An Appeal for Judgement, Unto the Righteous Principle of God in every Conscience, against the Persecutors of the INNOCENT.  
A Woeful Lamentation is taken up for you, who make it your work to persecute the innocent peaceable People of God, and do devise cursed and wicked snares, to bring them under the penalty of the late cruel and bloody Edict, in malice forged against the Righteous, and in greater malice by many of you put in execution; God Eternal judge between you and us in this matter. I do challenge you all in the fear of God, one by one (I say, our Persecutors) to make it appear what wrong is it we have done to the Nation in general, or to any one of you in particular, that we must be made the mark of your implacable fury, and that nothing will serve or satiate that bloodthirsty spirit, but an utter extinction and extermination of us all out of our native soil, where God Eternal hath given every one of us a lot; and as we are Englishmen and a freeborn People, our Interest is as large and ample, in that lot by God bestowed on us, as yours is who persecute us; and we have as much right to breath in England as your very selves, (setting your places aside) seeing it is given us of God, and enjoyed through his favour, and not of man. Must it be so, that except we do prostrate that pre●●●●s Life that God hath raised in us through the Son of his Love, at the feet of your perverse wills, that we must not abide in the Land of our Nativity, but be most cruelly banished from Wives, Children and Relations? and except we will commit the deadly sin (that is) to sin against the Light of God in the Conscience, must we be exposed to seek our sustenance in an unknown Land, and there to spend the remnant of our days, which are but few? the Will of our God be done, and let his Will be my Life for ever, saith my soul: But let this be unto you known, It is for well-doing, and not for any evil, that any of you can, or ever could justly charge or accuse us with; and in God's fear we challenge any of you our Persecutors, to prove our Meetings seditious, or that we do, or ever did contrive Insurrections therein. What though you have a Precedent which ye urge, Is it anything to us? we are clear from henceforth and for ever from that spirit; and as for any false Charge or Accusation against us concerning our Meetings, as hath been said, it never could nor will be proved, that we were or are seditious, or Contriver of Insurrections; Therefore God Eternal arise, and judge in the Consciences of all concerning this thing, and make Decision, holy Father, that our Innocency may appear to our Adversaries. And our Lives and Practives are well known unto the People of this Nation of England, and therefore we do make our Appeal to the Just Principle of thee in them for Judgement, and our Life in which we have held forth the Testimony of Truth amongst them, is of a longer date and standing than yesterday, and not a certain Sect, as hath been said; for our gathering is out of Sect and Schism, into that Life that erreth not, and in which is no rent; And this will God Eternal in due time make known, not only to the People of this Nation, but unto the whole World. And do not call this your Cruel work of Persecution, Execution of Justice, as I have heard some; for the Execution of Justice is a work of another kind, than to come with armed men amongst a company of innocent men and women, (who are really met together in the Peace and Fear of God, to worship him in the move of his Power, Life and Spirit, which is neither subject to time nor place, because that that Life & Spirit comprehends both) and most inhumanely to hale them out, and so to lead them before men appointed to send them to Prison, and then to drive them like flocks of Sheep through your streets unto your dismal holes, there to remain during the wills of our Drivers; who, because they would accelerate and hasten their Cruel Work begun, they even take the shortest way to destroy us, by cutting short the time ordered in their Cruel Edict, having a liberty allowed them therein ●or that purpose. O dreadful God is the long Imprisonment ●nd extent of time, all the favour that must accrue unto us (if it may be so called) for the respite we are to have in our Native Land? My very soul bleeds within me, to see the Cruelty and hardheartedness of this Generation of men; And all this for our well-doing, in answering the Requirings of that Life God Infinite hath raised in us in our Day and Generation. And known be ●t unto you, this is not the Execution of Justice, but the Oppression of the Just, which seeks no revenge against you, neither can do, ●ut leaves it to the Lord who is a righteous Judge, and will in due ●ime recompense every one according to his work. And is not Justice perverted, and Truth turned into a Lie amongst many of you? cast your eyes abroad, and behold, behold, the intolerable Wickedness that is committed here in and about this City, of all sorts; O what Swearing, Whoring, Drunkenness, Carding, Dicing, Stage-playing, Puppit-playing, and Mountebank Shows, with all manner of unclean, obscene, wicked and scameless Sports and Vanities are practised, and most of them allowed without control, and as I have heard say, licenced by Authority. Now here is Justice to be done, and the Execution of it would be pleasing both to God and good men.  
O take pity and compassion upon the young and tender plants of this great City, who are poisoned daily with these abominable practices abovementioned! O turn your Sword upon these cursed vanities, which tend to nothing but the ruin both of body and soul! My Life hath been bowed down even unto death, having felt the weight of these wickednesses committed in and about this City, and considering with sorrow the state of the Youth and tender Plants of this place, who are made to drink-in the poison of the Devil's Drollery, poured forth of these execrable Bottles, who manage those cursed practices abovementioned. Consider, consider, are these Meetings to be tolerated, and to enjoy full fruition of Liberty, and ours to be suppressed? Are these more congruent with a righteous and well-disciplined Government, than Meetings to worship God Eternal in his Spirit and in his Fear? And are they more for the Benefit and Profit of a Nation, than they that wholly are peaceable in all their practices, as Experience hath showed, and could never be otherwise proved? Let God's just Principle in all your Consciences answer unto these things, and give Judgement: And what you do, or may be suffered to do unto us, we in the Will of God forgive you; and know and be assured of this, we have no enmity unto any particular of you whatsoever, and to such as know not what they do, we can say, Father forgive them.  
R. C.   

Printed at London, in the year, 1664.