a As the word signifies. 10. signifies, given in the Chal dean tongue for Devil. h Psal. 105. 9. 10. 45. i Isay 15. 18. slaughter-man: (") but it was nay, time was, I was none at all, renounceth that victory, and slaughter b Heb. 2. 10. made by the Captaine, and High Priest of our proc Revel. 13.8. fession, (b) who as he is a Lambe slain from the d 1 Sam. 17. beginning, () his victory and slaughter, must be of e 1 John 3.12. the same antiquity, professing himselfe to be a f Matt. 1. 21. chiefe slaughter-man, or superfluous Giant, made g As the word in the Hoast of the Philistims, standing in readinesse to come out, to defie the Hoasts of the ever living God, (d) yea, it is evident, whatsoever is more then yea yea, and nay nay, not setting each upon his base, whereon it standeth for ever without controule : but can remove, create, or make void offices and officers, at their pleasure, is of that evill one, (*) not of Jesus the Salvation of his people, (f) but of Shedim, (5) that Waster and Destroyer of mankind for ever: * Know therefore, that it is the oath of God, which confirmes, and makes good his Covenant and promise to a thousand generations, ["] and it is the oath of man, that is, the bond and obligation of that league and agreement inade with hell and death for ever: Be ye assured, it is not the Tabernacle of witnesse, [] which you have amongst you, brought in by Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, [] but it is Siccuth your King, or the Tabernacle of Molech, the Star of your God Remphan, figures that you have made to your selves, ['] which you have taken up, and are bearing so stoutly upon your shoulders. Now to tell what an oath, according to God is, that the Scriptures are delivered upon no other ground or termes of certaintie, where ever they are divulged, is a thing out of your jurisdiction, you cannot discerne or judge of it; therefore according to our Word above, wee leave it as a Parable to you, as all the holy Word of our God is, as your conversation in all points, as in this, daily declareth; in a word when wee have to doe in your jurisdiction, armes, for the wee know what it is to submit to the wise dispenhelpe of the pensations of our God; when you have to doe house of God, tent, that is, any officer that layes claime to the things of the Kingdom of God, by vertue of that, his office in that sence the truth of these things stand firme and good, and doth not deny or disallow any humane ordinance of man in this world, so it be kept in its bounds and proper place, for he that is a Captaine of the Temple, that is, exer ciseth force of will ever with the Priests and souldiers, lay hands on Peter and John, to put them in hold, at the least if they preach Christ. But Cornelius is no Captain of that kind or kindred, for he is a Gentile of Cæsarea, and of the band called the Italian Band. amongst amongst us, in the liberties he hath given to us, wee doubt not but you shall find him Judge amongst us, beyond and above any cause, or thing you can propose unto us; and let that suffice you, and know, that you cannot maintaine a jurisdiction, but you must reject all inroads upon other mens priviledges, and so doe wee; in the mean time wee shall as wee thinke good be calling over, againe some matters you have had up, and had the handling of amongst you, to see what justice or equity we find hath beene exercised in them, and redresse them accordingly, for wee professe right unto all men, and doe no violence at all, as you in your prescript threaten to doe to us, for we have learned how to discipline our children or servants without offering violence unto them; even so doe wee know how to deale with our deboist, rude, yea, inhumane neighbours (or if you will demne the in had been pro their new peare, but ra Nabals) without doing violence; but rather ren- m As they in dring unto them that which is their due: Nor shall the Massachuwe deprive a witnesse of his modest testimony, for sets had lately the out-cryes and clamours of such a one, as ill- done, to conbred apostatized Arnald, that fellonious Hogge- nocent and Killer, being the partie to be testified against, or justifie such for the oath of any interested in the cause, [m] nor who otherwise shall we be forward to come so farre to find you ved guilty of work ["] upon your request, till we know you to felonious acts, beare another mind, then others of your Neigh- even these bours doe, with whom we have had to doe in this made subjects, Countrey, whose pretended and devised Lawes, whose shame we have stooped under to the robbing and spoyl- they would not ing of our goods, the lively-hood of our wives and permit to apchildren, thinking they had laboured, though groap- ther deprive ing in great darknesse, to bring forth the truth in sufficient witthe rights and equitie of things: But finding them nesse of their testimony, at to be a company of grosse and dissembling hypo- the guilty percrites, that under the pretence of Law, and Reli- sons request. gion, have done nothing else but gone about to their Courts in establish themselves in wayes to maintaine their the Massachuowne vicious lusts, we renounce their diabolicall sets, to imploy practice, being such as have denied in their pubany matters of licke Courts, that the Lawes of our native Coun- ours living trey should bee named amongst them; yea, those peaceably toancient Statute Lawes, casting us into most base, gether so farre hasty, and insufferable places of imprisonment, for them, out of speaking according to the language of them, in the all their jurismeane while breaking open our houses in a violent n That is to them about "remote from dictions. way of shame. P Mouth of shame. q Luke 13. 31, 32, 33, 34. way of Hostility, abusing our wives, and our little ones, to take from us the volumes wherein they are preserved, thinking thereby to keep us ignorant of the courses they are resolved to runne, that so the visiosity of their owne wils might be a Law unto them; yea, they have indeavoured, and that in publicke expressions; that a man being accused by them, should not have liberty to answer for himselfe in open Court: dealings of like nature wee find, in the place whereof you stile us your Neighbours, on whose unbridled malice, we find a higher then you putting a curbe, and yet in your account and reckoning we are the parties that are still doing the wrong, and must beare the guilt in your most mature sentence, in whomsoever the spot ariseth, and abideth; but the God of vengeance, unto whom our cause is referred, never having our Protector, and Judge to seeke, will shew himselfe in our deliverance out of the hands of you all; yea, all the house of that Ishbosheth, [o] o That is, man and Merib-bosheth, P nor vvill he fayle us to utter and make knovvne his strength vvherein vve stand, to serve in our age, and to minister in our course, to day and to morrow, and on the third day can none deprive us of perfection, [] for hee hath taught us to know what it is to walke to day, and to morrow, and the day following also, when a perishing estate cannot rise out of lerusalem, though she be the only one, yea none but she, that kils the Prophets, and stones them that are sent unto her: Behold ye that are looking after, and foretelling so much of the comming of Christ, driving the day before you still for certaine years; which some, you say, shall attaine unto, and unto the day of death for the rest, ye blind Guids, as your Fathers have ever done, so doe ye: Behold, we say, when he appeareth, your house which you so glory in, shall be left unto you desolate, it shall be turned into nothing but desolation, and confusion, for Babel is its name, [] nor shall you see him to your comfort, in the glory of his Kingdome, untill you can say (blessed is he that commeth in the name of the Lord) [*] when the auto thority and power of man, appeareth to be the building of Babel unto you, and the name and authority of God only to be that wherein the blessing consists, and that in such wise also, as is nothing but a way reproach in the eyes of all the world; that a King should ride into his chiefe Citie, so strangly furnished upon an Asse, borrowed, her furniture old over-worné Garinents, and accompanied r That is, as the word sig nifies Confusion. s Mat. 21. 5. Matt. 23. 37, 10. 38, 39. accompanied with none but poore, meane, excommunicate persons, such as your Elders, Scribes, Pharisees, Lawyers, and all your credible persons among you make full account they are not only accursed, by, but also destitute and void of all Law, when you can find Hosanna in the highest, arising out of such contempt, and shame, then, and then only shall you sing unto him with comfort; in the meane time acknowledge your portion, which is to trust and stay your selves on the name of man, and in his beauty to delight and glory, which shall fade as a Lease, and like the grasse, shall wither when it is fitting it selfe for the Oven; (1) such is man whose breath is in his Nostrils, ["] and the sonne of sorry man, in whom you t Isay 40. 7. 8. have delight to trust, his power and policie brings Psal. 90. 5, 6. forth nothing else, but as you shall see and heare, u Isay 2. 22. in the Countrey from whence we are brought; we are not ignorant of these shamefull lies, and falsities gone out against us, and the daily wresting of our words, to cast contempt upon us, ["] thinking to bow downe our & 1.30. backs under ignominy, and reproach, neither of w Psal. 56. 5. the straits, and difficulties, they have cast us upon in the things that concernes this present life, to the taking away of the lives of many, if our God had not been seene beyond and above what their thoughts could reach unto, (as their owne confession hath witnessed) doing it in such a way, of painted hypocrisie, and false glosse, unto the eye of the world, that we might seem unto it, selfe executioners; we resolve therefore to follow our imployments, & to carry and behave our selves as formerly we have done, and no other wise; for we have wronged no man, unlesse with hard labour, to provide for our families, and sufferof grosse, idle, and Idoll drones, to take our labours out of the mouths, and from off the backs of our x Knowing little ones, to lordane it over us: so that if any shall our selves to goe about to disturb, or annoy us, hence-forth in iects to the our imployments, and liberties, which God hath, or Laws and go. shal put into our hands, that can claim no interest vernment of in us but by these courses, (*) what their business countrey, and is, we know by proof sufficient, to be nothing else not unto any but that ancient errand of Nimrod, that rebellious government Hunter after the precious life, [] which errand of of its bounds his shall be no more delivered unto us, in that co- and jurisdicvert cruelty, and dissembling way of hypocrisie; Gen. 10, 8, 9. but in direct and open termes of tyrannie, we will Jer. 16. 16. not be dealt with as before (we speake in the name be free sub our native extended out tion. y of 7. of our God) we will not, for if any shall disturbe us, as above, secret Hypocrites shall become open Tyrants, and their Laws appeare to be nothing else but meer lusts in the eyes of all the world: And wherefore doe you murmure among your selves at this saying, thinking it is not a Christian expression? it is because you are ignorant of the Crosse of our Lord Jesus, not knowing what it is; therefore it is, while you inveigh against such as set up a Statue of wood and stone to bow downe unto it, and are so vaine as to crosse the ayre (to use your owne expression) upon the faces of Infants, when they sprinkle them with water, to as great purpose, and in the mean time you preach, and set up Seighnirim, for your Crosse, whom you fall downe unto so willingly, and lest you let the word_passe without expression of it unto all, it signifies Horrour and Feare, which is the Crosse you hold and teach, and by and through which you thinke to be saved, which name is given by our Lord to the Devill himselfe, (as our English translate it, and the Lord never gives a name as an empty title, but according to the nature of the thing named, so that if hee speake, I z Psal. 82. 6, have said ye are gods, (2) of any besides himselfe it is to declare, that they have not only the name, but the very nature of the god of this world, and therefore he saith, they shall dye even as Adam, which aspired a Psal. 83. 9, and usurped the place of God, and fall also as one of the Princes, even as one of those Princes of For he that Midian, whose carkesses became dung for the earth, (*) and he that gives that title unto any but the true God, that made heaven and earth, in any other sense, but as it declareth a flat opposition against God, is Reacting that ancient spirit of the whole glory Serpent; if you eat you shall be as gods, [b] to judge of good and evill, for which all men are set sists such mind up in that kind; even so while you tell the peoand disposition prosecuted & ple, that by sorrow, compunction, and anxietie of followed to its spirit, and trouble of mind, they communicate in height, accor- the sufferings of Christ; out of which condition ding to the their confort is to flow, it is nothing else but to rise thereof, sets it selfe in conclude, the Sonne of God to be Belial; yea to direct termes affirme him to be Seighnirim himselfe; this doth of opposition he receive at your hands in your Ministries, for all against Christ, and hath that your fawning upon him with a kisse, (c) so that if spirit of the you will know how farre you are from communicagod of this ting in the death of Christ, take it in this Parable, world. c Mat.26.4.9. verily as farre as the weaknesse of God is stronger 10, 11. b Genesis 3.5. assumeth a title unto himselfe, without respect unto Christ, in whom the thereof con then |