TO THE People at and about STAFFORD, A Testimony for God and his Truth, and against Deceit and Deceivers, especially the Hireling Priests, as a Warning, Information & Instruction in Righteousness, to them (and all People elsewhere concerned) by the Spirit of the Lord in his Suffering Servant Thomas Taylor.  
Hear, O People, and Fear; for the LORD hath spoken:  
THE false Teacher, the Hireling, who hath run and God never sent him, but preaches for Hire and divines for Money, can never profit your Souls, O people, at all; but with their false Dreams, and lying Divinations, and empty Sounds, they deceive your poor Souls: For what can the dead words of a dead man (dead in Sins) raise up your dead Souls from Death to Life: No, they cannot; they have no Life in them; and such who have no spiritual Health for Soundness (by their own Confession) in them, but are miserable Offenders, can they minister any healthful or sound Doctrine to your Souls; nay, those cannot; for, what is their Chaff to the Wheat, their frothy Words to the powerful Word of God; for, sow a Field with Chaff, and what a Crop can you expect; but as the Prophet saith, They sow the Wind, and reap the Whirlwind: So cease from them, you that love God and your own Souls, and turn to God: for I testify for God, That the True Ministry, the Soulsaving Ministry of Christ Jesus is not with the Parish-Hirelings of these days; for neither their long black Robes, nor long white Surplices, nor their humane Learning, nor the Ordination of Man, men of like nature with themselves, doth any more conduce to the making of them able Ministers of the new Covenant, the Gospel of Christ, the Everlasting Covenant of God, than the grey or brown Coat of the Ploughman, or Artificer, or the Skill of the Husbandman in Husbandry, or the Cunning of the cunning Worker in Wood, Brass or Iron doth furnish them for Gospel-service; for the Vision of God's Kingdom to all the world this day, both wise and foolish, is like a Book sealed, as the Prophet saith, which is given to the worldly wise to read, and he cannot read it, because it's sealed; and to the foolish, and he cannot read it, because he is unlearned, Isa. 29. 10, 11, 12. so though in the world there is a difference betwixt the wise and foolish, yet as to the Kingdom of God there is none; for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, 1 Cor. 1. 10, etc. for that which lieth hid from all flesh, God reveals to his by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God, 1 Cor. 3. 6, 7, 8. And people, the time of quickening and raising up of many that were dead in sins is come again, after a long Night of Darkness, and the dead this day hear the Voice of the Son of God (not of vain man) and they that hear do live, John 5. 25. so people, look to your Souls; for though your Parish-Teachers, who preach for Hire, and divine for Money, and love to go in their long & white Robes, do boast of their being come out of Popery, yet upon the Popish Maintenance of Tithes, Glebe-lands, Easter Reckonings, Mortuaries, and moneys for preaching over and burying the Dead, and such like things they live and make a Prey upon, not willing to come to Christ (to this day) as the first Christians did, for a thorough Reformation; and so, not a little, but a great deal of the old, sour, popish Leven being yet found amongst them, both in Doctrine and Practice; how should their whole lump but be very sour? as appears by their Fruits, and the Fruits of such as follow them: and so, for witnessing in Christ against them for these evil things I suffer Imprisonment; yet for God's Mercy enabling me thereunto I rejoice, and can truly from my heart praise the Lord, that hath delivered my Soul from that horrible Pit, that these ungodly men yet remain in, and will not be helped out of.  
And people of Stafford, for your sakes it was that the Lord by my Mouth rebuked the Hireling, that you might not always be deceived and kept in death with such Dreamers; but that you might turn to the Lord God, from all such, to know his word and spirit, that made you, in you, to teach you, and to lead your Immortal Souls to the Springs of living Waters; for you have too long dwelled in the wilderness of sin, ignorance and unbelief, and now it is high time for you to repent, and come to know the Baptism of the holy Ghost & Fire, which is Christ's proper Baptism, Mat. 3. 10, 11, 12. for, alas! you have but hitherto been carried on by the Pharisees in the outward shadows and figures of things, which reach not the soul, to purify and perfect it unto God, ●nd therefore is the Lord come in mighty Power this day, to break in sunder all the graven Images of the people, whether under the Profession of the Popish or Protestant Religion; for the Lord is on his Throne, to make all things new again, as in the beginning, when all the sons of God in holiness sung for Joy, and rejoiced in the Lord, for the blessed victory they had got through the Blood of the Lamb over all their souls Enemies.  
But Woe and Alas for you, the poor people of Stafford, and of many other places, who are under the Teachings of worldly-minded men, miserable Offenders, like yourselves, always doing what ye should not do, & leaving undone what ye should do, & so without all spiritual health, in the miserable captivity of sin; my soul mourns for you, & my Sufferings are for you, & my soul prays for you, that you may be recovered out of the snare of your souls enemy, by which ye are led captive at his will; for many days & years hath my soul mourned for you, and been oppressed, and the Lord hath called to you early and late to Repent, and lay things to heart; but, O the hardness of many of your hearts, and the carelessness of the rest! O, why will ye die? why will ye linger, and remain still in spiritual Sodom and Egypt, where the Witnesses lay slain, Rev. 11? So whilst ye have time, prise it, lest the Lord lay you upon a Bed of Sorrows, where no Ease is, and say unto you in his Wrath, I gave them time to Repent, and they Repent not.  
In the year 79. T. T.   

HEAR the Word of the Lord, all you that fear to offend the Lord, and who breath after Righteousness in any measure, and yet in your Ignorance are seeking the Living among the Dead, the Living God in Dead Observations, which by Tradition you have received one from another, and not from the Lord Jesus. The Day is come, wherein by the Spirit of Jesus it is witnessed in and by his living Members, That he that was dead is now alive, and lives forever more, and is ascended for above all Heavens, and out of all Figures and Shadows, that he might fill all things with his holy Substance: And as in former days he gave some Apostles, some Prophets, some Evangelists, and some Pastors and Teachers, for the perfecting of the Saints, for the Work of the Ministry, for the edifying of the Body of Christ, till we all (saith the Apostle) to wit, the Heavenly Body not the Body of Sinful Earthly Flesh) come in the Unity of the Faith, and the Knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect Man, unto the Measure of the Stature and fullness of Christ, Ephes. 4. 11, 12, 13. Even so the Lord is now giving forth of his Spirit to his Children, born of his Spirit, for enabling them in this Day of the Restitution of all things, for the Work of the Ministry, for the perfecting of the Saints, and fitting them for Glory; and this now after a long Night of Darkness and Desolation, is to the Praise of his Glory, who hath made us in this his blessed Day, as he did his Faithful Followers in the Beginning, accepted in the Beloved, to show forth his Praises to Ages to come, whom he will also raise up by Christ Jesus, together with us, to magnify his Mercies for evermore.  
But that the Parish Teachers of these times, who Preach for Hire, and Divine for Money, loving to be called of Men Master; and like the Pharisees of old, love to go in Long Robes, and receive Honour one of another, John 5. are such, to wit, so given of Christ, and begifted from Heaven, and fitted for so great a Work, as to perfect the Saints, as those before (in Ephes. 4) mentioned were, I utterly deny, and their Fruits, as also the Fruits of their Hearers make manifest that they are of another Sort, Seed and Generation, even such as the Prophet Jeremiah speaks of and declares against, who have run, and God never sent them; For why? they waited not for the Word of God to speak in them and by them, but stole the Words from their Neighbour, and used their Tongues to say, The Lord saith, when the Lord never spoke by them, (Jer. 23. 30.) and therefore, saith the Lord, these Teachers shall not profit the People at all (Vers. 32.) For what are their Chaffy Words to the Word of God? (Vers. 28.) So the Teachers of the Parishes this day get into the Pulpit with the Words of the Prophets and Apostles in their Hand, and Sin in their Hearts, as those other did, dreaming over them for Filthy Luere, & cry to the People, BELOVED, (yea, Beloved, because they put into their Mouths) Hear the Word of the Lord, as you shall find it written in such a Chapter, and such a Verse, when the Lord never spoke to these Hirelings, nor sent them thus to preach, but they are Men made Ministers, Men of the Evil world, and great Lovers and Pleaders for it, and therefore the world hears them, 1 John 4. 5. But the true Messenger of Christ saith for himself and his Brethren, We are of God, and the whole world lieth in Wickedness. And saith Christ to his Disciples, Ye are not of the World, as I am not of the World; for if you were of the World, the World would love you; for the World loves its own; but now I have chosen you out of the World, therefore the World hates you, John 15. 18, 19  
So all people fear the Lord God; for the Name of Christians, without the Nature of Christ, will do you no good at all; for the Lord is come to search all that called Christendom with Candles, and to pull down the lofty Hearts and Looks of all amongst them called Christians first, and then of all the World besides; for now is the Lord exalting his great Name over all, as in the Beginning, before the Antichrist, Beast, False Prophet and Whore got up; and who shall stop the Passage of this mighty Jehovah, in the great Work of setting up his Kingdom over all the Kingdoms of the Man of Sin, that the Kingdoms of this World may become the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose Right alone it is to Rule and Reign, according to that Saying in the Prophet, I will Overturn, Overturn, Overturn, till he come to Rule whose Right it is.  
And now woe and Misery begins to take hold of all Hypocrites, and all the Wicked, because of the arising and appearing of the great God from Heaven this day, who is on his Throne, judging in Righteousness, and in Righteousness making War, whose Fiery Word, his Two-edged Sword, goes out of his Mouth, not only to discover, but also to destroy and consume the Man of Sin in all the Earth. And now the Hireling Teachers of all sorts, the Merchants of Mystery Babylon, shall cry, Alas! alas! that great City, People begin to see us, and they will not trade with us, nor buy our Merchandise, as in former days, but declare against it; see Revel. 18. 10, 11. O, yea; it cannot be otherwise; for now the Witnesses, that lay slain in the Streets of the great City, Sodom and Egypt, spiritually so called, are arisen, and stand upon their Feet, praised be God. And now Judgement is given to the Saints of the Most High God, Dan. 7. 12, 25, 26, 27. So that though the great Antichrist, under many shapes and appearances, ha●h spoken great words against God, his Truth and People, and hath oppressed the Saints; yet now the Judgement of God being set against him, his Dominion shall be consumed and destroyed, and the Saints of the Most High God shall have Dominion, and Reign with Christ, whose Kingdom is an Everlasting Kingdom, and all Dominions shall serve and obey him, to wit, our Lord Jesus Christ, for whose blessed Name and Truth's sake, the Holy Tremblers, who Tremble at his Word, and follow him in the Regeneration, do this day suffer; it is so.  
In the Year 16●7 T. T.  
THE END.