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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	call_v	people_n	quaker_n	2,523	5	9.6997	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27232	The Quakers challenge made to the Norfolk clergy, or, A relation of a conference between some clergy-men of the Church of England and some Quakers held (on the 8th of December 1698 in West-Dereham Church) in the county of Norfolk : together with those letters which passed between them in order thereunto : to which is added a certificate relateing to the challenge.	Beckham, Edward, 1637 or 8-1714.; Meriton, Henry, d. 1707.; Topcliffe, Lancaster, 1646 or 7-1720.	1699 (1699)	Wing B1654; ESTC R27616	19,882	30

true Doctrine The same liberty we allowed to them after they had Answered our Charge to Charge any of our Church of England Writers with Blasphemy and without giving us Book Line or Page beforehand we will either Disown or Justify it be sides when a Time of Disputation with an Adversary is Set and I have sent him the Questions to be disputed on was it ever Expected before that I should before the Time send him all my Proofs The Question you know betwixt us is whether they be Blasphemers or no we hold the Affirmative and offer to prove it but they will make no defence for themselves unless we send them all our Proofs beforehand Presently they Cried out we Reproach the Parliament who have owned them to be Dissenting Protestants whilst we would prove them to be Blasphemers and indeed they did Strut Exceedingly for the Honour the Parliament hath done them to Recognize them as Protestants as if under the Protection of the Act of Parliament they might Blaspheme Cum Privilegio and no body must be so bold as to Ask them why do you so They told us we are going about most uncharitably to Damn them all We told them they may Repent of their Blasphemies and be saved For Panl was once one of their Companions in Blaspheming the Name of Jesus Christ and if they will Accompany him in his Change too they may obtain Mercy as well as he They told us Blasphemy against God was the Sin against the Holy Ghost because the Holy Ghost was God We told them we were sorry it was so for their sakes but for their Comfort we hope for to make it appear it was not that unpardonable Sin so from the 12th of St. Math. we Explain'd to them the nature of that Sin and stopt their Mouths and now we began to Charge them with Blasphemy against God they Intreated us to suspend a while and they would desire to speak but one quarter of an Hour and then they would be silent we yielded it then they talked against the Challenger and the Unreasonableness of the Preliminaries what they pleased and when they had Harangued thus a quarter of an Hour Now Gentlemen said we we hope you will give us leave to talk out our quarter too No truly saith one of them that is a new Bargain whereupon the People Shouted and Hissed them and as soon as we began to prosecute our Charge one gets upon a Form and bawls aloud to the People to stop their Ears or Deasen them that they might not hear us Thus they continued for as soon as one was wearied another stepped up in his Place till the End of the Day Tho there were two Magistrates present and many Persons of good Quality with a great Company of all sorts of People besides some of whom offered if we would permit it to have pull'd them down and turn'd them out This Disorder hindred us from prosecuting our design to any purpose tho we Permitted every one of them from London or from Rome if they pleased to have free liberty to Dispute if they will do it fairly without Noise or Clamour No they declar'd they did not come thither to Dispute for they were not prepared And whereas we had brought a great number of the Quakers Books both Old and New and all of them of their most Celebrated Authors they Cryed no Books no Arguments which occasion'd great Laughter and Shouting among the People but they still continued their long Harangue against our Preliminaries and about the great sufferings they had Endured designedly that the People might not hear us and ever and anon they would have been Charging us Insolently urging us to prove our selves Christians and by and by we must prove our selves Ministers of Christ which was Answered tho we told them that was not the business of the Day And 't was a Cunning design of theirs to divert us from our Charge so much dreaded by them When we were in the pursuit of their Blasphemies to start another game in our way we bid them Answer our Charge first and then we should be at leasure to Answer any of theirs provided they be not Charges of some little and small Errours and Mistakes but down-right Blasphemy One of us got to a Corner of the Seat from whence he might be heard by some of the People and laid open some of the Blasphemies we had to Charge them with out of their Books to the great satisfaction of the Auditors who Cried out Blasphemy Blasphemy but he could not proceed far without Disturbance One of them very Pertly asked us that if we looked upon them to be such Blasphemers what is the reason that we have let them alone so long that they never heard of such a Charge from us before even thro the space of Forty years and how comes it to pass that we have been so Careless of our Flocks We Ingenuously told them that we never had so right an understanding of their Principles as of late but for the future we assur'd them that we shall and we hope all the rest of our Brethren throughout all England will take notice of this their Admonition and double their Diligence and Vigilancy in their Respective places A little after we took liberty each of us to propound an Argument but could hardly go through with one of them and upon Reading their Books to prove our Arguments the People again Cried out Blasphemy Blasphemy It being near the Evening one of their Speakers made mention of our Lord Bishops Name and that he had waited on him at Norwich and Discoursed with him About this Matter in the presence of the Arch-Deacon Dr. Jeffery's And insinuated to the People as if my Lord had now a more favourable opinion of their Challenge than before since he had given him a more Just Relation as he said of the Circumstances but none of us could believe his Relation About this Time or somewhat before they threw among the People great numbers of little Pamphlets thus stiled The Christianity of the People called Quakers tho it neither Comes up to their Principles Expressed in their former Books nor is said to be written from the Mouth of the Lord and Sealed with the Eternal Spirit as those are and without any of their Names or name affixed to it so that any of them if Charg'd with it may at their own pleasure deny it as not agreeing with their former Teslimonies but plainly design'd to serve a present turn This Charge of Blasphemy nettled them Exceedingly and they sometimes Expostulated with us saying the Charge was very High we granted it to be so but the worst of it was we should Certainly prove it if they would let us go on but when we urg'd them with a passage out of Christopher Atkinson's Book call'd The Sword of the Lord drawn as Guilty of Blasphemy they utterly disowned both him and his Books saying the Quakers had renounc'd him above Thirty years ago

Justice of the Common Law in this Case much exceeds your pretence of Edification And this being denied by you we take it for granted your design is to Censure and pass Judgment on Persons unheard And if your Charge be to be drawn from Books it is as reasonable by the Common voice of Mankind that their Titles and Pages be given the Authors of which if living have an undoubted right to explain for themselves or if Dead such notice is reasonable for our due preparation to Answer Till which we shall only say that the Living labours of the Dead have this Justice due to them viz. that the whole be considered and the Scope and Intent of the Writer be taken and not rigidly much less falsly to pervert his words to a Sence contrary and repugnant to the Scope of the whole The refusal whereof will speak a design Partial Injurious and Precipitant but we hopeing on better Consideration you 'l do otherwise do expect as above to be sent us in such convenient time as we may examine them which cannot be in less time then Three weeks at least This demand its true you laugh at and call it a foolish generosity yet it being reasonable we insist on it For the frightful Apparitions which by opening our Books you say sent you to your Prayers c. we doubt your Frights or Fevers have been so great as to prevent your having any true Idea of Them or any loving concernment for Vs therein And not finding our selves haunted as you suggest we rather desire you to speak truth than offer false Sacrifice For conclusion to this and to try your Ingenuity whether your Method be to do as you would be done unto we put these following Questions I. Whether you are willing to be Charged out of all the Old and New Books Pamphlets and Sermons that your Brethren the Clergy have Wrote and Printed to stand and fall by them II. Are you willing we should Publickly Charge you with Errors or Mistakes out of any of the abovementioned and not beforehand give the Particular Instances to you For know ye that we expect Equal liberty with you to Charge as well as to be Charged III. Will you Personate all your Brethren as above both Dead and Living so as to be Charged out of their Books in their stead Your direct Answer we expect without any further Evasion Boast or Menace in the interim conclude Your abused because not sufficienly known Friends Richard Ashby John Hubbard Dan. Phillips Richard Case The Reply dated November the 16th 1698. Friends YOUR last does not a little astonish Us. 1 st That you should deny your Challenge which is as plain an one as Words in English can make it and truly very brave to all our Cloth that is to Nine or Ten thousand of us 2 ly That you affirm that we espoused Bugg's Cause when you or some of you cannot but know the contrary by one of us For when the last Summer you demanded of Hen. Meriton whether he would justify Bugg's Books written against you he Answer'd They contain'd Matters of Fact which he was not capable of judging of having not the Books to compare them with Francis Bugg's Writings yet told you that if his Citations were true you see then he made an If of it and therefore did not justify them he would justify such Expressions were Blasphemy But you are still offended at our unreasonable limitation of you as to the Place whence you are to fetch your Disputants But Friends did not you begin with us Did not you limit us when you rejected Francis Bugg and all others too that were not of our Cloth some of whom you know too well might have been very useful to us in this Service Nay did not you reject Francis Bugg for this reason because he had been Answer'd as you pretend over and over again and was unreasonable as if we had nothing to do but Actum agere Aud may not we say the same of your Hackny Disputants they have truged so long in that road and have been Spur'd and Gall'd by us enough already and therefore in reason we ought to turn them off awhile and give them rest till another occasion More plainly they have been Answered over and over already and are unreasonable Besides Your Church which you profess your selves so Zealous Members of have owned and approved of those Books we intend to quote and your selves have been known to admire and almost adore them and their Authors And therefore till you disclaim them you are as much concern'd to Vindicate them as the Authors themselves for by owning them you become joynt Authors and your Plea for them will be the Plea of Parties and not of Proxies But now When the Court of Equity will not relieve you you fly to Common Law but if yon give us no better proof of your skill in it then in this instance we shall have little reason to take your Counsel in Law Business Friends 'T is matter of Fact we Charge you with that we find such and such Blasphemous Expressions in your Books For matter of Right whether such Expressions are to be esteemed Blasphemy we shall leave it to the Judgment of the Auditory The matters of Fact your Authors have already owned them at least so much as will make good our Charge And for matter of Right whether such Expressions are Blasphemous or no we think the Common Law will not allow the accused Malefactor when he 's convicted of the Fact a right to Judge of the Law or whether his Fact hath been a breach of it Suppose we had Charged some of your Friends with Common Swearing by their Maker and they should not deny matter of Fact that they have said such words only they excuse them with a great deal of Artifice that they were spoken in Passion that they dropt from them rashly or their minds did a little run out or truly they do not affect such Speeches or they may see Cause otherwise to word them is there any Law or Equity such Men should be admitted in any Court in the World to Plead and Apologize for Common Swearing If matter of Fact be Prov'd or Own'd may not the Judge turn such Men out of the Court and pass the Definitive upon them The fact is own'd by their Men themselves that such Expressions are in their Books so much at leastwise as will prove the Charge and let the Auditory whom we appeal to as Judges in this Case determine whether Blasphemy or no. We dare affirm it will be easier for the People to Judge that such and such words are Blasphemy then such words are Swearing And we are Sorry to see you so Zealous for such Authors only to give them an opportunity to excuse Blasphemy At last you direct us to that Golden Rule in Divinity to do as we would be done by and think you have Gravell'd us with three Questions which you suppose we cannot Answer

if we stick to our former measure without apparent Violation of it Now Sirs what are those hard measures I pray Why truly after we have Charged some of yours with Blasphemy in some Books Printed 10 20 30 some 40 Years ago that were never Corrected nor Censured by your Church in your Second days Meeting erected on purpose to Examine Books and Licence them but have been approved and commended to us and admired by almost all of you we demand that you would either justify or disown them publickly under your hands And now you ask us very pertinently whether we are willing to be Charged with all the Old and New Books and Pamphlets that our Brethren of the Clergy have written or Printed to stand or fall by them Such an Impertinency as this is would be almost Intolerable but that we are so commonly used to them by your Party Do but Scratch your Heads a little and consider seriously the force of such a consequence We are bound to justify or disown all the Books of our Brethren as to every little Error or Mistake because we call upon you only to justify or disown the Blasphemies of yours We doubt not but there have been some tolerable Errors in ours which are no great blot to an Author that acknowledges himself to be a Man viz. fallible but a mighty prejudice against the Infallible Club whether at Rome or Grace-Church-street that pretend they cannot Err And we are only obliged to a Charitable forbearance in such Cases when you will be obliged for every Error you find in yours by reason of such a pretence to disown them as Cheats But if any of our Authors have wrote or Printed Blasphemy we are sure such have not been approved or allowed of by our General Meeting our Convocation who have made bold to Censure them without asking the Authors leave or if there be any such that have escaped the Knowledge of the Convocation and therefore not Censured by them perhaps they have been condemned if not burnt by Parliaments and Universities or if they have escaped such a Censure bring out such Books of ours when you will and you shall see we will either justify or disown them without calling for the Authors to come and plead their Cause To the Second Question we Answer You shall have equal liberty with us produce our Books and your Charge against them Supposing it be of Blasphemy when you will after you have first answered ours and we will give you leave to reserve your particular instances to the very Time and Place of Meeting if you please For we are assured that Blasphemy is of so strong and rank a Scent that every Christian that hath not his Nose quite stopt that as St. Paul says can but exercise his Senses never so little about Good or Evil as soon as ever it 's opened or discover'd will presently nauseate and turn away from it And we are sorry that so many of you have got such a stuffing in your Heads as not to perceive it Nay you think them sweet Odours sure that you will not be satisfied till you be allowed Advocates to Plead for them as sound and wholsom and therefore to be continued in the best Room of the House the Church The third Question is Coincident with the First but we must answer it or you 'l say we dropt it for its Weight for there is no reason we should appear in the Porson of all those our Brethren so as to be Charged with every little Error out of their Books in their stead but this we will do bring forth their Books and Blasphemies as we havesaid before and we will either justify them or disown them without consulting the Authors of them And this is all that we desire of you either to justify or disown Yours and Their Blaspemies under Your Hands which we may expect from you by the same rule you lay before us do as you would be done by And why may we not expect this of you seeing you have abandoned you Authors in lesser matters as in their Orders about Ribbons Lace Slit-wast-Coats Prancing Steeds Costly Habits fine Clothes Stately Buildings in for bearing to Thee and Thou and Sir your Betters Seeing many of you have opposed their Orders in Paying Tithes Womens Meetings Swearing in Courts of Judicature of carrying no Guns in their Ships or using the Carnal Weapen Last of all We take Notice with much joy to see you so much fall off from the former rude and rugged behaviour of those Men whose Cause you espouse towards the Clergy It is not long since your Address to them was in that Tinkerly Language Gready Doggs Babylons Merchants Devil driven dungy Gods Witches Bloodhounds Sodomites Gimcracks Wheelbarrows Tatter demallions which you have now Exchanged for more familiar and kind Expressions to call us Friends tho your former Carriage hath been as Divinely Authorized as your present Blasphemies Your very Railings have been as you have pretended by Inspiration We hope since you have begun to draw from that Old filthy Spirit that dwelt in your Ancestors you will at last totally abandon them seeing you have abandoned them in lesser Matters and why not in their Blasphemies Friends Pray trouble us no more with your Letters for our Measures are fix't and you may Chuse whether you will meet us upon the Terms resolved upon or no. No more from those who are resolved to continue your real Friends whether you will or no. Hen. Meriton John Meriton Lau. Parke Here followeth the Copy of the Quakers last Letter dated November the 23d 1698. To which the Ministers made no Answer Friends YOURS of the 16th Instant We have receiv'd the tenor of it declares Your purpose still to evade our just demand as is set forth in our 2d and 3d Letters to you we shall now give you a brief Reply because we perceive our Letters are troublesome to you First if you were as real as you pretend Frindship towards us the Moderation of Friendship questionless would prevent your being astonished at our denial of the Term Challenge in our Letter to you For then it had been our place to have Charged you so we should have made our selves Plaintiffs and you had been Defendants We doubt not but upon more mature thoughts your astonishment will vanish away 2dly We still insist upon our former demands as just and reasonable for how can you or any Man whatsoever think that we or any others for us can make Answers to Matters thus hiddenly Charged upon us whilst you refuse us the knowledge of them as you say they stand in our Books Pray be plain with us and if there be such Rank Blasphemy as you say bring it forth do not be shy Give us Author Title Book and Page and if you please tell us in the first place what is Blasphemy 2dly Wherein do you Charge us with Blasphemy against God and against Jesus Christ and against the Holy Scriptures What are the

tho he was Mov'd as he there Witnesses in the Title page by the Lord God of Life and the Spirit of Truth as it was made manifest in him from the Lord. The Night approaching and many of the People there being at great distance from their Homes the Magistrates then Present seeing nothing more which might tend to Edification was like to be done were pleased to put and End to the Contest and Dissolve the Assembly After we had declared that seeing they had Challenged us we would not leave the matter thus but seek for some more favourable opportunity to make good our Charge against them and so we Intend by Gods help when the Days are long and the Weather good and if the Quakers will Answer fairly we will permit any of them all to Appear but if they shall fall a Clamouring as they Incessantly did at this Meeting we will very Civilly by some means or other take them by the Hands and lead them out of Doors But notwithstanding they have done so much to hinder our good Design of proving our Charge to the People we hope we have stopt the Gangreen that it spreads no further in our Corner the People being generally satisfied and do believe them now to be Blasphemers because they Refused to come to a Tryal nor would suffer their Books to be Read This we thought necessary to give the World an Account of not only for our own Vindication but their Satisfaction which we the principal Managers have given under our Hands this 12th day of December 1698. Edw. Beckham D. D. Rector of Gayton Thorpe Henry Meriton Rector of Oxborough Lancaster Topcliffe Rector of Hockwold December the 12th 1698. Having seen a Relation of a Conference at the Management of which we were present Attested under the Hands of Edw. Beckham D. D. Henry Meriton and Lancaster Topcliffe We do hereby Testify and Declare that the Sum and Substance of the abovesaid Relation is true E. Wodehouse Justices of the Peace John Wodehouse Justices of the Peace John Meriton Rector of Boughton Laur. Parke of Barton St. Andrews Henry Bell Esq Thomas Fysh Preacher at Kings Lynn Thomas Walker B. D Fellow of Sidney Coll. in Cambridge John Williamson Minister of the Gospel John Turner Charles Peast Phi. Wodehouse Gent. William Blythe Bellw Raven Edward Tilson John Maxey Junior A Copy of the Quakers Challenge September the 7th 1698. Hen. Meriton John Meriton and Laur. Parke IT is Prudence in Wise men to hear and weigh a Desence as well as a Charge Francis Bugg hath Charged the People called Quakers in Print and has been Answered to those several Charges several times Some of the Answers wrote in Defence of the said People are Entituled A Charitable Essay A Just Enquiry Innocency Triumphant and the Counterfeit Convert a Scandal to Christianity Which are those which at present occur to our Memory And when you have read over those Answers if you will give it under your Hands that those Answers are Defective Or if you think you have Matter to Charge us withal let us have your Charge under your own Hands and appoint Time and Place convenient and we or some others of us God willing will meet You as Publickly as you Please But we reject Francis Buggs Charge as being already sufficiently Answered several times over as also him to be one of the Persons concerned against us in Disputation because of his unreasonableness We cannot suppose you so void of Common Sence as to look upon it suitable to a right Management of Controverfy to answer an Opposer several times over in one and the same thing or things And be it known unto you all this is not thro any Consciousness to our selves of holding any Errors But if you think it is you may if you please try the utmost of your skill and strength and see what you can get by it Pray leave of Boasting till you have obtained the Victory Remember the Answer that was given to Ben-hadad 1 K. 20. 11. You may make up a Quaker according to your own Dress to please your Fancies but Counterseits will not pass with us for true Coyn. Therefore to conclude at present as we said before we are free or some others of us to meet with you or any of you all Francis Bugg only Excepted for the Reasons aforesaid to take your Charge and stand a publick Tryal desiring only the Common Priviledges to such occasions belonging Provided as aforesaid you think meet in your own Names or any other of your Cloth to Charge us And through the Lords assistance you shall hear from us or some other of us whom you or some of you have endeavoured to traduce and we doubt not Publickly to put aside that Disguise that by others hath been put upon us and to make it appear to all unbiassed Persons that we really are in the Truth and Simplicity of the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Your real Friends Rich. Ashby Stephen Stanton Tho. Buckingham John Hubbard Daniel Phillips Richard Case Phillip Tassell Matth. Harrison John Brown Rich. Marler John Hunter A Copy of the Answer to the Quakers Challenge sent to John Hubbard Richard Ashby Daniel Phillips Rich. Case c. the 27th of October 1698. Friends IT hath not been from any distrust of the goodness of our Cause or any backwardness in us to defend It that we have been thus long in returning an Answer to the Challenge you sent us but partly from not being able to resolve immediately at that distance we Live from those we had to Consult how far it was sit to Comply with some of your Terms that appeared unreasonable to us and partly from the disiculty of getting your Books which you might with greater Justice expect in this Case we should read if they were permitted to go more freely then yet we can find into other Hands as well as those of your Friends But having with a great deal of trouble in some Measure got over this Stop we shall not insist upon Francis Buggs bearing any part in the intended Dispute Nor wave the Challenge you have turned upon us instead of accepting of his which yet we think you ought to have done Notwithstanding what you Precarriously assirm in your own Cause of his being unreasonable and Answered already But your excluding him shall not hinder us or some of our Bretheren from giving you a Meeting in Anwer to your Challenge And that we may prevent Tumults and Consusions and that our Meeting may obtain the design we hope for God's Glory and the Hearers Edification we think fit to acquaint you with these following Propositions I. That the Place to Meet in be West-Dereham Church being pretty Capacious and well Gallery'd II. That the time of our Meeting be on Thursday the 8th of December at Ten of the Clock in the Forenoon and so on as many Thursdays following as there shall be occasion for III. That but Six of a side be permitted