THE Athenian Society Unvaild Or their Ignorance and Envious Abusing of the QUAKERS Detected and Reprehended THE Prediction of the Blessed Apostle 2 Tim. 3.12 All that will live Godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer Persecution has been the perpetual Experience of the Church of Christ in all Ages only with this variation that their Sufferings have been sometimes after one manner and sometimes after another one while Life another Liberty and very frequently Estates have been the Prizes that an innocent and harmless Life have cost their Owners The Truth hereof is attested not only by History very Ancient but also by some so very Modern that it is not yet past Memory But when all these in good measure have by God's Providence and a Government 's Favour been stopped then the same Spirit frequently in the same Members and sometimes in others hath laboured to blacken and misrepresent those they could not destroy under the Pretext of Law This is the present Case it is but a little while since that Liberty and Estate were the common Rates which we call'd Quakers with many others were made to compound at if I may so speak for our Innocency and Conscientious Scruples But the mildness and gentleness of the present Government has so signally gone beyond that of some of their Predecessors that they have not only recommended these excellent Qualities by their particular Example but also by the Authority of a Law which is remembred by us with true Gratitude and Thankfulness Now the Advantage of so Noble an Example one might think should have been sufficient if not to sweeten yet to chill the most virulent Spirits and more especially yours who call your selves the Athenian Society and have made so many Offers at a Reformation by the pubick Pretences you have made to encourage some and advise all to the furtherance of it These 't is true have been your Pretensions but your Practice is no other than the Transcript of the * Preface to the second Volume Jesuits Maxim who you say were they that by their Disguises and false Pretences were the first Promoters of the many unhappy Differences that are now among us both in Church and State Now what is odious in them can it be lovely in you Or what is against the Peace of Government in them can it be otherwise in you Surely no For Crimes lose not their Nature when they only change their Agent nor is Satan at all the more Holy for being in an Athenian or in one called a Christian The Truth of this you have sufficiently evinced by the Falshoods and Abuses which you have so liberally bestowed both upon Communities and particular Persons And yet you are the Men who at your appearance by this Name promis'd to use in your ensuing Design much Christian Candor and Modesty and not to * Preface to the second Volume widen the Breaches but to avoid either Practices or Disputes that might tend thereto And further that you would answer no obscene Questions nor any whose Answer should be an Abuse to particular Persons With more to the same purpose which I could here recite were it as necessary as it is easie But I shall here pass it over as well as your other Contradictions and Nonsense of which we have generally notice once a Week by the London Mercury for my Design is herein chiefly to instance in those Answers of Questions which were the cause of the Letter I sent you which I shall set down anon to which tho' you promis'd an Answer yet have not given one unless Queries and Impertinency may deserve that Name by detecting your Falshood and Lies and also something concerning John Whitehead whom by Name you have abused in your Buffoonry But I have observed that in defiance of your Rules in breach of your pretended Charity and contrary to Morality and to true Christianity you have seemed glad of an opportunity to be abusive towards us in particular as will plainly enough appear by your Answer to a Question in Vol. 3. N. 8. q. 6. Whether it be lawful for a Christian to Swear To which you not content to deliver your Answer in the Affirmative only have stigmatiz'd all as silly Enthusiasts who believe the contrary Now as this Answer of yours did cause so your Promise that you would fairly Answer any Objections that were made to your Answers did encourage the sending of a Letter to you soon after wherein among other Things were the three following Queries 1. Whether since the very end of Christ's coming into the World as is testified was to take away Sin and finish Transgression he did not thereby supersede the very use of all Oaths 2. Whether if Men did cooperate with the Assistance that Christ Jesus lends and obey the Precepts he has given they might not thereby attain the end of his coming 3. Whether there is any positive Command in the Gospel enforced by words more comprehensive full positive and pertinent than this of Swear not c. To these you have not returned any Answer as by your fore-mentioned promise you were obliged but still proceed further to abuse and belie us in such Instances as your own Eyes and Ears if you ever imployed them to read or hear our Principles from our selves must needs convince you of for you say you have used them herein From whence the Inference is very easy that your Disease is Malice because your Assertions are directly contradictory to what has been at all times Spoken and Written by our Friends But if you have not read or heard from our selves what you have asserted to be our Belief then what Abatements are to be made from the Malice of your Charge must be added to the Impudence of it in that you are of those who said Report and we will Report it which shews you to be neither more Christian nor less Wicked this will best appear by the Charge it self Where in Vol. 3. N. 23. q. 4. you affirm the Quaker's Opinions to be dangerous and detestable as indeed they were were it true that you afterwards affirm that they speak contemptibly of the Bible and will by no means allow it to be God's Word that they have turned the most Sacred Truths therein contain'd into jejune Allegory that they speak not very Honourably of our Saviour deny the Trinity and many if not all embrace the other Socinian Dream of the Soul 's Sleeping till the Resurrection And afterwards in Vol. 4. N. 30. q. 1. The Quakers have been e're since their rise look'd upon as the Jesuits By-Blows of the Jesuit that they deny the plenary Satisfaction of Christ and rest on their own Merits that Fanaticism Enthusiasm and Infidelity together make up the Creed of the Quaker they being a Compendium of almost all sorts of Heresies who deny the Satisfaction and Divinity of Christ as also his Humanity nay deny Angels Spirits Heaven and Hell and the Existence of Souls after Death Here is the
Complex of your Lies and Slanders freed from the profound Nonsense and palpable Ignorance wherewith you have formally interlarded each of the above cited places but of each I shall give an Instance First in the 23. N. q. 4. where you say But if there be any of 'em who have left their first Principles and are degenerated into Christianity What! think you Christianity to be worse than our Principles For Degeneracy is I think to go from better to worse or if this be to Frolick with Words it 's a very odd way of doing it Of your palpable Ignorance let this be an Instance where in N. 30. q. 1. you ask How they have the Face to pretend to what they never had Christianity when they were never Christen'd Now if by Christning you mean Sprinkling a Face with Water I am sure it is contradictory to that of the Apostle who signifies That true and saving Christianity consists in having the Conscience sprinkled from dead Works to serve the Living God Which cannot be purged by any such external Operation but only and alone by the Spirit of God in Man By this time I suppose it will be thought sufficiently reasonable that we clear our selves or that you should prove these your Assertions which that you might do the last was the occasion o th' Letter which in that you call your Answer in V. 5. N. 29. and which I shall consider anon you call an angry one and not agreeable to the Precept of Turning the other Cheek to which I must tell you that it is sufficiently known to have been our constant Practice to bear the Smitings the Buffetings the Wastings and the Plunderings which Men of your Spirit and Temper have inflicted upon us under the pretext of Laws whilst in use Under all which Sufferings God did by the Sheddings forth of his Spirit so comfort our Spirits that we can say in Truth we took joyfully the Spoil of our Goods and Imprisonment of our Bodies for his Name sake and can also forgive them that did it only desiring for the worst of them as for you That you may come to see the Evil you have done by these your Lies and Scandals and turn from them by a sincere and hearty Repentance that so your Sins may be forgiven when the times of refreshing shall come from the Lord's Presence But notwithstanding all this should we be silent to these your Lies it might be construed a joyning with you against that Holy Truth of which we are Professors which we cannot do but must herein clear it from your Calumnies And the Jews might have told John the Baptist he was angry when he calls them a Generation of Vipers The like they might have told Holy Stephen when in Act. 7.51 52. he calls them Vncircumcised in Hearts and Ears Resisters of the Holy Ghost Persecutors of the Prophets Betrayers and Murtherers of the Just One. They both speak Truth and its warmness was justified by its occasion And now to shew that the warmness of this Letter bears no proportion to the occasion you have given and that I have not requited you with Vineger for your Gall I shall here give the Copy thereof but without your frothy and abusive Parentheses Which is as follows The Copy of the Letter I sent them Athenians AT and since your appearing in the World by this Name your repeated Protestations of Christian Candor and Modesty in answering such Questions as were fit to be answered and total Silence in such as were not did make the Ingenuous of either Sex however distinguish'd willing to further what might be of Service to the Publick But your notorious Prevarications have sufficiently shewn that what was intended for your Encouragement and others Service you have only made use of as a Ladder to climb higher than others whereby you might have the hateful opportunity of abusing what and whomsoever agrees not with you and that by Aspersions so palpably gross and false that it needs not the Judgment of an Athenian to Vnvail you The present Ease and Felicity which we called Quakers do with others find under the happy Influence of a mild and generous Government which Happiness we do with all Duty and Gratitude thankfully acknowledg and remember has so far buried the late Distractions Waste and Plunderings that they are hardly now to be met with but in History And that this Peace and this Felicity might be perpetual the Wisdom of the Nation has been so Latitudinarian to use your disdainful Expression that among other Things in an Act for that very purpose made they have framed what they there Call and what truly is a Christian Profession or Confession the Owners and Subscribers of which as they are the King and Queens Lieg-Subjects so they are Christians in Belief notwithstanding all your Buffoonry and wilful Lies I shall only at present enumerate the Heads of your several Scandals and Abuses which in your Preface to the 3. Volume you say you took so much Pleasure in Composing The first is Vol. 3. N. 8. q. 6. where you tax the paying of Obedience to a positive Command of Christ with Enthusiasm but this being Language too kind you do with the next opportunity in N. 23. q. 4. of the same Volume assert upon your own Knowledg our believing a number of portentous and monstrous Opinions you there number up and which here we do utterly deny and ever did declaring such your Assertion to be False Scandalous and Malitious hereby requiring you to make your Assertions good or to be accounted what you truly are that is the worst of Incendiaries which Title to convince the World does peculiarly belong to you you have in another of your Mercuries Vol. 4. N. 30. q. 1. pretended to draw a Parallel between Quaker and Papist but with such known Falshood that there is now hardly any Person who pretends to much less Reading than your witty selves but knows it to be no other than a Malitious Lye which plainly shews that notwithstanding the noisy Offers which you in your Mercuries make at a Reformation your selves have not advanced the first Step towards it And in the last-mentioned Question where you pretend to consider them asunder you have done it so unlearnedly as well as falsly that perhaps it needs not the strength of a Champion to foil you who have fallen from the forms of Civility as well as Christanity in that you have falsly belyed and accused your Neighbours You are not to suppose that this comes in the manner of a Question which you may not think fit to Answer for it is hereby declared That if you do not within some reasonable time give the World clear Proofs of your Assertions in the Places and Answers above-noted you shall be exposed and your Falshood and Baseness detected not only by the Verbatim hereof in Print but by a more particular Answer to each of your many Lies I call them by this Name which you affirm
Disturbers of the Publick Peace which never had more mortal Enemies than those who under the mask of Religion have laboured to foment civil Broils by the mutual Aversions which their false and noisy Clamours have too frequently procured But in this Instance the Peace is thus far secured that if you do neither retract nor prove your Assertions your Abuses being cast upon a People who return not Evil for Evil are not therefore bound to return an Answer to every impertinent Scrible this not being written either from Humour or mercenary Interest is not design'd to be repeated whereby to trouble my self or others who will hereby sufficiently understand your baseness in your general Lies and Abuses as now they shall your abusive handling of John Whitehead who is belyed by your Querist if at least it were not your selves and both abused and belyed by you in Vol. 4. N. 30. q. 2. Now here had been a fit opportunity to have put in practice that Rule of yours which was not to Answer any Question whose Answer might be an abuse to particular Persons But you considering it was a Quaker did dispence with it tho you exposed your selves by rallying upon a Lie in which there is so much obscenity that it puts me in mind of a certain Altar which was at Athens erected to * Rous Archaeologiae Atticae lib. 1. p. 34. Injury and Impudence and upon which I find not only the Ancient but also the Modern Athenians do sometimes Sacrifice as will sufficiently appear by the fulsom Stuff with which the last cited Answer is fill'd But first your Query is false in fact and John Whitehead did never so boast as that affirms of his Fatness nor was he ever forced when in Prison to feed on Bread and Water nor was he ever 3 yards about the Waste nor is his Wife near that size Now before you went thus to rally and be merry with the reputation of a Family sure you should have taken as good Caution not to have been deceived as you have sometimes required to the Attestation of an Experiment in Art or Casualty in Nature in which you have sometimes required more than the Name of the Relator which if you cannot produce in this Instance let it be supposed your selves were the Querist and so guilty both of the Lie and the Abuse which being so particular take John Whitehead's Answer as followeth A few Questions for Answer to the Authors of a Scandalous Impertinent Paper Entituled The Athenian Mercury Vol. 4. Numb 30. 1. WHether such Persons as by their Words or Actions say Come let us Smite him or them with the Tongue Report and we will Report it do not as much as in them lies indeavour to stir up a new Persecution And whether herein they do not symbolize with the worst Heathens and Papists who used to cloath the ancient Christians in ugly Shapes and painted Devils upon them that they might be the readilier devoured by wild Beasts and burnt to Death by the wicked Hands of cruel Men 2. Whether great blindness of Mind hath not happen'd to such Men as do look upon the People of God in scorn called Quakers who are at the greatest distance from Popery of any People in the World professing Christianity to be the By-Blows of the Jesuits and Symbolizers with the Papists for which if ye have no better Proof than that heap of Lies and Slanders which follow in your Answer to the first Question then consider if Justice and Truth do not require you to repent of your Wickedness and acknowledg you have followed blind Guides to your own hurt and thereby wronged both your selves and your Neighbours 3. Whether we have not by the Word of our Testimony in open and publick Assemblies and the many Books spread up and down the Nation sufficiently clear'd our selves from those foul Imputations ye would cast upon us so that we need not multiply Answers to every vain impertinent Scribler our Principles and Practice being manifest to the Witness of God in the Consciences of sober People that know us which is a Refuge sufficient for us against such silly Blasts of Envy 4. Who is the Man and where doth he dwell that dares affirm he heard John Whitehead boast of such a Miracle as your 2d Question affirms That when he was fed in a Prison with Bread and Water he fatned on it so as that he was 3 yards or more about the Waste for I do positively deny that ever I made any such boast as your Query affirms and I further say that I was never under those Circumstances in a Prison as to be confin'd to Bread and VVater and that I was never of that bigness but that a Girdle of less than 4 foot would have met about my VVaste and therefore that monstrous prodigious Lie of my being 3 yards about the VVaste there being many hundreds of VVitnesses to the contrary is turned back upon you with that false suggestion that his Wife is near as spacious as himself and all those Slanders and scornful frothy Insinuations that follow thereupon in your Answer to your second Query which are as the Smoke of the bottomless Pit and thither must descend and into the Lake must be cast all those that love and make Lies except they repent Therefore prize your time and do no more so wickedly This Friendly Admonition is given you by one that can love his Enemies John Whitehead This is his own Letter which you are desired to Answer with which I shall end when I have told you That plain and positive Proof must make good your Charge Repentance must make you honest Men and the continuance in your Crimes will make you as Incorrigible as those Beasts which serve for Emblems in your Buffoonry If you cannot do the first the way to avoid the last is by the middlemost which that you may is the desire of him who can forgive Enemies and is in scorn call'd a Quaker London Printed for Thomas Northcott in George-yard in Lombard-street 1692. Where the Books above-mentioned are to be had