Shepherd and a Stranger will they not hear Who is this Stranger Not alwayes False Doctrine but a False Spirit covered with True Doctrine They shall come in my Name that is pretending Authority from me and speaking my Words not having my Spirit Christ's Spirit within is his Voice within and 't is that alone gives to discern the Strange Voice let it come with never such True Words Had Christ left his Churches destitute of this Touch-Stone they had been imposed upon by every False Spirit and his Flock devoured by every Wolf in Sheeps Cloathing Sheep know Sheep not only by Sight but Instinct and Wolves too For if Shepherds be of Authority they tell us that if a Wolf be near though out of Sight the Sheep will bleat their Antipathy So do the Sheep of Christ know each other by the Instinct of that Divine Nature they are mutually Partakers of and by it do they discern the Wolf within notwithstanding the Sheep's Cloathing without It was for this end they were to have Salt in themselves the Anointing and Spirit in themselves that they might see relish and discern thereby who were so Salted Anointed and Spirited which in the ground could never be visibly discerned 2ly The second Question I also take in the Affirmative and for which there is both express Scripture and Unanswerable Reason This is seen in the very case of Alexander the Copper-Smith who was denyed and rejected notwithstanding that he made Profession of Christianity And there is cause to believe that the Difference began from his emulous Spirit 's taking Occasion against the Apostles Authority and the Power of the Elders in the Church It was doubtless for something not unlike to this that Paul complained of him to Timothy Alexander the Copper-Smith did me much wrong of whom be thou ware also for he hath greatly withstood our Words Which is the very State and Character of the present Apostates Who pretend with Alexander not to withstand Truth or Christianity but a Lordly Paul Timothy or such like eminent Labourers They pretend to own the Churches but deny some of their Leading Ministers That this was Alexander's Disease the next Verse proves At my first Answer no Man stood with me but all Men forsooke me I pray God it may not be laid to their Charge Who was this People but the Church for of the Heathen it could not be said And what was Alexander's aim besides Ambition I mean to discredit the Apostle that he might gain the Repute and being him down from that Authority God had given him in the Church that he might usurp it to himself What did the Apostle do in the like case shrink No Hear him For though I should boast somewhat more of our Authority which the Lord hath given us for Edification and not for your Destruction I should not be ashamed 2 Cor. 10 8. But no more of this at present That Christ as well gave his Church Power to reject as to try Spirits is not hard to prove That notable Passage Go tell the Church does it to our hand For if in case of private Offence betwixt Brethren the Church is made absolute Judge from whom there is no Appeal in this World how much more in any the least Case that concerns the Nature Being Faith and Worship of the Church her self The Judgment Christ passeth in the matter is sufficient to the Resolution of our Question But if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen and a Publican This I say on the Account of those Apostates who pretend to be the Men they ever were For this Man that works with their Tooles is upon his own Principle as much an Heathen and a Publican as any thing else and tells us to boot that it is dangerous to be of any one Party Therefore not of the true Churche's Party I omit any particular recital of the Apostle Paul's frequent earnest Dehortations from so much as keeping company with perverse Disputers about needless Questions or any that infested the Church and disturbed her Peace and that Practice in which she was at first setled with unprofitable Novelties under what Pretence soever They that can read may find in his Epistles enough to this purpose 'T is true They used no corporal Violence or any civil Power to punish such obstinate Dissenters nor is that Unchristian Practice so much as any part of the Question But first to reprove and admonish and in case of Persistance then to disown and reject which is a part of the Question and a part of the Scripture too And indeed it is most reasonable that as a Civil so a Christian Society should have this Power to preserve it self from the Taints Infections of hurtful Spirits for such tend not to further Knowledge Increase in Holiness or Peace but Strifes and Divisions Animosities and Rents Backbitings and Revenge to the laying waste of God's holy Heritage 3ly The third Question we also accept in the affirmative That men may believe confess and subscribe to the Truth of the Doctrine of the Vniversality Sufficiency and immediate Teachings of the Light as to Faith and Worship and yet be declined from the living Sense Power and Ordering of it so as to be acted by a wrong Spirit to Divisions and notwithstanding plead his Following of the Light within against the Judgment of the Church who reproves him for so doing In short that a man may follow a Wrong Spirit when he thinks he follows the Right and though he ought to follow the Light and Spirit yet is to be judged when he does not act thereby though he may think he doth by such as walk thereby In this the Scriptures of Truth are very positive The Jews owned the Law at what time they rebelled against it and thought they acted according to Scripture when by their Traditions they made it of none Effect There was a certain Generation that were pure in their own Eyes That is believed themselves to be of a Right Spirit whom the holy Ghost reproved for being guided by a Wrong one It was no other State then this that Christ spoke of when he said If therefore the Light that is in thee be Darkness how great is that Darkness Some doubtless acted by Virtue of this Darkness not as Darkness but as Light Was it therefore Light because they thought so When it is manifest that they were against Christ the true Light as you are now Or would the Plea of such an one be so valid against the Body of a Church walking in the true Light as to disengage any from her judgment Or must we therefore conclude that the Light is not a Rule for Men to walk by because some mistake or swarve from it Or that he who calls his dark Imagination a Motion of Light is therefore not to be condemned because it is every Man's Duty to follow the True Light Shall this Position I say
that all Men ought to follow the Light in themsâ—lves deprive the Church of the Power of Judging that for a dark Imagination which from the Savour and Sense of God's Light and Truth she feels to be so because some Person or Persons plead that they therein follow the Light This opens a Door to all Licentiousness and furnisheth every Libertine with a Plea What might have been said in this Case against the ancient Christians Every Man ought to walk in the Spirit and to be led by the Spirit Shall therefore any Man's Pretence to be led by the Spirit that is not secure him from the Judgment of those that are really led by the Spirit Or shall the Judgment of those who are led by the Spirit against him that pretends to be so led be reputed Tyranny and a going from the Leadings and Judgment of the Spirit to the Leadings and Judgment of Men Or because of granting the Light to be obeyed in all its Leadings and its Leadings to be waited for in order to Faith and Worship that therefore there is no way left to judge which are in the Wrong of the Two that equally say they are led by the same Light For if Men would come to the Salt Grace Truth and faithful Witness in themselves which only gives to discern and savour True Spirits from False ones they would hereby arrive at certain Knowledge in the Matter but where People stand they can never distinguish because they are from under the Conduct of that Spirit which alone reveals the deep things of God In short as no Man's saying he is in the Right ought to conclude him to be in the Right so neither can that hinder that he should not be found out by such as are in the Right Spirit to be in the Wrong if in it He that sayes he is ruled by the Scripture may err as well as he that sayes he is led by the Light therefore is he not to be censured Or is there no certain Way of knowing him to be in the Wrong It is the Spirit of Truth that opens the Truth of Scripture much more can it only give to relish Spirits Which leads to the last Question Whether the People called Quakers or those few stragling Followers of John Perrot are this True Church and acted by this Divine Light and Spirit yea or nay To answer this Question I shall keep very close to the Concessions of these present Apostates For it is not so much my Business at this time to prove us a True Church to them that never had any Relation to us as against those who acknowledge themselves once to have been of us but now decline us That God sent forth a Spiritual Ministry that many were gathered by it and setled in the Way of Everlasting Peace and called by the World Quakers the Author of the Spirit of the Hat fully confesseth pag. 9. That it was then the Church of God four lines after undeniably prove And the Lord did daily add â—nto the Church and raised up many to go forth in the Power to preach the Everlasting Gospel whereby the Church multiplyed and increased to the Astonishment of the Nations By this we see it was then the Church in their Opinion without dispute I would fain know it comes now to be no Church Has Her Refusing to conform to John Perrot's Innovation of the Hat on in time of publick Prayer unchurched Her I have hitherto thought that a Society's going from or adding to what it was when truly called a Church was that which only did Unchurch it and not its continuing as it was And if this be good Arguing The People called Quakers remain still the same Chruch but their Adversaries not the same Members In short where the first Occasion of Offence was given there was the first Breach of Unity Had the Church imposed upon them there would be some reason for varying of her Character and condemning her as Fallen But the Innovation being their own she is not accountable unto them but they to her for such unwarrantable Novelties so that the Question is not Whether the Quakers impose but Whether they did not innovate All was well till this Imagination was hatched The Spirit of Judgment and Burning had its course Their Vessells were filled with Refreshment Springs of Life broke out in their Bellies and Bread of Life dwelt within them They wanted no good thing as that Letter of the Hat relates If this may be credited How comes so sudden a Revolution that in a Years time the Mighty should be fallen the Stars ceased to give their Light the Poor distressed the Young Ones bruised and Conscience imposed upon by a Law Which wretched Deciet me-thinks should be obvious to every impartial Reader There is no Wisdom to believe Men so inconstant to their own Apprehensions and who of all times in which to prove this great Alteration should make Choice of that in which was so great a Persecution and so Noble a Testimony born for the Truth viz. 1662. But the Truth of the matter is this John Perrot who if he had been as faithful as his Companion might with him have been hanged at Rome as we have been informed to his own Comfort the Truth 's Honour and the Churches Peace came home as filled with Conceit as he pretended his Body had been oppressed with Sufferings which kindling so great a Love in the Hearts of some Tender Friends as they unwarily became Incouragers of his Ambition in their too high exilting and lamenting his Sufferings Which having rendered him Master of their Affections they most of them easily became Embracers of his Invention We had reason to believe it had almost been impossible for him ever to have made one Proselyte had not the noise of his Forreign Tryals disposed the Hearts of some affectionate People to receive his Impression He that will please to consider the improbable Account he vainly gave of his own Sufferings saying that since Adam's Day none had ever undergone the like his singular Style Proverbial Chapters in imitation of Solomon his Toyish conceited Rhymes his Title page of the Wren in the burning Bush waving her Wings of Contraction c. his peculiar Subscription which was generally JOHN and could not be so because there was no more of that Name amongst us but because he would be the JOHN of JOHNS and which is yet more ridiculous in a Letter to several grave Women your dear SISTER JOHN with his absurd new fangled bodily Greetings his most Papal Salutations to G. Fox E. Burroughs others by them rejected himself reproved as if he had spent his time in Learning all the Superlative Complements of Rome I say he that pleases to consider these things must needs think that the Man had lost his Guide and was dangerously elevated above the holy Fear of God and heavenly Life of the Truth and his Standing being soon discerned by several Weighty Friends he was
Heart Henry Stout Rebecca Travese's Testimony A Testimony in the Spirit of Love against that Malitious Spirit that in certain Apostates and their Abettors exercises Tyranny and Hypocrisie every where TO you Friends is my Love who are in the Enquirings after the Lord and his Truth that you may come to be Partakers of the same Inheritance of Life and Glory that many are made Witnesses of through Believing And the Power thereof we cannot but testifie of as by the Effectual Working and Operation in our Hearts we feel not only to set us free from that which imbondaged us in times past as well as others but hath brought us to the Liberty of the Seed of God which above and before all seeks the Glory of God and this hath enriched us with Grace and enduring Mercy whereby we feel all our Iniquities taken away and Transgressions blotted out in and for the Name and Power of Christ which in us is become the sure Hope of endless Glory and this hath made us Us That hold the Faith willing to proclaim the good Will of God unto all that others with us might come to set down in the Heavenly Places with Christ our alone Head and Life and be delivered from those Runnings Strivings and Inventions Tossings Tumblings and Turmilings that all Image-Makers are in not being possible to find Rest but in and by the Light which from the Rest comes and to the Rest gathers into which many are entred and cannot be disturbed or made afraid and it is Everlasting And the Satisfaction and Peace of this true abiding Love rests upon us and constreins us to call and invite them afar off as those near to come freely to the Fountain of Living Water without Money and without Price For a Remnant are come to know that there is and shall be a daily adding of them to us that shall be saved for the Work of the Lord must prosper notwithstanding all the Force and Subtility of them that contrive against it The Building must be finished all things are prepared and preparing thereunto and the House of the Lord shall be established upon the Top of that that resisteth it and the Foundation is already laid sure and steddy and every Stone hewen and fitted thereto is pretious and the Command of our King none can reverse for he is Almighty and works according to the Counsel of his own Will 't is Counsel indeed close hid from all Sorts of Workers in the dark So they fret and are angry the Heathen rage but theirs is a Fury that consumes it self and soon goes out if not added to by new Fewil And these of all Sorts have manned their Weapons to the utmost and done what ever they can to hinder the Increase of this Work yet these are not the worst Enemies for it is the People that imagine vainly that ever withstood the Appearance of God in the World search the Scriptures Christ came unto his own them that profest a Waiting for him and they rejected him they crucified him yea he that walkt with Christ and sometimes cryed Hail Master he and these Pretenders are the Betrayers in all Generations and Hinderers of the Work of the Lord here the Power of Darkness in all Generations wrought mind Scriptures through all that desire to be kept from resisting the Just and Holy One. Though many Enemies Nations and People Withstood the Servant of the Lord Moses in his great Work whereunto God had called him yet none did like Mischief as that gain-saying Spirit in Korah Dathan and Abiram and Balaam that was for and against Israel who had been a Prophet and loving the Wages of Unrighteousness becomes a Tempter and layes the Snare that they might Sin against God and be divided from The Blessing And so mind who hindred the Building of the Temple of the Lord in the time that Deliverance drew nigh when the great and noble Travil of the Holy Servants of the Lord that were Zealous for the Restoring of the Captivated to their former Liberties and Rights in the Place that then was owned and appointed of the Lord and ever to be remembred was and is the Courage Boldness and Constant Watchfulness of those Worthies Ezra Nehemiah and Zerubabel that discerned the Falseness and Treachery of those pretending Friends that did not only seem to approve their Works and offer to build the House of the Lord but to assist them saying Let us build with you for we seek your God as you do and that they had done it for a long time but they being discerned and refused by Zerubabel and the other Worthies of Israel then they manifested themselves to be Hinderers of the Work of God and hired Counsellors against them to frustrate their Purpose whose Work a little before they pretended to be assistent to and after write against them with great Accusasations Ezra the 4th and the 14th and Nehemiah the 4th and the 1st Sambalet and Tobiah they mocked taunted and scoffed to make ridiculous and little Worth the then Endeavours and good Orders that these Noble Men put in Practice for the Restoring of the House of God And so to you Friends to whom my mind is directed that are weak in the Faith I writ that you may be warned that you may be strengthened against this Treacherous Spirit Do not these Scriptures run parallel with them that have brought forth such Accusations whether false or true Is not their End one who have joyned with and taken Counsel of such whom they know were and are contrary to the People and Truth that they formerly seemed to be of and for to make Odious and Ridiculous in the Sight of all Men with their Orders And though some of them under Pretence did act with them and would have Lorded it as much as any until discerned and dealt with for their Unorderly Practice and Unsubjectedness to them that in the Spirit serve the Lord continually So Friends This is it I would have you observe in all things and at all times that that Spirit that professeth Truth and talkes of Truth and seems for it and yet is against it is not of God though it seems so for here first sprang and is continued that monstrous Anti-Christian Brood that hath filled the Earth with Darkness Blood and Cruelty and with these shall those be judged that in this our Day have given and taken Offences to lay Stumblings in the Way of the Simple But Glorified be the Power that hath broke forth before which they must all fly yet here and there a few crawle up to use their Strength against the Increase of his Power the Word of whose Mouth shall destroy them and the Brightness of his Coming shall utterly consume them for they are such of whom the Apostle complained had done him much Wrong for they hindred as much as in them lay the Purpose of the Lord in the Earth And this hath been the Work of many in this our Day of
and setting some on Fire in order to burn them was prevented in this his Work of Darkness and being by me and others dealt with for this and other Mad Actions intreating him to come to Repentance and no more follow the Imaginations of his own Brain but he being too high for Counsel or Intreaty returns us Hatred for Love and goes on in Impenitency and Malitious Practices unto this time as all the High-minded and Despisers of Counsel ever did and therefore no marvel that he presents me as one doing Amiss in saying I should subject to one in Christ before me in any Case So all the Honest and Plain-hearted will come to see their End and Spirit and beware thereof And I have Justification with God in giving Honour to whom Honour is due and have no Man's Person in Admiration and know G. F. did never seek for Honour nor hath been trusted in or bowed to as a Man but who seeth him that is sent of God must hear and obey him and if any have or do exalt or worship any but the Seed Christ to whom all Honour Worship and Obedience is due they have another God and practise another Doctrine then G. F. hath been the Messenger of for unto him the only Begotten of the Father he came to gather and as he hath received hath given unto us that in the one Everlasting Covenant testified of by him and all sent of God we may know the Father and the Son whom he hath sent And many through believing can say He is ascended and lives for evermore But such as are out of the Faith Reprobate from God could never see the Descendings not the Ascendings of the Son of God who is to be Honoured as the Father And they that are without Guile may see the Heavens open and the Angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man But all out of the Spirit of Truth are Wonderers and Despisers thinking and speaking Evil of those things they know not We read of one that came to Christ in the outward and said unto him Good Master What may I do to have Eternal Life Christ answered him with a Question Why callest thou me Good None saith he is Good but God This was a Parable to me when out of the Faith but in the Faith it is given to know the Deep Things of God And I only mention this Scripture to throw back the many Accusations that these Carping Spirits do cast on us as if we Idolize Man or Men when all in the Faith know all Power all Good is of God manifest and revealed in the Son by that Eternal Light and Spirit in which we worship And none ever come unto the Father but by the Son nor none ever come unto the Son but whom the Father draweth And all those that are in the Dark prophane that Name whereby we are saved but our Peace they cannot Break nor the Purpose of our God Hinder for it must be accomplished The full Time is come and coming in which all things shall be put under his Feet in whom we believe And so I shall Conclude with minding J. Pennyman and that though I have Cause to believe He Tauntingly calleth me A Great Prophetess yet I would have him call to Mind what I writ to him when he was a Prisoner at Bishops-Gate and as it hath in part been fulfilled the full Truth thereof shall come upon him and be made manifest to many and if not the Lord hath not spoken by me Rebecca Traverse Ellis Hooks's Testimony OF late there have been two Scurrilous Books published against the People of God called Quakers one entituled The Spirit of the Hat and the other called Tyranny and Hypocrisie Detected or a further Discovery of the Tyrannical Government Popish Principles and the Vile Practices of the now Leading Quakers Which Books are full of Taunts Jeers Lyes Scoffs and Scorns which indeed are scarce worth answering for God and all sober Men know us to be otherwise and our Neighbours that are not prejudiced But some thing has been answered and is answered for the sake of the Moderate and Simple that they may not feed with them upon Lyes Scoffs and Jeers and their Condemned Stuff and such that have been amongst them and have seen their Errors and have Condemned and been heartily Sorry of and for those things while they were amongst them that is Meat now for the Vagabond Quakers like the Vagabond Jews which they publish to the World to help them that deny the Principle of Truth it self and have made them a Feast with Lyes and nevertheless they boast of the Parts of the Hat-Men as in page 71. and those that Consent with them of the Abilities and Endowments and then Scoff and Jeer at the People of God and call them Foxonians Will this be taking think you with People that love Peace and Quietness But truly their Endowments and your Abilities are manifest to all the Peaceable People and Sober-minded The Hat-Men have been Raking and Watching these many years for Evil and Failings and give it you to publish which manifesteth your two Parties opposite one against another for one pretends to stand for the Principle of Truth but the other clearly denies it But Pilate and Herod were agreed against Christ and so here is Pilate Herod and Judas agreed against Christ's Members and so against him the Head And these Vagabond Quakers that have been Watching for Evil Corrupt Members these many years and you that Consented with them say The People of God called Quakers are fallen in their Principles But they are the Hat-Men that are fallen for the True Quakers ever stood against the Hat-Men as they call them in the time of them and the Ranters and we say They are fallen And you that take their Part and Consent with them should publish your Names and be ashamed of your Doings in the Dark but bring forth your Names to the Light and not work in the Dark nor challenge in the Dark without Name and great Boasts for we can appear before the King and the King of Heaven concerning our Actions And as for the Hypocrisie and Tyranny of the Hat Spirit which would thrust it self in among us which never was of us from the beginning we alwayes judged it by the Power of God to be of the Ranters who would have thrust in amongst us before it was born And as for Popish Practices we deny and Tyrannical Government but own the Order of the Gospel the Power of God And there is none of all them that are mentioned in these Books that hath done any Uncivil thing but hath been dealt withal according to the Order of the Gospel and what has been Amiss they have acknowledg'd and been heartily Sorry for and have Turned from the Evil of their Doings but these Hat-Men or the Spirit of the Hat that have not Repented and Some did make Confessions like Pharaoh and in Words seem'd to Repent are now turned
F. and other Friends to dispose of as J. W's Testimony under his own Hand before going doth testifie And therefore here you may see what sort of Men these are that forge such Lyes upon G. F. And that which he left to G. F. and others to alter was the Matter concerning Wearing the Hat in Prayer for that was the Matter then in Controversie and not Other things which he wrote to you For the Spirit of the Prophets is to be subject to the Prophets And as for George Bishop's Paper mentioned in your Tyranny and Hypocrisie about the time that you would have thrust your Spirit of the Hat in amongst us he did give it a sufficient Blow in Bristol which you might have done well to have printed with his Paper but it is like that made against you who feed upon Condemned Stuff Actions which many have been sorry for running into in the time of their Ignorance wherein they beguiled the Simplicity but now returned to Christ their Shepherd and feed amongst the Flocks of his Pasture but God's Words are true The Serpent must feed on Dust who is out of Truth Dust is the Serpent's Meat Your Sting Venum and Poison is felt and savoured And as for John Bolton's Reproving the Slit in the Woman's Coat which you stuff up your Book with and G. F's Paper against Fashion and Images c. You may feed on such Stuff who live in the Vain Fashions which therein are declared against and which shall stand over you and your Images And as for all your Aggravations and Nick Names which proceed from your bitter Gaul and Envy Simon Magus like we shall leave to God to judge of for there are few sober People but see your Books are a piece of Envy Malice Hatred and Spight and to be a Spirit that seeks Blood and you would not have been so served your selves And you make a great Clamour against our Law Government or Order I say as before Our Order is the Gospel Order and our Law is the Spirit of Life which we received which is in Christ Jesus the Heavenly Man by which the Old Adam's Actions are judged And further The Spirit of the Hat saith That G. F. and some others the Elders had a Meeting to Judge and Condemn several Men and Women of Good Report Answ Why might not William Mucklow have said That he was one of them that had reported that Slander to a Lass upon a Woman that was Innocent who was judged for it And this is another Lye in your saying That G. F. and others endeavour to subvert the Royal Law of Liberty pag. 38. For had you owned it and kept in it you would not have done that unto us as you have done Neither did God or Christ ever teach you to utter forth those Scoffing Expressions against G. F. and the People of God as may be seen in the 40th Page of the Hat-Spirit and it is the Hat-Spirit indeed for it is not the Spirit of God And in pag. 3 4. of your Tyranny and Hypocrisie there it is said Our Principles are far different from what we profess openly and that we act upon the same Principles as the Court of Rome Oh Lyes and Malitious Men All these are your invented Lyes for you and the Court of Rome we deny your Spirit and Power who are of the same Spirit that would murder us as the Papists did formerly your Spirit is favoured How we invite People to Christ both in publick and private the Lord knows to whom we leave you for him to deal with you according to your Works And in the 7th page of your Hypocrisie and Tyranny it is said For if every Man upon pain of Sin walk according to the Light in his own particular then he cannot without Sin walk according to the Light in G. F. or others when that is diverse or contrary from his own As for your Light as Christ said It is Darkness your Works and Words do manifest it who are condemned with the Light which G. F. and we and others walk in which is the Light of Christ Jesus which makes you to Rage and then we know that you cannot bear our Judgment nor G. F's and therefore such as pretend the Light of Christ and are Haters and Persecutors with your Tongues of them that walk in the Light we have no Unity with you as before But you often with Aggravations and Malice quote G. F. and scoffingly say your Elders throwing Dirt at them to make them Odious amongst such as your selves putting your Bear-Skins upon them that you may set the Dogs upon them And we and G. F. do know the things of God by the Spirit of God and the Scripture doth not reveal the Scripture but the Spirit of God is it that leads into all Truth and it is the same that is revealing the Father to us And whereas you make a great Complaint in the 16th page of the Quakers not letting some of you Bury in their Burying-Ground Indeed when some of you Hat-Men have come with Railing and Abusive Terms against us with Abusive Language and called us worse then the Priests and when his Child has dyed then the Father of such a Child has come to us to have a Grave not out of any Conscience but to save his Money we have bid him then go to the Priest whom he counted better then we with whom he had Fellowship And such Loose Persons that live not in the Truth We cannot be Witnesses of their Marriages for we Marry none but are Witnesses and well might J. B. deny William Mucklow who Ranter-like kept on his Hat in Prayer we have no Unity with such Uncomely Practices And J. Osgood and others may praise God that they see your Folly and have given a Sufficient Testimony concerning your Spirit It seems you are tormented because G. F. sent for two Kings and the Emperor which came to hear him in America and were tender you wanted something to stuff up your Book withal had they been Malitious it would have pleased you And whereas you Scoff at our Order of Marriage page 21 22. and call it G. F's Order We must tell you It is the Order and Practice of the Holy Men of God mentioned in Scriptures who took one another before Witnesses And whereas you Wickedly say We Contradict one another in the Light and Spirit This is all like the rest for such as you we can savour You Hat-Men who have pretended to lean upon the Lord but have and some have had a Bitter Cup for it And G. F's words were true in time of J. P's Wearing his Hat in Prayer if all be left to the Free Spirit of God there had been no such Reasoning about the Hat in Prayer which you should have printed the rest of G. F's words how that we denyed the Wearing the Hat in Prayer in the Ranters in the time of J. N. and also in the time of J. P. and did
for an Answer to the Spirit of Alexander the Copper-Smith After this rate it were far easier to Answer then Accuse I am of Opinion that D. Stillingfleet's Adversaries would look upon their Cause as little injured by any bare reference to ancient Protestant-Writers how excellently soever they acquitted themselves at that time of day Fresh Opposition requires fresh Vindication If I had been Popish the man should have shewn me in what and when he had done have soundly confuted it and not in the midst of his Exclamations against Shifters give such just occasion to say thou art the man I am willing to forgive him at this time But let him be better instructed of his Cabal against the next time and see if he can learn more Truth then to call his Libels Answers whilst they prove themselves Evasions For Truth will work through all odious Names And it is not pinning the Pope upon our Tail and crying Popery Popery that will confute our Principles However till we are better known it may disrepute our Persons But let his base Constructions be considered Our Reproving Men for going out of the decent Order and happy Unity of the Body he calls Requiring Man to set down by our Determination against their Conscience And our Disowning that Breach upon persistance Excommunication from Burying and Marrying They ejected themselves by their Novelties and we are not ashamed to repute such as Publicans and Heathens as will not head the Church of Chris t Mat. 18. Had they Faith they might have kept it to themselves and not have disturbed the Church's Peace with their new Practices indeed Institutions for what was it lâ—â—e then to require our not practising of the Hat off in 〈◊〉 who called pulling it off a Popish Tradition unless men 〈◊〉 not to leave off Popish Traditions so that they and not we were to blame as the Sequel will further prove But I could not pass by this part of the Disingenuity of this Libeller As the Libel so our Discourse will consist of matter of Argument and matter of Fact I shall begin with matter of Argument which shall consist of a further Defence of what is asserted in my Book entituled The Spirit of Alexander the Copper-Smith revived and rebuked The grand Cause of that Dissension which was begun by Jo. Perrot long since happily ended among our selves though renewed divulged and aggravated for the Strengthening of the hands of our common Enemy by certain Perverse Apostates as delivered in the Spirit of the Hat and Defence of the same they must with me grant to be this The Quakers reach that every Man is enlightened with a sufficient Light to Salvation And that all Faith in and Worship to God ought to stand upon the Convictions and in the Leadings thereof yet we are oblieged by their Body unto that which we have no Motion for but rather against and upon our Refusal of such Compliance as they expect we are disowned as not of them So that the Sufficiency Convictions and Leadings of the Light must vail to the Body and not the Body to the Light wherefore not the Light but the Body is become the Quakers Rule Thus Tho. Hiks's Con. Dial. p. 63 64 65. Spir. Hat p. 11 12 13. Defence of it p. 5 6 7. Their Common Aggravations especially of the two latter are these That they are denyed Marrying Burying Trading that they are distracted and so deprived of all both Ecclesiastical and Civil Priviledges The Aggravations we shall consider in their place And first to their Objection or Argument as I have fairly fully and faithfully laid it down 'T is a Truth and as true that we urge both the Universality and Sufficiency of the Light to Salvation and that every Man ought to follow only the Teachings of it about Faith and Worship This is granted on all hands even by the Cabal to credit their present Work and obtain their envious Ends upon us and our Principles Therefore no part of the Question to be controverted The matter in difference strictly lies here that is by resolving these four following Questions the Objection will be fully and plainly answered 1. Whether Christ has given to his Church consisting of faithful Believers and obedient Walkers by the Light or Spirit within such a Sense Tast Relish and Savour of the Nature of Spirits as upon all Occasions the great Enemy of Christ and his People may take under never so seeming innocent Appearances and Transformations to condemn any thing by his Church practised or innovate any thing by the Church never practised but condemned Yea or Nay 2. Whether such a Society Body or Church after due Admonition given to any dissenting or innovating Person may not Lawfully and Christianly deny their Communion in Testimony against that wrong Spirit such Person or Persons may be acted by 3. Whether such Person or Persons may not hold this granted fundamental Principle of the Light c. before recited in the Vnderstanding and yet be acted by a wrong Spirit to Divisions and then plead against the Church under the Pretence of acting by the Light within and consequently whether he can or ought to be judged by any for so doing because every one ought to act according to the Light that is within them And lastly 4. Whether the Body of the Quakers or their present Opposers be that Church Yea or Nay The first is so evident in the Affirmative That to reject it is nothing less then to deny Scripture it self It was the express Promise of Christ to send the Comforter the Spirit of Truth to lead into all Truth which the Apostle John assures us was made good not only to the Disciples but the then Churches of Christ to whom he writ these unanswerable Passages Ye have an Vunction from the Holy One and YE SHALL KNOW ALL THINGS Again But the Anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and you need not that any Man teach you but as the same Anointing teacheth you of ALL THINGS and is Truth and is no Lye And even as it hath taught you ye shall abide in him By which it is evident that the Church of Christ had an Infallible Spirit by which to discern the Spirit of a Sheep from the Spirit of a Wolf though he came in Sheeps Cloathing This Doctrine Christ himself taught us when he said Beware of False Prophets which come to you in Sheeps Cloathing Again Take heed that no man deceive you For many shall come in my Name saying I am Christ and shall deceive many Whence it follows that there should be False Prophets yet in Sheeps Cloathing which is a deceitful Spirit acting under refined Appearances and to compass its Deceit the better shall palliate it with the Pretence of being led by the Spirit or Light of Christ within So that as Deceitful Spirits were foretold the Way to know them was both promised and enjoyed My Sheep hear my Voice said the great
World even as I am not of the World Do you call this Blasphemy Then why do you thus seek after my Life and publish Books to set the Magistrates and Ignorant upon me but I will stand to my Tesitmony of my Lord and Saviours Words though you call his Words Blasphemy it is which I desire all People to read and see whether the Spirit of Christ be the Guide of these Men's Actions or the Spirit of Envy for they that have not the Spirit of Christ are none of his but the Spirit of Christ Jesus and of the Lamb which is in G. F. and the Holy Brethren the Heirs of Eternal Life will fall heavy upon these Men yea this Stone which they reject and set at naught will grind them to Powder Mat. 21.44 And farther Christ faith in the same Chapter I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the World but that thou wouldst keep them from the Evil Jo. 17. and mark J. P. and Baptists and the Spirit of the Hat Hyproscrise Tyranny detect who would tyranize over Christ's Testimony concerning his Saints and Followers then and now as your Fore-Fathers did In the 16th Verse Christ saith They are not of the World even as I am not of the World c. which I keep the Testimony of Jesus and know the Truth that he speaks and do not give Titles to none of his Saints to G. F. nor none beyond what Christ hath spoken and therefore be ashamed who profess your selves Christians call Christ's Words Blasphemy And farther Christ sayes That they all may be one as thou Father art in me I in thee that they may be all one in us And the Glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one as thou Father and I am one I in them and thou in me that they may be perfect in One. And moreover John saith in his 1. Epistle Chap. 4. Ye are of God little Children and have overcome because Greater is he that is in you then he that is in the World They are of the World therefore the World heareth them We are of God he that knoweth and heareth God heareth us he that is not of God heareth not us hereby know we the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error Beloved let us love one another for Love is of God and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God and he that loveth not knoweth not God for God is Love And it is very like John the Divine had such Spirits as L. Muggleton J. Pennyman and the Baptists and other to deal withal as I have now And Christ my Lord saith to his Saints and Apostles If the World hate you you know it hated me before it hated you If you were of the World the World would love its own but because ye are not of the World but I have chosen you out of the World therefore the World hates you Jo. 15. Remember the Words that I said unto you The Servant is not greater then his Lord Mat. 40.24 but Christ saith Every one that is Perfect shall be as his Master Luke 6.40 If they persecute me they will also persecute you if they kept not my sayings they will not keep yours Here you may see how that you are not the Keepers of Christ's Sayings but the Persecutors of them that do Ye are my Friends saith Christ if you do what I command c. and saith Christ henceforth I call you not Servants but my Friends for the Servant knoweth not what the Lord doth but I have called you Friends c. Jo. 15.14 You have chosen me but I have chosen you and have ordained you c. And again you say in your Tyranny and Hypocrisie detected that I should say Blessed be the Man that came out of the North Blessed be the Womb that bare him the Paps that gave him suck As to the Former Words I might speak them but the Latter Words once applyed to Christ I do not remember I spake them But herein ye shew your Malice for had a Cursing Man like Muggleton come out of the North such a one would have fitted you J. Pennyman Baptists but Blessed be God I can say He is Blest for God hath Blest him And I can say He is Blest though you do speak Evil with Muggleton against him and others Curse them whom God hath blest and Christ doth bless his People Mat. 5. Glory to the Lord and you cannot curse that which God hath blest and Christ and the Apostles say Bless Curse not and you are offended for my Obeying Christ's and the Apostles Command manifesting What Spirit you are of And was it not Christ which Saul persecuted and thou you Saul like persecute him now yea that true Christ by whom the World was made in his Saints and Holy Ones under a Pretence of following the Lord faithfully but it is manifest that it is the Worlds God you have followed out of whose Mouth comes forth such Envy and Malice But it had been better for thee John Pennyman and thy Confederates that a Milstone had been hanged about thine and their Neks Luk. 17.2 then to have lifted up Tongue or Pen against God's Truth People who art in Muggleton's Spirit speaking against the Truth who art like an old Apostate twice dead pluct up by the Roots if so then how canst thou grow but art gone out amongst the Dogs Vomiting Biting and Devouring And J. Pennyman thou boasts in some of thy Papers of speaking the Word of the Lord suppose it were so Balaam had the Word of the Lord and after was cut off And was not Judas and Apostle Partaker of the Ministry And art not thou turned a Judas and now seekst to betray the Innocent yea to Death if thou couldst according to the Sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ A Brother shall betray a Brother to Death Mat. 10.21 as thou hast done as much as in thee lies like a False Brother in sending thy Papers to Barbodoes where the Baptists and Professors running up and down with them to the Justices of Peace who would have tryed me for my Life Blood-thirsty Men And one Justice of the Peace said that if S Eccles were not hanged he would be hanged for him their Rage was so high against me by Reason of thy Pamphlets but I stayed at the Bridg Town where the Court sat waiting looking every day to be called to my Tryal but the Court broke up and I was not called nor medled withall in the least so the Blood-thirsty Baptists and others their Consederates J. Pennyman's Correspondents mist their Ends. Though the Baptists themselves did confess to the same things here which thou and the Baptists call Blasphemy now yet it is no marvel for Christ our Lord was called a Blasphemer who said that which I testified to in Jo. 17. And as for all J. Pennyman's unsavory Speeches in his Abusive Pamphlets and
in a former Book and it might have been sufficient to Reasonable Men For as I then said I did not Deny what I had spoke at the former Meeting but being Mis-understood I Explained it which gave Satisfaction We pretend not to be above Mis-hearings and Mis-apprehensions though above Wilful Evils It s well they have no greater Crime to accuse me of who are so Envious as to make use of such Trifling Inconsiderable Matters as this to Discredit us Well this I have further to say concerning the siad book That Hell hath opened her Mouth and the Dragon hath cast out Floods against the Church that is coming out of the Wilderness which the Lord our God is building upon the Rock Christ Jesus and the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against it And many hath the Lord established upon this Rock who are Inhabitants thereof and can sing for Joy in the midst of all Tryals and Excersises Storms and Tempests knowing that our Foundation stands sure and as there we abide we can never be moved having Salvation for Walls and Bulworks and being kept as in the Munition of Rocks where our Bread is sure and our Waters never fall Praises to the Lord forever James Claypoole John Osgood's Testimony I Having seen a Pamphlet called Tyranny and Hypocrisie Detected in which my Name is inferred in pag. 17. saying That whilst I in general terms deny all I do in particular deny nothing at all I say My Answer stated the Matter truly as it was and many are the yet Witnesses that know it to be so and to J. P. at his House it was so proved to be since the said Answer was printed And as to his Query in pag. 28. What is become of the Integrity of J. O. that he should put his Name among such Men as these I answer As for these Men I believe they would not affirm a thing with Pen or Toungue that they knew to be Untrue as this Pamphlet basely insinuates nor did I so much as in the least know of their Answer till I saw it printed And as for my Integrity it is known unto the Lord and to him have I approv'd my self in faithfulness even in Reproving the Extravagancies of him that I believe was the Grand Informer to him or them that made this Pamphlet and Sorrows many the Lord knows I have and had for him and oh that he had not been above Counsel then had he not been found Running the Race of Core nor Furnishing with Spears the Goliahs of Gath that this day Defie the Host of the Living God How have they made the Haerts of the Uncircumcised Glad How doth Askalon Rejoyce and Atheism say Ah! ha thus would we have it How is this Pamphlet furnished with Scoffs as Foxonians King Fox and Ironically Oh Innocent Holy Harmless People Well the Righteous Terrible Dreadful God will Avenge for these things What thought the Apostle said There where those things amongst the Corinthians that were not so much as to be named among the Heathens what must be their Portion that unto the Heathens made known this and thereby the God of the Christians Blaspheamed and the Way of Truth Reproached as it is at this day But with this sad Difference some of them that now are Agents in this Work have Tasted of and Witnessed unto theat Immortal and heavenly Power that was and is manifest amongst us and have gone from it and given heed to Fables Being Heady and High-minded they have stumbled and caused others to stumble they have Offended and treasured up the Offences of others unto their own Hurt John Osgood William Gosnell 's Testimony This is my Faithful Testimony for God his Truth and People and the Clearing of mine own Conscience As also given forth for Information of the Sober Enquirer and for'Condemnation of J. P. and his Confederates against whose Works I am and hope shall terminate my dayes in Judgment against that Spirit they serve Warning all to take heed of them who tender the Good of their Souls knowing their Ways and Works lead unto Death by Means whereof the Way of Truth is Evil-spoken to the Dishonour of God and Strengthening of the Wicked in their Doings FOr that my Soul loves the Truth and such who are the Faithful Servants thereof I do therefore reckon my self concerned with my Brethren as also for their sakes who have any Desires in their Hearts after the Way of Truth as it is by a Remnant Despised of Men in this our Day made known and testified unto to write something in Answer to what is charged against me in a Libel called TYRANNY AND HYPOCRISIE DETECTED which to the truly Sober and Unprejudiced Reader can be accounted nothing less then impious Railing and from an Ishmaelitish Spirit and from the Enemy of all Good in his Instruments manifested against such who are Resisters of Tyrrany and in the Uprightness of their Hearts Denyers of Hypocrise and in that give my Testimony against the said Pamphlet believing that whosoever is the Author thereof or Contributory thereto shall receive of the Lord our God the Just Judge of all who hath pleaded and will plead the Cause of his Truth and People the just Recompence of Reward according as their Work hath been which unto them who walk in the Light are seen to be Evil and They the Workers thereof bound in Chains of Darkness reserved to the Judgment of the Great Day nevertheless my Soul's Desire is if possible the may find a place for Repentance In Pag. 45. called Tyranny and Hypocrisie Detected are these words When I first saw Gosnell ' s Name in the Spirit of Alexander I expected nothing less then a Denyal of what is related to have been said by G. F. viz. Friends Although I have not told it you I do now declare That I have Power to Bind and to Loose whom I please In that thou didst nothing less then expect a Denyal c. doth manifest what Spirit thou art of viz. That which watcheth and waiteth for Evil and expecteth nothing less Why didst thou not set thy Name to that which thou hast heaped up that so we might have known ther and made some Enquiry after thee It s written That Fear surprizeth the Hypocrite Were thy Works such as would bring Honour to thee it may be we might have had thy Name at large but thy Works are manifest to be Evil and of the Flesh as are Railings Envious and Scoffing Speeches Slanders and Evil Suggestions So though thou concealest thy Name yet by thy Fruits thou art manifested to be an Evil Tree For an Evil Tree bringeth forth Evil Fruit. And why thou shouldst Expect a Denyal whilst sayest thou it seems is true let the Sober judge And so thou goest on as one of Ishmael's Brood with a Scoff saying How can it be otherwise that so Great a King and Prophet as G. F. should not have Power to Bind and Loose That there is a Power to Bind and
each other and the Presence and Power of the Lord sealed to it and she was a Blessing to him to whom the Lord gave her all her days And I was so far from the Exercise of Authority in that Matter that I know not that I Invited one to the Marriage much less Commanded and J. O. used no Interest in that Matter that I know then what he gained by Love and had these Accusers come to and kept in this Love they had been kept out of that Spirit of the Accuser that now from time to time acts them to seek Occasion against the Brethren and the Truth and then whether False or True as those that Rejoyce in Iniquity they publish it that they may Murder in the Way And if any Righteous Soul grieved and burdened with their Bringings forth in Mischief Write or Answer them sharply they imagine they get Strength by it and shew it to Adversaries of Truth as if the People of the Lord did Amiss in Clearing the Truth and throwing back the Dirt on them from whence it comes but let all take notice that the Prophet Elijah was Justified in his Reproaching of Baal's Priests in their Blind Worships and Mad Fury for the True God appeared to him for his Justification as be doth unto us that abide in his Power unto this day But for the Taunts and Mockings of Samballat Tobiah they are recorded for their Infamy forever For what is the Chaff to the Wheat saith the Lord And I did not nor do not intend to Controvert or Answer the Writings of these Enemies of Truth having not so much as read them through only a few Lines which being False Truth required to come over and upon the Head of the False Worker is it set and I did not then cry out as they say in my own Concern nor do I now write to serve my selfe but the Truth and the End hath and shall declare the Ground of all Actions And as the Fighters against God have and do scatter from him and gather into the World with the Vain Customs thereof so those that have and do contend earnestly for the Truth have no other End or Aim but to preserve in and gather to the Grace of God which Teacheth to Deny all Vngodliness and Worldly Lusts and many Thousands they are that to this day are preserved thereby out of the Net that these Subtil and Deceitful Ones have laid and are laying But Sufficient is the Grace in which we have believed and thereby we receive Power over all Spirits which are gone out and hatch Mischief and bring forth Lyes But Praises be to the Power that hath brought many into the One Mind that above and before all they seek the Encrease and Enlargement of Truth and these have the Mind of God and know he is on their side and laughs to Scorn all his Enemies And our Communion and Fellowship is Holy and within the Holy Place where the Unclean and Inventers of Evil could never come for the Unfeigned Brotherly Love gives an Enterance thereunto but they out of it not seeking after this grow in Envy by lusting thereto and offering Despight to the Spirit of Grace in themselves they bring forth the same against all us that are guided thereby And I am bold in that Spirit that cannot Lye to say to all in this Gainsaying Spirit as I did many Years since to some in the same Spirit and some of these Evil-Workers did hear it and are Witnesses it is fulfilled on them of whom it was then testified J. P. and C. B. and others if they return not they are and shall assuredly be swallowed up of the Earth and link into it cast again into the Sea from whence they were taken as bad Fish indeed out of the Net But Holy is the Lord and his Name shall be Magnified of all the Upright Ones for their Redemption is sure and these are daily coming forth with Songs of Thanksgiving and the High Praises of the Lord are in their Hearts and Mouths forever and for evermore Amen Friends that are plain-hearted and love Righteousness and though but turned Sion-ward and you that for the Truth have sold All you are all very dear unto me as I know I am and must be to you for as we are all of one Begetting and are come to the one Hope and are nourished at the one Breast where the Milk of the Word causeth to grow into the Oneness of that Spirit which sets free from Sin and Death here we have Unity and bear one another's Burdens and in the Life of the Head are affected with the Suffering of every Member that hath Life therein and with his Compâ—ssions come to be filled and having Fellowship in his Suffering are grieved and oppressed with the Works of the Adversaries every where and at all times that ever since the Entrance of the Night of Apostasy to this time are as truly Persecuting Christ Jesus in his Members and Slaying him in the Streets of the great City spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt as Paul persecuted â—â—m when he got Letters from the high Priests to take Men or Women that were of that Way and bring them bound to Jerusalem And as sure as the Apostle John saw his Crucifying in the Spirit of Prophecy so certainly with all the Contenders and Gain-sayers and Resisters of the Testimony of Jesus which Testimony is the Spirit of Prophecy be found Fighters against God who mischievously have taken up all Miscarriages and Mistakes and with their Misunderstandings and own dark Imaginations adding Lyes of their own making whereby some have been weakened and others turned out of the Way and the Truth come to be questioned by the Ignorant whereby the End of these Revolters is made manifest And though I have not so much as said in my Heart I would they were cut off from the Lord yet sure I am they have gone about as much as in them lies to pervert the good Way of the Lord by making the People believe the Quakers allow Vcleanness or Vnrighteousness in that some professing it have gone out as they and practised those things that the Light testifieth against and yet when in good Order by Men loving Holiness there is a Meeting to reform or divide such far from us in the outward this offends them also So may not all see the Restlesness of this Spirit that would throw the Guilt of those that have offended on those Innocent ones that are travelling for the Removal of all Evils But there are many Thousands to the Praise of the Power of God be it spoken that are kept not only out of Uncleanness and all Unrighteousnes but are in the true Religion which keeps from the Spots of the World and their Communion stands where the Blind could never see Another Stumbling-Block that these that are making the Offences lay in the Way of the Simple is as if we honour and set up Man in the Place of God or
against the True Israel and are publishing the condemned Stuff in their Garth that the Gartbites might boast for mark the words in page 70. of those that Consent with the Hat-Men It seems that they have got a Feast of that Condemned Stuff of which some had done Wrong and were heartily Sorry and Condemned and these Vagabond Quakers the Hat-Men have presented them a Dish of it which they make Musick of but the sober Reader may see there is no Concord in it but Mischief and Envy And as for Benj. Furley's Paper which you Hat-Men and others feed upon who formerly were in that Practice amongst you Has not he Condemned it So that which he hath Condemned is Meat for you Vagabond Quakers And That which Isaac Penington when he was with you Hat-Men favouring you gave forth concerning it Hath not he Condemned it and his Motion therein And That which G. F. gave forth in his Book to the Jews which you Elimas-like bring to pervert the Way of Truth was it not given forth concerning the Hat to Magistrates and not concerning the Wearing the Hat in Prayer to God for which he was fined Forty Pound in Oliver's dayes Nay are not some of those Men Offended at it now that pervert G. F's words which were only putting off the Hat to Magistrates and not concerning putting off it to God at Prayer as before said as the Apostle câ—mmands who was in the True Light and the Holy Ghost who said That Men should Pray Vncovered therefore sayes this Hat-Spirit and those that Consent with them That the Quakers are fallen from their Principles No they are the Hat-Men that are fallen And perhaps some of them are offended at our Hats for not giving them the Hat-Honour for we know their Ambition in other Pâ—wers dayes And we have suffered more in other Powers dayes about not putting off our Hats to Magistrates then we have in these Powers dayes and it may be some of them are ashamed of their Names and dare not bring them forth to Light that have been of that old Persecuting Party But William Penn has answered sufficiently to the Rational concerning this But it may be the Workers in the Dark will murmur and therefore they put their Work upon a Baptist a Stationer to Name it and to get it Licensed and in the mean time they lurk in the Dark But if we should gather up all the Failings of particular Persons among the Baptists and Fifth Monarchy-Men and others in this City and Country and beyond the Seas we might make a Book big enough and we might make a Book of the Hat-Mens Failings which they know well enough but all those things we leave to God and all Good Men to judge as knowing among us the Members of Christ who is the Head of our Body that we do not admit of any Uncleanness amongst our selves nor that which cometh publick to the World but in the Power of Christ Jesus and in his Light and Spirit we do judge such things amongst our selves let them be private or publick to clear the Truth and that no Scandals may lye upon it and the Name of God and Christ may not be Blasphemed God and all good Men know this and according to Gospel-Order they are and have been dealt withal which admits of no Impurity And it is much these Hat-Men and their Companions and those that consented with them did not Clamour against Moses and the Law of God because that so many amongst the Israelites ran into Fornication but these are of Core's Spirit and Dathan and Abiram's Spirit that offered a Strange Fire who will be consumed with it that gainsayes And it was much they did not Rail against Peter and Paul and tell that to the World when Paul withstood Peter concerning Circumcision and yet he circumcised Timothy And it is much that these Clamourers did not clamour against Christ concerning Peter his Cursing and Swearing But these Confederates with the Hat-Men that are those that plead for Wearing the Hat in Prayer Ranter-like seem very much to Commend J. Pennyman and his Wife as though we did not know them but they and their Spirit is known witness his Action at the Exchange and their Voluptuous Doings at Merchant-Tailers Hall which we leave to the Law of God and all good Men to judge And this Spirit of the Hat saith how did the Lord raise many to go forth to preach the Everlasting Gospel in his Power c. pag. 10 70 71. and then these Hat-Men with their Confederates are angry because G. F. speaks of no Liberty but in the Power and pervert his Words as though Conscience should not have Liberty in the Power and now it s clearly manifâ—st to all People what Spirit these Hat-Men are of with their Confederates that they would have a Liberty out of the Power for were not G. F's Words that People's Liberty should be in the Gospel Liberty in the Power of God because G. F stands for the Power of God which was first received and their Liberty therein and the â—iberty in Christ that made them free whâ—ch were his Words and these Hat-Men and their Confederates who are out of the Power of God would have Liberty of their Consciences out of Christ the Power of God therefore you may see from what these Peoples Motions are and in what their Consciences have Liberty for them that plead for Liberty of Conscience and plead for Sin as long as they live and a Purgatory when they are dead and such and these Hat-Men and them that consent to them would have a Liberty out of the Power of God and yet go under the Name of Christians And is not this a plain Contradiction in these Hat-Men and them that consent with them who confess that we the People of God called Quakers went forth in the Power of God in pag. 10. and in pag. the 12. he terms G. F. a Papist because he saith There is no Liberty out of the Power of God But you should have put it in your Book true Liberty in the Gospel and the Liberty in Christ Jesus according to G. F's Words But I must tell you All your Liberty of Conscience out of Christ Jesus the Power of God is Bondage both to the Soul Body Spirit and Conscience Where note that by Liberty of Conscience G. F. did not speak of Outward Exercise in Worship for with such Libertines we have no Unity and all your Liberty out of Truth out of the Power of God the Gospel and out of Christ Jesus with all your Motions is in the Power of Darkness And your Hat-Liberty keeping on your Hats in time of Prayer which you much speak of which was imposed upon us as being Heathenish Romish and in the Curse and â—ursed by J. P. as his printed Paper manifests printed by one of your Company who would have thrust it among us as a higher Glory as some Vagabond Quakers stand for it to this Day and
in the Holy Ghost Is not it established in Peace in the Heart and are not the Saints Heirs of the Kingdom and of the Life that hath no End and is not the Power of God Spiritual and Divine And because it is said G. F. has reached through his Children afar off to the begetting of many to a lively Hope And what then doth not the Apostle say many Members yet one Body they were baptized by one Spirit into one Body and though they were absent in the Body yet present in the Spirit and that it did reach one unto another mark reach which was the Spirit and Power of Christ in which was their Fellowship and Union Do you not manifest your dark Hat-Spirit here And the Life of Christ that has begotten G. F. the same it is that doth reach and beget others to God and that Spirit is blest which begets and brings out of the Curse he was blest and is blest in all Generations and who are of Faith are of Abraham who was the Father of many Nations And a great deal of malitious Stuff is in your Book which all that are sober can savour it from what a Blood-thirsty Spirit it is come who would fain stir up the People against us and the Powers but your Envy is seen And if any have gone out into any Uncleanness or Looseness it hath been a Grief to our Souls and a Wounding to our Spirits to see Goâ— his Truth and his People dishonoured and they have not been received amongst us again but by Repentance which is according to the Mind of the Lord and Practice of Christ his Apostles And why are these Apostates so mad that G. F. should inherit the Kingdom of God that is Everlasting Are not Christ's Words Seek the Kingdom of God first and all things shall follow and because he and thousands more have found the Kingdom of God this torments you that are in the Kingdom of Darkness and whosoever will receive the Kingdom must receive it as a little Child but you are too big for it and you that trust your own Riches Inward and Outward cannot enter the Kingdom Luke 18. and was not the Kingdom of God to be preached but you do not love to hear talk of it but you that once set your Hand to the Plough and look back are not fit for the Kingdom of God And is it not said the Kingdom of God is come to you Luke 10. and was it not said to the Backsliding Pharisees like you that the Kingdom was taken from them Is nâ—t this your Condition has not the little Flock a Kingdom but you shall weep and gnash your Teeth when you see Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom and your selves shut out for the Kingdom stands not in Word but in Power and are not the good Seed the Children of the Kingdom and will not God establish his Seed for ever And now John Pennyman and William Mucklow I have a few words to you who like Brethren in Iniquity have joyned together to betray the Innocent It had been better for you that A Milstone had been hanged about your Necks and you cast into the Sea then that you should have done what you have done And as for thee J. Pennyman Thou hast long been full of Envy and though Friends sought to preserve thee if it might be and to keep thee out of the Evil yet I feared this would come upon thee knowing that there was a Murderous Spirit in thee and now thou hast fully manifested it against G. F. and others of the Saints but Wo and Misery will be thy Portion if thou dost not Repent for thou hast set thy self against the Truth and art joyned with the Enemies of Christ to Persecute his Followers And thou hast been a long time a Persecutor of me as thou knowest and now thou vents thy Malice against my Brethren but I can say God forgive thee if it be his Will but I fear thou are wholely shut up in Darkness and so for Destruction And this was upon my Heart to write unto thee who am and alwayes desire to be a Servant to the Truth which thou despisest called Ellis Hooks THus Reader hast thou the Testimonies of several Persons named in that Libel some of whom are more obscure others more known their Truth and Honesty shall speak for them I will not But most of them are too Noted for Worth and Integrity to be doubted upon a Libel stuffed with that Rage Treachery Slander and Scoff We might also produce the Condemnations of three Persons against themselves the first Letters of whose Names are unworthily mentioned by the Libeller but the Truth is sufficiently cleared and their Addition would give the Book too great a Bulk we rather wish It had been many Sheets less knowing that great Books are seldom read in this Careless and Impatient Age only Reader be pleased to Consider the Deceit of this Adversary and how ready he is to stretch any thing to slander and defame both Particulars and a Society The Spirit of the Hat charg'd our Ministry with Whoredoms and Strumpets in the present tense This Apologizer tells the World our Answer was Evasion because we took it so for sayes he the Book meant it of time past that the Book meant no such thing unless a thing means quite otherwise then it sayes read the Passage Next what is that to us if a Judas or Demas that received part of the Ministry fall into the Evil of this World again can we do any more then Condemn it and we did nothing less Is that to prove our Ministry Vitious to tell a Story perhaps seven or ten Years since of any one or two that have at times opened their Mouth in our Assemblies Oh! God the Righteous and Terrible Judge will reckon with this Ungodly Libeller and those Base Murdering Judasses that have furnisht him with this dirty Trash God will clear our Innocency and detect their Envy and Hypocrisie more convincingly to all the World and that dreadful black and Stormy Day that hastens to try and win now the Nations will scatter them and their Mischievous Designs when God will preserve us in his Fear and Counsel by his Power to his Eternal Praise and our Consolation World without End W. P. A Postscript To the READER Concerning the Vnity of our Adversaries against us amidst the great Discord they are at amongst themselves HOw hearty these Men are in their Envy against us and Hatred to the Way we profess is very discernable from their close Confederacy and strict Union who are as remote and differing from and absolutely contradictory to one another in their Faith Worship and Discipline as to the Quakers themselves against whom they have combined They are made up of some Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists Socinians and Apostates from us A strange Medley of Adversaries and stranger that there should be such Union to Mischief But let us view some of their Principles
Judas and the Jews Combined against Christ and his Followers BEING A Re-joynder to the late Nameless Reply called Tyranny and Hypocrisie Detected made against a Book entituled The Spirit of Alexander the Copper-Smith Rebuked c. which was an Answer to a Pamphlet called The Spirit of the Hat In which Truth is cleared from Scandals and the Church of Christ in her Faith Doctrine and just Power and Authority in Discipline is clearly and fully vindicated against the malicious Endeavours of a Confederacy of some Envious Professors and Vagabond Apostate Quakers By a Member and Servant of the Church of Christ William Penn. To which are added several Testimonies of Persons concern'd He that Dippeth his Hand with me in the Dish the same shall betray me Mat. 26.23 They went out from us but were not of us 1 Joh. 2.19 In Perils among false Brethren 2 Cor. 11.26 Nevertheless the Foundation of God stands sure 2 Tim. 2.19 Printed in the Year 1673. Judas and the Jews Combined against Christ and his Followers The Introduction THe Just Defence of our so much Reviled Principles and Persons is so ill resented by our Enemies that instead of publickly Recanting their Injustice They repute us more Criminal for so doing then themselves in first Traducing us It is become a sort of Petty Treason to Reprove them they are grown almost incorrigible and to Controle them though in a Lye is hateful so much more do they prefer our Destruction then the Truth it self or their own Reputation Strange That it should be reputed Innocency to Accuse the Guiltless and Guilt to Defend them Are we of God then shall we stand maugre your Assaults if not we shall fall without them What need this Clubbing for Mischief and Caballing to our Ruin The Jews I believe never studied the Crucifying of Christ more vehemently then you vigorously combine and plot the Massacring of our Names Credit and Principles out of the World yea and we have Cause to suspect our Persons too or else this Socinian-Defender of the Hat-Spirit would never have told the World in almost so many words that Blasphemers were to dye by the Law of God and the Quakers are Blasphemers every Man can make the Conclusion that understands what a Conclusion is see pag. 23. It s a Work becomes Darkness for such I call your Nameless Pamphlet in which you have abused Vertuous and Good People by Name not daring to stand the Test of putting your Names to your Abuses against which can be no Fence but Innocency and that remains Unshaken by all your Blustering Epithetes That rests with God who will quell your swelling Rage and speedily Rebuke that great Herricane your Envy has raised to over-set us in our Voyage to Eternal Rest But he that said to Moses in an Hour of Straight Stand still and thou shalt see my Salvation has once and again Comforted us under all these Discouragements Neither are your Combinations Terrible No though Evil Spyes have been your Informers Our greatest Trouble is your own Hardening and we are sorry to see you make so much haste to old Jerusalem's Portion For us we know in whom we have believed And as he that feedeth the Fowls of the Air and clotheth the Lillies of the Field preserves us so that your Buffettings may prove our Tryals but in the End your own Judgments For however you buoy your selves up by the Acceptance you find with some Airy or Prejudiced Spirits God will certainly enter into Judgment with you for your Envious Proceeding who not being able to carry on your own Controversies now list your selves Combatants for a few stragling Apostates not out of Love to true Quakers but Hatred to such as are so What Sense is there in believing you only intend a False Quaker who have writ and abetted those Writings that are against us as Quakers at all But what shall I say It is an Age grown to that Degree of Impiety that there is no Friendship so Strait no Relation so Near no Truth so Evident nor Life so Innocent that some Men are not hardy and wicked enough to Break Violate and Slander to Avenge some supposed Wrong or gratifie an Emulous Spirit Controversie End upon Socinian Principles c. is risen now in one about the Hat on in Prayer What Variety of Shapes do our Adversaries put on to compass their Ends It has been their Practice first to Abuse our Principles and then Rail at our Defences and for Vindicating our Religion to fall foul upon our Persons and those chiefly who are most active in that Service There needs no other Demonstration of this then the Scurrilous Libel now to be considered which with me carries so Mischievous an Aspect that the Parties concerned in these Undertakings do by it proclaim they only want as much Power as Will to send us and our Principles to New-England for a Venture God deliver us from those Magistrates that are as Angry in Government as these Men are in Religion But this is our Joy That these Enemies speak all manner of Evil against us falsly for our Lord and Saviour's sake We maintain our Principles that angers them Miscarriages joy them whatever they pretend And if they can bring some Writers and Preachers out of Request they think they do their Business But we cannot believe that Sober and Judicious Persons will think the worse of us or our Cause for these Malicious Endeavours against it We have only to do with some old Adversaries new Vampt with the Slanderous Stories of some modern Apostates Had not Judas helpt the Jews had been to seek A few Vagabond Quakers are their Intelligencers it s all but a piece of Treachery and Envy And truly 't is fit we should be tryed as well by False Friends as Professed Enemies that in all things we may approve our selves compleat Conquerors through the Invincibe Power and to the alone Honour of that Eternal Truth professed by us And so we enter upon the Libel it self VVE are told in the Title Page of the Libel That it was writ in Defence of a Letter entituled The Spirit of the Hat and against the Deceitful Defective and Railing Answer called The Spirit of Alexander c. Indeed it is wonderful strange that to Reprove an Apostate should be reputed Railing and that this Secretary to this New-founded Cabal should Practiâ—e it in censuring it He cannot forbear it in his Title Page He begins with â—YRANNY AND HYPOCRISIE DETECâ—ED which Four Words he explains to us thus Or a furtheâ— Discovery of the Tyrannical Government Popish Principles and Vile Practices of the now Leading Quakers In all which if there be no Reviling there is no such thing in the World for these Words reach to the End of all Villany Meek Man that he would be thought who seems to engross Railing into a Company and seems not so Angry at it in us as that we use it Unlicenced of his Cabal for he exerciseth it at such a rate in
Checking it as if he might do it cum Privilegio But it right-well agrees with the Advocate of an Apostate Cause I complain of nothing in this kind more then that we must not Rebuke Ill-Language without being guilty of it Nay such is the Peevishness of our Adversaries that to mention theirs is Criminal But we shall run the hazard of their Frowns rather then be false to the Truth or wanting to our selves in its proper place Let it suffice that the Title manifestly speaks what the Libel vainly condemns This Secretary I suppose in the Name of the Cabal begins his Libel thus How dangerous a thing it is for a Man to engage himself publickly for any singular Party upon the Account of Religion is greatly manifest in the Leading Quakers and especially in W. Penn from whose Parts and Education one would expect more then ordinary Candor and Ingennity By which I perceive he is from a Rageing Socinian become an Vniversalian But why then so bitter against us Sure he is a Party in that and how Dangerous a thing it is Time will more fully shew However he declares himself of no Party by which I suppose he excludes the Christian for the Prophane of that Time reputed him a Sectary and all must acknowledge him to be of a Party How I came to be of this Way is best known to God But thus much I must say that nothing short of the Divine Word of Life and Power has worked that Alteration upon me from what I once was to what I now am The Tryals Travels Tribulations and Exercises that from Fourteen Years of Age have attended me but more especially since I was brought to own and abet this Holy Way I now profess are too many to be related And from the Hour I was first convinced of this Eternal Truth to this of Writing this Discourse I can with Boldness declare to all the World I have had no other Aim nor End then God's Honour the Good of others and my own Salvation in the Day of the Lord. In short I have learned to turn my Back to the Smiter and my Cheek to the Plucker off of the Hair And it is not for any Adversary at this time a day under any Pretence of Parts and Education to Dis-ingage my Affection from this Right Way o◠the Lord Remembring my Lord made himself of no Reputation and that the Prophet was accounted Mad and the Apostles Drunk But he sayes I having imbarked my self amongst those People and having obtained a high Repute among them I betook my self to such pittiful Shifts Scurrilities and Bravings he is pincht to uphold their Detected Cause and Tottering Kingdom 't will stand forever as one would think could not proceed from any Man professing Christianity witness my late Controversal Writings especially my Winding-Sheet and Spirit of Alexander c. ibid. But I cannot expect to be Well-spoken of by mine Enemies especially when they declare themselves to be such because of that Way I so earnestly defend But this Man is not so Ignorant surely as to imagine I imbarkt my self among this People to obtain Repute or Grandeur who lost all with Men when first I came amongst them I would have my Implacable Enemies know that had no more Durable and Eternal Things been in my Eye I might have had my Share where more was to be got then amongst this Despised People but Envy is Blind and Rage Foolish For my Controversal Writings they stand Unanswered among the rest my Winding-Sheet and Spirit of Alexander c. the former being Unmedled with and the Strength of the latter fouly over-looked as we shall anon have occasion to shew perhaps it might have concerned him to clear himself of the Former before he had so weakly engaged himself in the Latter still Controversie is not Ended though Changed He tells the World That notwithstanding we call the Spirit of the Hat Lyes Forgery Defamation with abundance of Terms of the like Foxonian Leaven a scornful Nick Namer yet when we come to Particulars we either first confess what we deny with an idle Distinction except some few things or secondly acknowledge them by Silence or thirdly use some Deceitful Terms of Denyal which the Reader cannot discover or fourthly take an Occasion from some Circumstances perhaps not rightly set down to deny the whole Matter which doubtless are very bad things if true He has hereby rendred us not only no Christians but the worst of Men. All I can say at present is this It has never been my Practice to palliate that which cannot be justified or to treat any Adversary so deceitfully But 't is expected he should prove what he sayes or else we must invert the Character upon himself He tells us I suppose in order to prove what he hath said That W. P. doth in the Name of the Quakers acknowledge That the Complaint made in the Spirit of the Hat is true namely That we required him to yield to our Determination against his Conscience because the Body would have it so saying that was yielding to the Power And that I undertake in Opposition to the Author That his not so yielding but persisting is Dissension but our Disowning Excommunicating and Depriving of a Liberty of Marrying Burying c. any Person for that Cause is no Breach of the great Gospel-Charter This he sayes I Labour to do with the same Arguments Papists use against Protestants who pretend to no such Power and that they may be found every-where answered in Protestant Writings A mean Answer bu◠a notable Go-by in case I had so exprest my self but most forgedly does he deliver my words and tendency of them Was this Man chosen for your prime Tool of Controversie who can only tell one big Lye and then run away My Arguments forsooth are Popish there 's Confutation enough but with whom Ignorance and Prejudice An easie way to brand Reason and render the clearest Truth suspected in a Nation as abhorrent of Popery as this we live in a shameful Injustice that Sectaries should traduce us with that which was once their own suffering from others But what if I had us 〈◊〉 any Argument for the True Church which is employed by the Papist in Defence of a False one must Truth not be Truth in it self because Misappled And suppose the Protestant has answered the Papist Is that any Answer to me How great an Untruth has he told in his Title Page when he calls his Pamphlet A Defence of the Spirit of the Hat against the Spirit of Alexander who in four Pages after tells us he intends not to medle with the Arguments of it But Perhaps he will fault me for these People are very full of finding Fault though they mend none in themselves in that he has referred us to Protestant Writers A Defence boldly begged but never to be accepted of by me Does he think I must turn over Melanchton Chemnitius Oecolampadius Jewell Whitaker Reinolds and others
soberly secretly and frequently dealt withall his Condition represented his Danger shewn and a Station of Safety pointed to him It was the daily Travel of many who sought his Wel-fare and the Churche's Peace to bring him to a Sence of his own Condition But no Argument or Entreaties could prevail no Sighs or Tears could soften him but resolved he was for a Sect-Master and his Mark must be the Hat on in time of Publick Prayer That which yet whetted many simple Hearts to follow his Example was with his Sufferings his Pharisaical Pretences to a higher Dispensation but instead of shewing them a readier Way to an higher State of Holiness he diverted their Minds from the more weighty things of the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus to contend for that rude and unprofitable Practice of the Hat on in time of publick Prayer an Invention to no Edification but to the great Disturbance of the Church Thus began what rent he sought to make amongst us Before this we were at Peace our Sion prosperous and those Apostate Adversaries allowed us to be God's Church his chosen People I appeal now to the whole World of moderate and impartial People whether we acted herein unlike Christian sober and prudent Men And if any of our publick Enemies who pretend to own a Church-Authority some of them also being Members and Leaders would not have done the like Must we suffer for that which they justifie We rejected a Practice we had no Authority for neither without nor within We saw Who brought it in and What acted him with the bent and tendency of it And it was as much our Duty to withstand the Entrance of that wich was Wrong as to continue in the Practice of that which was Right and setled in the Power of God long before among us We might invert their Plea much more truly The Light within enjoyned us to disown them had we not then sinned to have declined Or is our Light Darkness because they call their Darkness Light In short the Church never knew it when so much admired by her present Enemies And because when it came she rejected it therefore are they become her Enemies which proves Them and not the Church to be changed But supposing we had nothing of this to our Defence What is become of the once acknowledged Blessed Church and her Powerful Ministry If we have lost both who has found them If due to any Body in case our Adversaries be in the Right it must be to them But I know of no Church nor do I hear of any Ministry they have nor the Power of God manifest among them either for the Building up of themselves or the Gathering of others What! Is the Church already returned into the Wilderness and is the Power lost which they acknowledge was once amongst us and to God's Eternal Praise we daily witness in the City and Country to attend our Travels But as they were not of God in their Dissensions so neither have they stood We suffer as we did The World loves them more then it did They are Friends but both Enemies to us Their Sect Master returned with the Dog to the Vomit to Swearing Fighting fine Cloathes Cap and Knee to Men who could sit on his B with his Hat on his Head when he prayed to the most high God Some of his Followers run into Looseness and Rantism others into Enmity and Earthly-Mindedness but far the more considerable returned to their first Love and Workes whom God hath since frequently blest with his heavenly Presence and sealed to them the Comfort of the holy Communion of the Brethren To sum up what we have been saying First The True Church of Christ by the Gift of the holy Spirit from Christ the Head is enabled to try savour and relish Wrong Spirits under never such Right Appearances as that without which she could never be preserved from the Wolves that are in Sheep's Cloathing nor the Deceivers that come with Christ's Words out of Christ's Power and Life Secondly That this Church hath as well Power to reject the false Spirit as to try it Thirdly That men may be in the Words and not the Spirit of Truth that notwithstanding it is the Duty of all Men to act by the Light and Spirit within that hinders not that such as walk not according to the Light within though they may pretend to do it should be known and judged of them that really do so Fourthly That we were this True Church of God by our Apostate Adversaries own Confession And we have proved that not we but our Adversaries have altered since the time that large Confession mentions by giving the Offence and making the first Breach of Vnity notwithstanding the many Christian Courses that were taken to restore them and preserve Concord among Brethren Therefore our Judgment of them is not that of a Dark Dead Body but a Living Spiritual Society and in the Gift Discerning and Authority of God's holy and unerring Spirit which they acknowledge we once had and cannot prove when and by what we lost it And blessed be the Lord God of Heaven and Earth his Living Power is with us be owns our Ministry and Fellowship in the Hearts of Thousands yea Ten Thousands have bowed to the Righteousness of his Scepter since the day that perverse Core first troubled our Israel No Tryals have scattered us nor Sufferings worn us out but to the Honour of the blessed Name of the Lord we have been by it kept to this day whose Goodness renews with the Morning and whose Mercies endures forever Blessed are they that fear him such will he alwayes keep in perfect Peace But the Author of the Spirit of the Hat and his Tyrannical and Hypocritical Defender in his Libel called Tyranny and Hypocrisie Detected cry out This is arrant Popery But I will tell such Licentious Spirits That it is plainly Scriptural What if a False Church assume the Priviledge of a True one does that make the True Church a False one for pleading that Priviledge The Papists say God ought to be worshipped must we not therefore worship him because they say so 'T is just as good as to say That because one Man cheatingly calls himself by another Man's Name therefore that other Man must renounce his own Name Prove Discerning and Judgment by the Holy Ghost in any Body or Society to be the Mark of a False Church and ye do your Business otherwise you must acknowledge it to be the Priviledge of a True Church but deny it to be ours as we do that it is the Church of Rome's But we have proved out of your own Pamphlets thâ—t you acknowledge us to have been the True Church and in our own Discourse that we have continued that which we ever were And that God's powerful convincinâ—â—nd converting Ministry remains amongst us Therefore thâ—â— Priviledge upon their own Principles does belong to us But perhaps they will both endeavour
to avoid the Dint of these convincing Arguments thus We deny not the Body of the People called Quakers nor as they act in the Light that they have true Judgment But we complain against your Foxonian Vnity which consists of certain Ministers and Elders which lift up G. Fox for a Bishop a Pope and a King making his Papers Edicts then entitle them the Judgment of the Body whereas indeed 't is but the Mind of a Cabal of Foxonians the Leaders are the Men we strike at See Spirit of the Hat pag. 11 12 13 14 15 16. Tyran Defend But should we allow this to be True as we reject it for a Slander 't is granted to us that the Body of the People called Quakers is not their Aim but some few particulars that make not up the hundreth part of the Church and who will in the things objected sufficiently clear themselves so that the Judgment of the Body is not denyed because of the Judgment of some few Elders that displease them the Question then will be whether the Body in all Places concerned has given its Judgment against that innovating Spirit of John Perrot yea or nay The Determination of which Question gives a great In-sight into the present Controversie In order to which I offer two things to be considered First That in all Places where Jo. Perrot's Spirit and Practice made any Appearance through the Churches in this or other Nations there has been a two-fold Judgment given 1. That of the Church in the Fear and Presence of the Eternal God she worships according to his free Spirit and that Discerning which was given her of him concerning which if there be any Scruple in the publick canvas of this Matter we can readily produce a multitude of Certificates to verifie it 2. The Judgment of many considerable Persons against themselves and their own Practice whose Simplicity was betrayed by that dissentious Spirit But it so happens that some of them of how good Report soever are now not to be credited because it crosseth the Humor of these Envious Authors and their prejudiced Adherents What Name shall we call this Partiallity by who praised their Honesty when they espoused the Hat and now question their Conscience in declaring their Mistake And such is the Fool-Hardiness and Vanity of this Socinian Apologizer in the Defence of the Hat on in Prayer That in a great Marginal Note he cryes out What 's become of John Osgood ' s Integrity that he should put his Name among such Men as these As if we had committed all the Infamies prohibited in the first and second Table of God's Law rather then seasonably given check to the boundless Novelties of an Imaginary Innovatour This is your Vniversalian that tells us how dangerous it is to be of a Party who has bestowed a whole Pamphlet in Defence of one built upon no better Foundation then the irreverent Practice of the Hat on in time of publick Prayer But his own Revilings and injustifiable Officiousness have proved it dangerous to be of such a Party indeed But why must not the rest be credited Are they deceived in Returning Shew it Was it imposed upon them as they suggest Prove it John Pennyman if he has not lost all Conscience and Memory can tell them another Story For as became the People of God for the Decision of this Controversie a very great Meeting was desired and appointed unto which both sorts willingly resorted So that it was not Imposition but Choice In which great and earnest were the Desires and Travels of those who had opposed the Spirit of John Perrot that the Lord himself would please in some signal manner to break forth amongst them that the Judgment which should pass among them in order to a Reconciliation might not be accounted the Judgment of Man but the Judgment of God These faithful Cryes entered the Ears of the God of Peace whose Compassions fail not That with an high Hand and an out-stretched Arm he rent through the Meeting that both Sorts were greatly broken and humbled before the Lord. In which deep and tender Sense J. P. J. C. though never in the Practice of the Hat J. O. J. C. W. P. W. G. G. W. and John Pennyman himself with very many more not now to be mentioned in Fear and Trembling great Brokenness of Spirit to the Astonishment of all Beholders plainly and fully testified against the Spirit and Practice of J. Perrot to be out of the Life of the Truth Vnity of the Body And who wâ—â— more Express Earnest Frequent in the Judging that Spirit 〈◊〉 Envious Apostatized J. Pennyman Did he not say of those 〈◊〉 â—â—â—posed J. Perrot's Spirit You are more Righteous then we And if you had not stood we had perisht And did not he call that Spirit of J. Perrot that led to keep on the Hat in Publick Prayer THE SPIRIT OF WITCHCRAFT AND OF THE DEVIL and to that Purpose And is he not now in Defence of that Spirit What shall we say then upon his present Distance and Enmity Hath he not pronounced his own Character and Sentence hereby What heed is to be given to such a Changeable Self-Contradicting Person Now that the Government of our Christian Body should be called Tyranny and the Confessions of these Men Hypocrisy tell me thou that art my impartial Reader what sort of Conscience our present Enemies have thus to treat both the one and the other How evident is it that these great Enemies of Imposition would have been the Task-Masters themselves who are Insolent and Uncharitable enough to censure these Men in pulling off their Hats again to be guilty of Hypocrisie who in Fear to God and the Sense of his Spirit condemned the keeping of it on Deceit Oh how unworthily have they dealt with us and how ill an Use have they made of all wholsom Counsel to reclaim them That little Yielding that our Friends at first shewed to re-gain them they made use of to confirm them and their Obstinacy leading us to more Severity like Bastard Children they run away with open mouth bauling into the very Ears of some Envious and Busie-body Professors Imposition Popery Tyranny Arbitrary Government and these are become Theames for such prejudiced Persons as this Adversary to declaim against the poor Quakers upon Where it may not be unseasonably observed That if we should as ill bestow our time in gathering up all the Villanous and Impious Miscarriages of many professed Members of the several Religious Ways within this Kingdom I doubt not but we might cut them out more Work then they would be willing to have Had we thus begun with them how Condemnable would they have thought it But it having been their Practice towards us we must not chide them for Injustice lest we be reputed Railers For so big is the Beam in their own Eyes that the Vilest buses against us pass for Innocent and Justifiable things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The second thing
〈◊〉 offer in order to a full Determination is this That either the whole Church or that part of it which never was concerned in these Debates particularly the North of England remot from us yet consisting of a very great Part of the Body of our Friends both in Number and Solidity and who have never varyed from their first Station upon any general Proposal the present Hat-Men shall make for the Demand of their Judgment provided it may be conclusive with them at least so far as to clear Particulars from that high Charge of Tyranny and Hypocrisie will we do believe freely declare themselves according to that Sense and Vnderstanding they shall receive of the Mind of Christ therein from him alone who is the Leader and Shepherd of his People IF none of all this will do let them take their course and furnish these Ishmaelites and Uncircumcised Philistians with all they can to our Trouble God will bring us through it all And for that Dishonour they have hereby brought on the Way and People of the Lord in general by putting their pretended Exceptions against some few Particulars into the hands of those Men who do not so much study the Disgrace of a few publick Labourers as the Overthrow of the whole People and Way improving all they can scrape how much soever interlined with Falshood to that very end will God the Righteous and Terrible Judge of Heaven and Earth require an Account and Wo Sorrow and Eternal Perplexity will be the swift Recompence of your Treacherous Doings unless you find a place for Repentance and can yet wipe away all these Scores by true Contrition Some further Ground of our Satisfaction in Proceeding against keeping on the Hat in time of publick Prayer especially as we are now concern'd with these sort of Apostate Adversaries which is not to dispute but further to declare our Belief and the Reason of our Practice in the Matter and so leave all with the Lord. I. AS Man consists of Soul and Body and as the Body is a kind of Form to the Soul so whilst Body and Soul remain unseparated there will and must be some Form suited to the Body whereby to express the publick Spiritual Worship performed by the Soul such are Places Words and Gestures and in the Performance of such Worship the Body can no more be exempted from some Form or Expression then can the Soul in its inward and spiritual Station To deny this is to denote a Man void of Sense and Reason so that though we grant the outward inward Coming of Christ to have abrogated such Types and Figures as foreshewed a further Glory yet Tokens and Demonstrations of present inward Reverence a Divine Honour to God in publick Performance of Worship not only we never denyed but do affirm them to be as adequate or proper to the Body as are the Reverence and Honour to the Soul II. It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us in the solemn and publick performance of Prayer unto the Lord to pull off our Hats to express the Unvailing of our Spirits and that reverent Submission and Supplication which becomes poor Petitioners to come in and offer up their Desires with to the great King of Glory and God of the Spirits of all Flesh and God has made it a Token of inward Homage by the Requirings of his own Truth And it is fit it should be observed that these present Opposers not only acknowledg'd the People call'd Quakers to be a true Church whilst in this Practice which I deny any Church to be that continues in the World's Rudiments and that they have frequently suggested us on this Occasion to be Retainers of But that they have received heavenly Refreshment by those Prayers that have been offered up by uncovered Heads And that God should send forth such a Spiritual Ministry so richly furnished and rarely qualified by the Divine Power and Wisdom of God a few years before as the Author of the Hat confesseth and that in their Performance of Worship to God they should be worldly and vainly Ceremonious can be no wayes consistent And I do here appeal to all sober Persons if after so large a Terstimony given to the People called Quakers as a true Church and her Ministry and Worship as powerful and pure before ever this Imagination came forth it could be any thing solid seasonable or edifying to introduce or trouble the Church with that Practice which they acknowledge She was Blest and Prosperous without III. But again it denotes and signifies the Difference that is between Worship to God and Ministry to Man there is not equal Homage indeed none at all in declaring God's Will to Man but the other is all matter of pure Homage and to discover this Difference by some due and suitable Posture is so far from being unlawful that the contrary is very condemnable IV. It is never to be thought reasonable by People not out of their Senses at least upon our Adversaries Principles that a Man should be moved to Pray and yet in that Motion not moved to shew it What! would they have a Man when he is moved to pray wait for another Motion to be led to discover it But above all the rest how do they that stand with their Hats on testifie their Unity with him that prayes as they confess a Man may by the Spirit of the Lord with his Hat off I say what greater Token do they give of their Joyning with such Prayers then the Publican or Pharisee who by that very Posture testifie their Dislike But yet further suppose a Hat-Man be moved to Pray with his Hat off as they confess he may what becomes of the rest of that Opinion in the Meeting If they pull it off meerly as having Unity with his Prayer then they are gone for that is our Ground who say that Soul and Body Prayer and Gesture must go together If they say it is upon them not to pull it off Two things will follow First The Spirit of the Lord moveth People in the same Meeting at the same instant of time and in one and the same Duty unto two Contrary things 2 dly That they may have Unity with the Prayer and not with the Gesture with one Motion and not the other That they have Unity with the Prayer and give and wrap up their Spirits in the present sense that 's stirring in the Assembly with his that is the Mouth without an extra-ordinary Impulse to pray with him in their own Spirits yet require such a Motion to Joyn with the Gesture so that they can pray with the Man moved but not pull off their Hat with the Man so moved The Confusion Contradiction and Absurdity of this Imagination ought forever to Justifie the Quakers Seasonable Solid and Christian Proceedings against the Introducers and Abettors of it for a Contradiction in Gesture when Gesture stands upon Motion is proportionably as real a Resistance against the
Churches Peace 2. That such as are not in Vnity with the Ministry and Body have no Gospel-Authority to be Judges in the Church And that it is abominable Pride when any Particular will not yield TO THE WITNESS OF GOD IN FRIENDS But what is the Matter with our Adversary Hath he lost his Wits that he makes this so Criminal Are any to be Judges in that Church they have no Unity with and amongst the Ministry they deny or are at distance from Strange Contradiction But why is it so Hainous to call such Proud or Self-willed who resist the Witness of God in Friends Certainly the Expressions are sound unless Scripture be defective He that can see any thing in them that deserveth such hard Words as this Billings-Gate Rhetorician bestoweth upon us has better Eyes then I. 3ly But they say That the Church without Dissenters has Power to Determine Controversies Very well and is it not true Are the Dissenters from the Church part of the Church they dissent from For Shame Thou Learned and talk so Idly Scripture declares That God has given the Power of Determination to his Church All the World knows That Dissenters are not of that Church they dissent from therefore the Church without Dissenters has that Power of Determination 4ly and 5ly But they add That such disapproved Ministers ought to leave off Ministring till they are Reconciled to the Church And if approved Ministers degenerate to Division the Church has Authority to deal with them in the same manner and that no such Persons Writings should be publisht with Consent c. What of all this He that can call this Imperious Audaoious c. can call any thing To allow that Dissentious Preachers and Writers are by the Church they dissent from to be approved of in the Course of that Ministry and Writing is such a Bedlam Boundless Piece of Stuff that none but one who thinks it Dangerous to be of any Party would be the Author of such a Wild Expression 6ly But they advise That such whom the Holy Ghost had made Over-seers should not admit of the Weak to that Trust nor such as seek not the Good of all which All this Disingenuous Wrester interprets The great Body of George Fox and his Party But Men of Wisdom and Moderation will not I am confident so spoil the Text with his Comment This is the seventh time in two pages that G. Fox is brought in as the Explanation of the Word Body who was then close Prisoner at Scar-brough where no Letter was suffered to come to him and who never knew of any Paper till sometime after its being out O the Implacable Envy of these Men I have hitherto waited for that Arrogant Imperious and Audacious Passage which might have raized up our Adversary's Choller and whetted him to this Degree of Scolding but find no worse then what I have transcribed and justified this last excepted and I think it justifies it self such as seek the Good of all are certainly Fittest If he dare tell us his Name and meet me by Day as he can post up his Scurrilous Title-Pages on the City Posts with Flambeux or Links and a Guard by Night I will any where and in any sober Auditory maintain the Truth of all these Particulars and their clear Consistency with Scripture and Reason on whom he has bestowed so many hard Names But 't is to be lamented of his Cabal that he should with his Passion and Hate divulge so much Ignorance as to cry out That he thinks the Pope himself hath never taken such Power as to determine in Matters of this Nature and Manner but in a general Council Poor Man Brand us he would one way or other Has he never read the Council of Trent nor considered among many others the Life of Paul the 3d Is he to be informed of that Controversie long on foot between the Jesuits and the Doctors of Sorbon and the Followers of Jansenius I thought Councils had sometimes been as meer Cyphers in Italy as Parliaments are in France But this Man is as Kind to Elizabeth Barns one of that Backsliding Spirit as he represents me else where Unjust to M. Boreman that was For though she has Torn the Bible calling it in my hearing the Pope's Idol the Professors Idol and the Quakers Idol an Incredible Thing with J. Faldo and T. Hicks and committed more then a small History of shameful Miscarriages since yet is he pleased to tell us That she seeing the Ministers exalted themselves cryed out while R. Farnsworth was preaching You have whored from the Lord. Farnsworth sayes our Adversary replyed Thou art a Whore but for fear of being too great a Forger he brings it afterwards thus in a Parenthesis or the Whore This Michael Stanclift called Unsavory For which sayes this Secretary he was cast out as calling the Spirit of Truth Vnsavory Oh the Wretched Work these People make Will our Adversary justifie her Interruption of R. F. in Preaching who condemned it in us who did it after a more seasonable and justifiable manner a little before Yes that he will But does he think R. F's Reply Unsavory and not E. Barns Out-cry who only returned her own Word to herself Yes that he will Strange But does he take E. Barns word Whore in a spiritual Sense as Degenerating and will he seem to understand R. F's word Whore only in a Common and Proper Acceptation as a Dishonest Woman Yes that he will Well but was it Vnsavory so to reply and not in E. Barns so to interrupt and speak Yes that it was implies this present Apologist both of himself and M. S. O Monstrous O Partial But perhaps M. S. apprehended that R. F. meant by Whore an Unclean or Dishonest Woman in the Sense before-mentioned and then there might have been some Ground for his Answer but if M. S. took R. F. in the sense in which he spoak it to wit that she was gone out of her Habitation that is the Truth turned Harlot in Spirit and so was become Clamorous as speaks the Wise Man and should notwithstanding call that Vnsavory it was a Sign that he had more Unity with that Vnclean Ranting and Envious Spirit in E. B. then the Friends of Truth that generally judged her And truly in that Case it was time for them to tell that Angry Old Man their Mind of him In which they did but that which I dare answer for before the great and terrible Judge of Heaven and Earth Mine Own Defence from the most Considerable Reflections made by this Libeller against Me. § 1 HE is pleased both to Jeer and Prophane upon this Passage in the Spirit of Alexander the Copper-Smith Rebuked We require not Men to practise what they are not convinc'd of but we will be well satisfied with any Member's Dispractice of an Orderly Performance once Chearfully owned For this he calls me a Deep-studied Man and the Passage a Learned Distinction Let the Learned
sayes he vail to W. Penn but as one recalling himself probably he writ by Revelation But what Answer do all these words give O but 't is all one for two Negatives sayes he make an Affirmative in English What if there be but one for two I can not find but he at last like a Dim-sighted Man has fumbled out the Matter as he thinks to wit That we require not Men to leave off to practise what they have practised Cujus Contrarium veâ—um For shame What! no more Understanding and yet pretend to write Books Are not my words expresly otherwise But I say again 'T is one thing to introduce a Practice not at first known when our Adversaries spoak such Glorious Things of our Faith Worship Order and Ministry and require the Conformity of any of the Church to it and quite another Business for any of the Church to dispractise as a Romish Tradition and Tradition of Men or leave off any orderly Custom God brought his Church first forth in and which all once own'd and were in the Practice of But I begin to dispair of making this Caballistick Libeller any honester towards the poor Quakers § 2 But the Author of this Libel hath so little Conscience as yet to say That the Quakers allow no Liberty to Presbyterians Independents and Baptists because they are not in the Power of Truth but sayes he W. P. never wants a Salvo for George let him say what he will he means it sayes W. P. not of Outward but of Inward Liberty and yet W. P. knew it was spoken to one who pleaded for Liberty of Conscience about his Hat But thou Libeller was he a Presbyterian Independent or Baptist or does this prove that I would defend G. F. Let him say what he will Art thou a Man pretending to Truth or Honesty that art so Untrue and Dishonest to thy Opposer But I know no such thing that it was spoken of a Hat-Man this I know from G. F's own Mouth and what I have frequently heard him say on this Subject That the Conscience were within and nothing could give it Liberty from the Thraldom of Sin but the Power of God within He thus Distinguisht from the common Use of the Word which is the publick Exercise of Conscience so that what he meant of the Inward State of the Conscience to God they pervert to the outward Exercise of publick Worship Now because the Presbyterian Independent and Baptist generally deny that ever the Conscience can be Free or at Liberty from Sin he queried What! Liberty to the Presbyter c. answered thus No Liberty out of the Power of God Christ Jesus â— and such as have Liberty but not in Christ Jesus the Power of God it is in old Adam and are to be turned from No Man that is not eaten up with Prejudice and a Party with these Traducers can think that G. F. ever intended any other Liberty then what was internal as the Conscience is I could desire that both sides in this very Instance might be the Measure of the Truth or Dishonesty of either for I am in no one thing of this kind better satisfied then in the Wilful Abuse of our Adversaries and our own Vnblemisht Innocence God will Reward all according to their Works Amen § 3 He tells us There was a Complaint against me of divers Lyes Calumnies and Abuses committed by me in my Book intituled The Spirit of Truth c. carried to the Bull and Mouth to the Body of the Quakers then sitting there by half a Score of Citizens and others but they were not admitted Answ 'T is true that I writ such a Book and that they came with such a Complaint but a Lye a Calumny and Abuse that God will Revenge if not Repented of to call any part or parcel of it either Lyes Calumnies or Abuses H. Hedworth was nipt for his Nameless Scurrilous Letter Dull and Angry Man he could never Answer it therefore strove how he could Defame its Author Notable Controvertists indeed first write Books against Persons and instead of Answering cry out for Justice as if I had committed some Enormious Fact in Confuting his Libel But what Non-sense is it for People to come to a Body for Justice which they so manifestly disown and these Nameless Authors constantly vilifie Indeed they are grown so Angry at our honest and quick Defences that some are fallen to Personal Criminations and others to downright Menacing us with Judges Courts of Justices and Corporal Punishments A Crew of Petulant Disputants and Bloody-minded Adversaries Well but what Reception found they G. Whitehead sayes he told them He would shew it to W. Penn if they would set their hands to it And was not this Reasonable Should Men Complain and not Subscribe the Complaint Such Dark-Lanthorn Acts become not good Men. But it was shewn to Stephen Crisp also and left signed in his Hands who told them that he had shown it to me and that I had answered it in Print And was not that the best Way that what came by Print should go by Print They know their Malice is ready and they think their Wits are so too and all know they have their Presses open What! must we not defend our selves without being brought upon Tryals Before what Court did we endeavour to bring them for beginning with us The World may by this see what a Way such Peevish Persons would take to be uncontroled in their Writings had they so much Power as they have Pride and Passion But this is not all For upon my Saying in my Winding Sheet that Anabaptists came to Bull and Mouth to demand Judgement against W. P. for ALL being in the Place of MANY and asking whether they were not well employed at which he cryes out in the Strain of some Great Don. What Penn Is this the Custom of G. Fox's Court to Jeer the Poor Petitioners No Libeller 't is neither G. Fox's Court as thou scoffingly calls it nor did I Jeer nor were they that came Petitioners we neither Scorn nor Bely them as is falsely charged upon us And though there were more particulars yet that the Printers putting All instead of Many was one of them is granted and that I never said They came with no more what I did say will sufficiently clear therefore this Libeller hath both scorned and bely'd me and Abus'd and Jeer'd G. Fox c. which indeed is most times the Work of a concealed Author Well but 't is for this he is pleased to confer upon me the Knighthood of the Post which I thus far accept of that I stood my Post when he ran away but be it as it will his Reeling upon it hath broken his own Head against it whether I would or no. But one Reason why he so entitules me is my Swearing the Truth of what I either know to be False or do not know to be True This I suppose may startle every Reader that remembers I
am called a Quaker and have writ against Swearing But the Man had a notable Way to come off in which he is singular 1. in case our Words go for Oaths 2ly in that our Appealing to God is an Oath pag. 49. But before his Charge will reach us he must first prove That we ever broke our Words so solemnly given as he pretends and secondly That an Appeal to any thing is a Swearing by that unto which the Appeal is made But the Man being of late Years turned Schollar may be forgiven his Ignorance in Definitions as I heartily do his Malice § 4 In page 44. he tells me that since I love not to be called bare William as the Quakers do but do almost beg my due Title of J. Morse he thinks it be equal that he calls me Mr. Penn. But I could wish he would let us know what to call him who scarcely studies our Destruction more then to conceal himself in compassing it I am contented to be called by my Name but this scornful Libeller besides his Nick-Names often robbs me of halfe of it and that after this very Passage which shews how little heed is to be given to his Words But because he quotes us a book to prove my Ambition I will give the Reader an Account of the matter Some Letters past betwixt J. M. and J on his part he used Thou and Thee conforming himself to that Language to me which I knew he practised not to other People I told him it ill became one as Angry with the Quakers as himself to imitate them in Vsing that Distinction in Language which he otherwise denyed saying I loved Foxes should appear in their own Skins This is the Substance of that Petition this present Adversary represents me to have made for Titles of Honour against which he knows I have writ and blamed me for so doing But what twigs will not such drowning Causes and Defenders catch at to endeavour to save an irrevocable Life § 5 I am now come to what our Adversary takes high Advantage at as if he had enough to blow us all away at one Breath That I should exclaim for Proof of that Passage in the Spirit of the Hat that our Ministry was Vitious and Wanton and that Strumpets were amongst them And that John Pennyman was willing as he publickly declared in Gratious Street to answer my Challenge and that I should come with J. Osgood J. Claypole and William Brand to his House next day for a particular Charge which sayes this Adversary he soon drew up and sent to W. Penn to which he sayes according to my wonted Modesty I replyed That we wondred to see so empty an Account after so great a Charge publickly exhibited that before we met about it we would know if this were all he intended for we would not have our Charge by piece meal Thus saith this Libeller These great Champions evaded c. To all which Reader take this Faithfull Answer A Challenge I made to prove that Infamous Charge and it is as true that J. Pennyman made us believe some such thing as is said to say nothing of his insolent Carriage But this I boldly affirm for I have his Letter by me there was scarce one of these 24 particulars that so much as related to that Infamous Charge upon which my Challenge was grounded To accept my Challenge upon one thing and to offer to answer it with another shows their own Shortness and not our Cowardness What he said to the Purpose was no more then the Charge it self contained and that in a Way of Postscript too He gave us this general Answer he could say this and he could say that but he cared not to medle with such dirty Matters Is this to Answer our Challenge Unjust Men that in your Nameless Pamphlets would Rape us of our Reputation which you have never yet dared to our Faces to Question God can best rejoyn to such Replies and with him we leave both our Cause and Innocency Oh but sayes our Adversary We will come to a Tryal with you before 12. Judges six of each side equally disinterested and in case we fail of such a Number of Persons we are willing in case of Difference about them to refer the Vmprage to the Lord Major of London or any Aldermen or Common-Council Men But as great Knaves as ye would make us I hope ye do not think us such Fools as to accept a Challenge from no Body for such I call an hidden Author Let us see Who he is and What he would be at Can any wise Man think that if such Infirmities were this scurrilous and blindfold Way of using us ought to prevail with us No as we deny far the greatest part of his Stories especially as aggravated so shall we not debase our Christian Authority so far as to be accountable to every Fleering Scoffing Busy-Body Adversary We can Reprove and Exhort Exercise Church Discipline in the Power of Christ Jesus without running to twelve Judges Let these Nameless and Shameless Adversaries first go with the Ungodly Numerous Miscarriages of their own Parties and make them Judges in that Respect We need none to give us Discerning or Judgment Christ has furnisht us already and doth in all Occasions But had these things been all true as represented yet not being Injurious to any of our Adversaries it no wayes concerneth them to be satisfied in our Proceedings nor are we accountable to them by any Law of God or Man upon their Envious Requirings Runnegades Informations are no Proofs Hath any Wronged them they shall be Righted so far as we are able But have any slipt must we therefore divulge it Or are we therefore no Body of Christians Though the Principle be never so perfect Men are no longer so then in Comformity to it The Ancient Christian Churches had the Spirit of Truth yet some Failers attended some of her Members for Want of keeping that Watch they ought must the whole Church of Christ therefore be defiled or condemned and the Eminent and Laborious Servants of God therefore discredited Or should the Apostles have gratified the inquisitive Jews Heathens or Backsliders about any Miscarriages within themselves who were too apt to charge them with far more Vile Practice then any instanced in either of these two Malitious Pamphlets There is no Church or Religious Society whatever that thinks it self obliged to inform every Envious Busy-Body with the Infirmities of any accounted Members which is to publish it in Gath and tell it in Askalem Or the Time Manners and Matter of any of her Censures unless the Facts themselves have been notorious or are Injuriuos to those without Let any of them give me an Instance to the contrary if they can It is Prejudice to Religion it self to divulge Censures beyond the Reach of Offences since it is to divulge the Offence it self We shall therefore give no such Ill President by gratifying the Minds of
Man There is little Reason that I should believe that this Man hath Courage enough to question my Honesty to my Face who was afraid to put his Name to his Slander I Envy not M. Pennyman her Honesty and am very well contented with mine own however it may be represented by mine Enemies who are too Partial to be Judges and instead of Confuting can only Revile me which shows no great store of Honesty in this Slanderer My Reflection upon M. Pennyman's Apparel was Just and Righteous I knockt her own Spirit with her own Weapon Were our Ministers Degenerated because they wore better Cloathes and was M. Pennyman more Regenerated in leaving off her mean ones Yes for she sayes that having come through her Sorrow the Out-side is little to her Would not the same Excuse serve us It seems it is no hard Matter for her to endure Richer Apparel that is of her own Back but not upon another's Ranterism is lodged under this Liberty which leads to what she once judged as unbecoming Truth But me thinks her higher Attainments might allow her Equals and Betters to wear Camelit whilst she wears Silk they are all I know good in their Places but Hypocritical Self-Righteous Pretences are not to pass without Rebuke But I cannot imagine what should induce this Libeller to reflect upon my Intimacy with Gulielma Mar. and that in such suspected Terms as if she were another then the Party he represented me to be married to a little before for he presently reflects Dishonesty upon that said Intimacy telling us at the Tale of it That M. P. is better known for Honesty then I am as if that Intimacy rendered me as culpable as if it had happened between M. Pennyman and my self It were well if he had been so cautious else-where in telling of Lyes as he is here in speaking the Truth But do what we can the Folks of this Man's Strain will make that a Ground of Reflection upon a Quaker which is very allowable in themselves He tells you above I was married and had a Child and a little below that I WAS SAID to be INTIMATE with G. M. that is with the Person that is my Wife as if it were to render a Man suspect to be intimate with one's own Wife Whether there be most of Folly exprest or Slander intended in this way of Writing let the Moderate Reader judge But because the Reflection as well extends it self to her as to me I will only say thus much in her Defence She needs none and to be questioned from so foul a Mouth is a great Addition to her Credit but his own Guilt His Comparison of her with M. Pennyman that formal Piece of Hypocrisie giveth but such as know both the better Mean to judge of either The well known Innocence Meekness and Faithfulness of the one more lively setting out the Deceitfulness Pride and Treacherous Apostasy of the other In short Who would be well spoken of by such that choose Vertuous Persons to speak Evil of and Apostates to Commend But all this and many more Rude Defaming Speeches must I and mine expect from this Perverse Generation who have rewarded us Evil for Good What Scurrility Railing Nick-Names Mocks and Jeers are vented against us with other Servants of the Lord But in all these things our Eye is to him for whose sake alone he is Record we are become Marks for Furious Men to shoot their Arrows at But the Lord is our Pavilion and his Strength our Fortress He covers our Heads in these and all other Battels at what time these Creeping Judasses and Envious Libellers lurk and hide so that we are not moved We recommend our selves to his peculiar Care and Providence that in his Holy Truth we may live and rather then relaps for it constantly dye that whether we Live or whether we Dye God may be Magnified in the Eâ—â—th and that shall be our exceeding great Recompence of Reward And for these Apostates who once dipt with us into the same Dish and fed at the same Table who have tasted of the Word of God and the Power of the World to come but have betrayed the Spirit of Truth to the Spirit of Delusion in themselves and given him his Motions into the Hands of the False Christian of this day to Deride and Scorn and who have had so little Regard to the Profession as to bring it under Reproach and to the Common Law of Friendship as Treacherously to divulge the Secrets of some of their ancient Acqaintants and finally who have endeavoured the Disgrace and Hazard of the Lives and Liberties of some of the Servants of God because of their Faithful Testimony against their Apostasy I must tell tkem and do in the Counsel of God Their Bands shall be made strong and that Eternal Power at which they strike reigns over their Dark Dividing Envious Spirit in the Hearts of that Peoplâ— they have called by so many Scoffing Names and more then a Mill-stone will it be about their Necks and the Weight of all these Wicked and Treacherous Doings will God bring upon them in a Day and an Hour when they shall not be able to escape the Rod of his Fury Ah! Poor Men What have ye been doing Verily your Damnation slumbers not and the God whose Name you have caused to be blaspheamed amongst the Heathen will one Day require these things at your Hands and Recompense Vengeance in Flames of Fire for all your Hard Speeches and Sinful Contradictions against the Holy Spirit of Truth and those who are led by it I am not in any Rage God knows but I am grieved for you I could wish a Place of Repentance might be found if the Lord saw good though I rather fear your many and grievous Provocations have shut the Door against you For as Core and his Associates were outwardly swallowed up of the Earth so hath the Earthly Sensual and Devilish Spirit of the World received you into the Bowels of it and you are become as really One against our Lord and his Anointed in this Generation as ever Pilat Herod Judas and the Jews were combined against Him and His in the Dayes of his Flesh Who have strengthened the Hands of the Mocker and Scoffer greatened the Envy of Professors and made the Atheist glad But may this Lamentable Course your Disobedient Watching-for-Evil Slippery Backbiting and Exalted Spirit hath brought you into with the sad Consequence of being hardened therein be a perpetual Warning upon the Minds of all who make Profession of God's Eternal Truth that they be not high-minded but fear minding their own Conditions and their Growth and Increase in the Work of the Lord that so Love and Unity may be preserved and all Watchings for Evil Distrusts Surmisings Emulations and whatever makes for Discord or Dis-affection may be judged out and the Sowers of that Spirit that leads thereunto turned from and rebukt in the Power and Authority of God who
is able to keep us and preserve us unto his Heavenly Kingdom to whom be Everlasting Glory and Dominion Amen Now The Just shall live by Faith but if any Man draw back my Soul shall have no Pleasure in him Hebr. 10.38 And because Iniquity shall abound the Love of many shall wax cold But he that shall endure unto the End the same shall be saved Matth. 24.12 13. And THIS GOSPEL of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the World for a Witness unto all Nations and then shall the End come Verse 14. Several Testimonies Of Persons Reflected upon in the Pamphlet before answered added in Truth 's and their own Defence Thomas Brigges 's Testimony WHereas in page 22. thou or ye say The poor Man was transported into such an Angry Zeal that I told the Opposers It was of the Lord and they Opposed the Mind of the Lord But the Man was so far say thou or ye from knowing the Mind of the Lord in that Matter that he did not know who the Persons were of whom he spake Ans The Mind of the Lord I do know who am in the Truth and walk in it and the Testimony that I had to bear for the Truth and God's Power which thou art out of in which I did then bear testimony in the Blessed Power and Presence of God that I felt in that Meeting That that Marriage was to be permitted among Friends and it was permitted among Friends and accomplish'd And whereas thou or ye say The poor Man was transported into such an Angry Zeal that he knew not who the Persons were of whom he spake Ans I was not Transported out of Truth but in the Truth but thou art Transported out of Truth into a Lye and into the Enmity and into Cain's Way and into Core's Way and of thy Father the Devil who is the Father of Lyes For I have known Elizabeth Bayly this Nine or Ten Years as she can witness and the Man of lesser years and I have no Shame upon me of this Matter but Shame will come upon thee or ye whatever ye be that are gone from the Truth and turned from the Truth and Power of God and the Truth and Power of God in which I live is over all False-Accusers and Lyars and will be your Condemnation who are found in a Lye and False Accusation who hide your Names in the Dark This Testimony I do bear against all Lyars My Name is Thomas Brigges John Whitehead 's Testimony WHereas the Author of the aforesaid Pamphlet doth charge that Faithful Servant of God G. F. with the Opening and Altering a Letter written by me against my Consent I declare That both he and his Author have Malitiously Slandered G. F. in that Case for I ordered W. Kerby by a Letter wherein that Letter was Inclosed and UNSEALED to shew it to George Fox and the rest of the Brethren in Town that he or they might dispose of it as they saw a Service for Truth And it was written as a Testimony against that Spirit which would have brought in the Wearing of the Hat in Prayer and not to Justifie that Unheard of Practice in the Church for I ever Condemned it in my Heart and bore my Testimony against it knowing the Spirit of the Lord did not lead into it though I had a Tenderness to those who intended well and had their Simplicity betrayed by the subtil Workings of that Spirit of Error which I witnessed against and Laboured not in Vain to pluck them as Brands out of the Fire of Contention that with the Light of Christ they might see whither they were going and several did see the Error of their Way and Returned And if any have been so bad as to Mis-apply my Words and Harden their own Hearts through my Tenderness the Hurt will be their own and I shall be Clear in the Day of God though now I am Evilly Requited by those whâ— to their own Hurt give and receive Information agaist me as if I Acted or Lived Wantonly like those which said Come let us Smite him with the Tongue Report and we will Report it But my Innocency in that Case without further Defence is my sufficient Refuge from the Slanderous Tongues of these Ungodly Men And through the Grace of God whereby I am taught Sobriety and Godliness in this World I can and do say The Lord forgive them John Whitehead Isaac Penington 's Testimony A brief Account concerning the Queries relating to Keeping on the Hat in time of publick Prayer mention'd in a Book called Tyranny and Hypocrisie Detected pag. 61. AFter it pleased the Lord to give me a Sense of his pretious Truth in the Inward Parts and to turn my Mind thereto I met with great Opposition both Inward and Outward and how hard and long my Travel was God only fully knoweth Every day the Lord visited me and the Enemy was daily tempting me and I felt the Bitterness of his Temptations and was often sore wounded through my not understanding the Appearances of the Lord and through Unbelief God knoweth I did earnestly desire to know the Motions of God's Spirit from the contrary Movings and Stirrings of the Enemy of my Soul who moved in the Reasoning Wisdom out of the True and pure Simplicity but was many times filled with Doubts and Fears till the Season of the Service was over and the Opportunity of keeping out the Enemy was lost When the Business of the HAT fell out I being acquainted with several of them and looking upon them as tender to the Lord and that they did scruple it only in Conscience to him was perswaded in my heart they were to be born with and thought the positive Testimony against it in others too severe and that a thing of that Nature was not to be contended about but every one left to their Liberty yea and somewhat farther did I go in the Sense of my Heart as if possibly the Lord might require such a thing of them In this Frame of Spirit did I give forth those Queries not at all intending the Lord knows to strengthâ—n that Practice thereby but that no tender thing might be hurt but the Unity of Life kept unviolabe notwithstanding such an Outward Difference But at that time I did not discern that the thing came from the Enemy nor was I sensible that the Ministers of the Truth and such as stood in God's Light and Authority and saw the thing coming from the Enemy with the Evil Hurt and Dangerous Consequences of it to many yea and the Grieving the Church of God I say I did not then see and seriously consider that they were Watchmen appointed by God and had Discerning given them for the Good of the Body and that by those Queries I did weaken the Testimony of God's Spirit through them as to others and give Strength thereby to that Spirit which had prepared and was drawing this Snare over many So soon as ever the Lord shewed me
this in the inwards of my Spirit I smote upon my Thigh and said What have I done and was willing to take Shame upon my self and to give Glory to the Lord. How hard it went with me inwardly none knows And he that knows how easie it is to let in a Snare and Temptation and to have the inward Eye blinded thereby will not wonder nor think too hardly of me but his Bowels will rather rowl in the Sense of the Misery I underwent God knows I did not mistake willingly Nay truly The Power was upon me when I wrote those Queries but I did not understand the Signification thereof which would rather have led me then as it hath since against that Spirit which brought up that new Vnprofitable and Vnseemly Practice of keeping on the Hat in time of Publick Prayer in the Assemblies of God's People Now the making use of this against the Infallible Teachings of God's Spirit and the Infallible Way in which he leads his People is not Just True and Equal What! Was I never Infallibly led because the Enemy once blinded my Eâ—e and deceived me Did not the Apostle Peter receive the Infallible Spirit and was not he led thereby And did he not walk in the infallible Way because once he did that which was justly to be blamed and doubtless erred in Judgment concerning the Practice Gal. 2.11 I do not desire that Men should judge me Infallible or hearken to me as to one Infallible but this I desire that I may alwayes understand and follow the Voice and Guidings of God's Holy Spirit and then I am sure I shall alwayes walk in the Certain Vnerring Infallible Way besides which indeed there is no safe Way And I desire also that others with Ears and Eyes opened by the Lord may hear that Living Sound and Testimony which cometh from the Spirit of the Lord in those whom he sends that the Gathering may be to him and the Walking with him in the Spirit of his Son in the Light which is Eternal which ever was and ever will be Infallible which is the Path of the Living in this Day of the Breaking forth of God's Pure Power and Love in the Heats of many Oh Glory Oh fresh living Praises to his Name forever Isaac Penington John Crook's Testimony Having seen a Pamphlet intituled Tyranny and Hypocrisie Detected in which is printed a Paper of mine writ by me about Eleaven or Twelve Years since about Gestures and Postures c. it is thus in my Heart to write MY Desires and Breathings from my tender years have been after the Living God and since I have tasted of his Goodness and Mercy I have had a Love for and Longing after the Eternal Welfare of all that in any Measure sought after him in Truth and Righteousness knowing the Enemy's Devices to be many and various seeking by all Means to devour them And from a deep Sense of the same I writ the Paper about Gestures and Postures c. many years since knowing how busie the great Enemy of Man's Soul was at that juncture of time to draw out the Minds of some into the Observation and Innovation of Keeping their Hats upon their Heads in the time of Prayer in the publick Assemblies of God's People hoping that those Lines at that time might have been Successful to stop that Practice in some of them at least and also have allayed any thing in any others which might be of tendency to hinder their Information and Recovery But it was never in the least in my Heart or Intention to Encourage or Strengthen that Spirit and Practice which my own Judgment and Practice was against Neither did I intend any other Liberty then what was in the Lord and the Maintaining Love and Vnity amongst Brethren And truly in these various or contrary Practices of some keeping on their Hats and others putting off their Hats my Heart was affected desiring that the Lord would put a Stop to whatever tended to Discord which since hath appeared manifestly to arise from that Spirit which first brought in that Innovation Therefore in Good Conscience I cannot but bear my Testimony against the Author of this scurrilous Pamphlet for endeavouring not only to fasten such a Sense and Imputation upon me but also for his Attempt and Industry what in him lies to render God's People Odious and his ever-blessed Truth Contemptible to the World and thereby himself becomes a Murderer of Souls in perverting the Right Way of the Lord for which the God of Heaven will undoubtedly rebuke both him and all his Confederates in this wicked Vndertaking and in his time bring them to open Shame if they Repent not of this their Wickedness and Sin For the Epistle subscribed by Edw. Burroughs John Perrot and My Self it was writ when we were Prisoners together in New-Gate where John Perrot forbore the Wearing his Hat on purpose as we supposed to avoid Offence and also at that time be writ a Paper which was Satisfactory concerning the Matter of the Hat and had he made it publick at that time it might have prevented what afterwards befel him At this very juncture when there was such a Compliance and Hopes of his Recovery was the fore-mentioned Epistle writ Now let the Impatrtial Reader judge whether the Author of this Envious Libel hath shewed either Ingenuity or Humanity in his recital of the fore-mentioned Papers to the End for which he hath made them publick John Crook Solomon Eccle's Testimony FRIENDS I Give my Testimony for the Lord and for this blessed Truth this Day The Lord is amongst us and through the Riches of his Love towards us hath he made himself known unto us by his Eternal Light which shines in our Hearts And this Light is exceeding pretious to all that receive it in the Love of it for it is Pure and Divine and to be admired in all that do believe The Life is the Light of Men Jo. 1.4 and to know this is the excelent Knowledge And by believivg in this Light and walking in the same We have Fellowship one with an other 1 Jo. 1.7 and Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ But some are gone out from us and gone from their own Mercies and are turned against the Truth yet pretend to follow the Lamb They would Exclude us that the World might Affect them Of this sort is John Pennyman who hath sought Occasion against me and G. F. and hath printed and caused to be printed three times against me that never did him hurt first in his own Pamphlet next the Baptists called the Spirit of the Hat 3lY the Tyranny and Hypocrisy detected But in this he hath not done any wayes like a Servant of the Lord as he stiles himself nor a Follower of the Lamb for he never came to me in a Brotherly Way according to Gospel Order Mat. 18.15 first in secret by my self to shew me wherein I had done amiss if I had done amiss Nor was he so
Ingenuous to have sent Lodowick Muggleton's Principles with my Challenge to Barbadoes that People might know the Occasion of mY so speaking to Muggleton that wicked Blasphemer who said That the Eternal God died and lefâ— Moses and Elias to keep Couâ—t in Heaven till he rose again and that the Holy Ghost and the Spirit died in the Grave and that God sent him to Curse And that they whom he curse are curst to all Eternity and God cannot revoke it But Christ siath that with God all things are possible Mat. 19.26 And now whereas I am falsely accused by John Pennyman the Apostate who is out of the Bounds of Christianity as aforesaid or as a Man a Neighbour and publisht in Print as a Blasphemer behind my Back when I was gone beyond the Seas and he sent his Books and Pamphlets to Barbadoes and to Jamaica and other places in America after me to raise up Persecution against me yet this Pennyman did never so much as speak to me before he had published the said Book And thus he hunts after my Life as the Pharisees did after my Lord and I know nothing of Reason why this J. P. would have Blood but being gone from the Truth in himself seeks the Life of me who keep in Truth which he is gone from Also he hath set the Baptists at Work in Barbadoes Blood-thirsty Men who sought my Life there who read his Pamphlet before hundreds of People and One of these was Tho. Hatchman Baptist Preacher who is a Protest Enemy to the Light of Christ Jesus within for there was one askt him what that was in him which shewed him his Sin he said he did not know She said she must know and she would know he said it is the Devil for ought he knew And what are these Baptists here which thou hast set at work or given Occasion for it And what is Muggleton but an Adversary of Jesus Christ who boasted that he had cursed G. F. and said God nor Christ could not revoke it in his Book entituled a Looking Glass for G. Fox which neither J. P nor the Spirit of the Hat nor Tyranny and Hypocrisie detected takes notice of but they can swallow down Muggleton's Blasphemy and will not call that Blasphemy therefore I challenged L. Muggleton who curst G. F. whom God had blest And in my Challenge I told him he was not worthy to take G. Fox's Name into his Mouth who was a Prophet of the Lord indeed and hath been faithful in the Lord's Business from the Beginning which I and many other faithful Witnesses know to be true And there were Prophets before the Law in the Law and after Christ and now according to the Promise of God which have been persecuted and spoken Ill against as thou dost now and Muggleton who curses them And farther I said it was said of Christ he was in the World and the World was made by him and the World knew him not whom John said he was not and this I say is true and no Blasphemy as my words farther concerning G. F. were so it may be said of this True Prophet But what is that I said of him that may be called Blasphemy because I say it may be said of G. F. a true Prophet to Muggleton that curses hin and the World knows him not though he is in the World but the World knows J. P. the World will not hate him but Christ saith marvel not if the World hate you Jo. 15 18. for it hated me I am not of the World nor you are of the World And is not this true Scripture Is this Blasphemy And doth not the Apostle say that ye are not of the World for if you were of the World the World would hear you 1 Jo. 4.6 but because ye are not of the World therefore they hear you not but the World can hear J. Pennyman without any Hatred but hate them that are of Christ And must not all be made like unto the Son of God Heb. 7.3 and made Conformable to his Image but if I had said as the Men of God said viz. as Christ is so are we in this World Joh. 1.4 7. or if I had said that He that sanctifieth and They who are sanctified they are one Heb. 2.11 And if I had said I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Gall. 2.20 Then would not J. P. and the Baptists and the Hat Spirit and Tyranny Hypocrisie detected have cryed Blasphemy Blasphemy Blasphemous Titles for I did not say nor did I ever believe that the World was made by G. F. but by Christ who was in the World and the World knew him not So I say it may be said of G. F. the World knows him not though he be in the World as was said of Christ he was in the World though not of the World and the World knew him net And he said of his Followers ye are not of the World as I am not of the World Jo. 17.16 And I have chosen you out of the World Jo. 15.19 And this is called Blasphemy by J. Pennyman and his Company who are Haters of Christ and Persecutors of his Members witness the Baptist Preacher in Barbadoes who said That which convinced of Sin was the Devil for ought he knew before a Man and his Wife who were People of good Repute in Barbadoes And so People may see what Manner of Men these are who persecute both in Barbadoes and here in England and call Christ's Words Blasphemy for I did not say that G. Fox was Christ not that the World was made by G. Fox but this I do stand to that he many others are not of the World but Christ hath chosen them out of the World and therefore it may be said of G. F. hundreds more the World knows him not nor them Jo. 1.3 as it doth not know Christ and Christ sayes the same And as for all your Evil Language as Lucifer and Foxoniaâ—â—s c. we know we must have all Manner of Evil spoken of us for Christ's sake Mat. 5.11 but can say the Lord forgive you if it be his Will But it is much that J. Pennyman and his Confederates have not published against Christ and his Apostles as his Fore-fathers did and cast them Blasphemous Titles and call them Lucifers for Christ calls his Children the Light of the World Mat. 5.14 and a City and the Salt of the Earth and Sons of God and the Light in the Lord and Elect before the World began 1 Pet. 1.2 and they did not live but Christ lived in them And he bath made us Kings and Priests to God his Father and we shall reign upon the Earth Rom. 1.5 And what are all these Blasphemous Titles And these are higher Titles then I spake of G. F. I spake Christ's Words as in John 17. I have given them thy Word and the World hateth them Mark J. Pennyman and Baptists because they are not of this
hindred the Growth of Truth in his own particular which he signified caused the Love of Brethreng to wax cold and a manifes Decay of that that was good in which our Joy Rest and Peace daily abound In solemn Meetings with Tears I believe unfeigned and true Contrition of Spirit as many are Witnesses gave Judgment against that Spirit which led into Separation through means of which he as well as others had suffered loss as with respect to the Good Presence of the Lord in the daily Sence thereof as before that Spirit entred was enjoyed and with what Openness of Heart did we even in the first Love raised by the Power of the Lord in which alone doth our Unity stand did we embrace one another and met oft with one another to our mutual Joy and Refreshment But now is he not found beating of those with whom he was a Fellow-Servant and taking of them by the Throat and as I may say speaking all manner of Evil against them even them who in a Sense have laid down and can their Lives to save him Surely he who rewards Evil for Good Evil will not whilst in that Spirit depart from his House And how hath Enmity entred him in that that which is a Strength a Joy and a Comfort to us Vexations to him to wit to see Brethren together in the pure Truth in that which neither speaketh nor thinketh Evil to dwell and so seek one another's Good are kindly affectioned one to the other serving one another with Love And so though by Complying with G. F. as the Author of or Assistent to that Wicked Heap of Stuff which is for the Fire scoffingly saith He is now become a Preacher To Comply with Truth and such whose Labour and Service is for its Promotion is my Joy and true Satisfaction and Quiet to my Soul and therein as the Lord shall open my Mouth and minister Occasion I shall preach down their Pernicious and Soul-hurting Practices desiring to be found to the End of my Dayes a Lover of that which is Good and in it a Witness against that which is Evil though found in those who have been my Familiars for whose sake I have not suffered a little William Gosnell Henry Stout's Testimony FIrst They Excuse me with the other two Friends and within few lines Contradict their own Excuse in saying H. S. being rebuked he Acknowledged the Paper but there was no such in it Why could they not as well have said by whom he was rebuked But this is like some of the rest of their Matter and would fain cover it if any could So that the Answer already is over their Heads as to the Paper To this I further answer That to the best of my Remembrance I never saw that Paper signed by the Eleâ—ven at Hartford in my Life about two Moneths since I saw it at London and I do affirm there is no such Tendency in it as asserted in the Spirit of the Hat That there is any Admission in it for any Men or Body to oppose the Light but 't is possible to this purpose may be found in it That if any have any thing upon them or are moved to write that they lay it before the Body that so the Body may be satisfied that they are indeed moved by the Light or Spirit which is one and then the Body cannot but have Unity because all that are in the Light are in Unity and One in All and this for the Prevention of all False Motions and those that say they are Jews and are not for Greater is the Wisdom of him who is amongst his People then the Wisdom of Solomon who give the true Bearer her Child though the Harlot would have had it divided But what is the Matter with you Professors that you are working in such Muddle so many years old as confessed in the Pamphlet Is the Spirit of your Brethren the Pharisees so far entred you that you are acting your part as they of old did who joyned with an Apostate a Traytor a Judas endeavouring if it had been possible to have destroyed the Heir Christ Jesus Root and Branch who did outwardly put him to Death Read your selves Are not you joyned with an Apostate or Apostates in all manner of Lyes and Slanders as instance John Faldo and Thomas Hicks which I fear have done it against their grow Knowledg especially Thou T. H. who sayest in thy first Dialogue That our Sufferings may be to satisfie our Lust Will any one but who are filled with Enmity like thy self thus conclude that Lying in Nasty Holes and Prisons and Losing our Estates and Lives Limbs and Banishment is to satisfie our Lust Well Thomas my Judgment of these is Thou wilt never satisfie thine in that manner but these are both answered already who I desire may come to Repentance and find Mercy But what are you doing Professors if you should with your Assistents the Apostates accomplish your Brethren Cruelty from New-England Our Blood would be upon you and your Children For your Works which you have lately done have the very Tendency though I am perswaded there are some amongst you hate the very Thoughts of such a thing yet I question not but some of your Leaders do very much desire it or else they would never hazard the very Loss of their own Souls in Lyes and Slanders against us if they believe them to be Sins Now consider what is the Cause of this Great Difference between us and the Professors Certainly it is about Worshipping of God and the Occasion of the Enmity is the same as was in dayes past for the first Worshippers that we read of the Enmity arose in him whose Sacrifice was not accepted with God Professors read your selves and the Cause of your Enmity for those who are accepted with the Lord there is no Cause of Enmity but Pitty arises in their Hearts towards those who are not accepted and so Christ when he came it was not to destroy Men's Lives but his Gospel was Peace on Earth and Good-will towards all Men but Enmity is from the Devil and he the Father of it So for your whole Work let it return from whence it came even the Bottomless Pit And whether the Matter in it be True or False I am a Stranger to it The Intent is Wicked and I do not much look what those have been who are chiefly named in Your Pamphlets by reason of Tender Age in the Truth or otherwise but now I know them to be Men of Integrity and Fearing God which is Satisfation to me and so it s a Sign that when Men grow in Grace and are better they are the Beloved of God to such Grace is not in Vain but when Men grow Worse and Worse and lose their Tenderness once they had and abound in Pride and Envy this is an Evident Token of Perditon notwithstanding their pretended Election for it is not Words only God looks for but Fruit from a Clean
God's Appearance from the beginning thereof and by such as came to see the Glory of Truth and heard gladly for a Season as they that receive the Seed in the high way where it was either lost or carried away by the Fowls of the Air and these could never fell All for the Kingdom nor take up the daily Cross so mist the Life and came to be carried about with Winds and missing of the Righteousness of God have gone about to establish their own and blindly Zealous have watched others Vineyards and neglected their own so Withering and Fruitlesness hath come upon them until they are twice dead These were and are known by their Murmurings and Complainings yet listed up in their Minds by their own Righteousness which as sure as God's Righteousness layes low and makes to grow in Love so Man's begets Envy and watcheth for Evil and feeds upon it and is filled with it So as they living in Love can think no Evil so they out of it can imagine no good of them from whom by Pride and Envy they are divided and so exercising their Minds in the Evil. Never did hungry Beasts more earnestly seek their Prey to devour it then these Back-sliders have and do watch to catch the Miscarriages of any such as do profess the Faith and if they can find a little they make it a great deal by Whisperings and Back-bitings and large Intimations more by much then the Substance and in all pretending to be in an Hatred of Evil and to cry to others Stand farther off for we are Holyer then these So after a doing some years Threatnings to make the Lord's People Odious in what they would publish and bring forth and having done what they can to the utmost that way and that not accomplishing their End now they lay their Stress on the severe Government of the Quakers which some of these Revolters once knew was set up in the Wisdom of God to hinder such Evils as they were used to speak against and to reform and gather nearer unto the Truth of God but this Order being like to smite some of them they strike hard at those that are exercised therein their End being in all to present the People of the Lord and their Way Worthless and Bad that so they themselves might not be so manifest in the Forsaking and Withstanding the Good Way of the Lord and that they might shut up that Kingdom to others into which they themselves would not enter And tha◠to all they may be manifest their Works declare them for every Lye is of the Devil and how many they have publisht in their late Books of Darkness to which they have been ashamed to joyn a Name can I tell nor am I covetous to know for who in the Faith stands wars not with Flesh and Blood but with Spiritual Wickedness in High Places and I have had and have as sensible a Feeling of that Spirit from whence it comes and whither it must go that brought forth that called the Spirit of the Hat and that called Tyranny and Hypocrisie Detected or an Answer to Alexander the Copper-Smith and it is the same that the Prophet Micha had a Sight of that Lying Spirit which went into the Mouthes of the Seduced Prophets and though I never read the last of these Pamphlets in that my time not being like to be long on Earth I was not willing to Mis-spend so much of it but one reading the Title to me a Renewed Strength I found against that Spirit that brought it forth and that it did with Re-doubled Strength strike at W. P. as one whose Pen had hit them and had he never writ a Word he judgeth them in Denying the Glory of this World the Vain Hope of which hath bewitched some of them to draw back And another read to me that Lye made of me in the last of these two Books which I must speak something to that little part that was read to me of my Son J. O. and I. I need not say much of my Son J. O. for he through Grace is made able to display and resist them only this I would have all the Simple take notice of their Scornful Taunts and Willingness to render him and I as Speakers Falsly or being like unto them and indeed in this they much resemble God's Enemies in former Ages as in other things and to his Judgment are they left I having not a Purpose at this time so much to answer them for whom my Hope is near worn out as to hold out my Hand with many Brethren that the Honest-hearted might be delivered from those Perdicious Wayes they walk in and are alluring to by their Subtility and False Speeches And by Question they ask How could this accute Man say The Meeting would not hinder his Marriage To this as a Witness I answer I heard with many more J. B. whom they most accused to hinder say That they had nothing against his Marriage and this some of their Confederates know And for what they say of me as being a Great Mother and Governess among these People is but to set me on high that the Dîrt they fling may the more come upon me for some of them that are so Miserable as to contribute to this Work of Darkness in Fighting against Truth know that I have Gladly and Long been a Servant to this People of the Lord and no more Government have I coveted or gained but by Love and in Love possess And for the Charge writ against me it is utterly false in Matter and Words as these Accusers have stated it for those words they say I cried out no Man nor Woman that was present in that great Congregation will witness it if they fear to Lye and there are may many Witnesses of what I said and though I was permitted to speak a few words at that time that one or more of their Informers heard me say I had condemned as not expedient to have been spoken there but they being in the Dark have altogether mist it and placed a Lye of their own making in the stead of what I spoak But I unfeignedly desire that they may find a place of Repentance for this and all other their Evils But it is followed with another Falsity for say they By her Authority and J. O 's Interest they proceeded te Marry without's License As to License from any Man or Woman to Marry I have often publickly as called to it born my Witness against and with the rest of the Lord's People declared We make no Marriages nor break no Marriages nor Marry any but every True Man and Wife should known their being joyned of the Lord and so were these Couple yet did not nor durst not go brutishly together as some pretending more Holiness then others have done but this prudent Couple according to the Example of Holy Men and Women had many Witnesses of the People of the Lord and in an Orderly Solemn Assembly took
we were Worshippers of Angels which is indeed Idolatry To which I am called to say something as being presented with others whom I am bold to say believe all Obedience Honour and Thanks-giving belongeth unto him that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb for evermore and are not guilty of what this malitious Spirit would present them to be But being acted by the same Spirit that they were that said this Man sayes he is the Son of God and therefore ought to dye So they not being in the Spirit that revealeth the Son of God thinks we worship Man for him but he that knew Christ revealed in him bids follow him as he followed Christ and that if I forgave any I forgave it saith he in the Person of Christ This I speak to the Simple and Upright-hearted that they may be delivered out ot the Snare of the Cunning Hunter that seeks the pretious Life and to such it will be given to know what is hid from the Serpent that is still blind and on Dust feeds and the Children's Bread I nor any in the Faith dare give unto them But that every honest Heart may see what Spirit acts in these Purposers of Evil I take notice of another Passage where this Libeller names my Name and indeed I knew not of it when I writ the former Part but an honest young Man in the Street told me of it and then I looked on that which they accuse me with some times before that and after it I read and being by the Power of the Lord whom I serve in my Spirit made as willing to remove any Offences as these by whom the Offences come and on whom the Wo must come are to lay Stumblings and I shall freely confess to that which is true in their Charge and deny the Falshood in this as the former and I shall begin with that in the 19th Line pag. 44. It 's not unusual say they with the Quakers to give as much Credit to one another as is the setting their Names to things they know not Answ Friends take notice how Ignorant the Carnal Man is of the things of God and not knowing that Nearness and Strength of Love that is among the Disciples of Christ he brings it among the rest of the Rabble of his Accusations that the Quakers credit one another in such matters as indeed no Money-Lover nor Unbeliever could never do for every Deceiver is afraid to be deceived but who out of the Deceit is brought into the Faith and Love that is unfeigned cannot fear that a Brother will deceive or hurt him and had rather bear the harm of a False Brother if it should so be suffered to be then mistrust or think Evil of him that is the Faith But the Accuser of the Brethren with all his Adherents are out of this Faith and are Strangers to this Love by which it works And though I never knew such a Practice among the Quakers not in one President ever offered to me or any to put their Hands to what they know not but this here rehearsed and is this only by what he himself and my Maid said some of which I know to be true and some false but I had Joy that all should know in this Pack of Falshoods this Truth That the Quakers have and do still credit one another But whether it was so or no that G. F. sent to our House to have J. P. and my Husband put their Hands to such a Paper as they knew not all I know of it I may speak of My Maid-Servant then living with me many Years since told me in a Morning when I came down that there was a Man with a Paper to have some Friends put their Hands to and that J. P. was a wise Man because he refused it and this I upon some Occasion told J. P. of for I do not believe he ever heard my Maid say so to him but he being affected with his own Commendations hath repeated it before me more then once that my Maid should say he was a Wise Man What was said was said to me and from me he had it and to my Knowledge I never heard my Maid to say Nor did I ever tell him or hear him speak those words That she believed her Master would have done it until now I see it in Print so I cannot but take notice of their adding that which is False to make their Matters hold together nor do I remember that Time or Day or Week that I said any thing of George Fox these words that he repeats as though I spoak them at the same time but that I did at some time speak those words to J. Pennyman and it may be to some others I deny not for in the Love of the Lord I travelled for him and some others of them that were in Danger by their Imaginations to fall into the Pit of Perdition and so as one that lived in the Love of God I according to the best of my Understanding endeavoured their Return and Safety by imparting to them what I had found to be my Profit and Safety and bowed to him and several of them in telling them that in the Light none errs yet that I was such a Child as for many years I might not know my Right-Hand from my left and if there were a Motion or Revelation did arise in me that I might think was true and we that are in Unity in the Spirit of God may and do speak our Motions one to another for the Spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets and the Order of the Church was that they might Prophesie one by one and the rest might Judge yet if G. F. should deny it to be of the Lord I should be subject to his Judgment therein as one in Christ before me This or to this purpose I spoke and deny it not But that this Despiser of Dignities may attain his own End to pervert the Good Way of God by giving them to know what I was he said A Great Prophetess Now if he did believe what he saith though it was then a young time with me being nigh Ten Years ago he should have followed my Example and have brought his Motions to some in Christ before him to have tried his Motion and so by Counsel have been delivered from those Wanderings and Runnings and Mad Actions that he ran into when he brought that Truly-Valued Book called the Bible that I and many are come to the Comfort of and know that it hath been the Mighty Power of God that hath preserved it from the Hands of those that would have utterly Extinguished or Destroyed it to be burned But Praises be to the Lord that hath preserved iâ— unto this Day to give Testimony to the Light and Spirit which gave it forth though J. P. may be reckoned among the Intenders that would Destroy the Bible who brought it to the Exchange with other serviceable Books in their Places
also deny the Practice and Principle and directed People to keep in the Power and Spirit that the Apostle was in who said Men should Pray Vncovered as they did in the Apostles dayes And whereas you liken us to the Church of Rome pag. 25. scoffingly It is no matter to us if the Pope profess God and Christ and put off his Hat when he prayes we shall not deny God nor Christ nor keep on our Hats when we pray because of that And in pag. 29. you make a great Out-Cry because we said in our Declaration We alwayes paid our Taxes and then you say An Honest-hearted Woman paid none We know she was a Whimsical Woman and whither her Whimsies carried her viz. Mary Boreman now called Mary Pennyman And whereas you say they are not afraid to speak evil of Dignities G. F. and his Adherents and such as exalt themselves This is Spight and Malice and much such Stuff is in the 30 th page not worth taking notice of for Dignity is the Power of God which G. F. and we own and they are the Body of Christ that are in it You cannot exalt your selves above it nor the Doctrine of Truth that is in Ancient Friends which the Devil is out of who are made God's Free Men and Women by it and God has given us Power and Spirit to judge such Envious Spirits as this Book comes from and so we have no Unity with such that be out of the Truth neither can we have any hand in publishing their Books and we have a care of them that are printed on the Truth 's Account And whereas you say that none may be permitted to publick Business but these that seek the Good of all that is submit to the Body of G. F. and his Party Here is Envy and Lyes again Where were there ever such Words spoken to submit to the Body of George Fox and his Party may not the least feel the Devilish Spirit in these Words for we would have all to submit to the Body which Christ is the head of and such in Christ's Power and Spirit are fit to do Business in the Church that seek the Good of all and we limit not the Lord but would have all obey him in his true Light in which there is Fellowship And whereas you say some of our Hearers have been weary of our long Preaching Answ It is like they were such as John Pennyman and othe Apostatet who come crying against us in a publick Meeting like the World And as for John Perrot who is gone we do very well know what he was and what Imaginations he went into though he and you lay it falsly upon the Lord and we contradicting him and his Practice in Wearing his Hat and Covering his Head in Prayer was not only from G. F. but the Apostles and if J. Perrot and his Party did speak against G. F. and us because we could not own your keeping on your Hats when you prayed upon his or your pretended Motion but then and now make these Out-cryes against us who have kept our Habitation and you are found in another Spirit then the Apostles were in who said Men should be Vncovered c. And you scoffingly say if J. Perrot he condemned Fox cannot stand Why because Perrot pretended a Revelation to do that which the Apostle forbids but poor People you have manifested your selves and thus you are angry because G. F. and others cannot change like you to your Hat-Spirit And whereas thou speaks to a Declaration and Scurrilous Paper pag. 37. thou shouldst have printed the whole Declaration that People might have seen what it was which Declaration was against Wickedness Uncleanness and Scandalous Books and Papers against us And for John Pennyman I never heard any one say otherwise of him but that it was a mad and wicked Action to which the Devil lead him when he followed his Motions to the Exchange to burn his Books and what did he carry the Bible and the Book of Martyrs there for think you And whereas you make a great Business of Tho. Ibbit of Huntingtonshire Friends were tender to him and though he had a true Prophecy and a Sight of the Fire yet he afterwards confest the exceeded and saw himself And why do you mention G. F. who was above 100. Miles off at that time this doth shew the Venom of your Tongues And you say you have seen the Forgery of G. F. in the Name of the Lord contradicted the Elders but this is like the rest And though J. Pennyman and his Company have been scraping up this many Years these things which they have published in Print where did they ever go to admonish any one or to speak by one or two or three to them according to Christ's Doctine but this are the Doings of False Brethren and as for John Swinton he saw his Errors when he leaned towards you which his condemned Stuff is Meat for such Envious Spirits as you are And in their 43. pag. they jeer and scoff and call a Meeting at Bull and Mouth G. F's Court or Murderously call it King Fox's Court when G. F. never had been at Bull and Mouth Meeting since it was burned down and many Scoffing Words are in the said 43. page scarce worth mentioning And in page 44. you say that J. Pennyman complains and tells the World in his refusing to sign a Certificate of Wm. Sparrorow's he received a Check from G. F. and for advising that others should not subscribe to that which they were ignorant of We never put any to subscribe that which they were not willing to for that was but a civil thing concerning Wm. Sparrow's Certificate and this is many Years since that J. Pennyman has kept this in store in his malicious Heart And in Pag 46. the Paper which R. D. sent up of R. Wâ—iâ—'s to advise Friends upon his Death-Bed was not contrary to G. F's Doctrine and Practice he was not advised to any thing beyond his Freedom and therefore G. F. is clear of that Aspersion For the Man was advised by me and nothing was imposed upon him but the matter was declared unto him and left to his Freedom to do as he would and he was well satisfied till Mary Boreman and such as she put Doubts and Fears into his Mind and made him question that he had done and Judge himself to have done wrong which indeed it was not so And whereas you say in your Tyranny and Hypocrisie He will not count himself Obliged to keep off his Hat by Vertue of G.F. his Law Answ Here is more of your Wickedness for we do it from an Inward Principle of Truth and from the Power Spirit of God as the Apostle laid down in Reverence to God and thou mayest call it the Apostles Law yet some of the Hat-Men have pretended Motion and some in Opposition in their Wills and there are many Lyes in that page which are not worth mentioning And
as for Vitious Ministers or Strumpets or Wantonness We deny the Lord knows our Hearts and have ever searcht and seekt out and admonished and reproved by the Power of Christ who has given us Power amongst our selves not to suffer such Actors and Actions amongst us and therefore not to trouble the Major nor the Aldermen nor Common Council they see enough of that among your Church every day and let the Baptist and Hat-Men bring out their own of their own Fellowship with the rest of their Confederates as many we might particularize and let their Six or their Dozen of the Aldermen or Common-Council judge them if they cannot judge themselves And as for J. G. D. B. W. W. T. T. and T. M. all these have been dealt withal according to Gospel-Order years ago but it seems these Adversaries and Back-sliders are pleased to bring them up to speak Evil of the Right Way And if W. C. was accused long ago in London and hath condemned his Evil and cleared God's Truth this clears us and condemns your Wickedness And as for T. M's committing Uncleanness when imployed by G. F. to judge Persons and Meetings this is utterly false for G. F. did not imploy him but when any thing was manifest of him that was Uncivil he was dealt withal according to Gospel-Order But as for your Charging him in Commiting Uncleanness we leave him to deal with you for it who it may be you may find like one of your selves that wil soon go with you to an Alderman or Major who formerly charged the Mistres but now you say it is your Mistake it is the Maid and thus your Tongue is your own who matter not what you say but I leave T. M. to deal with you And whereas you say A Minister that is guilty is Judged and Disowned privately when Evidence appears So our Adeversary would have us to Judge or Disown without Testimony this is like his Law page 50. And as for your saying Scandalous Familiarity of the Prophets and Prophetesses or Mistresses before Mariage must go for nothing for I and many more are Witnesses that these things are False And whereas John Boulton is accused that he should say He had the Lâ—sses Papers by him John Boulton sayes he never said that they confest to those Charges charged against them For if those things had been true it had been a Shame for Modesty to speak of them but upon their being Examined they did deny that they were guilty of such things but in some things they were Childish which they were sorry for which Confession of theirs and Answer to the Dirty Papers which you feed upon J. B. hath by him But all these gross things which they charged them with in their Paper were as False they said as God was True and their Brother who is one of the World and Relations said He would not see his Sisters so defamed as may be seen in the Girles Answers but they would Revenge their Cause which they sent up to London about four years since which Answer John Boulton has to this day which if many were but in Shame and Modesty they would be ashamed to mention such things which are abhorred by us and all are judged that are guilty of such things And whereas you say William Mucklow offered to be at the hearing of J. W. upon Information of Wantonness committed by him concerning which W. Mucklow could say something We do believe W. Mucklow was such a prying Man about other Mens Matters as he was about Hannah Salier's Business but J. W. was examined concerning the Matter and the Party that accused him and we have Power so to do by the Power and Spirit of God and it was not found to be as was represented by those Evil Spirits but clear of what they accused him You say John Harwood formerly of their Ministers and while such found guilty of Noâ—orious Vncleanness and the said J. H. accused G. F. but could have no hearing and published his Charge in Print G. F. answer'd those Lyes of J. H. long ago which now may be food for such as you he answered them in Print As for J. H. being one of our Ministers and whilst such found guilty of notorious Uncleanness these are Notorious Lyes for he was one of you Hat-Men then and preacht it up like you and therefore for Shame stop your Mouthes and lay not the Unclean Actions of your Hat-Ministers upon us though we did deal with him as we did deal with you while he would hear according to Gospel-Order And whereas W. Mucklow saith He accused G. F. to be a Respecter of Persons in Judgment But this is false like the rest and some pronounced Woes upon him c. it was thy Portion And at a Meeting after the Plague E. Barnes as the Ministers were exalting themselves cryed out while R. F. was preaching You have Whored from the Lord R. F. said Thou art Whored or the Whore This sayes Miles Stancliffe was an Vnsavory Word in R. Farnsworth but not an Vnsavory Word in E. Barnes But these Men cannot speak without Envy and Lyes they were exalting Lyes But was not this E. B. one of your Hat-mens Spirit and did not she manifest her self to be in the Whorish Spirit in Hampshire and Rose Atkins and the Man they kept Company with what 's become of them which is beyond the Bounds of Modesty or Christianity as it is known to the World in Hampshire Why do not you write down their Carriages M. S. and the rest should have declared it And many Jeering Words there are in your Tyranny and Hypocrisie who would Tyrannize over the Innocent with your Spirit of the Hat who tell jeeringly of G. F's Kingdom and a Peer of it and Foxoniant over and over and King of the Quakers and thus your Devilish Gain-saying Spirit Core-like and Judas like seekâ— the Life of the Innocent And why do you not answer Solomon in his Challenge seeing you have taken part of his words out of his Challenge to Muggleton And you make a great Matter about G. F. Ruling in his Kingdom and Governing in his own Kingdom Must not every True Christian that is born again in the Power Rule in his Kingdom that is begotten again to a lively Hope And doth not Christ say The Kingdom of Heaven is Within you And are not all the true Saints Heirs of the Kingdom that stands in Power and Righteousness and Joy in the Holy Ghost It seems to this Kingdom within you are Strangers like Pharisees and Jews in your Lo here and Lo there and Observations who crucified Christ and so now you would crucifie his Members to whom his Father has given a Kingdom that stands in Power and Joy in the Holy Ghost and is not the Power and the Holy Ghost Everlasting Oh you Mockers and Scoffers Take heed lest you be such as God will make your Bonds strong And is not this Kingdom within that is in Power and Joy
1st The Presb. Indep And Anab. believe that the Father the Son and the Spirit though three Names denoting three Personalities or Subsistences are One Infinite Eternal and Omnipâ—â—â—t God At which the modern Socinian cryes Blasphemy and Idolatry For sayes he Christ is but purely a Man and the Spirit but a Creature Now come in these Apostates against the Presb. Indep Anabapt We deny your Personalities and Subsistences And to the Socinians We own Christ and the Spirit to be of one Nature and Being with God the Father And it is Blasphemy to say that Christ and the Spirit are Creatures Here 's the first Discord or Jumble between our Adversaries Secondly The Presbyter Indep Anab. and these Apostates assert God to be a Spirit At which these Socinianiz'd Followers of John Bidle say There 's no such thing but with J. Reeve and L. Muggleton That he has a Body like to a Man and inhabits a certain Place Thirdly The Presb. Indep and Anab. concerned chiefly against us hold That God from all Eternity elected a certain Number to Salvation and reprobated the residue to eternal Damnation without respect to any Condition of Obedience or Disobedience thereby to illustrate his own Soveraignity and Glory which Principle these Apostates have so much Understanding yet left as to repute pernicious and damnable The like do some of these Socinians we have to do with others of them having wheel'd off a few years since to the Geneva Predestinarian side Fourthly The Presb. Indep and Anab. believe That by Christ's Life and Sufferings wholely without God's Justice was Satisfied for Sins and Justification compleatly wrought for the Elect not only by Forgiving Sins past but reputing them really Just and Righteous whilst actually Sinful which kind of Doctrine these Apostates deny as also doth the Socinian affirming That God needed no such rigid Satisfaction that this is not to make him Righteous but Revengeful and that Christ cannot so properly be said to be the Cause as the Effect of the Father's Love For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son c. And though such are forgiven who truly Repent and that Remission was sealed by Christ's Blood as a Sacrifice yet Men are not made really Righteous within by any Imputation from another's Righteousness without while they are really Unrighteous within This is the 4th Contradiction Fiftly Presb. Indep and Anab. believe Christ to have now in Heaven an Human Body or one of Flesh Blood and Bones The Socinian and these Apostates say he hath no such Body but that which he hath is more Spiritual and glorified 6ly The Presb. Indep Anabapt and these Apostates affirm the Immortality of the Soul The Socinians deny it 7thly The Presb. Indep Anab. and Socinian deny the Light that shines within to be Christ in his Spiritual Appearance These Apostates though erred from it yet affirm it to be such 8thly The Presb. Indep Anab. deny that it can lead Men that obey it unto Salvation The Socinian with these Apostates affirm that it is able to lead such as follow it to Eternal Life 9ly The Presb. Indep Anab. and Socinian deny the Spirit to be poured out in these as former Ages or that Men ought to wait for the Motions of it to Preach Pray or Praise God These Apostates in words confess to maintain the contrary 10ly The Presb. Indep Anab. and Socinian affirm That the Scriptures are the only standing Rule to measure and try Doctrines and Spirits by under the Gospel These Apostates believe no such thing 11ly The Presb. Indep Anab. and Socinians disown the Practice of Keeping on the Hat in time of publick Prayer These Apostates call the Pulling of it off a Tradition of Men a Romish Tradition c. Yet Reader for our seasonable and due proceeding against them as Innovators upon the Church of Christ and Disturbers of our Peace by this new unprofitable and irreverent Practice denying them in their persistence and rejecting their Motions as not coming from the Spirit of God are we furiously fallen upon by some of each of those fore-mentioned Parties who as Men forgetting their own Essential Differences and that Persecution they have followed one another with for years like the ancient Scribes Sadducees and Pharisees unanimously endeavour our Disgrace Overthrow in the World as if they were all of one Faith in Doctrine who scarcely in any two most weighty Points hit which shews that Men under divers fundamental Differences may be acted by one and the same Spirit of Envy and Bitterness against the Truth and them that live therein What else can I call that which has given these Apostates that place in their Hearts that while Faithful hated them as they still do us who Judas-like have run away from us to inform our Enemies which way they may take us at an Advantage These Men they hug commend and vindicate at so high a rate as if they were the only great Pilgrims on Earth for Righteousness as much as they differ and we a Crew of Tyrants and Hypocrites Their Innovation must be called Gospel-Liberty but our Religious-Government Tyranny They justifie the Motions of these Apostates and condemn Us for refusing them whom themselves both deny Motions and the Way to know them They put me in mind of the Jews of old who were seldom wanting in the Promotion of the Christians Sufferings by the Heathen nay they were glad and improved the least Occasion to set the Infidels upon their backs alwayes the Jew and Heathen said Amen to the Destruction of the Christians yea that very thing for which the Jew in his time suffered from the Heathen to wit That they worshipped an Ass's Head was after abusively made the Reproach of Christians both by Jew and Heathen What others have we received from the Separatists of this Age who make us to inherit that sort of Suffering which they once thought Ungodly in their Adversaries How welcome was a Renegado Christian to the Heathen or a Backslider to the Jew How cheery were they of such an one's Intelligence and how apt to aggravate it to the Wrong of Christianity But if that was nevertheless True because of the Unfaithfulness and Treachery of its Professors neither is our Way to be concluded False nor our Society Criminal because a few stragling Renegadoes have in their Discontents furnisht some common Enemies with a broken imperfect Account of our Church-Proceedings But as this will turn little to their Credit with Wise and Just Men so have we Confidence in God that having brought us through many Difficulties he will continue to preserve us through the Peril of False Brethren and all other Tribulations which do and will but work a far more exceeding Weight of Glory yea of that Glory which was with the Father before the World began and in the Possession of which the now despised Flock of God shall rest with him in that World which never had Beginning and is without End William Penn. THE END ERRATA READER THou art still desired to continue thy Kindness in Correcting such Faults as have through Speed of Work escaped the Press whether they be Words Letters Points or Parenthesis some of the most Considerable are here collected Page Line Error Corrected 4 17 that blot out 9 15 shewn shown 19 time blot out 28 time blot out 33 head hear 18 24 those these 21 15 entitle entitling 25 20 a and 26 12 the Hat the Spirit of the Hat 33 8 Introductoction Introduction 37 Godliness Godliness undeservedly 34 37 an on 35 1 the these 36 21 of in 38 6 and Indep Independents 9 God given God hath given 37 had hath 49 21 ever never 54 14 were was 29 that both that the Intent of both 57 36 Cowardness Cowardize 59 26 upon upon it 62 17 as blot out 71 3 a Paper part of a Paper pag. 4 5. 1 Joh 2.20.27 Mat. 7.15 and 24.4 Joh. 10. 2 Tim. 4.14 15 16. Math. 18.17 Prov. 30.12 Mat. 6.22 Spir. of the Hat p. 10. Tyran Detect p. 5 23 24 25. Spir. of the Hat pag. 13 14. How came this Letter into this Socinian's hand Doth not this prove a Cabal and that Quondam Quakers now Apostates are their Spies was this my Reward for a loving and curteous Letter which kindly invited him to my House for further Satisfaction Treacherous Person to give it up into proclaimed Enemies Hands such Baseness is like an Apostate and not to grapple with one part of its Strength so disingenuous an Adversary Tyr. Hyp. Detect p. 9 60 61 62. * as Dr. Gell. and a certain Person of worldly Quality said That had not the Quakers come the Ranters had over-run the Nation Ibid. p. 24 p. 14 15. pag. 16.17 pag. 51. pag. 50. pag. 19. p. 19 20 21 29. * Blood Blood thou seekest O Envious Man pag. 29. * But is not this to render us Obnoxious to the Government I abhor that Practice But Base Self-Ended Spirits are to be humbled and not think themselves fit to cry down other Peoples Religion that have by Treachery Persecution and Falseness too much reproacht all Religion Let tehm leave Scribling Snarling with their Writings Repent p. 29 30 31 32. p. 52 53. p. 11. p. 13. pag. 43. See Plain Dealing pag. 7. pag. 48 58 59. pag. 55. pag. 56. Rev. 21.27 2 Thes 2.12 2 Thes 1.8 * Spir. Hat Tyran Hyp. Detect
to Loose now as was in dayes past is evident from that Saying of Christ Him whose Sins ye Bind on Earth are Bound also in Heaven And did not the Disciples of Christ pray for Forgiveness from their Father which was in Heaven as they FORGAVE them who trespassed against them And were not they exhorted To FORGIVE one another as God for Christ's sake forgave them So that hadst thou not been with J. P. filled with the Gall of Bitterness and in the Bond of Iniquity thou wouldest not surely have writ as on that wise nor made such loud Cavilings at that which the wise in Heart know to have a Consistency with Truth and is agreeable to the Testimony of Holy Men who spoak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost out of whose Practice thou art and thy Contributories whose Tongues are your own and therewith speak to the Vilifying of such whose Habitation is in Heaven But they who served the Lord in their Generation said Our Bodies are not our own so not our Tongues And said one Lord open thou my Mouth and my Tongue shall speak of thy Praise Hast thou or thy Confederates who have joyned hand in hand together spoak or writ or printed ought in either of your Libels that hath redounded to the Praise of God Hath not their Tendency been otherwise even to speak Evil of Dignities and to write of things which for no Good but Hurt to Mankind are produced In Vain in vain are you found Fighters against the Lord his Truth and Pepple for it Prospers it Encreases it Grows in the Hearts of many Glory to God for evermore And that John Pennyman should as he hath done creep into the Bosoms of some who have been more open to him then he hath made good use of and that in a time when he himself both in Word and Deed shewed himself a Friend to Truth and us also attending our Meetings both Publick and Private not as a Disturber but Member of us and now thus basely to Betray and Bespatter is Unworthy with a Witness His Works of late have manifested the Contrary else how durst he do as he hath done seek all Occasion against them who have and still do tender his Good and the Redemption of his Soul which some have as I may say laid down and yet could their Lives for his Restauration Oh that he truly saw how he hath caused the Heathen to Blaspheam and some to say in their Hearts Sure there is no God no True Religion nor Worship and how unto others who it may be had some Inclinations in their Hearts towards God and Godliness hath he given Occasion of Stumbling and unto Professors who have and do Watch for our Haulting that so they may Impare the Honour of Truth not only to their own but to others Hurt also whose Blood he stands guilty of before the Lord. I write not these things but to the End that he may be Wise for Offences have come through him and Wo from the Lord is unto him unless he Repent John Pennyman being at a Meeting appointed for Service to our Suffering Friends which we were then to inspect and some particular Matters were then in Debate how such of our Friends might be Relieved who were â—â—concerned in the Case of Tythes and somewhat was proposed and an Instance given of one Country Friend who had observed some Directions from R. C. in which afterward there was not in the Friend through Satisfaction pretty much time was spent about it and words spoak by S. N. which G. F. and some others did reckon of Disservice to the Meeting as also of Hurtful Consequence to our Friends Suffering in some Cases upon which G. F. was very much Grieved and fervently stirred up to lay the Charge of that Service upon S. N. also to blame his Reflections upon R. C. which he doing with Fervency of Spirit a Fear or Apprehension entred me lest as J. P. hath carried it to the World G. F. should have struck him and going home I spake to S. N. of some Passages which past at that Meeting J. P. being with us and uttered my Thoughts or Fears in that Respect adding at the same time that the Weight of Friends Sufferings was much upon G. F. some whereof pretty Eminent being then before us and therefore did impute it to his Zeal for their Relief and so much the more by how much any thing was offered by S. N. to the Hurt of the Meeting and Prejudice as was thought to the Sufferers some time after G. F. hearing of it told me between himself and me that I should not have said so and hath often declared he never had any such Thought I then told him I was sorry I had said so or feared so and indeed so I was others also being there present I mean at the Meeting about Sufferings signifying they had no such Apprehension neither did they believe had I any Cause to apprehend or fear any such thing But to proceed to the other Charge of Binding Loosing whom he pleased More then once or twice as I remember J. P. had been with me to know if the Words were whom I pleased I told him at all times I could not say nor remember those words whom I pleased yet to bring Reproach to G. F. as also to sow Discord among Brethren as much as in him lieth hath suggested it to the World and that after 't was buried and at a Meeting with some Friends together with G. F. before he went beyond Sea for it was all our Desires that what was amiss might be cast out declaring then as before I was sorry I should apprehend or fear any such thing of G. F. Now that J. Pennyman should so unworthily and in Enmity and Prejudice to G. F. whom he hath ill requited in that he hath rendered Evil for Good and to emit carryed into the World not only by Word but also by Print things privately and amicably mentioned upon Occasion when he was not as now he is an open Opposers of Truth and Friends so Disingennous nay Treacherous that Heathens would blush at it he should have let this have dyed with his Sincerity to us and not have made use of that against us in his Apostasy which nothing but my Regard to his Sincerity could have drawn from me Is this one of thy higher Attainments O John these Doings will seize upon thee in God's Time How is John Pennyman changed from what he was With what great Readiness of Mind and Ardency of Spirit did he himself judge with Sowers of Division and that Spirit by which he was captivated which led him to the keeping on his Head his Hat in the times of Friends Prayer to God and with what Show of Satisfaction and Joy of Soul in the Hearing of many Fiends in which they also were refreshed did he once and again express for that he blessed the Lord he was broke off from that Spirit which