GOD Almighty at sundry times and in divers manners, hath appeared to warn you of his Wrath and sore displeasure, which hath several Years hung over your heads; even ready to be revealed from Heaven upon you for your manifold abominations and Oppressions, the Cry of which hath reached to Heaven; and therefore hath the God of mercy (who delighteth not in the destruction of the wicked) put his word in the Mouthes of his Servants and Mes­sengers, who early and late in word and writing, Year after Year, and Time after Time, have exhorted you to cease to do Evil, and learn to do Well and to break off your abomi­nable Wickednesses and cruel Oppressions (under which the Land mournes) by speedy and unfeigned Repentance, but [Page 2]you have hitherto dispised, evil-intreated and Persecuted his Messengers, and rejected his Word, till even now the wrath of the Lamb is kindled against you, from which none can de­liver you; for you have provoked him (who delighteth in mercy) to wrath and jealousie dayes without number, your Pride, Covetousness, Drunkenness, Whoredoms among you, Lying, Swearing, Oppression, and lording it over God's Heritage, and forcing Thousands to walk in the broad way to destruction with your selves (whom you can prevail with­al) is Recorded as with a Pen of Iron, and point of a Dia­mond: Oh! my Heart is Rent because of the misery and sore destruction which God, will bring upon you & your Poste­rity if you and they still harden your Hearts against him, and my wrestlings are often with the Lord, not to pour forth the vials of his wrath upon your Head, but rather give you peni­tent Hearts, if you have not sinned out your Day: Oh! that there were such an heart in you as would strip you out of your Pharisaical long Robes, and cloath you with Sackcloth and Ashes upon your Heads, and cry mightily unto God, as the Men of Nineveh did, that God may turn from you his fiery Indignation and sore displeasure, that is ready to flame in fury against you; for your Repentance and not your Destruction is the earnest desire of my Soul: Oh! that you knew in this your day, the things that belong to your Peace with God, but the Day is very near wherein they will be hid from your Eyes, for God's Spirit will not alwayes strive with you, as it hath hither to done, neither will the place of Repentance be always in your sight, which when hid, you shall seek Death and shall not find it, and shall say in the Morning, would God it were Evening, and in the Evening, would God it were Morning, for the dread and horror that shall compass you on every side; then shall he that sits in Heaven laugh at your Calmity, and stand far off from you when your fear cometh, even as pain upon a Woman that travaileth, for you have over-passed the deeds of the wicked; the Land even stinks through your a­bominations, you have long fed your selves with the Fat of [Page 3]this Land, and cloathed your selves with the Wool, that you are more like Sodomites then Christians, but you have killed, and cruelly Persecuted those that God hath fed with Bread from Heaven, like the false Shepherds of Israel, whom God by the Mouth of Ezekiel cryed wo against, Ezek 34.2, 3, 4. Oh! what will you do in the end of these things, when the God of Righteousness shall require his Flock at your Hands? What hath People profitted under you this many Years? Do not both them and yourselves grow worse and worse, you deceiving, and they deceived? but if you had stood in the Counsel of God, & had been Authoriz'd by him, & had caused People to hear his word of Faith in their Hearts, then had you been as so many lustrous Stars in the Firmament of his power forever, but now you are left as Wells without Water, Clouds carryed about with a Tempest; for a little Storm will drive you East or West, North or South, yea, wandring Stars, to whom (unless you speedily Repent) is reserved the blackness of utter Darkness forever.

For the Light of the glorious day of God's power you have wofully hated, and have loved Darkness rather, by reason of your Evil deeds; and you have shut the Kingdom of Heaven against many, yea, even all whom you can prevail withall, by hateing, slighting, and setting at nought the Key of David, which should open the Door of entrance unto it, and yet would take it by the force and strength of your earthly Wisdoms and brain. Knowledge, but this know, that neither Fornicator, nor Adolterer, nor Idolator, nor the unclean hath any part or portion in it, 1 Cor 6.9, 10. Ephes. 5.3, 5. but the Darkness which they have loved in their life-times shall be their lot and portion forever, with the word UTTER annext to it, unless they Repent and turn unto the Light with which Christ Jesus hath enlightned them, and love it, and walk in it in your life-times, which hitherto many of you Priests have most wretchedly despised and blasphemed against.

Therefore, oh ye Bishops and Priests, and all your Judges and Officers, whose proceedings are corrupted, who have taken the sheaf from the hungry, and have not bound up the [Page 4]broken hearted, nor relieved the OpPressed, if ye will not hear nor lay these things to Heart, the Lord will spread Dung upon your Faces, and will make you a Hissing, and a By-word of of Reproach to Generations to come, for your Iniquities are almost full, and you are daily heaping up Wrath against the Day of wrath, they who work Wickedness are set up and Countenanced among you, and they that tempt God every day are even delivered, and counted your great Church-Members, and Communicants; but they who reprove Iniqui­ty in the Gate, are grievously drawn before your Judgment Seats, and made a Prey upon, both in their Persons and pro­perties, which was never Christ's, but Antichrist's way of Convincing gain sayers.

And how do you lead many blind to Destruction, by forcing them under the penalty of Excommunication to eat and drink their own damnation; if it be matter of Damnation to eat at your table without Faith in it, how many have you drawn before your Judgment Seats, because they come not to your Sacrament, are you certain they have examin'd themselves according to the Apostle's command, 1 Cor. 11.28. or do you know them to be worthy, or discern the Lord's Body? or do you discern it your selves, without which, whosoever eateth or drinketh, doth it unworthily to his own damnation, vers. 29. And how can you ever stand clear before the Seat of divine Justice, who force men under severe Penalties, contrary to the perswasion of their own Hearts after Examination (by which many have found their unworthiness) to eat and drink their own Damna­tion, or else they must be cursed out of your worshipping Houses, and cast out of the Society and company of their Friends and loving Neighbours? Oh! the Cry of these things is loud, was this ever Christ or the Apostles way and manner towards them who opposed them? did not Christ command his to bless their very Persecutors? And did not the Apostle forbid the Saints to Curse? Rom. 12.14. And did not the A­postle James say, that out of one Mouth should not come blessing and curssing? James 3.10. And was ever any forbidden to buy or sell, or have Society amongst men, but only by the [Page 5]Power of the Beast spoken of by John, Revelation 13.16, 17. who made War with the Lamb and the Saints; now let the wise Judge who is your example in your Court-proceed­ings, whether Christ or Antichrist according to your professed Rule, viz. the Scriptures.

And if you prevail upon any, who through Fear of your Whip do outwardly conform to your Worship, contrary to the Perswasions of their own Hearts; do not you thereby make them Hypocrites, and twofold more the Children of the De­vil then before? God hath turned the Hearts of many from you, and hath commanded them to offer a Sacrifice to him out of the Borders of Egypt, even in the Wilderness, which is to­wards the Red Sea, in the Way to the Land of Canaan, and your Pursuit of them here, will be to your own overthrow, as it was Pharaoh's. Oh consider what you are a doing by your Courts and Proceedings; is it not to draw them into Egypt a­gain, whom God by the Cords of his infinite Love hath drawn into the Land of Goshen, where they enjoy and possess Light in their Dwellings, and have forever turned their Backs of Egypt's Land, having set their Faces Zion-ward, and are come to the Father's House (i e.) The true Light) where they have Bread enough, yea, of the living Bread which is come down from Heaven, by which they are nourished up to Eternal Life, so that your Husk they utterly refuse, which you sell at a costly Rate, with which no weary Soul can ever be, nor never was satisfied.

Therefore touch them not I charge you by the God of Hea­ven, nor offend the least among them; for they are near and dear unto the Lord, and he tenders them as the Apple of his Eye; and no Weapon formed against them shall ever prosper; are you still so blind, as not to consider your ill Success in this Undertaking this many Years? methinks you should have as much Wisdom as Gamaliel had, to say, Let them alone, if they be of God they will stand, if not, he will overthrow them, lest ha­pily you be found Fighters against God, Acts 5.34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39. And you should consider the Parable of the Wheat and Tares, how that the Lord of the Houshold of Faith would not suffer his Servants to pluck up the Tares, but commanded that [Page 6]they should grow among the Wheat to the End of the world, though he declared them to be the Children of the wicked one, Mat. 13.18. to the 44th verse. He was not of your Mind, to root them out from the Earth, though he infallibly knew them to be sown by the Enemy, which you do not pretend unto, and therefore cannot discern between the Children of God and the Chidren of the Devil, but call Good Evil, and Evil Good; and put Light for Darkness, and Darkness for Light, as your Fore-Fathers did in the Dayes of old; But if you fall upon that Rock you have so long stembled at, you will be broken; but upon whomsoever it falls, it will grind him to Powder: There­fore dread the Majesty of the great God of Heaven, at whose Rebuke all the Mountains of the Earth tremble and are moved; and howl all ye idle Vine-dressers, whose Vineyards are over­grown with Weeds; the Lord of the Vineyard is come to look for Fruit, and behold▪ there is little among you, but bitter, four and ill-tasted Fruits, your Vine is the Vine of Sodom, and your Grapes the Grapes of Gomorrah, and the Lord of the Vineyard will cast you out as unprofitable Servants, and idle Shepherds, unless you weed out all the Bryars and Thorns, and then, which of you can escape; for the best among you, who are guilty of Persecution, are as a Bryar, and sharper then a Thorn-Hedge, from which no pleasant Grapes can be expect­ed, so that by your Fruits you are known, and not by your Words, Mat. 7.2, 3. for you have got the good Words & the fair Speeches, by which you deceive the Hearts of the simple; and if Covetousness be Idolatry which none questions, then, who are greater Idolaters then your selves? of whose covetous Pra­ctices the whole Nation is full, having a Cloud of Witnesses in every parish. And how can you call your selves spiritual Persons, when you so much resist the Spirit of Truth, and contemn those who own and witness it to be their Guide and Leader into all Truth? for none can truly be spiritual Persons, but who by the spirit of Truth are made so; for all men naturally are carnal, sold under Sin; and none can judge for God, but they who are led by his Spirit.

Now if you were led by the Spirit of God, you would let [Page 7]People alone to be perswaded by it, in things relating to ano­ther world, whose Fruits have no bad Aspect on the affairs of this, and especially they who desire nothing more then to live a quiet and peaceable Life, in all Godliness and Honesty; but by oppressing such, you not only seek the Destruction of their Souls, but of their Bodies also; and if such be not ravening wolves there was never any in the world.

And as your Fore Fathers did, so do ye begin at the wrong End, instead of being a Terror to Evil doers, you make your selves such to them that do well, and let Drunkards, Lyars, Swearers, Whoremongers and Adulterers go free, which God will judge, and because of these and many mroe Abominations the Land now mourns; and there is but a small Remnant that fighs and mourns for all the Abominations that are committed therein; but the great Number lives wantonly upon the Earth, and kill the just one, and cruifie afresh the Lord of Glory, put­ting him to open Shame, and give Occasion to the Adulterers of Forreign Nations to blaspheme the Name of the God of Is­rael, which he will require at your Hands.

And why do you suffer Forreign and other Cheats to come in and set up Stage-playes in open Streets of Cities and Towns, whereby the Name of God is dreadfully blasphemed, & youth and old ge wofully corrupted and debauched. Oh! what will you do? or where will you appear when God ariseth to take Vengeance for these things? My Soul is even bowed down at the Consideration of these things, and often mourns in secret for the Abomination of Desolation, which now stands where it ought not, therefore let him that reads understand.

And Nation is now appearing against Nation & Kingdom a­gainst Kingdom, & Famins, Pestilences & terrible Earth quakes in divers places, yea, many Signs in Heaven, and Wonders in the Earth-beneath, of the breaking forth of the wrath of the Lamb, whose Patience and Long-suffering being sleighted, you are not led to Repentance; but they wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived; even heaping up Wrath against the day of Wrath, and the revealing of the righteous Judgment of God.

[Page 8] Even as it was in the Dayes of Noah, so is it now in the com­ing of the Son of Man; for the Earth is filled with Violence, and is corrupted by Iniquity, and the dark Corners thereof are full of the Habitations of Cruelty, but an Ark is prepared, and a small Remnant are gathered, and more gathering daily into it, at the Command of the Lord; the like Figure, whereunto Baptism now saveth us, not the putting away of the Filth of the Flesh, but the answer of a good Conscience, by the Re­surrection of Jesus; and now it is fulfilled, that as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness, so is the Son of Man lifted up in the Hearts of his People in this his Day, of whose Go­vernment there shall be no End; and all are and will be ac­counted his Enemies, that will not suffer him thus to reign.

But he gives Caesar his due at this Day (viz.) the Govern­ment in outward things; for his Kingdom is not of this world, neither do his Servants fight, but are made perfect through Suffering, as their Lord and Master was in the Dayes of old.

Therefore awake, awake all you who have long laid in Secu­rity; for the great and notable Day of the Lord is dawning, wherein all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be as Stubble and the Day that cometh shall leave them neither root not branch; but unto them who fear the Name of the Lord, and depart from Iniquity, and hate every evil way, shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with Healing, and shall give them Beauty for Ashes, and the Oyl of Joy for the Spirit of Heavi­ness, under which they have walked many Years; and the Cup of Trembling shall be taken out of their Hand, and shall be given into the Hands of them who oppress them.

And God's Arm is not shortned that it cannot save, neither is his Ear heavy that it cannot hear the cry of the Poor, and complaint of the Needy, who are even at this day groaning under the burthens of an oppressed Conscience, through the cruel unnatural impositions of men, having assumed that to themselves, which is proper and peculiar to God alone, (viz.) The Government in spiritual matters relating to another world, this is his honour which he will not give to another, and if all Judgment be committed to the Son, what place is [Page 9]left for the Bishops Judges? What Judgment is to them committed? And who gave them Authority to set Judges over mens Consciences in matters of Faith and Worship? do not the Scriptures say, that Whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin? Rom. 14.23. And without Faith 'tis impossible to please God, Heb. 11.6. Now do not you greatly dishonour the Son, who is the only Author and Giver of Faith, who would impose a Worship contrary thereunto, upon his Servants? is not he only spiritual Judge of Heaven and Earth, whose Judgment is just, and according to Truth and Righteousness altogether? & how can you judge of spiritual Things, if you have not the in­fallible Spirit, and so not sure of your own standing, nor of the way you walk in to be Right; and yet Persecute others even to Life, Liberty and Estate, because they will not walk in your uncertain way? you presume higher then did the Scribes and Pharisees of old, (though short of their Righteousness) for they were said but to sit in Moses's Seat, who had a Legal ministration; but you pretend to sit in Christ's Seat, who hath an everlasting Spiritual Priesthood, and is only Judge of quick and dead: Therefore down with your pretended spiritual Courts whereby you would limit God in his Worship, and prescribe his Servants a way, which your selves do not certain­ly know to be true, to worship God contrary to the measure of Faith they have received from God, and let sound honest Judges in Temporal matters between a Man & his Neighbour be set up in all Cases of difference in temporal things, and let them be a terror to Evil-doers under what Name and Profes­sion soever; for the Law was made for such, and not for righte­ous men, have you any president in the Scriptures, in all the dayes of the Ministration of Moses, in the dayes of Abraham, in the time of the Prophets, or in any of the Gospel-dispensati­ons, that ever any outward Law with an outward penalty, was made against them, who did not Worship God in that way & manner, in which he had appeared in those dayes? If you can­not, you must either judge them deficient who had the ministe­rial Offices in those dispensations, or your selves to take more upon you, then you have either precept or example for in the holy Scriptures.