A Cure of deadly Doctrine; Which is death in the Pot: OR Mr. Roils Light proved to be Darkness.  By J. G. a lover and a Member of the holy Army of God, although the most unworthy. 
SIR;  
YOur Glimpse of some truths, as you call it, is a mysting and darkening of the clear light of the Scriptures; an adding to and taking from the testimonies and Books of the Prophecies of God, which whosoever doth is to bring upon him all the plagues that are written therein, and to deprive himself of his part in the book of life, and in the holy City, and of all the precious things that are written in God's Records.  
And first for the general title of your Paper, it is palpably false, to ascribe to your particular matters the name of truths, and to be made known in these last times; when as many in London know them all to be old German errors. The first publisher we read of, who plainly & openly professed them, was David George, & one Henry nichols, sometimes a tradesman in Holland, who through pride fell to gross and strange delusions of Satan, and printed many blasphemons tenants in divers small books, known by several titles, As the Gospel of the Kingdom; The Prophecy of the Spirit of love; the Proverbs of H. N. The glass of Righteousness; and divers others; many of them being lately reprinted; as, The Revelation of God; The spiritual King of P●…; and the Prophecy of the Spirit of Love; in all of them setting forth himself to be greater than Jesus Christ our Lord: having these expressions in one of his books; There is eight through break of the light, and each one exceeding the other, and the last the greatest; in which number he makes Jesus Christ the seventh, and himself the eight: and as Jesus of Nazareth was greater than all, or any before him, so himself H. N. to excel, in all manner of gifts and graces, our Saviour Christ; for he saith, Christ is no other in the Scripture then Anointing, and in that he himself exceeded. And the Names also that are given in Scripture to Christ only, by them he calls himself; as, the Son of God, the holy One of Israel, etc.  
And now to your three particulars; and first of the first; how you can prove your affirmation by Scripture or reason, that all the offices, gifts, and ordinances given to the Apostles were figurative; these are your own words, and I shall keep you close to them; for he that makes error his Proposition, can make no better of his Conclusion: I confess, the term Ordinances, as you expound them to be the Supper of the Lord, and Elements Baptism, are figurative; but how you will prove the other two terms, offices and gifts figurative, it is very doubtful to conceive; for if you mean the office of an Apostle, Deacon, Evangelist, Bishop, Elder, Overseer, or any other office mentioned in the New Testament, then how are they figurative. And by gifts, if you mean, as the Apostle doth, 1 Cor. 1 2. the manifold gifts of the Spirit, some peculiar to the Saints alone, who are spiritual, & others common to all believers, although carnal; then how in either respect are they figurative? for in right reason of ordinary expression, a figure cannot be the thing itself, but some other thing that hath in it the resemblance of the substance it signifies; as in Circumcision, the Passeover, the Brazen Serpent, the Manna, the Sacrifices, the Priesthood, the washing away the filth of the flesh, and the Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper.  
Again, I require of you to show in right distinction and sound understanding, ●● what respect the Apostles gif●●▪ and those with them that had received the gifts of ●he Holy Ghost, descending on them at Jerusalem, Acts 2. that th●se should be weak in their gifts and dispensations, compared with those after them in St Pauls ●●me, and now in our time▪ ●● you seems to prove it by Rom. 8. 18. If you have not a new way to clear this, the Scriptures will make it very soul against you.  
Again, where do you read●, that the coming of Christ in the flesh, put an end to all the Ceremonies of the Law, to them of whom they were required? And how can you prove, that the promise of his coming again is fulfilled, in the sending, giving, or pouring forth of his Spirit; I hope you hold the distinction of the persons in the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, neither confounding the persons▪ Excellencies, or Offices of either, so that these Appellations are only proper to the Son, and not to the Father, or Spirit▪ Th' 〈…〉 y ●o●●●, this day have I begotten thee: Again, The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, thou art a Priest for ever, etc. Again, The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou a● my right hand, etc. Again, Whom t 〈…〉 s must contain, or receive▪ till the restitution of all things, etc. And again▪ As you have see●● him go, so shall you see him come. Now observe, it is said, he shall come, ●● is no● said, the Father, or the Spirit; wherefore do you strain the Text? And whereas the Lord saith▪ ●● will send the Spirit, he doth not say nor meant, he will send himself; for as he hath assumed the humane nature, and exalted it ●● Gods right hand, even so there he i● to abide and continue till the time appointed of his return. Likewise other Scriptures speaks properly of the Father, and not of the Son, nor Spirit; as this is properly spoken of the Spirit, and not of the Father, nor the Son; therefore vain and incredulous is it to affirm, that Christ's sending his Spirit to his Church, is his second coming, or coming again to them according to the Scriptures, Joh. 14. 2, 3. Heb. 9 28. Matth. 16. 27. Luk. 19 11, 12. etc.  
Friend, if I may call you so, take heed how you expound Scriptures; for th●● to affirm, as you have done, is to abuse the Scriptures; and to force, violate, injure, wound and kill the Witnesses of God, which whosoever doth, shall perish and be slain by them, Rev. 11. 5. For fi●e proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth, saith the Text such enemies: The truth is, when a Christian wants his principles and beginnings of Christ, and yet will take upon himself to be a Teacher in Christianity; he is like the Martiner that takes upon him the office of a Pilot, and yet understands not the Art of Navigation; for to know the common terms, without the perfect skill in the mystery, by the theoric or by the practic, the more he acts, the farther he engages the Ship to destruction, notwithstanding all his pretences to the contrary.  
Sir, Blame me not thus to charge you, for you prove yourself to be the unskilful Christian, as in what is past, so in that which is to come; for you using the term Baptism, and not rightly distinguishing in the different acceptation thereof; you make that obscure in your reasonings, which otherwise were plain in the holy Scriptures, comparing Scripture with Scripture; for there is a Baptism of Water in the Element, and a Baptism of Water in the Mystery; and John the Baptist and St Paul with all the Apostles and servants of God were more conversant in this last signification of Water, then in the first; and this last hath differing meanings also; as sometimes repentance, sometimes remission of sins, and sometimes the gifts of the Holy Ghost, as I have elsewhere proved largely; therefore well saith he that is Worthy, It is the definition, not the names of things by which they are rightly known: and you being not skilful to define, to distinguish, and divide between things that differ, make as false constructions in the second part of your Paper, as in the first; for although therein you have a seeming pretence of a Christians spiritual death and resurrection, which rightly understood, is a truth, yet the thing you aim and drive at to reveal under these specious pretences, is to deny the resurrection of the natural body; for these are your own words, I deny that to be a truth, speaking of the resurrection of the natural body, page the ninth.  
To which error of the Sadduces and Familists, I say thus much, that the Scriptures affirm plainly, that the natural body is sown, that is, buried in the earth; which natural body at the resurrection shall be raised a spiritual body, 1 Cor. 15. 44. And if there be no resurrection of the dead, saith the Apostle, then is Christ not risen, that is, his body is not risen, and if Christ be not risen, saith he, then is our preaching vain, and your faith also vain, Vers. 13, 14. Now to wave your Allegory of Christ's Sepulchre, as also of his death and resurrection, making it a fancy; for although there be a spiritual death and resurrection in the regenerate, daily to die to, and arise from sin, and live to righteousness, yet there was no such thing in Jesus Christ, which was, and is, the King of life and righteousness, the Author and giver of life, the brightness and glory, the express image of the Father, from all eternity, and to all eternity. And notwithstanding the Saints spiritual death and resurrection, which is in, by, and through Christ, Col. 2. 12. yet this doth not nullify and take away their natural death, nor bodily resurrection to life and perfection at the last day; for as the first is by the power and voice of God spiritual in our regeneration, through the operation of God, so the resurrection of our bodies out of the graves, is by the same power and voice, to incorruption, life, and salvation, Joh. 5. 25, 26. and vers. 28, 29.  
This your allegorising Doctrine doth not only destroy the Faith of some in particular, but it overthrows the whole Doctrine of faith itself, which was once delivered unto the Saints, and turns the true and faithful witness, who once was dead, but now is alive, and liveth for evermore, into a lie, a fancy, or conceit, imagining another meaning then what is real and substantial, of his conception, birth, childhood, full age, temptations, fastings, preaching miracles, his being accused and apprehended by the Jews, his being adjudged and condemned by Pilate, his crucifixion, his death and burial, his lying three days in the grave, his resurrection and ascension, and now his sitting at the right hand of the Father; to deny the literal sense and substance of all these things, and to turn them to allegories, and other meanings, as they shall severally imagine or fancy, is to deny the Lord that bought them, whatsoever glosses and fair pretences soever they make.  
I proceed now to the third part of your Paper, the day of Judgement, as you call it, what it is, and when it shall be: and here you say, you will lay open such a mystery as hath been hid from many ages, but hath showed itself to you within these few days, which is as false as the former I condemned; for these depths of Satan are not of yesterday birth and manifestation, but are ancient and of long continuance; and their Books are extant, although those of your delusion have endeavoured to buy up all they could me●… withal heretofore, that they might have the more credit to affirm a lie, in calling these visions of their own hearts, new Lights, as if never heard of, nor known before: And therefore you much mistook to speak of yourself as the only man to be acquainted with this Revelation; for what think you of Doctor Everit, D. G. Master del, Master Saltmarsh, Master P●rdig, Master Randall, Master Den, and Master Galtorne, and many more preachers tha● maintain the same delusion and mistake with yourself; besides Lords and Ladies, and many thousands amongst the common people.  
But to your present matter, you boldly affirm to your friends, as you call them, that the coming and day of Christ is spiritual; And for proof hereof, you say that Eliah the Prophet, spoken of by Malachi, Chap. 3. 1. is that spiritual Appearance of Christ in us, and that Eliah is he that shall suddenly come to his Temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant, his coming being now in the Spirit, as he saith; and the Spirits presence is the dreadful day of the Lord, consuming and burning up all fleshly excellency in us, destroying the son of the bondwoman, which he expounds to be creature-wisdome and darkness in us: Here's his relation of the Scripture, and his exposition also.  
Now how contrary he is to the truth of the Text, let all that hear, judge; for he makes Eliah, and the Messenger of the Covenant to be one and the same, whereas the Spirit of God shows the contrary, proving thereby that Mr Roils spirit is a spirit of contradiction to God's holy Spirit; for thus saith the Lord of truth himself; If you will receive it, this is Elias that was to com●, Matth. 1●. Proving it was John the Baptist of whom the Prophet Malachi spoke, both of Person and Office, to prepare the way of the Lord, which Lord is called the Messenger of the Covenant; for although there be many Messengers, yet there is but one that can be said to be the Messenger, who indeed is the only Author and bringer of light and salvation. Now for this Impostor to turn the Offices and Persons of our Lord, and his forerunner John the Baptist, that great Prophet, whom none before him amongst all the holy Prophets of God since the world began, exceeded in spiritual power and efficacy: I say, to turn this Almighty God, and this great and extraordinary servant, into spiritual appearances of a fancied conceit, is to cross, ruinated, and destroy, both the body and spirit, the letter and meaning of the Text of Scriptures, and what a cursed thing it is, the Records of God declare.  
But as a man distracted doth no sooner pass one danger but presently ●uns into another, so this blind Leader proceeds to farther error, for he falsifies the seventh Verse of the 114. Psalms, in making that an allegorical mystery, that is a plain literal history, by bringing Israel out of Egypt through God's wonderful and almighty power, in dividing the great Sea, and the swelling River Jord●n, that the hi●l● and mountains removed, melted▪ and fled away, the massi● and huge Earth trembled a● the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob. And further he shames not to affirm contrary to the consent of Scriptures, that before this earthly Tabernacle be put off which we bear about u●, when Christ saith he comes in the Spirit to reign within u●, than all his enemies are made his footstool: which notwithstanding his fancy, it shall not be truly so, as faith the Prophet and Apostle, till the end of this world, when Christ's Mediatorship shall be finished, not ●i●l the Lords return in the Clouds of Heaven, with ten thousands of his Sa●n●●, for the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with the voice of the Archangel, and with the Trump of God; and then, and not before, shall the dead in Christ arise ●u● of the Earth, & then shall the Lord execute judgement upon all ungodly sinners, of all their h●rd speeches wherewith they have spoken against him. And Mr Roylie, I sp●ake seririously to you, and desire you would let my words take place in your heart, except you repent of this writing, which you seem to glory in, you will be found an enemy to Christ, and guilty of hard false, and evil speeches against him; to turn all the holy history of him, his person, office, reign, and kingdom, with the reality of all of them, into a deceitful mystery.  
And those real truths of his incarnation, death, resurrection▪ ascension, and intercession, to turn these also into saigned allegories of your own devifing, even imagining all things, past and to come, to be present, and to be ●u●●i●d in our bodies before o●r dissolution, all things that are written from the beginning of the world unto the end; and that we, that is, the first Adam, become Abel, and Enoch, and ●●a●, and Abraham, and Moses: And so Christ the second Adam, and all things of him and them, in us fulfilled from his conception to his ascension, to be s●t at the right hand of the Father: N●y, which is more, that his coming again in the Clouds, the general resurrection, and great day of Judgement, and the world to come, also that all these things should be in this life here, and fulfilled in u●▪ i● a blasphemy beyond comparison; for in setting up your Idoll-phansie, of wicked invented Allegories, never heard of, nor taught by the Word of God, for these inventions of you and your generation, as it doth deny the Messiah in the true understanding of him, and also it doth obscure and exclude all the heavenly benefits by him, as the clear Doctrine of the Gospel of repentance and remission of sins, with the hope of salvation, purchased by his own blood, and to be preached in his Name; and also you show yourself to be wholly ignorant of the estate of a true Christian in his spiritual birth and heireship, and of the hope of glory in him to be entered into, and possessed at the Resurrection, called in Scriptures the inheritance, the purchased possession and salvation. The more you give credit to these delusions, the more impossible is it for you to come to see the truth, the strait way of the Lord: for your wo●d of light and truth, as you call it, is gross blasphemy against God, blaspheming his Name and his Tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven: Wherefore never write nor speak any more for it; and finally, remember what is written: Add● tho● not to God's Word, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar, Pro. 30. 6.  
And as God's Word binds me ●o dissuade you from your error, so it doth likewise command me to persuade all my Christian friends to take heed and beware of the great deceit of this dangerous doctrine, of which there is no● the like in the world; for in terms it grants unto you all the substantial truths that are; as God and man, Nature and grace, the new man and the old, thi● lif● and that to come, the spiritual resurrection and that of the body, mortification and vivification, repentance and remission of sins, the present time and that hereafter, suffering and triumphing: which in the trial will prove but a dream, as it is indeed. That man is cheated with ● shadow for the substance, that dreams he hath rich and costly food▪ when it is nothing but a fancy, and when he awakes he feels it to be so by his hunger. Now there is no cheer to the cheer of the understanding; for a man to be cheated of his meat, he may get more for his money, if of his horse, he may go aloof, or buy one, if of his money, he may labour for more; but that man that is cheated of his understanding, is wholly left without all manner of remedy, so is he that is cheated of the true knowledge of the way of life, and mystery of salvation.  
By John Grant.   

London; Printed by M. S. for John Handcock in Popes-head-alley, 1649.