A Defense of the Principles of Love, Part 2 · Exception 18
EXCEPT. XVIII. p. 10. Answered. Here you except against me, if for any thing▪ for [being grown so scrupulous and so tender Of jeasting at other mens …ayers.as to be offended, if any break jeasts upon Common Prayer.]
Answ. 1. I spake of jesting on both sides at one anothers devotions, and not of one alone. 2. If you are for that way of breaking jeasts and scorns at other mens prayers, with what measure you mete it will be meted to you again. They will requite you to the full with jeasts and scorns at yours also. 3. Brother, do you like this way, or do you not? If you do, what a spirit are you of? If you do not, why do you quarrel with this advice
And whereas you cite my own words in the Reply to the Bishops, I must tell you; 1. That I know nothing in any of those Papers or Treaty, as to the matter that I have changed my judgement in, or repent of. And I admire that the Prelates that ask so often [What will satisfie us?] and others that carry it to the World as if we had said nothing, should to this day leave that Reply and our Liturgie then offered them, and our Petition for Peace, so much unanswered; Which few that knew them will believe is for want of will and fervour or indignation against them? 2. That yet the sentence cited by you [Whether it be that the Common-Prayer-Book hath never a Prayer for it self,] I confess is sarcastical, and I unfeignedly thank you for calling me to review it; and I do unfeignedly repent of it, and desire pardon of God and men, for speaking words of so much derision? Though I then no more perceived my fault, than you do yours.
I mentioned some that were scandalized at the scorns of men at the Liturgie heretofore; And, 1. He calls it a prophane story fitter for Ranters, 2. He challengeth me to tell the names of them that used those expressions. 3. He thinks I did greatly sin in repeating them. 4. Else he will think I invented them▪ on purpose to make my brethren odious, and justifie the persecution against them.
Answ. 1. If it be so bad, why are you so angry with me, for being against it, and th… like, or …ny scorns at other mens tolerable devotion?
2. Your challenge is but a drop of your unrighteousness. I told you I knew them that were inflamed by those words, but not that I knew the Speaker. And how should a man know the names of all that look in at a Church-door? How oft have I had Quakers in the face of the Market and of the publick Congregation, revile me, and curse me as in the name of God, and speak as bad words as those, when I seldome asked what their names were. And yet I must name them or be to you a malicious lyar. And shall I no… be so with you, if I obey your challenge? Is it not uns…vo…y to name men in such stories? Well, I will thus for this once obey you. In 1640. coming up to London to the Physitians, I lay at Bosoms-Inn in Laurence-…e: On the Lords-day the Inn-keeper, an old man (Mr. Hawkshead as I remember his name was) came in from Laurence Church with some guests in a very great passion: We ask'd him what the matter was? He answered, that as he went into the Church, a fellow look'd in, and spake those very words I recited, save that he said [The Deele] instead of [The Devil:] And from very sober honest people I have, I believe, many score times heard them call the Common Prayer [Porridge] and say, [He is not out of his Porridge yet.]
3. If I sin in repeating them, I pray you justifie not that spirit that uttered them; Nor be not of the mind of the Councellor of the wicked in this age, whose policy is to perswade men to commit such heinous sins (Perjury, Lying, &c.) which sound odiously in the naming, and then no man may ever accuse them, lest he be guilty of railing, incivility, &c.
4. Brother, a very low degree of ingenuity would have taught you to have judged such a Plea for Love, by one that in this book speaketh more against Persecuting you, than ever you read, I believe, in a Licensed book since the printing Act, to have come from no malicious persecuting intent.
Yet, as if you were so eagerly set on the Defence of the dividing scandalous miscarriages of this age, as to take it for persecution so much as to lament them, or pray against them, you gather the same conclusion from my very prayers to God, for pitty to his Church that is distracted and endangered by such usage.
And here, seeing your sufferings are soThe temptations of sufferings. much talk'd of, and I am numbred by you among your persecutors, endure me to tell you, that suffering hath its temptations as well as prosperity; And that the temptations to passion, and to run too far from those we suffer by, and to lose our charity to them and their adherents, are so much stronger to me (I leave others to judge themselves) than the temptations to fear and timerous complyances, that I was much more jealous of my heart in this, when I suffered most than at other times: For I knew that it is one of Satans designs to rob me of my Charity and Integrity, in which he would more triumph than in depriving me of my maintenance, reputation and liberty. And I must confess to you, brother, that (though I once hoped that we should have been great gainers by our sufferings) the fruit of them now appeareth to me to be such in many as makethMany are overcome by suffering, who think they overcome. It's a reproach to our Nation that Hornius Hist. Eccl. saith, [Ita ut seperatismus sive Brownismus non alios habeat authores quam cum Tyrannide & superstitione Episcopos Dominantes, pag. 244. So much good suffering doth. me more afraid of imprisonment for the sake of my soul, than of my body, lest it should stir up that passion which should bear down my judgement into some errors and extreams, and corrupt and destroy my Love to them by whom I suffer.
And truly, Brother, I am fully convinced that many that think their sufferings are their glory, and prove them better men than others, are lamentably lost and overcome by their sufferings. I think your companion and you are no gainers by it, who presently by preaching and writing thus, bring water to the extinguishing of Christian Love. I think those two Gentlemen before mentioned, that turned Quakers in prison, and left their Religion (as many more have done) were losers by it. And I think many thousands in these times, that are driven into various errors and extreams, and have lost their charity to adversaries and dissenters, have lost a thousand times more than their liberties and money comes to. Woe be to the World because of offences; And woe be to them by whom offence cometh. Experience of too many maketh me less in love with sufferings than I have been; And to think that the quiet and peaceable preaching of the Gospel (though under many other disadvantages) if God would grant it us, would be better for our own souls.