Epistle 211

Friends,--All ye that have known the way of truth, and tasted of <211> the power of the same, and now turn back into the world's fashions and customs [2 Pet 2:20], ye stop them that are coming out of the world, ye make them to stumble at the truth [Mal 2:8], ye make them to question the way of the Lord, which is out of the way of the world, and its ways; and ye grieve the righteous, and sadden the hearts of the upright and simple. Ye had better never have known the way of light, life, and power; ye are the cause of many keeping in darkness; you are the cause of the boasting of the wicked, and make the wicked to take you for an example, and their object against truth, and them that live in it, to plead against its ways.

Ye had better never have been born [Mark 14:21] ; your days will be sad, trouble and vengeance will be your garment and clothing [Isa 59:17] in that state; and a hard thing it will be for any of you to repent, for you will find a more subtle thing in you than was before you knew the way of truth; who have neglected hearing the voice of God, through which your hearts are hardened. . . .

Wo and misery is for you! ye had better never have been born [Mark 14:21], nor known the way of truth [2 Pet 2:21]; whose latter end is worse than the beginning [2 Pet 2:20], when the way of peace is hid from your eyes [Rom 3:17f], and a place of repentance ye cannot find [Heb 12:17], though ye wash your altar with tears [Mal 2:13]; being in the stained life, where all the tattlers, tale-carriers, unclean persons, envious, murmurers and complainers [Jude 1:16] are, and are out of the life, and power, and wisdom of God, which hath the royal dominion, and possession of the royal seed.

Therefore turn, turn all that are not hardened and past feeling, and hear the voice, that the way of peace and repentance, and the way of life and salvation ye may know, and live in; and upon all your disorderly carriages, walkings, words, and actions [2 Th 3:6f], ye may come to receive judgment, and through that ye may receive power to live a new life, in which God is served in the truth, and not the devil, who is out of the truth [John 8:44]; for in the truth is the holy unity and the pure dominion, and the everlasting life promised and received, and the royal seed, which the elect have, wherein they have the bread of life [John 6:35].

G. F.