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A54155 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 Coppersmith 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 ... William Penn ; to which are added several testimonies of persons concern'd. Penn, William, 1644-1718. 1673 (1673) Wing P1307; ESTC R23117 100,153 131

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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 l●●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
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
that all Men ought to follow the Light in thems●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 ●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
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 th●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 convincin●●nd converting Ministry remains amongst us Therefore th●● Priviledge upon their own Principles does belong to us But perhaps they will both endeavour
describe good and bad Fruits and from such Actions Men may by a Writing describe the Right from the Wrong But what gives to relish tast or savour a Wrong Spirit in Sheeps Cloathing beside the Heavenly Instinct of the Divine Nature As People are turned to that they can discern as saith the Apostle The Spiritual Man judgeth all things that is of right he may and is judged of no Man that is not discerningly of the meer Natural Men And as the Spiritual Man's Discerning is from the Spirit that searcheth out the deep things of God so is God the Judge and Law giver to his People under this Dispensation If the Gospel-Fellowship be in Spirit True Christians must have an Inward Tast and Sense of one anothers Spirits and what gives to savour aright at the same time gives to relish a Wrong Spirit The same Objection he makes against the Light may be made against the Spirit which is but another Name for the same Principle and I hope he will not dare to say that any Confusion can follow upon holding that Men under the Gospel ought to be led by it Yet this granted suppose Men pretending to be led by the Spirit to be gone from the Spirit or that two equally pretending to be guided by it differ as Paul and Barnabas and Peter what should determine No Writings of the Old Testament could at least without Meanings and the same Difficulty lyes about the Meanings of Scripture as about being led by the Spirit In this Case what shall be done Surely the Spirit must not be upbraided nor branded Neither will it follow That there is no Judge for Christ is the great Judge appointed of God the Spiritual great Prophet that speaks from Heaven and in his own time will give Judgment to the View of all Men. In the mean while he satisfies the Minds of those who are truly led by his Spirit and Withering Decay Murmuring Complaining and finally Apostasy will follow upon the Pretenders as is fulfilled in the present Judasses This hath been largely argued elsewhere yet I was not willing to let this Passage of our Enemies pass unconsidered which indeed is the Strength of his Book and what the ablest of our Adversaries can say against us an this account I have proceeded thus far more particularly in Defence of the Church against the Apostate Adversaries and their Apologist about the Argument by them made about the Hat and those Discords that issued In which I hope I have not exceeded the Bounds of Truth and Moderation For the latter Objection which is directed not so much against the Body of our Friends as a select Number of Ministers and Elders devoted as he falsly and scoffingly suggests to the Promotion of G. F's Authority and Interest I can with all Clearness and Sincerity and that in the Name of many Brethren give this following Testimony G. F. I would have all to know seeks not Himself but Christ and as becomes a true Apostle and Servant of his Lord and Master Jesus Christ Early and Late in Season and out of Season with incessant Pains and Care not being Burthensom unto any endeavours to promote the Work of God in the Earth and is so far from Lording it over any that he daily serves all for the Truth 's sake thinking no Labour too great nor Condescension too mean whereby he may be Serviceable to any in what concerns their Eternal Well-fare and this some of these Apostates must needs know He has approved himself and still doth among us to be a Man of God and a True Prophet of the Lord and as such we do Value him and the Rage of Men shall not Dis-settle us from our Sense and Regard of him who seeks not himself nor his own things but the Things of God that Christ and his Power alone may be exalted in the Hearts of all People and all Flesh humbled and for this alone are all publick Labourers of Value with our Friends and no otherwise Respected or Regarded then in the Lord which is not Tyranny but Duty Wherefore those Terms of Foxonian King George Fox Foxonian Leaven G. Fox and his Party or Adherents are with many more Words of Scorn and Abuse he has no such intended Lordship nor are we of his Party bu● God's Free-Men and True Christians being with him Baptized by One Spirit into One Body the Unity of which these smiting Apostates and their abusive Libeller can never break I shall touch upon their Aggravations about not Marrying Burying c. before I come to those other Reflections made against G.F. our Ministry and My self and all before I end my Share in this Re-joynder First He is pleased to say That we deny them Trading Marrying Burying and all Ecclesiastical Civil Priviledges to those that dissent from us p. 7. These were the Aggravations I before promised to observe But alas What shall we say to a Man thus Hardy and resolved to be Wicked that he may render us so Did we even forbid Men Trading or endeavour to take People off from Trading with them J. Pennyman can say no such thing without Lying for several have lovingly frequented his Shop since he Enviously visited and disturbed our Meetings And how many do we daily trade with that are not of us in Love and full Assurance of their Honesty For Marrying I referred the Author of the Spirit of the Hat to the Apostle's Dehortation Be ye not Vnequally Yoaked together It seems if we cannot own Persons to be of us that are not of us we must be abused This made the present Apologizer if I am not out of my Guess Angry and Enraged with us at first 'T is not meer Talking of Christ and hammering out a few Notions in the meer Strength of Man's Will and Wisdom that makes a True Christian therefore we could not receive him for our Sect-Master that angers him And for Marriage we cannot have Unity with any in that solemn Performance of Marrying who are acted by a Wrong Spirit and so gone out of the Union of the Body of Friends We do not deny them that are so Married to be Married at all as this Enemy would conclude though to be Married in the Unity we can never own them As to our denying of Burial unto such Apostates my words in the Book called The Spirit of Alexander the Copper-Smith Rebuked carry no such unnatural Sense Two things I denyed 1. That we therefore denyed them a Burial because we should alwayes refuse it as of us whilst they continued in that Dissenting Spirit from us 2. That we Vsurped their Property To the first sayes our Adversary The Quakers would not suffer such to stink above Ground but he should be buried not among the Catholicks but as Hereticks in Spaine or Italy p. 19. Behold the Candor of this Interpreter What a strange Improvement has he made of my Saying much more resembling the Carriage of that sort of Catholicks he likens us to against
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