CRUX CHRISTI, AND judgement Executed.  
OR, DIVINE WISDOM CRUCIFYING The humane, carnal, devilish, malicious, mad, raging Wlsdom of the World.  
By his righteous Judgements, drawing nearer to its full and perfect manifestation.  
Then shall joseph's and daniel's afflictions end; and their Imprisonments be no more heard of.  
And also bondaged Israel re●urn, & be brought from their captivity both of men, and from that malicious spirit of ignorance and darkness, into perfect liberty, peace and everlasting rest.  
So shall poor Lazarus and the Publican be carried into Abraham's bosom, and rich Dives with all the traditions both of the righteous and wicked, appear as a menstruous Clout, or as filthy Rags that all cleansed ones shall loathe to handle, touch, look on, or come within the smell thereof.  
Whereunto is added a Comparatis Compraudis of the Judgements of God, with the unequal ways and judgements of that malicious one in man. Written and experienced by Richard Coppin, in his sufferings for the Truth.  1 Cor. 2.2. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. Gal. 6.14, 17. From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. 
LONDON, Printed for William Larner, and are to be sold at the Black-Moore near Fleet-Bridge, 1657.   

The AUTHOR'S EPITLE. To all the beloved of the Lord, that love the appearing of Jesus Christ in spirit and truth, in and about the City of Rochester in Kent, and wherever they may be scattered, to whom, Grace and Peace be multiplied from God the Father, and Jesus Christ our Lord.  
FRiends and Brethren, in the friendship and brotherhood of the Lord Jesus, with whom, and for whom we all in the spiritual union of Christ, and him crucified, have suffered together for the witness of Jesus, and the truth of the Gospel which hath been taught us by him, that our joy might be together in him: Wherefore know ye, 
1 Cor. 8.6  that there is in you, and ruleth over you, one true and living God, the Father of whom are all things, and you in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and you by him, 
Rom. ●. 5. Ephes 4.6.7.  and who is over all, through all, and in you all, God blessed for ever, and that hath given to every one of you that believeth Grace, 
C●●. 2 9  according to the measure of the gift of Christ, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and of whose fullness all that believe and trust in the living God, the Saviour of all men, have received grace for grace; 
1 Tim. 4.9, 10.  the glory of whom with the eye of divine beauty you may behold, as the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father full of grace and truth for you; for the Law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, whose coming is to reveal in you, 
joh. 1.14. Joh. 16.25.  and show unto you the Father plainly, even the mystery of the History which lieth hid in the Letter, till Christ shall unfold it unto you in the spirit; and therefore God hath given unto Christ all power in Heaven and on Earth, 
Matth. 28.18. Col. 2.15 Col. 1.18, 19  that he might overcome all Principalities and Powers for you, that hindered the revelation of Christ to you, and he in all things to have the pre-eminence with you, for it pleased the Father that in him should ●ll fullness dwell, that of his fullness he might fill all things both in heaven and earth, of things high and low, of what sort or degree soever they be; and all being full of him, there is then no room in any thing to contain any thing but him, nor to be contained besides him, where himself containeth all things, for he is all & in all; and this is he that will in due time free me, you, and all men, from all that doth oppress us, and oppose us in the truth.  
And when the Lord Jesus shall become your all, in all places, persons, and things, to fill all in your apprehensions, then is hell as well as heaven with you full of him, and he rules in them both; so saith David, who saw it, and knew it, If I ascend up into Heaven, thou art there: 
Psal. ●39. 8●.  If I go down into Hell, behold, thou art there: And if I dwell in the uttermost parts of the Earth, thou art there also: Heaven and Earth is full of his glory, 
Psal. 103.19.  and his Kingdom rumeth over all; and the presence of God in death and hell with ●is people, in which any thing of God hath been shut up or hid, is that which makes death, 
Rev. 20.13. Isa. 26.  and hell, and the sea of sin and misery to give up the dead that is in them, and no more to cover their slain; and a new death and hell, or eternal fire, as well as a new life, and a new heaven and earth, will God prepare to swallow up ye old, where the old Name and Nature of Hell and Death and Heaven, 
〈◊〉. 7.32. 〈◊〉 21.4, 5.  and Earth, even Tophet shall be changed, and their place no more found; after which there shall be no more death; neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away, 
Isa. 6.  and all things will God make new, in the new Heaven and in the new Earth, where all things that are is contained, and in which change all the things of the first Creation as all old things are ended, and made new in the second Creation; yea, even death and hell, else how is it said, Behold, I make all things new, if that be not: 
Isa. 62.22.  And as the new Heaven which the Lord shall make shall remain before him, and have in it a new life and felicity, which should end the old, so the new Earth which he shall make shall also remain, and have in it a new death and hell which changeth the old, and into which hell or Lake of fire all things of the old, which belongeth to the old man in us, even that death and hell which swallowed us up, 
Rev. 20.14. Isa. 28 18.  and tormented us, shall be cast into it, to be ended by it, and the covenant & agreement of men with death & hell disannulled, & all the enemies of mankind to be destroyed with it, when Christ himself who makes all things new, shall appear in hell to change the property of it, 
Isa 63.1, 2.3, Rev. 14.19, 20.  and thereby tread the Wine-press of the Wrath of ●od, even Satan under foot, for the redemption of his people; and then shall all the Enemies of God and of them which all sin and transgression, and all that is not found written in the Book of Life, he cast into that Wine-press, or Lake of Fire, to be there killed and ended: This is the second death, 
R●v. 20.14, 15.  and our second life and resurrection from the dead.  
And that you may see this death taking place upon all that which is enmity with God, Christ, yourselves, and the truth, and you thereby come to a resurrection of life in him let me encourage you to trust in God, who only can save you and raise you to a newness of life, 
Isa. 26.4.  for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength who will bring down under foot, 
Col. 2.14.15.  and nail to his cross all that which is against you, and contrary to you; therefore you that would see the one to enjoy the other, wait upon him in the way which he doth it, which is by the obedience of Christ to the cross; for he is said to drink of the Brook in the way, 
H●b. 2.9. Psal. 110.6, 7.  tasting death for every man by which he is in us, and for us, woundeth the head of the Dragon, and thereby lifteth up his own head, as you shall find more of hereafter in what I have written to you, that the way of God's justice, judgement, and mercy, in which he destroys all his & our Enemies, is that by which you shall receive comfort and consolation from the Lord, as the way of God in which his Prophets, Apostles, and Saints, all waited for him, to be taught by him, 
Isa. 26 ●.  as hath been also manifest to be the way of God with me since I knew the Lord and was taught by him, and by him made to bear witness of the truth which I received in judgement with him, who myself hath been comforted, refreshed, and restored therewith in all my sufferings and undertake for him unto this day, and who will also comfort you with the same consolation, and restore you with the same restoration into safety with himself for he that hath kept you, will keep you still, and will cast off none that wait upon him, but saith the Prophet, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace and safety whose mind is stayed on thee, 
Isa 26.3.  because he trusteth in thee.  
And as far as any of you shall with any, in the sufferings of any that suffer for the truth, be a sufferer with them, who together suffer with Christ, so know, that as you are partakers with them in the same sufferings of Christ, so you are partakers with them in the same glory of Christ, though you may not all suffer the outward Bonds and afflictions of the body as others do, and as Christ did for us all, yet to be sensible of their sufferings, as when one member suffers, 
1 Cor. 12.26.  all suffer with it; and if one rejoice, all rejoice with it; and so if we suffer with Christ, we shall also reign with him, in which the God of all grace, who hath called us into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus after that ye have suffered a while, 
1 Pet 5.6 7, 8, 9, 11.  make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you, to whom (and to none else) be glory and dominion for ever and ever.  
And now you my Brethren and partakers in the same Sonship and spiritual union of Christ, that which I desire, and always desired to know among you since I knew you, and that I would you should also know among yourselves to bear witness to the truth, is, 
1 Cor. 2. ●.  Jesus Christ, and him crucified, by which the world is crucified unto you, and you unto the world; and that whether we are present one with another, or absent one from another, yet that the truth as it is in Jesus, and which maketh you free, may abide with you, 
Gal. 6.14. Joh. 8 32, 36. chap. 14.16. Phil. 2 5. Rom. 12.16.  & be perfected in you, & you thereby to know it, & by it may be united into one mind and one spirit with the Lord Jesus and one another, walking together in one fellowship of the spirit, and spiritual union, in all humility, meekness, gentleness, and long-suffering, 
Eph. 4.1, 2, 3.  forbearing and forgiving one another in love, according to the example of Christ the first and true pattern of all our walkings, sufferings, undertake, and rejoices in the Lord, even then do you witness the true Christ and light of the World in whom is light, and no darkness; truth, and no error; good, and no evil; and that if you wal● in the light as he is in the light, than you have fellowship one with another, & with those that have fellowship with Christ; 
1 Joh. 1.5, 6.  and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son (which is his Life shed abroad in your hearts) cleanseth you from all sin; which fellowship those that are ignorant of God, and of the pardon of their sins by Christ, knoweth not, but are in darkness, and under the bondage of corruption until now, and have not known Christ, nor him crucified, and so long cannot bear witness unto him.  
Then that you may be tried and proved to farther learn this Lesson of Christ, and be made able and wiling to bear his cross, and witness to it, you are to mind God in his judgements, the way in which you are called before him to learn all the obedience of Christ to the cross, who after you have entered into spiritual judgement with the Lord, do cause you to enter into temporal judgement with men, as companions with his spiritual, as he did Christ, his Prophets, Apostles, and Saints, who learned obedience by the things which they suffered, and through sufferings they were made perfect; 
Heb. 2.10.  therefore are the prisons and sufferings of the Prophets and Apostles of the Lord Jesus, into which they were cast by men for the truth, said to be their Schools, where they both learned and witnessed Christ, and him crucified; and which by experience I have found to be mine, where I have learned and witnessed with them unto the same truth; that against me false witnesses have risen up, and laid to my charge things which I knew not, as they did against them, 
Psal. 35. ●  and all that witness the truth to this day in the time of their witnessing; & in which sufferings of the Prophets & Apostles, the truth was the more manifest both to them and the world, as it was with Jeremiah, who was taught in the Dungeon of the Prison, 
Jer. 32.1, 2. chap. 29● so●●  and from thence sent forth Wr●tings of his Visions and Revelations of what God had made known unto him, as also did the rest of the Prophets in their sufferings, and as did the Apostles, and John the Divine, 
Rev. 1.9. Col. 4.18. Phil. 1.12, 13:  who wrote the Evangelist and the Epistles, and when he was persecuted into the I'll of Patmos for the testimony of Jesus, then was the revelations of Jesus Christ revealed to him, and written by him; and Paul writ his Epistles in his times of suffering, and saith he, My Bonds proves all to the furtherance of the Gospel; and times of persecution are the times of Gods farther teaching his people; and did men that persecute others for their judgement, and endeavours to destroy their knowledge, know that it would be thereby the more increased, they would not do it; for when they send them to Prison, they do but send them as to a School where they shall learn more of God, and be the more confirmed in the truth they before knew, for Christ will never leave them that he hath once taught, but will be always with them more to teach them, that they may more know him, and be settled and grounded in him.  
And in all my sufferings and imprisonment for the truth to this day, I have had with me the company of that one Schoolmaster, the Lord Jesus, who at first taught me the knowledge of himself in the spiritual School of divine learning, the Spirit of himself set up in my heart, by which I was made a Scholar fit to take my Degrees, to bear the burden and undergo the reproaches by men laid upon me in the school of my imprisonment & sufferings for the truth's sake, that I might not fear nor be discouraged by them, as I have not been hitherto, praised be God, but in six troubles the Lord delivered, me and in the seventh which is this I am now under) no evil is yet come unto me, 
Job 5: 17, 18, 19:  which hath been seven trials and persecutions that I have had for the witness of Jesus, and by which the Lord hath also tried and proved me, whether the Lesson he at first taught me, To trust in him, and deny myself for him, were still owned, and not forgotten nor denied by me, in which through him I have been hitherto faithful, & shall so continue unto death if the Lord will, and am not without my reward, which is a Crown of Life.  
The fruit of which Life of God manifest in flesh (as fast as it was ripened in me) was by the Lord and keeper of the Vinyard in which it grew, gathered, and sent by me to be distributed among you, 
Acts 20.20.  of which with Paul, I kept nothing back from you that was profitable to you, during the time I was with, you nor from the rest of my Brethren in the flesh where I have at any time been, but with Paul I have taught publicly, and from house to house, what the Lord hath taught me, which I did not do for price nor reward of men, as some Parish-Ministers do, that as so many Merchantmen, through covetousness make merchandise of the people; and seek not the Lord Jesus Christ, but themselves; but what I do, and have done, as my conscience bears me witness, hath been really with heart and soul, according to my power, for the glory of God; and the comfort of his people in the Lord Jesus, that as freely I have received, so freely have I given; for the Vinyard was the Lords, and he himself as the Husbandman of the Vinyard, did by his spirit in me blow it, sow it, plant, and dress it, and caused it to grow by the sweet and powerful dew of himself falling from heaven upon it, as the former and later rain upon the earth, and being ripe in me, he gathered it, and made it ready for me, and through the power of his spirit working in me, sent it abroad among you to be by me declared unto you for your souls comfort, & did himself (whose Messenger I was) reward me for it, not only with spiritual comforts to my soul, and with food and raiment to my body, but also with the reproaches of Christ, which I count greater riches than the pleasures of Egypt or the riches and glory of this World, in which I also rejoiced as my portion with the Lord, seeing the Lord in it, and with Paul, learned to be content in all things, and with him returns you all thanks, that have in any measure, (and freely) participated with me, and ministered to me in my sufferings  
And now the same Lord which caused to grow in me that Gospel-fruit which I declared to you, must also cause it to grow in you, before it can bring forth fruit to you, that you all with me, and I with you, and we both with Ephraim may be like a green Fir-tree in whom fruit is found, for you had it from me but in words, who only can plant or speak to the ear, but it is the Lord that must speak to the heart, to teach, plant, and cause to grow in you the great Mystery of godliness; for Paul may plant, and Apollo may water, but God must give the increase, which as I have said unto you, is, That you should know God manifest in flesh, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and for ever; born, crucified, dead, buried, risen and ascended, and coming to you the second time in spirit and truth, without sin unto salvation, bringing all things of him unto your remembrance; and by which spirit of him in me, manifesting the same to me, I have published it to you, beseeching you all in Christ Jesus to be reconciled to God, for that God in Christ from all eternity was himself reconciled to you and all mankind, and that while you and all men were yet sinners, sent his Son to die for us, according to the Scriptures, to reconcile you to himself, and in mercy to you he pardoned you, and by his spirit within you frees you, and which Message of him for the reconciliation of all men to God so far as to me was made known by him; I have been, am, and shall be through him ever faithful, who through his mercy hath preserved me in it.  
And now the increase of the Fruit of this Vinyard of Christ for the increase of his body, taught me by him in the School of my imprisonment and sufferings for the truth, and ripened and gathered by him in the Harvest thereof, I shall present you with from the Lord, and not as from myself without him, who first writ in my heart, and after by my hand in several Treatises of several subjects while I have been a prisoner among you, to be in order presented to you shortly, agreeable to what I have before in words declared amongst you, and which if you have an ear to hear what the spirit saith, may be more opened in you by the Lord of that spirit in the reading thereof; and in which reading I desire you all to wait upon the Lord to be taught by him who only can give you an appetite to it and make you detest it; that can make you willing and able to receive it, which is the mystery of Christ crucified; and you that cannot receive all for the present, why rest yourselves satisfied with what you can, and judge nothing before the time until the Lord shall come and open it to you with an enjoyment of it in you, 
1 Co● 4.5.  as he hath done to me; in the mean time take this herewith sent you as a preparative to that which is coming; and he that can receive it, let him receive it; and judge not that you know not; and despise not that you enjoy not, lest you should speak evil of the truth unawares; but wait the Lords time with patience and confidence, until he that shall come will come, and make truth appear truth to you, and then you will not judge at all; 
Heb. 10.35, 36 37.  the which I doubt not but with you that know the Lord, truth as truth will be received by you as from the Lord, who himself with all his own Messages cometh with the Messengers to open the understandings of them which he hath appointed receivers; and the rest must tarry till he come, who was not only the Author of it in me for you, but will also be the Finisher of it to you at his coming; wherefore receive you it, the Lord and me together in one Spirit, else you will not receive it as truth, nor to your souls comfort; but as Paul saith, It will be unto them that do not believe, but are reprobated, as the savour of death unto death; 
2 Cor. 2 15, 16.  and to them which do believe, and are saved, as the savour of life unto life; for some in love to the Message of Christ will rejoice in it; and others in hatred to it will be terrified by it; however the Will of God be done in it.  
And as I have sometime said unto you (when I was at first forced to leave you to go to prison for the truth and your sakes) that when I was absent from you, my spirit should be present with you; so in the absence of now my person, you may in this my Writing read my spirit, which is always with you in the Lord; and as you have said you were comforted with my presence, be ye also comforted still in my absence, of which I doubt not but through the Lord you are comforted; yea, and in the absence of any man that may have been as a Messenger of the Lord to you, let your comfort be in the Lord, who only is able to make you stand: And the God of all comfort and patience fill you with all joy and peace in believing; and the God of peace be with you; 
2 Cor. 1.3.  and the peace of God which passeth all understanding, keep you and rule in you, and thereby make you able and willing to follow peace with all men; 
Phil. 4 7.  in which rest ye all together with me, where I also rest with you; and seeing first our peace with God in Jesus Christ our Lord, we are therefore at peace with men, and do forgive them as God in Christ hath forgiven us, and is at peace with us: And as I have not been forgotten by you that know my spirit in the Lord, so I forget not you in him, but ever remain the Lords faithful steward, and your faithful friend & servant in the brotherly Message of the truth of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus, for the glory of God, and comfort of all those that shall love his appearing.  
And lastly; My friends and brethren, who all know of the proceed against me, you have also known how my life and Doctrine hath been among you, and how by false accusations I have suffered for the truth and a good conscience; but I rejoice in it, and still say, The Lords Will be done, and his Kingdom come even to my Enemies, and reconcile them, and those present differences with men that having peace in themselves, they may live in love and peace one with another, and no longer seek the destruction one of another: In the mean time with the Prophets and Apostles of the Lord Jesus I shall rest, and say as David and Christ did, 
Psal. 35.11.  That though false Witnesses have risen up, and laid to my charge things which I knew not, yet they could not prevail against me to hurt me, nor prevent the truth revealed in me; but the things that have happened to me have proved rather to the further increase of it with me; wherefore better is it if the Will of God be that we suffer for well doing rather then for evil; 
Phil. 1.12, 13.  and wrongfully rather than justly, 
● Pet. 2.19.  for this is thankworthy (saith Peter) if a man for conscience towards God endure grief wrongfully, as my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Ghost I do, and have done to this day, endured cheerfully that which I have been wrongfully accused, for owning the Name of Jesus; yet they cannot pull me out of his hand, nor blot my Name out of the Book of his Remembrance; but though men interested in the World, that are lifted up with worldly pride and honour, 
Luke 6.22, ●●.  may hate me, and blot my name out of their Books, and cast it out as evil for the Son of Man's sake, yet the Lord who saith, I am blessed therein, owns me, and doth still love me, and never will nor can forsake me, because in Christ the Book of Life I am always in remembrance before him, in whom my new Name is written, and no man can take it from me; 
●sa. 19.14, 15.  for can a Woman forget her sucking-child, (saith the Lord) that she should not have compassion on the son of her Womb? yea, she may forget, but I will never forget thee, saith the Lord: Such is my faith and confidence in the Lord, who having loved his own, will love them to the end, and is tender of them as the Apple of his eye.  
And that as he hath freed my soul from the snares of death, sin, and devils, so he will in his time free my body from the snares of men that with hatred to the life of God in me, lie in wait daily to devour me; and that when my liberty hath been several times like to come, have suggested false things against me to prevent it, and hinder the truth from appearing, as the Princes, 
Dan. 6. J●r. 38 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9, 10, 11, 37.7, 8 9, 10. 39 11, 12. Gen. 41.14. Dan 6.23.  Priests, and false Prophets of old did against the true Prophets to keep them in prison; but the Lord hath his time for me as he had for them, to free me, and I shall with patience wait for it, who works, and none can let; and who made Zedekiah free Jer●miah from the Dungeon of the Prison upon the request of Ebedmeleck, one of the King's House; and who also made Pharaoh King of Egypt free Joseph from Prison upon the motion of Pharoahs' chief Butler; and did also make King Darius to command Daniel from the lion's Den without an, hurt to him; & who not doubt in his due time will (by what means he pleaseth) free me, and none shall hinder, till when I shall rest in him with my prayers in the spirit for you all, that God will keep you and me; and also for my enemies, that he will not lay to their charge the things they have acted against me, which he hath hitherto made me able to bear, & to rest contented with in the Lord, that I still am (dear Friends and Brethren) a very loving Friend and Brother in Christ to all men, friends and enemies so called, while I am, and the truth is in me,  
Richard Coppin.   

A TABLE of the Contents.  

Chap. I. THe cross of Christ set up in men and their die upon it; of the life which is lost and to be found; the father, mother and brethren, husband, wife and chidrens, house, lands and all things therein to be forsaken for Christ, what they are, with the time when, and the manner how.  
Chap. II. How the cross of Christ is accompanied with the crosses of the world fiery trials and persecutions for the truth, the clouds of Christ's coming, and the way of his pe●ple in which he leads them, and walks with them to save them, how and from what.  
Chap. III. Of the afflictions of joseph, his being sold into Egypt by his brethren, his being falsely accused and imprisoned; how God thereby exalted him, and Judged his brethren that sold him; how the same was with Christ and is with us to this day.  
Chap. IU. How Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and all that with them to this day do betray and persecute, accuse, judge and condemn any for conscience towards God, are acted by the Devil, hardened and commanded to it by God; how with Cain, Judas, and the Devil, they are all God's servants, doing their devilish, dark and black work, and whose spirit in them shall with the Devil, Death, Hell, and false Prophet, and the Beast, which was and is not gone into perdition, be damned and die the second death, when and how.  
Chap. V. A definition of the righteous and the wicked as two parts of three in man to be destroyed, and how the third part neither righteous nor wicked is brought through the fire and saved; with a distinction of Dives and Lazaras and their conditions in life and death, and of the dog licking Lazarus soars.  
Chap. VI That the more purer, innocent, and faithful men are in the truth, the more do men plot and devise evil of them to destroy them, as against the Lords Prophets, Christ and his Apostles; how God by his presence with them delivers them as he did Israel, the three Children, Daniel Jonah and Jeremiah, and destroyed their enemies.  
Ch. VII. How by persecution truth is increased, and the more advanced; and they that suffer for it, to the terror of them that persecute it; that truth is rewarded and witnessed by sufferings; how the reward of sufferings is a crown of glory manifest in men, and when.  
Chap. VIII. How the way to find our life is to lose it, that no man is to know any thing of himself, but to be innocent in knowing his own innocency and righteousness: also what the true knowkledge of God is: who hath it, and how it's obtained.  
Chap. IX. How all men are alike to God, to whom light and darkness is all one: that no man is better nor worse than another, and how; what it is to be b●th best and worst in one person to be punished and exalted, and the way unto it: how we are to serve one another, and of the state of Christ as God and man; and how with him we are to love all men.  
Chap. X. Of God's appearing in Judgement in man, against all things of man and this world; that all outward duties, worship and obedience by men professed, is a lie without the inward work of truth within; how according to the inward work is the outward practice, that the more by Christ any man is refined, purged and saved within in his conscience, the more by men is he falsely accused, judged and condemned without in his practice.  
Chap. XI. Nothing which opposes God can stand against him, how he will pull down and get above Towers, Churches, worships, religions, and all things of men that is not in Christ; also to whom the Lords Judgements are a day of joy and delight, and to whom they are a day of darksnes and trouble, t trust in God under them is a sure refuge of the good that comes by them, and when.  
Chap XII. Encouragements to wait with patience under the Lords Judgements and not to oppose them; Of the works of the Lord Jesus what th●y are, and how we bear them about in our bodies, & when.  
Chap. XIII. How men of the greatest light witnessing to truth under Judgements, do suffer most unjustly by false accusations with the loss of all things below God; that not all, but some men as witnesses shall suffer f●r the rest of one life; how some professing the same life for fear of suffering will deny them that suffer for them rather than suffer with them as the Disciples of Christ did.  
Chap. XIIII. That the true sufferer w ll God enable with joy to bear his burden to follow Christ and deny himself, to trust in God and rejoice in all things: how with Christ he is humbled to the lowest with men, and exalted to the highest with God, as the fruit and effect of God's Judgements, & the state of perfection.    

ERRATA.  
In the Title page line 23. read comparandis; next read Epistle for Epitl●: in p. 2. of the Epistle l. 34. r. the for ye: p. 3 l. 19 r. with for which.  
Book, p. 5. l. 16. read john for Rom. l. 18. r. to for so, p. 6. l. 22. r. nurses for snuff●: p. 7. l. 1. r. with for which, p. 9: l. 17. r. whom for when: l. 20. r. few for some: p. 10. l. 1. r. follow for slow; p. 12. l. 3. r. pleased; p. 20. l. 24, 25. r. he for the Devil; p. ●4. l. 21. r. lofty. p. 25. l. 9 r. purified, p. 29. l. 27. r knawed, l. 28. r. with p. 32. l. 1. r. know, p. 35. l. 3. r. against: p. 39 l. 32. r. see, p. 41. l. 15. r. good, l. 28. r. and, l: 31. r. every, p. 42. l. 3. r. might, l. 4 r. might, l. 23. r. the, p. 47. l: 9: r. desired not. l: 16: r. of, p: 49. l. 13: r. good, l: 30: r. humbled himself, p: 52: l. 32: r: made, p: 57: l. 2, deal. that, l: 8: r. comfort, p: 58: l: 19 r. set up, p, 59: l: 17: r. which, p. 62: l: 27: r: marks, p: 65: l: 16: add are, p: 66: l; 29: read knowing, p: 68: l: 3: thy men p: 69: l. 2: r. enjoyed it, l: 30. r. they must continue maintaining, p: 70: l: 24. r. with.   


A new and spiritual Song of Zion and the Lamb;  
Written by the Author in the Holy Land:  
And also in his sufferings, wherein God did him try,  
And unto him revealed life, light, and liberty.   Psal. 98. 1 Psal. 101.1. O sing unto the Lord a new Song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm hath gotten him the victory. I will sing unto the Lord of mercy and judgement; unto thee O Lord will I sing. 

1.  
THE Lamb of God, our King is come  
In righteousness to reign, 
joh. 1.29. Isa. 32.1. Heb. 2.9. Rev. 13 8. Hos. 3. Mat. 7.12. Jam. 2.12.   
His glorious Kingdom is begun,  
He for all men was slain.  
And he himself all men do woo  
To be for none but he,  
And do as they'd be done unto,  
In perfect Liberty.   

2.  
His Wedding-day with men he'll keep,  
The Law of Love fulfil; 
Rev. 19.6, 7, 8, 9 Rev. 4.4.   
With Garments white he'll cloth his sheep;  
This is his Father's will,  
That they should all return to him  
In union for to be, 
Jer. 3.14.   
And see themselves redeemed from sin  
to perfect liberty. 
Luk. 6.68.    

3.  
This news abroad I did proclaim  
As Christ gave me command, 
Matth. 28, 19, 20. Jer. 4.12 23, 14. Luk. 22.15.   
That men from sin he would reclaim  
To live i'th' Holy Land.  
And those that did this Doctrine hate  
Me often they did try,  

Matth. 10.16, 17, 18.  My body for to captivate  
From outward liberty.   

4.  

Luk. 19.47, 48. Acts 16.19 Mat. 26.34. Joh. 11.47, 48, 56, 57  And as in Kent I this did preach,  
Christ's Kingdom to make known,  
Some Ministers that there did teach,  
This Doctrine would not own;  
But strait unto the Magistrate  
And Soldiers they did fly,  
To have them presently me take  
From outward liberty.   

5.  

Lu. 20.20: Psal. 35: 11: Luk 14: 55.56, 57: Acts 5: 17: Acts 6: 9:  And then against me they did plot,  
And to my charge did lay  
Many things which I knew not,  
To have me thence away:  
And unto prison did me send,  
Me for the truth to try,  
Because with them I did contend  
For Gospel-liberty.   

6.  
Then that in Christ I might have rest,  

P●al. 37. 7● Heb: 49: 10.  He unto me did say,  
Enter thou into my sweet breast  
That nothing thee annoy.  
Until the wrath of men be past  

Isa. 26: 20: Rev: 2: 10:  I'll shut thee up in me;  
Though into prison they thee cast,  
I'll be thy Liberty.   

7.  
A work I have for thee to do,  
Which by thee I'll maintain,  

Acts 26: 16, 17, 18. Eph. 1: 13: 〈◊〉 4: 30: Psa: 35: 27 Psa: 69: 30 ●●a 51: 1:  My truth thou must bear witness to  
While life in thee remain.  
I have upon thee set my seal,  
My Name to magnify;  
And will unto thee there reveal  
True light and liberty.   

8.  
The Prisons were my Prophet's Schools  
Where they were taught by me  
To learn my Statutes and my Rules, 
Jer: 32: 11: Rev: 1: 9, 10: Isa: 26: 9: Psal: 119: 54, 55: J●●: ●9: 1: Eph: 3: 1, 2, 3: chap: 4: ●2   
And eke my Majesty.  
And they from theene did send abroad  
News of Eternity,  
That he who is the only Lord  
Will give men liberty.   

9  
As I beheld his glory bright  
Shining in me so clear, 
Col: 1: 26, 27. Rev: 14: 12, 13: Eph: 5: 14: Isa: 26: 19: Isa: 14: 5:   
I was thereby constrained to write,  
His voice the dead to hear,  
That they should all awake and sing  
that in the dust did lie;  
By Christ their dew on them falling,  
To give them liberty.   

10.  
In spirit this he will declare  
To all both great and small, 
Isa: 52: 10: Psal: 36: 9:   
His holy Arm he will make bear  
before the Nations all.  
And they that will his glory see  
Must have him for their eye;  
For there is none but only he  
Can see true liberty.   

11.  
All eyes besides him are so blind,  
That he an eye will be  
To enlighten all that are behind  
And see no liberty, 
Psal: 4●. 89: Psal: 146.7, 8. Rom: 6: 4: Psal: 119: 45●,   
That they might die and rise with him  
From all that is a lie,  
And be thereby brought out of sin  
To walk at Liberty.   

12.  
He that true liberty hath known  
Doth praises to Christ sing, 
Psal: 30: 3● 4:   
That he from death will bring me home,  
No more to live in sin.  
And when this news abroad is spread  

Lu: 24: 45: Jam: ●: 25:  That all men may it see,  
Those that with understanding read.  
May find their liberty.   

13.  
And though I a prisoner be,  
Yet am I free from care,  

Luk: 20: 19 20:  And men with feigned words flattery  
Do seek me to ensnare.  
They counsel me to change my mind,  
And so my words deny,  
And tells me I shall thereby find  
My outward liberty.   

14.  
False witness also did arise  

Psa 35.11.  against me to betray  
My innocency by their lies.  
My life to take away.  
Yet still the truth I'll witness to  

Is●. 14.8. Psal. 118.6.  Though for the same I die,  
And will not fear what man can do  
Against my liberty.   

15.  
And that which doth me still support  

2 Sam. 22: 2. Exod. 15: 2:  Is Christ my Rock and Tower,  
Who is all strength, joy, and comfort  
To me in every hour.  
Whose glory is still in my sight,  
His presence stands me by,  

Psal. 16: 8, 9, 10, 11:  To make himself my whole delight,  
Peace, rest and liberty.   

16.  

Isai: 55.4. Rom. 1.9. Rev. 1: 5:  Christ is my witness and my guide,  
My conscience pure and clear.  
I know the Lord is on my side,  
Therefore I need not fear.  
I will not fear the stroke of death,  
Nor Tyrant's cruelty;  
So soon as Christ receives my breath  
My soul gains liberty.   

17.  
A vow to God I once did make, 
Deut: 23: 21, 22:   
Which vow to him is due,  
That I for him will freely speak,  
That none but him is true.  
And rather than from him I'll turn, 
Rom: ●: 4: Dan: 3: 17, 18:   
Or should his truth deny,  
I'll yield my body to be burned:  
This is my liberty.   

18.  
Patience puts balm unto my sores;  
Love lives without control; 
Je●: 8.22.   
They lock my body within the doors,  
But cannot lock my soul. 
Psal 97.11. 2 Cor. 3.17,   
Life, Light and Liberty so sweet  
Within my breast doth lie;  
They that my body here do keep  
Know no such liberty.   

19  
There's neither pardon from the Pope,  
Nor Prayers made to Saints,  
That can enlarge my farther scope,  
Or shorten my complaints.  
'tis Christ above, 
Psal. 146.7. job. 8.36.  (the Lord of love)  
That for mankind did die;  
No one but he, that pardoned me,  
Can work my liberty.   

20.  
There's many men have treasure store,  
Yet are so worldly bent,  
Having so much, they scrape up more, 
Eccles. 4. ●   
And never a●● content.  
But I that am the poorest of all  
From worldly cares am free,  
Which makes me think they are in thrall  
And I at liberty.   

21.  
The man that bears a wavering mind  

Jam: ●: 6, 7, 8: P●ov: 29: 22.  Is subject unto woe;  
He that to anger is inclined  
Must sorrow undergo;  
But he that bears a patiented heart,  
Though he a prisoner be,  

Re●: 13: 10:  Exceeds both nature, skill, and art,  
In point of liberty.   

22.  
God did for me this place appoint  
Before that I came here,  

P●●●. 1.29:  And he a spirit to me lent  
That I the same should bear.  
He gave to me a willing mind,  

Psal: 110.3: Col: 1: 24:  And did my soul make free  
To suffer that which was behind,  
Before true liberty.   

23.  
And when my sufferings should end,  
Which I shouldhere endure,  

Exod: 3: 9, 10, 19, 20:  A Moses to me he would send  
My freedom to procure.  
And those that should it then withstand  
His wrath he would make see,  
And overthrow them by that hand  

Isa: 41: 10, 11:  Which gives me liberti.   

24.  
But some (like Pharaoh) still did plot  
My body to keep here,  

Evod: 8: 28: 32:  Though they would say, We hinder not,  
But rather would him clear.  
Yet God their hearts made hard again  
My freedom to deny,  
Until that I God's time had lain  
to have my liberty.   

25.  
Therefore in this I am content  
His time here for to stay, 
Phil. 4.11: Heb: 13: 5: Psal: 119.50: 2 Cor: 1: 4: Psal: 84: 11.   
He having to me comforts lent  
The time to pass away.  
He makes his sun on me to shine,  
My soul to satisfy,  
And promiseth in his due time  
To give me liberty.   Col. 3.16, 17. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord; and whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do al● in the Name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, and the Father by him. As is the Exhortation of Richard Coppin. Return into thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.  

Christ Crucified, AND Judgement Executed.  

CHAP. I. The cross of Christ set up in men and their die upon it; of the life which is lost and to be found; the father, mother, ●nd brethren, husband, wife, and children, house, lands and all things therein to be forsaken for Christ, what they are, with the time when, and the manner how.  
YOU that with Christ, and with those that are Christ's, will desire to live in the same spiritual freedom, fellowship, 
1 Co●. 1. 1●  and communion of Saints in light, must by him be armed with the same spiritual mind of Christ and them, to know Christ crucified in you, and you to all things of flesh and this world besides God, and so with him to have peace, joy, and comfort, in all your desires, ways, 
1 Pet. 4.1, 2.  and actions, and with patience and delight to follow him, and to take up his cross daily and carry it with you after him, suffering it to be placed in you, as the Lords standard lifted up against the enemy, sin, the devil, and all iniquity, 
Rev. ●●, 1● 1●●7.  which is a flood out of the devil's mouth rushing out upon you to devour you, till Christ the wisdom and power of God (as the cross) be set up in you to overcome it for you, and restore you into perfect health and safety in the Lord Jesus, 
Heb. 〈…〉.  through the manifestation of his second coming without sin unto salvation in the perfecting of which work by the same cross, (walking through the paths of the Lords judgements, where the natural man is to give up the ghost with the loss of life) you are to abide upon this cross, not for a day a month, not a year, and in some things and not in others, but in all things, all ways, and continually, ever bearing about in you bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus (after the flesh) that the life also of Jesus (after the spirit) may be made manifest in your mortal bodies, and you in him to live without the knowled● of sin, and of the fear of death, hell and the devil; therefore you which live in the body and would know Christ crucified in you, 
〈…〉  ●are always to be delivered unto death for Jesus sake, that the li●●●lso of Jesus may be made manifest in you m●t●● 〈…〉 and 〈…〉 sin ●eath, hell and 〈◊〉 man with all his corrupt de●d● of the flesh wisdom, interest, and knowling, and to plan● in you the new 〈◊〉 which in Christ Jesus 〈…〉 ●ousness 〈…〉 holiness, and so 〈…〉 that in dying you 〈…〉 that life which y● 〈…〉 before the ●a● of Adam, so 〈…〉 ●●eth judgement to destroy in man the kn●● 〈…〉 by which came death and so by 〈…〉 again to a new life ●ith 〈…〉 which he shall know himself 〈◊〉 live 〈…〉 not unto himself, 
〈…〉  and in dying and l●●●g 〈…〉 from which he shall never die so saith Christ, [he that believes in me, 
Joh 5.15 16  though he were dead yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in ●●e shall ne●●● dy●● believe you this, saith Christ as sufficient 〈…〉 eternal salvation?  
And the way to this 〈…〉 die daily till you be dead to all things but Go●, to 〈◊〉 only i● God; for as you die the d●●d of o●e life (which you must die and cannot live) to you liv● another 〈◊〉 whi●h is for everlasting and can nev●● die, whereby C●●ist himself is magnified, 
〈…〉  set up, and ex●●●●d in your b●●●y to be you● and you his, both in death & in life 〈…〉 to you in both, and you 〈◊〉 in you 〈…〉 d●ath that you might o● tru●t 〈…〉 ●●fore this dying 〈…〉 speaks of when he sa●t●. ●I am 〈…〉 yet nevertheless I live, ye● 〈◊〉 ●●ow, 〈…〉 lives mine, 
●al 2. 1●, ●●  and the life that 〈…〉 the faith of the son o● God 〈…〉 gave himself for me, and no● only 〈…〉 ●u●●or a●● men whatsoever, that 〈…〉 as he sh●l be manifest in them, may b● 〈◊〉 with him 〈…〉 unto themselves 〈…〉 died for th●●, and now lives in ●●●m 〈…〉 that whether they live o● die 〈…〉, 
〈…〉  who ●●s that was dead i● alive 〈…〉.  
A●d 〈◊〉 Christ said unto you all tha● wo●●d 〈◊〉 any thing in yourselves besides the ●ord of for any oth●● but th● 〈◊〉 that ●f you will come after 〈◊〉 you 〈◊〉 de●y your 〈◊〉 and take up ●●s cross ●ay●y and 〈…〉, that you may be nothing 〈◊〉 your ●●l●●●, know 〈…〉 any thing of 〈…〉 all by 〈…〉 joy 〈◊〉 things of the Lord who is made all things unto you, that you having nothing, yet enjoying all things, as enjoying all things, 
Luk. 9.23.24.  yet having nothing, [for he that will seek to save his life shall lose it, and he that will lose his life for my sake shall find it] And now my brethren that you may die to live, lose all to find all, you are commanded by Christ to hang upon the cross of Christ till you are crucified with Christ, and become dead to all things, but Christ which is not an outward cross of any visible thing without you, no nor altogether outward afflictions, but it is Christ the wisdom of God, and Christ the power of God within you, and which you are to take up and hang upon to the slaying of all your own wisdom, and strength, righteousness, and life, and all things of man, and the world, and whatsoever is contrary to this cross, even Christ in you, which you are to take up and hang upon, even you and all that is yours, yea all of yours, even all is to be fastened to him and slain by him, in your bearing of him, [for put you on the Lord Jesus C●rist and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof, 
1 Cor. 1.23, 24. ] and we preach saith Paul, Christ crucified, to the Jews even a stumbling block, and unto the Grecians and them that perish in their own wisdom and strength foolishness, but unto them which are called both of the Jews and Grecians we preach Christ the wisdom of God, and Christ the power of God.  
And upon this Cross of wisdom and power in God, did Christ himself in his life-time hang to be crucified to all worldly wisdom and honour, righteousness and glory which he found with men here below in the flesh, as a pattern for all men in the flesh to follow in all self-denial; leaving behind them all worldly honour, righteousness and Religion, 
1 Cor. 2.6.  which standeth only in the wisdom and strength of men, which cometh to nought, and which is all but as the fashion of the world which passeth away, and must all at last give up the ghost with Christ in the flesh on the cross; and without all or any part of this, you must come in Christ, who is only able to teach you all things, and to make you and all things stand and be accepted with God.  
And in this trial in taking up of this cross, 
How to forsake Father and mother etc.  and following Christ, you forsake father and mother, husband and wife, children and brethren, house and lands, and all for Christ to live with him, which is not meant carnally but spiritually, and is not a forsaking your father and mother after the flesh, as some may carnally believe; but in this forsaking here meant, your knowledge of them is renewed, and your love towards them is increased; for your father whom you are to forsake is the devil that begets sin and wickedness in you, 
Rom. 8.44.  and made all your knowledge and love amongst men to be devilish; so you and your mother, is the whore of Babylon, and lust of the flesh, the mother of whoredoms, 
Rev. 17.5.  and abominations of the earth, in which sin is conceived and brought forth, and of whom you at first were begotten by the devil into the knowledge of good and evil.  
And according to that knowledge you are to forsake all men and things whatsoever, and to know no man after the flesh; no, 
2 Cor. 5.16.  though you have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth (after he is manifest in the spirit within you) you are to know him no more so, but to know him and all men in the spirit, as in the Lord, where your knowledge towards all men is renewed, and you the more united to them, do the more love them.  
But while you or any of you have known or do still know your father the devil, and your mother the whore of Babylon not to be desolate and forsaken by you, so long you have been & still are by them matched and betrothed, united, and coupled, marrying, and giving in marriage with the daughters of men, your own inventions and imaginations which are as harlots, and which as whores you make your spouses, Hos●● 4.13. which appearing fair and beautiful ●o you, you are in love with them, and do go a whoring a●ter t●em, and of whom you have begotten and brought fo●● strange children, children of whoredoms and of fornications, (after the image of your father the devil and of d ● whore your mother) yea many oppressive children nourishe● up within you and without you, 
〈◊〉 5.7.  which are 〈◊〉 miseries of all sorts as angels of dark●●●s, by wh●●● you are fa●●en from God to idolatry, and other children you have which are seeming professed Religions and 〈◊〉 holiness and opinions of all so●●● whi●h yo●●ave brought f●rth as Angels of lig●●, 
〈…〉  wh●●● you put the name of G●d and godliness upo● with your s●lves to make them and your s●lves accepted with men and appear love●y unto them ●●ough th●y are but the children of the devil, and also ●arlots of ●●e who●e bringing forth, for men to go● whoring of oer, a●d w●i●h the who●e and mother o● har●o●● spirits up and k●●●●p a●ive for and at the side of her ●●●band the devil, 
〈…〉  and which is the Scarlet-●ou●er●d beast the w●ore fit● upon to deceive the nations, and to contrive for the devil, a kingdom of pride and covetousness, the 〈◊〉 and glory of 〈◊〉 w●rld, which is all enmity wit● God, and but vanity and vexation of spirit, 
〈…〉  and is all to perish in the ●●●ing, ●nd in which you yourselves therein living are 〈◊〉 of your father the devil whose works you do, 
〈…〉  and whose kingdom and all thin●●●●●r●in you are to forsak●●●r Christ and his kingdoms and ●ll such marriages are all t● i● b●●●● lost 〈◊〉 f●●●●k●n, a●d all the said children between t●em 〈…〉 whether angel's o● Light or angels of darkness, good and bad; all which men are to be slain with death, 
Rev. 2.23.  and all men are to know that the Lord i●●e which searcheth the reins and tryeth the hearts, and giveth to every one of them according to ●●eir works.  
And you are to marry and be married unto none but the Lord, not live with any but him, 
Hos●a 3.3  who himself loved you when you were in your sins, 
〈◊〉 16 6 7 8 Hos●● ●●, 10,  and betrothed you and married you to himself in righteousness and in Judgement, in mercy and in loving kindness that you might know the Lord, and be for no other but him, but to forsake all, and follow him whethersoever he shall lead you, as you have him for an example, who himself forsook his Father and his Father's house, his heaven, and his glory to come after you into sin, death and hell, to seek and to save you w●en you were los●, 
Rom. 10.20.21,  and to m●nifest his unchangeable love ●o you when you rebelled ●gainst him and went a whoring from him after other lovers, y●● than did he lov● you, and therefore you are to forsake all other lovers', and follow him, 
Cant. 14  who will lay his cross upon you, and thereby draw you; he will manifest himself u●to you, and still remain your husband, as it is wri●ten, ●●y 〈◊〉 ●s thy husband, the Lord of hosts is his 〈…〉 the whole earth shall he be called, 
I●● 5●  and 〈…〉 besides the Lord or follow any but the Lo●● 〈…〉 thing you do, you are guilty o● whoredom 〈…〉 ●●ow not the Lord.  
〈…〉, 
Of 〈…〉  you know not his dwell 〈…〉 r●●hes of his glory, but you are building 〈…〉 your own to dwelin● 〈…〉 ●rom them which 〈…〉 and the Lords house and 〈…〉 waste and is unknown to you, which 〈…〉 and grape's of l●fe, and you say the time is not come that the Lords house should be built, 
Hag. 1, 2, 3, 4.  or that his kingdom should be revealed or established among you till after a natural death; and because you know it not you resist the coming of it before, and will still dwell in your own ceiled houses, your fet forms and opinions of religious ways and worships, and the Lords house, way, worship, and religion, even Christ which you should have possessed & enjoy, lieth waste among you, and is not inhabited by you; but when the Lord by manifesting himself in you shall appear to build up the waste places and raise up the Tabernacle of David which is fallen down, and close up the breaches thereof as in the days of old, 
Amos 9 two.  and so cause the desolate heritage's, even men and all things which hath been known of them to be without Christ, 
Zacha. 6.12, 13.  to be inhabited by Christ, and shall manifest himself in them to be unto them their house, habitation and glory, then will men forsake their own houses, lands, and purchased fields which they have builded and planted, with all their householdstuff therein being, and their goodly cedars therein growing, and shall not return to take any thing with them, but shall leave all behind them and follow Christ, yea and though you may be upon the top of your houses in the highest of your profession and godliness reaching even to Heaven, yet you must come down, and shall not take any thing with you, 
Luke 17.30, 31.  neither shall these in the field return back to reap any profit of all their own labours which they have laboured under the Sun in performing of duties and ordinances of religion wherein they thought themselves rich without Christ; this all must be left, lost, and forsaken, and no more remembered in the knowledge of Christ and him crucified.  
And would you now die that you might live? then this is the way to see yourselves and all things of your selves crucified with Christ, and to know him living in you to be unto you a father, and mother, and husband, and wife, and children, and brother, and sister, and house, and lands, and life, and death, 
Rom. 8.32.  and food, and raiment, and all things whatsoever else is in the world; you and all is Christ's, and Christ and all is yours, and you and Christ with all things else is Gods, and you are not your own but as you are in him; 
i Cor. 3. 2i, 22, 23  for you are bought with a price to be the Lords; and all that you are, you are in the Lord, 
1 Cor. 6.20,  therefore glorify God in your bodies, and in your spirits which is Gods, and know nothing in you but Christ, and him crucified; and whatsoever else you have known to be any thing or any profit or advantage to you besides the Lord, count it all lost for Christ, and with Paul count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord; for when you suffer the loss of all, 
Phil. 3.7, 8.  and count them but dung that you may win Christ; this is the fruits and effct of your hanging on the cross, and this with men is hard to do; the way is narrow and some there be that find it.   

CHAP. II. How the cross ●f Christ is accompanied with the crosses of the world, fiery troyals and persecutions for the truth, the clouds of Christ's coming, ●nd t●e way of his people in which he leads them, and walks with them to save them, how and from what.  
AND wheresoever this way of Christ crucified shall be manifest and found with any that with Christ have been hanging upon the cross of divine wisdom and power, to be thereby weaned from sin and the world with the loss of all their own wisdom, righteousness, and strength, there do the crosses of the world flow and come together as fellow-helpers and companions in assistance with the cross of Christ; 
1 Pet. 2.21.  for even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example to follow his steps.  
And therefore you my brethren and fellow sufferers for the truth, you that have in any measure learned to embrace this cross of Christ for the saving of your souls, let it encourage you not to lay it down, but with patience to lie down under it, 
Gal. 6, 17.  and to bear it about in your bodies as the marks of the Lord Jesus till you be perfected in him, and still to trust in God, and wait upon him, in whatsoever affliction he by men or any other means as a rod in his hand, shall afflict upon you to humble you to walk with him; and be not sorrowful nor troubled at any thing, 
Eph, 2.12.  as those that are without hope, but rejoice always, and in all things, still praising the Lord for his goodness, in laying his cross upon you to humble you and protect you in it, and who without respect of persons hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light, manifest by the Lord Jesus in the way of his judgements, by the spirit of judgement and by the spirit of burning, for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus, 
● Cor. 5.5.  or God manifest in flesh.  
Therefore my brethren think it not strange concerning fiery trials, 
● Pet. 1.12.  persecutions, tribulations, and sufferings, as if some strange thing happened unto you; for they are companions with Christ on the cross, and they are the clouds in which he comes to manifest his glory on earth, and the way which he walked in himself before he entered into glory, wherein the Father made known himself unto him, and in which way he leads his dearest Saints that know him, and are nearest in union with him for the trial of their faith, 
1 Pet. 1.6, 7.  which being tried by fire might be found unto praise, and honour, and glory at the appearing of the Lord Jesus, as the Lords spirit with the Scriptures in all my sufferings for the truth to this day bears me witness, that bands, and afflictions, 
Acts 14 22.  persecutions, and trials, through which a soul enters into the kingdom of God, are very good, and in which much of God hath been manifest unto me, for that the Lord by the Angel of his presence was with me to sanctify it to me, and save me as he did his Prophets and people of old, and as he will do all throughout all generations of the world; for in all their afflictions he was afflicted, 
Isa. 63, 9  and the Angel of his presence saved them, in his love, and in his mercy he redeemed them, and he bear them and carried them always continually, which hath been witnessed by his Prophets of old from Adam unto this day, as I shall more particularly hereafter mention, that the coming of God to save his people from their enemies, the world, flesh, sin, and the devil, and to draw them out of many waters, death, hell, and damnation, hath been in the way of his judgements, in dark and thick clouds of the sky, as all can witness that ever saw him, and have known any deliverance by him, and that before he delivers them from any condition of hell, he comes himself unto them in it; for at his presence, the earth and all hellish devilishness in men (out of which a soul is to be brought) trembles and shakes before him, and as stubble it is burnt by him; for so saith David of his coming to him, he bowed the heavens and came down, 
Isa. 64.1. Psa. 18.8, 9, 10, 17.  and the mountains did melt at his presence, that is, he made all creature excellency and glory fall down before him at his coming, and become as darkness unto him, he came flying upon the wings of the wind, as in the majesty and power of his spirit, which bloweth where it listeth, 
Isa. 40.6, 7, 8.  as the breath of his mouth and as his spirit to whither and consume all flesh, and he made darkness his secret place that none but whom he pleated should behold him, and out of his nostrils went a smoke to darken all the light and glory of man, and a consuming fire went out of his mouth to burn up his enemies, and coals were kindled at it, that all his enemies became as ashes before him, and at the brightness of his presence his clouds passed, all troubles were ceased, his enemies were scattered, and his people delivered; it is the day of the Lord, 
Jer. 30, 7, 8, 9, 10  even the time of jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it, and restored into rest and peace where none shall make him afraid.  
This is the manner of Gods coming to judgemrnt to redeem man, every one in his order, as he shall be manifest to them, to lead and carry them through fiery trials and dark waters, 
Isa. 43.16.  but not without the Lords presence with them, purging them by it and saveing them in it, that the fire might not burn them, nor the waters overflow them, but only that enmity which is for destruction within them; therefore he saith when thou passest through the waters I will be with thee; 
Isa. 43.1, 2, 3.  and through the floods that they shall not overflow thee; when thou wulkest through the fire thou shalt not be burnt; neither shall the flames kindle upon thee; for I the Lord thy God am with thee, and the Holy one of Israel thy saviour that redeemed thee; and though for a time he gave Jacob to the spoil, & Israel to the robbers, 
Isa. 42.24.  and though the land of them be filled with sin and iniquity, yet he leaves them not, nor forsakes them, but continues his presence with them to redeem them, 
●or. 51.5.  save and deliver them; and the robbers and destroyers of his people which came upon them to destroy them these will he destroy, spoil, and cast into the prison of their own shame, and after bring them to judgement; he will also afflict them and try them and thereby humble them that they might be saved, and all the wounds that the enemies of God people have made in them, 
Jer. 30.16, 17.  he will also heal up, that they shall be no longer a prey to their enemies; and them that have been their enemies, 
Isa. 19.22.  even Egypt and Assyria which God sometimes destroyed, them will he also save with Israel, and there shall be no more destruction of one another, nor of them by the Lord, but one heart and one mind will the Lord give them.   

CHAP. III. Of the afflictions of Joseph, his being s●l● i●t● Egypt by his Brethren, his being falsely accused and mprisoned; how G●● thereby exalted him, and Judged ●is Brothers that sold him; how the same was with Christ and is with us to this day,  
THIS did God by Israel and all the sons of Jacob in the afflictions of Joseph whom his brethren conspired against, hated, and sold into Egypt; 
Gen. 37.18, i9.  and wherefore did they sell him but because they hated him? and they hated him because they thought Jacob their father did love him more than them; 
Gen. 37.3, 4, 5.  and when Joseph had told unto them his dream whereby they understood that he should reign over them, they hated him so much the more, and sought his destruction though he were their Brother: and after they had sold him, and he like to find favour with him that bought him, he was sought unto day by day to be tempted by an Egyptian woman to lie with her, and because he refused and did not, she falsely accused him to her husband, saying that he would have done it, but she would not, and therefore by false accusation he was cast into prison, and had bands added unto his afflictions, 
Gen. 39  but the Lord was still with him and shown him mercy that he found favour with God, and through great affliction God humbled him and brought him to honour, and afterwards his Brethren that sold him to be afflicted, them did God also afflict, judge, and humble before Joseph, and the saying of Joseph to his Brethren was brought to pass, 
Gen. 42.6, to 22.  that he should reign over them, and they be subjected to him, which was all for their good, that they were thus afflicted and did afflict their Brother, as was and joseph's afflictions for him after they had sold him, and yet it was not they that sold him, but the Lord by them sent him into Egypt before them to preserve life, and that in time of need he might preserve them, 
Gen. 45.3, 4, 5.  and at last be made known unto them, for their joy and comfort in the Lord; so it was not us that sold Christ but the Lord by us crucified Christ with us, that he might preserve us and with comfort make known himself unto us: therefore the like afflictions of Joseph was with Christ, and are to this day with us; for we are all the sons of Jacob, and have all joined together to sell our Brother Joseph, (even Christ) and one another for naught, that he should not reign over us, as to this day we do in persecuting the spirit of Jesus in his people; for whosoever we find among us to be best beloved of God, find favour with men, and to whom God shall manifest most of spiritual wisdom and knowledge to be preached and declared by any, to the exalting of Christ and abaseing of man, such will they with Cain slay, and with ●●seph Brethren sell for naught into a strange land, persecute him, banish him, or imprison him, that he should not live with them, whereby the afflictions of Ioseph● are continued to this day, and with josephs' Brothers they will say the● we shall see what will become of his dream, 
Ge●. 37.20.  his principle and doctrine which he preached, which say they, under afflictions he may deny for his liberty, and so it will come to nothing; but as it happened to josephs' Brethren, so will it happen to them; for the spiritual Abel even that jesus the Lord's anointed which was preached unto them, and persecuted by them, shall reign over them, and they shall submit unto him, and by him they shall be tried, judged, and humbled, and made to acknowledge their sins, as josephs' brethren was by him; and with much joy and comfort will he make known himself unto them, and they shall know him (even that jesus) whom they persecuted, and shall be humbled for him; 
Zacha. 12.10.  so he was their Saviour and reigned with them; and that man which (for the spirits sake in him) they persecuted and sold, him would God preserve and keep in all his afflictions, as he did joseph and Christ, and through afflictions will God bring him to honour with himself, he will both humble him and save him.  
And as the Father and Brethren of Joseph (after he was made known unto them) left their own Country to come and live with him in Egypt, which was the children of Israel's first going into Egypt to live in a strange Land, which was not theirs: so the Father, Mother, and all the Brethren of Christ after the flesh, must with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob leave their own country and father's house, and come to live with Christ in a strange Land which they know not; 
Gen. 12.1, 2, 3.  so did Joseph in his afflictions when he was sent away by his Brethren, he nor they knew not of themselves whether they sent him: 
Deut. 8.2.  Neither did Israel when God led them forty years in the Wilderness, and fed them with Manna from heaven, which they knew not; but thus did God for the good of all I rael, that he might humble them and save them.  
And therefore my Brethren, Friends and Enemies so called, may he with Joseph say to them by whom he hath suffered any of the afflictions of Joseph, It was not you that did it, but the Lord, who doth all things according to the counsel of his own will, and maketh all things work together for good to them that love God, 
Rom. 8.28. Gen. 58.19, 20, 21. Acts 4.27, 28.  and will himself bring good out of the greatest evil, as he did in this against Joseph, and in that against Christ; and so in all things that is done for to glorify himself: and thus will God make all things work together for the furtherance of truth, the destruction of its Enemies, the manifestation of his glory, and the good of all people.   

CHAP. FOUR How Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and all that with them to this day do betray and persecute, accuse, judge and condemn any for conscience towards God, are acted by the Devil, hardened and commanded to it by God; how with Cain, Judas, and the Devil, they are all God's servants, doing their devilish, dark, and black work, and whose spirit in them shall with the Devil, Death, Hell, and false Prophet, and the Beast, which was and is not gone into perdition, be damned and die the second death, when and how.  
THE fall of Adam and slaying of Abel which was to this day in the persecution of any, that do both persecute and are persecuted, all is done by God and for God, and God doth it to glorify himself by it; wherefore whatsoever God calls you unto, go out unto it, and not resist him in it; for no one shall proceed farther in any thing than God will; and therefore when Abraham went to slay his son Isaac, it was by the command of God, and God was with him in it, and Abraham's faith the more strengthened by it, and in time of persecution truth will the more increase, and therefore men shall the more persecute it, as the new Pharaoh did the children when they began to multiply in Egypt; and God hardened Pharoahs' heart that he should not let Israel go; 
Exod. 1.7, 8, 9, 10. Exod. 7.3, 4.  but should afflict them so long in Egypt that they might the more increase, and at last come out by great judgements; and after he had let them go, he hardened the hearts of the Egyptians to persist in persecution against them, and to follow them through the red sea, 
Exod. 14.4.30.30.  that he might himself get honour upon Pharaoh and all his host, in their destruction and Israel's deliverance; and before any deliverance can be of any to any, there must first be a bondage, or else there can be no deliverance, and no deliverance can be without judgement; and therefore God sent them into Egypt to be afflicted and embondaged by Pharaoh, and after that by his judgements brought them out with great substance; so all that Pharaoh did against Is●ael God made to be for their good, and afterwards judged their enemies, and he doth it that all men might fear before him.  
So in like manner God to make his power known upon the enemies of his people to this day for his own honour, his people's good and the advancement of truth, doth sometimes deliver them up into the hands of their enemies, to be afflicted and imprisoned by them, and doth harden their hearts against them, as he did Pharaoh against Israel●, who will sometimes through policy to increase their bondage, deceitfully promise them liberty, yet are their hearts still hardened as Phaorahs' was, not to let them go, but to lay more and more upon them by plotting new evils against them to more afflict them, as Pharaoh did, and which by experience I myself have found from the like spirit of Pharaoh in these days of persecution, as that which God ever did, and to this day doth, to manifest his power the greater in delivering his people out of their enemy's hands, and so bring them through the wilderness to try them, as the way of God unto salvation, and in which way all men are to stand still and see the salvation of God.  

Num. 22.5, 6.  And as did Pharaoh to oppress Israel in Egypt when he feared they would grow to strong for him, so Balaack King of the Moabites, when he saw Israel to multiply and be too many for him, he sent messengers to Balaam to come and curse the children of Israel, and God turned it all unto Israel's good, for instead of cursing them God made him all together to bless them, than said Balam to Balaack, showing God's work in all things, how can I curse where God hath not cursed, and how can I detest where God hath not detested; thereore said he, if Balaack would give me his house full of Gold and Silver I can not pass the commandment of the Lord to do either good or bad of my own mind, 
Num. 24.12, 13.  but as the Lord hath said, that shall I do, and the Lord is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent, 
Num. 23.19, 20, 21.  but he hath said it and he will do it, and I have received a commandment to bless, for he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it, and he seethe no iniquity in Jacob, nor transgression in Israel; but the Lord their God is with them, and the joyful shout of a King is among them, and unless he bid I cannot curse them, and the lying spirit could not go into the Prophets of Ahab king of Israel unless ●he Lord had sent him therefore when Shimei cursed David, 
2 Chron. 1●. 20, 21.  he did it because the Lord had bidden him, and David reproved those that gainsaid it, saying he curseth even because God hath bid him curse David; who dare then say wherefore hast thou done so, & behold saith he, 
2 Sam. 16.10, 11, 12.  my Son which came out of my own bowels seeketh my life, and why should not he that curseth be let alone, for the Lord hath bidden him, it may be the Lord will look on mine afflictions, and do me good, for his cursing me this day, thus said David, and thus may we say, why should not these be let alone that revile, persecute, banish, or imprison us or any, seeing they do it by the Lords command, which he lets alone for good to them that are persecuted; for without him they can do nothing; and David under judgement and the reproaches of men, seeing all that men did unto him to be of God, he said he was dumb and opened not his mouth because he knew the Lord did it; 
Psa. 39.9.  and Christ as a lamb led to the slaughter, and as a sheep dumb before the shearers, so he opened not his mouth against them knowing it to be the Lord that did it, therefore when he was reviled he reviled not again, but committed himself to God that judgeth righteously, so neither Pharaoh nor the Egyptians cauld do any thing against Israel except the Lord had hardnen their hearts to do it, neither could the devil touch Job in his person nor estate to afflict and punish him without God had bidden him and gave him commission, 
job. 2.6.  which God saw would be good unto Job, and therefore Job in all his afflictions accuseth none, neither devil, nor witches, nor any other in the loss of any thing, 
job. 1.21.  but ascribeth all unto God who giveth and taketh at his pleasure, and did all that was done unto him to humble him: and after what a strange manner doth God sometimes act his people to make them a reproach and scorn of men, as he did David when he made him to uncover himself in the eyes of the hand maids of his servants, 
2 Sam. 6.20, 21, 22.  and he said it was before the Lord, and that he would be yet more vile and base in his own sight and the sight of his maidservants, of whom he said he should be had in honour; 
Isa. 20.2, 3.  and so did the Lord do by Isaiah when he made him to walk naked and barefoot three years for a sign, 
Isa. 20.2, 3. Ezek. 4.12. chap. 5.1.  and made Ezekiel to bake men's dung and eat it for a sign, and to shave the hair from off his head and face, and burn the third part for a sign, which was all by the Lords command, yet all such are counted as mad men by those that knew not the Lord, though they did it by his command; who saith it, and men must do it, 
job 1.21. Hose. 6.1.  who witholdeth, giveth, and taketh, at his pleasure both men and things, even poverty and riches, health, wealth and sickness, prosperity and adversity, life and death, honour and shame, all is of God, and by God, and not of any other but God; who worketh and none shall hinder, commanding all things, even men and devils to serve him for good; and therefore the devil walking to and fro in the earth, seeking whom he may devour, may be said to be the servant of God, employed about God's work to try and prove his people by temptations and afflictions for good to them as he did job; and so saith Christ of the devil when he was led by the spirit (even God) into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, he said unto him, [thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, 
Mat. 4.17. ●0. Acts 2.23. Acts 1.25.  but thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve;] and judas when he betrayed Christ, he did also the work of God, which was before appointed to be done, but the devil not knowing that what he did was of God, did therefore accuse himself, and after death went to his own place, 
Eccles. 12.7.  the body to the earth from whence it came, and the soul to God that gave it, every thing to its place and centre, light unto light, and darkness unto darkness, earth to earth, and the spirit to the spirit, every thing to its like, as it always did, and ever will do, world without end: and that which is the dark and devilish part, even the devil itself, which entered into Judas, whereby he became a devil, (tempting, and betraying, persecuting, and accusing any) is the same devil that enters into men at this day, whereby they become as devils one to another, and which remaineth still with men of the same nature, doing the same devilish work of the devil in them to this day, who are some times made use of by God, as a rod and scourge in God's hand to whip & scourge others whom God loves and chastizes for good to them to humble them, 
Psalm 17.9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.  which rod shall at last with the devil be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone to be burnt, as the Egyptians were into the sea to be drowned.  
And therefore all men persecuting, plotting, and devising evil devices against others to accuse them, are no better than the devil in that devilish nature, which God sometimes sets a work to do his dark and black work, and to discover themselves in the trial of others for their own shame and destruction, in that state after convinced by God, and so they are the servants of God, as Judas and the devil was, to do that work of God as the devil and Judas did, and who with the devil must at last come to judgement before Christ, 
Rom 2.15, 16.  where their own consciences shall accuse them of the evil they have done against Christ, and by him they shall be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where all their abominations and devilish actings of one man against another, and against God shall be destroyed, and themselves saved, yet as by fire, and that in them which was devilish and made them so long to be devilish, 
i Cor. 3.15. Jam. 3.15, 16.  is the devil in them that so long destroyed them, and kept them from knowing their peace with God; and this devil and sin the devouring lion of mankind is that which is only for destruction in men's salvation and coming unto God, and he is that beast which is the fourth and which was and is not, and shall go into perdition: and whose power or little horn that came up last raging most, having a mouth and eyes like a man, is he that continued speaking and acting great things against the Saints of the most high in their coming to their kingdom, and with which beast or beastial power acting in men to take the kingdom from the saints, the kings & rulers of the earth as enemies to Christ and his kingdom, 
Rev. 14.9, 10  do receive power and authority with, and from the beast, to act one hour with the beast, and by him they do reign over the people of all Nations, 
Rev. 17.11, 12, 13, 14.  and with him they shall suffer and go into perdition together, and they give their power and authority to the beast and prince of darkness that ru●e● in the children of disobedience, yielding themselves his servants and sons, as the god and father which they worship and fall down before; 
Rom. 6.16.  For his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto life; and yielding to the Beast, they with him, who with Gog and Magog do join in battle together, to make war against the Saints of the Most High, until Christ the Lamb of God and Prince of Light by his innocent life and light in the Saints, shall overcome the Beast, or beastial power by the bright fiery appearing of his presence amongst them in the Saints, and shall give the victory to the Saints; 
Rev. 15.2, 3.  and until Christ and the ancient of days shall sit in judgement upon the white throne of innocency, 
Rev. 20.11, 12 Deut. 7.9, 10, 11, 19, 20, 21, 22.  light and life in God, from whose face the heaven and the earth, and all things therein of man's inventions shall fly away, and before whom all books shall then be opened, and every man's conscience shall bear witness either for or against himself, and their thought the mean while accusing or else excusing one another; 
Rom. 2.16, 17.  for then do God appear to judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to his Gospel, and then doth he give the Kingdom to the Saints of the Most High to possess it, even to them that know themselves in him and he in them, and then will the beast, devil, and sin, even Gog and Magog; warred against the Saints, in the time of their deliverance from sin and resurrection from death by Christ, (as the Egyptians did against Israel in Israel's coming out of Egypt) be quickly slain and devoured with fire from Heaven, as the Egyptians were by water drowned in the red-sea, and that body of sin and death the old man which is the body of the beast in which he appears to live and act, shall be destroyed and given to the burning fire in the lake which quencheth not, where the devil, death, hell, 
Rev. 20.8, 9, 10, 14.  and the false Prophet is to be damned to a perpetual end for ever and ever, which is the second death, and these men with whom the beast and prince of darkness have so acted and ruled, 
Rev. 12.12.  shall themselves go in his destruction (who will then be in great wrath in them because he knows his time is short with them) be shut out from the enjoyment of love and peace in God, and have punishment greater than they bear, but the Heavens shall laugh, and they that dwell in them shall rejoice, and be at peace and rest in the Lord.   

CHAP. V A definition of the righteous and the wicked as two parts of three in man to be destroyed, and how the third part neither righteous nor wicked is brought through the fire and saved; with a distinction of Dives and Lazaras ●nd their conditions in life and death, and of the dog licking Lazaras, ●a●es.  
ANd into this consumnig fire where Gog and Magog is destroyed for persecuting the Saints; thither went Adam after he eat the forbidden fruit, 
Gen. 4.13.  and Cain after he had slew his brother Abel, where Cain said, my punishment is greater than I can bear; and where rich Dives, whose kingdom is of this world, and that to this day despises Lazarus, 
james 3.15.  is tormented in the flame of a burning conscience, being that dark black devilish part which is earthy, sensual, and devilish, opposing, hating, and loathing that part which is light, bright, and Heavenly, 
Gen. 18.23. job 9.22. Isa. 64.6.  and who is both the righteous and the wicked with men that must be destroyed; for both the righteousness and wickedness of men is all as filthiness, and so shall perish together; for as they are one in pollution so they shall be one in destruction, so was Dives with all his glory, he and that destroyed together.  
But to more explain this, Dives is the pharisaical principle of righteousness under a law dispensation, where sin is manifest representing of men in the state of unbelief, and which so far as any man liveth in it, he is as Dives was, righteous and wicked, for in opposition to his own wickedness he forms to himself a righteousness, in which he is proud and lusty, rich and mighty, boasting himself in himself against the poor publican, as Dives did against Lazarus; yet this publican shall enter into Heaven before the proud Pharisee, 
Matt. 21.31.  so shall Lazarus without Dives, even as humility without pride; and than Lazarus is the gospel principle of righteousness under a gospel dispensation, representing all men in the state of believing, which so far as any man liveth in it, he is as Lazarus was, poor and humble, meek and lowly, even as a poor despised publican, having no righteousness of his own, but is clothed with poor beggarly raiment to the world's view that wear it not, and waiting to be clothed with change of raiment from Heaven, and justified only in the righteousness of Christ.  
Again this Dives the righteous and the wicked in a mystery is two parts of three in the whole creation with man that cannot stand in the presence of God's consuming fire to be tried and saved, but is for destruction to be damned and cast into hell to be burned, for two parts therein shall be cut off and die, but the third part shall remain and be brought through the fire as refined silver and as tried gold; 
Zach. 13.9.  this third part is poor Lazarus tried and punished for salvation, having all his own works good and bad burned, but himself saved; for none of the third part can be lost, being of God, having past the trial through the fire and overcome the righteous and the wicked that warred against it, and could not escape the fire; for they that are both righteous and wicked seeing righteousness and sin of their own, do persecute the innocent that sees and know nothing of their own, which the righteous and the wicked, even Gog and Magog incampeth about to destroy and thereby destroyeth itself, yet is the innocent sanctified nature of men, that is neither righteous nor wicked, exalted with Christ into the throne of God into Abraham's bosom where no evil of sin nor sorrow can come near it to hurt it, and where there is no curse but the eternal blessedness of God.  
And so this third part which comes forth refined and not consumed is poor Lazarus that lay at Dives gate full of sores at the gate of this world without the glory of this world and worldly comforts, but as a poor despised wretch whose sores the dogs came and licked, 
Luk. 16.19, 20 21.  delighting and refreshing themselves with them, and by it healed them, that is, men of a dogish, sourly malicious nature and spirit, without the spirit of God in the outward court or form of religion are as dogs, 
Rev. 22.15. Psa. 22.16.  where they so long trod undet foot the Holy City; for without are dogs etc. and dogs saith David have compassed me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me, they have pierced my hands and my feet.  
And these dogs (or men) reviling, reproaching, and persecuting any in whom the life of God lives, (which is not in the form and glory of the world) is their barking, biting, snapping and snarling at them to devour them, and that life of God in them, in which they as dogs licking their sores, do delight and refresh themselves, glorying also in the infirmities and afflictions of others, which they inflict upon them for the life's sake in them, for which they do not love them; as the dogs that licks Lavarus his sores, they loved not the person of Lazarus, nor his sitting at Dives his gate begging for food, which they thought belonged unto them, they being of that house or family; but they delighted in his sores, and refreshed themselves with them; so do men that persecute other, hate and despise them, because they are not of them they love them not, nor that salvation should come by their way, for that they think belongs only unto them, & comes only in their way, who account themselves of the House and Church of God walking in forms of Religion, and will deny others of the same benefit of salvation that are not of the church and way as they are, and so will despise and persecute them, and they will delight and rejoice in their persecution, infirmities and afflictions, as one man's rejoicing in another's sufferings, which rejoicing is with dogs a licking of their sores, and by this are their sores healed, and they accepted that take it patiently as Lazarus did; for they that are persecuted for the truth, are the more strengthened and confirmed in the truth, and the truth is the more increased by it; for saith Paul, these things which have come unto me in my sufferings, 
Phil. 1.12, 13, 14.  bonds, and imprisonments, have proved all to the furtherance of the gospel, and all things shall work for good to them that love God, and that are so despised and persecuted of the world; and this is the third part which passes through the fire to be tried, purified and saved.  
Yet this third part which is of God tried and refined to be saved (to wit, Lazarus which Dives despised, 
Rev. 12.3, 4, 5.  or the man child born, which the Dragon persecuted) is carried above men's malice, and the afflictions of this world into Abraham's bosom, as into rest and peace with God, being of the same nature of God.  
And this third part is also the same with the third dispensation, Heaven and glory of God manifest in flesh, the other two being vanished, not able to appear in the presence of this third, which is also the third day or light of body the son of righteousness, the light and glory of all lights (even Christ) wherein the knowledge of God is pure unto men, living without the knowledge of good and evil; and in which state nothing appears impure nor imperfect to those that live there; but as the Prophet Zacharie saith, 
Zach. 14.20, 21.  Every pot and pitcher (as the worst of things so called by men) is in the Lord's house all holiness unto him that is holy, and as golden bowls before the Altar of God (even Christ) filled with the holy oil and anointing spirit of Jesus by which all things is sanctified to him that knows the Lord; 
Tit. 1.15.  for to the pure all things are pure.  
And the more of that purity and pure life of God there is manifest in any one man, the more trials and persecutions he must pass through and undergo for the same, by the impure, in whom the pure is not manifest; and the more purer any one is, the better able he is to endure to the end of what he for the pure's sake shall have inflicted upon him; for none but the pure (according as it is manifested in all ages to this day) is tried and persecuted by that which is still beneath it, and cannot attain it, as Dives who was in hell could not come to Lazarus who was in heaven, 
Luke 16.23, 24  yet (as it is written) they were both within a corporeal sight and hearing one of another, but the one could not be comforted, and the other could not be tormented; for their spirits in their several conditions were at a vast distance one to the other, but their bodies might come together, as to this day they do, but not to have communion together one with another, nor in any one thing, for there is no communion between light and darkness, Christ and Belial; but the one is taken and the other is left; one denied himself and the other could not.  
And therefore it is not any local hell and heaven (as some men suppose) that Dives and Lazarus was in, but the different states of men under the Law, and under the Gospel, under wrath and love, at the left and right hand of God by which hell and heaven is signified to them, even one living in the presence of God, as of love, and loving his appearance; and the other living in the presence of God, as of wrath, and hating his appearance, being not able to stand before him; for nothing but what is of God born again by God, shall stand before God, and have peace in God; for to every thing else God is as hell, yea a tormenter, even a consuming fire to destroy it; and every thing from its centre, and out of its element, is as in hell, where it cannot live to abide, and have rest; as the fish out of the Sea; the worms out of the earth, the birds out of the air, and the soul out of God cannot; therefore saith Cain, I am gone out from thy presence, and my punishment is greater than I can bear; 
Gen. 4.13, 14.  so for the body of man which is but earth, and as a worm, to be any where else then in or on the earth, though in heaven, it were as in hell; therefore every thing to its centre for rest, and the souls of all men into God, which that they are when men see God in them giving rest and peace to them, and themselves to be in God as Lazarus did, but Dives did not in that state; and therein the one is comforted, and the other is tormented, yet were they brothers, and both the sons of God; but the flames of a wounded conscience (of the one) who can endure the bitter burning of it! so the joys of a healed saved conscience (in the other) how sweet is it! and both these manifest in flesh under the law and gospel-dispensation, where the discontent and torment of one man's conscience, wounded by the Law, is manifest; and the joy and comfort of another's healed by the gospel, and both living together on the earth in the body, and having the glory of this world, and the other the same; but Dives died, and was buried.  
First, his death was the coming of the Law to him to revive sin in him, whereby sin was made exceeding sinful, and thereby slew him as it did Paul, and as is the death of all, after which comes judgement; before which Paul (as Dives) was rich and righteous in himself, 
Rom. 7.9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.  till the Law was set home to him and revived sin in him, and so slew him, after which the gospel came and gave life unto him; But Dives also was buried, and in hell tormented; he was with David laid into the lowermost pit in darkness, 
Psal. 88.6, 7.  in the deep, where the wrath of God lay hard upon him that he could not come forth, where he was scorched with fire, and burned his tongue for pain under the four and five vial, and which David he cried out, 
Luk. 16.23 24.  Father Abraham have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame, as David said, Wilt thou show wonders in the grave, where thy fierce wrath goeth over me, 
Psa. 88.12.16. Psa. 43.2, 3.  and thy terrors have cut me off; Why dost thou cut me off? Why go I mourning because of the oppression and the enemy; 
Psa. 51.8.12.  send [Lazarus] thy light and thy truth, let them lead me, let them bring me unto thy holy hill: make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice; restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit: so is the cry of a wounded soul that looketh up unto God for mercy, as is said Dives did, who was also a son of God as Lazarus was, for he called Abraham father, and Abraham called Dives his son; and so is every unbeliever the son of God, though so long he bringeth forth fruit to himself, and not unto God, and thereby destroys himself; 
Rom. 11.32.  yet in God is his help, and the help of every unbeliever; for he hath concluded all under sin and unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all; and therefore Dives said, Father Abraham have mercy on me.  
Now Lazarus he died, that is, he died unto sin, and lived unto righteousness, and was not buried as Dives was, 
Rom. 6.11.  but was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom; he was dead in Christ as every believer is while he lives, by whom he was crucified and slain to sin and the world's glory, 
2 Cor. 1.9, 10.  having received in himself the sentence of death, that he should not trust in himself but in God which raiseth the dead, and delivered him from so great a death from which he had not delivered Dives; and all thus dead in Christ, riseth first with Christ into the life of Christ, which is the first resurrection; but the rest of the dead (to wit, they of Dives, the righteous and the wicked that are so in themselves, and do worship the Beast and his Image and follow the whore) they rise not till they are so become dead in Christ from sin and the world, which yet they live in, & are dead from Christ buried in the grave of destruction, 
●ev. 14.9, i0, 11.  where is weeping and gnashing of teeth, and where the worm dyeth not, and the fire is not quenched to all that are in it; but blessed are ehe dead which die in the Lord, 
Rev. 14.15.  from the whore and her worship from henceforth, yea saith the spirit, that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them, for dying and rising in Christ they do enter into rest with Christ, resting from all their own works, as God did from his, who also have received in themselves the sentence of death, that they should not trust in themselves, but in God that raiseth the dead, and delivered them from so great a death which others lie groaning under; and so by the angels or ministering spirits of Christ in them, are carried out of themselves into Abraham's bosom, swallowed up into the life of God, free from the wrath and curse, as believers, still living in the body, having Christ their life manifest in their mortal flesh, 
2 Cor. 4, 11. Matt. 5.8, 9  by which their consciences are at peace and rest with Christ in God, as the pure in heart which is blessed with God, receiving, possessing, and enjoying the reward of their works of humility, meekness and love, which is rest for evermore, and unto whom the impure and unbeliever cannot come, nor be blessed with the same spiritual blessing of Christ in them, but do (with Dives the righteous and the wicked) still hate and persecute them that are blessed above them, and like roaring Lions they will go about seeking to devour them till the Lion of the tribe of Judah meets them (as he did Paul) and destroys in them the righteous and the wicked, 
Acts 9.3, 4, 5.  the Pharisee and all his works, the good and the evil knowledge with men, turning their evil into good; their darkness into light; their death into life, and their hatred into love, and so translate them out of the kingdom of the evil and of darkness, into the Kingdom of light and the Lord Jesus.  
And these two parts, Righteousness and sin, good and evil, so known by men (which is to be destroyed) every man for a time (while he believes not) known to be more or less in him, the one opposing the other, which is the righteousness of man against the sin of man, & do both join together against the third part of man, which is refined and draw out from the other to be pure in Christ; and by the pure, even Christ, is the righteous and the wicked purged forth and destroyed together; for works of gold and works of dross, the best and worst of man is all but vanity, 
1 Cor. 5.12, 13.  and must be destroyed; for as the wicked part which is sin, is compared to briars, and thorns, wood hay, and stubble; so the other part, which is the righteous so called, is compared to gold and precious stone, and all but as one Dives; even the two parts of three, righteousness and wickedness, which must be burnt up, & man therein shall suffer loss; 
Gen. 18.23. Job. 9.22. Eccle. 3.16, 17.  for God will destroy both the righteous and the wicked, which is of man; but man himself, or that third part which is of God shall be saved, and which is neither righteous nor wicked in itself, but is pure, holy, meek and humble, as Adam was before his fall, and now again regenerated from the knowledge of good and evil, to be like Christ risen into the state of the second Adam, more perfect than the first, as in the state of rest and salvation, where man is saved and made perfect in God, yet so as by fire, and where there is neither truth nor error, light nor darkness, day nor night appearing distinct, but in the evening it shall be light, or that which before was darkness shall now be made light, 
Isa. 42.16.  even the crooked strait, and the rough plain, as all but one day and one light, 
Zach. 14.6, 6, 8, 9  one way, and one kingdom of the Lord known unto men, and in which there is but one king, and his Name one over all the earth, and all other kings and kingdoms good and bad so known, are destroyed and at an end to its goodness and its badness out of Christ; and at the sounding of the seventh angel is all become the kingdoms of the Lords and of his Christ's, whose name is but one, and there is none besides him.   

CHAP. VI That the more purer, innocent, and faithful men are in the truth, the more do men plot and devise evil of them to destroy them, as against the Lord Prophets, Christ and his Apostles; how God by his presence with them delivers them as he did Israel, the three Children, Daniel, Jonah and Jeremiah, and destroyed their enemies.  
AND he that with this one, even with this pure and perfect one shall know most of this King and Kingdom, to declare it, and most purely live in it, he must suffer the greater by men and with Christ, he shall drink of the cup of Christ, 
Matt. 20.25. Luke. 12.50.  and be baptised with the baptism of Christ's sufferings, under which Christ himself groaned till it was accomplished, and brought through the fire, and seven times tried in the presence of God's burn, he is most certainly humbled and exalted with Christ in the spirit, to sit in the Throne of his Father; & so long as he lives in the flesh, manifesting and declaring to the world the glory of Christ's Kingdom, which he knows and is possessed of, 
job. 16.33.  he must so long expect to have tribulation in the world answerable to the peace and consolation he hath with Christ in God, and in which tribulation and affliction of fiery trials and persecutions by men, his peace and consolation shall not cease to be with him; for his God in whom he liveth and trusteth, 
Isa. 63.  will continue it by the angel of his presence, being in all his afllictions afflicted with him, to protect, save, and deliver him, that no evil shall come unto him; for when thou passest through the fire I will be with thee (saith the Lord) and in the midst thereof I will redeem thee, 
Isa. 43.2.  that no evil shall come unto thee.  
And this abiding, of God with his people, to rule and reign in them, is that which saves them and all men in their sufferings for the truth, even as it did all the Lords Prophets and people in all their afflictions throughout all generations to this day, witnessed in the three children of Israel that had been taken captives, Shadrach, Meschech, and Abednego, who at the wrath of the King Nabuchadnezzar for their faithfulnss in God, and not falling down to worship the Image which Nabuchadnezzar the King had set up, were cast bound into the midst of the hot fiery Furnance, heat seven times hotter than it was wont to be heat, 
Dan. 3.13, ●4.  & they had no hurt of the Fire, for the son of God whom they worshipped in truth & righteousness, & trusted that he would deliver them, walked in the midst of the Fire with them, and saved them, and these men which cast them in were burnt with the flames of that Fire which they had kindled for to burn others, according as it is written, The wicked have drawn out the Sword, and have bend their Bow to cast down the poor and needy, 
Psa. 37.14, 15.  and to slay such as be of an upright conversation, their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their Bows shall be broken, and the Fire that they have made for others shall kindle upon themselves, as it did upon those which cast them into the Furnace; insomuch that the King and those that saw the deliverance of the three children, and the great power of God, were astonished and convinced at the Protection of them, to see them thus delivered by the God in whom they trusted, who is a God always at hand, ready to help, the helpless from those that would devour them; and this hath been the protection that God's people hath found at this day, though great persecutious hath been against them, wherein many hath suffered much, & not so much as was the desire of their enemies they should, as many can witness that have seen the malicious proceed at them, but the Lord resttrained them.  
The like we have in Daniel, another witness for the Lord, who was Innocent & Faithful, one of the Children of the Captivity of judah, in whom the spirit of Wisdom & understanding was most excellent, 
Dan. 5.12, 13.  in opening Divine mysteries; & because for his Wisdom, he was preferred by the King, the Rulers, & Governors, over wnom Daniel was set, sought an occasion against Daniel to destroy him, but (said they) we shall find no fault against him except it be concerning the Law of his God, & so they consulted together how they might make a Law on purpose to betray him, as all men at this day have done to betray those whom God hath most honoured & endued with the understanding of divine mystries, to betray them, they will make Laws & Statutes of things concerning God, which shall be sin & blasphemy for them that shall act it, or speak it, to bring them into bondage for it, as all the Rulers, Officers, Govenors, and Councillors took council against Daniel; for they prevailed with the King to seal a writing, 
Dan. 6.4, 5, 6, 7  that whosoever should ask any thing of God or man for thirty day's time, and not of the King, should be cast into the Lion's den; now Daniel notwithstanding prayed and praised his God as he use to do, and these men assembling against Daniel, watched him, and as he was worshipping came upon him and brought him to the King for breaking their Law; 
Ver. 14.  then was the King sorry that he had made such a law, for he loved Danel, and then sought to deliver him out of their hands, but they pressed the King so much, that he yielded to them, and they cast Daniel into the den of Lions, and shut him in amongst them, and on the morrow the King came unto the den & said, O Daniel Servant of the living God, is not he able to deliver thee from the Lions, than said Daniel O King live for ever; my god hath sent his Angel, and he have shut the Lion's mouths that they have not hurt me, for my innocency was found out before God, and against thee have I done no hurt, and then was the King glad, that he had no wrong, and commanded Daniel to be taken out of the den, & he had no hurt because he believed in his God, & then the King commanded all that were against Daniel both they and their families to be cast into the den among the Lions where they had before cast Daniel, and the Lions tore them in pieces; for they believed not in the God of Daniel; and then did K. Darius writ unto all people, nations, & Languages in the world to worship & honour the God of Daniel; for said the King, he is the living God, and remaineth for ever, and his Kingdom is everlasting, who dilvered Daniel from the mouths of the Lions; and so say I that this is my God, and hath hitherto delivered me from those that would have devoured me. Thus was Daniel also saved in his affliction, and his enemies were destroyed, and the Lord his God was the more honoured, and his kingdom the more increased, as is to this day in the affliction of his people, 
Isa. 63.6.  who in all their afflictions is himself afflicted with them, and the Angel of his presence saves them, and will cast off none that trust in him, and come to him by Jesus; nor is he ever wanting with any that know him & wait upon him, but will deliver them out of all their troubles, which they shall suffer for his cause, and which he for his honour's sake (in delivering of them) will bring upon them. 
johah. chab. 1.2  And it was not without the Lord that Jonah was in the ship, and that for him being in it, the ship was tossed, and the people therein troubled with fear: and Jonah by them cast into the sea, & he to be three days & three nights in the Whales belie preserved alive, and at the Lords command was by the fish cast out to dry land in safety; so was Jeremiah, 
jer. 38, 34, 39.11.12. etc.  who for declaring the word of the Lord was by the King Zedekiah left to the cruelty of the Princes, who cast Jeremiah into the dungeon contrary to the King's knowledge; but Jeremiah for trusting in the Lord was in the destruction of Jerusalem delivered, and the Princes that cast him in were destroyed by the Chaldeans, so all that in their troubles shall trust in God that he will deliver them, they shall in the worst of troubles be preserved and safely restored into rest and peace with the Lord, and not that any thing shall be done, without the Lord: Christ himself, though by the hands of men, yet by the Lord was he delivered up unto men to be slain, and by him was he with jonah raised the third day to life again, and all the prophets and apostles of Christ who were most clearest in the knowledge of the truth of Christ were persecuted and put to death for their Judgements, and were not without the Lords company with them in it, neither was any thing done unto them without him; and he was with them in all their sufferings that they should not fear nor deny him, nor that which they knew of him, but still hold fast their integrity and faithfulness in the truth before him, to live and die in his cause, and will not worship the Beast nor his Image, 
Rev. 15.15.  so shall all whom the lord hath set a work [& not man] to contend against the Beast & his Image, though they suffer much by men that have the Image of the beast upon them, and the glory of the whore about them, yet they shall deny to own them: 
Psal. 110.3.  for in the day of his power they shall be a willing people for the Lord, willing to receive his message and declare it, willing to be persecuted, and to suffer for it, this honour have all his Saints.   

CHAP. VII. How by persecution truth is increased, and the more advanced; and they that suffer for it, to the terror of them that persecute it; that truth is rewarded and witnessed by sufferings: how the reward of sufferings is a crown of glory manifest in men, and when.  
ANd suffering for the truth is the ready way to advance it, & when men are most humbled for the truth then are they in the way to be most exalted: with the truth, and these things (saith Paul) which have come unto me in my sufferings, Bands & Imprisomments have proved all to the furtherance of the gospel, 
Phil. 1.12, 13, 14.  & for the discovery of truths enemies; & by my bonds saith he, other brethren have been the more encouraged to preach the truth and suffer for the truth, and in the time of persecutions the saints that were scattered went every where preaching the word, 
Act. 8 3, 4.  and the more men sought to stop and prevent them, the more did they increase and were encouraged, and the truth was the more confirmed amongst them, as it is to this day where persecutions are manifest, and whosoever it is that do persecute another for his Judgement, he doth manifest himself to be ignorant of God and the truth, and lives not in the truth but in the lie which is enmity to it, yet will the truth advance itself above it and the more for being persecuted: And did men know before hand, that what they persecute is thereby advanced, and themselves thereby abased, and they would not so much act against themselves, and the truth which they know not, but God will have it so, for the wrath of man shall turn to his praise, and the remainder thereof will he restrain, 
Psa. 76.10.  and will suffer nothing to be done, but what he will glorify himself by; and therefore when the kingdoms of the world are most divided one against another, 
1 Thess. 5.1.2.  than the kingdom of God cometh in, as a thief in the night upon them, and that which men in their days set themselves most against, that will God in his day most exalt.  
And therefore you my brethren, that would in all things love the appearing of the Lord Jesus, then meet him in his coming though it be to kill and crucify you, and though Clouds of thick darkness be round about him that you see him not for the present, yet know that it is but for a moment he hides himself, and that he will again break through these cloulds, and shine Gloriously upon you to the enlightening of your souls, for though sorrow hath continued for a night yet joy cometh in the morning, and therefore though persecutions and tribulations may be amoung you to try you, and out of which the Lord will redeem you, 
Isa. 41.10.  yet let not your hearts be troubled, and be not afraid of men nor of their reviling; for though they may band themselves together against you, and the Lords anointed in you, to break the cords and bands of love and unity amongst you, yet their devices shall not prosper but the Lord will have them in derision, 
Psa. 2.  and will break them in pieces like a pottors vessel, and will set his own anointed (even Christ) upon his Throne, who shall be great amongst you, and you with him shall rejoice together: for he that sits in the Heavens shall laugh: and the Lord his King shall rain in the midst of you for evermore; and the work began among you will he perfect, 
Psa. 35.1, 8.  and will turn all the evil devices of men that have invented evil against you without cause to devour you, upon their own heads, and shame and confusion shall befall them in the end: but the more is your glory as is their shame; for they shall be the Lords displeasure against them, and they shall be vexed, for the evil that they have done against you, and could not have their purposes fulfilled upon any of you, and in the midst of all your peace and joy in the Lord shall be manifest in you; For though in the world you have tribulation, yet in Christ you shall have peace; and be of good cheer, 
joh. 16.33.  for Christ hath overcome the world. And if you will be possessors of the truth, you must be armed with patience in the Lord to suffer reproach and trials for the truth, 
1 Pet. 4 1.  and with all willingness and obedience of mind thereunto, you must yield yourselves as a living sacrifice ready to be offered up with Christ on the cross, though the outward sufferings with many of you may not be afflicted upon you, 
Rom. 12.1.2.  but being made willing in the mind, your willingness and free submission thereunto shall be accepted even the will for the deed, concerning which God will try you if you will deny him or no, 
Heb. 11.17 Goe 22.12.10.11.12.  as he did Abraham, when he made him offer up his only son Isaac to be slain, but he did not slay him; for being made willing it was accepted of God with him, as if it had been done by him, and the will for the deed with some shall suffice, 
1 Tim. 6.12, 13.  and they shall with others that do suffer, reap the same fruit, for some only shall suffer outwardly as witnesses for the rest, as did Christ for us who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good profession, yet with him we reap the same fruit, 
1 Pet. 2.21.  witnessing with him the same profession, and whose steps some in the outward sufferings must follow him, as his apostle did, even those whom the Lord shall choose, and whom he will make able, with himself and the apostles to bear witness with him unto his sufferings, for the true life we live as the same which he said should come to pass, and doth and will come to pass, till the man of sin in any shall be no more, as in all ages some in whom the life hath been most manifest and most purely have lived it, have suffered in bearing witness to the life of ●od according as it hath been manifest under any dispensation that truth is always witnessed by sufferings going with it, and following after it, according to the Scriptures, as a reward given to it, 
2 Thes. 1.4, 5.  and a fellow helper and companion for it; for he that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution and persecutions, and tribulations is a mainfestation of God's righteous Judgements whereby a soul is counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which he also suffers. And as sufferings is a reward of truth and godliness, and a companion for it, joined with it unto those that enjoy it and know it to live in it; so the reward of sufferings is a crown of glory, all witnessing one another; for ought not Christ who is the truth, first to suffer, and then to enter into his glory; and saith Paul who sought with Beasts at Ephasus, I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course, 
1 Tim. 4.7, 8.  I have kept the faith. Hence forth is laid up for me a Crown of Glory, as the price of my race which I have won, and which is brought unto me at the revelation of Jesus Christ and to all that love his appearing; and he to comfort us in afflictions saith, 
2 Thess. 1.7.  you who are troubled rest with us in the same spirit: waiting for the same crown as a recompense of reward, for all your troubles, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty Angels powerfully appearing and manifesting himself for your good in the Lord; but to take vengeance on all that that trouble you, and that know not God, and obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus, but do persecute it, they shall suffer the vengeance of eternal fire (God himself) whose wrath is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and Unrighteousness of men that hold the TRUTH in unrighteousness, 
Rom. 1.18.  and shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all that do believe, 
2 Thes. 1.  
Heb. 12.2.  and that have with patienec endured the cross, and despised the shame, these shall have joy and glory with God, when these that trouble them shall have sorrow and anguish of spirit, and so much the more for beholding the others joy and confidence in the Lord which they so much have persecuted, (For thinkest thou O man that Judgest another, that thou shalt escape the Judgements of God? 
Rom. 2.3, 4, 5, 6.  no thou that hardnest thy heart against another, treasureth up wrath unto thyself against the day of wrath) which must certainly come upon thee; for God will reward every man according to his works, for with what Judgement ye Judge, 
Mat. 7.2.  ye shall be Judged; and with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again; wherefore howl and lament, 
●●e. 3.1. etc. ●oel. 1.5. etc.  and be ashamed, thou man of the Devil that persecutest and Judgest another, for when the Lords Judgements are upon thee, it will be a day of terror unto thee, till by Judgement the enemy, sin and the devil within thee shall be cast out from thee, as from those whom thou persecutest. And you that with Christ have been Judged by men, and have been made partakers of Christ's sufferings, rejoice ye, that when his Glory shall appear ye may be glad with exceeding joy and account that the long sufferings of God is salvation, 
1 Pet. 4.13.14.  and that if ye be railed against for the name of Christ happy are ye; for the spirit of God and of glory resteth upon you: and on their part that speak evil of you God is evil spoken of by them, but on your part he is glorified: and therefore blessed are ye when men shall hate you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil say against you, for the son of man's sake: and shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, why rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold your reward is great in heaven, 
Luke. 6.222, 3.  for so did their fathers unto the prophets, but he that endures unto the end shall be saved.  
And this blessed reward of salvation for suffering for the truth to be manifest in this mortal flesh, 
2 Cor. 4.10. 10  and his prophets and apostles had, for they received it and bear witness to it, and all that since have suffered with them do bear the same testimony, and unto which myself, with many others at this day, shall set my seal, who have hitherto suffered for the truth which I first received, 
1 Cor. 8.5.6.  that there is but one God and father of all who is above all, through all, and in all, 
Eph. 4.6.  and one Lord Jesus Christ manifesting this unto men by the spirit of himself, and his own presence dwelling in them, by whose presence manifesting this unto me to be declared by me, I have also been enabled, and with patience made to endure to this day, even to the end of what for the truth have yet been inflicted upon me, and in which I had my reward being therein satisfied and contented; and having a perfect assurance of God's uncangeable love in Christ Jesus towards me, never to be taken from me, nor I to be separated from that by principalities, nor powers, 
Rom. 8.34, 35, 39  things present nor things to come, height nor depth, nor any other creature whatsoever, though I have been persecuted, despised and rejected, and as one counted for the slaughter; yet in all these things Christ hath been a conqueror for me, and hath kept me that I have not denied him, who himself all along hath been my reward, even my portion, my lot, and eternal inheritance in his kingdom of eternal Glory, 
1 Pet. 5.10.  unto which he hath called me by Jesus Christ, and unto which after ye have suffered awhile he will also call you, make you perfect, strengthen, settle and establish you. And is not this a reward, yea & a double reward, as the apostle saith, that the sufferings of this life are not to be compared with the Glory that shall follow, and there is no man saith Christ that have denied himself of the Glory of this world for the glory of God, but he shall have a thousand fold in the world to come, wherein God appears without sin unto salvation, and whosoever hath followed Christ in the steps of regeneration in the state of grace, 
Mat. 9.28, 29.  shall sit with him upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve Tribes of Israel, even the throne where Christ sitteth and overcometh all things, 
Rev. 3.21.  shall he sit that overcometh the world with Christ, and with him his glory shall be doubled from the throne of grace as of twelve degrees of the 12 apostles, to the Throne of glory of the four and twenty Elders clothed in white raiment from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, 
Rev. 4.4.  and shall wear on their heads crowns of gold which they shall ascribe to him that sits on the throne with them, 
Ver. 14, 15.  and gave it to them, as still being his, though with them, and unto whom all Honour, glory and Power of all things belongeth, for God is judge of all the earth.  
This is the perfect state, the throne of God, and fullness of glory, where Christ his prophets and apostles, and Saints, and all that are in Christ, do with him sit and and reign together with God on the same throne of his glory, rejoicing and singing Halaluiahs unto him for ever and ever, and where is heard by them to sing and praise the Lord, all creatures both which are in Heaven and which are on earth, and under the earth, and in the sea and all that are in them, saying, Praise and Honour and glory, 
Rev. 5.13.  and Power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for evermore. And all men of the same Lamb like nature of Christ, have the same honour and glory with him as due belonging to them.   

CHAP. VIII. How the way to find our life is to lose it, that no man is to know any thing of himself, but to be innocent in knowing his own innocecy and righteousness: also what the true knowledge of God is: who hath it, and how it's obtained.  
ANd Paul to comfort and encourage us in the way of sufferings to this Throne of glory, wherein to lose our lives that we may find it, and so to know God aright, he bids us look unto jesus the author and finsher of our faith, who himself by malicious men, 
Heb. 12.2.3.  as he was a man himself in the flesh, suffered such reproaches, whippings, scourge and revileing of men, and yet for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, and despised the shame, and set him down at the right hand of the throne of God, which he that overcometh and endureth to the end shall inherit with him, and Christ was made perfect through sufferings; so shall all that will be made perfect as he is perfect; 
Luk. 24.26.  for ought not he first to suffer and then to enter into his glory, and if thou wilt be perfect, saith he, thou must sell all that thou hast, and take up thy cross and follow me, 
Mat. 19.21.  and be content with joy to suffer the spoiling of your goods, your own wisdom and knowledge, your righteousness and your glory, knowing in yourselves how that you have in Heaven a better and a more during substance, 
Heb. 10.33, 34  and therefore in knowing this you will not regard the sufferings of this life: but will know that after you have received the light & knowledge of the truth in any measure, you must come under persecutions and afflictions for it, and be made a gazing stock and a reproach unto men by the Lord for your Good, 
1 Cor. 4.9.  that you maybe humbled & emptied of all that you call your own, and be exalted and filled of all that is Christ, and so with him to lose your life, that you may find it, even all that you lived to in the world and thought yourselves happy besides Christ, must you lose and sufer to come to judgement, for he that will seek to save his life shall lose it, but he that will lose his life for Christ, the same shall find it, wherefore as Peter saith, humble yourselves yea in the Lord under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you.  
And these are the steps of Christ and his apostles and prophets, 
1 Pet. 5.6, 7.  which you are to follow, in losing and finding, in being humbled and exalted, and with them to bear the same testimony to the same truth, to see the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of yourselves, and all things that are beneath him, and with the prophets and apostles of Christ suffer a reproof of the Lord when you shall in the behalf of yourselves contend for any of our own innocency, integrity and uprightness, and seek to justify yourselves in any thing of yourselves, or in vindication of yourselves, to boast and declare unto men as Samuel did, 
1 Sam. 12.3.  saying, Whose ox have I taken, or whom have I done any wrong unto? or whom have I hurt? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith, and I will restore it to you; But in this though a man be never so just (as a man ought to be in all his actions, ways, and works notwithstanding) yet he is not to boast himself of that, 
2 Cor. ●. 30.  nor to glory in it, nor yet to know it, no not in any thing of his own righteousness, but only in his own infirmities, lest he should be proud of it, and contend with God for it more than for righteousness in God, as sometimes David, Job, and others did, for which God reproved them, and brought them to judgement, and so saved them; but though a man were never so innocent, just and righteous before men after the righteousness of the Law, yet as a man he is not to know himself so, but to account all loss for Christ, and to know none but him; 
Gal. 6.3.  for if a man think himself something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself; and the greatest perfection of innocency, wisdom, & righteousness of God with man, is for man to be innocent in the knowledge of himself, 
1 Cor. 4.4.  or any thing which he knows, he knows besides God, and to know that he knows nothing of himself, nor by himself, as Paul did not, and then doth he know most of God, because man's weakness is God's strength, and his ignorance is God's wisdom; for he that knows he knows any thing, (which is the greatest desire of man to do, 
1 Cor. 8.1, 2, 3  to know something of himself) he knoweth nothing in righteousness as he ought to know, but is proud in what he thinks he knows, because he knoweth it with distinction to something which he knoweth not, and all that a man knows of any thing without knowing all things, is but his own thoughted knowledge, which a man is to be crucified unto, and to know that God who is only to be known, is he only that knows all things, and that no man hath ever seen nor known him but only God himself in the Son hath known and seen himself in the Father, and he that with God in the Sonship of God knoweth God, he knows that the knowledge of all things is in God, and that there is none other to know any thing but God who knoweth all things as he knows himself, and then cannot hate or despise any thing which he so knows, and till man know it a god and good, he knows it not as he ought.  
And God which is a spirit can be high and low, rich and poor, strong and weak, full and empty, the best and worst, one and all where he please, and when he please, without contradiction in himself; For the Spirit bloweth where and when it listeth, as the wind, to save and to destroy, to gather together, and scatter abroad; and this Spirit is the Spirit of Truth which Christ saith we shall receive of him, to bring all things to our remembrance, whereby we may know all things, even him in the state, of the new birth, which no man knows but the Spirit itself: 
1 joh. 2.20.  And John saith, That having the anointing of the Holy One we shall know all things, and he that hath Christ hath all things, even Christ who is all of the Father, and then cannot but know it in him, and we need not that any man teach us, 
1 john 2.27.  burr as the anointing which we have received of him, and is in us, teacheth us all things and is truth and is no lie, and even as we be taught by him so we shall abide in him.  
And he that by the Spirit of God is taught all things, to know all things in the Spirit, he by God is taught God, and knoweth God, and can then know no other besides God, nor after any other manner but as God, and so with him is in charity with all men, and then knows that he knoweth nothing of himself that he should boast in nor be proud of, 
1 Cor. 13.4, 5, 6, 7, 8.  neither vaunt himself above, for he knows both the highest and the lowest, and God in them all, which makes them all one unto him as unto God, even unity in variety, and variety in unity, as all one God, and so knows nothing better nor worse than himself, nor any thing better nor worse than the other; for he sees the sin of all to be ended, and also his own righteousness, which is the same with his sins to be ended from having any thing of good in it more than unto men, and therefore cannot boast in, nor be proud of any thing of his own, which is not to tarry with him, but to perish in the using; and so not in one thing more than another of humane things, and where contrarities of things are not known; there pride and boasting in one thing above another cannot be, but in that state a man is most like unto God, as Adam was before his fall, wherein he knows no distinction; and Adam fell not till he sought to know his own innocency, and the state i● which he stood, which God sorbad him to know; for thereby did Adam come to the knowledge of good and evil, to know righteousness and sin, joy and sorrow in himself; and he that with Adam shall see any good in himself in opposition to an evil, he glorieth in that good so often as he doth it, and when he doth it not, he fears and is offended as Adam was, when in truth there is none good but one, even God, nor none that doth good but one, even him who knoweth no evil; and therefore neither fears nor is offended.  
And no man but the Lord only, who is himself the God and the innocent, the justness, Uprightness, and the righteousness, that can know it, and who is not, neither can be proud, lofty, 
1 Cor. 13.  nor highminded in the knowledge of any thing, because he knows nothing more, nor nothing less than himself, and all knowledge of all things is himself; therefore the greatest perfection of man's knowledge is to know that he knows nothing till he knoweth God who is no one thing distinct, but all things in one, as his greatest exaltation is when he is most humbled, and that knowledge by which a man doth not know God even as he is known of God, 
1 Cor. 13.10, 11, 12.  is no true knowledge but must pass away as that which is perfect doth appear; and the true knowledge of god is to know the height and depth of all things, m to be the same which he knows, even to ascend to the highest & descend to the lowest in one & the same love to all, and so to know God in love once and ever, even where and in every thing both high and low without confinement to any thing with the like love to all things; this is the knowledge that shall stand, and all other knowledge shall pass away.  
And that these men whom God hath set a part and chosen to know and declare him as he is in himself, mightst know none but God, and in their knowing him, mightst be humbled and exalted with God, to know God even as God knows them, he makes them to bear his CROSS; He smote them with the rod of men to try them, that they may witness of his living in them, 
Num. 23.21.  though against all the ways of men, and he will lay his Judgements upon them to make them the more like himself, 
Zeph. 3.15.  to live without knowing sin or evil even upon the most righteous person in the world as the first that shall have it and come unto it, 
1 Pet. 4.17.  [for Judgement must begin at the house of God] and did begin with Christ as the first in Adam, whose image which Adam lost was renewed by Judgements, and who is the first fruit of men unto God, and whose righteous Judgements none shall escape, though by men unjustly executed; no, Christ in the flesh as a man could not escape them, that no flesh might glory in his presence, 
1 Cor. 1.17, 18, 19  nor that any one should think better of himself then of others, nor that others should think better of any than they ought, which is too frequent with men to do, for the gifts they see in them, and for which many are made to suffer, for they esteem that others have of them, though they are most humble in themselves, and therefore it is not safe for men to be too popular and eminent among men in the account of men, for any ipiritual wisdom & knowledge they have of God; for than it is just with God to pull them down; even all that men sets up or idolise for any gift that God hath given to them, but the greater the gift of God is in them, and the more they know of him, the more for that gift are they to be humbled both before God & men, to give a good example of humility unto men, and have the less honour from men, as the way with Christ to exalt them.   

CHAP. IX. How all men are alike to God, to whom light and darkness is all one: that no man is better nor worse than another, and how; what it is to be both best and worst in one person, to be punished and exalted, and the way unto it; how we are to serve one another, and of the st●te of Christ, as God and man; and how with him we are to love all men.  
And as we cannot think better of one man then another as they are in Christ and by him represented to the father spotless and blameless, he having died for all men, 
Eph. 5.27. Col. 1.28.  so we cannot think worse of one man then another, as they are out of Christ, for all are sinners and there is none righteous no not one, and therefore we should not esteem of one above another, 
i Tim. 5.21.  either better or worse in Christ or without Christ, knowing that all (except as to the manifestation of Christ in them) are all alike unto God who seethe not as man seethe, 
Psa. 38.12.  for to him light and darkness is all one, and the difference that is, is unto men themselves, or those that shall make the difference, & not unto God, nor unto those that know God, but unto those that know him not, and shall say unto others, stand by thyself, come not near me, for I am more holier than thou; but these are a smoke in my nose, 
Isa. 65.5.  and a fire that burns all the day saith the Lord, and these are the proud pharisees, the painted sepulchres that make a separation, and despise their brethren, who are of the same flesh and blood, for of one blood hath he made all nations of men, 
Acts 17.26. 2 Pet. 1.4.  and of the same divine nature with Christ in God, and that whatsoever good is manifest among them, God is that good; and whatsoever is evil is the devil; and god makes all good, & the devil makes all evil, and all men being of the nature of god & man, both divine & human, may conclude themselves to be in one sense as good as the best, and in another sense as bad as the worst, for all men naturally and as men, are vanity and a lie, and in the best of human actions walk as in a vain shadow, and as Christ is so are all men in this world, and also before the father in him; 
1 john 4.17  for all as men represents him with men, and are as men in this world, so he being in the presence of god for us all, 
Heb. 9.24.  represents all men with god, with whom they are the same in him. But lest any either in themselves or others should through the pride of nature and glory of this world be exalted and puffed up above measure to glory in any outward appearance, 
1 Cor. 8.12.  
1 Cor. 4, 5.  and to rhink of themselves above what they ought, as the best & not as the worst, and cannot descend to the lowest as well as ascend to the highest; God that he might honour them with himself, 
2 Cor. 12.6, 7, 8, 9  gives them a thorn in the flesh, sends satan to buffet them, and the serpent to by't them, and to let them know that they are but men in the flesh, that they might not glory in themselves, nor that others should glory in them, and so to become as the devil set up in the room of God; wherefore that they may know themselves as men to be but flesh, and in all things submit to the will of ●od, God will keep them down, he will correct and reprove them, to humble and exalt them, as he did Adam and the first fathers, and the Prophets, Christ and his Apostles; for Christ as a man with us was subject to the like infirmities, 
Mat. 4.1. Heb. 2.18. ●h. 4.15.  & was led into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, and was in all points tempted as we are, (yet without sin) and as a man he would have refused God's Judgements, and have put them off from him, when he said, father if it be possible let this cup pass from me, and when he went forth and wept, fearing the punishment of death, but God made him willing to submit to his will, as he doth us by laying his cross upon us, and as he did Job, Paul, and others to humble them and keep them near unto himself, 
job. 42.  that they might not go beyond their bounds, nor put any confidence in flesh, nor to think of themselves above what they ought, but to know that his grace is sufficient for them, 
Rom. i2. 3.  and that if they will trust in any thing to trust in God, and be exalted in any thing to be exalted in God, who will both humble and exalt them, that he that glories in any thing should glory only in the Lord, 
Rom. 12.4, 5.  and so in one another as being all members one of another, and but one body in Christ.  
But we see in men that have the best gifts so far as any thing of flesh or the glory of flesh is in them, how incident they are to be exalted in flesh, and to glory in outward appearance, and receive honour from men, and how ready flesh in men is to give human exaltation and honour to men, and to glory in men for those gifts of God for which they should glory in God as the author and finisher of them all, whether temporal or spiritual, which say they, so we do, for when we honour any form, person or thing, it is God in them that we honour; but I say, Then honour it not in outward appearance, by the outward motion of the body; for that relates to the outward and not to the inward, and is no honouring of god but the devil; for God who is the heart, mind and spirit (without being defiled) is honoured with the same; and so saith God, give me thy heart; and saith David, thou hast taught me all obedience within, 
Psa. 51.6.10.  and to know truth in the inward parts, and within is thy Law written; for the King's daughter is all glorious within, 
Psa. 45.13.  and all outward glory is but the world, flesh, sin, and the devil, which vanisheth away and is no more known, as the inward doth appear; for all flesh is grass, the grass withers, 
Isa. 40.7.  the flower fadeth, because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it, surely the people are grass.  
And that you may honour God spiritally and inwardly by saith, and not by sight, look unto Jesus the author and finisher of that inward & spiritual glory within you, who only it is in you that can honour God and you with God: and who as he was a man, yet refused the honour and glory of the world, neither as a man would he take any thing to him that belongeth to God as a spirit, for call not me good (saith he) for there is none good but one even God: 
Mat. 19.17.  and call no man master on earth, for one is your master even Christ which is in Heaven: and he that will be great among you let him become your servant: and yet those that knew him to be the son of God, and for the gifts he had, and miracles that he did, how would they honour his outward person; yet he forbiddeth them not though he did not command them; for when he was riding to Jerusalem though upon an ass which shown the humility of him, yet how did the people then adore him and cry him up, even his very person, Hosanna, Hosanna unto him, pulling off their garment and casting down under him, cutting down branches & strewed the way before him, 
Mat. 21.7, 8, 9  with so much mirth and rejoicing, that the Priests & Rulers of the people who were more for the honour of men to honour them, then for honouring God, hated him so much the more, and were the more incensed against him, saying, crucify him, crucify him, that the more some loved him the more oaths hated him, especially those men that knew they should lose their honour by him, and by them did he suffer, for said they in conspiracy against him if we let him thus alone all beople will pelieve on him and will follow him, 
joh. 11, 47, 48.  and we shall lose our kingdom, place and nation, which is the same with men to this day, who for fear of loseing this world's honour will conspire together in persecution against those that walk most nearest unto the way of Christ for the honour of God) yet Christ desired not their kingdom nor their honour, 
john 18.36.  neither do these that believe in Christ, for my kingdom (saith he) is not of this world, if it were then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered unto the jews, but my kingdom is not of this world, and Christ would not receive honour from men, as a man, but the honour which came of his father only, but if men would ascribe that to him which he as a man desired of them, what was that to him? he was notwithstanding humble in himself, and reproved those that were not, and that did either give or take honour one of another, as men, showing that all honour, power, and glory in Heaven and on earth, and all things therein belonged only unto God, whose glory fills Heaven and earth, and that all men should honour him. And as with Christ, so with the Apostles or Christ for when they preached the Gospel how did the people admire them and adore them, saying, 
Acts 14.11.  Gods are come down amongst us in the likeness of men, and so they would have honoured them and offer sacrifice unto them, 
Gal. 4.15.  yea & some in love to them, could have plucked forth their own eyes & have given them, but the Apostles would not be so honoured by them, but rebuked them, saying, 
Acts 10. 2● 26.  Why do you do these things? for we are men even subject to the like passions and infirmities as you are, and we do preach unto you that you should turn from Idols and from things sacrificed unto them, and turn unto the living God, 
Acts 14.15, 1.  which made Heaven and earth and all things manifest in yourselves.  
And when the Angel came and preached unto john the revelation of jesus Christ for john to reveal unto men, than john immediately fell down at the feet of the angel to worship him; but the angel reproud him, saying, See thou do it not; for I am thy fellow servant, & one of thy brethren, which have the testimony of Jesus, 
Rev. 19 10. ch. 22.8, 9  worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy] so should all men that carry the Lords message to any, they should not regard men nor be regarded by men above what is written, 
1 Cor. 4.6.  but reprove those that shall have their persons in admiration, or honour them with the honour which belongeth only unto GOD, who himself will honour his messengers with the honour of himself, as he did Christ, which is greater honour than that of men, yet thus are men oftentimes carried beyond themselves, being on a sudden filled with the joy of the Lord in the message received, and are ready to honour and admire the messenger for the message sake, which is but a servant and one of his fellow brethren, yea even a fellow creature, and so said Moses concerning Christ or God manifest in flesh: A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up among you of your brethren, 
Acts 7.37.  yea of yourd own flesh & blood who shall be a brother of you, and servant to you to teach you all things; therefore him shall you hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you, 
john 14.17.26  for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you, and whose voice as it spoke in him, so shall it speak in you, and that voice of him only you are to hear which shall bring all things to your remembrance and say within you, this is the way walk in it, and he bids us to cease from men, and look only at Jesus, manifest in our mortal flesh, and & to receive a Prophet in the name of a Prophet which is as a messenger or servant bearing only (as unto men) the message of Jesus, 
Isa. 2.22.  
Mat. 10.41.  and we should have a Prophet's reward, which God only giveth and not men, and learn of me saith Christ, who am the Lords Prophet and messenger unto you, 
Mat. two. 29.  for I am humble, meek, and lowly, and you shall have rest to your souls, and so humble should all the Lords prophets be, and also they that receive them.  
And when men are most humbled, then are they most exalted; wherefore exalt not one another without the Lord, but wait all to be exalted and lifted up in the Lord, who only is able to make you stand; and know you this, that all men in the world are but one flesh & blood, 
Acts 17.26.  made up into one body as members therein to one serve another without respect of persons, 
1 Cor. 12.26, 27.  and that if one member suffer, all suffer with it, and if one be had in honour, all rejoice with it, and all are the body of Christ, and members in particular, and therefore should not seek to be one above another, nor to be regarded one more than another, but though he were a Prince to rule and govern others, yet he should be but a servant for God unto others, doing sevice to his nation; to feed and keep them in pecae and safety, as God in Christ is unto his creation, 
Luk. 22.24, 25, 26, 27.  even a servant that came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, not to be served or to have any thing done for him that needed nothing by those that had nothing, but to serve and do for others that could not serve nor do any thing for themselves, 
Psa. 50. i2.  & as one that had all power & obedience in himself, so to serve & do for himself, who as a Prince of righteousness will not be exalted above his sebiects, but as a servant will humble himself into the condition of the lowest, which is his greatest honour, and by which as he humbled himself with them, so he; 
john 4. 17.  will exalt them with him, for as he is, so are they in this world, and though he were God in the form of God, yet he made himself of no reputation, but took on him the form of a servant, yea he was in all things made like unto his brethren in the flesh, 
Phil. 2.6, 7, 8, 9  & he humbled and became obedient unto death, even unto the death of the cross, after which he was again exalted to God in the highest, but not without his people, for they were exalted with him, the head and the members together ●s one body; For I (saith he) if I be lifted up will dr●w all men unto me, 
joh. 12.31.  that where I am they may be also; and I am not where alone saith Christ, but all that God hath given me are with me, 
Isa. 26.19.  and together with my dead body, and as my dead body shall they arise, saith Christ, when I arise with them, and with him he hath raised up together and made us sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 
Eph. 2.6. Chap. 5.30.  as all members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones, that cannot be separated from him to live without him, but with him to have the same honour and glory that himself hath, which in due time shall be manifest in all men; 
1 Tim. 2.6.  therefore he saith, father glorify thou me with thyself, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was, 
john 17.5, 22, 23.  and the glory which thou hast given me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that we all may be made perfect in one.  
And Christ being both God and man one in another, he was the best and worst together, even the highest and the lowest; the strongest ●nd the weakest; the richest and the poorest, the fullest and the emptiest; all in one perfect one, who as he was in the form of God was equal with God, 
Eph. 4.9, 10.  so being in the form of men was equal with men, for he that ascended far above all Heavens to receive gifts to fill all things, is the same, he that descended into the lower parts of the earth, that both Heaven and earth might be filled with his fullness, and then what is there in the world that may be said to be either high or low, rich or poor, strong or weak, light or dark, full or empty, best or worst, either of good report or evil report with men (sin excepted) that he fills not, is notin, & in union with, as himself, without respect to time, place, person or thing, it being all given to him; why he fills all and is in all, and in union with all, and will lose nothing but the son of perdition of all, and all is in him, though all knows not its union with him, yet in him all live, move and have their being, 
Acts i7. 28. job 12.10.  and in his hands are the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind, and all things was made for him, and by him, and without him was not any thing made that is made, 
Col. 1.15, 16, i7  therefore is there nothing contrary to him, but whether it be high or low, good or bad, as unto men, yet unto him it is all alike and is all like himself, even God, as in the creation it was made by him, and so he still knows it, owns it, and is in union with it, and when once it appeared unto man by the wisdom and knowledge of man to be out of that state, and to be both good and bad unto him; then that men might know all things as it is in jesus, Christ appeared with man in that state wherein it appeared bad to make it good again, as at the first, and so to restore man and all things into a union together with Christ in God, where every man that hath Christ doth behold himself and all things, and possess himself and all things even in God, who is all and all in all. And he that hath not Christ, but doth still live in his own will, doth not so behold it, but still looketh upon it as himself is wicked & abominable, full of all contradiction & destruction, 
Isa. 57, 20, 2●.  & so remains himself without peace in God; for there is no peace to the wicked, no nor to the righteous that are righteous and good in themselves, and that have not the knowledge of God in Christ.  
But to he that hath Christ, and that with Christ his Prophets and Apostles, hath thus suffered, been thus humbled to be thus exalted, may with them rejoice that ever he saw the day wherein he drank the cup of affliction, 
Col. 1.14.  and eat the bread of adversity to fill up the measure of Christ's sufferings, for which he now eats the bread of life, and drinks the water of life, and may with David say, It was good for me that I was afflicted; for thereby I was taught divine precepts, and with Christ learned all obedience to submit to the will of God in all things, saying, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven; that let my condition be what it will, I will learn therein to be content and always rejoice in the Lords Judgements that divides between flesh and spirit; 
Isa. 27.9.  that saves man and destroys sin and all enmity against God and his people's peace; for this is the fruit of the Lords Judgements to take away sin.  
And now with God in Christ I will delight myself with the worst of men as well as with the best, and with him I will be merciful, loving and pitiful unto them, as the despised and rejected of men, (by men) yea though he were a Prelate or Cavalier so called, Publican or sinner scorned and despised by the proud Pharisee that is wise and righteous in himself; yet the other waiting for mercy, he is rather justified, and more easier saved than the Pharisee that separates himself, though he were a Presbyterian, Independent, Anabaptist, etc. that glories in his profession, righteousness and religion, 
●sa. 65 9  and will say unto others, Stand off, come not near to me, I am more holier than thou, and so cast them-out of their favour as reprobate ignorant persons; why this proud boasting (saith the Lord) is a stink in my nostrils, and a fire that burneth all the day, which I cannot approve of, but they must come to Judgement with it, and lose it before they can be saved, and they that have erred in Spirit shall come to understanding, 
●sa. 29.24. 1 Cor. i 30.  and they that murmur shall learn doctrine, even to be wise and learned in Christ who is head unto them, their wisdom and righteousness, Justification, Sanctification and Redemption; for Christ is all and in all.   

CHAP. X. Of Gods appearing in Judgement in man, against all things of man and this world; that all outward duties, worship and obedience by men processed, is a lie, without the inward work of truth within; how according to the inward work is the outward practice, that the more by Christ any man is refined, purged and saved within in his conscience, the more by men is he falsely accused, judged and condemned without in his practice.  
AND now against all knowledge, wisdom and strength, righteousness and glory of men that is not in Christ, nor of Christ, 
1 Cor. 1.17, 18.  nor grounded upon Christ in spirit and truth, will God come forth unto to Judgement, and will destroy it by the foolish and base things of the world, and he will plead with men for his own wisdom and strength, righteousness and glory, which he will not have given to any other god but to himself, that none should have the glory of any thing but himself, nor men to glory in any besides himself; and he will make all men to know that by fire and by sword will he plead with all flesh, good and bad, 
Esa. 66.16.  and whatsoever is not found in him shall be slain by him, even all the works and imaginations of men, that men might know the Lord without knowing any thing else; therefore will he come against all things of flesh, form and formality, your keeping of Sabbaths, and calling of Assemblies, wherein you seek yourselves and not the Lord, which is all but the riches of Egypt, and shall with you come to Judgement, as having no part in Christ, nor being any thing of his Kingdom; 
john 18.36.  for my kingdom (saith he) is not of this world, nor of the things of this world which perish and come to nought; it is not meat and drink, killing of oxen and slaying of sheep, nor the offering up of swine's flesh for a sacrifice to the Lord that he accepts of; 
Isa 66 3, 4.  for the best of things which men offer up, are no better when they are offered up by men and not by Christ, and when Christ himself is not the offering, but that which God accepts of is Christ, the offerer and the offering, 
Heb. 10.12.  who is peace and reconciliation for all men, & whose Kingdom is righteousness, 
1 Cor 5 19 Rom. 14.17. Luk. 17.20.  peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and which saith Christ is within you, and stands not in outward observations of days, times, persons, nor things in the Religions of men which shall all perish in the using, 
Col. 2.22.  and is nothing, nor shall be nothing with God; but Christ the first and the last is all and shall be all; For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing, 
Gal. 6.15.  but a new creature; nothing outwardly, but all inwardly in the spirit, mind and heart, even circumcision within, baptism within, breaking bread and drinking wine within, which is bread of life, and water of life to every soul that knoweth it within, even preaching, praying, reading, hearing, seeking the Lord, and communion of Saints, 
Esa. 26.9  which are all works of grace, are all within; the keeping of Sabbaths (which is a Christians rest from the works of the Law, 
Esa. 58.13.  no more doing his own ways, nor seeking his own will) is Christ within, who is himself all these, and is the Teacher, Keeper and Performer of them all within us, 
Esa. 54.13.  that gives peace unto us, for of ourselves we can do nothing; But thou O Lord wilt ordain peace, 
Esa. 26 12.  for thou hast wrought all our works for us; and with whomsoever all these things are not seen to be done and performed by Christ within in the heart, there is not, neither can be any thing of good done by any; 
Rom. 10.8, 9, 10  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth of the heart confession is made unto salvation; for from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh; and from the grace of God within are the works of grace manifest without; which grace within is to believe in God and see an end of sin, and to have peace, joy and comfort in God, and with men here on earth, doing to all men as they would that all men should do unto them, forsaking swearing, lying, cheating, cozening, drunkenness, murder and adultery, and the abomination of pride and covetousness which is most frequently used with the greatest Professors of Religion, who are the greatest persecutors of others, and all for want of the inward teachings and workings of God within them, for the inward sends forth the outward.  
And therefore you that would be holy without and righteous without, to do good outwardly, must first be so within, for till than you know not what the outward is, nor how to discern what is good nor what is evil, to do the one and leave the other undone, therefore saith the Prophets, Apostles & all Saints, every one for himself, (Lord create in me a new heart, and renew my spirit within me) give unto me the mind of Christ within, 
Psa. 51.6, 7, 8, 10.  cleanse and purge me within of all my secret faults, then shall I offer upon thy altar, even Christ, the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and pay my vows where it is due; then shall I sing halalujahs even the Lord Omnipotent reigneth, and not as the righteous Scribes and Pharisees with all outward professors of our times that would reign themselves instead of Christ, and that stand to make clean of themselves the outside of the cup and pltatter, but remain still within full of all extortion and excess, and who like unto whited walls and painted Sepulchers would appear beautiful without, 
Mat. 23.25, 26, 27, ●8.  righteous unto men, and who may have escaped some of the grosser pollution of the world, but within full of uncleanness and hyphocrisie, and therefore as I know I shall declare, that all outside religions only in the form and the knowledge of the Scripture only in the letter, is but as an outside garment by most men put on to cover a rotten deceitful inside, and by which they would appear unto men to be more holier than others, but this is no holiness of God nor of Christ, but the seed of the serpent which abideth in the lie and not in the truth; therefore except your righteousness exceed this, you can in no wise enter into Heaven nor learn how to act purely towards men without, wherefore thou blind Pharisee saith Christ, cleanse first that which is within the cup and the pltter that the outward may be clean also.  
And this cleansing of men cannot be done but by Christ, and not by him, but by him in judgements manifest in men; therefore in the way of thy Judgements have we waited for thee O Lord, saith the prophet, and the desire of our soul is only to thy name & the remembrance of thee; for when thy Judgements are in the earth, than the inhabitants of the world shall learn righteousness; 
Esa. 26.7, 8, 9  and in this cleansing work of teaching man, Christ sits upon his throne of Justice, Judgement and Mercy in man to search and try man, even as a refiner and purifier of gold and silver, 
Mal 3.1.2. Esa. 4 4  who by the spirit of Judgement and of burning do wash and purge away all man's filthiness, and the more the judgements of Christ are manifest within, the greater upon that person will the Judgements and afflictions of men be manifest without, against him, and against that way of God in him which is Christ the hope of glory, because it calls him from the ways of men without which is of Antichrist, and men in their ways do always appose God in his way, and when Christ by his Judgements shall undo man within of all that is a man's own, and make all these in him become Christ's own, then shall men by their Judgements undo him without (with men that and amongst men) to render him odious to men, and he shall not be against it nor resist it, but the power of the inward shall make him willing and able t● bear and endure with cheerfulness the outward; 
Psa. 110.3  in which work of Judgement Christ will not leave him nor forsake him, but will restore peace and comforth unto him; to all which proceed of Christ within men, and of men, without men, from the time of Christ manifest in me to this day I bear witness; that as God from the day of my first conversion to the truth, hath increased the manifestation of his son in me, so hath men in opposion to that increased their persecution against me.   

CHAP. XI. Nothing which opposes God can stand against him, how he will pull down and get above Towers, Churches, worships, religions, and all things of men that is not in Christ; also to whom the Lords Judgements are a day of joy and delight, and to whom they are a day of darkness and trouble, to trust in God under them is a sure refuge of the good that comes by them, and when.  
ANd now you all that would know the Lord & your own salvation, wait for this day of God wherein he comes to call you from your own (and for his own from you) and to destoy yours, yea all of yours that you call your own without him, receive him in it, oppose it not, nor think it strange but bid it welcome when it comes, though it be to your outward sufferings and to the loss of your lives, honour and credit, goods and good names amongst men and all things on this side God, even the perfection of all human excellency, wisdom, righteousness & religion, nothing of which can stand with you nor is to be pleaded by you when God comes forth against it to Judgement, but you are to see an end of all perfection of things below God, and then are you most perfect and pure in God and Christ, and have the greatest peace in yourselves, when with Christ you are become in your own eyes and before men most poor, vile and imperfect and impure as man, & see nothing good of your own to defend you nor make you accepted with men; for the best of man is not able to stand when God appeareth, but best and worst all must go when God calls for it who will leave nothing; but when God comes his work is before him and his reward is with him, even to bring down man and exalt himself above and upon all the Hills and Mountains of men that are high and lifted up by men to save themselves from his wrath & Judgements which must come upon them and upon every high tower and strong walls of Churches and Church fellowship set by men to worship God in and by, 
Esa. 2.11.  and upon all the sheep of Tarshish & all the pleasant pictures of outward reformed ordinances and observations of men in these Churches and Church ways which appear outwardly beautiful unto men, 
Esa. 23.13, 14.  all shall be abased and laid waste, brought down and consumed, 
Esa. 24.10.  yea every Church and house way and worship of man's building shall be broken down and shut up that no man may come in, & the Lord alone with his way, church and worship shall be exalted in men, in the day of the great slaughter when the towers shall fall, 
Esa. 30.15, 16.  or the highest part of any church or profession of church way and spiritual notionists, and if the Towers fall then the church will be broken and the people therein will be scattared even the shepherd and his sheep, and their worship and service therein will be at an end, and then will Christ himself appear in a greater glory to bind up the breach of his people, and will himself come and gather them together to his fold, & will teach them himself of his ways, & he will be unto them their high Tower, church & worship and all things the rain; for the glory of the former is passed away and they shall not need to teach one another nor assemble themselves to any but the Lord, who himself will gather them & be exalted in the midst of them, and wil● be righteousness unto them; 
Esa. 60.4.5.  and then will all their own bravery and costly apparels of outward rigteousness be all taken from them, as t●r scripture expresses, even their veils and glasses, their fine lenen and ●oods which the Priests have used to wear, and all the righteousness of men as the fine lenen and fleshpots of Egypt with men perfumed and made sweet unto t●●m●●lv●s shall be as filthy rags, and upon their fleshpots there shall be a stink, and instead of a girdle a rent, instead of pride humility, 
Esa. 3.8. to the end.  and upon all outward comlyness and beauty shall become a baldness and mourning, for the Lord will s●rip himself of all outward cover that men have put upon him to appear with a fair outside unto men, & the vail spread over all nations shall cease, and he will make bare his holy arm in the eyes of all nations and will bring in his own everlasting righteousness which shall not cease, and in which there shall be no outward form nor comlyness whereby men should desire it, 
Esa. 53.2.  but rather hate and abhor it, but within even to them that enjoy it and have passed through his Judgements for it, shall it be all glorious, pleasant and delightful.  
And therefore you people all rejoice in that day of the L damn Judgements when it comes upon you, as it will particularly come to every one of you in high order to manifest in you the glory of God even Jesus Christ for the consummation of your own glory with the men of the world, which no doubt some of you with Christ in the flesh have already found, who had nothing of this world's glory left him, but was crucified to it all, that the purpose of God in his day, might be manifest upon all flesh, to slain the pride of all Glory, 
●sa. 23.9.  to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth: which is a work much manifested at this day by and upon the people called quakers even to be under the Lords Judgements striping of all worldly honour and glory waiting for Christ in the spirit, and who will be unto you as a day of the Lords indignation against sin and enmity, & all the works of the devil, but with his love towards you to try you, to humble you and to save you, and it will be to the rich & mighty a day of wrath, 
●●ph. 1.14, 15.  a day of trouble and heaviness; a day of destruction and desolation; a day of obscurity and darkness, a day of clouds and blackness, especially to them I say that have made flesh their arm, that are in their own eyes strong, wise and learned in themselves, righteous and holy in themselves and not in Christ, I say to such it will be a day of terror & great tribulation, and though they shall run to the rokes and to the mountains and cry unto them, saying, fall on us and hid us from the wrath of the Lamb, 
●ev. 4.15, 16, 17.  and him that sits on the Throne, for the great day of his wrath is come and who can stand; yet those rocks and mountains shall not save them nor hid them, as the trees of the garden could not hid Adam when he fled to hid himself from God, after he had sinned; therefore should all men in all affliction and tribulation fly only unto God and to nothing else of man nor the world, for God only is the refuge of his peoble and the rock that shall stand, and it is not greatness and mightyness, pride and loftiness, righteousness nor holiness of men when you fly unto it that can save you from the fear of wrath; for that is all below God and hath no part in him; but rather fly to the valies even the things that are not and is counted the lowest with men, 
1 Cor. 1.  that shall confound the things of men that are highest with men even to God himself which with men is humility, meekness and lowlyness, for there doth he dwell to give rest and peace in the day of trouble; and there will he hid them from the wrath of their enemies in the day of his Judgements; 
Zeph, 2.1, 2, 3.  wherefore with Christ descend and sink ye down out of yourselves into a nothingness of all creaturely glory, even to the lowest of humanity, and your descension will be with Christ your ascension into the highest of divinity, which will be unto you the last of God's judgements and a day of joy and delight.  
And then when the Lord shall have finished his Judgements upon you, and perfected his work in you (by taking 〈◊〉 your own things from you) as doubtless with many he hath already done, who have denied all for Christ, then will he return unto you a pure language, even the language of Canaan, and no longer of Egypt, and you shall call only on the name of the Lord, and rest only on him for salvation, and not on your own works, ways and worships any more; and you shall all agree together in one mind to serve the Lord with one consent, and in one Lord jesus without any fear; for God who is but one, cannot be worshipped but by one, and in one way, even Christ, who is the way, the truth and the light, and in him they that wait upon God, shall renew their strength, and they shall run and not be weary, 
john 14.6. Esa. 40.31.  they shall walk and not faint, and shall do no iniquity nor speak any evil, neither shall any deceitfulness be found in their mouths, nor yet in their hearts, for they shall be purged of all uncleanness, and be fed with the Lord, and shall lie down with the Lord in safety, and none shall make them afraid that walk in Christ; but they shall rejoice and be glad; for it is the Lords day wherein he will have taken away their Judgements, and cast out their enemies, Sin, Death, Hell and the Devil, and all fe r, and the King of Israe, even the Lord of Hosts, shall be in the midst of them, and they shall not see evil any more, 
Zeph. 3 13. to the end.  neither shall they any more live in fear of any thing, nor yet sorrow any more; but sorrow and sighing shall fly away, and they sha● rejoice always with joy unspeakable and full of glory, 
Rev. 21.34.  and the Lord himself will be seen amongst them to dwell with them, and delight in them, and rejoice ●ver them with Joy, and will turn back their captivity, even before their own eyes, and they shall see it, and know that the Lord who hath done it, is for ever with them in it; For the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God.   

CHAP. XII. Encouragements to wait with p tience under the Lords Judgements, and not to oppose them; Of the works of the Lord Jesus what they are, and how we bear them about in our bodies, and when.  
ANd now seeing that so much good is wrought in men by the Lords judgements spiritual and temporal, though acted unjustly by men, as the rod that afflicts them outwardly, yet let no man seek by any outward means (or laws of men) to put them by, for it is the Lords way, though it is incident with all men so to do, that know not the Lord with them in it, who would seek to escape the judgement thereof to save their own honour and credit with men, and to avoid the punishment of the flesh, as did David, job, yea Christ and his Apostles, who had the same infirmities of the flesh as we have, when Christ said, Lord if it be possible let this cup pass from me, and sought means to avoid it, for indeed no afflictions with any seems joyous for the present, though afterwards it yields a peaceable reward of righteousness to all that are exercised therein as it did to Christ himself, who after he had suffered entered into glory with his Father, so shall all that with Christ overcome and endure to the end, yet this glorious reward of righteousness with men may sometimes be hid under afflictions, as the Sun when the clouds are before it, that men may not for the present see the end of God in it, nor the good that is to be brought unto them by it, till the clouds are passed and their Judgements ended, as before you have heard, for clouds and darkness is round about him, 
Psa. 18.  as about the Sun when you see it not, yet the darkness of these clouds will he expel by the brightness of his coming, and by his light he will shine gloriously through them, even upon him who with the eye of faith shall see Christ coming to him, and he will therein cheer and comfort him, encourage and support him, from the evil that men have invented against him, as the spirit of the Lord with my spirit bear witness unto me, which concerning myself in all my sufferings and persecutions for the truth to this day, 
1 Pet. 2 21.  unto which I was called by the Lord he hath done for me that bonds and afflictions through which a soul enters into the kingdom of God have been good unto me, 
Acts 14.22.  it being sanctified unto me by his spirit, by which I was comforted and the Angel of his presence with me in it, by which I was saved, concerning which I with Paul can speak the truth in Christ and lie not, and which another for me cannot know but for themselves that hath seen it, for to him that overcometh it is hidden Manna, and a white stone, and in it a new name written which no man knows but he that hath it. 
Rev. 2.17.   
And now that you may with Christ endure to the end for this new name which is a pearl of great price, and a name above every name that is named amongst men, be you persuaded by the spirit of the Lord within you, to watch for the coming of the Lord to give it to you, and be ye armed with the same mind and patience in the Lord to suffer with Christ in the flesh, 
1 Pet. 1.4.  for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin, and so be ye ready prepared in all things to meet the Lord, both in his birth, death, resurrection, and ascension, and to embrace him in the worst condition as well as in the best, as well to suffer with him as to regin with him, to die with him, as to live with him, and to be reviled and reproached, scoffed and mocked, derided and falsely accused by men more vile than the earth, Christ was, and his prophets and Apostles were, so were all his Saints, and so must all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, 
Isa. 64 6.  and not after the godliness of men, which is filthiness with the Lord, Ye filthy rags saith the Prophet, and by the Lord shall be cast out; therefore be ye armed with the saints patience in tribulations, that with Christ you may bear his reproach without the camp of your own righteousness and religion, 
Heb. 13.12.13.  as he did without the gate of the honour and glory of the world, and with him be willing to die to all things of men, and with him to live to all things of God, 
Gal. 6.17.  and so with Paul ever bear about in your body the marks of the Lord jesus, both in dying and in living, in dying the unjust persecutions, mockings, revile and scourge of men, groan, sigh and mournings in the suffering of the flesh as did Christ, whose visage was more ma6rred than any man's, 
Esa. 52.14.  and his person more desormed than the sons of men, and who in his pangs cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? These are the dying marks of Christ which you are to bear about in your body for the truth's sake, and the living marks is peace, comfort and consolation, joy of heart, content of mind, quietness of conscience, and a soul at rest in the Lord, full of all humility, meekness and love; these are the living marks of jesus which you are to bear about in your bodies, 
1 Cor. 4.6, 7, 8, 9, 10.11.  that while you live delivered unto death for jesus sake, so the life also of jesus shall be manifest in your mortal flesh, yea in these your mortal bodies, when with Christ you have been crucified to see an end of sin.   

CHAP. XIII. How men of the greatest light witnessing to truth under Judgements, do suffer most unjustly by false accusations with the loss of all things below God; that not all, but some m●n as witnesses shall suffer for the rest of one life; how some professing the same life, for fear of suffering will deny them that suffer for them rather than suffer with them as the Disciples of Christ did.  
CHrist and his Prophets and Apostles for conscience towards God, suffered unjustly, 
1 Pet. 2.19, 20, 21.  and died unjustly by the hands of men, though it was just with God that they should suffer, yea and to suffer by men unjustly, as being not guilty of the crimes for which they were accused; but false witnesses did arise, 
Psa. 31.11.  and laid many things to their charge which they knew not, as myself (with many others at this day) can witness hath been also laid against us by false witnesses since we with them have born witness to the Truth, in which notwithstanding I abundantly rejoice, and my joy in this is fulfilled, that the Lord jesus for conscience towards God hath joined me with himself in his worst condition to suffer with him, and in his best condition to reign with him, yea and to suffer unjustly by men as he hath done before me, and now in this my sufferings to suffer with me, else my peace in it would not have been so great, nor I so cheerfully to have past it through, that I cannot but rejoice that he hath made me willing and able with cheerfulness to bear his cross after him, and that in it he hath so far honoured me as to have all manner of evil said of me falsely for his Names sake, as a blasphemer, a seducer, and what not by those that knew me not, and which by the world and them that know not God, may be counted a shame and dishonour; yet to me and all that know the Lord, it is a crown of honour & rejoicing through him who hath been my example and pattern, & by whom I have been made to endure the cross and despise the shame, who himself for the honour which is of God, regarded not the honour of men, but suffered it all to be laid in the dust, and himself to be reckoned with the worst of men, yea & with Christ we have many more Examples, to wit, his Prophets and Apostles who counted it their greatest honour to suffer unjustly by men in the Lord's cause, 
1 Cor. 4.9, 12, 13.  and for his sake to be made as the Filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things, know it to be their portion, lot and inheritance with men which with Christ & for Christ they must receive by the hands of men that know not the Lord, nor the people the Lords inheritance; for had they known Christ they would not ●ave crucified him nor a●y that lived his life; but because they know not Christ nor the life of him which any live, therefore they rise up against it and condemn it.  
And God will have those that suffer for him and his cause, to suffer unjustly by men, that they may the more hate the ways of men to declare against them; and know that there is nothing just amongst men, nor none that is good, no not one; and so he will wean them from the milk, and draw them from the breast of all fleshly confidence and human excellencies below himself, that they may departed from all things but God, 
Isa. 28.9.  and love none but him in the world whom they are to know above all things, and no more to contend for the wisdom, knowledge and excellency of men, nor any thing of moral righteousness to glory in, but though you may be as righteous as others, and have as much as any to boast yourselves in, yet rather than you shall keep it to be thought the more righteous for it, and exalted by it, to glory in it, God will take it from you, though by false accusation; for you shall be accused by men of the things you are not gulilty, that you may be tried and brought to judgement, and know that there is no respect of persons with God, nor none that doth righteousness but him, that no flesh might glory in his presence, 
1 Cor. i, 2, ●  and that he that standeth might not stand in the wisdom of men but of God, and glory only in the Lord.  
Now every single person of one and the same life, may not all suffer alike in outward bonds and afflictions, nor be alike accused, but only that life they live with Christ in God; for the same life which many men live and enjoys, may be but in some accused and suffer, even in them where it is most manifest and enjoyed, and where it most appears in opposition to the world, and he that is most perfect before God, as Christ, 
Job 2, 3, 4, ●.  job and David was, even against it in them, and in such as against Christ the manchild, 
Rev. 4.12, 5.  will the Dragon most vomit up his malice, and act it (men) with endeavours to devour it in all men that live it, and that with Christ do inherit it, of whom they said, Come this is the heir let us kill him that the inheritance may be ours, but shall not be able to overcome the life, as they always sought to do against Christ, but could not prevail to destroy the life, though by Herod and the jews he was persecuted to death, that they which lived the same life might deny it and fly from it, as many in these times have done, when some of their own judgement have suffered, which they seemed to own before, and as did some of Christ's own Disciples, they owned him & followed him while he ●ad his liberty & was in prosperity amongst them; but it was for the loaves and the warm themselves at his Fire; 
john 6.65, 66, 67. Mark. 14.67, 68  but when he was accused and in custody likely to suffer (being as he was betrayed by a Disciple that followed him) than his Disciples denied him, saying I know not the man; and because he in his preaching to them said, that no man could come to him except it be given unto him of the Father, they left him & walked no more with him, because with him they were unwilling to suffer; yet he continued faithful unto death in maintaining his spiritual life, which they could not prevail against; for though they destroyed his body, yet his life they could not, but it was the more manifest (as it is to this Day) And some one person or other in ●ll Ages, & under all Dispensations whom God shall most enlighten & make able & willing, him shall suffer for the rest (to try & prove the rest of the same life) to vindicate and maintain it.  
And though Christ as a man in the flesh had temptations & tribulations as well as others, yet they that truly loved him still continued their love to him, and he gave unto them a Kingdom: 
Luk. 22.28, 29  so all of the same life of Christ that have truly enjoyed beyond a bare profession, shall participate with them that suffer for it, as the Disciples of Christ did in the sufferings of him, and as the Saints of old did in the sufferings of the Apostles, they still owned them, the like which hath been to this day amongst men of all judgements, which any that have suffered for conscience towards God, as the truth hath been manifest in all ages, so shall we of one life one for another bear a part in the same sufferings of him that shall suffer for us, to witness the life of God manifest in us, that he is God, and there is none besides him, which sufferings some must always expect to have that so witness him; 
Isa. 43.10, 11.  for God never left himself without witnesses, neither wil   

CHAP. XIIII. That the true sufferer will God ●nable with joy to bear his burden to follow Christ and deny himself, to trust in God and rejoice in all things, how with Christ he is humbled to the lowest with men and exalted to the highest with ●od, as the fruit and effect of God's Judgements, & the state of perfection.  
ANd therefore whosoever God shall appoint to stand in this lot of outward sufferings by men for the truth, as many hath done to this day, him will God enable with strength and patience to undergo it and pass through it to the end, though with the loss of a life, and all that have been accounted near and dear unto him, which must freely be offered up, and sacrificed as an only son Jsaac, when the Lord shall call for it, and he shall not stand to plead with God for any thing of his own goodness to justify himself or to save himself from the aspersions and reproaches falsely cast upon him, as many of the Lords Prophets and Saints have endeavoured to do, when they have been falsely accused for which the Lord reproved and pleaded against them, but without contending for to save any thing, that must be sacrificed maintaining and vindicating of the truth, he whom God will have to do it, must freely submit to the yoke of Christ, and to bear the burden of Christ, which God will have put upon him, as upon Christ, and whom he will make able to bear it, as he did Christ, and therefore saith Christ take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am humble, lowly and meek, & you shall find rest for your souls, 
Mat. two. 29.30.  for my yoke is easy and my burden is light, and Christ will lay no more upon any than they shall be able to bear, and he will lead them in a way that they shall be able to go, and that in following him they lose themselves their own wisdom and glory, yet they shall find Christ, therefore saith he, deny y ur selves come and follow me and you shall have treasure in Heaven, and there is no man that hath forsaken himself and the glory of this world for Christ, but he hath the glory of God, even the father given to him by Christ; wherefore value not your honour with men to receive honour with God, which is greater riches, and account it your greatest happiness when by men you are tried and falsely accused and that God hath chosen you to bear witness of the truth through sufferings, and when men through hatred to you (for the life's sake in you which they persecute) shall separate you from their company and shall revile you, 
Luk. 6.21, 22, 23, 24, 35, 26.  and cast out your name as evil for the son of man's sake, why rejoice in that day and be glad; for behold your reward is great in Heaven, for so did their fathers unto the Prophets; but woe be to them that are rich and wise and full in themselves, as being with child with the wisdom of this world, and shall delight therein, for they shall weep and lament when that day of Christ shall come upon them, and then they seeking to save their own lives, which is enmity in the life of God, they lose that life even Christ, by which they live in peace with God and so the saying of Christ is made good, that it is hard for a rich man to enter into heaven; and the righteous are hardly saved, or it is with much ado, because the righteous man while he thinks he is righteous in himself, he will contend for his righteousness, and count it his greatest happiness to save it, and therefore he will contend against that life which is manifest to destroy it, & which will at last come upon him as a thief in the night, and take it from him; and such a one so contending shall have woe, when he that can freely part with all for Christ, shall have peace; and therefore saith Christ, In me you shall have peace, in the world you shall have tribulation, 
John i6. 33.  but be of good cheer I have overcome the world.  
And such a one who with Christ hath overcome the world, he is a conqueror over his own life, & can with Christ lay down his life and take it up again at his pleasure, he can descend to the lowest and ascend to the highest; he can become the worst and the best without contradiction between them; he knows how to be full, and how to be empty, how to be bound and how to be free, and have peace in all things; and then though tribulations, bonds & imprisonments come, yet is it all the way of God to him, & he sees in the midst of God's judgements, mercy with God appearing to save him & resrore peace & comfort to him, and God himself to be his refuge, that though the earth be moved round about him, 
Psa 46.1, 2, 3.  and the mountains fall into the midst of the sea and be drowned, yet will he not fear, and though the waters (to wit, people, Nations & tongues, and the glory of this world on which the Whore sitteth and men glory in it) do roar & be troubled, & the powers of the earth shake and fall with the swelling thereof, yet will he not fear, but rather rejoice; for when the refuge of men and the world fall, then will God be a refuge and strength, and a very present help in time of trouble to all that wait upon him; and they with David will then say, The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, 
Psa. 18.1.  my God and m strength in whom I will trust my buckler and the horn of m● salvation and my high tower which shall stand and not fall; and mercy hath God built up for ev r, as the throne on which he will sit in judgement with man to do justice judgement and mercy, 
Psa. 139. i. 14.  which shall all come together with God unto judgement as unseperable companions to be all given unto man, in which man is taught three things, For when odds Judgements are on the earth, 
Isa●. 26.8, 9 M●c. 6 6, 7, 8, 9  then will the Inhabitants of the earth learn righteousness; that is, for man not to come before God with any thing of his own, but to do justly, to have mercy, and to walk humbly with God; to come before the Lord in the Lord, and in no other but the Lord.  
And this is that which all the Lords people are taught by judgements to be just and merciful, humble meek and lowly as Christ was; who learned obedience by the things which he suffered, & who thereby teaches him who know him, to follow his steps, 
Job. 42.3, 4, 5, 6.  to lay down himself and all things of himself into dust and ashes as a Worm & no Man, yea as a scorn of men, acknowledging the just judgements of the Lord upon him, and all things of him that is not of God, as the way to save him humble him & bring him home unto him by the cross of the Lord Jesus; and whosoever is in any measure brought home to God (or a bringing) that he know any thing of God as he ought to know, than the more he knows of God & of the things concerning the Kingdom of God, the less shall he know of men & of the things of this world which is enmity with God, & know also that when men are most purest with God knowing their purity all in him, then shall they be most vilest with men in the account of them that know not God, and so see their own emptiness & vileness as men without God, and that the best with God is always accounted the worst with men, yea despised & rejected of men as Christ was, & that when they themselves shall see his purity and their own purity to be in him, they must needs see that all things out of him is impure, & that the best of man's righteousness is but filthiness, & extendeth not unto God in any degree, 
Esa. 64 6. Psa. 16 2.  but to be destroyed by him, who hath the fullness of all righteousness sufficient to save all men in himself, & that none but him in all the World is or can be righteous without him; 
jer. 33.16.  for he is called the Lord our righteousness, who makes all men righteous in his righteousness, & accepted in his acceptableness, and that there is none that doth good but him who is the only good of all, and with whom nothing is evil, polluted, nor unclean, nor with any that know him, & see their whole life to be in him, 
Zeph. 3. 1●, 14. Dan. 9.24.  which that all men do who in Christ can see their judgements to be ended, and their works to be finished, & Christ their righteousness to be revealed & exalted in them, and that by him have received the end of their faith, even the salvation of their souls, even they and only they can live the life of Christ, and do the Works of Christ, and in humility can descend with him into the lowest state of men to have communion with them, & with him ascend into the highest state of God to have communion with God, and so enjoy both God & man together in each state, as the full accomplishment of the work of God with man through the Lord Jesus, who in the day of his power to them manifest, makes them willing and able with Christ, to lay their lives down, and take them up again; 
1 Pet. 1.9. Psa. 100LS. 3. joh. 10.17, 18.  to be all with all in all states whatsoever with delight and pleasure; this is perfection and the day of salvation; and this with men hath been more or less manifest from Adam to this day, as I shall further manifest in the next from Scripture the deal of God with particular Persons, Kings and Prophets, whose life and actions are therein recorded, and written for our learning.   
FINIS.