Christ is our king, (the sovereign over conscience,) priest, prophet, and bishop of our souls, and we own none but Him in that respect; and if these Presbyterians in New England own any other king, priest, prophet, or bishop over conscience, but Christ, let them tell who they are. And for further satisfaction in this point, see George Whitehead's Christ's Lambs defended against Satan's Rage; and his Truth Prevalent, chap. ii., Of Government, page 144, in answer to the like cavils.

But what friends they have been, and are, to kings, may appear not only by their treatment of King Charles I., and of the commissioners of King Charles II. as aforesaid, and hereafter mentioned, but also by the irreverence and disloyalty he expresses towards the king's governors, sent over and authorized by him, since the forfeiting their Charter; in comparing them, Book II., pages 19, 20, to "the representation which a magician made unto Catherine de Medicis, the French Queen, who desired of him a magical exhibition of all the kings that had reigned in France, or to reign, the shapes of all the kings, to the husband of that queen, successively showed themselves in the enchanted circle; and then the kings that were to come did in like manner successively come upon the stage, namely, Francis II., Charles IX., Henry III., Henry IV.; then two cardinals, Richelieu and Mazarin, in red hats; but after those, there entered wolves, bears, tigers, and lions." So that it seems all the governors, after their own, which ended in the loss of their Charter in 1685, or at least after the few months' presidentship of Joseph Dudley, were but like wolves, bears, tigers, lions, and such rapacious animals, as he calls them that were come into their government, viz., Sir Edmund Andros, Sir William Phipps, William Stoughton, Esq., and the Earl of Bellamont, at least to their revolution in the year 1689, for he seems to commend some of these, as Sir William Phipps and William Stoughton, and who then were the wolves, bears, tigers, and lions? However, the above is enough to show what reverence and respect they have to kings, their governors, powers, authority, &c., and yet must blame George Fox for speaking against doting on an earthly king, &c. But if any Quaker had dropped such irreverent expres

sions, as the aforesaid, of kings, or any under them, what ado he would have made of them; but our innocency is so well known in England, and elsewhere, that I dare leave it to be weighed with their principles and practices, in the equal balance, by the impartial that know both.

And for any one who hath," as he says, "so far forsaken them, as to publish a discovery of the horrible doings that he hath found among his friends," that, in his own conceit, is no wonder; seeing Cotton Mather hath published horrible doings enough among the Presbyterians in New England, though he hath not forsaken them; but I may answer him, as Nehemiah did such another as aforesaid, that "there are no such things done among us as thou sayest," at least owned by us; and he should have told who that one is, that calleth himself a Quaker, that hath so far forsaken them as to publish such things, that we might have. examined his credit in what he says, viz., "That they do not own any government for God's ordinance, but that of those who witness to their light within." Answer. All right government that is God's ordinance will witness or answer to the light of the Lord in the heart and conscience; and though we own government to be an ordinance of God, which "is for the punishment of evil-doers, and the praise of them that do well;" yet, whatever government doth not answer or witness to the light of Christ in the conscience, we cannot own to be of God, so far as it is contrary to Him and His witness; and though all such are part of the corrupt tree that must be cut down by the sword of the Spirit, in the Lord's own time, that the light alone may rule; yet rulers, judges, justices, &c., may rule in it and with it (as they come to take heed to it) over evil-doers; for "he that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God."

Cotton Mather.-"I appeal to all the reasonable part of mankind, whether the infant colonies of New England had not cause to guard themselves against these dangerous villains." Answer. Old infants, at near forty years old; and I appeal to all the reasonable part of mankind, too, whether they had any cause from any carriage or behaviour of theirs, that ever yet appeared, of their

being dangerous, to be so guarded against, though he unworthily calls them villains; but who is the greatest, I leave to others to judge, though he is so much worse than his word, to go to vindicate those severities again, when he had said before he "would not, nor could not, make himself a vindicator of them." But who were the villains, and dangerous ones, too, to go to imprison men and women at their first coming, before they had anything to lay to their charge, only that they were of those called Quakers; and take away their goods for their fees, to their very Bible, and after to send them away in the nature of banishment, without their beds that they lodged on shipboard; and to whip men and women as they did, and cut off the ears of several; banishing old Nicholas Upshall, though an inhabitant among them, and a member of their own church, for bearing his testimony against their wicked ungodly law of banishment, even in the depth of Winter, though so aged, that he could not eat his food, but as scraped into a spoon, for want of teeth; which might have cost him his life, but that the Lord bore him over their cruelty; and Ann Burden, of England, for coming to seek after and secure her husband's effects, who had lived long among them, being most that she and her children had to subsist with, imprisoned, and afterwards forced away without it, and distrain or stop her effects, or money, for her fees, charge of passage, &c.; and took away a poor man's cow, when he had not another to give milk for his children; yea, seizing a Friend's chest and money, as their marshal did, without being accountable; and wearing his clothes, himself, before his face; and the Friend, for complaining, laid neck and heels together; and banishing a man and his wife near her labour, and again apprehended, because she could not go, and when in labour, her husband forced from her to prison, and she after; and many such instances of injustice, by imprisonment, whippings, fines, and banishments, even forcing them to hire men to take them away, if they could, and if they could not, taking their goods or money for it; searching houses for Quakers, even in the night, like thieves; taking up several as they were about their lawful occasions and whipping them as vagabonds, though they were inhabitants

among them; and banished on pain of death, and sentenced to death many, and put to death four, viz., three men and one woman of good repute, hanging them on a tree with the utmost ignominy, beating their drums as they went to execution, that their voice might not be heard, a barbarity never heard of, as I remember, even among Papists, or to the greatest criminals; and reviling them at their death, as their high-priest Wilson did, more like a heathen than a Christian, much less a minister of the Gospel that is "Peace on earth, and good will to all men;" and condemning a fifth and a sixth, &c., but that they had not power to put them to death; and so they would have proceeded, but that the king, on Friends' application to him, sent to stop their proceedings; and then they would hardly obey the king, but endeavoured to stir up the people to rebellion against him, old Hathorn endeavouring to instigate them against his commissioners, as if their commission was made under a hedge; yea, "and purposed to rise against the king's commissioners," as they said themselves, saying, "That" Cartwright, that was one of them, "was a Papist or Jesuit," but that Elizabeth Hooten, he being her countryman, vindicated him,* that "she knew no such thing, but that he was a sober-minded man, as far as ever she heard," and persuaded them to the contrary, telling them that "if they did fight against the king, they would bring ruin upon themselves and their country, for the innocent blood they had spilt cried against them;" and they took away her horse that she rode on, to carry away the king's commissioners out of the town, that she was forced to go threescore miles through the woods on foot, among the wild beasts, with a women Friend big with child, to the hazard of their lives, and came back again to Boston, through the woods, by herself, in deep snow, where was no path but what the wolves had beat for her. But the commissioners sent back her horse, saying, "It was a Quaker's, and they knew no evil by them, and would not ride back on it;" and had not the king's commissioners been in the town, the magistrates of Boston purposed to have put her to death, and never to have restored her horse again, but put her in * E. Hooten's Manuscript.

prison, and from thence in the night to a ship to send her away; and searching early in the morning for Quakers, found four in their beds, and had them before the rulers, Bellingham and the rest, and asked them, "What they came thither for?" They said, "To visit the king's commissioners;" but they said, "They would whip the commissioners upon the Quakers' backs;" and so whipped them very grievously at three towns, and out of their jurisdiction. Who were the villains now, Cotton?

Or, that after they had put to death four, and sentenced more, though the king had sent a jail-delivery, they did not regard it, the jailer telling Friends, "It was not for them;" and they put several juries upon them, if they could, to put them to death; but another letter came from the king, for "liberty of conscience for his peaceable subjects;" but they would hardly be restrained, though Friends laid their rebellion before them; but they, on a lecture-day, called three before them, one was condemned to be put to death next lecture-day,* and two to be whipped at a cart's tail, and many sentences there were against them, by several juries, what to do with them; but at length they devised to drive them all out; and two innocent men were tied to the cart's tail, and whipped down the streets, many stripes a-piece; and the rest, being twenty-eight, they drove out with swords, staves, and weapons of war, horse and foot, from constable to constable; but an old man they drove out another way from his wife and children, and made a warrant to read at every place, which called them rogues, and vagabonds, and wandering Quakers, &c., and a new law, if they came again, to whip them out of their jurisdiction many times over; and then to imprison them, if they came again, and brand them in the shoulder, with a sentence, at last, of death. Thus did they drive innocent people, who had done them no wrong, two days' journey into the wilderness toward Rhode Island, and so left them, to go through many waters; some who returned to go to their own habitations, they took up as they went and carried again to Boston prison, upon others they did execute their

That they might have blood to mingle with their sacrifices, like the old heathen.