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 made 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 for 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 ſo 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 you not abide by them? Why do you 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.
The principles of Quakeriſm have a direct tendency, to make a man the quiet and inoffenſive ſubject of any and every government which is ſet over him. And if the ſetting up and putting down of Kings and governments is
