Page:Common sense - addressed to the inhabitants of America.djvu/51

Rh your partial invectives againt the injured and the inulted only, but, like faithful miniters, would cry aloud, and pare none. Say not that ye are perecuted, neither endeavour to made us the authors of that reproach, which ye are bringing upon yourelves; for we tetify unto all men, that we do not complain againt you becaue ye are Quakers, but becaue ye pretend to be, and are Quakers.

Alas! it eems by the particular tendency of ome part of your tetimony, and other parts of your conduct, as if all in was reduced to, and comprehended in, the act of bearing arms, and that by the people only. Ye appear to us to have mitaken party for concience; becaue the general tenor of your actions wants uniformity: And it is exceedingly difficult for us to give credit to many of your pretended cruples; becaue we ee them made by the ame men, who, in the very intant that they are exclaiming againt the mammon of this World, are nevertheles hunting after it with a tep as teady as Time, and an appetite as keen as Death.

The quotation which ye have made from Proverbs, in the third page of your tetimony, that, "when a man's ways pleae the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him," is very unwiely choen on your part; becaue it amounts to a proof, that the King's ways (whom ye are o deirous of upporting) do not pleae the Lord, otherwie his reign would be in peace.

I now proceed to the latter part of your tetimony, and that for which all the foregoing eems only an introduction, viz.

"It hath ever been our judgment and principle, ince we were called to profes the light of Chrit Jeus, manifeted in our conciences unto this day, that the etting up and putting down Kings and governments, is God's peculiar prerogative, for caues bet known to himelf; and that it is not our buines to have any hand or contrivance therein, nor to be buy bodies above our tation, much les to plot and contrive the ruin or overturn of any of them; but to pray for the King, and afety of our nation, and good of all men: That we may live a peaceable and quiet life, in all godlines and honety, under the government which God is pleaed to et over us."—If thee 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 himelf? Thee very principles intruct you to wait with patience and humility for the event of all public meaures, and to receive that event as the divine will towards you. Wherefore, what occaion is there for your political tetimony, if you fully believe what it contains? And the very publihing it proves, that either ye do not believe what ye profes, or have not virtue enough to practie what ye believe.

The principles of Quakerim have a direct tendency, to make a man the quiet and inoffenive ubject of any and every government which is et over him. And if the etting up and putting down of Kings and governments is God's