We do aver, and can make it appear, that there is no one party more quiet, subject, industrious, and, in the bottom of their very souls, greater lovers of the good old English government, and prosperity of these kingdoms among the comprehended, than, for aught we yet see, may be found among those who are like to be unkindly excluded. However, if such we were in any one point, cure rather than kill us; and seek the public good some cheaper way than by our destruction. Is there no expedient to prevent ruin? Let reason qualify zeal, and conscience opinion.

To conclude. If the public may be secured, and conscience freely exercised by some, for the same reasons it may by all. And since liberty of conscience is liberty of conscience, and the reasons for it equivalent, we see not in the whole world why any should be deprived of that, which others for no better reasons are like to enjoy.

Let it not then be unworthy of such to remember, that God affords his refreshing sun to all; the dunghill is no more excepted than the most delightful plain; and his “rain falls alike both upon the just and unjust:" he strips not mankind of what suits their creaturely preservation: Christians themselves have no more peculiar privilege in the natural benefits of heaven, than Turks or Indians. Would it not then be strange, that infidels themselves, much less any sort of Christians, should be deprived of natural privileges for mere opinion, by those who pretend to be the best servants of that God, who shows them quite another example, by the universality of his goodness as Creator; and believers in that Christ, who himself preached the perfection of love, both to friends and enemies, and laid down his life to confirm it when he had done. If men should love their enemies, doubtless they ought at least to forbear their friends : and though some differences in judgment about religion be a sufficient reason to excommunicate a man the air ecclesiastical, yet nothing certainly of that sort ought to disprivilege men of their air natural and civil to breathe freely in and let that good our superiors have observed to be the fruit of our toleration, not be weakened or blasted, by an untimely comprehension of some, to the exclusion of the rest; since the reason holds the same for the less formidable separatists, that may not be however any whit less conscientious.

:

We will omit to mention, how much more suitable it were to state-matters, that all parties should be kept upon an equal poize; a thing most true in itself, and most secure to the public magistrate; and will conclude at this time, that though we no ways design a misrepresenting of any, much less their exception, and least of all their persecution;

yet a comprehension, either respecting the persons and their qualifications, or their separation, and the grounds and reasons of it, we seriously believe, can never be consistent with that conscience, honour, wisdom, and safety, that ought to be the mark those who are concerned in it should take their aim by. But if a comprehension should at last be compassed, it is not doubted by many wise men, but it will be found as impracticable as other acts more seemingly severe have been, and at last will necessitate to that wellordered universal toleration of all, who both profess and practise peace, obedience, industry, and good life; which will best please Almighty God, and rejoice the hearts of all good men.

From real friends,

to King and Country.

A

LETTER

TO THE

COUNCIL AND SENATE

OF THE

CITY OF EMBDEN.

Published in the Year 1674.

The King of kings, and Lord of lords, who is God of all the families of the earth, incline your hearts to justice, mercy, and truth.

THE noise of your severe treatment of several persons that are inhabitants of your state, reproachfully termed Quakers, hath reached these parts, and filled several with compassion and surprize: compassion, to hear of the miseries of men innocent and upright, against whom you have nothing to object, but the pure exercise of their conscience to God:* surprize, that you, a protestant state, should employ your civil power to deter, punish, and grievously afflict men for answering the convictions of their consciences, and acting according to the best of their understandings. Methinks you should not be oblivious of your own condition in the loins of your ancestors, who, you think, with great reason and justice strenuously advocated the cause of liberty of conscience against the pope's bulls and the Spanish inquisition: how did they antichristian all force on conscience or punishment for non-conformity? Their own many and large apologies, and particularly their demands at the diets of Norimberg and Spire, are pregnant proofs in the case; and your practice doth not lessen the weight of their reasons; on the contrary, it aggravates your unkindness, let me say, injustice.

Protestants (and such you glory to be thought) got their name by protesting against impositions; and will you turn

Our account says, some were cruelly beaten by order; others banished; some put in a dungeon, and fed with bread and water only; several fined greater sums of money, it is thought, than they had to pay.

imposers? They condemned it; and will you practise it? They thought it a mark peculiar to the beast; and can you repute it the care of a Christian magistracy? I mean, that persons must not live under your government, unless they receive your mark in their forehead or right hand? Which in plainer terms is, to submit their consciences to your edicts, and to ask your leave what religion they should be of. Remember, that "Faith is the gift of God;" and, that "what is not of faith is sin." Nothing can be more unreasonable, than to compel men to believe against their belief, or to trouble them for practising what they believe, when it thwarts not the moral law of God.

You doubtless take yourselves to be Christians, and would esteem it no little injury to be otherwise represented; yet what more unchristian, than to use external force to sway the consciences of men about the exercise of religious worship.

Christ Jesus, the Lord and Author of the Christian religion, censured his own disciples, that would have had fire from heaven to destroy those that conformed not to what their blessed Master taught. Are you sure of your religion? Are you better Christians? Or, have you more Christian authority than they, that were the chosen witnesses of Jesus? However, remember they called but for fire from heaven; and can you kindle fire on earth to devour them? Them, I say, that are of your own people, merely for their religious dissent from you? Doubtless, if that was then thought no fit argument to induce men to conformity by him that was wiser than Solomon, it reflects greatly upon your modesty and prudence, that you should find out new ways, or rather old exploded ones, to effect so ill a design. Besides, you do not say you know all you ought to know, or that there is nothing farther to be revealed: have a care, therefore, that you persecute not angels, by being harsh to that which you call strange: think not ill, much less speak, and least of all act that which is so, against what you do not perfectly understand. I am well persuaded, that those you inflict such severe penalties upon, mean well in what they believe (to be sure much better than you think they do, or else you are extremely to blame); and that the reason of their present distance from you, is not to introduce or insinuate dangerous or exotic opinions; but to live a life of more holiness, purity, and self-denial, than before. They do not think that you walk up to your own principles; and have reason to believe that the power of godliness is much lost among you; and having long lain under a decay and languishing of soul for want of true spiritual nourishment, they have now betaken themselves to that heavenly gift and

grace of God in themselves for divine satisfaction, even that holy anointing that is able to teach them all things neces sary for them to know, as the blessed apostle speaks; and they find the joys of the Holy Ghost in so doing. And I am persuaded they are not less peaceable, sober, just, and neighbourly than formerly, and altogether as consistent with the prosperity of civil society; and I am sure, it is both found and confessed among us here, by some men of quality, learning, and virtue. Farther, be pleased to consider with yourselves, that you justify the ancient persecutions of the Christians and first reformers, whose superiors thought as ill of them, as you do of these men; nay, you show the Pa pists what to do in their dominions to your own brethren. Do as you would be done by. If you would have liberty, give it; you know that God's witness in your hearts dictates this to you, as an immutable law.

:

Could you give faith, it were more excusable for you to punish such as should resist. But since that is impossible, the other is unreasonable; for it is to afflict men for not being what they cannot be, unless they turn hypocrites: that is the highest pitch your coercive power can arrive at; for never did it convert or preserve one soul to God: instead thereof it offers violence unto conscience, and puts a man either upon the denial of his faith and reason, or being destroyed for acting according to them but what greater disproportion can there be, than what lieth between the intellect of man, and prisons, fines, and banishments? They inform no man's judgment, resolve no doubts, convince no understandings: the power of persuasion is not to be found in any such barbarous actions, no more than the doctrine of Christianity. This course destroys the bodies and estates of men,* instead of saving their souls: were they in the wrong, it would become you to use God's weapons, his sword of the spirit, that saveth the creature, and slayeth the evil in him. This course tends to heart-burnings and destruction; I am sure it is no gospel argument.

I beseech you, for the sake of that Lord Jesus Christ that suffered so patiently for his own religion, and so sharply prohibited making other men to suffer for theirs, that you would have a care how you exercise power over men's consciences. My friends, conscience is God's throne in man, and the power of it his prerogative: it is to usurp his authority, and boldly ascend his throne, to sit lords over it. Were their conversation scandalous, and destructive to the good of your state, you were to be held excusable but verily, no man of mercy and conscience can defend your * And property, which they repute themselves guardians of, is hereby lost,