a better diversion to shake off Melancholly THou scoffing persecuting Ishmael thou blaspheming Devil thou Limb of Antichrist I testify to thee in the Name that thou hast belied the People called Quakers yea I say unto thee the People called Quakers hast thou belyed They are an innocent people and to that do I bear witness Therefore thou Devils Bloodhound thou Thief and Robber that never didst come in at the door but didst climb up some other way Thus saith Thou art not able to judge for thou art blind Thou Beast thou Sot thou Incarnate Devil I am full of Zeal yea with Zeal I am filled ready to burst in testifying against thee thou scarlet-colour'd Beast thou canker'd Apostate thou Son of Belial Thou greedy Wolf in Sheeps Cloathing thou Dog thou dumb Dog thou barking Dog thou Emissary of Satan thou Beelzebub the Chief of Devils Repent and know that this People whom thou hatest and dost not love are dear precious ones To this will I set my Seal and do I bear witness Hear O thou Serpent fiery Serpent biting hissing Serpent thou unclean Spirit thou Devil-driven Sot I am sent to thee to declare against thee I am sent as Mary Fisher was to the great Turk who could speak nothing but English when she came to him as honest Friend G. Bishop is forced to confess in his New-England tryed Now I speak to thee in the same Language she did to him If any of you intend thus to set upon me I wish it may be when I am so costive that no other Physick would make me soluble I am sorry for the Dishonour that such bring to Religion and the Wrong they do themselves and the scandal they give to the Prophane but as for me I find nothing more easy than to forgive them pity them and love the Men though not the Quakers I must despair of understanding any thing or of proving any thing if in this little Book I have not sufficiently proved and that ex abundanti That William Penn and the Quakers are either Impostors or Apostates which they please from their Avowed Principles and Contrary Practices BUT methinks I hear some say We see what it is for men to talk of the Spirit which is nothing else but a warm Fancy following a deluded Judgment What may we think of Prophets of old and their Inspirations and Prophecies so much talk'd off We doubt all were such as these of the Quakers Stop Reader if these thoughts be in thee let us reason together Though I doubt not but that this giddy People have contributed very much to the increase of Scepticism and Atheism and Contempt of Religion Yet why Because there is so much bad Coin adulterate Coin Case-Pieces Clipp'd-Money is there therefore no Good Money or Money of full Weight Is it all alike Because there is so much False News going and so many Mistakes and idle Stories pass for Truth is there therefore no True News or True Relation of things Because we are so often mistaken in men who are often said to be good-natur'd wise and pious whom in our nigh approaches to them we find ill temper'd half-witted and scandalous are there therefore no good-natur'd no wise no pious Men in the World To talk of the Spirit is a Cant among some Men almost a Community of Men who own Scripture and read Lessons out of it They will talk of God and of Christ but nothing or next to nothing of the Spirit I desire them to read Neh. 9.20 Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them 2 Cor. 1.22 Who hath given the earnest of the spirit in our hearts Rom. 8.9 He that hath not the spirit of Christ is none of his John 3.5 6 8. Except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God That which is born of the Spirit is spirit Rom. 8.16 The spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God Psalm 51.11 After David sinn'd so foully he prays Take not thy holy spirit from me Consider their abuse of such Phrases should not take us off from the use of them Because the Papist have abused the words of Christ This is my Body by their monstrous Doctrine of Transubstantiation and so to worship a Wafer for a God we are not therefore to deny the Bread the honourable Name Christ gave it The Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit is not so call'd from his Essence and Nature for so we might as well say The Holy Father or the Holy Son as the Holy Ghost but from his Office Whom the Father elects the Son redeems and the Holy Ghost sanctifies and makes holy Now a skilful Physician is not to be despised ridiculed because of some Quacks nor a good Lawyer because of some ignorant Pretenders nor a Spiritual Man because of some sensless vain Talkers of the Spirit Though I have written more already than I intended when I begun yet give me leave to add some Directions to cure this Malady which we find occasion'd for want of these things you are now prest to and that our Perfectionists little mind Direction 1. 1. Keep up a due Veneration for the Scriptures and their Authority He that cannot see a God one would think could see nothing Infinity and Eternity must be lodged in somewhat Some Cogitative Being which word with Mr. Lock I like better than Intelligent suited means to end Read him in that excellent Chapter of Human Vnderstanding Mr. Perkins's Cases of Conscience of the Being of God Is the Soul of Man made for God to serve and injoy him Not to say any thing of the Reflex Acts of the Soul That Matter cannot act on it self The tip of my finger that toucheth thousands of things cannot return upon it self touch it self But my Understanding that understands other things reflects on it self and understands it self and therefore the Spirit of a Man is not as the Spirit of a Beast The Poet could say Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae Pronaque cum spectant No Creature but Man can turn up his eyes to Heaven for Man hath a Muscle more than they to help to look up to God Doth it not convince you Good Readers as well as this Pagan Ovid Met. That though Man was made in this world yet not for it Are not some men designed for the Recovery of the Lost Love and Favour of God That is hoped by all What then will follow That there must be some Rule whereby Man may know this God and serve him Now this must be either by Revelation or there must be some standing written Rule The former we see is gone and our giddy Pretenders to it prove it Therefore the latter Then say I The Scriptures must be the standing Rule or some other thing But no other thing Therefore the Scriptures If any thing What is it Mahomet's Alcoran I need not confute it None plead for it Nay It is worthy observation
Powerfully Poor sense and a powerful Voice will not do I cannot believe ever God sends Fools about his work and such as expose it to contempt Too many justifie the Quakers in their affected tones theatrical gestures contrary to plain express words of Scripture 2 Titus 7. In doctrine shewing uncorruptness gravity sincerity Vncorruptness respects the soundness of the matter of our Doctrine Gravity the manner of our delivering it Sincerity the Principle from which all should come and end to which all should be directed And for our Hearers many of them are much more ignorant than any one would suspect I know a Man of a great Estate an Entertainer of Ministers who asked lately one of them at his house Whether Abraham were not a Protestant and the Canaanites Papists Whether Joseph that we read of in Genesis that was sold into Egypt by his Brethren was not the same Joseph that we read of in the First of Matthew who was Espoused to the Virgin Mary If you say What difference then between their ignorant Speakers and ours Much every way Theirs despise Scripture and helps Providence puts into their hands of being better informed and pretend to Inspiration and so blaspheme the Spirit and talk how they can confound any of the Priests by the Spirit when others are ashamed of their folly and not flee in the face of an Instructor I have heard such say Wilt thou talk to me against what I feel and handle of the word of Life Alluding no doubt to the 1 Epistle of John ch 1. v. 1. John lay in the bosom of Christ and his natural hands handled the natural body of him who is call'd the Word of life To question them is to question the Spirit I am unwilling to say all I think and know of such filthy dreamers clouds without water Jude 12. Is it not able to make a Wise Man sick to hear what I have heard in their Assemblies remote from Religion Reason and Gravity For a half-witted Fellow and a Jackpudden that unmans himself to stand up and say I have been in many places in Kersendom and I will never sell my reason to think Christ came to save men from sin and yet sin to be in them And now my Freinds ah may you fe feel ah the life ah and the power ah Now you must suppose this was some notable Traveller that had compass'd Sea and Land to make Proselytes according to 3 Matthew 15 verse and sure if his reason were to be sold he would be most lamentably chous'd in a woful pennyworth that should buy it Thou fool and blind said Christ in another case to your elder Brethren 23 Matthew 15. Cannot you believe a Physician should come to give Physick or give a Man ease in order to perfect Health in time if pains atches or any disorders be in him from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot The Women I observed and Women like Men when they heard their affected modes would according to their frequent custom say La La La La c. Now tell me Reader Whether such a speech of incoherent Blasphemies were not able to make a Man purge both ways In the time of great danger when Twenty pound was to be paid by the Speaker they would seldom speak Therefore I remember when an Informer came into a Quakers Meeting he was very busie to find the Speaker that he might pay the Money Where is your Speaker said he Up stood a Quaker Thou art he In many Meetings nothing is said some times only one place of Scripture I have heard that when they sate a long time and said nothing a Quaker was moved to speak a place of Scripture and in my opinion he chose the most suitable place for them he stood up and said O ye fools when will ye be wise and down he sate again When indeed When these sinless Creatures fall out which is not seldom you would think they had gone down to Hell to fetch their Rhetorick from thenee fouly charging and condemning one another But presently the Devil transforms himself into an Angel of Light the Old Man was stirr'd in them nay their chief Leaders complain of one anothers Pride and ill Temper and say Their hearts are ready to break for Friends Disorders And yet they the Perfect Sinless Pure Innocent Lambs all the while I am not more assured that Turcism is not of God than that Quakerism is not or than that I have proved it in this Book I declare before all the world That I am ready at an open Dsputation to prove my Charge against them If what I have writeen recover any Quakers I shall rejoyce Why should we despair seeing the recovery of the Honest and ingenious George Keith Pennyman and many more However I cannot but hope or more than hope this will prevent the fall of not a few who till now knew not the Men as I and others have long known them to be some of the greatest Doctrinal if not Practical Enemies to Christ that ever were in any Age that would sometimes call themselves by the Name of Christians Reader I do assure thee by my Observation and the Observation of others that this People that were wont to talk against Pride are some of the proudest Persons upon Earth so Proud that though they have condemned putting off the hat and kirching as Sins yet some tell you in plain terms they expect it of you and take it amiss if you do it not as the abovenamed L. S. said to a Friend of his and mine And as great is their Pride so great is their ignorance so that some Wise Men leave them and are ashamed Mr. S. of Bristol seldom if at all goes to their Meeting though at their first appearing one of their most Learned Advocates he troubleth not himself much now about Mens Souls but is well acquainted with what is good for their Bodies especially his own by which he much obligeth his Friends not Quakers but any Men of Civility Churchmen and others A late Writer Mr. Norrice hath made this People not a little to value themselves by favouring their Opinion about the Light within and by telling the world That he more dreaded one Barclay than an Army of Bellarmines or Stapletons which make me doubt he is not well acquainted with the latter though with the former I doubt that young rash though ingenious Gentleman hath a design to make a new Party bearing his Name whose grand Particularity is this that we must love nothing complacentially but God I hope whilst he retains this Notion he will continue in Celibacy for he is not fit for Marriage forgetting that of Solomon Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times and be thoâ— ever ravisht with her love Yet by the way observe he asserts That God not absolutely considered but relatively is to be the Object of this Love This is indeed to make our selves the end God the means To love
notorious secret Drunkard as his Wife confessed but would have hid it she being a Quaker too I have known others that selling strong Waters would let the vilest of the Parish drink as much as they would till Drunk and yet one such would say to me Wilt thou tell me against what I feel and handle of the word of life Wet and drie Quakers is a distinction in other places besides Bristol Question 3. Are they not very humble Persons No They are more proud of their plainness than others of their bravery Baptism and the Lords Supper are things too mean for them Shells c. but they were not too mean for the Son of God What good will a little Water a little Bread and Wine do me It is true the things be not changed in their Nature though in their Use What good will a little Paper a little Ink a little Wax do me may a Pardoned Man say when he reads the King's Pardon to him Some now use the Lord's Supper Barclay in his Apol. says He would not condemn them that do Question 4. Are they not more just in their dealings than others and most careful not to tell a Lie and say one thing and do another These things are among some of them and among others too yea Turks themselves Yet by the way It is not unlawful to say one thing and do another on the change of the mind 19. Gen. 2 3. The Angel was desired by Lot to come into his House Nay said he but we will tarry in the street all night yet when Lot pressed upon them they went in They observed Providence their intentions altered If they had Sinned had Lied they had never found their way back again to Heaven By the way let all look to it of what perswasion soever if they lie for Gain they are not upright To say things Cost them so much They never sold them Cheaper They are as Good as can be had for Money and know all to be false and continue in this Sin they may call themselves Christians and others may call them so but Christ will call them workers of iniquity The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tost to and fro by them that seek death saith Solomon 21. Prov. 16. Death seeks not them but they court it When I wrote to you did I use lightness according to the flesh saith Paul that with me it should be yea and nay but as God is true he makes God his Example But as Christ is true saith Paul to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 1.17 18 19 20. all the promises of God in Christ are yea let ours be so To say I will do such a thing bring it to you at such a day and know you cannot or resolve you will not and so for paying of Money and to make this a common practice is no more consistent with Grace than Drunkenness or Theft Complemental Lyes are an abomination in the sight of a Holy God To say I am glad to see you I thank you for your good Company Pray eat You eat nothing When not a word of this is true and the person that says it was weary of their Company as it may be vain and therefore undesirable and know they eat very freely or more than they need Some Quakers are careful here and so are others would all were so such as are not are cursed The Quakers the great ones in Talking and Printing are not free from Lying George Bishop in his Book of Martyrs called New-England judged not by man's Spirit but the Spirit of the Lord How doth he represent the Whipping of the Quakers there What Strokes were fetch'd Flesh brought off with the Whips Which Mr. Blinman then of New-England professed to me he never there heard of They cursed Magistrates and Ministers in the street blasphemed Christ and Scripture If they were banished they returned again so that some were put to death I know some of their Chief Leaders whose Tenderness this way was not very great but spoke as if they thought a Lye now and then for Friends might be excused Q. Have not the Quakers more of the Spirit than others No nor as much They poor men must not run before their Guide Must wait for the Spirit 's Call to Prayer I pray How came they and the Spirit such strangers that it calls them not all the Day long all the Week long all the Month long all the Year long to pray alone or in their Families Always to pray in their sense is never to pray and every day a Sabbath is no day so I knew a Quakers Meeting where I believe was not a Sentence spoken from Month to Month in a time of danger but when a Toleration came out then they were inspired by it to purpose They all talk of The Light within a Phrase that was never used but once in Scripture and that too what was seeming Light but real Darkness Mat. 6.22 yet they mean not the same thing by it Commonly they understand by it Conscience and that this Light tells a man when he doth evil and when he doth good and that it was in all men always And when we press'd them with such places as these They that kill you shall think they do God good service John 16.2 I verily thought with my self that I was bound to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth saith Paul when he persecuted They could not tell what to say But now Barclay tells us The Light comes in the time of the Lord's Visitation or day of Grace to every man if it be received it abides if not withdraws That this Light is not God yet some inspired Friends by the way said it was nor a Quality but a Substance and calls it a Vehiculum Dei That the Turks have a Light sometimes that tells them Mahomet was a Deceiver the Christian Religion is true Away Poor Robin with thy borrow'd Collections out of the Fathers Now says he this is a Supernatural thing that comes not at the will of the Creature therefore we are no Arminians yet it is a Resistible Work and so we are no Calvinists but our way is a middle saith he between both I was surprized when I read it knowing all the Quakers I conversed with had no such Notions of the Light within I pray How shall I appeal to the Lord's Witness in every man and the Testimony of God in his Conscience Why it may be I speak too soon the Light is not yet come or too late now it is gone Any thing Now it is not God which some Friends said and that it was to be worshipped as if a man should worship his own Convictions and this made some call the Quakers Idolaters as the Scots and others and now R. Vickris defends Barclay against Norris Any thing Though some Quakers know not the depth of Satan and seem to speak Orthodoxly of God Christ the Soul c. yet their
old Teachers or rather Deceivers taught otherwise The Soul was a part of God came out of him and returns to him again You sensless Wretches could a part of God ever sin or be made miserable That Christ was the Anointings of God which were once in the Man called Christ when he died his Body turned to dust and since the same Anointings are in others and they are the Christ of God as really as he was and therefore some have been so worshipped as he was The Scriptures are no Rule to them Let therefore the Reader remember what I doubt few consider If they dispute with you by Scripture it is but to take you in your own way if he casts you he hath you but if you him he is where he was before Why He cast you by your Rule Scripture but you cannot him by his that is The Light within So that the Quakers Judgment must be tried by his Judgment and his Opinion by his Opinion and his Light by his Light I know some Quakers will say Were it not for the Scriptures we had been in a miserable condition and they will believe nothing said against them but these know not the bottom of Quakerism The Quakers generally are very ignorant and yet very conceited For Ignorance In opposition to us they say It is not true Christ had but Three Offices 1. Of a King 2. Priest 3. Prophet But go on 4. Bishop 5. Pastor 6. Teacher c. as if variety of Names did make variety of Offices For Pride I could give notorious Instances which are not convenient Luther in his Table-talk speaking to some to whom the Devil did sometimes visibly appear with his Temptations To be rid of him said he remember he is a Proud Spirit Let a F He will soon be gone for he cannot endure Contempt It may be some when the Quakers in the heighth of Pride Talk backwards answer them so if I have err'd in my Manners I have err'd by a great Example Luther And now as I have considered William Penn the Quaker so I will apply my self to him according to his Grandeur or Magnificence To WILLIAM King of Pensilvania May it please Your Majesty I Humbly offer it to Your Consideration 1. Whether the first Leaders of the Quakers being proved not to be inspired or sent of God coming with Blasphemies and yet pretending to Inspiration Prophecies all which are proved to be Delusions are not evidently Cheats and the worst sort of Deceivers 2. What induced the Quakers not to trouble the Churchmen in their Assemblies as they did the Presbyterians of old Some say they were much worse than the Churchmen for they were Hypocrites but these shew what they are Others say They were much better than the Churchmen and there was a Seed of God among them to be called out and all from the same Infallible Spirit May not all these be Pretences and the true Reason this Should they disturb or come in naked in their Churches or there prate or rave they shall be punish'd now though they often escaped then 3. Though they so often talk of The Light within where do they ever read the Phrase in Scripture except in one place as if wrote on purpose for them 6 Mat. 23. If the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness 4. Whether You and Your Brother James late King of England were not mere Pretenders for Liberty of Conscience when You rowed one way and look'd another both oppressing Your Subjects contrary to Your Protestations 5. Do not You know more Instances of Quakers pretended Miracles false Prophecies than some of us can tell you I care not to name Persons nor Circumstances for the sake of their Relations Know You not of them that have openly declared in the Name of the Lord That by To morrow or within such a Month such a Judgment should come on a Place that came not I will tell you if you ask me but I suppose You may as well tell me who put Stones into the Oven saying They should be made Bread but when not Bread but Stones came out said to his Wife Woman because of thy Vnbelief is it thus To whom she replied If my Vnbelief continued some of the Stones Stones one would think your Faith should have made half of them Bread Govern your Subjects without Carnal Weapons for they are not lawful If they smite one another on the one Cheek let the other be turned also If any one take away their Cloak let him take the Coat also lest their fighting by virtue of Your Majesty's Commission should be told in Gath and published in the streets of Askelon Great are the Complaints there in Your Kingdom Many because they are not Quakers are much imposed on and abused I pray remember what became of Your great Friend and Brother James late King of England when an Oppressor lest being Brethren in Iniquity Your Majesty should flee into France and there once again keep him company And therefore William King of Pensilvania I pray You to imitate Your Brother William King of England a Man who shineth in His Integrity Wisdom and great Conduct of all His Affairs a Man whose Life is a System of the best Morals in the world So keep Your Subjects from some late abominable Practices of Drunkenness Whoredoms and Oppressions lest the Prophecy of John Owen against Friends should be verified That their Light that Ignis Fatuus would at last lead them into a Bog or Quagmire of Filthiness and Prophaneness For if such great Wickedness should abound among the Perfect Ones Your Majesty may say to them and they to Your Majesty what was said to Simeon and Levi Brethren in Iniquity You have made me stink in the nostrils of the inhabitants of the land Your Majesty's Humble Servant Anonymus NOW Friends How will you answer me I am sure no Sober Rational Answer can be given Either you must deny the Principles laid down or Practices though proved Either that they never asserted That the Place of Publick Worship must not be left for any Persecution Or That they kept to those Places in the greatest Heat Or that Ministers were not testified against for their Learning or Fisher followed for his real as Penn for his imaginary Learning Or that bowing to man was never condemned or not now practised c. But this would be unheard-of Impudence What must I expect now I have hedged them in A Confession and Humiliation No. I know them too well to expect it yet without despairing of it if lying and and railing may be their Resuge Scripture and Reason are gone out of sight I expect they will talk of me to me or send Letters in the old Dialect they were wont to do to the best of men and now sometimes do one to the other when they fall out about Doctrinals or other things as may be seen in Books before-named Were it not for the sin I would not desire