be yet more of them he quickened his Horse with his Spur and declined to the other side of the Lane At the turn of the way were two more Muskets discharged upon him where in all probability he could not have escaped the intended mischiefe had not the Lord mercifully frustrated the bloody Intentions of those his unknown Enemies These men fled immediately the darknesse of a long Winter night which they had before them it being then about the end of December helping to conceale their persons That these men that attempted this Murther were of this Sect is not certainly known but it is strongly presumed and concluded that they were none other by all the Country for these reasons 1. He was generally reproached and threatned by the Quakers for sending Nayler to Prison some of whom were not long before heard to say they would pick his Skin full of holes 2. That very day before there were many of that malicious Sect in Appleby that came to visit Nayler who might take notice of his being there and be invited to take that opportunity of executing their bloody purposes 3. This Gentleman is of such known honesty and Ingenuity that he is generally beloved in the Country and hath not I dare say an Enemy in the world one quarter so cruell as to thirst after his blood except among that Rabble That multitudes of Scurrilous Libels against Ministers and private persons have been fastened to their doores thrown into their houses pinn'd on Pulpit Cushions on the Lords daies and on the Church doores without any name affixed by those Pretenders to Christianity is a thing well known For satisfaction of the Reader I shall give him a true Coppy of one that was affixed one Lords day about the beginning of Ianuary last unto the Church-door at Lancaster which Dr. Marshall openly read to the people there assembled that they might perceive the strange temper of the Spirits of those men by such their unsavoury Eructations A Copy of a Scurrilous Paper affixed to the Church Doore at Lancaster THis is the Idols Temple where the worship of the Beast is upheld down with it down with it Revel 15. 7. 8. Revel 1. 2. 5. God that made the World and all things therein dwels not in this Idolls Temple that is made with hands Act. 7. 47 48 49. Act. 17. 21. Neither is he worshipped in this Idolls Temple with mens hands Act. 17. 24. God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth for the Father is seeking such to worship him Ioh. 14. 23 24. All the World wonders after the Beast and worshippeth the Beast but those who have found their names written in the Book of life and they that worship the Beast and receive his Mark in their Forehead as sprinckling Infants and worshipping the works of their own hands following the imaginations of their hearts they must drink of the wine of the wrath of the Almighty powred out without mixture Revel 14. 9 10 11 12. This Idolls Temple that is made with hands is a place for Night-birds and Screech-Owles to meet each one to the dishonour of the true God that dwelleth in Temples made without hands at new Ierusalem where the Temple of God is with men Revel 21. 3. Drunkards and Swearers Revellers and Scoffers and Scorners and proud and wanton ones and Hypocrites and Dissemblers Enviors Haters back-biters Persecutors Lustfull ones and contentious Persons and Earth-wormes meets here the fearifull and unbelieving peevish and perverse and contentious ones meets here in their Idolls Temple to satisfie their Lusts and saith the Lord this people draw neer me with their mouths and honour me with their lips but their hearts are far from me But know yee not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdome of Heaven but must be cut down and cast into the fire and have their Portion in the Lake that burneth be not deceived God is not mocked This is a Deceiver that standeth up here to deceive the people every seventh day proud and covetous and speaketh a Divination of his own brain and not from the mouth of the Lord and so makes the people light and vain but the Lord is against him hold him not up All the Children of the Lord are and shall be taught of the Lord Jer. 31. 34 Isa. 54. 13. 1 Joh. 2. 27. Of a long time it was a constant practise of some of the most impudent of them to enter in a scornfull manner with their hats on into the publike Assemblies in some places and to raile openly and exclaim aloud against the Ministers with most reproachfull tearmes in time of the dispensation of Gods Ordinances calling them byars Seducers Baals Priests Deluders of the people and bidding them come down from the high places There is fulnesse of Witnesses for this in Kendall and Lancashire and other places And this not onely before but since the Justices at Appleby ordred the binding of such Disturbers to the Peace but alas what can bind them to Peaceablenesse whose Spirit is tumultuous or what can Law do when Conscience is seared and takes tumultuousnesse for a Duty Mr. Coale who was employed to preach abroad in this County where the most eminent necessity of this County lay viz. Where the Country was destitute of a Preacher hath had much experience of them and hath professed that long it was before he could have any peace or safety but the Lord stood by him Two or three of the ablest of them have dogg'd him from place to place and come severall times to his house with horrible railings And lately not many weeks since two or three at once in the open Street fell upon him with such horrid expressions as might shew to all the world the boyling of a most Hellish Rancour and with such fury that he was beholden to Friends to rescue him from them The next Lords Day three of these wanderers came into the Congregation at Kendall and called to him to come down belching forth such tearms of Baals Priests c. and Hellish reproaches as filled both the Congregation and streets after with Tumult The violence offered by some of this people in an open Auditory to one Master Crosby had proved little lesse then the losse of his life as himself hath affirmed openly if the Lord had not been on his side What was complotted against another Minister as he gathereth from a Letter sent him by one of that confederacy but a friend at that time as God so ordered it I cannot relate but the said Minister could not as he said conjecture lesse then some grosse abuse intended against him as he was discoursing with Fox had not one present prevented it Others have been desired by some friends to keep out of their way for they heard a mischief was intended them What Eye in these parts where this people live is not a witnesse of the tumults and uprores they make in Markets What ear hath
that the Guides of this Sect notwithstanding their faire pretensions of an immediate call and extraordinary Mission and the great Opinion their followers have conceived of them are not the servants of the Lord Jesus but in very deed the Emissaries and Ministers of Satan and that their way is not the good old way the way of God but as contrary to it as darknesse to the light I shall take some paines to acquaint my Reader 1. With the cursed Blasphemies which George Fox the Grand Master of this Faction and some others have uttered 2. With some of those Doctrines of Devils damnable Heresies and dangerous Errors which their speakers have disseminated and wherewith they have infected their unhappy Disciples 3. With the bitter and rotten fruits of their Doctrine such of their strange impious seditious suspicious insolent and Barbarous practices as have come to my knowledge some of which doe in the judgement of the most sober and intelligent Christians strongly savor of sorcery and the immediate co-operation of the Devill Of the horrid Blasphemies of the Quakers against God and his Christ. George Fox the Father of the Quakers of these parts hath avowed himselfe over and over to be equall with God being asked by Doctor Marshall in the presence of Master Sawro Colonell Tell and Colonell West Justices of the Peace in the County of Lancashire at a private Sessions in the Towne of Lancaster whether or no he was equall with God as he had before that time beene heard to affirme his answer was this I am equall with God This Blasphemy hath been attested upon Oath by the foresayd Doctor Marshall and Master Altam Schoolmaster of Lancaster before the Justices at the last Sessions held at Appleby Ianuary the 8. 1652. and before Judge Puleston at the last Assizes held at Lancaster March the 18. 1652. This Fox in a Booke intituled Sauls Errand to Damascus endeavours to purge himselfe of this and other such cursed speeches layd to his charge but he doth it so woodenly and ambiguously that if there wanted sufficient witnesses his owne bungling answers would to a rationall man declare him guilty And well may he affirme himselfe to be equall with God when he in the foresayd Booke Page eight Line nine and ten layes downe this blasphemous Proposition indefinitely Hee that hath the same Spirit that raised up Iesus Christ from the dead is equall with God The said Fox hath also avowed himselfe to be the Christ yea to be the way the Truth the life George Bickett Isaac Bourne witnesseth At the last Assises above-mentioned at Lancaster Mr. Sawro a Justice of the Peace in that County and an honest Gentleman told Judge Puleston in the open Court that he could produce many would witnesse that Fox had affirmed himselfe to be the Christ. The same also he said in the hearing of an honest Minister in Westmerland who will be ready to attest it when called to it This Fox hath also professed himselfe to be the Judge of the World George Bickett Adam Sands Nathaniel Atkinson witnesseth Yea the Eternall Judge of the World George Bickett witnesseth Iames Nailer another of Satans Nuntioes and principall spokesman in these parts affirmeth that he was as holy just and good as God himself This was I heare attested at Kendall by two witnesses There is a man of good Repute an Inhabitant of Underbarrow in the Barony of Kendall who sayeth many heard this Blasphemy besides himselfe but he thinks being all followers of this Nailer and Fox they will be unwilling to testifie it Iames Milner one of Foxes Disciples in the County of Lancashire professed himselfe to be God and Christ. Thomas Shaw Gerard Shaw George Inman witnesses This mans Advocate I mean that Pamphleteer that took the pains to put forth and procure the printing of that Book called Sauls Errant to Damascus or he that undertook to answer in his behalfe to Salve this his execrable Blasphemy and some wretched Prophesies which are already turned into lyes hath minted this miserable Excuse As for Iames Milner saith he though his mind did run out from his condition and from minding that Light of God which is in him whereby the world takes occasion to speak against the Truth and many Friends stumble at it yet there is a pure Seed in him It seems if a man be of their way though a Blasphemer and false Prophet by their own confession yet with them he is excusable One Williamsons Wife a Disciple of Milners when she came to see him at Appleby said in the hearing of divers there whose names might be here inserted if it was needfull that she was the Eternall Son of God And when the men that heard her told her that she was a woman and therefore could not be the Son of God She said no you are women but I am a man These last words I insert that the Reader may see how strongly the Spirits of some of these people are transported and how ready they are to affirm any thing how ever impious or absurd Of the Erroneous Opinions of the QUAKERS HItherto of their Blasphemies Now for the Doctrines which the Leaders of this Sect have avouched and taught and the Principles they have instilled into their credulous Adhaerents They are some of them Errours of the first Magnitude Fundamentall Errours Others of them though of a lesser size in their own nature yet the understanding Reader will censure them to be such as tend to the disturbance of the Civill Peace as well as that of the Church Others of them again are such light stuff as shewes them to be meer triflers in Religion I shall heare mention such of their Errours onely as I can bring sufficient proofe for either from those that have been Ear-witnesses and are well acquainted with their way or from their own printed Books which are owned and admired by their Disciples 1. They hold that the holy Scripture the Writings of the Prophets Evangelists and Apostles are not the word of God and that there is no written word of God But they say using a foolish distinction of their own coining that they are a declaration of the word onely in those that gave the faith 2. They hold their own speakings are a declaration of the word Christ in them thereby making them though they be for the most part full of impiety and non-sense to be of equall Authority with the holy Scriptures 3. They hold that no Exposition ought to be given of the holy Scripture and that all expounding of Scripture is an adding to it and that God will add to such a one all the plagues written in that Book Opening and applying the Scripture is one thing they mainly declaim against where ever they come 4. They teach poor people that whosoever takes a text of Scripture and makes a Sermon of or from it is a Conjurer and that his preaching is Conjuration Fox in his printed answer to this Sauls Errant Page 7. saith thus
some that pride idlenesse and fulnesse of bread the sins of Sodom are the fruits of their preaching They acuse them of being brought up at Oxford and Cambridge they say they know nothing but naturall Books and naturall things the Scripture Letter Hebrew and Greek which is all naturall That the ungodly unholy proud Priests add Professors must be scorned who know not the Power of the word Reader I coine or add no expression of mine own I repeate onely their own words which such Books and Papers of theirs as I can produce are full of They apply all that is spoken to Idolatrous ignorant idle prophane persecuting Priests and false Prophets either in the old or new Testament to the Ministers of England but we know that though one syllable or tittle of such abused Texts of Scripture doth not pertain to any godly faithfull Minister of the Gospell yet that very many of them do as properly belong to themselves as the Skin that is upon their flesh They exhort people not to heare them to cease from them and not to hold them up and tell them they will never be profited by them And indeed as soon as any man turnes their Proselite he becomes as pure a Recusant as any Papist in England And not content to raile against them in Prose they compose Songs or Ballads rather which their Disciples magnifie and look upon as Spirituall Songs that they may revile them in Meeter also One of their Speakers said not long since that the Priests had deluded the people this sixteen hundred yeares borrowing this peice of Divinity or Devility rather from the Almanack-maker Their Writings are full of Threatnings Prophesies against Ministers for which also they are beholding to the Astrologers They say the Lord is coming to beat up their Quarters the Son of Thunder is coming abroad to sound Trumpets to call to Battell against the great day of the Lord and there Kingdome must be taken from them and that their downfall is neer at hand Some of them have said they hope within a yeares time to see never a Minister left in England They exhort one another in the words of Coliier out of whose Pit they have drawn much of their black Religion to overturn overturn overturn Thus one Instrument of the Divell helps another Reader I do very believe that if these wicked men had power in their hands there would be no Toleration of any true Minister of Jesus Christ in England and that one of the first things they would endeavour would be if not to raise a tempest of Persecution by raining blood yet at least to raise and extripate the Sacred Callings I say Sacred calling of the Ministry being the Institution of Jesus Christ in his Church One principall reason why they do thus shew their teeth against Ministers I imagine to be this they look upon some of them as those that do mainly stand in their way as those that are able to detect their Errours to manifest their folly and unsheath the Sword of the Spirit the word of Truth against them They cannot for them so freely proceed in the propagation of their Delusions as they would Hence they are their greatest eye-sores Also if I may without offence speak what I think and partly know they presume to take this liberty to themselves because they are apt to conceive that Ministers are now almost friendlesse that Authority will not appeare for them and that they are the Object of the wrath of divers Soldiers in the Army whom they foolishly suppose to incline to their as to them unknown Sect. But I hope yea I am confident that when the Hypocrisie of these men shall be unmasked and their madnesse and iniquity which hath already begun in some places to lift up her head shall be better known and appeare they shall then proceed no further And that those Worthies that by divine Providence do or shall sit at the Stern to guide the Ship of the Common-wealth and the godly Officers of the Army will not onely disowne and detest but also manifest themselves to be Enemies to all their Impieties and Enormous Practises of this turbulent Faction But in the mean time while they are so injurious to the Soveraigne Majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ the Prince of the Kings of the Earth by their Hellish Blasphemies and eager opposition of the Truth well may they contemne and rage against such Earthen Vessels as are his Ministers here on Earth Of their Censoriousnesse Lying instability in their own Errours and enmity to Learning NEver did Hereticks speak greater swelling words of vanity and more exalt themselves and throw down others then those who are of that Synagogue do They commend themselves up to Heaven they give themselves the title of Saints they boast themselves to be equal to the Apostles to speak from the immediate Revelation of the Spirit impudently impiously affirming more of themselves then the true Apostles of Jesus ever did or durst do touching their freedome from sin and perfection in holinesse c. and threaten that they shall be the Judges of the World but they will readily censure all others to Hell tell them they are damned that they worship the Beast that they are possessed with the Divell yea with many Divels that the Divell speakes in them and that they see him in their eyes and faces c. This language of Divels indeed is as ordinary with them to dissenters from their way that oppose them as to talk with them Many of them will be as ready to say and unsay any thing as if lying was a Vertue They make no conscience of raising false Reports against those especially that do any way oppose them Witnesse that lying Pamphlet Sauls Errant to Damascus wherein there are a hundred untruths as may be proved by a hundred Witnesses It is the Testimony of a faithfull Minister of Christ concerning them Not in halfe an houres discourse saith he with most of those I have discoursed with but you shall finde plain and down-right lyes Some of them saith he have commed to my house and said they had a Message from God to me upon my speedy demanding it they have point blank almost in the same breathing time denyed it When some that have been in some measure able from the word of Truth to manifest their Errours have discoursed with those Wells without water though themselves have stood like men inwardly convicted and ashamed utterly unable to gain-say or darken those cleare Evidences of Scripture brought against them and sometimes totally silenced and as mute as Fishes Yet when these Champions of Errours have gone away they have boasted of their Conquests and how gloriously they had foiled and stopt the mouths of their Adversaries Thus wholly by Lyes Lying Doctrines lying Revelations lying Wonders lying Reports they do endeavour to build up the Kingdome of the Father of Lyes among us Their inconstancy to their own Errours is also very remarkable They
not heard heard of their open revilings which they principally fasten on them in whom most of God and sound Religion appears A man that professeth godlinesse especially a Minister that endeavors to be faithfull to Jesus Christ in the discharge of the duties incumbent on him cannot passe by them without their scorns Against such they grin and point at them with their fingers These and such like practises of this licentious people have filled the hearts of Gods People in these parts with exceeding fears to be driven after all their hopes to serve God in Corners and that they may die tho in the faith of the promise of Jerusalems peace yet without receiving it whilest the enemies of God roare in the midst of the Congregations So fast did their insolencies grow and their Numbers increase for a while that had they not been a little curbed by the imprisonment of Nayler and sending forth a warrant for the Apprehension of Fox for his blasphemies it is verily believed by many sober understanding men among us there would have been in a short time no peace or almost safety for any real Christian in Westmerland and some adjacent parts This was as some of the Justices expressed themselves at the Sessions Ianuary last one main reason of Naylers confinement namely that they were necessitated to it for the preservation of the publique peace and prevention of civil dissentions and such evils as might have ensued upon further connivance at these turbulene Impostors I shall conclude with the Judgements of two known learned and judicious men one of which is yet living and able to plead for the Truth and himself Master OWEN in his Discourse of Toleration hath this Passage Page 32. THere are saith he a sort of persons termed in Scripture disorderly vagabond wandring irregular persons 1. Thes. 5. 14. Acts 17. 5. 2 Thess. 3. 2. 1. Tim. 1. 9. Fixed to no Calling abiding in no place taking no care of their Families that under a pretence of teaching the Truth without Mission without Call without Warrant uncommanded undesired do goe up and down from place to place creeping into houses c. Now that such wayes as these and Persons in these wayes may judicially be inquired into I no way doubt The Storie is famous of Sesostris King of Egypt who made a Law that all the Subjects of his Kingdome should once a yeare give an account of their way and manner of living and if any was found to spend his time idly he was certainly punished And the Lawes of most Nations have provided that their people shall not be wanderers and whosoever hath not a place of abode and imployment is by them a punishable vagabond And in this by experience of the wayes walking and converse of such persons I am exceedingly confirmed I did as yet never observe any other issue upon such undertakers but scandal to Religion and trouble to men in their Civil relations when men by the practise of any vice or sin draw others to a pretended Religion or by pretence of Religion draw men to any vice or sinne let them be twice punished for their reall vices and pretended Religion Thus far Master Owen Master COTTON of New England touching the controversie of Libertie of Conscience in matters of Religion Page 7. layeth down this Position for Truth IF a man hold forth saith he or professe any Errour or false way with a boysterous and arrogant Spirit to the disturbance of civil Peace he may justly he punished according to the qualitie and measure of his disturbance caused by him and page 8. He saith the Scripture forbids not to drive ravenous Wolves from the sheep-fold and to restrain them from devouring the sheep of Christ and Page 9. He saith we acknowledge that none is to be punished for his Conscience though misinformed unlesse his Errour be fundamental and seditiously and turbulently promoted and further we acknowledge none ought to be constrained to believe or professe the true Religion till he be convinced in judgement of the Truth of it but yet restrained he may be from blaspheming the truth and from seducing any into pernicious Errors The End A BRIEF REPLY To some part Of a very scurrilous and lying Pamphlet CALLED Sauls errand TO DAMASCUS SHEWING The vanitie of the praises there attributed to the Sect of the Quakers and Falsitie of their Relations which are nought else but the breathings of a spirit of Malice Psal. 35. 20. They speak not Peace but devise deceitfull matters against them that are quiet in the Land LONDON Printed by T. R. for H. R. at the signe of the three Pigeons in Pauls Church-yard 1653. To the Reader THere is an unlicensed Pamphlet called Sauls errand to Damascus lately procured to be Printed wherein diverse Ministers of Westmerland and Lancashire are falsly aspersed and maliciously belied and traduced Had it not been for the clearing of their Innocency and the discovery of the falsities contained in that Book too apt in this credulous age to be believed as whatsoever is spoken against a Minister there had not been one word written in answer to it And for the rest of that Book that concerns us not I should be loath to betray my indiscretion so far as to attempt a full answer to such a heap of words or to trouble any judicious Reader with such fruitless contests Good Readers you have that Book by you or can think it worth your buying or perusal let me intreat you to read it with some observation of the Contents And if you be men whose inner man hath been indeed illuminated by the good spirit of the Lord and the knowledge of the Truth or whose reason hath been at all refined or polisht by learning or good education you will easily perceive by what they have to say for themselves that they are men whose knowledge is science falsly so called that these men are blind Leaders that while they pretend to be full of the Spirit full of Light and Revelations they are led a captive prey to the spirit of lies that spirit that workes in the children of disobedience that they walk in thick darkness that they go they know not whither and speak they know not what Something they would say to clear themselves of those blasphemies and cursed speeches they have been overheard to utter and have bin deposed upon oath against them both in Westmerland and Lancashire if they could tell how Flatly deny them they cannot they do not you wil even wonder to see how they bungle out an answer You wil admire at their impertinencies inconsistencies irrational insensate misty expressions as ambiguous sometimes as the devils oracles and stand amazed to see their impudence and how magistically they can revile censure to the pit of hel how boldly they dare avouch an error and offer a rape upon the holy Text wrest and misapply it and father their heretical absurd tenets assertions on it that in Print even
to the face of the world While they would defend themselves before you they bewray themselves and if you be intelligent Readers will stink in your nostrils Nor wil you need that any man should take the pains of any reply the book is big with folly madnes It is self-accused and carries its confutation with it Here is therfore notice taken chiefly of the calumnies charged upon some Ministers in Westmerland as to matter of fact lest they should triumph in our silence and the world look upon their relations as Truth to which you may expect an answer so true that if need be it may be attested on Oath by a multitude of witnesses A brief Reply to a very scurrilous and lying Pamphlet called Sauls Errand to Damascus shewing the Vanitie of the praises there given to the Sect of the Quakers and the falsitie of their Relations which are c. THe first Epistle in Souls errand to Damascus inscribed I suppose chiefly to that sort of the People whose irreligion and horrid impieties have been in the forner part of this Book sufficiently manifested intrudes to raise up your honour and procure a precious esteem for them among those that are Saints indeed and therefore tels them That the Lord Jesus Christ and Christ with all his Train and bids them glory in their habit and perswades them they wear the signal Favors of the King of Kings by which the Authour saith he knowes to whom they belong because they love the Brethren Reply REader we could wish that not one of that apostatized Generation but were such indeed that they all had that Genuine and reall glory upon their souls which this Enemy would varnish them over with to deceive those that know them not But alas how shall the most extended Charity that knowes them be perswaded to entertain such a high opinion of them If to hate the Truth as it is in Jesus to adulterate oppose it to worship the mentall Idols of their own imaginations If to cast off and deny all Christs Ordinances if zealously to maligne revile reproach taunt speak all manner of evil falsely against all the Ministers of his Gospel without exception and against the most honest godly spiritual Christians that live near them If this be to love Christ then may this people be thought to love the Lord Jesus indeed But if to live and delight in those Impieties be not love but reall hatred to Jesus Christ then may this people if any in the Christian World be justly reputed his professed Enemies We must confesse their love to those of their own society seems to be much and sometimes discovers it self too unhandsomely and uncivilly to give a vantage for a Spiritual and Saintlike love But be their affection eminent among themselves it is too palpably turned into the gall of bitternesse against all not of their principles so that the Authour of the Epistles to justifie his sayings must be forced to condemne all the Professors of Christ except his own Epileptick society as none of the Saints Brethren or Train of Jesus Christ. If any of those who dwell in the Bosome of the Son of God and by the flamings of their own souls in love to Christ and to his Saints do know the proper colours and operations of a divine affection can say there is any spark of what the Epistle pretends to of love to Christ and his Train in this Generation I must confesse our sight much lesse able to see it then our soul is ready to desire the Lord by his converting power would plant it in them In the second and third Epistles He again represents them as peaceable holy humble self denying men precious Christians such as have for some time past forborn to concorporate in parochiall Assemblies wherein they professe themselves to have gained little of the knowledge of Christ such as demean themselves without giving any offence to those that for God c. and after calls their meetings Christian and peaceable Exercises Reply THe Authour of those Epistles it seems thinks to gain advantage upon the Readers affections for this people by telling him what a well qualified people they are how pious how peaceable humble selfdenying How easie is it to call evil good and good evil We could wish from our souls they were all what is spoke of them and it is our prayer to the Lord for them that they may yet become such be cloathed with those Christian Graces and filled with these gifts of the Spirit which are Ornaments of great price before God But true it is the contrary is too manifest Their Blasphemies and hellish Errors their superstitions irreligion selfconceitednesse their uncharitablenesse censoriousnesse constant Sabbath-breaking living according to the Impulse of their own wils their professed Enmity to Christs Gospel the preaching of the Word and violent endeavours to overturn all Ordinances and wayes of Worship and invecctives against them their incomparable reproachings of the servants of the living God and turbulent behaviour more fully spoken to in the former Narrative do too openly declare them to the World to be quite opposite to what this man would represent them to be viz. to be Enemies to peace and piety and full of the worst kind of pride and arrogancy of that which is Spiritual If Lancashire produce a fairer crop and the pasture of theirs be different from ours if they be there better fed and taught then with us we are glad they are not so ill in any place as ours But we fear those of this society with them do fall under the same unanswerablenesse to the praise of these Epistles as these in Westmoreland do We speak of whom we know and do conclude that they are so unlike to prous and peaceable men that as it would be a mercy to some Congregations if they might waite upon the God of their fathers in peace so we have reason to solicite the Lord in our prayers that he would still continue to spread the skirt of the Magistrates protection and power over the Churches without which we must I a n to prepare for those times wherein the people shall perish for lack of vision and the Prophet shall say with Elijah It is enough Lord let me d e. For their forbearance to concorporate with parochial Congregations It is no commendation to them that they refuse to be hearers in such Assemblies where the Word of God is purely preached It is no sin to hear the Word in a mixt Congregation Christ himself preached most frequently to unconverted Multitudes nor had his Disciples learned from him to forbear to concorporate with them as far as came to the hearing of the Word among them He sent forth his Apostles with Commission to preach the Gospel to all Nations to every Creature and therefore it was the dutie of every Creature the worst of sinners as well as the best of Christians where ever they came to hear them It would rather have ben matter
of sinne and shame then praise for any Companion of the Apostle Paul when he preached on Mars hill in Athens to have denied to hear him preach there because his Auditors were Epicureans and Stoicks and all save Pauls Associats Idolaters But this is made use of onely for advantage by reason of that Odium that he knowes lies upon parochial Constitutions The whole Nation almost knowes that most of the Congregations in Lancashire are reduced to a narrower compasse then that of parochial And we are assured that Iames Nayler one of their Leaders deserted a gathered Congregation in Yorkeshire whereof he was and had continued a good while a Member And however they deny any benefit received by the publique Ministery yet we believe what ever reliques of sound knowledge are in any of them they owe them to it and for what imaginary knowledge or unsound Principles they have learned otherwise from their new Teachers cursed had our condition been if we had given these stones in stead of bread such poysonous deadly Scorpions in stead of fishes We must confesse the major part were never savingly wrought upon by the Gospel whereof we have the Ministration It was our great Masters case His combats in the time of his Ministery on earth were but few Acts 1. 15. The Apostles case sometimes when they preached the glad tidings of salvation by Iesus Christ to crowds of people some one or two onely believed their report and rejoyced in it And though it be our case yet it is our complaint to the Lord continually And as some godly persons have out of their own experience as far as they could discern professed the greatest part the generality of these of this way in Westmerland are of that Number viz. Such as have had no saving work of God upon their Spirits by the Ministery of his Word but such as have been ignorant of or erred from the Truth and whose Religion consisted in the praise of Opinion and floatings of their own fancies and who have been carried with great zeal and heat of spirit through all forms of Religion as some call them In so much that scarce a knowing Christian among us but could have easily pointed at those whom theseFoxes were like to deceive before they came and whose spirits would be ready to strike in with any principle might subvert the Truth of the Gospel In the mean time the seals of the Ministery of those that have been faithfull to Christ in their stewardship such Christians as have lookt in themselves stand still and are rooted faster then to be removed to another Gospel by the blasts of such delusions as have their descent written in their foreheads In the Title Page he compares the peaceable Petitioning of some Ministers in Lancashire to the Councel of State to Sauls errand of Damascus and a little after saith their Petition breaths out threatnings and slaughters against a peaceable and godly people by him nicknamed Quakers In the second and third Epistles also the Author hath divers insinuations of charges against some Gentlemen and Ministers in Lancashire as that they make none but the Lords Disciples the object of their indignation That they never did proclaim war against drunkards swearers common blasphemers enemies to the Lord and his people That their high-flown contending spirits are gone beyond slender wrestlings and they scorn to encounter with any below the degree of a Saint Other wickednesses he point blanck layes to your charge as that those sons of Levi as he saith they call themselves pretend a jus Divinum to persecution That they troubled the Councel of State with abominable misrepresentations of honest pious peaceable men That the Quakers have been more faithful to the interest of the godly people in this Nation then any of the contrivers of the Petition That they exalt themselves above all that are called Gods People in these parts Reply I Wonder much at the Spirits of these men and what eyes they see withall They would make the world beleive they can espy the Spirit of Saul while he was unconverted in the breasts of others comminations and persecution blood and slaughter where they can see nothing but Christian Modesty and the words of Truth and Sobriety Surely blood and slaughter are the Objects of their Meditation by day and their dreams in the night are dreams of cruelty Otherwise the humble innocent sober Petitions of Christians jealous for the Glory of God and the welfare of his Church and studious to prevent the enemy from making such havock of Souls as he hath done of late in some parts would not so presently put them in mind of them And where he saith in this your Petition they troubled the Councell of State with abominable misrepresentations c. It is it self an abominable untruth and I do verily beleive that Epistoler Conscience tels him so There was indeed such a Petition prepared and intended to be presented to the Councel of State but as I am certainly informed it never was presented to them Nor did that Petition contain the least tittle of any misrepresentation but a brief and true relation of some of your Abominations which are too famously and evidently known to the whole Countrie to be denied O the impudency of that lying spirit that hath entred into this generation of men To all the other false and railing accusations of this man brought against I do verily believe for some of them the faithfull Ministers and servants of Jesus Christ I shall onely answer as Michael to the Devil The Lord rebuke thee I could have rather desired that some of these Ministers in Lancashire would have answered this Calumniator and made him ashamed of his falsities Some of them are known to us and we are confident are as clear from all those charges as the new born child and such as according to that precept Isay 51. 7. Fear not the reproach of man nor are affraid of their revilings If the Author of theseEpistles prefixt to Sauls errand c. lives in Lancashire as it is supposed he doth he cannot but know that there is more real worth Truth of Godlinesse Christian simplicity and white Innocency in some of them then in 160. such Foxes as now spoil the vineyards He might have considered whose work it is to accuse the Brethren and who hath from thence deserved the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Me thinks he manifests himself to be of that Generation Prov. 30 14. Whose teeth are swords and whose jaw teeth are knives to devour the poor from off the earth and the needy from among men While his words are smoother then butter and softer then oyle to those of his way war is in his heart against others and his words are drawn swords and the breathings of a spirit possest with malice The Apostle describing the men that shall make the last times perillous saith among other Characters of them they shall be false accusers fierce dispisers of those that are
not hither to create offences but if any break the Law let him suffer by the Law for he perceived they intended violence as it appeared afterward But seeing they could not prevail in that another of them desired him to go into the Church as he called it tempting him saying The people may all sit and hear better But James perceiving their deceit said All places were alike to him he would abide in the field Whereupon they pulled out an Ordinance of Parliament forbidding any to speak but such as were authorized to speak either in Church or Chappel or any publike place and bad him speak at his perill as he would answer the contempt of it To which he answered saying This is not a publike place No said one of the Priests Is not this a publick place the Town-field and charged the Constable of the town to do his office and examined his authority James answered Those that are sent to declare the things of God have not their authoritie from men But they bad him prove that He said Paul received not his Commission from man nor by man To which one of them answered That was his Gospel but they would prove that Paul had a call from man to preach and for that end he named that place in Acts 13. 2. where the Holy Ghost said Separate me Barnabas and Saul and the Apostles laid their hands upon them which said one of them was the laying on of hands of the Presbytery But when he had found that place Iames asked him if that was Pauls calâ— to the Ministery three times but he answered nothing Then said James If that was his call he had preached long without a call before that and instanced to prove it Gal. 1. Whereupon that businesse ended But another Priest stood up and said Thou oughtest to give an account of thy Faith to every one that asketh whereupon he asked divers questions whereunto James answered insomuch that some who stood by cried out Answer not all but ask him some A while after James asked him how he would prove himself a Minister of the Gospel and live upon Tythes To which he would not answer Then said Iames Neither will I answer thee if thou aske me twenty more The next question he asked was Whether Christ was ascended or no but Iames said I will not answer thee Whereupon he cried out to the people and said He denies the humanity of Christ and made a great out-cry among the people of it but he people cried out saying Let us hear him you have often told us many things against him let him speake and then if he speak not the Truth you may then reprove him Iames hearing the desire of the people began to speak and the people gave audience and were very silent But beginning to hold out Christ alone to be the Teacher of his people in spirit and Truth one of the Priests cried out I cannot endure to hear this Seducer any longer Vpon which Iames said Prove me a Seducer before all this people or else thou art a false Accuser But he had not one word to say against any thing that he had spoken But said If thou wilt not answer me that question I asked thee I will call thee a Seducer as long as I live Whereupon seeing there could be no peace there nor libertie to speak they desired Iames to go into the house and they kept close about him to keep him from the violence of some that came along with the Priest but they raged so that he and some other friend received stripes and with much ado got into the house But the râ—ging Sâ—a mires waited about the dore to do mischief and kept shouting about the house 〈◊〉 the while he was speaking but the house being filled with People they could not come to their purpose and he Lord so ordered it in the Evening we came away without any more harm but not long after there came some of the Priests party about the house and asked if Nayler was gone and when they heard he was gone they said He may thanke God of that Thus by the wisdome of God he escaped their violence at that time But the Priests missing of their purpose there the next first day after they prepared their Sermons sutable to what they intended possessing the people that he was a Blasphemer and denyed he Resurrection and the Humanity of Christ and all Authoritie and that the Parliament had opened a gap for Blasphemy and as it was said by some of their hearers they did God good service that would knock him down Thus having stirred up the ruder sort the next day they prevailed with 〈◊〉 called a Justice of Peace the Priests son got him to come twelve miles from his own house he was one that had been in actual arms against the Parliament for the bringing in of the Scots and having armed a a great multitude against the next morning they came very early to the house where he was where many Christian friends should have met that day and asked for Nayler threatning to knock out his brains against the stones in the wall and that they would pull down the house if he would not come out though the dorewas never shut against them But some of them come into the house and commanded him to come forth under pretence to dispute with the Priest But James seeing what they intended answered You did not use me socivilly the last time I was amongst you but if any have a mind they may come in the doores are open Which answer they told the Priests whereupon they rushed violently in and took him by the throat haled him out of the dore into a field where was a man whom they called a Justice and with a Pitchfork struck off his hat commanded him to answer to such Questions as the Priests would ask him Whereupon the Priest began to ask many Questions as concerning the Resurrection the Humanitie of Christ the Scriptures and divers other Questions as the Sacrament and such like to which he answered and proved Scripture But at last being asked if Christ was in him he said he witnessed him in measure The Priest asked if Christ was in him as man James said Christ is not divided But he urged him to tell whether Christ as man was in him or no. He answered Christ is not divided for if he be he is no more Christ but I witnesse that Christ in me who is God and man in measure But the Priest said Christ is in heaven with a carnal body To which said James Christ filleth Heaven and Earth and is not carnal but spiritual for if Christ be in Heaven with a carnal body and the Saints with a spiritual body that is not proportionable neither was that a carnal body which came in among the Disciples the doors being shut for Christ is a Mystery and thou knowest him not Then after much jangling and tempting the Priest not having got