such things but your Ministers being ignorant of the minde of the Commander observe the same by example not knowing the minde of the Commander and therefore they have given out these things to you and their own minde in them and from them have you observed these things in your Religion But now I will come to some particulars and I wish you to observe well what is delivered unto you by my Pen and the Lord give you hearts to understand the truth I shall deliver to you And first I come to that which is a principal point and part of your Religion viz. The observation of the Sabbath as you call it but that is not a proper name for it except you profess Circumcision and so become one with the Jews for to them was this delivered amongst the other Commandments but instituted at the beginning and when God had given out the rest of the Commandments to Moses he repeateth over this Commandment of keeping the Sabbath and telleth Moses for what end and purpose he had given that charge of keeping it viz. That it should be a sign between him and the people that they might know who sanctified them and whosoever did not refrain from all manner of work upon that day was to be put to death Exod. 31.13 14 c. And this was to be a sign between God and them in all their Generations Now if it were delivered to the Jews as a sign then was there something signified in it and appointed out by it to them I will tell you what it held out to them it held out three things in its signification As for the first it was the righteousness of God by which he sanctified them without any thing in them or by them whatsoever and as they were to cease from all labor whatsoever on pain of death so were they not to look at any thing within themselves whatsoever whereby they should look to be made holy for if they did it was the very death of their souls and God knew it well that they would be looking at something
requirings of the same And in all the time of the dispensation under the Law the whole Deity was named by the name of God or Father but when the fulnesse of time was come that God would appeare in a dispensation more cleare by which the Sonnes of men might the better know him then it was that the God-head in its properties divided it selfe and united it selfe to Flesh and so became the distinction in the God-head but yet the Godhead was the same it was before in the unity and in this new dispensation John Baptist begun the second Baptism in which he bare witnesse to the truth of the distinct property of God the Father viz. Christ or the Son of God and that hee was the Lamb of God which tooke away the sins of the world Jo. 1.29 And as Moses was the Messenger of God sent by him to declare his whole name or the whole God-head in his name unto the people when he would deliver them out of the Aegyptians bondage in the time of the first Baptisme so John the Baptist was his second Messenger sent by him to declare and beare witnesse of the distinct property of God and to shew to the people the name and worke of God in that distinct property viz. Christ the Son of God And as God did appeare more neare to manifest himselfe to men in his Son so the office of Iohn was to bring men out of and from under that darke dispensation under the Mosaicall observations into a more neare conformity and cleare beholding of God in that present dispensation under the Sonne and for this very purpose both the preaching and acting of Iohn tended to which God himselfe gave testimony also in the act of Iohns Baptisme by the appearance of another of his distinct properties viz. the Holy Ghost Mat. 3. and from hence it was that the name of the Sonne was added to the name of the Father and as the whole God-head stood in one name in the former dispensation and in making that name knowne and in giving out Lawes and Ordinances to be observed in that name in which the Covenant of workes was in force that name was terrible insomuch that the people could not abide to heare God speake to them yea Moses himselfe feared that great Majesty and quaked exceedingly Heb. 12.21 But when the God-head had in its property divided it self into the second dispensation into the property of Christ and so the second name of the Sonne being to be declared that name was Love and Peace and God with us Mat. 1.23 or God well pleased and reconciled to us And the Baptisme of Iohn it was called the Baptisme of repentance Acts 13.24 in which is included sorrow and departing or forsaking of something or a dying to something and to close with or to live in another thing and that was a forsaking or dying or departing from the former observations wherein they lived under the first Covenant of workes and to close with and live to the second appearance of God in that present dispensation wherein he would shew himselfe in a more quiet and peaceable manner then he had shewed himselfe in the former And John who made the way for and pointed at Christ as he was in the flesh he likewise bare witnesse of and fore-told what Christ would doe in the spirit viz. Baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire c. Mat. 3.11 and the beginning of this Baptisme was after the death resurrection and ascension of Christ as may be seen in Acts 2.2 3 c. now this third Baptisme was more excellent then the two former and this was the Baptisme of Christ by the out-pouring of the Holy Ghost and the worke and operation of this Baptisme is to burne up consume or destroy all the remainder of what was left by the other two former Baptismes and likewise to comfort and establish and make to live in a more safe and sure union of the thing closed with and from hence the third name is added to the two former and thus the whole God-head in its properties divided it selfe into the three names viz. Father Son and Holy Ghost and in these three names or into these three names was all persons to be Baptised and Christ gave out his command to the very same purpose Mat. 28.19 And as these three-fold Baptismes did accord with the three-fold names in time operation and effect in the outward manifestation in order one following or succeeding another so they held out or typified the inward and spiritual succeeding one another and this inward worke and effect of these three names and Baptismes is that whereby and wherein the life and happinesse of all soules consist in having the same compleatly fulfilled in them And as I have given a little hint of the outward names and Baptisms in their times and dispensations succeeding one another so I proceed to speake a word of that which is the chiefe worke effect and end of all these in their inward or spirituall order of succeeding Therefore observe the Mystery of the first Baptisme or the Baptizing into the first name Father in the first dispensation under the Law as God in his orderly proceeding calleth and manifesteth himselfe to us Now when the Lord God would deliver the children of Israel out of Aegypt from under the bondage of Pharaoh and the Aegyptians and to make his name knowne to the people as the whole Deity stood in the one name so his name was made known to them in a wonderful and terrible manner as is before said So it is with us when God beginneth to draw our soules out of Aegypt and Pharoah and the Aegyptians bondage viz. the outward or grosse actings in which the Devill and our Lusts have kept us in bondage amongst the sonnes of men in their common condition living in the world and this God doth by the manifesting of his great and terrible name in the first worke of the soule whereby the soule becometh roused up and made to stirre and look about it selfe and to consider in what bondage it is by being so grosly carried out into the disobedience of the requirings of the commands of God and from hence it is that God appeareth in the terriblenesse of the condemning property of the soule viz. Conscience and maketh his wonderfull workes aad wrathfull displeasure knowne in the corruptible parts of man which keepeth the spirit in under its captivity and this God doth by the hand of his servant Moses viz. by sending the Law of Commandment out and setting it home to the heart and yet how loath is the Devill who hath his Kingdome in the inferiour parts of the soule to let the spirit of man goe out of his captivity from serving him and his people viz. grosse sins and outward transgressions and from eating of his Onions and Garlick viz. in having complacence in those sins and the love of the fellowship of the men of the world and eating of their
they could not know nor to this day can know how you do beguile them O that I and all Gods people who know the truth had heads full of water that our tears might run down day and night for the slain of our own flesh and blood and yet poor hearts their bodies liveth in the world and their hearts liveth in the Creature and their God liveth in their head and they worship him according to your blinde precepts and they love to have it so and yet is their poor spirits under the chains of sin death devil and hell and yet you nor they can be made beleeve that this is so And this is the effects and fruits of your wise preaching by way of Use and Doctrine which you have learned at the Holy Universitie you so much boast of But I tell you plainlie that since your wise preaching had its beginning the truth of God hath been hid by it and so the souls of men have been deprived of the sweet enjoyments thereof O wo be to you for your work yea wo and sorrow shall be your portion in a far greater measure then any of the sons of men yea you shall one day curse the time that your fathers put you to the Holy Universitie to make you Preachers nay you shall wish that they had put you to learn the trade of Tinklers when they put you to learn the trade of Preaching though at present you glory in your trade and think you are the Minister of the Gospel I know your pride is so great that when you see these lines you will be ready to burn them and make a scoff of me for writing them but that is no new thing for I know your spirits well enough neither do I care for your displeasure for I know in whom I have believed and who caused me to write these lines and him I desire to obey It s possible some of you may Petition to Authority to get me punished for my plainness with you as some of your Brethren have done in these daies against some poor people unto whom God hath more clearly manifested both his Justice and Mercy to their souls without your Ministry then ever he did to any soul under your Ministry And this maketh you all stark mad that God should do any thing in any soul but by you and so you both in Preaching and Petitions go about both to scandalize and persecute the truth of God and those souls in whom the truth is But this shall return upon you with shame and your own preaching and acting against the truth shall be your overthrow But friends I would not have you in the least to mistake me in what I write in general to you for no truth is so general but there may be some particular exception admitted in it so in this that I have written to you for though I express you all in general yet my charitie causeth me to admit of some particular exception of some amongst you in some respect for far be it from me to condemn the truth in any man or in any order if I can but perceive the least appearance thereof in any soul But that which I judge and condemn amongst you all is the illegal and unjust calling and coming into the Ministrie and your pride and covetousness in the Ministrie and the ignorance of the truth of God in the Ministrie and the great unknowing of God in the people as he ought to be known the which hath been the evil fruits and effects of your Ministrie I confess that many of you have wit and schollarship enough to maintain Argument with Papists and any other Formalists that differ in judgement with you and that many of you be able enough to take a sentence of Scripture and divide it into so many parts as the sence of speech will carry and so out of every part to raise out Doctrines and Uses Applications and Conclusions c. and so may beget a form of truth in some of your hearers and when this is done yet the power of truth is hid from you in your wise speaking and from them in their wise hearing For the power of the truth is one thing and the form of truth is another thing and the form of truth I know you hold out and may hold out by your wit and schollarship taught you in your Universities And this I know one man may teach another and as he is taught so may he speak yea and by the work of the brain may adde much to what hath been taught and yet for all this the heart is far enough from the enjoyment or partaking of the power of truth And where the power of truth is wanting in any of you though you have the form of truth yet are you none of those whom God calleth into the Ministrie but you shall one day be judged and condemned as theeves who came not in at the door but by some other way Though you put this off your selves and apply it to others whom the Lord hath raised of his own accord to speak what they know of God and have in some measure received the truth and can bear witness to the truth and by these your falshood becometh to be somewhat discovered And therefore great is your malice and envy against them but yet they shall increase and you shall decrease for the Lord will turn your skirts about your head and your nakedness and shame shall be discovered to all men I know that many amongst you who are envious fools and haters of the truth do jear and scoff at experienced men and speak evil of them behinde their back yet will fawn upon them to their face because they know these are too hard for them in matter of speaking of the truth as it is in Jesus and like beaten Cocks will hide their heads under the others wings and will assent to what they say because they cannot gain-say it but when their backs is turned then they will scandalize and speak evil of these persons and wrest their words to that which was never intended And when a pack of these fools is met together in their pots then do they strengthen the hands one of another and make their malicious scandals compleat and then goeth about to make the simple people beleeve that such and such men is perillous and erroneous persons and perswadeth them to take heed of them least they be seduced by them And thus do some of you seek to undermine the truth and the reason is because the truth will be their undoing But other amongst you I know is more witty and will not be so much against experienced men but perceiving that God owneth them they will not altogether speak against these as do the other but rather make use of their theevish art and steal some experiences from the mouth of others and can lay them up in their memories and make as much use of them as their own and speak of
each to raise out Doctrines Uses c. and so declaring the minde of God and Christ according to their own Schollership Wit and Knowledge got from Scriptures and other mens labors Thinkest thou it was such he meaneth of or did intend these words for them if thou do thou art a fool But I will tell thee who he aimed them for viz. Such as himself who had the right knowledge of and lived in the power of what he held out to others and had not his doctrine to fetch out of his study and brain-knowledge gotten from what others had said but he had it from the right Fountain that Fountain living in him and he in it and he was acquainted with that he lived in and could witness the truth thereof truly and as he had heard and seen so did he testifie to others for he had seen the Lord Jesus in Spirit and he had felt his love and lived in that love and from thence he had his freedom both to speak and talk what was freely given him by those whom he had brought to be partakers of the spiritual blessing viz. The shedding abroad of the love of God in their hearts by which love they were more willing to give then he was to receive And these people he spoke these words to were wrought into the same condition as himself witnesseth 1 Cor. 9.2 And therefore knowing that he was one whom the Lord had sent to work his work and that the work was wrought even upon those upon whom this work was fulfilled he thought no great offence to take what they would freely give him and to such whom he had wrought up into the faith and love of the Lord Jesus Christ he sheweth that if he did take any thing of them yet he did not transgress and to shew them how reasonable it was if he did so he brings before them these foresaid metaphors which all of them being rightly weighed was worthy of the reward they hoped for and from thence he draweth this conclusion That it was as lawful for him to take something of them as a Souldier to take the wages he ventureth his life for And as reasonable it was as for the Husband-man to eat of the fruit of his own labor c. And the Law of Reason will allow this Well this may sound something as like thou wouldst have it but minde what is said before and what cometh afterward and then see where thou art for thou art not the man that hath the right to take of any any thing for what thou dost for thy work is not worth a Bodwill per annum for thou art not the man that hath any due at all to a peny for thy work for thy work is but thy own and thou hast learned it as men learn other trades and yet by what thou hast learned from others thou wilt take upon thee to enter upon the work of the Lord and to be a declarer of his will and minde to others whereas thou bearest but false witness of the minde of God for thou hast not seen the Lord Jesus neither ever did he call thee to what thou dost nor ever hath the minde of Christ Jesus been made known unto thee in the Mysterious manifestation of his loving kindness to thy soul neither dost thou live in the life of and love of God and so thou art far enough from knowing what his will is for he doth not own thee in thy work neither will he bless thy work for it is none of his but thy own and so thy own blessing falleth upon it and that is nothing but a false name thou puttest upon it making foolish people believe thou art something even Simon Magus like who deceived the people And thou makest some believe that thou hast converted them to God yea and thou art so perswaded thy self too when alas they are but the same they were in their hearts onely they differ from what they were before in the outward man and because thou hast put out their eyes they give up themselves to be led by thy direction and for so doing thou dost pronounce them blessed but yet poor souls their hearts are not turned to God but live in the world Look back I pray thee at the foresaid Mystery and the fair Garment for they be the very emblems and just pictures of thy self and thy converts for all which thou teachest and what they learn of thee is but to work that Garment and both thou and they pretend what you will of God your work is but your own and the creature may go so far and farther too by the power in them by Creation the common grace added to it and all this you boast of is but the Creatures acting and in this you have but made them twofold more the childe of Satan then they were before Matth. 23.15 And you are the very men that heal the wounds of the people very slightly Jere. 8.11 But take to you and lay it to heart for the saying of our Saviour doth belong onely to you and such as you for he saith If the blinde lead the blinde c. Matth. 15.14 And this is all you bring to pass to deceive the souls of the people And thus you pay them for their hire and this is the work you work for your wages and these are the spiritual things you sow to them whereby you imbolden your selves to take their carnal things and this is the Gospel you preach whereby you get your living and yet you cannot see how you are blinded but runne on in your sin strengthning your selves with the wrong understanding of the words of the Apostle whereas you neither be the man he was neither inwardly nor outwardly neither have you the right calling into these places you are in neither do you work the work he wrought and yet do you most unjustly take an occasion from his Word to take from the people that which belongeth not unto you but being partial in your own cause you take in Scripture what may seem to make for your own gain and what seemeth to be against you that you wave and will not minde it For though the Apostle by right of his calling and rightness of his work might have received something of the Corinthians as due to him as the Souldiers wages yet he kept himself free from receiving any thing of them 1 Cor. 9. Yea his own hands ministered to his necessity as may be seen Acts 20.34 But this you take no notice of because if you should follow his example your Kingdom would fall down and that you have no minde to let fail But in this your doing I assure you That you are the greatest theeves in all the world nay you are both theeves and robbers yea and the greatest cheaters in the world too and I will prove it too For first you take of the people that you have no right to take because it doth not belong to you as is
Fathers to make you what you are and your Fathers god is your god also and his inspirations you obey and that with all your souls and strength for in case you have not a benefice at present that satisfies your hungry desire when there is any appearance of a greater to be gotten O what inspiration doth your god cast into your mindes and then is your desires inlarged and your thoughts set on worke how to answer your god in his inspirations and then you humble your selfe under the mighty hand of your god in which humility you come bending before this great man and that great man and so desireth his helpe and countenance in the matter and by their meanes you come to get your matter brought about to what you would have had it Is not this true I appeale to your selves for witnesse hereof for though you would yet you cannot turne your eyes from it for your owne Conscience will witnesse this for a truth O wretched and most miserable of all men in your doings how dare you say that God hath sent you to speake in his Name or take upon you the name of Christ's Ministers seeing how cleare it is from whence you had your calling and how base you are in your calling but yet you cannot see your selves in your basenesse for your god hath blinded your eyes neither doe you care for having them opened while you make so good a trade of your speaking for that spirit of divination that possesseth you bringeth in you no little gaine by its smooth speaking for many of you sell your speaking at no lesse rate then three or foure pound a Sermon as some call it but let it be what it will I say some of you have so much for speaking one houre and if any of you get but ten or twenty shillings for each Sermon you thinke that hardly well sold yet you all pretend the honour of God and the edifying of the people and the feeding of their soules O fooles for shame hold your tongues and say not so but you declare your sins like Sodome and cannot hide them from God nor from them who have their eyes open And would but the Parliament of England make an Act to take away this hire from you and that you might have nothing from them for your speaking then should you see your selves and all the world might see you for then wee should but heare little of you for your preaching would bee soone at an end and Gods honour and the edifying of his people would quickly cease and then I beleeve you would let a Souldier take the Pulpit for you would not care who came in it then then would it appeare from whom and from whence you had your calling and I thinke that the Parliament would doe God a speciall peice of service in making such an Act and I am perswaded God would mightily blesse them for it for in so doing they should over-throw as great enemies of God and his Truth as ever yet was subdued in England Scotland or Ireland and these enemies are the pride and hypocrisie of these covetous Priests but this is my hope that this Act will once be brought to passe for God will not passe such dealing by though he suffer long for his patience is well nigh tired out Our Saviour saw these men well enough and you whom I have written to are the very same in your generation whom he calleth the hireling who runneth away when he seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep to the wolf John 10.12 Is not this your very practise when any poverty or suffering seemeth to come upon you which you discern by the eyes of your fleshly reason and when you can but know of a place to hide your selves from that apparant danger then away you run and let what as will take the people Dogs Wolves or Devils you care not for you will fend for your selves and you will say God calleth you from them And thus you run from one place to another one while for fear of poverty or some other suffering and sometimes for the maintaining and upholding of your pride And all this is because you are hirelings for the sheep is not yours for you neither were sent by God neither do you work his work in begetting souls to God and as you have not the love of God manifested in you you cannot beget children nor bring them forth into the partaking of the love of God for you have not that immortal seed of God in you to sow in the hearts of others And therefore you are but barren and unfruitful and so your hearers are but empty souls not knowing what the love of God is and therefore there can be no true love between you and them and therefore upon small occasions you will leave them But were they children begotten by you you would lose your life before you would run away from them and you would spend and be spent for them and endure any hardship for and amongst them But you are but Ministers of fortune and those that will give most for your service may have it and as long as you can profit well by the people you will serve them and pretend much love to them and herein you make but a prey of the flock and seem like Lambs and Sheep in your appearance to them when you profit well by them And thus you slily beguile the poor and devour and take from them by your ravening that which many of them might very ill spare and yet have it you will Consider I pray you of the words of our Saviour for you are the self-same he pointeth out where he saith Beware of false-prophets that shall come in sheeps cloathing but inwardly they are ravening wolves But by their fruits you shall know them c. Matth. 7.15 16. c. And this very same is fulfilled in you for your fruits do testifie what you are for you have not brought out fruit unto God but unto your selves and you are no more but like to thorns and thistles who tear the wool of sheep and your fruit not worth the gathering The Apostle Paul before his departure had a clear sight of you and of your fore-fathers and told the people That after his departure should grievous wolves arise not sparing the flock Acts 20.29 Is not this true in you in tearing and taking away the poor mans labor and if you have but the tenth part you care not what becomes of the poor mans family at home when oft it hapneth that his children wanteth bread and other necessaries for what you have taken from them to consume upon your pride and lust I can witness to this truth my self and so can many others in England but if we can but have patience a little all will be amended and then shall you no longer reign for your desolation is not far off and I would have you to take notice of it for I warrant you what I say
is no Astrology for that you will not believe though never so true But this that I tell you shall undoubtedly come to pass and sooner perhaps then you look for it I will not tell you at present what I believe of you least when it cometh to pass you say I was a witch for I know you will not allow a true speaker the name of Prophet But me thinks I hear some of you object and say In what thou hast said thou hast not spoken truth for there hath many been converted by our Preaching and many godly people have we begotten and the Lord hath given a blessing to our Labors and by this we know we are the Lords Messengers to his people and the true Laborers in his Vineyard O my Friends do not think in what I have said that I have any minde to detract from you what is your due or to wrong any of you in the least For I confess Like may beget like for that is oft a truth in nature and so in you For I do not deny but many of you have a form of godliness and as you are in that form you may beget others also into the same form and so make them like your selves and yet all of you without the power of God and love of God and wisdom of God For if the love of God were shed abroad in your hearts it would turn your hearts into its own image but as yet you have not that love and therefore you have hatred in your hearts both against God and man And from hence it is That you can freely persecute and destroy all that worship not God in your way and this you have no order for nor example either from Christ or any of his followers but you and all your Converts go not a jot further then the Scribes and Pharisees but in that you believe Christ is come in the flesh and have an Historical or Notional Faith of him in your head but the world and selfness lyeth in your hearts and you are as hide-bound to the Gospel-forms as the Scribes and Pharisees were to circumcision and the formes under the Law and as they being hide-bound or heart-bound to these forms so became they to be the enemies of Christ when he appeared in the flesh And the very same are you and all your Converts fast tied in your heart to the Gospel-forms and hereby you are become the enemies of Christ appearing in the spirits of men and so are you become the persecutors of Christ in the Saints and yet in this you think you do God good service and the greatest perfection in your Converts is when they are made exceeding zealous for the honor and glory of God as they say so that whosoever worships God in any other way then theirs then are they sure of persecution by you or them if it be within the compass of your power and this you have in your generation and that faith and love and full assurance of your salvation alwaies is accompanied with pretended zeal for the honor and glory of God and from hence you count all other the enemies of God who have not the same garb that you have And all this great conversion you brag of is nothing else but a conversion from evil to far worse for you have turned some of your Hearers from some outward grosse offences and have brought them into a conformity to duty as you call it and by the refraining the outward grossnesse and closing to and with the outward duties your Conscience beginneth to cease biting so long as you walk obsequiously therein and from hence the foule Feind transformes himselfe into the Angel of Light and secretly wraps himselfe in your actings and by his power when once gotten rightly joyned to Selfe Righteousnesse then hath he power to worke Wonders and can worke like God and give consolation to the Soule and bring it into raptures and ravishments and can bring the Promises to remembrance which is suitable to confirme his workings and from such working he can make the Soule beleeve its regeneration and its calling and election to be made sure and that with a witnesse too in which assurance the Soule will oft rejoyce and shall have many false flashes of Love which the Soule can no way know but it is the feeling of the love of God and if you have brought any Soule thus far as to this full assurance and to be partakers of such feeling you thinke you have brought them farre on in grace and thus farre I know you may bring a Soule by your Ministery and yet this Soule is but two-fold the Childe of Satan more then it was before I will make this plaine unto you for when the Soule before was in the grosse actings then was that person in a more hopefull way for God to bring it to himselfe by his owne way then it is now for then when God would have brought these persons from their sinne in his bringing them either by himselfe or by those whom he would use for that worke then I say there was hope these Soules might have been led in a way whereby they should have escaped the snare of Satan But being that these soules are in the snare they are more in captivity to him then they were before and the reason is because then God had some power in the Consciences of them and oft times condemned them for their outward grossnesse but now they being brought out of these outward sinnes into the obedience of outward formes their Conscience loseth that priviledge and now instead thereof the Feind hath power to feed the Soule as is aforesaid the which he had no power to doe before and in this condition the Soule is well pleased to be and can stand for it selfe stoutly that it is sealed to God and made sure of Salvation and so is become exceeding fool-hardy rejoycing in its fooles paradise and being fed by false consolation and herein that person is once more the childe of Satan then before And secondly whereas before these soules were converted by you they would not persecute or bring any to death for not walking in their waies but now your Converts must seeke the honour of God and so in zeale for his glory they must become persecutors and destroyers of their fellow Creatures because they will not honour God in their way and thus are they become Murderers and yet they doe not know it but the same spirit that ruleth in them must they of necessity bee obedient to and it is proved before that that spirit in them that ruleth is Satan and he it is that setteth them on work For as our Saviour saith He was a murtherer from the beginning and his works will you do Joh. 8.44 And herein are your Converts twofold the children of Satan more then they were before It was not the Publicans and sinners that put Christ to death no no it was the religious zealots under the Law
in themselves and would secretly be oblieging him to it and Moses gave them a caveat of the same when he bad them take heed to themselves least they should say in their hearts for my righteousness c. Hath the Lord done these things for me Deut. 15.9 And for this very thing the Sabbath was to be a sign of his sanctifying them and that sanctification was not of themselves but that they were as clean stript of all righteousness to sanctifie themselves as he gave out strict command to cease from all labor whatsoever and that they should always be looking out of themselves unto the Lord their God who sanctified them and that they should know that sanctification was of him he did very oft rehearse the same to them as may be seen Levit. 20.8 21.8 22.9 16. and Ezek. 37.28 and many other places And as it was given them for a sign of the sanctification of God so it signified a spiritual rest unto them which rest should be in God that as their bodies was refreshed in and by that rest so should their spirits be refreshed in him and be at rest when they had laid aside and cast off all toyl and labor of spirit viz. Caring fearing loving and desiring to be satisfied with created things and that they were brought out of and beyond all their secret dependancy of what they acted or observed which while they lived in they were the cause why all toyl and labor hapned to their spirits in which they were deprived of the sweet rest in God For when the heart of man is carried out from the rest in God then is it in toyl about some created thing and whatsoever it be it affordeth nothing but restlessness and this made Solomon say who had tryed all things and found that those who would seek rest in any thing created should be deceived and that he should finde nothing but sorrow and grief yea his heart taketh not rest in the night Eccles 2.23 And because the Lord knew the people would be seeking rest in other things therefore he gave them this sign of the Sabbath wherein they should know from whom the rest of their spirits should come And when they were gone out from him and had not kept the Sabbath which held out to them the rest of their souls but were turned from him yet he would have them to return again to him and ask and enquire for the way that they had left and in walking therein they should finde rest for their souls Jer. 6.16 And David knew full well what was the rest of spirit and said to himself O my soul return to thy rest c. Psal 116.7 And thirdly This Sabbath was a sign of the eternal rest that souls should have in him after the end of so many several orders and dispensations both inwardly and outwardly these being darkly held out to them by the number of six days and the seventh to be the day of rest and kept holy to the Lord And that order of numbering six days was by the Lords own example held out to them in the first Creation where it is said the Lord was six days in working and creating all things though God himself wrought not in that manner but to stoop to our weak understanding of him that in our weak knowledge could apprehend nothing at all of him if he were not pleased to let out himself in ways whereby we might darkly grope after him And so in these several out-lettings of himself in these weak ways we might be brought by little and little passing through these dispensations that we thereby might be made fit and able to come to a condition of persecution wherein we should be in a capability to behold and stand in the presence and right knowledge of God himselfe And because to speake of these seven fold dispensations is not suitable for you at present and because of the ignorance of the times as yet else it may bee you should have heard them more clearly defined to you for I assure you there is a Mystery in these numbers which as yet the most of the Sons of men be ignorant of and the Mystery in them was wrapt in them in the beginning and was mystically holden out to the Sons of men by Iohn in the Revelation by the seven Seales the seven Angels who sounded the seven Trumpets and the pouring out of the seven Viols which no man can or ever shall understand untill he be brought to live in the heart of God and God to live in his heart for none else is fit to know his secrets And under these three considerations it was that God gave out so strict command for the observation of the seventh day or Sabbath and under these considerations was Christ held out to them in his properties of Sanctification and spiritual rest and eternal rest of Souls and in this respect he was Lord over the Sabbath as himself testifieth in Mark 2.28 And as the Leviticall or Ceremoniall Law held out or were the shadows of the Office of Christ both of suffering and sacrifice which all of them was to be excluded after his death so was the Sabbath to be excluded when the thing signified by it was come and till that time that commandement was in force but when Christ was come you may observe how oft himself did crosse the Scribes and Pharisees in not observing the Sabbath according to their order Mar. 2.23 And when our Saviour upon divers occasions was to speake of the Lawes of Commandement which was to stand in force and should not in any wise passe away till they were fulfilled as may be seen in Mat. 5. c. yet never did he so much as touch or give command to keep the Sabbath because hee knew the same was fulfilled in his appearing of which he was Lord and whosoever doth observe the seventh day upon the obedience of the Commands before the appearance of Christ in the Flesh they erre not knowing the minde of God in his Commands and so they are blinded from beholding Christ in his properties therein contained and so by and in the observation of that day they become that to themselves which of right doth belong to Christ But I know you will say you doe not observe that day upon the same account as the Jewes did but under a Gospel consideration having the same day changed unto another day viz. the first day in which Christ rose from the dead and in that respect we call it not a Sabbath but the Lords Day It is true you call it the Lords Day but for that you have neither command nor example in all the New Testament but only as you may infer from that saying of St. John in Revel 1. the which you cannot justly affirme that it was the first day of the week in which Christ rose from the Dead but I would have you to know what the Lords Day is and how John called that
speaking only of the time when Christ instituted this Type so I will goe on a little and speake a word of the matter in this Type As for the matter you know it was the elementary things viz. Bread and Wine and the Bread was such as the Passeover was kept with viz. unleavened Bread which was not made by Art or had any mixture of bitternesse or sournesse in it but had all the sweetnesse that the nature of the graine afforded as for Bread it is to be understood in its originall community and properties First for the Originall it is of the vigour and vertuall strength of the earth which doth give and communicate it self into the Grain cast into it whereby the same receiveth life and so is brought out and brought on still to its maturity and fitnesse for the use of man Secondly for its community as the Grain by being cast into the earth and lying in the wombe thereof the earth communicateth its vigour and strength into it so the Bread being cast into the stomack it doth communicate the same vigour received from the earth into the corporality of the fleshly substance of man and so by way of communication the body hath its support from its originall viz. the earth And Thirdly the properties of Bread is to give life and strength and keep away weaknesse and death from the body and this Bread Christ made choyse of to typifie what was the vertue of himselfe and therefore he said by way of Metaphor This is my Body c. Now the Body of Christ typified by Bread was not that corporall Body which was then visible amongst them neither was it that Body that he bad them eate for that corporall Body of Christ it selfe was but a Type and whatsoever he acted or suffered in that Body were al typical having them a in spirituall signification and Christ himselfe witnesseth the truth when he said he would give the Disciples his Flesh to eate which saying was a stumbling block to many that heard him which when he perceived he told them plainly That his Flesh viz. his corporall Body did not profit but it was the Spirit that quickeneth and that the words he spake they were spirit and life Ioh. 6.63 So here is to be understood Christ in the Spirituall substance and not in the Corporal and this Spirituall substance is the Divine Nature which hath in it selfe these things typified by the Bread viz. it s originall from the Father and of the same nature and substance with him oned with him in unity as the Graine is one with the earth and of the same nature and substance not differing in community but they differ in matter and likenesse in the coporality so Christ and the Father are distinct in respect of the matter and likenesse in the corporality viz. the Flesh while he lives in it but did not differ from the Father in union as himselfe faith Ioh. 14.11 which unity consisteth of the originall communion in the eternal substantiality of the being of God and from the eternall substantiall and essentiall being or Divine nature proceedeth these properties held out to us by the Bread viz. to strengthen and give life and to keep weaknesse and death from the soules of those who have the Divine nature in them and such soules by the community and vertue of the same nature become incorporated into the union of the Father and these Souls by the properties of the Divine nature or Spirit brought into the same substance of its originall and receiveth all its vertue and nutriment from the same as the branch doth from the Vine Ioh. 15.1 2 3. and as that Bread had no Leaven mixed in it so the Divine nature hath no mixture in it but what is in it selfe and will not admit of any Leaven viz. any of the Creatures Art Wisdome Righteousnesse c. and this was the Leaven Christ bad his Disciples beware of Matth. 16 6. and the Soules of men becometh to be made partakers of the Divine nature by way of pure beleeving which ariseth out of the operation of Divine nature it selfe and not out of the observation of the Type for that is but Historicall and looketh upon Christ in the Human Nature and this is but the faith of Hypocrites and that will perish Iob 8.13 but the faith which is of the operation of the Divine nature is that which overcometh the world 1 Ioh. and by it the soule liveth and abideth in the Divine nature it selfe and thereof is made partaker and in this respect the Divine nature typified by Christs flesh becometh to be meat indeed Io. 6. and this would Christ have his followers to know and live in and thus would he have them to discerne him and understand his saying and what he meant when he said This is my Body c. and because the Corinthians were blinde in the mysterie therefore the Apostle Paul blamed them much and giveth them a caveat of the unworthy and not right eating of that Bread c. and how that not right eating did indanger them much because they in their eating did not discerne the Lords Body 1 Cor. 11.29 Likewise for the other Elementary matter viz. Wine its originall is from the earth which giveth life and nutriment to the Vine whereby the fruit is brought out to maturity out of which the Wine is produced and the properties of the Wine is Paysicall purifying and refreshing being seasonably taken but on the contrary it is damageable and hurtfull and this fruit of the Vine Christ used in this Type because of the sympathizing properties thereof with the properties of his owne Blood now the Blood of Christ is to be understood in a twofold sence viz. Typicall and Spirituall typicall in the blood of the corporall flesh which was shed or let out upon the Crosse but in this his corporall Blood was no more vertue then was in the corporall flesh and that profiteth nothing being but a Type but that Blood which is saving is spirituall issuing out of the Divine nature of Christ and that is his love and this love is the life of Christ and blood signifieth life as you may see Gen. 9.4 5. and this blood or love of Christ which proceedeth or is shed out of the Divine nature of his spirituall substance hath these properties in it viz. Physicall purifying and refreshing first Physicall for those soules who have had the same issuing out of the Divine nature into them knoweth that they have been recovered of divers Diseases by the same which diseases is the bitter tormentings of the guilty Conscience who keepeth the Soule in great paine under the lashes of Justice and under the shadow of death and under the bondage of the Devill and under the paine of Hell all these being of power to torment while the hand writing of Ordinances is unblotted by the same blood or love of Christ and those soules who are Soule-sick under these stands in need of
out or darting it self into each several soul typified to them by that form of breaking the bread Then he gave the same to them that they might eat it and told them in a mystical sence that it was his body that was broken for them as is partly shewed before And this form in the Type instituted had a sympathizing with and to that Type of his corporal body ready to be sacrificed and rent in peeces upon the cross till its coporal life was taken from it which holdeth out the renting to peeces the body of sin in us and the death of the same upon the cross of self-denial which is holden out by the form and manner of eating eating signifieth brusing or suffering being typified by the bitter herbs in eating the Paschal Lamb For as eating bruiseth and maketh the thing eaten to be fit for digestion whereby the same is turned into the same substance of flesh So afflictions and sufferings maketh us partakers with Christ and of Christ and to drink of the same Cup and to be baptized with him into his death and by the vertue thereof the body of sin becometh destroyed Rom. 6.2 3 4. And this Christ would have them to know when he commanded them to eat that bread that as in eating it they bruised it in peeces so it was that body of sin in them that was the cause why the justice of his Father bruised and brake his corporal Body and to be avenged of that body of sin in them he would make them partakers of the Divine Nature and that was by way of suffering whereby that body of sin should be destroyed And that in these afflictions the pure believing might be raised in the soul that thereby the Divine Nature might be made suitable for digestion and so turned into the nature of the soul and the soul into its nature by vertue of the blood or love of the same nature that so he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified may be one Heb. 2.11 Likewise the manner or form in this Type was further viz. in taking the Cup and giving of thanks and bidding them drink it c. As for giving thanks it is a well-pleasingness in the soul with what God doth or will do with it and a free submitting to the Fathers will wherein his goodness is made manifested whereat and wherein the soul rejoyceth under any affliction and so it was that Christ rejoyced in what was the will of his Father and in obedience to his will he was willing to lay down his life and by this he shewed to his Disciples what he would have them to do when like afflictions should betide them and those who were his followers in whom the Divine Nature was livingly felt and by its vertue had dashed in peeces the body of sin and by the blood of that nature viz Love these souls was incorporated into the same nature these followed the same example and in suffering could be well pleased witness hereof is the Apostle Paul where he saith Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress c. Now in all these things we are more then conquerors c. Rom. 8.34 35 36 c. And further Christ told his Disciples that that Cup was the Blood of the New Testament which was shed for many c. in which typical saying was signified the establishing of the second Covenant promised before of his Father by the Prophet Jeremiah where he saith Behold the day cometh saith the Lord that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Jacob c. And I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people c. Iere. 31.31 32 33 c. Which promise our Saviour came to fulfil and at this time instituted this Type giving out the truth thereof in this his mystical saying and the compleat fulfilling hereof is in the souls of those who be incorporated into the Divine Nature whereby they become to have that law of God viz. The righteousness of God which righteousness is Christ or the Divine Nature stamped upon their hearts by which they know the truth of God in that Covenant and doth set to their seal that God is true Ioh. 3.33 And by the power and vertue of the same they are taught to know the truth and needeth not that any teach them because the same anointing in them teacheth them all things 1 Ioh. 2.27 And thus are these souls made to own God for their God and live in the love and life of him united to him by the vertue of this Covenant and so becoming his people owned by him and wholly set apart for himself in and through the sanctification of himself by his own Spirit But what might be said more upon this particular in the manner of this Type I let pass because somewhat that might be said is somewhat touched before in speaking of the material things in this Type and I would not too much over-load weak understandings with too much speaking of things that be too hard and heavy for them So I proceed to speak a word of the end in this Type for which Christ instituted it which was for this very purpose viz. That now when the time of his departure was at hand and that his bodily presence was to be taken away from the world therefore he would not leave the sons of men without some rememberance of himself and what he had said unto them the which he would have them to take notice of when he was gone and that his suffering should be kept still in minde and though the Type of his own Body should not abide amongst them yet he would leave them another Type instead of that whereby they should still be put in minde of him And this was to be to them as a glimpse of light shining in a dark place until the Sun it self arose and became as a light that shineth more and more until the perfect day and that while the sons of men were in their weakness before they were brought into the pure and perfect knowledge and full enjoyment of himself in the Divine Nature this was left to be as a mark in the way least by forgetfulness men might happily step out of their way in following him to the death of the Crosse and that was the chiesest thing which hee commanded and would have them to remember and Christ left not this Type only but he made to them who were his followers a promise of sending the Spirit to them who when he came should bring all that he had said into their remembrance Jo. 14.26 and this death of Christ in the corporall Flesh was still set before the eyes of those who were his dearest friends and truest followers and it was the thing they still pressed after to see how neare they could come to follow Christ
and contained within the New Covenant of Grace And thus in your deceit do you live being deceived and deceiving one another And you are as blinde in what you observe as those that never had eyes to see the Sun and yet by relation of others can believe there is a Sun So you hear by Scripture and Relation there is a God and so beleeves there is a God but yet the Son of God you never saw for as yet your eyes is fast-closed or if some amongst you have a little sight it is but a dark glimpse of the Son of God in these Ordinances and that dark glimpse you have is but of Christ as he was in the flesh and not as he is in the Divine Nature but as the mystery is that you think you see Christ or the Truth of God clearly in these Ordinances and because you say you see therefore your sin remaineth John 9.41 But I know you may object and say That Saint Peter in his first Epistle Chap. 3.2 saith that Baptism saves now under the Gospel It is true he saith so in a figurative speech resembling Baptism to the Water of the Flood which saved some when all the rest was drowned in the same but how did the water save some and drowned others it was not the water it selfe that saved but the Arke and it was not the Arke could save but the living and abiding in the Arke and the water and the Arke together did save the persons in the Arke for though the Apostle say that these persons were saved by water how was it that they were saved by water seeing it was water that would have destroyed them as well as the rest and yet the same water saved from the destruction of it selfe I will tell you how the water saved the Persons from its owne destruction even by its weaknesse it had to save and the nature of it being knowne to be destroying to them that should be overtaken with it from whence the knowledge of the Persons directed them into the Arke and thus was the water an instrument by causing feare to arise in the Persons by which feare they pressed into the Arke wherein they were saved for the water saved as it was an instrument to drive the Persons into the Arke but the Arke it selfe was the chief cause of their saving by their abiding in it and so the Apostle resembleth Baptisme to it with the thing signified viz. the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead for as the water saved as beforesaid from the destruction of it selfe so doth Baptisme as an instrument save all those who know the weaknesse of that type and from the knowledge of the weaknesse of it fearing to be destroyed by abiding in it thereby the soule is led from depending on it and so runneth into the Arke viz. into the death of Christ by the crosse of self-deniall and so into the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead viz. not to looke at Christ in the flesh but in the Divine nature by the power of which the soule is compassed about and saved from the danger of all things acted or created and thus farre Baptisme saveth so farre as the weaknesse of it is knowne and the danger in it manifested and so becometh instrumentall to direct and drive the soule out of it selfe into the thing signified but as the water destroyed all that abode in it without the Arke even so doth Baptisme destroy all soules who live in the forme or type thereof and yet is not inclosed about or incorporated into the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and abideth in him according as he is in the Divine nature and as the persons could not be saved if they kept not in the Arke no more can any foule be safe but as it abideth in the Divine nature as the branch in the Vine Jo. 15.1 2. But I say no more at present of this type of Baptisme because it may be you shall heare somewhat more of it afterwards and I hope by what is said you may partly understand your errour in your foolish conclusions upon it and not to be deceived by the false lying spirit of your blinde Priests so I proceed to speake a word of another principle in your Religion viz. Prayer Now as for Prayer I know there be many commands in Scripture for it and many examples also but for set times and set formes and in prayer you have none according as you use it As for the times of prayer which you use viz. usually evening and morning you have neither command nor example in Scripture but only this you follow by tradition and being led to observe the same by your good thinking and the obligation of your blinded Conscience being wrong informed by the Doctors of errour who limit the holy one of Israel and circumscribe him in a place and draweth formes and Images of him according to their fancy and imagination and so have framed a fantasticall or imaginary worship to him and in that fantastick way have learned to call upon him and so have set out to your selves these set times at which times you can call upon your imaginary God that he will heare your fained prayers and forgive you your conceited sin and supply the imaginary want of your soules and likewise you can praise him for his imaginary mercies bestowed upon your soules and adding to these a great deale of other hypocriticall repetitions to fill up your houre and when that is done then all is well with you and then heart goe whether thou wilt with thy affections for holy duty it is performed and so by this meanes your hearts is let out to goe a whoring all the day long and seeketh fellowship and communion with and in created things and so your thoughts fears cares lover and desires is carried after your chiefe God viz. the world or something contained in it for it being your treasure it hath your heart for where the treasure is there is your heart Mat. 6.21 and looke what hath most of your thoughts that is your god and if you look into your selves you shall finde that the Creature hath more of your thoughts then that God you prayed to in the morning but it mattereth not what your hearts be about all the day long for you have that at command which will cure all and that is your evening sacrifice and duty of prayer and from hence it is that you by your chosen times for prayer have become ignorant of the ground of prayer and having forsaken the ground of prayer and chusing to your selves a set time for prayer the contrary effects is produced viz. prayer proceeding from the right ground is a meane whereby sin is kept from the heart and affections and the heart with the affections is kept from sin but when the ground is changed into set times thereby the heart with the affections getteth liberty to sinne and the creature hath freedome to enter
upon the heart and thus your prayers is turned into sinne and this you have by asking and receiving counsell of your blinde Priest and hereby you make a cover for your selves that you may adde sin to sin this you may plainly see in Isa 30.1 but those who knew or doe know the true ground of Prayer were never tied to set times but to occasions and the occasions being so many made our Saviour give out this caveat so oft Watch and pray Mar. 13.33 and the Apostle who knew the ground of prayer and the many occasions to pray made him bid the Thessalonians pray without ceasing 1 Thes 5.17 and those who know the evill of themselves shall not need to have one to teach them when to pray or how to pray neither can they be tyed to set times for they shall finde that sin in themselves that cannot bee limited to times and therefore they cannot limit themselves to pray against it at times for to those both sin and prayer is unlimitable and this made the Apostle utter his desire in the well-wishing of those whom hee taught in the truth and right knowledge of God and themselves and willed them to pray every where 1 Tim. 2.8 Secondly for the forme you use in your prayer it is but your owne human invention which causeth you to straine your braine drawing out from thence so many words and multiplication of speech and to fill up your houre is oft put to use the same words over and over and so contrary to the command of our Saviour you use vaine repetitions Mat. 6.7 And herein you differ not from the Heathens for they think to be heard for their much speaking and this your beat-braine Duty is but the sacrifice of fooles and yet you know not that you doe evill but this your doing pleaseth your selfe and pacifieth your blinde Conscience and from hence you draw conclusions that God is pleased also making him such a one as your selves Psa 50.21 but those who know the right ground of prayer they are not tyed to times neither are they tyed to a forme in prayer for the true ground of prayer turneeth set times into occasions and it turneth selfe formes and repetitions into short and feeling expressions yea oft times such expressions as you could not heare if you were besides the Persons who uttereth these expressions and those are the cryes that ring and eccho in the eares of the Lord of Hosts and these are the prayers that prevaileth with the Lord in answering and filling the desires of such soules and these prayers and cryes are the very vigorous out-pourings of the Spirit which maketh intercession for the Saints and he who is a Spirit knoweth the minde of the Spirit Rom. 8.26 and in this manner Moses who knew the right ground of prayer called upon the Lord in his greatest distresse not so much as speaking one word that any of the people heard and yet his spirit cryed out so vehemently to the Lord that the Lord said unto him Wherefore cryest thou unto me and all that while his spirit was calling upon the Lord with his tongue he was admonishing the people to beleeve in the Lord as you may see Exod. 14.13 14 15 c. And in this manner Hannah poured out her prayer to God and prevailed with him in the thing she desired though Eli before he knew the truth accounted her a drunkard 1 Sam. 1.13 14. but the truth is that you know not the right ground of prayer and therefore you cannot depart from your set times and set formes and therefore you aske and receive not because you aske amisse Jam. 4.3 And the reason why you have not the right ground of prayer is because you know not God but as a Person and not as he is a Spirit and you know not the wisdome righteousnesse and power of God viz. his Christ but according to the flesh and therefore all your worship and holy duties as you call them is framed according to the knowledge that you have of God and Christ and this knowledge you have is no more but by relation of others as you have heard and seen in the Scriptures and the speaking thereof by your relative Priests and from hence it is that you have formed in your heads an Historicall faith and fantastick beleeving for as yet you have not been in the City of God and what you have heard and seen therein you cannot speake of and no further then you have knowledge of God you can beleeve God and no further then you can beleeve God can you call upon him and what God is in his Spirituall being you have not yet beleeved then how can you call on him in whom you have not beleeved Rom. 10.12 and why is it that you have not rightly beleeved even because you have not rightly heard of God and why is it that you have not rightly heard of God even because you have not had him rightly preached to you by your Priests and the reason why they could not rightly declare and preach God as he is a Spirit and Christ as he was and is in the Divine nature is because they were never sent Rom. 10.14 15. But I know that you may object against me and say that you you have some examples in Scripture both for your set times and set forms of prayer for you will say that David praised at even morning and at noon c. and that our Saviour himself prayed at sundry times and the Apostles themselves used prayer in this manner very oft with others c. It is true I do not deny vocal prayer and times for vocal prayer in case the right ground of prayer be in the person or persons praying for I would have you to understand what I have formerly said for I do not deny but confess occasional praying but that which I deny is the set-times and set-forms of prayer which is but good thinkings rules and blinde Priests precepts without any command or example in Scripture but vocal prayer occasionally the persons rightly grounded this is all that you or any can gather out of any example in Scripture And in this wise David oftentimes both prayed and praised and occasionally Christ in the flesh both prayed and praised and occasionally did the Apostles and the believing people in the primitive time both prayer and praise And according to this same rule the Apostle bad those that were afflicted pray and those that were merry he would have them to praise in singing of Psalms Jam. 5.13 And so I would have all men while they be in the body and the body of sin in them to use vocal prayer occasionally and that their expressions may arise from the very sence of the occasion and such prayers or expressions of desires accompanied with the right ground God will hear and answer the desires of such and will deliver them from fear and trouble and then shall such have cause to praise and glorifie
him Psal 50.15 But in drawing from example of occasions wrong conclusions and so making set-times suiting to others occasions herein you erre greatly as also to draw conclusion from the example of others expressions who spake according to the sence of the occasion For your formal repetitions this also is but foolishness and fantastick conceit without any ground at all and long may you call upon your God even like the Priest of Baal before he grant what you would have onely this I know you may have granted of God even as you have framed him a person in your fancy and comprehended him in a place so he answereth you again by way of your fancy by suffering the Angel of Light oftimes beguile you in making you believe you have received a great deal of comfort and refreshing in your soules from God when it is no more but the deceiveable spirit working in the imagination and fancy I would have inlarged more upon this principle in your Religion but that I would be at some other thing and what is said of this may give you some sight and glimpse of light that you thereby may darkly see where about you are in this your holy duty of prayer for in case you come to see your selfe in this particular you shall know assuredly that you differ not from the Papists themselves for this your holy duty of prayer as you call it was first instituted according to times and formes amongst them and you from them have borrowed that fashion of prayer and you and they are both one in the substance though you differ in some circumstances in your formes yet both of you worship one and the same God in your hearts But no more of this at present But to proceed I speake a word of another principall ground of your Religion viz. your blinde zeale in being so carried out to heare the Ordinances of God as you call them viz. your blinde Priests who have the lying spirit of errour in them by which they have preached to you and having bewitched you with their Charmes they have made you beleeve lyes instead of truth and from hence it is that you are altogether out of the way of the truth both inwardly and outwardly and yet you have no more knowledge thereof nor no more sence thereof then Witches whom the Devill have cheated with his fantastick delusions so that they finding or indeed conceiting they finde such comfort and content in these delusions so that they cannot be sensible of the danger they be in even so are you cheated by your false Priests and have no knowledge at all of the dangerfull deceit you are in but instead of finding out their deceit you are in love with them for their deceiving but no marvell for they have offered chanting powder to you and you have received the same of them and have eaten it in your morsels and so by the vertue or rather poysonable nature thereof you are made to goe and run starke mad after them and in this mad zeale you have lived and doe live in and in so doing you thinke you doe Gods service and seeke to honour him by attending of his Ordinance O poore blinde cheated soules I pitty you for your great ignorance herein for I was in your condition formerly and I had as great zeale in that way as any of you have or can have and I had the same thought of duty that you have yea and I doted in my madnesse upon these your false Priests and did very much adore them I am sure as much as you can doe and I owned them as the Ordinances Oracles and Ministers of God but when the loving kindnesse of God appeared to me and that he was pleased to make the way of his truth knowne to me then did I see my great folly and madnesse and then was manifested to me the great deceit of the Priests and more and more as God was pleased to owne me and teach me so more and more they were discovered to me and out of my love and pitty toward you as my owne flesh and blood I give you warning of them for they are none of the Ministers of God neither ever sent hee them but they have been brought into their places by other meanes as I have somewhat shewed you before therefore as all the rest of your duties and performances taught you by them is but by their owne wisdomes invention so is this also for this duty of hearing them is that which most of all exalteth them for thereby they have both their praise pride and profit upholden and that causeth them to beat so sore upon that very point and layeth load upon your poore blinded Conscience and by help of the lying spirit that is in them they have wrested all the Scriptures to and for their owne purpose in this particular and so have blinded you of the right sence of many places that painted them out in their right colours and have made use of them and applied them for the upholding of themselves and for the opposing and putting downe of all who had more appearance of God in them then themselves and beside when or where they had or have power they took to them the help of the Sword of Justice to uphold themselves and destroy others who had God more clearly manifested in them then themselves and thus have they become the Man of Sin who exalteth himselfe above God or any that are called by the name of God as you shall see plainly opened afterward but in the interim beware of them and thinke not that you performe any acceptable service to God in going to heare them for by this very act of yours you become transgressours against God and so he giveth you up to be deceived and the way of truth is hid from you But you may object and say In case they be not sent Ministers of God yet you may heare them for Christ bad the people heare the Scribes and Pharisees which sate in Moses Chaire and yet they were such as were against Christ and taught the people to observe the Law and yet themselves observed not what they taught to others It is true Christ bad the people observe and doe whatsoever the Scribes and Pharisees taught them but yet he commanded not the people to heare them but only as you may inferre from the other words but in case he had in plaine words commanded them to heare them that maketh not for your hearing of unsent Ministers in our dayes as I shall plainly prove the same unto you For in these last dayes both the Law of Commandement and the Law of Ceremonies and the observation of Circumcision was all in force untill the death of Christ in the flesh but when he spake these words he was in the flesh and so the observation of the ceremoniall Law and Circumcision was tollerable and to be observed of the people and those Scribes and Pharisees who then sate in Moses
is in the Divine nature and the reason is because that the faith according to Christ in the flesh doth not take away lust out of the heart but rather conformeth the heart to lust and lust to the heart and lust is lovely to the heart and the operation of the Divine nature or faith issuing out of and from the Divine nature it killeth lust in the heart and draweth the heart with all its affections into the right center and from hence it is that many in their forms fal short of that which is the true center and becometh enemies of Christ and yet none preach Christ nor pretend Christ more then those but can you who are so compleatly congregated people thinke that you be any such as be the enemies of Christ I doubt you will hardly beleeve it but let me tell you in plaine termes you had best beware lest you be found in the number of such for whosoever are enemies to the Crosse of Christ shall be found enemies to Christ but I feare you doe not rightly understand what the Crosse of Christ is and then how should you be friends to it for I assure you none knoweth the Crosse of Christ but those who be rightly incorporated into the Divine nature and that is not an incorporating in Kirk-fellowship as you call it and while you are bound up in that incorporating I may upon safe grounds conclude that you as yet know not what the Crosse signifieth But it may be that some amongst you would know what I meane by the Crosse of Christ and would heare my opinion of the same for I know this is a time wherein man is addicted to heare new things but yet I have not any new thing to tell you for what I have to say to you is no more but such old tales as hath formerly been told both by Christ and his true follower but when the following of Christ ceased then the old sayings and tales which was formerly told grew out of fashion and new sayings and wise sayings and learned sayings and studied fictions being new became to be in request But to answer what some of you may desire I will bring old sayings to explaine the truth hereof to you and these shall be the saying of the Apostle Paul who oft insisted upon this very subject viz. the Crosse of Christ but this was not the wooden Crosse upon the which the Body of Christ was crucified that was a type indeed of the other Crosse spoken of by the Apostle and in respect of the reference the one had to the other made the Apostle use that Metaphorical speech in sufferings for suffering is this Crosse and by suffering we have fellowship with Christ and beare him company but what suffering is it that maketh man have fellowship with Christ and rightly may bee called the Crosse it is the daily selfe-deniall of our owne hearts with the inclinations thoughts loves and desires which is daily tending and bending downe to the creature in one kinde or other and the creature with its objects arising to meet the affections to carry them after them from the living and abiding in God as he is a Spirit and in Christ as he is in the Divine nature or the union of the Father and in that union of the Father and the Son to keep the heart with its affections that so the fellowship of the Father and the Son may daily be the fellowship of our hearts and this is that which ought to be the center of all hearts without which there can be no happinesse in any forme yea this leadeth the heart out of centering in formes and this was that which the Apostle would have those whom he wrote to to injoy and for that end he declared the truth as it was in Jesus that so they might have fellowship with them who were partakers of the truth and hee affirmeth that their fellowship was with the Father and the Sonne 1 Jo. 1.2 3. And where the heart is rightly called and rightly carried on in the way of Christ and those who were his followers they rest not in Formes and Kirk-fellowships for they finde in themselves other matters to goe about and that is to presse after the fellowship of the Father and the Sonne and their longing empty mourning spirit is not nor cannot be content with any thing below that fellowship and out of the great desire hereof the soule is set at varience with all created things or whatsoever may interpose or keep back the Spirit from that which is the object of its desire and when by pure inlightening the pure beleeving is fixed in the will or heart then I beleeve there will be suffering in the daily striving to keep the created object from the heart and the heart from the creature by objects and then shall appeare and be made manifest that which never did appeare before even the great body of sin and selfnesse which of necessity must be destroyed and crucified and made as dead as the Body of Jesus when it hung dead upon the Crosse of wood and this daily withstanding the body of sin in the heart and affections is the Crosse upon which the body of sin must be crucified for this body of sin or this selfnesse in the heart must dye or the soule must dye instead of it and it is not a few daily duties or being incorporated into a congregated way that will destroy it no no for this body of sin and selfnesse is of another nature then so for it will cost man the best blood in him before it be subdued and the Apostle who knew the evill of it and the necessity of having it crucified could not rejoyce in any thing more then in the Crosse of Christ by which hee was crucified to the world and the world to him Gal. 6.14 and by this daily denying of the out-goings of the heart into the creature and the incoming of the creature into the heart man becometh planted into the likenesse of Christs death without which none can be partaker of his resurrection Rom. 4.5 and being baptised into the death of Christ by way of suffering in the selfe deniall the body of sin is destroyed or the old man crucified Rom. 6.6 and the Apostle counted but all things dung and drosse in comparison of knowing Christ in this manner and to be found in him and to know the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering and a conformity to his death if by any meanes he might attaine to the resurrection of the dead Phil. 3.10 11 c. this was the marke he aymed at to which he walked by the rule of the suffering and example of Christ and in obedience to his commande which most was for selfe deniall he pressed hard after him in the way of his suffering that so nothing that was of selfe might live in him yea when he found that selfe got life and food by way of consolation then was
treasure is there will your hearts be also and the heart can no way be discovered but by its effects viz. inclinations thoughts feares cares loves and desires c. then consider whether God or your bellies be your god or chief treasure and whether you owne and worship more with your hearts and your affections if God be your God and chiefe treasure then your hearts with its affections is in him and with him all the day long and is worshipping him either in prayer or praises and all your thoughts taken up with things of the same nature and things of the world is but a great vexation to your spirits and you looke but upon them but as they serve for your meere necessity and though it be meere necessity in respect of your fraile bodies yet even to have your thoughts drawne out of God if never so little yet this is a detriment and trouble to your spirit because these thoughts doe somewhat pierce between you and your God so that your whole conversation cannot be in Heaven this I know will bee no little trouble to you if God be your God and the Apostle who worshipped God and had chosen him to be the chiefe treasure said that both he and his upright followers had their conversation in heaven Phil. 3.20 and those to whom he had preached Christ and his crosse and the rising againe with him lest they should learne the same by comprehension and relative beleeving hee giveth them a caveat in a negative speech to which he added an affirmative command and said If yee be risen with Christ seek those things which are above c. and set your affections on things above c. Col. 3.1 2. and God giveth out his command to love him with the whole heart and Moses in declaring Gods command to the people delivereth the same to them in like manner saying Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soule c. and thou shalt cleave to him Deut. 10.20 which intimateth that there would be something that would draw and pull the heart from God for he knew the body of sinne would be stirring and the creature would be creeping into their hearts by which they should be in danger to be pulled from the true God and therefore he bid them cleave to him and the Apostle who had chosen God for his God and knew the subtlety of the body of Sin and selfe he was cautelous of the same and kept manfully to the warfare between the creature and the heart whereby whatsoever sought to interpose between God and his heart that he beat down yea if it were but in a thought or in an imagination as you may see 2 Cor. 10.4 5. and in so doing every thought was brought into the obedience of Christ and this was by bearing the crosse under which hee rejoyced and so became the friend and companion of Christ If you can witnesse to this in your owne spirits and your hearts have chosen God for your God and that your daily exercise be in God and your heart with its affections be thus ordered then God is your God indeed and you are the friends of Christ and his Crosse otherwise take it for granted you are of those whose belly is their god for the belly hath a large signification if I would but touch upon every particular thereof yet I omit the most of what may be said thereof and will only give you a short touch thereof as for the belly it is naturally consuming unsatiable requiring more then is meet for it and most of the Sences is as servants to it and doth usurp upon the affections to serve it also and where it is the god it doth command obedience to its requirings and so the affections in obedience doth invent desire and seeke what may be answerable to and for its requirings and so the affections by the communion they have with the Sences and the command over them doth cause them to help on this worke and through the commanding power of both the other members of the body is carried on to act in that obedience also and thus is the whole man in action about the service of the Belly and so man is made to invent thinke and desire and act about those things which is created for satisfying the Belly from hence it is that the belly being the chief god that all these superfluities is provided for it and so many severall dishes when one of them would serve Nature and for upholding the worship of this god what care feare and desire labour and watching and waiting yea some for the worship and service they owe to this god sacrifice all their whole estate and some for this service will oppresse their fellow creatures and some for this service labour day and night both in body and minde and all little enough to satisfie this hungry god and whatsoever belongeth to the backe hath a relation to the belly and these two agree in one in their requirings as they become god and so to and for their worship through the commanding power of lust put in action all the affections sences and members of the body and soule and so it is that so many foolish fantastick fashions and superfluous habits becometh worne in these dayes so that I much feare this god hath great power and is much worshipped in our time yea more then heretofore And as men have power in their hand viz. the riches of this world they become the greater providers for this gods sacrifices and then they become to have the second character set upon them viz. They glory in their shame is not this to be seen in our dayes amongst most sorts of those we call Professors how they are carried out to worship Back and Belly as is before said but especially amongst those who be rich in the world having such sumptuous and excessive tables and all things suitable for the upholding of the lust of the eye yet doe they not see very many of their fellow creatures like to starve both for meat and cloathing and yet they can look upon them with a light look and very little compassion and the reason is that which they have they must keep for sacrifices for their god and the rest they must keep for themselves to glory in for the very sight of rich superfluities lifteth up the heart and the thoughts thereof doth yeeld them comfort and the having and possessing of these things winneth the praise of such fooles as themselves and in all these they glory and yet all they glory in is but their shame yea and abominable shame too both in the eyes of God and in the eyes of those who are weaned from such things and by the Crosse have crucified these things Is it not a shame to have the creatures of God in abundance and so many like to starve for want and yet the bowels of compassion shut up against them how
ought But who is it that will believe the truth hereof for the sons of men is blinded of the right sight and knowledge of the truth and by reason of the love they have to lust sin and selfness they are become enemies of the Cross of Christ and if any have attained to the first dispensation beforesaid they think themselves to have attained all that is necessary and that they need no more and so becometh to settle upon the lees of their own performances and so becometh the resisters of the Holy Ghost Acts 7.51 And if any be brought out of the first Baptism under the first dispensation which containeth in it the Covenant of works and so be made partakers of the second Baptism by which they are brought into and prepared to meet Christ in his first appearance and when they have known the Son of God or God in his distinct property of the Son manifesting himself to their soul by which the soul hath comfort and content and refreshment and deliverance from its former troubles and now it finding the effects of the propitiation of the Son in covering and hiding its sin and in justifying the soul and taking of the power of condemnation from it then doth that soul conclude That all is done and can be pleased with that present condition supposing they have that which never will fail and say in their heart They shall not be removed because the Lord of his goodness hath made their mountain so strong Psal 30. And from these false conclusions many a soul becometh to lose it self and turn back again into the world and into the captivity of the Creature from which it was delivered and so man foolishly concluding That being in the Land of Canaan he shall see the bondage of Egypt no more but while man is but in the enjoyment of the first manifestation of God in the first appearance of his Son he is but a babe and but ignorant of what the minde of God is in that present condition and therefore they are very subject to be content with that present station because it pleaseth them so well supposing that there is none that have attained any further then what they have already attained too when as alas they know not as yet what it is to die with Christ on the Cross nor what the fellowship of his sufferings is nor what the vertual power of his resurrection meaneth And so it is that from the idolizing of that present enjoyment they in a very short time become to be cast out of that enjoyment and yet do they not know that they are so cast out because of the false fiend who hath got again into the house from whence he was gone out and counterfeiteth God through the help of the imagination and so maketh these souls believe That God is their present portion and that they have such a fast hank of him that nothing can be able to separate them when at that very instant of time the heart is in captivity with the Creature I fear that this is the very condition of many now adays who having known God after this manner beforesaid and yet have forsaken him again and turned to the Creature and yet do but little know that they be so far carried away from God as they are But when God in his orderly proceeding goeth on in bringing the soule through all the dangers and difficulties of the creature and Selfe then doth he not suffer the soule to have what it would have nor injoy what it would injoy in that first manifestation of himself in the name of his Son but as the bodily presence of Jesus was to be taken away in his appearing in the second dispensation in the flesh that so he might come againe in the Spirit or ghostly Baptisme by which they should still be led on till they were in the nearest and safest union of the Father and the Son that could be attained to in the body so it is that the ghostly presence in the first manifestation in the Spirit must be taken away that so the spirit may come to a further and more sure partaking of the Divine nature then it could in the first manifestation For as Christs followers could have been pleased to have still injoyed the bodily presence of Christ in the first appearing in the flesh so would a soul be pleased with the first manifestation of Gods appearing in the name of his Son to the spirit But as Christs bodily presence must be taken away that thereby the life of Selfe which lived in the sence and reason of his Disciples under that present injoyment might become destroyed and over-throwne by the coming againe in the power of the Spirit or ghostly Baptism So it is that the first appearance of God in Christ in the first appearance of the soule must be hidden and taken away because of so much life of selfe in the sence and reason and that by a further and more cleare and safe way to manifest himselfe in the soule and that is by the pouring out of the Holy Ghost into it by the vertue of which the soule becometh Baptised into the suffering and death of Christ whereby the life of sence and reason becometh to dye and the spirit brought out of the clawes of Sinne Death Devill and Hell and the power of the Resurrection of Christ becometh to be known and the body of Sin becometh to bee destroyed by the powerfull working and burning of this ghostly Baptisme and this was the very Baptisme the Apostle Paul spake of when he said Know you not so many of us as were Baptised into Christ were Baptised into his death therefore we are buried with him by Baptisme into his death c. For if we have been planted together into the likenesse of his death we shall also be in the likenesse of his resurrection knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin may be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin c. Rom. 6.2 3 4 5 c. And those soules who know God in this worke can witnesse to the truth of the three-fold name of Father Son and Holy Ghost because they know the power and working of God in these three Baptismes under these three names and none else can speak rightly of them because they have but the knowledg thereof by relation though God let out himselfe in this three-fold manner as is before said yet God is but one and the same God and though there bee these three Baptismes yet they all make up but one perfect Baptisme by which the soule is perfectly compleated in one faith Ephes 4.5 whereby the soule becometh led out of all things acted or created and all sufferings or injoyments in any condition below the injoyment of the fellowship of Christ in his Suffering Death and Resurrection and this is the very end and effect of all former out-lettings of God in any of the
will not oppose it neither will the flesh oppose it and I am sure the world is a friend to it and then it is possible there is nothing that is evil that will oppose it And no marvel though the multitude dance so madly after your pipe I know you see no greater evil then that which is the idolizing of Forms but that is because you know not the evil of your own hearts and how the great mystery of evil lyeth there and because you know it not you are carried out to see the evil of others who is not of the same faith with you and some of you yea those who be of your cheif Teachers are so exceedingly carried out by the power of Free-grace as they pretend that they go about to do marvels viz. to pluck up where never any thing hath been planted and to take away acting from these people who never troubled themselves with acting any thing for God or for any kinde of formal worship to God But if such were but half wise they might spare their speaking for such people have a teacher within them that will teach them to forsake acting any thing for God or the worship of God And therefore they need not any of your outward teaching to help them But do you not think you do a great peece of Gods service herein be judge your selves I would know of you whether acting or believing be the first brought out in any man if you say Faith I would know what Faith it is for the justifying Faith it cannot be for that is manifest after works and never doth any man know it truly until he have acted and found the emptiness of his actings and these things which he thought should have brought out life bringeth out death Rom. 7.10 And yet when this faith is brought out yet doth not that Faith make acting voide For faith without works is dead Jam. 2.17 But if you say a man may have justifying faith without works that I deny for where-ever faith is that justifieth the same cannot be without works I know man may have an historical faith without works but the justifying faith no man can have without works but it is one thing to have works and it is another thing to be justified by works and here is the Mystery finde it out if you can but for the want of the right knowledge of the Mystery you become to make a division and jarring between faith and works which in themselves do not differ but agreeth in a sweet harmony in those souls who have found out the mystery in them both And never shall you bring any soul to be a true believer before you have brought him into an active way before except you can command God to work miracles in his immediate way But my Friends I know full well where you erre and what is the ground of your opinion even you who are the purest in this your Free-grace tenet For even you who have some experience of the grace of God I know you knew it was the goodnesse of God that freed your souls from what they were captived with and that all your actings could not do it till God himself bestowed his Free-grace upon you This I confesse is truth but did every any of you finde the Free-grace of God made known to you before you had acted to your utmost endeavor and was made to see the emptiness of your actings I know as many of you as have known true freedom will confess this and can you tell me truly That if you had not acted and thereby seen the emptiness of your actings whether you should have known the freenesse of grace yea or nay but because that you were not freed by your actings is therefore actings of none effect God forbid for though the Apostle were not justified by the Law yet did he not make voide the Law but counted it of necessary use for thereby cometh the knowledge of sin Rom. 7.13 So actings though they do not justifie yet by them man becometh to know the emptiness that is in them for before any action be brought out the goodnesse or badnesse of it cannot be known and it is as natural to man to depend upon his actings as the skin cleaveth to his flesh and man cannot be freed from depending thereon until he truly see the evil in them and he cannot see the evil in them until they be brought out and until he see the evil in them he cannot be justified by Free-grace And for this very purpose God hath given man power to act and given out commands that he should act that thereby man might be brought to see what was in his actings and how far he could recover out of his faln condition by his actings that so where he came short he might know the goodness of God in his Restauration and therefore while you pretend and preach Faith so much you bring but the souls of the people into a snare and they are in as great danger to perish by your doctrine as is the souls of those people who are taught to merit Heaven by their actings for you run as far in your extream as they do in their extream But I would have you to take notice of one thing viz. In case you have been freed by grace whether hath your spirit or your flesh got better hold of the freedom if your spirit have gotten the freedom then is your flesh in bondage and then be sure it will be striving for freedom and I believe you shall have no great quiet so long as it hath any power to move For though your spirit may be freed from the condemning of your conscience yet I beleeve your spirits is not freed from the strivings of the flesh but in case the flesh have stoln your freedom from the spirit then its possible all will be quiet within and then no marvel if you cry up Free-grace so fast But let me tell you one thing He that knoweth most of Free-grace knoweth most of bondage with it This may seem a paradox to you but if you know not what I mean you may take it for granted That your flesh hath got the greater part of your Free-grace and then while you tell other people of freedom by grace you your selves become the servants of sin 2 Pet. 2.19 LOok into your own hearts and try whether this be true or not for if you finde your hearts and affections carried out to any thing below God and that you have any complacence in either pleasure praise or profit or what else is below the center of Spirits you may believe That all is not as it should be but yet I know you will not greatly care for it is God must do all and the Creature can do nothing and therefore you need but onely beleeve and all will be well enough but the time will come that every one must be rewarded according to his works and he that saith Lord Lord shall not enter into Heaven but he that doth the will of the Father must enter Behold I come quickly and my reward is with with me and will give to every man according as his works shall be FINIS