which is according to that of God in every man's Conscience which saith It is more just and meet to obey God than man So being that your Law that you have made is unequal and contrary to the Law of God which he hath writ in our hearts which is equal just and righteous for your Law that you have made against the Innocent People called Quakers is unjust and unrighteous and contrary to that of God in all mens Consciences and contrary to the righteous and Royal Law of God Therefore we say we cannot obey such a Law that doth not agree with the Royal Law of God but herein shall we obey the Lord choosing rather to suffer what you shall be suffered to do unto us than to fulfil the Commandment and unrighteous Law of unrighteous men in flying at your Command when the Lord hath Commanded us to stay Whereby that he may shew his Power in us that his Command and his Righteous Royal Law is of more power virtue and force in us and with us than your unrighteous Laws and Commands can be against us So this know if you put us to death when we return that you will bring innocent blood upon you by so doing which shall not depart from your houses nor from that seed that is guilty thereof So these things we speak that you may no more be guilty of Innocent blood for assuredly know that nothing shall fail of what the Lord hath spoken by us and through us concerning you if you go on still in Rebellion and stiff-neckedness and refuse to hearken to the Voice and Counsel of the Lord God And this know that you have been warned from the Lord of these things before they came to passe For this we know if we disobey the Command of the Lord to fly from you because you have made a Law to put us to Death if we disobey the Lord in this thing he can cut us off and take our Lives from us in his anger and fury Therefore be it known unto you that the Lord hath made us willing to lay down our Lives among you if you be suffered to take them from us and in this thing we know we shall have peace when you shall have sorrow and torment night and day And this shall you certainly know one day that the Lord God of Heaven and Earth whom we serve sent us among you if you see our faces again after we have been Banished from you and that which we have spoken you shall know to be truth whether you will hear or forbear Well if you say we are transgressors of a Law in not obeying your unrighteous Law It is your own and not God's Law For his Law is holy just and good but yours is altogether unholy unrighteous unjust and wicked and is to be set at nought and condemned by the servants of the Lord For this Law of yours which you have made to put the Righteous to death hath not proceeded from the Spirit of the Lord which is meek and lowly and easie to be entreated which doth judge and condemn you and your Law Now if you would know from what spirit this wicked and unnatural Law of yours hath proceeded Well we shall speak plainly it hath proceeded from the murdering spirit which raigned and ruled in the Persecutors of Old from whence all such Lawes did and do proceed Now ye Rulers chief Priests and Inhabitants of New-England this we shall say unto you in the fear of the Lord and Spirit of the Almighty and in the Power of the Lord Jesus Christ that you nor your Law is not to be regarded herein and your Law is to be broken and must be broken by the Power of the Lord God and you must be judged and condemned by the same Power for making such a Law For the Lord of Hosts is coming up against you and your Power must be subdued and taken from you by the Prince of Peace even by Him who is come and coming to rule the Nations with a Rod of Iron who is come and coming whose Right it is to Rule and subdue all Powers and Authorities unto Himself and to take the Government into his Own hand unto whom it belongs who will dash you to pieces ye Rulers that rebel against his Righteous Power and his Holy Law that He is Establishing in the Earth in the hearts of the sons of men that obey his Voice and that hearken unto his Counsel his Righteous and Holy Law must be established and his Righteous Government and Kingdom must be set up and your Unrighteous and Unholy Kingdom and Government must be overturned and destroyed by the Power of the Everlasting God in this day of his Eternal Power who is come and coming to make void all your ungodly inhumane and bloody Laws and to reward you according to your works The Lord God hath spoken it and by Him it shall be accomplished upon you for the Decree of the Most High is gone out against you ye unmerciful men whose Wickedness and Unrighteousness doth exceed the Nations about you for barbarous Cruelty and unmanlike Actions Have you not altogether lost your Senses Reason and Understanding that you are become so bruitish and so unlike Christians You are gone so far in your Cruelties and unnatural Actions that you are a stink and a loathsom smell to all People that have the least measure of Uprightness and of the honest Principle ruling in them and your barbarous and cruel actions and bloody deeds they abhor and at your Cruelty that you have acted against the People of the Lord who are by you in scorn called Quakers many of the common sort of People do stand amazed and wonder to hear of such Cruelty to be acted by such a Generation of men that have made such a noise concerning Religion concerning a Church concerning Ministry and Magistracy and Church-Government and Ordinances Preaching Praying Singing Morning and Evening Sacrifices Family-Duties as you call them that such should become so bloody and so cruel it doth astonish many that are called Heathens that all your Preaching Praying Singing making such a noise concerning Religion that it should come to no more and to produce no better fruits than Imprisoning Whipping Stocking Burning in the Hand Cutting off Ears Banishing upon Death as you have banished Six already from their Wives and Children and from their outward beings So that you do not only intend to destroy the Souls but Bodies also Come let us know what have they done what Law of God have they transgressed that you should banish them upon pain of Death from their Families What was it because their Conversations and Actions were honest and upright and yours are evil What was it because their Practices condemed yours What was it because they owned a People that are by you in scorn called Quakers whom you evilly entreat and such as owns them you banish and despitefully use them Surely these things will be remembred Come let
is at large Exprest unto which I refer and to the Preamble of the said Act and the other Laws and Acts of the Nation which relate thereunto for the Sevenfold Ground on which the Provisions in that Law are made and Bottom'd as aforesaid and on which they Stand. Now what is this to the People called Quakers or in Justification of your Proceedings against them as to Banishment and Death Are they Papists or Popishly affected Did ye ever find them so or hath the least shadow thereof been laid to their charge by you or found against them Have you ever found them Raising of Arms or Plotting or Contriving in order there unto Or seeking to withdraw the People in your Jurisdiction from their Allegiance unto England its well if some such thing be not found upon you or to you in order to England Or hath it not been manifest that their Principle is otherwise Viz. To Lead out of VVars and the Occasion of them sc the Lusts that are in Men from whence they come Did they ever put the Nation of England into Wars and Confusion to Exert their Principle or any other Nation on the face of the Earth Or on the Contrary hath not Peace been that which they have Endeavoured among men and is not their Gospel Good-will towards men Are they men of Blood of Assassinations and Murders hath any man fallen by their hands or have they stretched out their hand against any man Have they not Endeavoured and is it not their Principle to bring out of Blood and Confusion out of War and Destruction out of Desolation and Calamity And have they not subjected themselves to the Spoiler and their Estates to the Robber in order hereunto Can any of the Seven Particulars aforesaid on which the Law of England in its Provisions against Jesuites which you take to as your Example in the Case is grounded or any thing Congruous or Sutable thereunto be Justly attributed to those People Or have ye charged them with any such in Particular and found it upon them How come ye then to say In Example of the Law of England in their Provisions against Jesuites Surely ye thought to skare Ignorant People therewith as Children are with the Name of Jesuites So that if ye name but Jesuite and speak of a Law made against them it is Enough In Example of the Law of England in their Provisions against Jesuits say ye But the Law of England hath no such Ground for its Provisions against that Order of Men as yours against these People which indeed is none at all nor warrants your Proceedings So your Warranty being gone where 's your Hold Thus are ye taken in the Snare which you have layd for others and in the Pit which ye have digged are your selves fallen And the Law of England is not for but against you is not an Example to you in this Case but the Contrary So henceforwards take heed how you shed Blood and then seek to cover your selves under the Laws of England who would not be under its Law or seek to that for shelter which will not save you Thus much as to the Example of England in their Provisions against Jesuits and what you have built thereupon Now as to those who Suffered by Vertue of your Law And these in the First place are Lawrence Southick his Wife Cassandra and Josiah their Son whom I have often mentioned for your Cruelty by reason you have given me oft the Occasion Samuel Shattock Nicholas Phelps and Joshua Buffum All Inhabitants of Salem as aforesaid against whom in no One Particular had ye proceeded according to Law but having tortured their Bodies and broken their Estates and distracted their Families and often wearied them though in the Lord they had rest Ye Banish'd them from All even from their Countrey the very Court of Election in the Moneth called May following giving them but a very little time to Depart on pain of Death which put them to much straits and hardships yet go they must ther 's no stay ye had now got your Law to rid the Land of them as ye thought but were mistaken or to take the Lives of them from the Land of the Living Your Tugg was Over and ye had carried it of them that stood stiffe a while against the Passing of that Law but Two came to Enter their Dissents viz. Capt. Edward Hutcheson and Capt. Tho. Clark whose Names I mention to remain upon Record as a good Savour to the Lord and his People through all Generations which shall witness for them Indeed there was a great adoe and hard work it Cost ye to get it about John Norton and the rest of your Prests being not able to Convict the Persons aforesaid either by Law or Otherwise or by Ensnaring Questions to bring them under the Law as hath been Declared Petitioned the Magistrates the next day to set forward the Court to make some Law to Banish them upon pain of Death so see the Spring and Fountain of this Work of Darkness and who it was this Bloody Law First moved in and they prescribed Particulars as matter upon which to proceed I could set down all that all might see their Bloody Spirits and what Cruelty lodged in them but I leave the Particulars to rot with themselves seeing the Court thought fit to make it a Law and much strugling there was on the one hand to get it on the other to oppose it The Court of Deputies could by no means be brought to Consent thereunto The Priests and Rulers were all for Blood and they pursued it and the Court of Magistrates Voted it without Tryal of a Jury and in Express words to be put in Execution by a County Court which Three Magistrates made up the Majority of which might hang at pleasure without a Jury a Thing not heard of in these Dominions but it served the Priests purpose who set it on This the Deputies withstood and it could not pass and the Opposition grew strong for the thing came near Deacon VVozel was a Man much affected therewith and being not well at that time that he supposed the Vote might pass he Earnestly desired the Speaker and some of the Other Deputies to send for him when it was to be lest by his Absence it might miscarry The Deputies that were against the Passing of that Law thinking themselves strong enough being indeed the most Reasonable and the more Moderate men of the Court to cast it out forbore to send for him The thing came to it and the Vote was put and carried in the Affirmative for the Law to Pass without Tryal of a Jury and by a County Court The Speaker and Eleven being in the Negative and Thirteen in the Affirmative So One Vote Carried it which troubled Deacon Wozel so when he heard it that he got to the Court in great grief of Spirit desiring to have his Vote and Wept for grief that his absence
into so this is the Scene of this Bloody Tragedy the most Inhumane and cruel that Ever Age knew or preceding Generation Declara Notwithstanding which by a Back Door they found Enterance Answ And Why a Back-Door Was not the way by which they came as much before ye as the Sea from England Is Sixty Miles distance by Land from Rhoad Island the Place from whence they came become further then England One would think that Properly and indeed the Land it is that is before you which ye came to Inhabite and that the Sea it is that is behind you from whence ye came How come ye then to say a Back-door By a Back-door they found Entrance Is it because you mistin your Understandings and so have put the fore for the back and the back for the fore Surely then ye were not wise in your Generation to bind the Sea and leave the Land at Liberty Is it because ye had journeyed far enough from Old Enland the House of Bondage so accounted into New a Land of Liberty and now were returning from the Land of Liberty to the House of Bondage Surely then ye are in a bad state to become Persecutors your selves who fled Persecution Or is it because Rhoad Island is the Place into which ye banish't those that differed from you in Matters of Religion who your selves were not banish't who differed in Religion and so having turned your Backs on their Oppression would not hear their Cry as did Joseph's Brethren when they sold him into Egypt Then Just is the Lord to bring your Condemnation from the Place of those whom ye Opprest Declar. Notwithstanding which say ye by a Back Door they found Entrance Answ And Why not Are ye Lord's Propriators of the Creation May not the Lord of Heaven and Earth send His Messengers among ye without your leave May not an English man come into an English Jurisdiction What Insolency is this and high Obtrusion on the Creator of Heaven and Earth who gave you your beings upon the Nation from whence ye came and in which ye first drew your breath and the Right of Nature from which ye are derived and from whence ye spring Declar. They found Entrance Answ And Why should they not seeing the Lord of all is He that sent them Declar. Notwithstanding Which Answ Notwithstanding What Why the Law prohibiting all Masters of Shipps from bringing in any and themselves from coming in Coming in From whence Why From or by Sea for as for the Land that Door was not Shut the Back-Door as ye call it but the Fore was Notwithstanding which viz. the Law aforesaid say ye by a Back-Door they found Entrance Then how come they to be concerned in a Law which was not fitted for them It was for them that came in at the fore door by Sea and Ship-Masters that brought them who were Prohibited from bringing in any such and themselves from so coming in I say how come they to be concerned in a Law which was not for them and you to inflict upon them the Penalty of a Law which concerned them not might they not come in at the back door it being open when the fore door was shut yea a Greater For so say ye And the Penalty inslicted on themselves proving insufficient to restrain their Impudent and Insolent Obtrusions was encreased by the loss of the Eares of those that offended the second time Answ Insufficient indeed and well might it be and too weak a defence as ye afterward spake of cutting off Ears and therefore proceed from Banishment to Death against Him who made the Earth and the Sea and all that therein is Who giveth unto Man Life and Breath and Moving Whose time being come for the sounding of His Everlasting Gospel to those who sate in Darkness and Region of the shaddow of Death in your Jurisdiction he armed his Messengers against the force of Death and the strength of Darkness with his Eternal Spirit and enabled them to endure what the strength of the One and the Gates of the Other could inflict upon them Whom ye have killed and put to Death whipt and scourged burnt in the hand and cut off their ears and so they bear in their Bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus and the dying of Jesus is made manifest in their mortal flesh that they might not trust in themselves but in him that raised up Jesus from the dead And a Crown of Life they shall receive who loved not their lives unto the death for the sake of Jesus Christ Lastly Insufficient against what Against a few innocent Lambs among Wolves a few simple People Men and Women who came to you not with Swords or with spears but in the Name of the Lord whom the Lord God of Life sent to you through Desarts and Wildernesses and Necessities and Straits and Hunger and Thirst and Cold and Heat and Perils by Sea and Perils by Land and Temptations and Distresses to turn ye unto God Whom ye have Imprisoned and Whipt and burnt and cut off their ears and put to Death That all the righteous Blood shed upon the earth from the blood of Righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias who was slain between the Temple and the Altar may come upon you and verily it shall come on this Generation And the time is at hand yea near to be revealed wherein the Righteous God will render unto you according to your Deeds yea according to your Deeds will he recompence you Fury to his Adversaries Recompence to his Enemies yea to his Adversaries will he repay Recompence And the Lord God will Thunder out of Heaven upon you and the whole Earth shall be filled with his Glory when he shall have thrown ye down from your Seats and Exalted the Humble and Meek Even when he shall have turned to hear the Prayer of the Desolate and help him to Right that hath no Helper and the Poor from him who is too strong for him and the Needy amongst men This shall be written for the Ages to come and the Children that are unborn shall praise the Lord And your Carkasses shall fall upon the Earth and ye shall leave your Name a Curse unto my Chosen saith the Lord. Declar. VVhich proving Insufficient Answ What proving Insufficient Why the Penalty inslicted so saith your Declaration sc And the Penalty inslicted proving Insufficient Answ VVhat was the Penalty and what did ye inflict O Ye shameless Men who make so slight of so heavy Punishments whose Cruel stroaks pierc'd the Air and whose Bloody Draughts the hearts and souls of those who saw it as they did the Bodies of them whose Flesh ye tore and whose Blood ye drew Yet this is insufficient the Penalty inslicted proving Insufficient Never Blood Enough to the spirit of Wickedness when once it lanches out and dips its foot in the Blood of the Innocent So it was and so it hath been with men in your state from