Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	according_a	scripture_n	spirit_n	3,143	5	5.2045	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84839	The West answering to the North in the fierce and cruel persecution of the manifestation of the Son of God, as appears in the following short relation of the unheard of, and inhumane sufferings of Geo. Fox, Edw. Pyot, and William Salt at Lanceston in the county of Cornwall, and of Ben. Maynard, Iames Mires, Ios. Coale, Ia. Godfrey, Io. Ellice, and Anne Blacking, in the same gaole, town, and county. And of one and twenty men, and women taken up in the space of a few dayes on the high wayes of Devon, ... Also a sober reasoning in the law with Chief Justice Glynne concerning his proceedings ... And a legall arraignment for the indictment of the hat, ... And many other materiall and strange passages at their apprehensions and tryals ...	Fox, George, 1624-1691.	1657 (1657)	Wing F1988; Thomason E900_3; ESTC R202187	140,064	174

of the wickedness of the wicked in the sight of God which is our strength And ye that are Magistrates to do justice If ye are Christian Magistrates and rule for God Do your office that nothing raign amongst you but what is of God that roport gives a good savour when righteousness and truth is set up the Ordinance which is to be obeyed for the Lords sake which is according to his will in which we rejoyce in this we are subject to the higher powers which the soul must be subject to This looseth the bonds of wickedness takes off the heavie burthens le ts the op●ressed go free and breaks every yoake So consider this in your time and generation that you are to fear God in See from whom you are and whom you are serving for of the Lord God must you have every one of you a reward according to your works Therefore do justice love mercie and walk humbly with God This doth God require and the humilitie goes before the honour This is the day of your visitation and salvation unto you I am the light of the world and do enlighten every man that cometh into the world saith Christ by whom the world was made who bears the Government upon his shoulders who is come to reign who judgeth righteously without respect of persons Now every one of you having a light from Christ that be come into the world from him who is not of this world which light lets you see your sins which you have done evill deeds you have committed hard speeches you have spoken which if you love the light that is it that maketh manifest ungodly ways ungodly actions ungodly words which if you love there is your teacher the light which comes from Christ who saith Learn of me It will be with you as you are lying on your Beds and and as y●u are in your occasions and if you hate th●s Light you forget God and forget Christ and seek not the honour that comes from God onely but from one another Now you that do so this is your condemnation the light saith Christ who hates it this light which comes from Christ the way leads you off all world●y ways all the worldly teachers and Doctrines and worships Christ the way to worship God in spirit and truth The Lord is coming to exalt his truth The powers of darkness have long reigned but Christ now is come who will chain them which will answer the light in every mans conscience and judge every one according to his works The Lord is come and coming to teach his people himself by his spirit and to gather them into unitie and to turn them from darkness to light and the power of Sathan to himself and to bring them into Covenant with himself which is Christ his light so to gather into the one truth that is in Christ the light and into the one way that is into the Light Christ and into the one Baptisme the Spirit that gave forth the Scriptures and so to God the Father of Spirits with which they come to be written in ●ne anothers hearts and so gather them out of all sects and opinions and ways where is all the strife sedition and quarrelling and vain contentious spirits who be out of the light that gave forth Scriptures Therefore now you have time prize it It is the day of your visitation and salvation to you all proffered to the light in all your consciences I speake which is a witness for the the Lord Jesus Christ which from him doth come which manifesteth the sin and evill that is not of the truth which will make every tongue to confess Christ to the glory of God and make every knee to bow at his name which is called Immanuel which by Interpretation is God with us but you that hate this light it will be your condemnation From Lanceston Gaole 12th 5th Month 1656. From them who are lovers of all souls truth justice and righteousness and for the establishing of it and witnesses stand against all unrighteousness and ungodliness Ed. Pyot William Salt THe Goaler being conscious of the wickedness he had acted and the violence he had exercised upon the Prisoners was very fearfull what should become of him if so be a Representation thereof should be made to ●his Sessions as what he had done before was to the last which he expected and if the Justices should as then incline to the Prisoners Therefore he considered what he should do to save himself and having no better a refuge to repair unto he invented a parcell of notorious lyes viz. that some of the Prisoners should say he should be hangd at his door and that his Children should be tossed upon Spears and that they would tread his wife under foot and put them into a Petition to the Sessions in way of complaint against the Prisoners whom he had used as aforesaid thereby to cover his unmercifull cruelty who as they had never uttered any such words for vengeance the children of light leave to the Lord whose it is and who will repay it and such unsavouriness from them proceedeth not so never entred such things or any things like them into any of their hearts and having his under-keeper who had been arraigned for Felony to swear to what he should say to the Sessions at Truro he went taking with him Benjamin Maynarn James Mires and Joseph Cole but Anne Blacking committed by Richard Lobby for being in the Country he would not bring with him though a Horse was for her provided by some friends And notwithstanding the condition he was in yet unreasonableness and cruelty being his nature he could not forbear to exe●cise it on the Prisoners in the way thither though he knew not but that thei●'s might be his own condition ere he returned ●nd that what he now did to them might aggravate his ●ffence and increase his punishment For the Prisoners having travelled the first day ●hey put forth 20. long Cornish miles on foot being weary desired there to rest that night the place being convenient for lodging this he denyed who was and the rest with him on horse back● and abused them exceedingly and endeavoured to ride over them with his horse and did thrust them forwards threatning to draw them at his horse tayl and when they asked him whether there was not a S●atute that Prisoners should not be compeld to travail above eight miles a day he answered he cared not for the Statute and so had them along six miles further and when they came to Truro he put them into a little close room which though the Prisoners paid for yet suffered he them there to be abused by the under Keeper and Roath aforesaid whom he ought to have protected from any such thing and their friends that visited them to be also abused and some of them beaten punch'd and kicke and many unsavory words given them To Thomas Gewen Judge of the Court was the Representation aforesaid

he justifies the false accusation against himself and the w●ong imprisonment and so makes himself to be that of which he is false●y ●ccused and for it imprisoned which a man cannot do who knows his own innocencie and understands what it is thus to ravish it and he that abides in a true s●nsibleness of this will chose death rather than to betra● and with his own hand to murther the innocent t ing wh ch lies in his bosome which giv●s him the an●wer of a good conscience towards God and man be●ides the Law is not made for the ●ighteous but for the transgressor he that makes a Law for the righteous is blind and tu●ns the sword backwards and as themselves should see occasion in the Nation of England and the Dominions thereunto appertaining and so rendring of themselves bond-slaves who are free-born English men and men of unsoberness and turbulent Spirits who are sober and quiet men and well known so to be and under the condemnation of binding themselves in and to their own and the will and time of man who know themselves not to be their own but bought with a price and so not to be guided but by and in the will of the Lord who hath bought them as the subscribing of and engaging to the Propositions aforementioned do clearly hold forth were carried to Lanceston and delivered to the Goalor with a Warrant under P. Ceelyes hand and Seale of which this is a true Copy Peter Ceely one of the Justices of the Peace of this Countie to the Keeper of his Highness Gaol at Lanceston or his lawfull Deputy in that behalf Greeting CORNWALL I Send you herewithall by the bearers hereof the bodies of Edward Pyot of Bristoll and George Fox of Drayton and Clea in Leicestershire and William Salt of London they pretend to be the places of their habitations Who goe under the Notion of Quakers and acknowledge themselves to be such who have spread severall papers tending to the disturbance of the publick peace and cannot render any lawful cause of coming into these parts being persons altogether unknown and having no pass for their travelling up and down the Country and refusing to give Sureties of their good behaviour according to the Law in that behalf provided and refuse to take the Oath of Abjuration c. These are therefore in the name of his Highness the Lord Protector to Will and command you that when the bodies of the said Edward Pyot George Fox and William Salt shal be unto you brought you them receive and in his Highness prison aforesaid you safely keep them untill by due course of Law they shall be delivered Hereof fail you not as you will answer the contrary at your perills Given under my hand and Seale at St. Ives the 18th day of January 1655. Sealed P. CEELY BY what hath been already rehearsed is manifest what unlawfull and Injurious dealing they received from P. Ceely and how evilly he intreated them and how his carriage towards them was rather like unto one of the profane and light fellows the Sons of Beliall who are a shame unto a Nation scorning sporting reviling and cursing upon which the Sword of the Magistrate of God is to pass as evill doing then a Justice for no other cause given on their parts than for giving out a paper to direct the minds of the poor ignorant people to the way of eternall life according to the Scriptures of truth and against wickedness as hath been mentioned In which they ought to have been by him protected It being a true Profession of Faith in God by Jesus Christ Acts 10.38 and exercise of the true Religion and following of Jesus of Nazareth whom God anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power who went about all the Cities and Villages doing good Mat. 9.35 as the Instrument of Government requireth Acts 37. See Government Acts 37. Which O. P. in his Speech to the Parliament 12th the 7th month 1654. calls a Fundamentall one of the four Fundamentalls of his Government which he set up as the Issue of the late Wars See O. P. Speech to the Parliament painted Chamber Sept. 12. 1654. pag. 31. 32. and Blood for liberty of Conscience for which Fundamentalls sake he hath said All the extraordinary powers in the Government were taken up and were it not for it he could be content to lay them down again For the hopes of which had it not been he saith all the Money in the Nation would not have tempted men to fight upon such an account as they have engaged And that otherwise to do See O. P. Speech at the Dissolution of the Parliament Jan. 22. 1654. p 17. was no part of the contest we had with the common enemy And a Fundamentall he saith it is and ought to be so that it was for us and the Generations to come rather than willfully to throw away which Government so testified unto in the Fundamentalls of it and that in relation to the good of these Nations and posterity See O. P. Speech to the Parliament Sept. 12. 1654 p. 36. 37. he saith I can sooner be willing to be rolled in my Grave and bu●●ed with Infamy than I can give my consent unto And how dear a thing this was and how low it lay in the hearts of those who carried their lives and their all in their hands of which they were Prodigall in the very face of the greatest difficulties and hazards this Nation hath encountred within the late Wars in which and with whom and for which cause the presence of the Lord so mightily hath appeared beyond the example of former times is not yet forgotten by thousands nor will be whilst they and the memory thereof and of them remain upon the face of the earth Nor will the Blood that hath been shed for it and for Equity and Justice cease crying for Vengeance whilst any of those Righteous things are unaccomplished upon the heads of those who are the obstructers thereof But w●th P. Ceely as it appears it is a thing of no such value nor the true holding forth of Jesus Christ the light of the world the light and life of men to be the onely way to salvation according to the Scriptures but sinfull and wicked And therefore he misuseth the powers he lately hath received under this Government of being in Commission as a Justice and a Captain of a Troop of the new raised Horse If to trample under foot pers●cute and overthrow by abusing and imprisoning those aforementioned as hath been said for going about doing good and directing the people the way to salvation casting thereby the greatest reproach in that kinde that may be on the Government that enjoyns and on the Erector and chief Ruler thereof who declares the contrary as hath been expressed thus acting contrary to Lavv on them whom if he had acted according to Law he ought to have protected And how brazened he is in

every man that cometh into the world that all men through him might believe the world through him might have life and Christ is come to teach him self the second Priesthood and every one that will not hear this Prophet that God hath raised up which Moses spoke of and said like unto me will God raise up a Prophet him shall you hear Every one that doth not hear this Prophet is to be cut off They that despised Moses Law died under the hands of two or three witnesse● but how much greater punishment will come upon them that shall neglect this great salvation Christ Jesus who saith Learn of me I am the way the truth and the life who lighteth every man that cometh into the world which light lets him see his evill wayes his evill deeds which he hath done but if he hate the light and go on in the evill this will be the condemnation the light saith Christ with what else is contained in the paper aforesaid concerning Christ Jesus the way to the Father and peoples being called upon to prize their time and that day of their Visitation in the words and according to the Scriptures of Truth to be tending to the disturbance of the publick Peace who will assuredly be payd his wages as his reward he shall also receive for affirming the paper containing the things before rehearsed to be sinfull and wicked than which what higher blasphemie is there greater abhomination or more horrible wickedness 3. Whereas he chargeth them with not being able to render any lawfull cause of coming to those parts It is answered For an English man to travaile or be in any part of England or the Dominions thereunto appertaining which is his Country and his habitation is his right as a free-born English man his naturall Right his birth-Right as essentiall to him as his being and it is as lawfull as for him to be and travell in those parts of it where he was borne or usually hath resided and so to be without any consideration of declaring of what is his business unless in the cases provided by the Law viz. to hues and cryes fellonies gaming 's begging freeing the Parish from charge with such like is his liberty and to abridge him hereof is to abridge him of his liberty and right unto which the Law is a defence and Guard and which for to preserve cost the blood and miseries of the late Wars in which the Lord so much appeared and is as unreasonable and unnaturall as to deny him ayr to breath in And many cases there are as the causes of a mans travelling and changing his habitation lawfull and good which if a man should declare might be his undoing as it would be cruelty to exact it Nor doth the Law set down affirmatively what is a lawfull cause for a man to travell or be in any part of these Dominions but understands this whole Dominion to be every English mans Countrie his habitation wherein he may lawfully be and unaccountable unless he by due information by two sufficient witnesses is charged with any thing done by him that is contrary thereunto And here as he hath shewn his ignorance of the Law which to execute he is sworn in making that a crime worthy of Bonds which the Law takes no notice of but is contrary thereunto as hath been demonstrated so this his charge is a lye for he was told they were there to visit the People of the Lord and to do good which the Lord required of them and the Government allows and saith that such shal be protected and defended 4. And whereas he saith being persons altogether unknown and having no pass for their travelling up and down the Countrie Persons altogether unknown they were not for as it hath been already said one or two of the Town came into his house and declared that they knew Ed. Pyot to be a Merchant of Bristoll and that there was his dwelling and of none of them But of Edward Pyot did he demand a pass So this that he affirms is another lye nor doth the Law require those who travell up and down the Countrie upon their occasions to have passes And hereof the Law he again manifests his ignorance 5. Whereas he chargeth them with refusing to give sureties of the good behaviour according to the Law in that behalf provided Of the good behaviour they are according to the Law of an endless life Nor any behaviour that is contrary to the Law of the Land did they manifest whereby they ought to give sureties of the good behaviour according as he saith to the Law in that behalf provided For but of one of them viz. of Edw. Pyot who was known to some of the town present did he demand sureties Who answered shew me a Lavv that I have transgressed and I will find sureties which not being produced he could not be charged with refusing to give sureties of the good behaviour according to the Lavv in that behalf provided nor could he do so vvithout vvronging his Innocencie and making himself an offender And they vvho vvere not asked to find sureties at all as vvere not the other tvvo cannot be said to refuse so to do And so a lye in every particular is this his Allegation in this Warrant as his Ignorance of the Law is also apparant for had they indeed misbehaved themselves contrary to the Law which provided in that behalf sureties to be given or Imprisonment The Warrant of a single Justice is not sufficient in the Law whereby to imprison them unless the misbehaviour had been particularly mentioned therein as is known to them who understand the Law of this Nation And because the impudencie of this man who when he had molested injured and abused them and towards them had so misbehaved himself contrary to the L●w and all that is of good report amongst men as hath been expressed yet doth he not blush to send them to Prison with a Warrant charging them with such a manifest lye as their refusing to find sureties for the good behaviour according to the Lavv in that behalf provided as the cause of their Commitment after he had thus villified and abused them And yet he stiles himself one of the Iustices of the Peace of the County of Cornwall See the Proclamation for the Oath of Abjuration 6. Nor is that all his pack For in the next place he chargeth them with refusing to take the Oath of Abjuration When as the preamble of the Proclamation manifests as doth also Equitie and Justice that to such as deny and vvitness against all kind of Popery and Popish Religion Root and Branch the Oath for abjuring Popery vvas not intended but for Papists Therefore it saith For as much as of late time there hath been a great neglect in putting the Laws in execution for Convicting of Popish Recusants by means whereof the penalties imposed upon such cannot be leavied or required which hath been a great incouragement

to many to be seduced and misled to embrace and entertain the dangerous superstitious and Idolatrous Doctrines of Popery We. c. And all Popery and Popish points they to him denyed and gave him a Printed Book wherein they had so declared to all the Nation As also for the Paper aforesaid because of which they suffered so much by him makes to appear And they told him that O. P. whose Proclamation that is had said that Oath was not intended for them And further declared that onely in respect to the Command of Christ who saith swear not at all they refused to take it And as to impriso●ing of those who refuse to take it So in this he shews his iustice and are intended thereby T●a● Proclamation gives no power but onely to return their Names and places of habitation to the Exchecquer 7. After he had mustered up and drawn together his black Troops and Companies aforesaid of lyes and ignorances and of abusing of the Law to assault and destroy the innocent under his hand and seal that he might be sure never to want additional supplyes of the like forces and qualifications it to accomplish in the seventh place by a familiar spirit he raiseth up the ghost of the great Monster ET CETERA whose mouth is as large as Hell and whose depth is as the pit that hath no bottome and whose smoke ascends up for ever and ever who was begotten by the late Bishops on the Whore of Babylon of whom he is a branch and damned by the Parliament with that whole generation that brought it forth of whom it was the sudden overthrow and destruction root and branch And now after their dayes is brought up from the depths of the Earth by this Officer of the new raised Horse and Commissioner of the Militia and as he calls himself Justice of the Peace of the County of Cornwall who is a shame to the Government When by the Law of the Land all Warrants of Commitment ought expresly to mention the name the habitation the calling of the person committed and the certain offence which must be such as is so in Law according to which the Prisoner is to have his Issue But whether this be such let him who reads and understands judge and whether P. Ceelyes Warrant ET CETERA be not the Monster of this age in the Law as was the Bishops Oath ET CETERA of the preceding generation in Religion and deserving the same yea a greater condemnation that it may rise no more henceforth even for ever Being delivered in custody to the Goaler at Lanceston they were there detained Prisoners by vertue of the aforesaid Warrant ET CETERA till the general Assizes for the County of Cornwall held at Lanceston on the second day of which being the 25. of the first month 1656. they were brought before the Bench where John Glynne Chief Justice of the Upper Bench sate Judge Multitudes of people being in and about the Court and in the Town who having heard very strange reports concerning them expected some great thing to be laid to their charge and proved equivolent thereunto and to the misusages and impri●onments they had sustained of which the whole Countrey was ful● as the prisoners considering their innocency and sufferings had also cause to expect and justice of him who was in Commission Chief Justice of England unto whom in case● o● wrong judgement appeals are made from other Judges and J●●●●ces and Ministers of the Law according to the Law and his place and oath and a suitable care and t●nderness of the liberties of men according to the Law and Equity whats●ever had been the contrary proceedings of others in Commission to the truth and the Friends thereof But what was produced as to the one and done by the other and what justice they received will appear to the sober and wise in heart when those few of the passages of that Assizes in reference unto them as they are rehearsed and managed in the Law in their following Letter sent by them and delivered the last Assizes at Gloucester where he sate Judge as to his carriage towards them shall onely be considered and weighed in judgement For John Glynne Chief Justice of England Friend WE are Free-men of England free born our Rights and Liberties in and with our Countryes with the Laws the defence of them have we in the late Wars vindicated in the Field with our blood and therefore with thee by whose hand we have so long and do yet suffer let us a little plainly reason concerning thy proceedings against us whether they have been according to the Law or agreeable to thy duty and office as chief Minister of the Law or Justice of England and in meekness and in lowliness abide that the witness of God in thy conscience may be heard to speak and judge in this matter for thou and we must all appear before the Judgement Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to what he hath done whether it be good or bad And so Friend in moderation and soberness weigh what we have here to say unto thee The afternoon before we were brought before thee at the Assizes at Launceston thou didst cause divers scores of our Books violently to be taken from us by armed men without due process of Law which being perused if so be any thing in them might be found to lay to our charge who were innocent and then upon our legal issue thou hast detained to this very day Now our Books are our Goods and our Goods are our Property and our Liberty is to have and enjoy our Property and of our Liberty and Property the Law is the defence which saith No Free-man shall be disseized of his Free-hold Liberties or Free-customes c. nor any way otherwise destroyed nor we shall not pass upon him but by lawfull judgement of his Peers or by the Law of the Land Magn. Chart. cap. 29. Now Friend consider is not the taking away of a mans Goods violently by foree of Arms as aforesaid contrary to the Law of the Land Is not the keeping of them so taken away a disseizing him of his property and a destroying of it and his Liberty yea his very Being so far as the invading the Guard the Law sets about him is in order thereunto Calls not the Law this a destroying of a man Is there any more than one common Guard or Defence viz. the Law to Property Liberty and Life And can this Guard be broken on the former and the later be secure Doth not he that makes an invasion upon a mans property and liberty as he doth who contrary to Law which is the Guard acts upon either make an invasion upon a mans life since that which is the Guard of the one is also of the other If a penny or pennyes worth be taken from a man contrary to Law may not by the same rule all a man hath

up above all that is called God or man or law or nature or reason or common humanity and against all these thus violently prosecuted and cruelly put in execution As they may also see what is become of this new sound monstrous Indictment and of all the abhominable filthy lyes and false accusations contained therein of which it is full And of this Judge Nicholas and his will in the Law according to what hath been now said and also declared in that Letter aforesaid to the Chief Justice And of the consciences of the Jurors who have upon their oaths brought them in guiltie of which they have made shipwrack as they have of their own and the liberties of their Country For whereas in the behalf of liberty the law hath carefully provided that no man shall be in body life or goods at the mercy of the arbitrary breast of one man who sitteth as Judge but shall be tryed by twelve indifferent men of his Peers or equalls of the Neighbourhood whose verum dictum or sentence according to truth the Judge is to declare not to make which is one of the grand Priviledges of the people of the English N●tion which distinguisheth them free viz. that no Law is to be executed upon them but by some of themselves yet these Iurors not onely come under the Office but the will of a Iudge and what he arbitrarily in his will sets up they pass upon as the Law of the Nation and so do overthrow that vvhich vvas established by the Lavv for their safeguard and defence against arbitrary actings and do set up that which to prevent and overthrovve as one of the sorest Plagues that can happen to men the lavv hath given them such power and authoritie so sottishly blind and outragiously mad are men when the Prince of darkness is their leader against the truth of God who that they may destroy those in whom it lives they mind not neither care what becomes of their own consciences beings Freedoms and libertie yea even of that which but the day before they put their lives and whatever was dear to them in their hands and their whole Country unto hazard for to preserve piercing the very life of their own liberties through the sides of their friends whom for the sake of the truth of God they seek to destroy whilst they stand in innocencie for the liberties wherein all English men are equally concern'd and throwing away all the Bloud and treasure and care and tuggings and restless endeavours of the former and later ages for many hundreds of years we will not change the Laws of England hath it been about thirty times resolutely declared in this case as one man in Parliament and those very words recorded when the strongest endeavours of Monarchy have been used there to change the tryals by twelve men into the course of the Civill Law which is onely by a Judge the manner of the other Nations who never knew the benefit of this excellent priviledge that they may satisfie the revenge of the enemy of their souls on such though when this libertie is lost and they come to feel on themselves what they now do to others they may be willing to give all they have to recover it when perhaps it is too late And how do this generation shew themselves hereby to be led by the same spirit as were the Jews who that they might have Iesus the Messiah whom they long look't for crucified cryed out we have no King but Cesar who above all Nations hated to be in subjection to any and Iesus came to make them free as it was said of the Messiah but they chose slavery before him and that which they chose that so they might have a power to Crucifie him for the Romans had taken away their power of putting any man to death made an end of them in that very generation from being a Nation as he foretold them as it had before in the highest judiciall power of life and death O ye people of England mind this and consider this before it be too late ye who talk so much of freedome of being free-borne English men of the fundamentall Rights and liberties of England and glory in it over all Nations who in comparison of you ye have said are slaves and vassals to the lusts and wills of their Lords and Princes who have ye and your Forefathers gone through such terrible wars and Seas of Blood to make and preserve your selves so if you continue to set against that which hath made and kept you so and whose presence hath brought through your wars for it who is now come that hath been so much expected to set you free both in body and soul and to deliver you out of the hands of all your enemies that you might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the dayes of your life by raising up his owne image his feed which is come to and must raigne for ever and ever which you every where persecute and grow mad against where it doth appear and bear its witness and throw away your choicest outward liberties the value of the price aforesaid to effect its sufferings you may expect the thing that you have feared and abhorred and fought so much against to come upon you in its perfection viz. will and power to be your Lord and your liberties and freedomes left to you desolate And thus much of the indictment of the Hat and Jurie This Judge having proceeded with the Innocent as aforesaid and sent them back fined and bound to prison in and by his will because of the Hat in stead of doing them Justice Ann Blackling received the same measure as those friends of her Sexe had by him at Exon who speaking as she was moved of the Lord to two priests in the steeple-house yard near Pendennis was set upon with much rage brought before Capt. Fox Governour of Pendennis Castle and by him with great fury was she abused and called whore and witch and told that she and that generation which the World calls Quakers were not fit to live scoffing and raging and gnashing his teeth and charged her with oppressing the Country who asked wherein he said in that her horse did eat his grass the horse grazing on the bank of the Castle whilst she was there brought and stay'd till he came and for that purpose as appears commanded off her horse against her will and therefore set to graze that such an occasion might be had against her what poor shiftings are here wherewithall to have something to charge the Innocents and asked her whether that horse was her's she answered it was so He said he would have him if the horse were her's she replyed the horse he could not have justly for that she had mony to free her horse for the grass he had eaten there in that time and proffered him mony and bed him take as much of it as would satisfie him for

that concerned the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence no man forbidding him And we do not reade that liberty of conscience was one of the Fundamentals of the Roman Government or that they had made provision by a Law for all that professed faith in God by Jesus Christ to be protected though they were different from the doctrine discipline and worship as was then in being and not to be compelled thereunto but won by sound doctrine and the example of a good conversation as the Government of this Nation hath provided as in the 36. and 37. Articles of the Instrument of Government Neither do we reade that liberty of conscience was held forth by them to be a natural right that every man might claim Yet they that did not make this provision suffered the thing for all that would come unto Paul he spake boldly the things concerning the Kingdome of God and the Lord Jesus Christ no man forbidding him which was far from sending men to abuse him or make a sport of him or asking people that came to visit him whence they were or what they would have there or why they did not get them about their business or why come they there to be seduced as was done to us the last night who are Prisoners for the eternal truth as Paul was and stand witnesses for the Lord in our measures as he did yet we in our own Nation being Prisoners who were causelesly cast into Prison without the transgression of any Law and here to be brought in order to our trial to hear what any man hath to accuse us of and in the face of the Authority of this Countie even while you were sitting as we understand to have three men come into our chamber to disturb us under a pretence to search for papers asking where the seditious papers were and charging us of sedition and blasphemy and having designs and having a plot in hand calling us Jesuits using other reproachfull words and when we asked for their Warrant or by what authority they came in to disturb us one of them named James Sparnell put his hand on his sword and said that was his Warrant another of them was Keale a Trooper under P. Ceely who formerly falsly accused W. Salt unto him and the third was one Davis an Exciseman who it seems came along with them to make sport pointing at one and asking whether he was not brought up at the Vniversity clapping Sparnell on the shoulder setting him on to look after papers whom we asked whether he came to make sport who said yes and stood mocking us saying yea yea And being unsatisfied seeing their disorder we pressed to know their authority and they told us at length that Major Ceely had sent them So all may see here what the sound doctrine is and the example of a good conversation that Peter Ceely hath to win others to be of his Religion and what are the weapons he useth to defend his Religion Now Friends you who are in place to ease the heavy burthens and to take off every yoke and to let the oppressed go free and to restrain the rage of them who smite with the fist of wickedness We lay these things upon you for you to do us justice that we may not be made a prey upon by men in their wills and that the cause for which we are kept in restraint and for which we at present suffer thus may come to a hearing according to the right and liberty of Englishmen which is after your own Law and not for any one man to be the Accuser Judge and Condemner all at once contrary to Law From them who are now Prisoners for the Truth that stand Witnesses for the righteous God against all deceit ungodliness and unrighteousness of man whatsoever W. Salt Joseph Coale On that day being the last day of their Sessions were they called into the Court Colonel Bennet sitting Judge who sent his man to the Goaler as they were coming into the Court to bid the Goaler take off their hats Being brought before the Bench no Accuser came against them nor Accusation nor was any thing found against them nor did P. Ceely their Persecutor who had imprisoned them appear being as was said on his departure out of Town Nevertheless Colonel Bennet caused their Warrants of Commitment to be read and sought to pick what he could out of them against the Prisoners who called for their Accusers but none appeared and asked W. Salt what he had to say to this and what he had to say to the other thing contained in the Warrant He told him he denyed it all and that there was not one true thing in it Which was so manifest that even Justice Lance confessed openly in the Court when he had heard that their service was over at the Steeple-house before W. Salt spake and that W. Salt was invited into the Congregation that he did believe he had no intention to disturb them The Prisoners after all that was or could be said against them appearing innocent men having neither Accuser produced against them nor any thing mentioned in the Warrants of their commitment made to stick on them or any other transgression of the Law might well have expected to have been set at liberty as is the Law especially Colonel Bennet being Judge of the Court who had dis-owned their former sufferings and seemed very sensible thereof and endeavoured to make General Disborow the same and had appeared in the behalf of their liberty by whose hand and Captain Braddons they with the rest of them their fellow-prisoners were enlarged without promise or engagement let pass or fees or any other condition whatsoever who had appeared so much for the liberties of the Nation throughout the Wars and been in Arms for it who pretended so much to liberty of Conscience and professed that which for it had suffered persecution who pretended an expectation and belief of Christs sudden coming on earth to sit on the Throne of Judgement executing justice and doing righteousness But contrariwise he was the man who seeing their innocency and knowing that for very envy they were cast into bonds and delivered to him nevertheless said That for satisfaction of the Countrey and because the times were dangerous they must do their duty and so proposed to them a question which unless they would answer yea or nay to he who had known the passages aforesaid of the proposition of liberty if they would promise to go to their homes if the Lord permit and the answers thereunto and the papers sent particularly to him thereabouts and his reasoning with them concerning it and their opening to him the ground of their not so doing and how that in conscience they could not do it and if they kept them seven years the same men they should finde them at the end thereof and after all freeing them saying God forbid they should press them to any thing which was against their conscience as

his Iniquitie will be further evident when his Warrant aforesaid being taken in pieces i● measured with the Rule of Law and weighed in the ballance of truth and Justice 1. For first whereas he chargeth them in the front who go under the notion of Quakers and acknowledge themselves to be such The end of the Law is to preserve the Peace and the Unitie and the end of the Administration thereof is to bring out of the division into the unitie and out of the strife into the Peace Now that which divides as he whether he be Souldier Judge or Justice or what ever he be doth which distinguisheth a Generation of men under one and the same Government from the rest and puts upon them a hatefull name of distinction and tearm of reproach whereby they and others are set in opposition breaks the Peace and destroyes the unity sets a family at variance and a Nation is a family overthrows the end of the Law and makes void the Righteous Administration thereof and into Wars leads and Contentions and every evill work as this Nation of late years hath sadly witnessed for from this very distinguishing of men and branding them with tearms of reproach was the fire kindled and the flames of the late Wars brought forth and nourished Whereby these three Nations being one against another and the very being of them were likely to have been overthrown rased out and consumed And such an one is an evill doer in a high degree to whom the Sword of the Magistrate of God which punisheth and cuts off that which transgresseth and so brings out of the division into the unity and out of the Wars and strife into the Peace is a terror and on whom it is to pass But P. Ceely who calls himself one of the Justices of the Peace of the County of Cornwall by distinguishing a Generation of people in this Nation who fear and dread and tremble before the Lord and the words of his holiness as did the holy men of God from the begining and record in the Scripture from the rest of the people of ●his N●tion and putting upon them a hatefull Tearm of distinction and brand of Reproach whereby they are marked out and set in opposition and appointed to all manner of abuses scornings and sufferings as is experienced in all parts every where throughout the Nation where any such are with such barbarousness and cruelty as exceeds the fiercest and most inhumane persecutions of the latter ages And himself under his hand and Seale branding them therewith in the head of his Warrant as a people because distinguished by him and reproached with such a name fit onely to be destroyed and endeavouring their destruction so far as a long imprisonment and the cruelties thereof which they have lately felt almost to the loss of one of their lives hereafter to be mentioned as have many of those innocent people of the Lord in other parts from this Generation whose lives they have had in the prisons which cry aloud for vengeance in the ears of the Lord of Saboath for that they go under the hated name and scorned tearm of Quakers hath manifested himself to be a br●aker of the peace a destroyer of ●he unity a setter of the whole family of a Nation at variance an overthrower of the end of the Law one that makes void the righteous Administration thereof a leader into wars and contentions and every evil work and a minister of unrighteousness and iniquity on whom the sword of the righteous judgement of God will pass to the cutting of him off and dividing him his portion with hypocrites and sinners and of this let him consider for one day whether he will or no so he shall find it except he repent And whereas he saith who acknowledge themselves to be such to fear and dread and tremble and quake at the presence of the living God who maketh the earth to shake and the Pillars thereof to tremble as did Isaak and Moses and Jeremy and Ezekiel and Daniel and Habbacuck and Paul and the Church of Corinth and the Saints of the most high in all ages who knew his presence this they own as do all the children of light and acknowledge themselves to be of the Generation of those who seek the face and thus witness the presence of the Holy one of Israel But as he hath placed it in contempt and scorne and as a hatefull brand and heinous offence by which they are appointed to all manner of sufferings that they deny and the acknowledging themselves to be such or that they ever acknowledged themselves or any others to be such as they do deny him and this his Lie and the Generation of him who is a lyar from the beginning he knows who it is Whereas he chargeth them Who have spread several papers tending to the disturbance of the publick peace No papers did they spread tending to the disturbance of the publick peace the paper which G. F. gave forth for which cause he apprehended abused and imprisoned them is already rehearsed and let the sober judge whether that be the matter of disturbing the publick or any mans peace But the man of Sin the son of Perdition whose kingdom Christ Jesus is come and coming to destroy and his peace to break and his Armour to take from him and of his goods him to spoile against whom his war is proclaimed and his sword drawn and brought upon the earth to set a man at variance against his father and the daughter against her mother and the daughter in law against the mother in law and a mans foes shall be them of his own houshould And this war brings peace to the Israel of God And let such judge whether P. Ceely makes not himfelf to appear to be in the possession of that strong man armed whose peace he would not have disturbed Who chargeth the declaring of Jesus Christ the stronger than he to be Lord and King and the only way to salvation to be tending to the disturbance of the publick peace contrary to what the Government Act. 37. and O. P. the chief Ruler thereof hath declared as aforesaid And as for the several papers tending to the disturbance of the publick peace spread by them he hath not to this day made any such to appear which if he could no doubt they had not been to be produced or made use of at this time nor indeed have any such been by them dispersed And so this his Charge is a lie from the father of lies whose peace only was disturbed and in whose behalf P. Ceely chargeth The declaring of the mighty day of the Lord to be come and coming wherein all hearts shall be made manifest the secrets of every mans heart shall be revealed with the light of Jesus which comes from Jesus Christ who lighteth every man that cometh into the world who saith Learn of me This is my well beloved Son hear ye him saith God that lighteth