Monarchy -- Early works to 1800; Political science -- Early works to 1800; United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783
The principles of Quakerism have a direct tendency to make a man the
quiet and inoffensive subject of any, and every government which is
set over him. And if the setting up and putting down of kings and
governments is God's peculiar prerogative, he most certainly will
not be robbed thereof by us; wherefore, the principle itself leads
you to approve of every thing, which ever happened, or may happen to
kings as being his work. Oliver Cromwell thanks you. Charles, then,
died not by the hands of man; and should the present Proud Imitator
of him, come to the same untimely end, the writers and publishers of
the Testimony, are bound, by the doctrine it contains, to applaud
the fact. Kings are not taken away by miracles, neither are changes
in governments brought about by any other means than such as are
common and human; and such as we are now using. Even the dispersion
of the Jews, though foretold by our Saviour, was effected by arms.
Wherefore, as ye refuse to be the means on one side, ye ought not to
be meddlers on the other; but to wait the issue in silence; and
unless ye can produce divine authority, to prove, that the Almighty
who hath created and placed this new world, at the greatest distance
it could possibly stand, east and west, from every part of the old,
doth, nevertheless, disapprove of its being independant of the
corrupt and abandoned court of Britain, unless I say, ye can shew
this, how can ye on the ground of your principles, justify the
exciting and stirring up the people "firmly to unite in the
abhorrence of all such writings, and measures, as evidence a desire
and design to break off the happy connexion we have hitherto enjoyed,
with the kingdom of Great-Britain, and our just and necessary
subordination to the king, and those who are lawfully placed in
authority under him." What a slap of the face is here! the men, who
in the very paragraph before, have quietly and passively resigned up
the ordering, altering, and disposal of kings and governments, into
the hands of God, are now, recalling their principles, and putting
in for a share of the business. Is it possible, that the conclusion,
which is here justly quoted, can any ways follow from the doctrine
laid down? The inconsistency is too glaring not to be seen; the
absurdity too great not to be laughed at; and such as could only
have been made by those, whose understandings were darkened by the
narrow and crabby spirit of a despairing political party; for ye are
not to be considered as the whole body of the Quakers but only as a
factional and fractional part thereof.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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