The COPY of a LETTER Written by Mr. Thomas Parker, Pastor of the Church of Newbury in NEW-ENGLAND, TO His Sister, Mrs Elizabeth Avery, Sometimes of Newbury in the County of BERKS, Touching sundry OPINIONS BY HER Professed and Maintained.  

Novemb. 22. 1649.  
Imprimatur  
JOHN DOWNAME.   
London, Printed by John Field for Edmund Paxton, at Pauls-Chain, over against the Castle Tavern, near the Doctor's Commons. 1650.   

The Epistle to the Reader.  
BEsides this ensuing Letter, I have also received other Letters to my dear Friend Mrs Avery (which for sundry Reasons are not Printed) from Mr. Cotton, Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Noyes; all which bear the like aspect as this Letter doth, in opposition to her Opinions herein Refuted; That (if so be the will of God) she may be reduced to her former Faith and Profession, from which she is so strangely turned away. I forbear to acquaint the Reader with the transcendent worth of the Reverend Author of this Letter; partly, because I know it will be unacceptable to him, and unnecessary, in respect of them that have any knowledge of him; and partly, because I am unwilling to follow the Devil's method in these days of Error, who by raising an admiration of men's persons in the hearts of the simple, disposeth them to a present compliance with their pernicious Doctrines: Such flattery is below the gravity of a spirit established in the Faith of Christ, whose Genius it is, not to glory in Man, forasmuch as whether Paul, or Apollo, or Cephas, all is yours, 1 Cor. 3.21,22.  
Benjamin Woodbridge.   

To my very loving Sister, Mrs Elizabeth Avery.  
LOving Sister, for yet you are my Sister according to the flesh, and I am not yet without hope, but that you are my Sister according to the Spirit; for it is possible, that God may bring you back again from your Heretical Opinions. The Lord of his mercy grant, That what I shall now write, may be acceptable unto you, and may be effectually prevalent for your seasonable reduction, that you may not die away in this lamentable Belief. You will not come to Ordinances, nor willingly join in private Prayer with your own Husband, but only to condescend to his infirmities; for you say you are above Ordinances, above the Word and Sacraments, yea above the Blood of Christ himself, living as a glorified Saint, and taught immediately by the Spirit. Who would have thought or dreamt, that such expressions should have ever come out of the mouth of Sister Avery? What will you make yourself to be? What, higher than Moses and any of the Prophets, above the holy Apostles and Primitive Saints, which all were under Ordinances? What, higher than Christ himself, who subjected himself to Ordinances while he was upon the Earth? 
Acts 2.  Did not Christ, when he ascended up on high, institute Ordinances for this end, that by them his Saints and Churches, and all of them without exception, should be builded up until his second coming? 
Eph. 4.  Surely then, if you will not be at Ordinances, public and private, you forsake the way of Christ, and withdraw yourself from the way and means of Edification by him, and Communion with him by the Spirit: And what manner of Christian will you make yourself to be? For all the Saints and Churches, from the Apostles until this time, have constantly subjected themselves to the Ordinances of Christ, as Histories do show, and the Prophecies in the Revelation. What can you say, to prove that Christ will bring forth Christians in this age, differing from all that went before? You go the very ready way to exclude yourself from the sheepfold, and from among the sheep of Christ, when you do exclude yourself from Ordinances, and from the common way and path of all Saints; yea, and the glorious Church of New-Jerusalem, to be raised up in the last time, is said to be builded upon the Foundation of the twelve Apostles, namely, upon their Doctrine, and in way of the holy Ordinances instituted by them. You cannot possibly say, That you are above the glorious Church of New-Jerusalem; whose glory here, is the height of grace upon the earth. But it is marvellous that you are not afraid to say, That you have more of the Spirit than the Apostles: Be not offended that I tell you, This is a horrible delusion of Satan, and Luciferian pride: Why do you not then dictate Oracles immediately from Heaven? Why do you not infallibly Prophesy of the Times? Why do you not work Miracles as they did? Did any of the holy Martyrs ever say so, or think and do as you? The time was when you honoured the memory of them, and could humble yourself to their imitation. But that is above the rest, That you are above the Blood of Christ: Surely Satan, the cunning hunter of souls, doth labour to divide you from Christ, and from his Blood, that you should have no share at all in him, when he moveth you to conceive, and utter such things: Saints are never above the Blood of Christ; they are kept and maintained by his Blood, even in their glorified estate, as well as thereby promoted thereunto: And if the Blood of Christ doth not keep you here on earth, and wash you daily, and further you on in the way of all Grace, and in opposition to Sin and Satan, you shall certainly never enjoy his presence and communion in the world to come. To put the Blood of Christ out of the honour of employment, and not to depend upon it, is a fearful way to be utterly rejected: Christ of his mercy preserve you, dear Sister. But I may say with Isaiah, Stand and wonder, they are drunken, but not with wine; Is any such language to be found in any corner of the Scripture? or did any of the Apostles ever say they were above the Blood of Christ? would they not have defied such a speech?  
But unto all this you add, That Christ hath no humane body; and that he shall not appear to the world any more in a visible manner; that his second coming is his coming in his Saints, whereby they are taken up into the nature of God, and are as truly Christ, as Christ himself, and partake in the fullness of the Godhead no less than Christ; yea, that they are one with God, their very Being is God: Dreadful to think upon, much more to speak, or write, or meditate upon; Who hath bewitched you, that you should fall into such Errors? Hardly any in the world, which have known you in former time, would have thought or dreamt, that you should ever have fallen so deeply from your Faith: If this be your New Light, God preserve me, and all good people from it. But you will say, I am in darkness, and you in light, and that I am no meet Judge; The time was you would not so say: But if you question it now, how shall it be tried? Is not the Scripture to be our Rule? To the Law and to the Testimony, if they speak not according to the word, it is because there is no light in them, Isa. 8.20. And doth not all Scripture plainly affirm, and the Churches, and Martyrs, and Witnesses of Truth all along affirm, That Christ hath a true humane body? He could not properly arise nor ascend, but in his flesh; and is he not for ever God revealed in the flesh? 1 Tim. 3.16. and after his Glorification, is he not called 
1 Tim. 2.5.  The man Christ Jesus? and the 
Rev. 13.5,6.  Tabernacle of God, by reason of the flesh, Rev. 13.5,6. and in whom the Godhead is said to dwell bodily? for the same cause, Col. 1. is he not said to have a life given him for ever and ever? Isa. 53.10. Psal. 21.4. Rev. 1.18. And if he had not carried his real body into Heaven, he would have left it in the Grave behind, he would not have eaten and drunken in it, for to show the reality of his body, and that he was no spirit, as the Disciples imagined; he would not have offered his body to be handled, the print of the nails to be felt, for the proof of the truth, and reality thereof: And that he shall visibly appear again unto the world, it appeareth, Because the same body he carried up, with the same he must return again to Judgement; 
Psa. 110.1. Acts 3.  and therefore it is said, Acts 17.31. He hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world, by that MAN whom he hath ordained. It is a sick and irksome labour, to multiply places about a point so clear. But what Scripture or Reason hath showed you, That his second coming is his coming in his Saints, a mystical coming: The plain words of Scripture are ever against you, neither can they be applied otherwise, then by making them a nose of wax; This Jesus whom you have seen going into heaven, shall so come as ye have seen, Acts 1. I saw a white throne, and one sat thereon, Rev. 20.11. Behold, he cometh with clouds, Rev. 1. Matth. 24. & 25. If you turn these things into Allegories, nothing can be certain. And, would not Christ and his Apostles have told us so in some place or other, if this coming were only figurative? add, That if this be figurative, other things annexed are also figurative, and nothing plain; and this were to make a chaos and confusion of the Scriptures: It grieveth me to spend time, when matters are so evident. Of like nature is that which you grossly hold, that There is no Resurrection of the body; Read 1 Cor. 15. Dan. 12.2. Rev. 20.12,13,14. It irketh me to write in such cases.  
Whereas you say, The Saints are Christ, one with God, their Being God; What godly ear can hear such things, without defiance and abomination: If Saints are so, if you are so, then are you without sin, as Christ, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Infinite, to be worshipped and adored as God and Christ is. I will spit at this, and say no more.  
I understand also, that you can determine of the holy Scriptures, that much of them is written with a humane spirit, can take or take not for Scripture, or meaning of Scripture, only by the Rule of an apprehension and Revelation of the Spirit, which you suppose yourself to be guided by, and to have more of then the Apostles had. The same Spirit which told you, that much of the Scripture was written with a humane Spirit, may haply tell you at another time, that all the Scripture is written with a humane Spirit, that there is no certainty therein; yield to one, yield to all: But we know that the Prophets and Apostles did all write, as guided by the Spirit of God, 2 Pet. 1. ult. 2 Pet. 3. Joh. 17. Rev. 21. He that receiveth you, receiveth me, John 13.  
Now over and above all this, there are other horrid things in your Book, which I have not seen, and Satan hath been let lose to shut you up, and to imprison you in your monstrous Heresies, by gates and bars, and to fetter and chain you up, that all means might be frustrate, whereby we might have hope to bring you forth: For if any thing from Scripture or Reason is brought against your Opinions, which you cannot answer, you can shift it off with this, That you do not so apprehend; thinking your apprehension to be infallible, and above Reason or Scripture: How came you by such an apprehension? By what means came you to know that it is infallibly directed, or may you not be praefident, in thinking it to be so, when it is not? But surely, no Saint or Martyr since the Apostles, ever challenged to themselves such an apprehension, for aught I find: And we are all commanded to regulate our apprehensions by the Scripture, and not to judge the Scriptures by ungrounded apprehensions: Thy word is a light unto my paths, Psal. 119. 2 Pet. 2. Mat. 4. for otherwise any Heretic may justify himself by his apprehension, and there would be no way to confute Error. The Apostles themselves, though infallibly directed, yet would subject their Doctrine to the trial of the Scripture, as in the Bereans, and prove it unto others by the Scripture, Rom. 9 Gal. 4. Furthermore, in these days we cannot tell, That our apprehensions are guided by the Spirit, but by the light of Scripture: You will say, It is so with you, but how will you prove it to yourself or others? why may it not be the Spirit of Satan, which you think to be the Spirit of God? I dare be bold to say, It is the Spirit of Satan, and not of God, that so directeth apprehensions, as not under the direction of the Word.  
Dear Sister, with whom I have had sweet communion in the ways of God, let us not now part at last, divided in Faith, Eternally divided: Were you not in the Faith before you fell into these Opinions? and did you not then write unto me, that you had full Assurance? Is all then lost, and nothing that was before, that you have changed your Faith and your Religion? Is the Doctrine of your Reverend Father, and of Dr. Twisse, and the Doctrine of the holy Martyrs, now at last discovered to be Error, whom the Apocalypse doth expressly style the Witnesses of Truth? Whither will you run, dear Sister, from your Parents, Friends, Church, Christ, God, and life Eternal? Have you no more strength, but at the first assault to yield the Bucklers, and to give over your Faith, so long professed, at the first push? If you had not Reason enough yourself, yet why did you not first inquire of those that might have helped you? I would rather a hundred times you had perished by the Sword, then have thus fallen, dishonoured God and your Profession, and weakened the people of the Lord, and shamed all your Friends, and laid up treasures of Correction for your Posterity, and put yourself in a suspicious way, at least, of losing the heavenly Inheritance; Let me tell you plainly, I doubt there was some grievous sin at bottom, as the Pride of Women, or Spiritual Pride, or something else, that God hath suffered you so horribly to fall away: Search yourself, pray, repent, humble yourself, and turn betime. The instruments I know not who they were; but I dare say, That in this particular they were messengers of Satan; they might pretend to you singular Sanctity, and deceive you, by carrying themselves as if they dropped down from Heaven, and came out of the bosom of God: But all is not Gold that glistereth; both you and they, by reason of joys and ravishments conceived in the Spirit, may think yourselves to be in the arms of God, and yet at last you may find yourselves in the very arms of the Devil, who knoweth how to transform himself into an Angel of light, being cunning to deceive. I could give Examples to declare this; I should rather rejoice to hear, that you were a mourner, poor in Spirit, and hungering and thirsting after Righteousness, so should I know you to be in the very ready way to the Kingdom of Glory, Matth. 5. This is the state of Christians here on earth, even those that have the most Assurance: The more Grace, the better they think of others, the meaner of themselves; abasing themselves for the remnants of sin they find behind, and mourning after more holiness in way of mortification. They which are not in an humbling way, are not in the way of Heaven. O Sister! you seem to be lifted up, as if you were a goddess, and as if all should bow unto you, as singularly beloved above others, yea as Christ himself, and as one with God: What pride was ever to be matched with your pride? What will be your end, if you humble not yourself betime? Your state requireth sharp and hasty Remedies; bear with me therefore, that I sharpen my stile, to pull you out of the fire, wherein you are already flaming.  
Your affectation and writing of Assurance did not formerly so well savour, and your printing of a Book, beyond the custom of your Sex, doth rankly smell; but the exaltation of yourself in the way of your Opinions, is above all: God will never tolerate pride in his beloved ones be sure, and therefore I fear some afterclaps. Hear me, dear Sister, renounce, cast off the Masters and Fomentors of your Heresies, never receive their Letters any more, never answer them, never admit them unto house, send unto them, That you will never have to do with them any more: Think not that you are the better for your joys, or more directed than others are; but only so far as you find your heart to be humbly upon God in Christ, as the chiefest thing, in the way of his Truth, and in the way of all his Commandments, according to the sincerity of Evangelical endeavour. Your heart may be upon your own advancement above others, and not on God, unless you look unto it. Your new Masters and Companions in Heresy, speak fairly to you, and flatter you, and advance, and set you up on high, & this is pleasing to the flesh; and when you are entangled in their Net, you are unwilling to displease them, they are as close unto you as the Ivy to the wall, and you cannot easily be separated. A man that flattereth his neighbour, layeth a snare for his feet, Prov. 29.5. O Sister, fly far from the house and corner of these men and women, that lie in wait for your poor soul! Do you not plainly see, that Satan is loosed in these times, and that there are many Heresies scattered amongst Professors, which you yourself do disallow? why do you not suspect yourself? I have endeavoured, from the love of you, and from the desire of the welfare of your soul, to put my one eye unto the work, and to write these lines unto you; the Lord God only can give success: And I pray our Lord Jesus Christ, That you may be turned, otherwise you seem to be in a suspicious way, and in great danger to be a lost woman, a lost Sister, and lost eternally. 
(a) Here (as yet appeareth by his Letter) he had concluded; but upon second thoughts proceeds.   
I cannot tell how to make an end, it is a business of such importance that I am about, and your Spiritual welfare is so much desired. I cannot yet but comfortably hope, That God will bring you back again unto the Truth; I will therefore answer some Objections to facilitate your return.  
First, you may think, that It was not likely that God should cast you into Error all this while, seeing you had immediately before so much communion with him, and love unto him. But had not your Father and others as much love to God as you, and as much experience of his goodness, whom he did never cast into such Opinions? And if you had such experience of God's goodness, and communion with him in the time of your former Faith, why have you then revolted from that Faith, which God by his Spirit hath so much witnessed unto? But Sister, you are a weak woman, and ignorant of the wiles of Satan, and may easily be lifted up; so that although I do hope that you had some true communion with God, yet I do believe that it was exceedingly mixed with Spiritual pride, for which God hath been angry with you, and hath given you up to Heresies, as was said before. Some Christians, by reason of their joys and raptures, have gotten lofty eyes, and eyelids, highly lifted up above their brethren, censuring them, slighting, contemning them in comparison of themselves, which it may be have more true and real grace, in way of Humility and Mortification than they: They rejoice not humbly, but in a proud singularity of communion and enlargements above others, and seem to themselves as Angels, in comparison of others, great in their own conceits, not mourners in the sense of their own filthiness and indigency, nor thinking others better than themselves. This God hateth and abhorreth in all Christians, and will surely punish it; humble therefore yourself for this sin, and any other, and be sure that God in the way of returning will accept you. And indeed my hope is, That God hath suffered you to fall, that he might do you infinite good thereby, and bring you nearer, and more purely to himself then ever before, by purging your Spiritual pride, and making you the more humble all your life after; which God grant, for his tender Mercies sake in Christ.  
Secondly, It will be grievous to you to renounce that Society which hath furthered you in your new and horrid Opinions, crept in within you, and engaged you, and as it were adored you. But dear Sister, have you so much respect to your new upstart friends, and it may be with whose spirits you were never throughly acquainted, as for their sakes to neglect your old and sure friends, your Father, Mother, Husband, Brothers, Sister, Uncles, and all the rest? But if they are in Error, as I have showed them to be, will you follow them to Hell? I pray you harden your face against them as brass, and set your countenance as iron; and be not so weak, and childish, and flexible, as to yield to your own destruction: say as that worthy Convert did, unto his following old society, when he turning, said, Ego non sum Ego, I am not the man that I was.  
Thirdly, this will be another block in the way, That your Opinions are in print. But Sister, (alas, alas) by reason of your Book, you are (as I am credibly informed) printed by Name in the Catalogue of the Heretics of this time, as one of the infamous Apostates: Redeem your name and credit amongst Saints, which now is lost, by protesting against that horrid Book, and by humbling yourself for an attempt above your gifts and Sex.  
Fourthly, there is yet another block or hindrance to your return, which I doubt will be stronger than any , whereby Satan hath you as it were in chains of iron, and hopeth so to hold you, that you shall never be able to get out: But yet the Lord Jesus Christ is able to break the fetters of iron, and chains of brass; and therefore hoping in his Mercy, I will say something: Satan will tell you, dear Sister, That Your Opinions are upon your Conscience, and you have given way unto them upon Conscience, and you have had long, and sweet, and heavenly raptures in the way of them, and have put off thereby all your former doubts, and fears, and servility: Will you deny your Opinions so long professed? will you go against your Conscience therein, at least with a doubting Conscience? will you return to your former fears and slaveries, and call again your state into question? Will you now become a creeper, who were in way of your Opinions advanced unto Heaven? yea, Will you now become meaner and lower than the meaner sort of Christians, by professing yourself to have all this while been miscarried and misguided by an evil Spirit? O Sister, you have gone by fancy and not by Reason, by an ungrounded apprehension and not by Scripture, by a Conscience without a Rule, made by Conceit, and not by the Word of God; ground your conscience by the word, and harden your Spirit like steel, to break that conscience that hath been grounded upon vanity, upon conceit, and fancy and imagination, upon which you did not ground your conscience before you fell, neither your worthy Father, nor any of the holy Martyrs, which are surely gone to Heaven, as the Apocalypse doth testify. All Scriptures are evidently against you, and the profession of all the Church before you: If Satan hath made his pills of death sweet unto you, and hath covered them with delight, and made you vainly to believe, That it is God and Christ that dwelleth in you, working such heavenly refreshments, will you take them down unto your destruction? The longer you have yielded, so much the more hasty be to break off, lest you be confirmed in a pernicious way: Fear not to return to the truth; it is better to go in way of truth with some doubts and fears, then in way of Heresy to perish: And the more low and mean Christian you shall be in your own eyes, the higher shall you be in the eyes of God, and of all good Christians. Some haste too fast in putting off their fears; let God put them off in way of truth and Scripture, or not at all: It is often best for Christians to be under some fears, that they may be humble, that they may fight, and overcome, and be crowned; that in way of Mortification, they may make their Calling and Election sure; and if you shall return, all Saints will meet you, and rejoice with you, yea the Angels will rejoice for you, and Christ himself, For this my child was dead, but she is alive again; she was lost, but she is found again.  
Fifthly, Satan may say unto you, that If you shall renounce your Opinions, you shall have no ground to stand upon, you shall justly question whether you had ever Grace or no, you shall despair. But Sister, you had well-grounded Assurance before you fell into these Errors; I am witness myself thereof, to whom you writ to that effect. A Saint may fall, and grossly be deceived for a time, only he shall return again; he may not be dead, but asleep only: So I do persuade myself of you, though I have written somewhat roughly, to awaken you the more. O that I might hear that you were returned; you have no cause to despair, but only to be humbled: and this I hope is the only end of the Divine permission. Return to your former Principles, dear Sister, with confession and repentance, therein live and die, and I doubt not but that you shall live with Christ for ever; but if you never had grace, yet there is no cause of despairing, forasmuch as grace is freely offered at all times to them that do come in by Faith and true Repentance, through the blood of Christ; only it must be such a Faith, and such a Repentance, whereby we cleave to God in Christ, as the chiefest good, and in the way of sincere endeavour of all Obedience, and of forsaking every opposite thing.  
You cannot now but take so large a Letter, from a Brother, so defective and weak in sight, and so much otherwise employed, to be an Argument of great desire of the welfare of your soul, and of the importance and necessity of your condition. The Lord God grant, for Christ's sake, that my labour may not be in vain. Salute all my friends as named, my dear Brother your Husband; thanking you for all kindnesses, I rest,  
Newbury, Novem. 1648. Your loving Brother, THO: PARKER.  
FINIS.