صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

send you word when he will be there, so that, if you can, you may meet with him there, and, if I can possibly, I will come along with him, for I have a desire to see you all over again; and the more, because Mr. Sudbury hath given such testimonies of his faith in the true God, and his desire to see me.

No more at present, but my love to yourself, your Daughter, and Elizabeth Smith, and all the rest of our friends in the Faith.

Your Friend in the eternal truth,

LODOWICKE MUGGLETON.

A Copy of a Letter written by the Prophet Lodowicke Muggleton, to Mrs. Dorothy Carter in Chesterfield, bearing date from London, July the 18th, 1663.

Dear Friend,

I THOUGHT good to give you notice, though I am uncertain myself, but, I think, Mr. Hatter will be at Mr. Richard Sudbury's on Wednesday night, being the 23d of July, and if he does come, as I suppose he will, for he must come then or not at all, for he cannot stay above a day longer if he comes at all; and if he comes out on Monday or Tuesday, I do intend to come along with him, but if he doth not come at all, I will come myself the next week after; but, if you can, be at Ellen Sudbury's on Wednesday next, that you may see Mr. Hatter, for

take com

he goes no nearer you than Nottingham; and if you do lose your labour in seeing him, you may fort in seeing your cousin Sudbury, for I cannot give the certainty of it, yet I thought good to send by the post this Saturday night, else I could not convey any notice of it to you, for he must come at a day's warn ing, so that no letter could be conveyed unto you, neither can he stay at Ellen Sudbury's but one night; and as for my staying with you longer than I did before, that I cannot do, but I do intend to stay with you about so long time as I did before.

So being in haste, I shall take leave, with my love remembered unto yourself, and unto your daughter, and Elizabeth Smith, and all other friends. I rest

Your friend in the eternal truth,

LODOWICKE MUGGLETON.

A Copy of a Letter written by the Prophet Lodowicke Muggleton, to Thomas Highfeild, Gardener in Nottingham, bearing Date from Chesterfield, July 31, 1663.

Thomas Highfeild,

I UNDERSTAND that you are a Quaker, and that the Quakers do sometimes meet at your house, so that you cannot be ignorant of those letters of Samuel Hooton, and W. S. which they sent to me,

and of my answer to them, as also that letter of Richard Furnesworth's, and my answer to him.

In which letters of mine you may see, if you have but the single eye of faith, why I do oppose that sort of people more than any other sect of religion, because, as I have expressed in those letters, the Quakers are the greatest fighters against God's being a person of himself (of any) they being led and guided by the spirit of antichrist in this last age, which is transformed into the likeness of an angel of light, for that they have got their God all within them; so that they deny God to have a person or body of his own without them, so that they are that spirit of antichrist that doth deny the Father and the Son, that is, they deny Jesus Christ to have become in the flesh; I mean they deny Jesus Christ to have flesh and bone of his own, which is the same flesh and bone that he suffered death in; I say that same flesh and bone is now living in heaven above the stars, and not as the Quakers do vainly imagine him to be, all diffused into spirits, and so he is gotten into them; and this is that which they call the light of Christ in them, and so they say that Christ is in them from that Scripture, where it is said, Know ye not that Christ is in you, except you be reprobates; never considering that saying in Scripture, Let Christ dwell in your hearts by faith. Now that which dwells in a man's heart by faith, it doth not dwell in a man's heart in its person and essence, for if one man had the person and essence of God in him, then I say God can be in one particular person, as he was in the body of Christ; therefore it is said in Scripture, That the fulness of the godhead dwelt bodily in him, that is, the essence, substance, spirit and being of God was com

[ocr errors]

passed all within that body of Christ, which was flesh, blood and bone in the state of mortality, and so the godhead life was made capable to suffer the pains of death; therefore it is said concerning Christ's death, that he was offered up through the eternal Spirit, so that the eternal Spirit quickening into life again, it raised that flesh and bone again, and in the raising again it was made spiritual, and so became capable to ascend above the stars, where he now is in that same body which he suffered death in; so that Christ cannot be in every man's body, not in his spiritual person and essence, but he may dwell in all men's hearts by faith, though he be not in the world at all; if men have but so much faith as to believe that flesh of Christ to be the flesh of God, and that blood of his to be the blood of God; this is to eat his flesh, and drink his blood, and so they shall never die, that is, that eternal death; so that it is not the light of Christ within a man that will deliver from eternal death, but faith in the person of Christ without a man. This I know to be truth, I being one of the two last chosen witnesses of the Spirit, to declare what the form and nature of the true God is, the form and nature of the right devil; the place and nature of hell; and the right heaven; the person and nature of angels; the mortality of the soul; with many other heavenly mysteries which do arise from the knowledge of these six heads, which hath been declared in our writings, which I do suppose you cannot be ignorant of, and you being of that form, and others of the Quakers; therefore, by virtue of my commission, I am moved to write these lines unto you, I knowing that the Quakers are led and guided by the spirit of Antichrist, which is nothing else

but the devil transformed into an angel of light; but that light within them being darkness, it is the greatest darkness of all the seven churches.

And though you in that way do seem to be the most pure in shew and righteousness of life, yet your righteousness of life is but legal, which is nothing else but the righteousness of the law, which no flesh shall be justified by; for that which you call the light of Christ within you, is nothing else but the light of the moral law which is written in your seed and nature, which is reason, which doth cause your thoughts to accuse and excuse, which is no other but what the heathens had before the law was given to Moses; but as for the righteousness of faith, you Quakers are totally ignorant of, and so not being justified by faith, you cannot have peace with God.

Therefore do not you think that the righteousness of life can save you, for it is but the righteousness of the law; and though you ought not to leave this righteousness of the law undone, because it is good amongst men, but nothing but faith in the true God, and that righteousness that flows from it. can justify the mind, and give true peace as to eternal happiness, which is impossible you Quakers should have, seeing you deny the object of faith, which is the body and flesh and bone of God.

I write not these lines unto you as expecting you to decline your principle, for you are too deeply riveted in that lie to come to truth; yet because you shall be left without excuse, I have written these lines unto you, that you may know there is a true prophet now in England, which hath declared truth unto you, or set life and death before you; but it is the nature of your principle to chuse death rather than life; therefore, by virtue, power and authority

« السابقةمتابعة »