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Page 26
We fight neither for revenge nor conquest; neither from pride nor
passion; we are not insulting the world with our fleets and armies, nor
ravaging the globe for plunder. Beneath the shade of our own vines are
we attacked; in our own houses, and on our own lands, is the violence
committed against us. We view our enemies in the character of Highwaymen
and Housebreakers, and having no defence for ourselves in the civil law,
are obliged to punish them by the military one, and apply the sword,
in the very case, where you have before now, applied the halter--
Perhaps we feel for the ruined and insulted sufferers in all and every
part of the continent, with a degree of tenderness which hath not yet
made its way into some of your bosoms. But be ye sure that ye mistake not
the cause and ground of your Testimony. Call not coldness of soul, religion;
nor put the BIGOT in the place of the CHRISTIAN.
O ye partial ministers of your own acknowledged principles. If the
bearing arms be sinful, the first going to war must be more so,
by all the difference between wilful attack, and unavoidable defence.
Wherefore, if ye really preach from conscience, and mean not to make
a political hobbyhorse of your religion convince the world thereof,
by proclaiming your doctrine to our enemies, FOR THEY LIKEWISE BEAR _ARMS_.
Give us proof of your sincerity by publishing it at St. James's,
to the commanders in chief at Boston, to the Admirals and Captains
who are piratically ravaging our coasts, and to all the murdering
miscreants who are acting in authority under HIM whom ye profess to serve.
Had ye the honest soul of BARCLAY ye would preach repentance to YOUR king;
Ye would tell the Royal Wretch his sins, and warn him of eternal ruin.
["Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is
to be banished thy native country, to be over-ruled as well as to rule,
and set upon the throne; and being oppressed thou hast reason to know
how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man: If after all these warnings
and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart,
but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thyself
to fallow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation.--
Against which snare, as well as the temptation of those who may
or do feed thee, and prompt thee to evil, the most excellent and prevalent
remedy will be, to apply thyself to that light of Christ which shineth
in thy conscience, and which neither can, nor will flatter thee,
nor suffer thee to be at ease in thy sins."--Barclay's address to Charles II.]
Ye would not spend your partial invectives against the injured
and the insulted only, but, like faithful ministers, would cry aloud
and SPARE NONE. Say not that ye are persecuted, neither endeavour to make
us the authors of that reproach, which, ye are bringing upon yourselves;
for we testify unto all men, that we do not complain against you because
ye are Quakers, but because ye pretend to be and are NOT Quakers.
Alas! it seems by the particular tendency of some part of your testimony,
and other parts of your conduct, as if, all sin was reduced to,
and comprehended in, THE ACT OF BEARING ARMS, and that by the people only.
Ye appear to us, to have mistaken party for conscience; because,
the general tenor of your actions wants uniformity--And it is exceedingly
difficult to us to give credit to many of your pretended scruples;
because, we see them made by the same men, who, in the very instant
that they are exclaiming against the mammon of this world, are nevertheless,
hunting after it with a step as steady as Time, and an appetite as keen
as Death.
The quotation which ye have made from Proverbs, in the third page
of your testimony, that, "when a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh
even his enemies to be at peace with him"; is very unwisely chosen
on your part; because, it amounts to a proof, that the king's ways
(whom ye are desirous of supporting) do NOT please the Lord, otherwise,
his reign would be in peace.
I now proceed to the latter part of your testimony, and that, for which
all the foregoing seems only an introduction viz.
"It hath ever been our judgment and principle, since we were called to
profess the light of Christ Jesus, manifested in our consciences unto
this day, that the setting up and putting down kings and governments,
is God's peculiar prerogative; for causes best known to himself:
And that it is not our business to have any hand or contrivance therein;
nor to be busy bodies above our station, much less to plot and contrive
the ruin, or overturn of any of them, but to pray for the king, and safety
of our nation, and good of all men--That we may live a peaceable and
quiet life, in all godliness and honesty; UNDER THE GOVERNMENT WHICH GOD
IS PLEASED TO SET OVER US"--If these are REALLY your principles why
do ye not abide by them? Why do ye not leave that, which ye call
God's Work, to be managed by himself? These very principles instruct
you to wait with patience and humility, for the event of all public measures,
and to receive that event as the divine will towards you. Wherefore,
what occasion is there for your POLITICAL TESTIMONY if you fully believe
what it contains? And the very publishing it proves, that either,
ye do not believe what ye profess, or have not virtue enough to practise
what ye believe.
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