13, verse 30 to 42 was a book written by Thomas Tomkinson in 1676 as a compendium of the Muggletonian faith and to combat popular misconceptions about it.
"[3] Throughout his book, Tomkinson relates his text back to Matthew 13: 37 to 42, wherein Jesus explains the Parable of the Tares.
"The form of the uncreated Majesty, before he became flesh did not consist of any elementary matter, but it was a bright shiny glory of uncompounded purities of so unutterable a nature in virtue, as that it was swifter than thought, clearer than crystal, sweeter than roses, purer than the purest gold, yea, and more infinitely glorious than the sun.
"[5] The 'swifter than thought' quote is to contradict Quakers who ridiculed the notion of an embodied God lumbering around the universe trying to keep up with events.
Firstly, he argued that God created man in his own image and that righteousness and holiness cannot act unless they are embodied in an agent.
Whereas those born of the seed of the woman "can trace the footsteps of the prophets till they come to the paths of God and so find him out and know him.
"[6] Tomkinson thinks the impure motives behind the idea of God being pure spirit are only too obvious.
He traces its history from Nimrod, through Pythagoras to Pliny the Elder, and tells how they loved to commission statues of themselves to impress others.
Scriptural literalists (from Augustine to Richard Baxter) fall into a similar error of human imaginings.
[7] These truth-sayers were persecuted by the dominant culture due to the take-over of the church by the state and because the Apostles "preached the faith in a personal God, but in that, they clothed it within the appellation of several titles, it appeared more intricate and mysterious"[8] than it really was.
Wrong doctrine tends to result in evil fruit and Tomkinson expresses this with a remarkable extended metaphor.
These stress that Christ will make no effort to defend himself against the wrath of the rulers or to justify himself before them.
He makes the point that because men lived so long in those days (Enoch being 380 years old by the time old Adam died) they did not write things down because their memories were a more durable medium than manuscript!
This mixing of seeds first began when the sons of Seth took wives from the daughters of wicked men.
It is which seed comes to the top in a person which will determine his or her fate at the end of time with the judgment of the 'second death'.
Yet Esau gained great blessings along the way even if he will ultimately be cursed by the bad seed within.
This form of inheritance means, generally, "it is a great privilege to be a child of a good parent."
[15] This is a parallel to the way there is generally a physical resemblance between child and parent and it explains Rebecca's anguish, "if Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth ... what good will my life do me?"
"Those frogs, grasshoppers and lice that Moses brought up in the sight of Pharaoh were real living substances, but those the magicians produced were nothing but shadows.
[22] The worldly case against reason is that its products do not last: a great remedy for some human problem is devised but soon lost patience with and a new novelty is again demanded.
"Here reason keeps a great clamour, and saith, doth God make man to damn him?
"It was said of Scipio when a beautiful strumpet was tendered to him to abuse himself withall, I would willingly (said he) were it not for the great place I am in.
With sin comes defilement and death, but there is also God's promise that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head.
The elect, "being dead whilst in the grave ... although alive in the memory of Christ, which is the Book of Life, and the white stone and their new name written in it."
In like manner, the reprobate will suffer both in body and soul but not until the great day when Christ returns to this earth to separate the sheep and the goats.
The damned shall come out of their graves as worms out of the earth and, after they have seen the elect rise up with Christ to heaven; the sun, stars and moon will cave in aflame.
The life of the damned will be to die forever in a hell that is their own bodies, tormented by the remembrance of sins they can never shake off.
"There will never be any intermission of pain, for as soon as one phial of wrath is drank off, another is presented without stop or stay, coming rolling one upon another, like waves of the sea."
With unusual grimness, Tomkinson remarks that if the reprobate seed "can make shift to disbelieve it, they may have the more ease and time to fit them for the everlasting burning by making their bodies and spirits like a dry thorny hedge, to receive the fury of that fire.
"For this know, there is no other righteousness available but that which is sowed in peace and love, silence and secrecy, as it is written, enter your chamber and be still."