Incharity

INCHARITY

1st. I Think it good to remind them of an excellent Definition of a true Christianity, as set firth by Mr. Baxter in his Sheet against the Quakers, wherein, after an ample Relation of the incharitable Disposure of divers other such besides theirs. he truly tells his Reader, The Man that wilt stand safe, and look in the Folly and Misery of all those Sects with Prudence to his own Advantage, must be a sincere Catholick Christian, saved from Infidelity and Impiety, having one God, one Mediator between God and Man, and one holy Spirit being a Member of one Catholic Church, which is not confin'd to the Sect of the Papists, of Anabaptists, or any Sect, but containeth all the true Christians in the World; though some part of it be refin'd and pure, and others more deform'd and corrupt. Having one Catholic Rule, the Word of God, and a Catholic Love to all Christians in the World, with a care and desire of their Welfare, proportionable to their several degrees of Loveliness. With more to this purpose.

{Page 24} All which, if allowed a true definition of a true Christian1, (as none such will deny it to be) then must our depraved Quakers be very false ones, in confining the Love and Favour of God to their own Sect, under pretence, of all others being Infidels, as they have done in what follows.

For not to insist on their most uncharitable Conclusion, that all they who receive or pay Tythes, deny Christ the true Light, and are out of the Covenant, &c.

If it be the effect of Incharity, not only to renounce all other Protestant Professors as Infidels, by forbidding their Proselytes to marry with any besides their own Sect as such, but also by proclaiming themselves the peculiar People of God, and his whole Heritage, &c. under pretence, that as God is only known among them, none else are in the Truth but the Quakers, all other Churches and Sects, by what Name soever known in the World, being of the Seed of the great Whore< with much more to this purpose.

Then those our depraved Quakers having so affirmed in those several Books instanc'd in the Margin, amongst many others, as undeniable Evidences of their Incharity in the highest Sense. in {Page 25} proof of this my Charge against them, it need be the less surprize to them to be found not over Innocent towards their own distressed Friends in one far inferiour; in pursuance whereof,

As it hath been frequent with their Brotherhood to Excommunicate on very slight Occasions such as grow Poor amongst them, to save the Charge of their Maintenance, as Thomas Pell and Widow Lee, of the Town of Swineshead in our Parts, lately found by Experience; though the Parents of the latter, in a manner, ruin'd themselves by relieving them and their Preachers, who flocked to their House from all Parts, whilst ought was in it to be had for them; for which Cause their Neighbours chain'd their Excommunication to the Whipping-Post, as the only fit Place for it. So not to insist on their Incharity toward their poor oppressed Friend Ann Steed of London, together with those several distress'd ones Francis Bugg reminds them of in his Pilgrim's Progress, &c. from whom they withdrew their Alms, on account of their Uncircumspection to their Thou and Thee, with their other Formalities.

The Case of their abused Friend George Begardner, formerly of the same City, is next to be notified, being set forth in his Quaker's Hypocrisy detected, wherein, after he hath given the World and account how he was outwardly ruined by the loss of his Employment, through his using their plain Language and manner of Carriage, whereby Poverty came so upon him, as that he wanted convenient Food to maintain his Health, through which he fell Sick and Lame together; in which deplorable State, though one of them relieved him a while according to his Necessity, they were so displeas'd with him, as that they not only judg'd and condemn'd his Reliever, but also sorely snub'd and grudg'd him as one that was like to be a Charge to them, which he not being able to bear in his great Misery. forced himself abroad before he was able to go, whereby he brought himself so low, as that he was constrained to lie by it {Page 26} again; upon which, though he disown'd them in a Sense of their causeless Cruelty towards him, yet as they had not publickly renounced him according to their Church Discipline, they judg'd it convenient that some Person should stay all Night with him, with one Abigail Chapman as his Nurse; but as the Chyrurgiion they sent to him gave them to understand, he was never like to be cured, they soon grew weary of relieving him; whereupon he sending for a Merchant of his Acquaintance, who had both Skill and Will to help the Poor, they soon laid hold of that as an opportunity to leave him wholly, saying, Seeing he had left their Chyrurgion, and rejected their Nurse and Maintenance, (which he had found insufficient) they would disown him, as they did accordingly to his utter Ruin; by which he found the Mercies of those his pretended Friends no better than Cruelties towards him, as many others have also done besides. In further proof whereof,

The Case of their most notoriously abused Friend, Thomas Boyse of London, comes next under Consideration, for whose sincere Dealings with them, for their great Depravity, they first ruined him, as to the Things of this World, and then (instead of relieving him according to his Necessity) endeavoured to undo his Soul in the other, by forcing him against his Conscience, to a slavish Conformity to their Corruptions, as appears by his own Relation, in a certain Treatise of the Quaker Wickedness, printed October 2, Anno 1676. with the Allowance of Sir Roger L'Estrange, entitled, An Answer to their barbarous Dealings towards Thomas Boyle; concerning whom the said Treatise tells us, That he at length finding our Leading Men, &c. acting contrary to their declared Principle, was made willing in the Spirit of Meekness and Righteousness, to tell them of their Errors, Backslidings and Hypocrisy; wherein, instead of hearkening to him, in order to their Reformation, they fell foul upon him by way {Page 27} of Threatening with great and terrible Words, which caused a trouble upon his Mind. Some time after which, in or about the Month of June 1673, he being suddenly taken in a strange manner, to the Amazement of several Hundreds of Quakers who saw him, some of them thereupon most falsly and unjustly cry'd out Deceit; whilst others affirmed, he was made a Publick Sign for his Wickedness; after which time, his Speech being taken from him (as a Sign I am perswaded of the Silence of the Lord will shortly bring their Preachers to, as hath been foretold them) he continued Dumb for about the space of three and thirty Weeks; in five whereof he eat no Food at all, only drank Water; in which distress'd State, these his pretended Quaker Friends, instead of administering to his Comfort, were not wanting to add Affliction to this their afflicted Friend, by falsly suggesting, That he could not only Speak, but Work also if he list, only dissembled, by himself Dumb and Lazy; whereas in truth, the said Thomas Boyse. could neither Speak nor Work at all, (as by the Testimony of two Persons chosen to judge between him and the Quakers, with others of his Neighbours, appeared) whereupon they not only refused to employ him in his Trade of a Taylor, upon his Recovery, which lay wholly amongst them; but by their Lies, false Accusations and Slanders (dispers'd) among all that knew him) perswaded and hardned other against him, not to let him have any Work neither, thereby endeavouring as much as in them lay, to starve him and his Family; which so far took effect, as that he was at the Writing of this Treatise reduc'd to extream Poverty, who before did help to relieve them; in which distressed State, (though three Quakers hypocritically offered to allow him Sustenance, on a Condition he could not in Conscience and Honesty consent to, without being, as he declared, undone for ever) they, instead of relieving him, not only fall on to call him Knave, Traitor, Judas, &c. but also took him by the Legs, and {Page 28} dragg'd him down the Stairs, with his Head on the Ground, towards the Street, to expose him to the Insolence of the Boys; in order where to, they gave out,he was Drunk, pretending to fetch a Constable to take him away; whilst they had not so much as to give him a little Water to wash off the Blood they had drawn of him. After which he coming to their Houses, as well as Private and Publick Meetings, to know what was the Deceit and Wickedness they accused him of; they, instead of giving him Satisfaction as they were in Duty obliged, first published a Paper against him, wherein they charged him with causlesly disturbing them, (with other false and scandalous Imputations) and then laid their violent Hands on him again, some taking him by the Throat, others thrusting their Elbows on his Breast, others punching his Belly and Stomach, whilst they had like to have taken away his Breath, instead of doing him Justice in Private or Publick for the Wrongs he had received from them; yet none like them for Christian Charity, Tenderness, Meekness, Forbearance, and suffering all Things, without offering to lift up an Hand against or hurt any Man, if you will but believe them; though none in the World, I'm perswaded, are so Uncharitable and implacably cruel as they be to their very best Friends, if they do but once tell them of their Hypocrisy, &c. as appears by their Treatment of this their oppressed Friend Thomas Boyse, as well as what follows in the Case of that truly honourable Elder. and worthy Christian Monitor, James Jackson in Pav'd Ally in St. John's Street, London, as published by himself in way of Answer to their Paper of Excommunication against him, in a certain Treatise he printed, Anno 1708. entitled, An Appeal to County Friends at this General Meeting, &c. wherein he tells us,

How they first Excommunicated him, and then withdrew, that Support they used to allow him, only for adhering to the Word of God through his inspired Prophet; complaining, That though {Page 29} he was in the 72d Year of his Age, he was not only cut off from the Unity of the Quakers, for the Testimony of Jesus, and faithful adherence to the Word of God, through his inspired Servants, but that they had also for that Cause intirely, withdrawn all manner of their former Succour, Supply and bodily Maintenance from him in his necessitous, dark, decayed, old Age. Neither doth their merciless Severity yet cease, says he, but they stigmatize me as an Impostor, because I truly acknowledge the Goodness of God, in miraculously restoring Strength to my bodily Eyes, by Faith in God's Power, at the effectual and fervent Prayer of his Servant John Lacey, Esq; so as I can write better without Spectacles, than I could two or three Years ago with them; with much more to this purpose, as a further Evidence of their Incharitable Disposure, through which as many sincere Souls amongst us (who had their Dependance on their Supportment) have deeply suffered. 'Tis no wonder that some of the most Conscientious of our Society should find themselves concern'd to expose their Depravity in this Respect, as a Warning to others of their great Declension from that Christian Purity they at first pretended, in order to their Amendment; in proof whereof I refer my Reader to the printed Complaint of a certain nameless Quaker in London, in a Treatise he directed to Friends in and about that great and populous City, dated 13. 11 Month, 1701.

Wherein, after he has given them a melancholy Account of the inexpressible Hardship some of their Brethren went under therein, for want of necessary Relief: He in p. 17. in a sorrowful Sense thereof addresses his Discourse to the Richest amongst them, saying, Pray what remarkable great Things have been done by divers outwardly wealthy rich Friends, whom the Lord hath raised up from a mean Estate? Querying p. 19. How is it that some publick Friends can be so very free, and outwardly laborious in publick Meetings, in throwing off the Spiritual {Page 30} Portion of Bread on the People2; and on the other hand, so sparingly liberal in the distribution of their Temporal Riches upon the sore strained amongst the Lord's People? Page 20. Insomuch as the Charge and Burthen of the Poor, for the generality, lieth most upon Friends of mean and indifferent outward Circumstance; from whence he has heard some say, they scarce ly deserve the Name of Friends. Which is still short of that Incharity he in p. 23. justly charges them as guilty of, in both a Temporal and Spiritual Sense, toward those who through their Prodigality,become Objects of their Compassion, to whom they are so far from administring to their Comfort in either respect at their return to them, (according to our Lord's Precedent in Luke xv, &c.) as that hesays, they are sent away with a Cast of their former Extravagances in their Teeth.

Not to report those Instances of their Incharity most justly exposed in the Snake in the Grass, Bugg's Pilgrim's Progress, Rogers's Quaker divided, and Rich's Epistle to the Quakers, &c. beyond their Ability to defend themselves, in their mean Essays for that purpose.

The next Complaint of this Nature I must remind them of, was made by our truly worthy and ancient Friend Jone Whitrom, in a printed Sheet she in Anno. 1701 gave away to their Brotherhood {Page 31} at their Publick Meetings in London, after George Whitehead had refused the Permission of its reading in their Men and Womens Meetings in Manuscript, when she presented it to his Hand by John Edge for that purpose; in which printed Sheet she directs herself to them as follows:

To all you that are highest in Profession, prepare to meet the Lord, who is come, and coming to try all your sandy Foundations, and will discover your secret Parts, who have pretended many Years to keep Things clean. and yet the Stink of your Works is gone up before the Lord, and the Cries if the Oppressed among you have entred into his Ears. You cruel and merciless People, who have Eyes and see not, Ears and hear not, Hearts but do not understand to do your Duty towards the Poor, to them that are in Fellowship with you; you hate the Poor, because they are poor; you proud People, from whence came you? Was not Adam your Father, and Eve your Mother? And look back back from your last Original; Were George Fox, Francis Howgil and Edward Burroe's Rich Men when they first came amongst you? As poor as whom you had been, had you not gone a Whoring from the Lord after your own Inventions. Ye presumptuous Ones, who are become Despisers of them which the everlasting Blessing is to; and dare you come to visit such in their sore and grievous Sickness, in your proud, lofty, domineering Spirit, with hard Speeches and bitter Words, by way of Examination and Judging, to add Affliction to the Afflicted, to sink the Spirits of the Helpless, and so instead of fulfilling the Law of Christ in helping to bear their Burthens, you make them heavier than before, and then give them a Bit with so many Knocks, that the Bit you give them (which doth not one half supply their Necessities) is so full of your gravelly Spirits, that it is hard for them to get it down. You that hoard up Thousands upon Thousands, is this your Self-denial and bearing the Cross if Christ? Ye Worldings, what Fruit do ye bring forth, that you should stile {Page 32} yourselves Saints above all others? Had you ben Faithful, you would not have wanted Wisdom nor Power to dispose of your Lord's Money, which now you must be call'd to an Account for your unjust Disposal of, giving to some that have no need, and letting them want that are ready to perish; as one of your Oveerseers told me in her dying Chamber, (when she sent for me to ask Forgiveness for all the Wrongs she had dome me, and desired my Prayers to the Lord for her.) And you being asked, Why you did so? Your Answer was, You must give them to keep them under you: Wherefore, though you are a People that are preaching up Perfection, and crying up Truth, Truth, it's no more than what the Jews did, crying, The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord; whereas, the Temple of the Lord was throughly to amend their Ways, and not to set up the Traditions of Men for the Commandments of god, as you do; therefore repent and do your first Works, or else Gid will remove your Candlestick3, and chuse another People in your Room to your Shame, a People which are no People; for though you, as Israel of old, be as the Sand of the Sea-shore, there is but a Remnant shall be saved, and that Remnant saved by Fire, and that that is all Dross shall be consumed; therefore repent and do your first Works, for that was the Word of the Lord to you, through me his unworthy Messenger, before the great Plague in London, when I thought you to be a perfect People, because you preached up the Doctrine of Perfection, and in those Days, seemingly self-denying People; but alas, Man judges according to the outward Appearance, but God sees the Heart that is lifted up, and is not upright; in a deep Sense whereof, I some Years after visited your Assemblies in Sackcloth before you, as a Sign that God will put all Flesh among you to Silence before him, which hath and will be fulfilled in its Season; in faithfulness to God, and in love to your Souls, without all prejudice do, I say it, who {Page 33} could write a Volume of my Sufferings, by false, lying, slanderous Tongues, which the Poyson of Asps hath been under, sharper then a two-edged Sword to slay the Innocent, and destroy my Testimony, which I have from the Lord against all Unrighteousness among you; yet have I never rose up against you, nor joyned with them that have, but have gone to the Lord with my Burthen, and he hath taken it off and sustained me with his Heavenly Love and Embraces; and in his Spirit of Mercy and Truth, I then humbly besought him, to shew the Doers of Wrong their Evil, and bring them to Repentance, seeing the Cause was his: But at this Time this would not do, without laying these Things before you, (though in a great Cross to my own Will) to ease me of a Burthen that hath long lain upon me, through the heavy Complaint if your Poor, which I desire you to take into Consideration.

  1. See Eccles's Quakers Challenge, compared with Elwood's Antidote, &c. Brazen Serpent liʄted up, p. 13. Truth's Defence. Smith's Works, p. 47. Weſt's Book about Marriage, throughout. Burrow's Works, p. 64, 416. Elwood's Anʃwer to G. Keith's ʄirʃt Narrative, p. 211. Fisher's Ruſticus Acced. p. 3, 4. Fox's Epiʃtle to his Great Miʃt. and Word ʄrom the Lord (as cited p. 9 oʄ Roger's Quakers divided) with his Papers in the Council of State, &c. wherein they tell the World, This is the Word of the Lord to you who are called Anabaptiʃts, you take up a Command ʄrom the Letter, as they did in the Galatian; *here you are all comprehended with the Light , and ʃeen to be Lyars, and are for the Lake. And this is the Word of the Lord to you who are called Presbyterians, and you who read the Common-Prayer, you are wholly in Darkneʃs, and given up into it, ʃince whoever takes a Place oʃ Scripture and makes a Sermon upon it, or ʄrom it, are Conjurors, and their Teaching is ʄrom Conjuration; wherefore, come forth ye Proteʃtants who are called Presbyters, Independents, Baptiʃts, &c. the Quakers deny you all, none being in the Truth but the Quakers; for as, their Faith is good for nought that say, the Light that is in every Man is neither God nor Chriʃt. There's never any thrive that ʃpeak againʃt the Quakers, who are the peculiar People oʄ God, the Apple oʄ his Eye, and whole Heritage*, &c.  ↩︎

  2. Which brings to mind ʃomewhat of their rich Preacher Eccleſton's *Charity towards a poor Friend's Wiʄe in Southwark; who, he being prevailed on to viʃit in the time oʄ her Lying-in, inʃtead oʄ a penny in Money (which ʃhe then greatly wanted) beʃtowed a long Prayer on her, as her Huʃband told me, which gave him ʃome cauʃe to think, thst iʄ it had been worth a Penny ʃhe had gone without it; wherein he aćted ʃomewhat like thoʃe Phariʃees we read on, whi cried, Be ye warmed, be ye fiilled &c. without adminiʃtring a Farthing in order to either. But through this he according to the Tenor of their declared Faith,that their God will deʄend them ʄrom Thieves and Murtherers, without their liʄe Uʃe if Carnal Weapons inorder to their Defence; yet how much ʃoever they may attempt to excuʃe themʃelves of pretending Chriʃtians muʃt live by Faith and not by Sight, I doubt they in the end will ʄind th8s of theirs in both Reʃpects inconʃiʃtent with the true one, which works by Love, our Saviour taugh his true Followers, hiw much ʃoever they in Words pretend to it.*  ↩︎

  3. As hath alʃo been ʄoretold by others, and is now come to paʃs accordingly, to their no ʃmall Mortification. See John Penyman's Tracts, p. 14. *compar'd with Richard Ranſam's Publick Teʃtimony, amongʃt many others.*  ↩︎

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