the Lord with the Requirings of his Spirit Whether the use of the Hat is not so to those that believe it is not required Whether we are not rather to cease from our own Labours from a Voluntary Humility which hath a seeming shew of Reverence lest we set up Posts by his Posts for whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin Whether it is not possible for some to forbear its use in Prayer for Conscience sake as to the Lord lest be should say Who hath required this at your hands and not through an obstinate wilful and opposite Spirit What will you have these to do in such a Case Ought they for this cause to be excluded your Communion If yea whether you may not pull up the Wheat with the Tares and to eject before God doth and then where is your Liberty to Tender Consciences Whether if there be a Difference among you in things Ceremonial or in Bodily Gestures when the Truth is owned loved and received as it is in Jesus you ought not to wait with patience till God shall teach him because without this Teaching he can never know it aright And therefore will it not manifest a Spirit of Love and Tenderness not to condemn one another for the Vse or Forbearance thereof any more than those that did and did not keep days did and did not eat Meats And whether the Apostle did not foresee that judgings in such things would tend to Separation and Division Whether if we are to walk by the same Rule whereunto we have already attained then is there a Necessity of a Oneness in Practice forasmuch as there are different Measures Growths and Motions Whether the Differences in Outward Exercises or Gestures will not abundantly commend the Vnity of the True Faith which doth not stand in Garments Gestures Meats or Drinks but in the power of an endless life in which God only is truly worshipped Whether it is not better to be reputed Vile Crawling Stragling and old Cankered Apostates VagabondQuakers c. and to be separated from your Communion rather than through Fear Interest and Necessity to do that which may be right before he sees it to be so But especially rather than through Fear and Necessity or any private Interest whatsoever to do that which is evil because the Hypocrite God will judge Whether To declare there is not a further Manifestation as many of you have done and also whatsoever shall be added to or diminished from what you were in at the Beginning shall not the Truths we yet know not which are to be brought in be reputed Errors and the Errors which yet remain for ought you know be reputed Truths Whether For you to assert those Romish Positions which have enslaved Nations and destroyed Thousands is not of a more dangerous Consequence than can well be uttered Namely 1. That we are to believe as the Church believes 2. That the Church cannot Err. 3. That She hath Power to Bind and to Loose 4. That it is abominable Pride not to submit unto Her Judgment She having always the Infallible Spirit With many such like Expressions And if you limit the Power and the Church to Persons why may not you Apostatize as well as Rome and yet still claim the same Infallibility and Dominion over their Faith Which is contrary to the Apostles Saying 2 Cor. 1. 24. Friends THat which was declared of and testified unto in the beginning was to direct our minds unto the Heavenly Gift not to the Church but to the manifestation of the Spirit in the particular waiting there to feel its Motions and to hear its Voice which would infallibly teach us our Duty towards God our Neighbour and our selves and not to go forth into Reasonings to promote comely Orders after the manner of men nor to be found in the exercise of any thing in his pure Worship but what the Lord and not the Body required else to stand still in the silence to all Flesh attending the Motions of the Heavenly Drawings and then to answer its Requirings Were we not then exhorted to be like the Noble Bereans to examine and to try the Verity of your Doctrine by the measure of his Spirit in us and whatsoever led from that Pure Gift drew into the Apostacy yea if an Angel from Heaven brought another Gospel let him be said you accursed Christ within us was then to be Head but now the Body without us The Church was then to be in subjection to her Head and every Member to be governed and exercised according to the Order of the Head But now the Body the Church claims an Authority over their Fellow-Members as peculiarly having the infallible Spirit the certain un-erring Judgment residing with them upon all occasions to know Truth from Error and the Right from the Wrong Spirit Will you limit the Lord cannot he reveal that to a particular yea such things as the Church would be startled at yea and be ready to question the Verity thereof because She likewise hath not the Manifestation of it when alas it is hid from Her as well as from a particular Member unless the same Spirit reveals it It 's undeniable therefore that the infallible Spirit and the Word of Wisdom depends not upon the Church the Body but upon Christ the Head of the Body who administers of his Spirit in Diversities of Operations to few or to many as he pleaseth without respect to Persons or Bodies And it hath pleased the Lord that there may be no Glorying no Imposing no Usurping over the Faith of any to reveal himself unto the Lowly Ones that are Little in their own Eyes and in the Eyes of others to inform the Church and Elders thereof to wit John to the Seven Churches Isaiah and Jeremiah to the Jews Elihu to Job and his Friends Joseph unto his Parents and Brethren Moses that was bred in Pharaob's Court to the Church there Who revealed unto David that Goliah must fall by his Hands Or who revealed unto Daniel and John those profound and deep Mysteries Did the Church Nay Was it not hid from her Eyes Did not the Elders that sate in Moses his Chair resist the Appearance of Christ both in Flesh and Spirit Did the Church make known unto Peter that the Gospel was to be preach'd to the Gentiles and that in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him Nay Nay Did not Caleb and Joshua withstand the whole Congregation of Israel Would they not have stoned them with Stones for opposing the Church in their Desires to return towards Egypt Who was the Schismatick here Caleb and Joshua or rather the whole Congregation Of what hath been said this is the Sum A Church limited to persons may impose an Error and cast out the most Spiritual Moreover Who revealed unto Paul the Abolition of Circumcision c Was not the Church at Jerusalem dissatisfied with him in what he preach'd to the Gentiles Did not Paul withstand
Liberty of Conscience Asserted against Imposition Proposed in Several Sober QUERIES to those of the People called QUAKERS who have Assumed such an Authority contrary to their Former Testimonies As also unto those that have Submitted unto it before they found Convictions in themselves for them to weigh and consider in the Ballance of True Judgment WHether Imposed and Enforced Vniformity and Vnity in outward Ceremonies or Gestures is not a great Enemy to the True Churches Peace a Hinderance to the Prosperity of Truth and a limiting the Spirit of the Lord Whether Vniformity and Vnity in outward Gestures c. is not Imposed when required as a thing necessary and they that dissent to be reputed Erroneous Heretical c. and to be likewise excommunicated for being out of the comely order And is there any example either from Christ or his Apostles for such procedures But did not they rather judge those that laid a necessity upon such things Whether this kind of Vniformity c. hath not made many through fear interest and necessity to conform and will it not retain and let in those that should be cast and kept out to wit the complying Hypocrite who is destitute of the Spirit and cast and keep out those that should be kept and let in even those that wait in the manifestation of the Spirit Whether the keeping off the Hat in time of Prayer is not an outward Ceremony Gesture or bodily Exercise and whether to deny me and others the benefit of Marriage and Burial having a propriety therein only for the omittance of this and to lay such an Injunction upon so small a matter that draweth after it so deep a Censure as to be excommunicated doth it not savour more of Cruelty in you than in us Disobedience or Contempt either to God or you Whether the giving way unto such Imposers is not an In-let unto an Arbitrary Government and when once they have gained so much reputation as to be esteemed Religious and Zealous Reformers Ancient Friends and Elders in God and that it is our Duty to submit unto such whether they may not in a short space under these Pretences establish an Arbitrary Judicature Whether it hath not been experienced how difficult it is to root out such when once they have reduced a People to this Belief and they in the exercise of this Authority because the honour of being invested insuch a Capacity doth oblige men to secure themselves in this Superior Orb and stirs up men of Parts and Ambition to support such an Hierarchy in expectation that it will at last fall unto themselves Whether some Persons that are accounted Famous and Renowned in the Congregation at London have not reduced the People in some degree under this Yoke of Bondage because they give that Meeting this Appellation The Body a high Title and make it to be the Trial of Motions and Vnity c. when a few Principals shall sway the Meeting as they please unless themselves divide Now those Members that exalt themselves above their Fellows and equal Members what do they else but usurp the place of the Head and so break in sunder the Vnity of the Body which stands in the Vnity of the Head and set up another Head besides Christ Did not Rome obtain their unlimited Power by such kind of Appellations Principles and Pretences If so let a Mark be set upon all those that seek the Prebeminence Whether some of you have not been filled with Prayer and Praises to the Lord in silent Meetings without either Words or Gestures to demonstrate the inward Reverence and yet approach'd to the Throne of Grace in the deep Humility of your Souls and with unvailed Spirits Have not some of you walk'd by the way and prayed been at your Labours and prayed together and asunder without pulling off your Hats and hath it not been as a street-smelling Savour unto the Lord Have not many of you given Thanks for his Goodness and Mercy before Meat in silence without its use in a living sense of his Power Have not some kneeled sate and stood in Publick Assemblies and yet prayed in sincerity and the Vnity kept But if you go to impose any of these Postures upon your Fellow-Members whether the Effects will not then be Division Whether it is not as lawful to keep the Hat on in Prayer as well as in Praises to the Lord And whether a Cap is not as real a Covering to the Head as a Hat If so why is the one condemned and the other practised Why is the Cap in the Comely Order and the Hat out of it Whether the Head mentioned in the 11th Cor. may not be covered with the Hat off and uncovered with the Hat on Whether If it be a true Argument that we are out of the Spirit in which the Apolstes were because we forbear the use of the Hat in Prayer contrary to that Saying He that prayeth or prophesieth with his Head Covered c. Then why not also in Prophesying Besides Whether others may not more justly judge the same of you you being out of many of their Practices and Commands The Apostle saith in the same Chapter I permit not a Woman to speak in the Church and yet what is more frequent So that when you can pretend that the Scriptures prove your Practices then they shall be your Rule and Touchstone c. but when you are out of their Practices and Commands then the Spirit and not the Scriptures is your Rule Whether if pulling off the Hat in time of Prayer were to pay Honour or Reverence to the Holy God who so vile that conld nor do it This is to make Religion to consist in some External Appearances as William Penn saith Superstitious men do and in invented Gestures and in a Shadow void of the Thing it self which it must necessarily do in case the Ceremony of the Hat saith he be an Honour or Reverence but True Reverence c. is an Holy Reverence to what is Holy demonstrated by some Substantial Good Whether First Those that have no Impulse unto Prayer Secondly Those whose Hearts are far from the Lord And Thirdly Those that do believe that Service is not required ought to pull off their Hats when Prayer is performed in your Assemblies either in the Spirit of Life or out of the Spirit of Life And also Whether those that have a true Sence of the latter ought to be uncovered If yea to all the said Particulars is not this a Worship in Form rather than in Power in Shew and Imitation rather than in Spirit and inconsistent with a Spiritual Worship and contrary to the Vnity in Spirit and Principles of Truth which is to wait to feel the Openings and Leadings of the Spirit of Life in the Particular unto every Religious Performance but a setting up of the Outward Court again Doth not this make many Hypocrites Whether are we to mix our own Works in the Worship and Service of
the mighty Pillars that compell'd the Gentiles contrary to the Truth received How ready were they here to be drawn aside by that Spirit from the measure of Truth in themselves This Example may be a Mark to all Imposers and Compliers It is therefore safe to stand still and to be in the Forbearance of that which we have no motion to from the Spirit of Truth because all Faith and Worship ought to stand upon its Convictions And therefore you greatly err who say the keeping on the Hat is a Practice introduc'd unless you can prove it 's done upon a Religious Account when as in truth it is only a Custom left which we formerly practised Friends God is jealous of his Honour and He will not give it to another And those that go to rob him thereof he will not hold them guiltless Remember from whence you are fallen and repent and do your first works And your Return must be to that Spirit against whom you have sinned and lay down all at the Feet of Jesus that he alone may rule the Body and the Members thereof as he pleaseth for evermore Perhaps it will be expected that I make some Reply to a Book called Judas and the Jews c. wherein I am charged by you to be one of the Cabal with the Author of Tyranny and Hypocrisie detected And therefore you have not been wanting to bestow on me the vilest of Names yea such Names as may deprive me of my Reputation as Apostate Runagade Vagabond Quaker Ranting Spirit Crawling Apostate with many more which may be seen in your Book The Lord lay not this unto your charge And having tasted in a measure of his Mercy and Forgiveness I can say in the sense of his Love Father forgive them Unto the other part I have a few words for the vindicating of my Innocency and condemning your Rashness First As touching the person that is said to be the Author of that Book I declare to you and all the World that I have not the least Acquaintance with him and I have been so far from employing him in the writing thereof that I have not so much as seen him that I know of for many years past And I have been informed not long since that the greatest part if not all was written before I knew of it And when I did hear that a Book was intended against Alexander the Coppersmith I acquainted several therewith with this Advice to enquire out the person or persons and give them a meeting to compose the difference to prevent its publication but could not tell them who was the Author Nor do I yet know but by report And whereas my name is mentioned abusively in your Book touching John Whitehead and Thomas Murford I have this in Answer That if I cannot make good what the Author of Tyranny c. detected doth charge in pag. 50 52 so far as it concerns me before persons equally chosen I shall be content to bear the blame And whereas it is denied that I accused George Fox to be a Respecter of persons in Judgment if Gawen Lawrey Sam. Newton John Bolton John Osgood will deny that I did accuse him as above let them declare it for they and many more were at that Meeting But I positively affirm I did so accuse him and am ready to make good my Charge and if they deny or do not remember it I can prove it by others there present To conclude If you had not either covered or justified the persons accused when guilty and condemned the Accusers when innocent I believe these things had never been made publick and so you reap the Fruits of your own Doings And until you take shame unto your selves and lie low before the Lord for these Abominations and let Judgment pass upon the Transgressor and spare no Person whatsoever for Favour or Affection I say until these things are accomplshed assuredly Sin will lie at your Doors I shall leave the Issue of what I have written unto the Lord. And having thus discharged my Conscience towards you in Faithfulness I shall end with that excellent Saying of Christ's As you would that all men should do unto you even so do you unto them for this is the Law and the Prophets From one who greatly desires to see Moderation Love and Charity to be mutually extended unto all those whose Hearts are upright and Consciences tender towards the Lord though in several Forms William Mucklowe London Printed in the Year 1673 4.