that the Guides of this Sect notwithstanding their faire pretensions of an immediate call and extraordinary Mission and the great Opinion their followers have conceived of them are not the servants of the Lord Jesus but in very deed the Emissaries and Ministers of Satan and that their way is not the good old way the way of God but as contrary to it as darknesse to the light I shall take some paines to acquaint my Reader 1. With the cursed Blasphemies which George Fox the Grand Master of this Faction and some others have uttered 2. With some of those Doctrines of Devils damnable Heresies and dangerous Errors which their speakers have disseminated and wherewith they have infected their unhappy Disciples 3. With the bitter and rotten fruits of their Doctrine such of their strange impious seditious suspicious insolent and Barbarous practices as have come to my knowledge some of which doe in the judgement of the most sober and intelligent Christians strongly savor of sorcery and the immediate co-operation of the Devill Of the horrid Blasphemies of the Quakers against God and his Christ. George Fox the Father of the Quakers of these parts hath avowed himselfe over and over to be equall with God being asked by Doctor Marshall in the presence of Master Sawro Colonell Tell and Colonell West Justices of the Peace in the County of Lancashire at a private Sessions in the Towne of Lancaster whether or no he was equall with God as he had before that time beene heard to affirme his answer was this I am equall with God This Blasphemy hath been attested upon Oath by the foresayd Doctor Marshall and Master Altam Schoolmaster of Lancaster before the Justices at the last Sessions held at Appleby Ianuary the 8. 1652. and before Judge Puleston at the last Assizes held at Lancaster March the 18. 1652. This Fox in a Booke intituled Sauls Errand to Damascus endeavours to purge himselfe of this and other such cursed speeches layd to his charge but he doth it so woodenly and ambiguously that if there wanted sufficient witnesses his owne bungling answers would to a rationall man declare him guilty And well may he affirme himselfe to be equall with God when he in the foresayd Booke Page eight Line nine and ten layes downe this blasphemous Proposition indefinitely Hee that hath the same Spirit that raised up Iesus Christ from the dead is equall with God The said Fox hath also avowed himselfe to be the Christ yea to be the way the Truth the life George Bickett Isaac Bourne witnesseth At the last Assises above-mentioned at Lancaster Mr. Sawro a Justice of the Peace in that County and an honest Gentleman told Judge Puleston in the open Court that he could produce many would witnesse that Fox had affirmed himselfe to be the Christ. The same also he said in the hearing of an honest Minister in Westmerland who will be ready to attest it when called to it This Fox hath also professed himselfe to be the Judge of the World George Bickett Adam Sands Nathaniel Atkinson witnesseth Yea the Eternall Judge of the World George Bickett witnesseth Iames Nailer another of Satans Nuntioes and principall spokesman in these parts affirmeth that he was as holy just and good as God himself This was I heare attested at Kendall by two witnesses There is a man of good Repute an Inhabitant of Underbarrow in the Barony of Kendall who sayeth many heard this Blasphemy besides himselfe but he thinks being all followers of this Nailer and Fox they will be unwilling to testifie it Iames Milner one of Foxes Disciples in the County of Lancashire professed himselfe to be God and Christ. Thomas Shaw Gerard Shaw George Inman witnesses This mans Advocate I mean that Pamphleteer that took the pains to put forth and procure the printing of that Book called Sauls Errant to Damascus or he that undertook to answer in his behalfe to Salve this his execrable Blasphemy and some wretched Prophesies which are already turned into lyes hath minted this miserable Excuse As for Iames Milner saith he though his mind did run out from his condition and from minding that Light of God which is in him whereby the world takes occasion to speak against the Truth and many Friends stumble at it yet there is a pure Seed in him It seems if a man be of their way though a Blasphemer and false Prophet by their own confession yet with them he is excusable One Williamsons Wife a Disciple of Milners when she came to see him at Appleby said in the hearing of divers there whose names might be here inserted if it was needfull that she was the Eternall Son of God And when the men that heard her told her that she was a woman and therefore could not be the Son of God She said no you are women but I am a man These last words I insert that the Reader may see how strongly the Spirits of some of these people are transported and how ready they are to affirm any thing how ever impious or absurd Of the Erroneous Opinions of the QUAKERS HItherto of their Blasphemies Now for the Doctrines which the Leaders of this Sect have avouched and taught and the Principles they have instilled into their credulous Adhaerents They are some of them Errours of the first Magnitude Fundamentall Errours Others of them though of a lesser size in their own nature yet the understanding Reader will censure them to be such as tend to the disturbance of the Civill Peace as well as that of the Church Others of them again are such light stuff as shewes them to be meer triflers in Religion I shall heare mention such of their Errours onely as I can bring sufficient proofe for either from those that have been Ear-witnesses and are well acquainted with their way or from their own printed Books which are owned and admired by their Disciples 1. They hold that the holy Scripture the Writings of the Prophets Evangelists and Apostles are not the word of God and that there is no written word of God But they say using a foolish distinction of their own coining that they are a declaration of the word onely in those that gave the faith 2. They hold their own speakings are a declaration of the word Christ in them thereby making them though they be for the most part full of impiety and non-sense to be of equall Authority with the holy Scriptures 3. They hold that no Exposition ought to be given of the holy Scripture and that all expounding of Scripture is an adding to it and that God will add to such a one all the plagues written in that Book Opening and applying the Scripture is one thing they mainly declaim against where ever they come 4. They teach poor people that whosoever takes a text of Scripture and makes a Sermon of or from it is a Conjurer and that his preaching is Conjuration Fox in his printed answer to this Sauls Errant Page 7. saith thus
some that pride idlenesse and fulnesse of bread the sins of Sodom are the fruits of their preaching They acuse them of being brought up at Oxford and Cambridge they say they know nothing but naturall Books and naturall things the Scripture Letter Hebrew and Greek which is all naturall That the ungodly unholy proud Priests add Professors must be scorned who know not the Power of the word Reader I coine or add no expression of mine own I repeate onely their own words which such Books and Papers of theirs as I can produce are full of They apply all that is spoken to Idolatrous ignorant idle prophane persecuting Priests and false Prophets either in the old or new Testament to the Ministers of England but we know that though one syllable or tittle of such abused Texts of Scripture doth not pertain to any godly faithfull Minister of the Gospell yet that very many of them do as properly belong to themselves as the Skin that is upon their flesh They exhort people not to heare them to cease from them and not to hold them up and tell them they will never be profited by them And indeed as soon as any man turnes their Proselite he becomes as pure a Recusant as any Papist in England And not content to raile against them in Prose they compose Songs or Ballads rather which their Disciples magnifie and look upon as Spirituall Songs that they may revile them in Meeter also One of their Speakers said not long since that the Priests had deluded the people this sixteen hundred yeares borrowing this peice of Divinity or Devility rather from the Almanack-maker Their Writings are full of Threatnings Prophesies against Ministers for which also they are beholding to the Astrologers They say the Lord is coming to beat up their Quarters the Son of Thunder is coming abroad to sound Trumpets to call to Battell against the great day of the Lord and there Kingdome must be taken from them and that their downfall is neer at hand Some of them have said they hope within a yeares time to see never a Minister left in England They exhort one another in the words of Coliier out of whose Pit they have drawn much of their black Religion to overturn overturn overturn Thus one Instrument of the Divell helps another Reader I do very believe that if these wicked men had power in their hands there would be no Toleration of any true Minister of Jesus Christ in England and that one of the first things they would endeavour would be if not to raise a tempest of Persecution by raining blood yet at least to raise and extripate the Sacred Callings I say Sacred calling of the Ministry being the Institution of Jesus Christ in his Church One principall reason why they do thus shew their teeth against Ministers I imagine to be this they look upon some of them as those that do mainly stand in their way as those that are able to detect their Errours to manifest their folly and unsheath the Sword of the Spirit the word of Truth against them They cannot for them so freely proceed in the propagation of their Delusions as they would Hence they are their greatest eye-sores Also if I may without offence speak what I think and partly know they presume to take this liberty to themselves because they are apt to conceive that Ministers are now almost friendlesse that Authority will not appeare for them and that they are the Object of the wrath of divers Soldiers in the Army whom they foolishly suppose to incline to their as to them unknown Sect. But I hope yea I am confident that when the Hypocrisie of these men shall be unmasked and their madnesse and iniquity which hath already begun in some places to lift up her head shall be better known and appeare they shall then proceed no further And that those Worthies that by divine Providence do or shall sit at the Stern to guide the Ship of the Common-wealth and the godly Officers of the Army will not onely disowne and detest but also manifest themselves to be Enemies to all their Impieties and Enormous Practises of this turbulent Faction But in the mean time while they are so injurious to the Soveraigne Majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ the Prince of the Kings of the Earth by their Hellish Blasphemies and eager opposition of the Truth well may they contemne and rage against such Earthen Vessels as are his Ministers here on Earth Of their Censoriousnesse Lying instability in their own Errours and enmity to Learning NEver did Hereticks speak greater swelling words of vanity and more exalt themselves and throw down others then those who are of that Synagogue do They commend themselves up to Heaven they give themselves the title of Saints they boast themselves to be equal to the Apostles to speak from the immediate Revelation of the Spirit impudently impiously affirming more of themselves then the true Apostles of Jesus ever did or durst do touching their freedome from sin and perfection in holinesse c. and threaten that they shall be the Judges of the World but they will readily censure all others to Hell tell them they are damned that they worship the Beast that they are possessed with the Divell yea with many Divels that the Divell speakes in them and that they see him in their eyes and faces c. This language of Divels indeed is as ordinary with them to dissenters from their way that oppose them as to talk with them Many of them will be as ready to say and unsay any thing as if lying was a Vertue They make no conscience of raising false Reports against those especially that do any way oppose them Witnesse that lying Pamphlet Sauls Errant to Damascus wherein there are a hundred untruths as may be proved by a hundred Witnesses It is the Testimony of a faithfull Minister of Christ concerning them Not in halfe an houres discourse saith he with most of those I have discoursed with but you shall finde plain and down-right lyes Some of them saith he have commed to my house and said they had a Message from God to me upon my speedy demanding it they have point blank almost in the same breathing time denyed it When some that have been in some measure able from the word of Truth to manifest their Errours have discoursed with those Wells without water though themselves have stood like men inwardly convicted and ashamed utterly unable to gain-say or darken those cleare Evidences of Scripture brought against them and sometimes totally silenced and as mute as Fishes Yet when these Champions of Errours have gone away they have boasted of their Conquests and how gloriously they had foiled and stopt the mouths of their Adversaries Thus wholly by Lyes Lying Doctrines lying Revelations lying Wonders lying Reports they do endeavour to build up the Kingdome of the Father of Lyes among us Their inconstancy to their own Errours is also very remarkable They
have left the Truth and the good waies of the Lord which are alwaies like themselves and as unalterable as the courses of the Stars of Heaven And now they fluctuate like the Waves of the Sea they have unbottomed themselves and now they know not where to fix they are removed from that Religion that is true to another Gospell and now they have both the Credenda Facienenda the Doctrinall and Practicall parts of their Irreligion they have taken up to seek and settle It is not to be expected that they will be a yeare or two hence what they are now new Visions new Revelations they daily look for Unstable Soules whither will your Fancies go whither will he drive you that sets you on work One in Kerbylonsdale Parish that had been of their Society a while fell sick of an Ague and was by it detain'd at home a Month after recovery going to their Assemblies again he professed that he found them so altered from their Principles in that Months time that he could onely know them by their faces to be the same men not by the constitution of their mindes Divers others that were a while agon of their way perceiving the instability of their Opinions and Impiety of their walkings are now fallen off from them and frequent the publike Assemblies as before The Profession of some of the tallest of this Sect that afford shadow to the rest hath had almost as many faces as the Moon before they turned Promoters of Quakers The world hath seen them zealous for Episcopall Policy and Ceremonies hot for Presbytery all for Independency and after all for Antinomianisme Anabaptisme and now beyond all onely for Foxes new Irreligion which is above all Formes and Ordinances Most of them that steer their course according to the direction of these wandring Stars were heretofore noted men for their Singularity and unsoundnesse of their Tenets such as ever affected to put on the newest Fashion of Religion A Taylor at Grayrigge that while there was no Minister there used to speak publikely every Lords day delivered them openly many dangerous and Hereticall Doctrines and what ever his Doctrine was true or false he was wont daily as his Hearers said to pawn his Soule on the truth of his Assertions and bid if they were not such to take him for ever for a false Prophet Yet this man after Fox and Nayler came into these parts having been their Auditor a little while was perverted by them and became a Quaker left his former Principles and came to Grayrigge where he had taught long before and told the people he had formerly deluded them and taught lyes and false Doctrine among them but he had now found the right way indeed with other words to that effect The Builders of this Babell of the Quakers which they as impiously as vain-gloriously call the Temple of the Lord will have no Tooles taken out of the Shops of humane Learning to work withall and indeed I think they have not except what the Learning of Winstanley and Collier have afforded them If any of their way of of the Countenancers of them be learned indeed as some of them are held to be I look upon their owning and admiring at it and those empty Clouds their Speakers as a very sad Judgment of God upon them sending them strong delusions to believe a lye They hate a Library Cane pejus Angue all Expositors of holy Scripture they call Heatheninsh Commentators the Reliques of those pious Learned men that were great Lights in the Churches of Christ in their Ages such Books I mean as Students in Theology use as good helps to attain to that excellent Knowledge of the Doctrine of the holy Scriptures they tearm heathenish Books and the Compilers of them heathenish Authors Languages and Arts and such like Ornamentall Qualifications are ulcerous Deformities in these mens eyes A methodicall discourse is an Odium all distinctions they say are the Seed of the Serpent they savour too much of solid Knowledge They deny it to be needfull to bring up Children in any Learning and some of them have taken their Children from Schoole Their Books and Papers which they disperse abroad the Country with these or such like absurd frothy Sefle-contradicting Quaeries Whether the Lord made use of any as Ministers of his minde unto the people that were bred idle at Sdhooles and Universities all the daies of their lives without a calling as the Priests of England but rather the contrary as Moses a Shepheard Amos a Heardsman Christ himselfe a Carpenter Paul a Tent-maker Peter a Fisherman Whether ever Universities or Schooles of Learning were in holy Scripture called the Well-heads of Divinity Whether ever Christ and his Apostles did make use of those great Bugbeares so common in use with the Priests of England to prevent the Saints from preaching the Gospell and the world from hearing them As first the Approbation and Ordination of the men of the Earth Secondly humane Learning and the Language of the Beast without which men are in their account altogether unmeet to meddle in the things of God Whether ever Christ and his Apostles did confirm the Truths they delivered by the power of the Magistracy Authors and Fathers Whether the Spirits teaching be not sufficient in the things of God Whether it be not the work of Christ and that which is to be expected in the latter daies to overturn overturn overturn all these waies so contrary to his own minde What do they mean in the last Quaere what Spirit is this they speak from but let these Quaeries go as they are for me Of their Idlenesse Savage Incivilities and their Irreligious bloody barbarous and turbulent practises TO what hath been hitherto related of their Impieties and disorderly walkings it may be added that they are many of them notorious for Idlenesse in their Callings working not at all sometimes for whole weeks and months together Some of them leave their Wives Children Families Vocations and turn all Journy-men Speakers Others regardlesse of all at home wander after them compassing the Country from place to place and live upon those of their Fraternity where they light to their Excessive charge They are degenerated also to such Incivilities as are in few places of the World to be found among the Heathens having departed from the Doctrine of Christ and practise of Civility both together Reader I have been an Eye-witnesse of more courteous behaviour in the Indians of the West and Natives of the East Indies and Moores of Africa then these men will afford to their neerest Relations or those they ought most to honour A Son if turned a Quaker will not use the usuall Civility of the world that is christian in putting off his hat to his Father or Mother will give them no civill Salutations to bid him Goodmorrow that begat him or her Good night or farewell that brought him forth is with them accounted a wickednesse None of the
you you may be reclaimed from this way of Perdition Look upon your way I pray you which you poor Souls think is true Religion in the Glasse of this Relation Behold here the Errours and Enormities of the chiefe of your Sect. Are they not their Blasphemies their Tenets their Practises that are here mentioned Do you not know and many others of your Sect to be guilty of some of most of them and are they not Abominations also are they not works of the flesh and deeds of darknesse If the Candle of the Lord be not wholly put out in you and that light within you you so much talk of be not altogether darkness I appeal to that light And for my plain dealing in the ensuing Narration I hope you of all men wil not be displeased The Leaders and â—autors of your Sect have taken a sinfull liberty to themselves in their printed books as in Sauls Errant to Damascus Rich. Farnworths Cal out of all false Worships and in another book intitled the three-fold state of Antichrist and in another Pamphlet called false Prophets and false Teachers described by the Prisoners at York c. In these printed Libels and in your Manuscripts that flye as thick as Moths up and down the Country the ablest of your party the Authors of them have said and railed and censured and slandered and at a venture predicted his pleasure Let me now repeat a little of what they have said and tell some part of the World some of the wickednesse that is contained in them I have not mentioned the personall failings of any of your Society except such practises as are notoriously known and have been defended and wherein your Religion is partly placed Nor have I aggravated any thing or made a Mountain of your Mole-hil those that are well acquainted with you know that what is here said is rather a Mole-hill to your Mountain For the Errours of your Sect mentioned in this book it is not my intent in this discourse to debate them with you or to undertake a confutation of them To those that are not Children in knowledge the very nomination of them is a sufficient confutation such cleer opposition is there between them and the word of Truth And for your selves I suppose private and moderate reasonings if you would admit of them would be more praevalent to reclaim you then Writings Yet if you would deale so ingenuously with us as to let us know under your hands wherein you go alone and dissent from the Generation of the Children of the most High and desire our answer to it a little time I hope would produce it from some abler Pen then mine to what should cleerly appeare to be Erroneous Lend me your Patience a little longer while I speak yet something more freely to you of your way your selves that walk in it and your Speakers that have seduced you to it Your way may challenge the Christian world to shew one more wicked I must confesse to you I do not detest Popery it selfe more heartily then I do your Irreligion Papists are open Idolaters and the Propagators of your Superstitions are more horrid Blasphemers most of your Errours may throw down the Gauntlet to the worst of theirs besides many that you hold in common with them They worship God according to the fancy of the Pope and his Conclave You according to the fancy of Fox and those others that have deluded you or according to your own imaginations or rather you worship not the Lord at all having cast off all his Ordinances without exception your Soule loatheth that light Bread Besides your Spirits are more impetuous your practises Tenets as nay more destructive to humane Societie and civill Peace and Government then those of the Iesuites Proselytes or are you one jot lesse if not more Antichristians then they Your way also leads to Ranting and if the Lord in mercy do not reclaim you it is easie to predict that before a few months or yeares be gone over you will be ascended to that height and precipice of Impiety And for your selves while in this way if you be compared with the prophane people of the world you are the worse They when they revile and curse and drink and sweare and live in uncleannesse will be easily convinced of and confesse the evill of their way But you when you turn your backs upon Gods word and Ordinances and scoff at them and speake evill of the way of Truth and cease not with Elymas to pervert the right waies of the Lord and revile the Ministers of Christ and mock at his Messengers you make it your Religion and applaud and justifie your selves in it as though you did God good Service in so doing Yet this Iniquity of yours is I am assured of it a greater and purer peece of Profanity then if you should in the sight of the Sun lye down and wallow in the Mire of any of the common Vices and Pollutions of the world If there was that order and discipline established among us which Christ hath appointed in his Church such as you should bee cut off from the Lords people by Excommunication be solemnly delivered up to Satan and declared to be as Heathens and Publicans Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an Heretick saith the Apostle after the first and second Admonition reject But however men on earth deale with you if you live and dye without repentance in the sinnes above mentioned it is no presumption to say the sentence of Excommunication will be passed upon you in Heaven and that the doores of the Kingdome of God will be shut against you for ever You heare the word of Truth telling you 1 Cor. 6. 9. 10. That no unrighteous Persons And particularly that Revilers shall not inherite the Kingdome of God and Gal. 5. 20. 21. That Idolatry Witchcraft hatred variance emulations wrath strife seditions Heresies are manifest works of the flesh and that those that do such things shal not be the Inhabitants of that upper Region and Revel 21. 8. and 22. 15. That the unbeliving and all lyars shall have their part in the Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death And you know how Christ wil deale with those at the last day that obey not his Gospel Many of these sinnes specified in the Texts above cited are the naturall Fruits or rather essentiall parts of your new Irreligion and I am sure also they have been hitherto in very many of your way as the iâ—â—â—rable Adjuncts of it The Lord the Father of mercies open your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 see the evill of this your way and reclaim you from it for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 path of life but one of the rodes to Hell and a way that goes downe to the Chambers of death And for your Speakers if ever there did arise false Prophets Seducers since Christs time and since the Apostles fell asleep as they have told us in their Sacred Writings
or women or others are by their proselyted friends who desire to make them as bad as themselves brought to heare him speak or discourse with him it is another of his Customes to talk and hold them a while by the hand and it is confidently reported that many he hath thus handled though some of them before their comeing to him did exceedingly disaffect both him and his Impieties even to hatred and though they stayed but a while with him and heard nothing from him that might either morally perswade or rationally convince them of the evill of their former way or if any greater Excellency in his new way yet so strangely have they been wrought upon and altered that they been all on the suddaine earnest feirce impetuous in both for it and him and do now much more violently affect his wicked Religion then ever before they did distaste it Such heady fiery diverters of many Men and Women to their way makes sober Christians think that though there be nothing that is divine either in it or the Propagators of it yet there is much Diabolicall attraction and Art in both Many have profest that having left their society after dislike of their wayes they have been for a while so distempered both in minde and body that their bodyes have been all wett with sweat in their Bedds and they could not get a winck of sleep These and such like accidents especially that faculty which most of their Speakers have to cause their hearers fall into such Diabolicall Ecstasies above described hath induced many understanding Christians to believe that these blasphemous hereticall Impostors are accompanied with the power and workings of Satan Of their FASTINGS THey use also Fastings which are some sometimes prescribed by their Speakers to their Novices and continued by those that observe them for many dayes together but their Fasts are as the Apostle calls the humility of VVill-worshippers A voluntary humility not savouring of Religion not joyned with Prayer but undertaken as a foolish imitation of the miraculous forty dayes Fasts of Moses Elias Christ and the long three weeks abstinence of Daniel and three dayes Fast of the Apostle Paul and as is conceived for the procuring of Revelations and inspirations as they think of the Spirit And they that use such ceremonies to purchase them may have them I beleeve from one Spirit or other Many of them have fasted themselves so weak they could scarse go and till their faces have gathered blacknesse One of them of late I could name hath fasted himselfe so weak that he could scarcely speak or go otherwise then by the help of some to lead and support him a servant made that lived in the house with him reports that shee is certaine that for foureteen dayes together he neither eat nor drunk a crum or drop of any thing some that have lately seen him are of opinion he is starved almost past recovery but whether death will be the issue of his Fasting or no must be left to the providence of God and to a little time to determine But where are such ungodly Murtherous Fasts as these prescribed in the Word David George of Delfe a Blasphemous Impostor whom George Fox resembles as much as one Egge another had frequently his three dayes Fasts The Heathen Priests in China use abstinence sometimes for thirty dayes together to procure abilitie to Prophesie The savage Indians in New England that are trained up for Powwowes so they call their Wizards use to fast many dayes before the Devill appeares to them and they make their compact with him And some Maides there are that know what Saint Agnes Fast meanes and Papists we know have their Fasts as well as Quakers All Fasts are not holy Fasts some are Superstitious and some are Diabolicall No more of them Of their Railings THey are also as horrible Railers as ever any Age brought forth a Generation whose mouths are full of bitternesse whose throats are open Sepulchers c. The Billinsgate Oister-women are not comparable to them It is ordinary with them in the Letters they write to other men to call them Fooles Sots Hypocrites vaine men Beasts Blasphemers Murtherers of the just It is a customary thing with this Gang of people in their discourse with others to tell them they are Dogs Heathen c. One of Kendall going to the Buriall of a Minister his acquaintance met a woman of this Sect by the way and asked her if she had seen the Corps go by I saw saith she a company of Heathen go to bury a dead Dog Such language is common in the mouthes of their principall Speakers and none more notorious this way then Fox their prime Oracle If any man in their Meetings speake any thing in opposition to what they deliver or askes any Question wherein he desires to be satisfied not agreeable to their humours or manifests the least disrelish of what they say it is enough to provoke such Tearmes To give one Example Nayler at a private Meeting in Sedbergh asked an honest Christian Samuel Handley whether he was without sin or no Handley replyed he was a Sinner hereupon Nayler called him a Theefe a Murtherer a Cain and justified himselfe to be without sin They raile against the very Aedisicies wherein we meet together to worship God against the Ordinances there practised against the Doctrine there taught but never reason like men or Christians out of the Scriptures against the Corruptions they conceive to be in them Yea they spare not the Pulpit that is they say the Seat of the Pharisee the chiefe place in the Synagogue the high place that is to be demolished and broken down Yea sometimes they spare not the Dignitie of Magistracy but speak evill of them as far as they dare But their hate and spite is specially against the persons of Ministers and calling of the Ministry which they impiously revile with open mouth even all the Ministry of England without exception calling them the Priests of the World Conjurers Theeves Robbers Antichrists Witches Divels Lyars and a Viperous and a Serpentine Generation Blasphemers Scarlet coloured Beasts Babylons Merchants selling beastily Ware whited Walls ravening Wolves greedy Dogs Baals Priests Tithemongers Deceivers Hirelings c. Such Titles as these they give them not onely in their printed Books and Papers but often-times when they meet them in the Streets and in the very publike Assemblies while they are preaching the word that whole Congregations may be witnesses of their Impiety They affirme that all the Ministers in England that preach in Steeple-houses are Lyars of Jesus Christ that they uphold the Kingdome of Antichrist that they do all for filthy Lucre that they run greedily after the way of Cain to envie and murther and follow after the waies of Baalam That they seek to the Powers of the World to guard them in their Pulpits It seemes if they durst they would pull them out so I heare they had very lately dealt with
not heard heard of their open revilings which they principally fasten on them in whom most of God and sound Religion appears A man that professeth godlinesse especially a Minister that endeavors to be faithfull to Jesus Christ in the discharge of the duties incumbent on him cannot passe by them without their scorns Against such they grin and point at them with their fingers These and such like practises of this licentious people have filled the hearts of Gods People in these parts with exceeding fears to be driven after all their hopes to serve God in Corners and that they may die tho in the faith of the promise of Jerusalems peace yet without receiving it whilest the enemies of God roare in the midst of the Congregations So fast did their insolencies grow and their Numbers increase for a while that had they not been a little curbed by the imprisonment of Nayler and sending forth a warrant for the Apprehension of Fox for his blasphemies it is verily believed by many sober understanding men among us there would have been in a short time no peace or almost safety for any real Christian in Westmerland and some adjacent parts This was as some of the Justices expressed themselves at the Sessions Ianuary last one main reason of Naylers confinement namely that they were necessitated to it for the preservation of the publique peace and prevention of civil dissentions and such evils as might have ensued upon further connivance at these turbulene Impostors I shall conclude with the Judgements of two known learned and judicious men one of which is yet living and able to plead for the Truth and himself Master OWEN in his Discourse of Toleration hath this Passage Page 32. THere are saith he a sort of persons termed in Scripture disorderly vagabond wandring irregular persons 1. Thes. 5. 14. Acts 17. 5. 2 Thess. 3. 2. 1. Tim. 1. 9. Fixed to no Calling abiding in no place taking no care of their Families that under a pretence of teaching the Truth without Mission without Call without Warrant uncommanded undesired do goe up and down from place to place creeping into houses c. Now that such wayes as these and Persons in these wayes may judicially be inquired into I no way doubt The Storie is famous of Sesostris King of Egypt who made a Law that all the Subjects of his Kingdome should once a yeare give an account of their way and manner of living and if any was found to spend his time idly he was certainly punished And the Lawes of most Nations have provided that their people shall not be wanderers and whosoever hath not a place of abode and imployment is by them a punishable vagabond And in this by experience of the wayes walking and converse of such persons I am exceedingly confirmed I did as yet never observe any other issue upon such undertakers but scandal to Religion and trouble to men in their Civil relations when men by the practise of any vice or sin draw others to a pretended Religion or by pretence of Religion draw men to any vice or sinne let them be twice punished for their reall vices and pretended Religion Thus far Master Owen Master COTTON of New England touching the controversie of Libertie of Conscience in matters of Religion Page 7. layeth down this Position for Truth IF a man hold forth saith he or professe any Errour or false way with a boysterous and arrogant Spirit to the disturbance of civil Peace he may justly he punished according to the qualitie and measure of his disturbance caused by him and page 8. He saith the Scripture forbids not to drive ravenous Wolves from the sheep-fold and to restrain them from devouring the sheep of Christ and Page 9. He saith we acknowledge that none is to be punished for his Conscience though misinformed unlesse his Errour be fundamental and seditiously and turbulently promoted and further we acknowledge none ought to be constrained to believe or professe the true Religion till he be convinced in judgement of the Truth of it but yet restrained he may be from blaspheming the truth and from seducing any into pernicious Errors The End A BRIEF REPLY To some part Of a very scurrilous and lying Pamphlet CALLED Sauls errand TO DAMASCUS SHEWING The vanitie of the praises there attributed to the Sect of the Quakers and Falsitie of their Relations which are nought else but the breathings of a spirit of Malice Psal. 35. 20. They speak not Peace but devise deceitfull matters against them that are quiet in the Land LONDON Printed by T. R. for H. R. at the signe of the three Pigeons in Pauls Church-yard 1653. To the Reader THere is an unlicensed Pamphlet called Sauls errand to Damascus lately procured to be Printed wherein diverse Ministers of Westmerland and Lancashire are falsly aspersed and maliciously belied and traduced Had it not been for the clearing of their Innocency and the discovery of the falsities contained in that Book too apt in this credulous age to be believed as whatsoever is spoken against a Minister there had not been one word written in answer to it And for the rest of that Book that concerns us not I should be loath to betray my indiscretion so far as to attempt a full answer to such a heap of words or to trouble any judicious Reader with such fruitless contests Good Readers you have that Book by you or can think it worth your buying or perusal let me intreat you to read it with some observation of the Contents And if you be men whose inner man hath been indeed illuminated by the good spirit of the Lord and the knowledge of the Truth or whose reason hath been at all refined or polisht by learning or good education you will easily perceive by what they have to say for themselves that they are men whose knowledge is science falsly so called that these men are blind Leaders that while they pretend to be full of the Spirit full of Light and Revelations they are led a captive prey to the spirit of lies that spirit that workes in the children of disobedience that they walk in thick darkness that they go they know not whither and speak they know not what Something they would say to clear themselves of those blasphemies and cursed speeches they have been overheard to utter and have bin deposed upon oath against them both in Westmerland and Lancashire if they could tell how Flatly deny them they cannot they do not you wil even wonder to see how they bungle out an answer You wil admire at their impertinencies inconsistencies irrational insensate misty expressions as ambiguous sometimes as the devils oracles and stand amazed to see their impudence and how magistically they can revile censure to the pit of hel how boldly they dare avouch an error and offer a rape upon the holy Text wrest and misapply it and father their heretical absurd tenets assertions on it that in Print even
not Alaâ—â— poor hearts if they could perswade the world that a man of such known Learning and Abilities as Mr. Coale is had no knowledge and though it be true that the Gentiles have their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 2. 25. What will this advantage their cause Think they he was ignorant That all Nations and Kindreds have some sparkeling of Light and Knowledg some twilight streamings of Understanding the Candle of the Lord within them But what is this to a Light sufficient to save them Can the Owning of those implanted natural Principles bring us to know Jesus Christ and his Gospel which is a Doctrine of pure Revelation and which the world could never have known by all its wisedome had not God by his Son and by his Servants the Prophets and Apostles revealed it from Heaven unto us And whereas they would perswade the world that what rude behaviour was after was by the Priests party scornfully so called Had the Relator any spark of ingenuity left in him he knows Mr. Coals unwillingness to discours in that place as fearing some tumult and that those that came with Mr. Coale to speak with Nayler did guard him with safety through the Town And where they say the raging Priests continued shouting crying and throwing stones at him a quarter of a mile out of the Town their souls may blush for shame to Print such a palpable execrable falshood Those whom they so nickname have I am confident more compassion in them for such beguiled souls then Passion and were so far from being ingaged in such a barbarous and unchristian act that their souls would loath the very thoughts of it Mr. Coale saw not Nayler at that time after he was departed from the place where he discoursed with him but stayed there with four Christian friends till the people were gone and Nayler conveyed safely through the Town by a Magistrate But let them not be deceived God is not mocked for they that thus sowe to the flesh shall of it not fail to reap corruption At the close of the Book I find the word Priests in this place among the Errata's and that you should read not the raging Priests but the raging People A willing Erratum doubtless and an excellent back doore here is to avoid a lie But how shall these Errata's which one of 100. reads not and few in comparison know the use of take off this base aspersion It is well that either I. Nayler his particulars or George Foxe his press of Persecutions are either capable of mistakes or have the modesty to confess an Error We shall not challenge what the reparation of their honesty doth at their hands viz. To alter their Relations and speak Truth and right the names of those they have wronged in their Sauls Errand to Damascus but shall bind all their aspersions of us as a crown upon our heads having learned in some measure to go through both good and bad report and desiring to be crucified to vain estimations of men A Reply to that part of Nailers Relation which concerns Master Fothergils and my own discourse with him at Orton HE saith many Christian friends did desire his coming to Orton Who those were or whether desirous of his coming or no I did not inquire since we know too well that such guests as he may be had upon very easie terms He is indeed for any way but home or where he hopes to find entertainment and then the feat is to pretend that either by voyce or revelation or at least by the intreaty of their Brethren they were called thither And it is probable upon this last score Nayler came to Orton Fox was heard to say a few dayes before he thought God would give him a Call to speak at Orton shortly But thither came Nayler in steed of Fox and with him a great company of all sorts and both sexes where true it is that some Ministers were but that any multitude or number of people was drawn together by their procurement is utterly false As for his temptations by the Ministers and their Intentions of violence against him and the appearance thereof afterwards his paper when he writ it would have answered him with a blush if it had been capable of shame The Relation which Nayler or some for him makes of the conference betwixt our selves and him that day is very confused imperfect and false Briefly and truly thus it was Mr. Fothergill Minister of Orton wished the Constable to do his Office so far as to ask Nailer by what Authority and to what end he had drawn together that multitude Nayler replyed the end of his coming thither was to declare what God had revealed in him If so said Mr. Fothergill that thou comest to instruct the people it is a good work if so be thou hast a lawful calling so to doe Then shewing him an Ordinance of Parliament forbidding any to preach publickly but such as were lawfully called thereunto he asked what calling he had to do so Nayler answered he had a calling If so said M. Fothergil it is either Extraordinary or Ordinary one or both or neither which I rather believe To which Naylers reply was that distinctions were from the seed of the Serpent Yea said M. Fothergil what saist thou then to that distinction 1. Iohn 5. 16. There is a sinne unto death and a sinne not unto death I spake of thy distinction said Nayler though indeed he spake of distinctions generally But leaving this discourse Nayler affirming that there was no other kind of call to the Ministery but such as the Apostles had M. Fothergill proceeded to give some instances of extraordinary calls in the Prophets and Apostles and of ordinary calls as in the successive Ministers of the New Testament by Imposition of hands And lastly of both in the example of Paul of whose immediate and extraordinary call we reade Acts 9 And of his mediate and ordinarie call by Imposition of hands Acts 13. 2. Against this Nayler spake many words to little purpose out of Gal. 1. And when he saith he could have no answer though he asked 3. times whether the imposition of hands Act 13. 2. were Pauls calling to the Ministerie it is untrue For he was answered then that it was his ordinary or mediate cal to the Ministery among the Gentiles and a confirmation of that extraordinary cal which he had before Not said Mr. Fothergil as though that extraordinary call had not bin of its self sufficient but that the Churches consent and approbation being hereby signified he might be the more welcome to and the better received of the Gentiles to whom he was sent Nor doe we judge amisse if we think that the Lord hereby would also signifie what manner of calling to the Ministery he intended to continue in the Church to after ages That other Minister that the Relator contemptuously cals Priest was my self I told him then that seeing he denyed the Office and teaching