Happy’s he
Whom others’ harms do wary make to be.
As the unreasonable rage and furious violence of the persecutors had drawn the former expostulation from me, so in a while after, my heart being deeply affected with a sense of the great loving-kindness and tender goodness of the Lord to his people, in bearing up their spirits in their greatest exercises, and preserving them through the sharpest trials in a faithful testimony to his blessed truth, and opening in due time a door of deliverance to them, I could not forbear to celebrate His praises in the following lines, under the title of—
A SONG OF THE MERCIES AND DELIVERANCES OF THE LORD.
Had not the Lord been on our side,
May Israel now say,
We were not able to abide
The trials of that day
When men did up against us rise,
With fury, rage, and spite,
Hoping to catch us by surprise,
Or run us down by might.
Then had not God for us arose,
And shown His mighty power,
We had been swallowed by our foes,
Who waited to devour.
When the joint powers of death and hell
Against us did combine,
And with united forces fell
Upon us, with design
To root us out, then had not God
Appeared to take our part,
And them chastized with His rod,
And made them feel the smart,
We then had overwhelmed been
And trodden in the mire;
Our enemies on us had seen
Their cruel hearts’ desire.
When stoned, when stocked, when rudely stripped,
Some to the waist have been
(Without regard of sex), and whipped,
Until the blood did spin;
Yea, when their skins with stripes looked black,
Their flesh to jelly beat,
Enough to make their sinews crack,
The lashes were so great;
Then had not God been with them to
Support them, they had died,
His power it was that bore them through,
Nothing could do’t beside.
When into prisons we were thronged
(Where pestilence was rife)
By bloody-minded men that longed
To take away our life;
Then had not God been with us, we
Had perished there no doubt
’Twas He preserved us there, and He
It was that brought us out.
When sentenced to banishment
Inhumanly we were,
To be from native country sent,
From all that men call dear;
Then had not God been pleased t’ appear,
And take our cause in hand,
And struck them with a panic fear,
Which put them to a stand:
Nay, had He not great judgments sent,
And compassed them about,
They were at that time fully bent
To root us wholly out.
Had He not gone with them that went,
The seas had been their graves
Or when they came where they were sent,
They had been sold for slaves.
But God was pleased still to give
Them favour where they came,
And in His truth they yet do live
To praise His Holy Name.
And now afresh do men contrive
Another wicked way
Of our estates us to deprive,
And take our goods away.
But will the Lord (who to this day
Our part did always take)
Now leave us to be made a prey,
And that too for His sake?
Can any one who calls to mind
Deliverances past,
Discouraged be at what’s behind,
And murmur now at last?
Oh that no unbelieving heart
Among us may be found,
That from the Lord would now depart,
And coward-like give ground.
For without doubt the God we serve
Will still our cause defend,
If we from Him do never swerve,
But trust Him to the end.
What if our goods by violence
From us be torn, and we
Of all things but our innocence
Should wholly stripped be?
Would this be more than did befall
Good Job? Nay sure, much less:
He lost estate, children and all,
Yet he the Lord did bless.
But did not God his stock augment
Double what ’twas before?
And this was writ to the intent
That we should hope the more.
View but the lilies of the field,
That neither knit nor spin,
Who is it that to them doth yield
The robes they are decked in
Doth not the Lord the ravens feed,
And for the sparrows care?
And will not He for His own seed
All needful things prepare?
The lions shall sharp hunger bear,
And pine for lack of food;
But who the Lord do truly fear,
Shall nothing want that’s good.
Oh! which of us can now diffide
That God will us defend,
Who hath been always on our side,
And will be to the end.
Spes confisa Deo nunquam confusa recedet.
Hope which on God is firmly grounded
Will never fail, nor be confounded.
Scarce was the before-mentioned storm of outward persecution from the Government blown over when Satan raised another storm of another kind against us on this occasion. The foregoing storm of persecution, as it lasted long, so in many parts of the nation, and particularly at London, it fell very sharp and violent especially on the Quakers. For they having no refuge but God alone to fly unto, could not dodge and shift to avoid the suffering as others of other denominations could, and in their worldly wisdom and policy did, altering their meetings with respect both to place and time, and forbearing to meet when forbidden or kept out of their meeting-houses. So that of the several sorts of Dissenters the Quakers only held up a public testimony as a standard or ensign of religion, by keeping their meetings duly and fully at the accustomed times and places so long as they were suffered to enjoy the use of their meeting-houses, and when they were shut up and Friends kept out of them by force, they assembled in the streets as near to their meeting-houses as they could.
This bold and truly Christian behaviour in the Quakers disturbed and not a little displeased the persecutors, who, fretting, complained that the stubborn Quakers broke their strength and bore off the blow from those other Dissenters whom, as they most feared, so they principally aimed at. For indeed the Quakers they rather despised than feared, as being a people from whose peaceable principles and practices they held themselves secure from danger; whereas having suffered severely, and that lately too, by and under the other Dissenters, they thought they had just cause to be apprehensive of danger from them, and good reason to suppress them.
On the other hand, the more ingenuous amongst other Dissenters of each denomination, sensible of the ease they enjoyed by our bold and steady suffering, which abated the heat of the persecutors and blunted the edge of the sword before it came to them, frankly acknowledged the benefit received; calling us the bulwark that kept off the force of the stroke from them, and praying that we might be preserved and enabled to break the strength of the enemy, nor could some of them forbear, those especially who were called Baptists, to express their kind and favourable opinion of us, and of the principles we professed, which emboldened us to go through that which but to hear of was a terror to them.
This their good-will raised ill-will in some of their teachers against us, who though willing to reap the advantage of a shelter, by a retreat behind us during the time that the storm lasted, yet partly through an evil emulation, partly through fear lest they should lose some of those members of their society who had discovered such favourable thoughts of our principles and us, they set themselves as soon as the storm was over to represent us in as ugly a dress and in as frightful figure to the world as they could invent and put upon us.