ly
privileged who had won a large enough freedom of spirit to go with him
into new paths.[7] Like his Master, he loved {241} the common people,
"thinking it no disparagement to accompany with the lowest of men,"
"tinkers, coblers, weavers and poor beggarly fellows who came running"
to hear him, and he poured out the best he had in his treasury to any,
even the simplest and most ordinary, who cared to hear of this
"spiritual, practical experiment of life." His preaching naturally
brought him suffering and persecution. He was "often fetched into the
High Commission," was forced to give "attendance from Court to Court
and from Term to Term," was on one occasion fined a thousand pounds for
his "heresies," and had many interviews with Archbishop Laud, but he
always held that "Truth is strongest," and he declared that God had
called him to be "a Sampson against Philistines and a David against the
huge and mighty Goliath of his times,"[8] and he was ready to pay the
cost of obedience to the Light. His friend, Harford, who had "much
ado" to keep the manuscript of his sermons "out of the Bishop's
fingers," declares that though Everard clearly "distinguished the
outward and killing letter from the Life and Spirit of the Holy Word,"
he was not an antinomian or in sympathy with ranterism. "Our author,"
the Dedicatory Epistle says, and says truly, "missed both rocks against
which many have split their vessels. He carries Truth amain with
Topsail set. He cuts his way clear between the meer Rationalist who
will square out God according to his Reason, and the Familist who lives
above all ordinances and by degrees hath turned licencious Ranter."
Thomas Brooks added to Harford's Testimony a brief "Approbation" to the
Volume, on Behalf of the Publishers, recommending all readers to
receive its "heaven-born truths" into their homes and into their
hearts, assuring them that as they read and open their inner eyes they
will find their own hearts in the book and the book in their own
hearts, _i.e._ the book will "find them."

Before turning to Everard's message, as it finds expression in the rare
volume of his sermons--_The Gospel Treasures Opened_--we must consider
the Translations {242} which he left unpublished. They are preserved
in clearly written manuscripts in Cambridge University Library, under
the title "Three Bookes Translated out of their Originall."[9] The
first "Book" bears the following title-page: "The Tree of Knowledge