Page images
PDF
EPUB

not yet travelled; and left they fhould not hear and mind the call of his Spirit unto Sion, the holy mount of God, towards and unto which he leadeth his people, in this day of the revelation and manifestation of his glorious love and power.

Oh! therefore, my friends, ye that long after the Lord, ye that defire to feel the power of his truth, wait for the principle of life from him to be revealed in you, and the pure fear which is therefrom, that ye may feel the Lord thereby, and therein (even in and through that principle) writing his fear, his pure fear, his holy fear, his powerfully-preferving fear, in your hearts; that ye may know the way to him, the feed (which is the way) may come and join to him therein, and never depart from him. The fear of the Lord, from the principle of his life, will (without fail) effect this in you as ye receive it from the Lord; but the other fear, the fear which the enemy begets, will not do it; but will be a bar and fore stop in your way, till the Lord, by his holy power, through his tender mercy, remove it from you.

And now anfwer me one queftion uprightly, as in God's fight, from whom it is in my heart to propound it to you.

Are you come to Sion, or are ye travelling thitherward rightly and truly ? Have ye ever known any of the travellers, that ye have been acquainted with, that could in truth fay, that they were come to Sion? The Christians, in the primitive times, were come to Sion, and they were acquainted and dwelt with God and Christ there; and knew Jerufalem, the heavenly building, the city of the living God. Oh! where are ye? Nay, are ye yet come out of Babylon? Do ye yet know the wilderness, the intricate paffages therein, wherethrough God alone can lead the foul? Oh! depart ye, depart ye from your present stations (in the leadings of God's Spirit), unless ye can fay, in the true unerring light, that they are your reft, your fouls true reft, even the everlasting kingdom, which the primitive Christians received (and into which they found entrance), which could not be shaken.

And, friends, let me tell you one thing further (for my heart is at this present opened to you by the Lord), that as the foul (in its travels) comes to Sion, the law of the Spirit of life in Chrift Jefus is witneffed, which makes free from the law of fin and death. And then there is no more fuch a crying out of the body of fin as there was before; but a blessing of him who hath delivered, and daily doth deliver, from it: yea, the body of fin is known and felt to be put off, and Chrift put on in the ftead thereof. For, my friends, there are feveral ftates witneffed by the foul, in its true and sensible travels towards the Holy Land. As for instance:

1. There is a state of Egyptian darkness and bondage, in which the power of death reigns and rules in the heart, fubjecting it to fin and death. And here the foul is in the grave, and under death, captivity, and bondage, in the midst of all its profeffions of religion, and talk of God and Chrift, and reading fcriptures, and obferving ordinances and duties, &c.

2. There

2. There is a wilderness-ftate, wherein the ftrength of captivity is fomewhat broken, and the heart drawn to mind the leadings of life, and to follow after the Lord through the trials, through the preparations, through the feveral exercises which the Lord feeth good to exercise it with.

And here the mercy and goodness of the Lord is experienced, and the deceitfulness and treachery of the heart. This is the place of humiliation and breaking, wherein the foul daily feels how untoward and unaccustomed it is to the yoke, which should break the fpirit, and subdue it to God. Here the Lord fhews the foul what its heart is, that he might humble it, and do it good in the latter end.. Here the very law of God appears weak, through the ftrength of the flesh, which is not yet fubdued. Now here is mourning, and groaning, and crying to the Lord night and day, both because of the violence and multitude of the enemies, and because of the naughtiness, distrust, and unbelief of the heart.

3. There is a state of rest, a state of peace, a state of life, a state of power, a ftate of grace, a state of dominion, in the life, and through the power of the Lord, wherein the law of life is manifested in dominion in the heart over the law of fin and death. There is an everlasting kingdom, wherein God and Christ reign, in which God treads Satan down under the feet of the foul, and makes the foul a king and a prieft in the Son of his love; and the foul feels it is one with, and accepted in, the beloved.

Now, friends, that ye may know this kingdom, travel faithfully towards it; feel and come into the reign of Chrift in it; fit down in the heavenly places in Christ Jefus, and inherit substance; know the gathering to Christ in the name, and fit down in the name, where the enemy cannot touch you; but feel the preservation and powerful life and dominion of that feed which is over the enemy, and wherein and whereby the Lord fcatters the enemy, bruifing the ferpent's head, and anointing the foul with the oil of gladness, and cloathing it with the beautiful garments of his righteousness and falvation; and that ye may know the precious and glorious building of life in the Spirit, even of the holy houfe and city of God, where the walls are falvation, and the gates praise. For this end it is in my heart from the Lord to write these things unto you; and the Lord God of his mercy open the door of entrance to you into these things; for there is but one door of life, and there is not another; which door is Chrift the feed; which feed is revealed within, there to break the wisdom, ftrength, and head of the serpent; and fo far as he breaks it there, redemption and freedom is witneffed from it, and no further.

Oh! that ye might receive an understanding from the Lord, and be taught by him to deny and part with the understanding which is not of him, that ye might fee things (from him, and in his light) which ye have not yet feen; and confider aright of that, which the enemy hitherto, by his fubtilty, hath prejudiced you against.

And

And now as for us, who experience the truth as it is in Jefus, and with the Lord our God in his Light, and by virtue of his life and love fhed abroad in our hearts: I fay, what is it to us to be judged by you in your day as perfons that deny Chrift, deny fcriptures, deny ordinances, deny duties, &c.? We are fatisfied in our hearts as touching your judgment, knowing from the Lord what it is in you that thus judgeth of us, even the fame thing that judged amifs of Chrift (in the Scribes, Pharifees, and profeffing Jews) in the days of his flesh. And indeed that in you can never judge aright; but is to be judged, condemned, and destroyed by the life and power of the Lord.

And oh! that ye knew (fenfibly knew) what is to live, and what is to die in you, that ye might feel the rifing of your fouls out of the grave, through the immortal feed of God, and the bringing of all your wisdom and knowledge of the things of God (which ye hold, and make use of out of the compass and limits of his holy life and covenant) into death.

For, friends, let me tell you, that which hath been parted with (for the kingdom's fake, and the righteoufnefs thereof) in fome, was more precious than what ye hold fo ftifly, and fo magnify in your own thoughts and rea fonings against the truth. Yea, that which was once of high esteem, and very glorious in our eyes, is now become as drofs and dung, for the excellency of the pure living knowledge of, and fellowship with, Jefus Christ, our Lord; and if ye had the true measure and balance to weigh things in, ye would acknowledge it: but the letter, and literal ordinances and duties, and apprehenfions of things out of the life, kills you, and keeps you under the veil, and from the fight of the things which are within the veil.

Oh! that God would rend the veil in you! Oh! that God would give you the feeling of, and union with, that whereby he rends the veil! Oh! that he would humble you, and bring down the mighty from his feat of judgment in you, to be judged and abased, and exalt the meek and lowly into that which is his proper place!

Oh! that ye might feel the work of God, even the redemption of the foul, begun and carried on by him with power in your hearts! Then would ye know Chrift indeed, the fcriptures indeed, the ordinances indeed, the duties indeed, the everlasting fabbath, the everlasting worship; even the substance of all that was shadowed out under the law, and fit down under the wing of the Almighty, from whence the power, the life, the virtue, the healing, drops into the foul.

And now, to give a little touch at those things beforementioned, which ye fo ftumble at, a little to help to remove them from your fpirits, if it please

the Lord.

1. We do not deny that Chrift which died at Jerufalem; but own him, and no other and own what he did, his obedience to the Father always, and in all things; his fufferings in the virtue and power of the Father, and the value of them with the Father. This the Lord our God teacheth

us

us to own, and to blefs the name of the Lord, for him who is the captain, and worker out of our falvation; a measure of whofe life and power we have received, and embrace in our hearts; and in this is He, the fulness, made manifest to us; and we, through this, and by this, and in this, ingrafted into him; and fo come to partake of the fweetness and fatness of the olive-tree. Yea, this we certainly know, that Chrift was not only made manifest in that body of flefh, but is alfo made manifest in our mortal flesh, as we are gathered into his life, and his life brought forth in us. And he is not only antichrift, that denieth Chrift's appearance in that body of flesh; but he that denieth him (the hope of glory) in his faints, his fpiritual body. Yea, I beseech you confider, whether it hath been the work of antichrift all along the apoftafy to deny the appearance of Chrift in that body of flesh, or to deny the appearance of his life and Spirit in the flesh of his faints? We know (faith the apostle John) that the Son of God is come, and bath given us an understanding to know him that is true. How was he come? Was not he that was with them come in them? Did he not live in them, act in them, speak in them? And did not they that were of God hear the voice of Chrift, the voice of the fhepherd in them? But they which were not of God, which were not the fheep, could not hear the voice of Christ in his apoftles and believers; could not own him come in their flesh, though they could preach the fame Chrift in words, and own his coming in that body of flesh which he had appeared in, 1 John iv. 6.

2. We do indeed really, heartily, fingly, as in God's fight, own the fcriptures; the fcriptures written by the prophets and holy men of God under the law; the fcriptures written by the evangelists and apostles in the time of the gofpel; and we read them with delight and joy, and would draw no man from a right reading of them to the benefit of his foul; but only from giving their own judgments on them without the Spirit of God; left, in fo doing, they wreft them to their own destruction.

This is that which the Lord hath drawn us from, and which we know it would also be profitable to others to be drawn from too; to wit, from imagining and gueffing at the meaning of fcriptures, and interpreting them without the opening of that Spirit from which they were given forth; for they who fo do, feed that part (with a gathered knowledge) which fhould be famifhed, die, and perifh, that another thing might come to live in them, and they in it.

Now to us, being taught of God, and led by him into the things and through the conditions the fcriptures fpeak of, the fcriptures are very precious, the relation of things under the law precious, the inftructions, promifes, and comforts precious, yea, the very reproofs and denunciations of judgment to that part, nature and fpirit which the judgments are to, precious; and it is impoffible for any heart to conceive (who hath not the experience of the thing) how life fprings in us; and how fweet, pleafant, and profitable the words of life in the writings of the holy men of 'VOL. II.

P

God

God are to our fpirits; and in reading them we often meet with refreinment, comfort, hope, and joy, from the working of the fame Spirit in us, which gave forth the good words through them.

3. As touching ordinances, we own all the ordinances and appointments of God to the Jews under the law, and God's prefence with them, walking with the Lord, and worshipping him in the faith according thereto. Yea, what if I fhould fay, that we know and are exercised in the fame worship in Spirit towards the Lord our God, who hath called and taught us to worship him in spirit and truth, fo as he taught them, according to the fhadow and letter? What if I fhould fay that we worship the Lord in fpirit on the Lord's-day (which is inward and fpiritual, the true reft, the fubftantial fabbath), and that we offer up to him the living facrifices, which the high-prieft of our profeffion prepares in us for the most excellent majefty and glory of our God therein? Were not the facrifices under the law, which they offered up according to the letter, types and shadows of what the Lord teacheth us, and giveth us to offer up to him in fpirit, when we appear before him in his house built on his holy mountain? For, friends, the house wherein we appear is fpiritual (an house of God's own building); the worship spiritual, the facrifices fpiritual, the day of worship fpiritual, even the day which the Lord hath made. And here we know and enjoy the things fhadowed out under the law fpiritually, eating that which is meat indeed, and drinking that which is drink indeed, even the flesh and blood of the Son of man; in which we feel and partake of his nature, his virtue, his life, his fubftance, and both take it in into us, and put it upon us; fo that we have Chrift both to be our food and cloathing; and in the birth, nature and Spirit which is of him, cannot be deceived concerning him.

But the great matter ye feem to have against us as to ordinances, is about the baptifm of water, and breaking outward bread, and drinking outward wine; concerning which I have two or three weighty queries to propound to be seriously confidered of.

Query 1. Were these things themselves the things of the kingdom, or fignifications of fomewhat relating to the kingdom, as the fhadows under the law were? And fo, though they might have a use and service in the paffage from the law, yet could they have an abfolute place in the day? For as the day dawns and breaks, the fhadows fly away. What should the fhadow do, when that which the shadow fignified is come? What place is there for shadows in the fubftance, in the everlafting kingdom?

Now though the apoftle condefcended fo as to circumcife for the fake of the Jews, yet circumcifion was not to abide. So he condefcended alfo as to John's baptifm; to wit, the baptifm of water (for that was not Christ's baptifm, but his baptifm was that of the Holy Ghost and fire); yet he bleffed God he did not make use of it, and faid, he was not fent to baptize. What was he not fent to baptize with? Why not with water, not with John's baptifm; but he was fent to baptize with Christ's baptism; to bap

« PreviousContinue »