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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39296	The account from Wickham (lately published by John Raunce and Charles Harris) examin'd and found false and warning thereof given to all such well-meaning persons among the people called Quakers, as through personal affection, want of consideration, or weakness of judgment have been betrayed, or may be in danger to be betrayed by them, or any other in the same dividing spirit with them, and led aside from the way of truth into a separation from the people of God, for whose recovery and preservation this is written / by Thomas Ellwood.	Ellwood, Thomas, 1639-1713.	1689 (1689)	Wing E611; ESTC R3890	22,353	20

thither Judge you then of their Sincerity in making this Cavil And as to their other Cavil about Youths and Girls filling up our Meetings if thereby they mean that the Meetings consist of such ' its false If they mean not so but only that some young ones are sometimes there present 't is idle The Meetings it is well known consist of the most antient grave weighty Friends of either Sex in the Country And if any young people or old either that have been little amongst us at our other Meetings and whose deportment and behaviour hath not ansuered their Profession have stept in such have been taken out and desired to withdraw But if they except against all that are young in Years meerly because they are young their exception is to be excepted against as not according to Truth And I question whether they obseve their own methods in the separate Meetings they have set up But if they do not it is then without question that they urge these things not from a conscientious tenderness and with a sincere mind but as a ground of Contention and occasion of Quarrel So also they say they desired that our Meetings might consist of qualified chosen Friends from each particular Meeting But I pray now do their separate Meetings consist of such qualified chosen persons Ye that have been amongst them deal faithfully with your selves and if ye find them false in these particulars urging those things in pretence which they do not practice in reality suffer not your selves to be deceived by them As for our Meetings they do consist of qualified Friends from each particular Meeting such as are chosen by him who best knows their Qualifications God who qualifies them for the service he engages them in and enagages their Spirits in an holy Concern to undertake the work he qualifies them for But is it not strange that these men who seem ready to startle at the very Name of Form and cry out so fearfully against Imposition should on a sudden so far forget themselves as thus to contend for Form in choosing the Members of their Meeting and impose upon all others that should not be chosen and qualified as they think fit to absent themselves from those Meetings What Confusion do these Men run into Now having told us what they desired they go on to tell us what they have disliked as that when Persons have declared that they could not go to the Womens Meeting with their Marriage for Conscience sake several have declared to this effect That the authority of Iudgment concerning such Consciences belong'd to them and that they had power to judge Spirits and Consciences and that they had not only power to desire but to require Marriages before the Womens Meeting and that they could have no Vnity with neither stand Witness to any Marriage but what went first to a distinct Womans Meeting and that such ought not to proceed in Marriage but wait till the Cloud was over telling them it was not Conscience but Stubbornness and Wilfulness and would say They knew it by an inward Sence without any outward Demonstration Thus they fill your Ears with noise and endeavour to prejudice your minds with Reports of what they say others have said whose Sayings perhaps they may have mis-reported or perverted their meanings in giving their own Sence of others words for if ye observe it they do not say several have declared these very words which they have there set down but this in Effect which depends upon their Construction of the words spoken the true Sence of which too cannot be so clearly understood without knowing the Occasions and Circumstances of the Discourse Yet even as these Men have related them they will not sind upon a due Examination any great advantage accrue unto their Cause not will you I hope find cause of Offence from any of these fore-going Expressions As for the authority of judging concerning Conscience which I take to be the main thing here they carp at before it can be rightly understood with relation to be the present Case the occasion and intention of the Words must be considered A Couple that profess Truth lay their Intention of Marriage before a Meeting of Friends The intent of their doing this is not barely and only that their Intention may be made known but that the Friends of that Meeting if no just cause of Obstruction appear may own them joyn with them Act for them and stand by them in the carrying on and consummating of their Marriage Now if this Couple shall refuse to proceed in that Method for the accomplishing their Marriage which the Meeting uses on the like Occasions and shall pretend a Conscientious scruple for such Refusal hath not that Meeting Authority to inquire into the Grounds and Reasons of such a pretence and upon that Inquiry power also to judge of the Sincerity or Insincerity of such a Pretence or Plea of Conscience so far as concerns their own Satisfaction in order to their owning or not owning acting for or not acting for joyning with or not joyning with standing by or not standing by such Persons in their present Procceedings How else shall a Meeting be capable to act with Iudgment and Safety shall a Meeting of Friends be obliged to acquiesse and submit to every bare Plea of Conscience from others contrary to the firm Perswasion of their own Consciences and not be allowed a Liberty Ability Capacity Authority to Examine Try Judge a Plea of Conscience whether it be sincere or no especially in a Case wherein themselves are to be concerned Worse then would the Condition of a Meeting be than that of a single Person We have been told indeed by some of them when we have asked of the Parties refusing a reason of their refusing to let their Proceedings be lookt into by the Womens Meeting that we ought not to ask them such Questions but that when they have declared it to be matter of Conscience to them we ought to be satisfied with that Answer without inquiring further But this has not answered our Consciences nor our Understandings We believed that in a Case wherein they desired us to be concerned we might reasonably desire to be further satisfied th●● so Their excepting against any Friends saying if any did say they had power to judge Spirits shews how short they are of the state of the Spiritual Man who the Apostle testifies Iudges all things 1 Cor. 2. 15. Consider I intreat you wherefore was the Gift of Discerning Spirits given to the Church as we read it was 1 Cor. 12. 10. If it was not to be used in the Church And wherefore were the Saints exhorted 1 Iohn 4. 1. To try the Spirits whether they were of God or no if they have not received from God ability to Try and power upon Tryal to Iudge whether those Spirits are of God or not at least so far as relates to their own satisfaction in receiving or not receiving

The ACCOUNT From WICKHAM Lately published by Iohn Raunce and Charles Harris Examin'd and found False And Warning thereof given to all such Well-meaning Persons among the People called Quakers As through Personal Affection want of Consideration or Weakness of Judgment have been betrayed or may be in danger to be betrayed by them or any other in the same dividing Spirit with them and led aside from the Way of Truth into a Separation from the People of God For whose Recovery and Preservation this is written By Thomas Ellwood Printed in the Year 1689. The Account from WICKHAM Lately published by Iohn Raunce and Charles Harris Examined and found False And a warning thereof given to all such well-meaning Persons among the People called Quakers as through Personal Affection want of Consideration or Weakness of Judgment have been betrayed or may be in danger to be betrayed by them or any other in the same dividing Spirit with them and led aside from the Way of Truth into a Separation from the People of God for whose Recovery and Preservation this is written FOr your sakes it is O ye much pitied Ones more than for any Weight in the Account it self or Worth in the Authors of it that I have thus taken notice of it For indeed as soon as I had perused it I felt a compassionate Concern spring in my Heart on your behalfs and a direction in Spirit to open some passages therein and relating thereto to you that ye might be preserved from being taken or if in any measure taken might be rescued and delivered from the snare which the Enemy of your Souls and of all Righteousness hath made use of these men to set to intangle entrap and catch you by And to the true Witness of the holy God in every one of your Consciences who retain any honest breathing after the Lord and the way of Holiness do I recommend this my undertaking and the sincerity of my Intention herein To begin therefore with the beginning of their Account they say The Differences amongst Friends in these parts did not arise amongst our selves but were brought in by such who have largely endeavoured to cause Division amongst us Now I affirm in the presence and fear of the holy God and upon my own certain knowledge that these men themselves were the chief Instruments of bringing the Differences in amongst Friends in these parts and They with their Associates have largely endeavoured yea and laboured hard for many Years to cause Divisions amongst us The Lord knows this is true and many of his faithful Servants in these parts know this is true yea and these men themselves also cannot but know this is true which makes their Condemnation the greater They say It is a Comfort to us that we can say in the presence of God we have not been the cause thereof but then being conscious of their own guilt they add for a Salvo these words by bringing into the Church any new Doctrine or any sort of unscriptural Discipline Were I now to deal directly with them I would not grant them that But since the end of my present writing is for your Information not to contend with them that which I shall observe to you is that were they indeed never so free from bringing into the Church any new Doctrine or as they term it unscriptural Discipline yet might they notwithstanding by other ways and means have been the Cause of the Divisions amongst Friends in these parts as indeed they were They travelled to and fro and traversed the Countries gleaning up Stories and evil Surmises from such as were in the work of Division in other parts and what they had so picked up They privately whispered and insinuated into the minds of such simple ones whose Ears were open to them filling them with fears doubts and jealousies of an Apostacy entring among Friends c. whereby they begat in some a Dis-esteem of many antient Friends and faithful Labourers in Truth 's service preparing and fitting them thereby to joyn with themselves to oppose in an ignorant Zeal the Care and Counsel which in the openings of Life the God of Life conveyed through his Servants to the Meetings for preventing that Apostacy which they said was entring And having espoused the Cause of I. S. and I. W. who had headed a Separate Meeting in the North they endeavoured to make a Party for them amongst the Friends of this Country and for that end did bandy together and having got I. S. over to Wickham brought him to our Meetings to Preach over us though he was known to be out of the Vnity of Friends and to be one of the cheif Heads of the Division to the great grief and heavy burden of many an upright tender hearted Friend They add that they have only stood for their own and others Liberty in Christ that all might walk as they had received from Him and not otherwise But the Truth of the matter is otherwise Neither their own nor others Liberty in Christ was infringed nor were any desired to walk otherwise than as they had received from Christ. But they stood for a Liberty out of Truth out of Christ who is the Truth for a fleshly liberty a self-willed liberty a corrupt liberty a liberty to mix in Marriages with such as were not of us Scandalous persons were brought to our Meeting upon account of Marriage and countenanced and abetted by these very men and such others as they could get to joyn with them against the mind and life of the Meeting One Couple especially whom I forbear to name being unwilling to mark out particular persons whereof the Man was not reputed a Quaker and the Woman charged by her Neighbours with having lain with her own Father to the great scandal of Religion Yet that Marriage these men promoted and highly contended for to the great grief and burden of Friends whose Life stood against it and to the great disquieting of the Meeting I. R. alleadging that the Man had been an Absenter from the publick Worship for more then twenty Years and that though he had not frequented the Quakers Meetings yet he had not joyned to any other People And when that gave no satisfaction to Friends he plainly told us It must be passed and that there was a necessity for it otherwise things would be worse which made it more uneasy to Friends to meddle at al with them But after long debate and many Moneths contending about it having got the Woman to sign a Paper under the notion of condemning her misbehaviour which Paper was then understood to be drawn up by C. H. for her and was so favourably worded that it rather seemed to palliate and excuse her Offence than condemn it pretending that her Father when she lay with him was sick unto Death though it was known he was able to walk abroad they carried on the Marriage with such an high Hand that the most Friends could do to clear

harsh prejudiced mind resolved before hand in a heady will to break the Order and thwart the Proceeding of the Meeting but Friends have found any measure of tenderness in the Persons concerned though not come to so clear an understanding as with satisfaction to comply with what was proposed the Meeting has condescended to their weakness not desiring any should act without Sight or without muchless against Faith. Of which I could give many Instances But those who have been justly noted for dark Spirits have been such as have declared they did not see and yet have set themselves to oppose revile and vilifie that which themselves confessed they had not a sight whether it was of God or not To what I. R. and C. H. say concerning Endeavours to bury them alive and take away their good Name and destroy their Labours and Services for God and his Truth little need I think be said plain it is and too apparent that their Labour and Service of latter years have not been for but against God and his Truth And more their Friends than they are aware of have some been who have endeavoured to destroy those Labours and Services of theirs which unless they repent of and forsake will assuredly destroy them But for their being buried alive I am and always was so far from desiring they should be so that I wish at least they were now capable of being so Ah what Savour of Life can any of you taste What fresh Spring can any of you find What green Leaf can any of you see throughout their whole Account The Lord give every one of you who are in any degree Favourers of them or inclining towards them a true Savour of Life in your selves that ye may forsake the Tombs and and not seek the Living among the Dead They speak Page 1. Of what several Friends have suffered from such who have been contentious for the Form and have made it the Measuring-Line And Page 4. they mention Formality being made the measuring-Line of Fellowship and Vnity That any Friends have made the Form the measuring-Line I neither know nor believe but take it for a Slander But if these Men think the Form ought not to be contended for they are Ignorant If they cannot distinguish between Form and Formality they are Weak In every Dispensation Truth hath always appeared in some Form and that Form which God appoints for Truth to appear in ought to be contended for if any rise up to contend against it so long as the Dispensation continues to which that Form is adapted Would these Men have a Religion without Form Or would they have a Form not worth contending for Consider I intreat you ye who have been at their Separate Meetings Have they no Form Do they pretend to none Are they slid back into such a Choas of Confusion that they are or would be as the Earth was while Darkness was upon the face of the Deep without Form If they have no Form they have no Order and how then is the God of Order their God If they have a Form but such an one as they think not worth contending for they had as good have none If they have a Form which they do think worth contending for nay if they have contended even unto Separation that they might impose a Form of their own invention upon us how can they without the greatest Injustice blame us for contending for the Form which we believe the Power of Truth has led us into But making the Form the measuring-Line is a Phrase of their own not of Friends by which they endeavour to cloud your understandings and prejudice your minds against Friends The Spiritual measuring-Line is the Spirit of God by which the Spiritual-minded measure Spiritual things And by this measuring-Line They that oppose the Form of Truth are certainly known and discovered not to be acted and guided by the Power of Truth And yet the Form is not made the measuring Line Is there not a Form of sound Words 2. Tim. 1 13 And if any who profess Truth should not only depart from the Form of sound Words but should reject despise oppose contend against it would ye not blame reprove condemn such persons But would ye have it from hence infer'd that ye make the Form the measuring-Line They say When the Womens Meetings were set up the People were told that was set up to keep things sweet and clean forgetting the fear of the Lord which can only effect that work Thus they pretend to exalt the Fear of the Lord but it is that they might debase and destroy those means which the Lord hath made useful in his Church for the stirring up of the pure Mind and keeping in a Watchful state of Subjection to the Lord in his Fear and reclaiming or calling back to the Fear of the Lord those that by the Wiles of the Enemy may at any time be drawn from it and for the denying and testifying against such as harden themselves against the Lord's Reproof such as oasting his Fear behind their Backs persist in Evil and will not be reformed who by the judgment of Truth arising in the heavenly Power in the Hearts of the Faithful are to be swept out of the Family of God as by the Besoom of the Lord. And is not that a proper way and means to keep things sweet and clean Did Paul think ye forget the fear of the Lord or knew he not as well as these men the vertuous Efficacy of it to keep sweet and clean when he took so great Care and Pains to watch over the Churches for that end When he gave particular direction for the aged Women to instruct and teach the younger Tit. 2. 3 4 5. Was not the end of this to keep things sweet and clean And might'not Hymenaes or Alexander or some other Apostate in that day have cavilled with as much Reason as these men now do and have said the Apostle forgot the Fear of God which can only effect that work But the Children of Light who abide in the Light do in and by the Light see through and over all these empty Cavils And in true and tender Pitty and Christian Compassion to your Souls are these things briefly opened unto you that ye may see and seeing may believe and believing may be saved from the snare the Enemy hath laid to catch you And whereas I. R. and C. H. complain of some crying Make no Bargain with that Spirit and feed it with Iudgment c. And of Sitting with Hats on in the time of their Prayer as a Testimony before all sorts of People against their Spirits with much more of like kind which ye may see in pag. 2. of their Account This I say is deceitfully written by them to beguile the simple and make the Ignorant believe that these Carriages towards them were the Cause and Occasion of the Differences between Friends and them in these parts for they immediately add

Now these things are repeated that none may be so ignorant as to think we begun these Quarrels with our Neighbours and Friends Now the God of Heaven knows and they know in their own Consciences that in this they deal deceitfully For the plain and naked Truth is that these things appeared not in any of our Meetings in this Country not a Hat kept on in the time of their Prayer nor any open shew of dis-union with or dislke to their Testimony how much so ever some of us were then grieved and burdened by them until they had first joyned themselves to the chief Authors and Fomenters of Division and Separation in other parts abetting their Cause espousing their Quarrel and having made a Party for them amongst Friends in this Country brake forth into an open Opposition to the way and order of Truth and by their continual Strife and Contention had done their endeavours to break our Meetings to pieces and by their unruly and turbulent behaviour had given unquestionable proofs that they were departed from the Fellowship of the Gospel of Peace and of Friends were become Enemies to Truth And surely they had no reason to expect to be owned by Friends in their Preaching and Praying after they or their party had published Friends to the World to be Apostates Innovators Introducers of Popery and the like As for the Papers they mention advising Friends to make no Bargain with that Spirit and feed it with Iudgment c. Those Papers declare what Spirit that was that was not to be bargained with but fed with Judgment namely that which was gone out of Truth and had led into Division and Separation and if these men had not known themselves guilty and That they were joyned to that Spirit and to those that by that Spirit were led into Division and Separation in other parts what need it have troubled them to hear such Papers read amongst Friends for a warning and caution to Friends to beware that they were not entangled by that Spirit Why should these men have taken offence at the reading of such a Paper any more than any other Friend in the Meeting where it was read if they had not then been in the Strife Contention and work of Division and so felt a stroke reach them in the reading of these Papers that were designed as a Caution to all Their charging Friends pag. 2. with endeavouring to leaven the Minds of convinced People from House to House to increase then Party and to defame such as were not of it is so exact a description of their own Courses that I am perswaded there are few Families of Friends in this Country but can convict them of it And I dare appeal to many of you if ye have not found it so your selves Nay does not I. R. still continue to draw some Patients of his to come to speak with him at his separate Meeting-place that so he may engage them who else would not come there to help increase his number But their charging Friends with writing approving and printing Books against several whom they call antient Friends by Name wherein they say are several Falshoods and Scandals is so notoriously known and has been so openly and unanswerably proved to be the guilt of their own party that it argues an extream degree of hardness and impudence in them to mention it Let them produce if they can any one Book to justifie their Charge before W. R. writ his foul Invective against Friends under the Title of The Christian Quaker distinguished from the Apostate and Innovator in five Parts Which infamous piece if my Memory fail me not I have heard I. R. say remained some considerable time in his hand before it was printed so that he could not be ignorant of it Nay he was a Promoter and Spreader of it after it came abroad Judge ye now how great a piece of Deceit it is in them to blame Friends for that which their own party first went into and necessitated Friends to answer in Defence and Vindication of the Truth and themselves After the same manner they cry out of Envious Reflections pag. 2. Base Reflections and. Hellish Names pag. 3. When as besides what they utter by Word of Mouth in their Preaching and Discoursing what Reflection that is envious and base is not to be found in their printed Books and Pamphlets against Friends How full is that Book of W. Rogers and other Books writ since by him of abusive Language bitter Words and base Reflections What is there else in Bug's and Bullock's Writings And for envious Reflections and Hellish Names what Sheet of Paper ever contained more than those of Susan Aldridge in forming of which how great an hand these very men had is not unknown to some But if ye look no further than the Account they have now published there ye shall find they say When the Womens-Meetings were first set up many was so elevated with it that they ran like Gehazi c. Gehazi ye know was Servant to the Prophet that cured Naaman the Assyrian of his Leprosie and when the Prophet had refused to take a Reward from Naaman for the Cure Gehazi ran after him in the Prophet's Name with Lyes of his own inventing in his Mouth on purpose and to no other end but to get Money and Clothes of him 2 Kings 5. Now for these men to say of any Friends that they were so elevated with the Womens-Meeting that they run like Gehazi what baser Reflection could they have cast yet here ye fee they caft this base and envious Reflection upon many What more foul as well as false Slander could they have vented or invented Yet these men ye see in that very Paper wherein they have thus basely reflected on others are not ashamed to tax others with envious and base Reflections whose Injustice here'in I represent to your view and serious consideration that ye may weigh and duly consider what Spirit it is they were guided by in writing that Account That so ye may not give your selves up through an affectionate fondness to an implicit belief of what they say or write but may examine and try them by the true measuring-Line the Spirit of Truth which uncovers their Deceit They reject Truth 's order upon pretence pag. 2. that Several things proposed have not proved a Blessing to the Church in such things they were pretenended for viz. to keep things sweet and clean The truly-sensible Ones the faithful and honest-hearted know the contrary not-withstanding the pains these men have taken by their Oppositions to prevent the Blessing and make things unsavoury and unclean But I pray consider what hath their Disorder done how sweet and clean have things been kept amongst them So far has their Division and Separation been from being a Blessing to the Church that it hath proved a grievous Curse to many of them that have run into it And hath led some of them utterly to part from