What have you done less than he, who have valued the fears of the loss of some of the goods of this world more than a good conscience, and faith towards God, which gives the assurance of eternal life, which I am certain you will lose the sense of? Neither will your mess of pottage be any bigger for what you have done, but rather the less; for it must be as Christ said in another case, he that is willing to lose his life shall save it; so, on the contrary, you that are willing to save your mess of pottage, you shall lose it. For I say, it is hard for the devil to get a mess of pottage in this world as it is for the saint, let them bow down e'er so much; for you will see, in a short time, what profit it will be unto you in this world. Neither will you eat your mess of pottage with that peace of mind as you had before; for this art of yours, it will be as gall and wormwood in your pottage; it will be worse than playing at cards, and being drunk, or all the sins that you committed in the days of your ignorance. For God was always more angry at Israel's worshipping a false God, than any other sin whatsoever; because other sins were infirmities of nature, which nature cannot avoid, it being naturally prone unto it. But this bowing down to worship that which you know to be false, neither do you do it because you own it to be truth, but only through slavish fear of suffering some loss in this world; which thing is worse seven times than if you had owned it to be the true worship of God, as other people do.

Therefore do not deceive yourselves, and count it your liberty, as if you had more liberty in point of worship, by this commission of the Spirit, than the rest of the believers have; for some of the believers of this commission have suffered more in their outward

estates than ever you would have done, yet they have thought themselves happy in that they kept their hearts pure and undefiled from that spiritual whoredom to worship a false God, or bow to the false worship, contrary to the faith they have in this commission of the Spirit: for if all the believers of this commission of the Spirit should do as you have done, it would be but a vain thing for them to dispute or plead for the doctrine of the true God, and the right devil, with many other heavenly mysteries, which no other forms of worship do know. And as you have been instruments to publish and make known this doctrine, which thing was a crown of honour upon your heads, but now you have done the greatest dishonour to this commission of the Spirit that could be done; so that your glory will be your shame. For it will be but a vain thing for you to profess any faith in this commission of the Spirit any more; for I shall never own you as I did before; neither can I have that love and affection for truth's sake, as I had before; neither do I care for ever seeing you any more. Yet I shall bear the shame of it, and though you should all of you fall, so that I should be left alone, as Elijah was, yet my faith shall bear me up. And if you find the same peace as you did when you lived in the obedience of faith of this commission of the Spirit, then hath God revealed no truth unto

me.

I shall say no more, but leave you to the worship of the nation, and as fallen from the true faith in the true God.

LODOWICKE MUGGLETON,

One of the two last Prophets unto the true God

London, August 29, 1663.

A Copy of a Letter written by the Prophet Lodowicke Muggleton, to Christopher Hill, Sept. 23, 1663.

Loving Friend, Christopher Hill,

I RECEIVED yours, with the letter inclosed, wherein I perceive that your family is afflicted with the small-pox. If I should say I am sorry for it, it would not ease you e'er the more; for these things are natural to all, and falls all alike to all. So that time puts an end to all diseases, and to life itself. So that death and life is always at strife one with the other, and so it will be as long as the world doth endure. But when time shall be swallowed up into eternity, then shall there be no more death to the seed of faith, nor no more life to the seed of reason; for death shall swallow up the seed of reason's life and heaven into that eternal death. So on the contrary, the seed of faith's life shall swallow up that death and hell into eternal life. For great is the power of faith and the power of reason. The one goes into the power of death and drunkenness, and the other into the power of life and light eternal.

It is well, and I am glad that you are so stedfast in your faith, notwithstanding the last proclamation. I wish you may hold out to the end, and not do as others have done, to put your hand to the plough, and look back; that is, to worship God in spirit and truth, according to the faith of this commission of the Spirit, and then to turn back to the worship of the nation, either to gain or save a suit of apparel, which is but a mess of pottage. And as for you, mother Wyld, if that were her excuse, as you have written, for her

going to church to try their spirits, and finding the priest to be a devil, and therefore she would not hear him any more; it is but a poor excuse, not so good as Adam's fig-leaves were to cover his nakedness.

Now I cannot tell whose spirits she went to try, whether the saint's spirits, or the devil's spirits; but let it be which she will, she went the wrong way to try spirits: For if she went to try the devil's spirits, it was that which they did desire; so that the devil tried her spirit to make her fall down and worship him, even as he did unto Christ; so that Christ did not try the devil, but the devil tried him. And if Christ had yielded to the devil's temptation, as she hath done, what would have become of us all, his own faith and power, and the faith of the elect? There would have been havock and shipwreck made of it, and the devil would have been more than a conqueror, as he hath been in those three. And if she did it to try the spirits of the weak saints, that was as much as to tempt the spirit of truth. For when the apostle bad the believers in his time try the spirits, whether they were of God, or no, it was not that they should turn back again to the worship of the law, for to encourage the devils, that their worship is right, and to weaken the faith of the saints. This is not the right way of trying of spirits: they had better have set their own faith to have been tried by the devil's, like gold in the fire. I am sure it would have yielded them more peace here, and more glory hereafter, and as good a livelihood in this world as they will now have.

And as for her knowing the priest to be a devil, she knew that many years before she came to own this commission. She need not to have gone to church to have known that; for she knew all the priests of the

nation, and of all sorts, were false, and not sent of God. And as for her peace and satisfaction, I shall let that alone: Yet this I am sure of, if faith hath not its perfect work in the soul, there cannot be that perfect peace. Neither did I slight her faithfulness to this commission, but did honour her upon that account more than all in that country; which the fall of her hath done more mischief to the commission of the Spirit, than all the rest besides: for if she and they had not been declared blessed by John Reeve, I should not have mattered it so much; for I always had a great respect to those which John Reeve did bless, in case I did approve of them. And it was well that Claxton was not declared blessed, either by John Reeve, or myself; if he had, I should not have excommunicated him for ever, as he now is. But I see what a confusion there will be with the believers of this commission when I am dead: For almost all those that disadhere unto John Reeve, are some dead, and many of the rest fallen away from that stedfastness of faith; but blessed and happy are they who hold out to the end. She might have said to bear it with patience, had she given no cause: For I do never use to write so sharply without a cause ; for I was always naturally inclined to moderation, patience, and long-suffering with such weaknesses in the saints, which I know John Reeve would never have done nor borne.

But in points of worship, God himself, and all prophets and apostles, were angry at; for that is as the apple of God's eye: and all the controversy in the whole world, persecution, killing and slaying, all about worship, from Cain and Abel, in the beginning of the world, even to this day, and to the end of the world, and so forth.

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