osoms. But be ye sure
that ye mistake not the cause and ground of your Testimony. Call not
coldness of soul, religion; nor put the BIGOT in the place of the
CHRISTIAN.

O ye partial ministers of your own acknowledged principles. If the
bearing arms be sinful, the first going to war must be more so, by all
the difference between wilful attack, and unavoidable defence.
Wherefore, if ye really preach from conscience, and mean not to make a
political hobbyhorse of your religion convince the world thereof, by
proclaiming your doctrine to our enemies, FOR THEY LIKEWISE BEAR
_ARMS_. Give us proof of your sincerity by publishing it at St.
James's, to the commanders in chief at Boston, to the Admirals and
Captains who are piratically ravaging our coasts, and to all the
murdering miscreants who are acting in authority under HIM whom ye
profess to serve. Had ye the honest soul of BARCLAY ye would preach
repentance to YOUR king; Ye would tell the Royal Wretch his sins, and
warn him of eternal ruin.[5] Ye would not spend your partial invectives
against the injured and the insulted only, but, like faithful
ministers, would cry aloud and SPARE NONE. Say not that ye are
persecuted, neither endeavour to make us the authors of that reproach,
which, ye are bringing upon yourselves; for we testify unto all men,
that we do not complain against you because ye are Quakers, but because
ye pretend to be and are NOT Quakers.

Alas! it seems by the particular tendency of some part of your
testimony, and other parts of your conduct, as if, all sin was reduced
to, and comprehended in, THE ACT OF BEARING ARMS, and that by the
people only. Ye appear to us, to have mistaken party for conscience;
because, the general tenor of your actions wants uniformity--And it is
exceedingly difficult to us to give credit to many of your pretended
scruples; because, we see them made by the same men, who, in the very
instant that they are exclaiming against the mammon of this world, are
nevertheless, hunting after it with a step as steady as Time, and an
appetite as keen as Death.

The quotation which ye have made from Proverbs, in the third page of
your testimony, that, "when a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh
even his enemies to be at peace with him"; is very unwisely chosen on
your part; because, it amounts to a proof, that the king's ways (whom
ye are desirous of supporting) do NOT please the Lord, otherwise, his
reign would be in peace.

I now