Oh ye Magistrates in and about this City of LONDON.  
WHy will you fight against the Lord God, the Creator of all things, and assure as the Lord our God liveth, that which you have done, and are a doing against the innocent people of God called QUAKERS is done against the Lord, and you are found fighters against him; and do you think that you are stronger than he? though we are contemptible unto you, and seem but as Grasshoppers before you, you shall one day know, that the Lord God of Heaven and Earth is on our side, and he is our Captain, and is with us in all our sufferings under you. Oh consider, you are but as potsherds before our God; for the Nations of the earth are but as the drops of the bucket, and as the small dust of the balance before him, and he bringeth Princes to nothing, he maketh the Judges of the earth as vanity; yea, they shall not be planted, yea, they shall not be sown, yea, their stocks shall not take root in the earth, and he the Lord of Hosts shall blow upon them, and they shall whither, and the whirlwind shall take them as stubble, Isa. 40.23, 24. Then where will you find a hiding place from the storm that must come upon all that fight against God, and the people that he hath chosen, and also gathered by the might of his omnipotent Power: Oh, why will you deal so unadvisedly in this matter of so great concernment which concerns God and the Consciences of men, that you will not suffer the Lords innocent people, who fear his dreadful name, and who stands in the gap, that his wrath be not poured forth upon you for your high provoking sins; and among many, this is one of a very deep dye, the not suffering his people to meet to wait upon him, and to pray unto him, and to worship him in his own way, in the holy fear of his name, and to reverence, honour, and obey him as they ought to do in peace: And it is well known that we do meet peaceably; till you and your Officers come to molest and disturb our peaceable Meetings; so that when the peace is broken at any time, you or your Officers are the causers of it, that should preserve the peace, and protect them that are peaceable: and we can call God, Angels, and Men to witness for us against you, that we meet in the peace of God, and we have peace in our hearts with God, and to all men, and so we meet in his holy fear, and in obedience to his requirings, as all the servants of God did in all Ages: and so we know right well what we do; and therefore he hath learned us, that we must not fear you, (O Men) that must die, whose breath is in your nostrils; and if we should fear men we should soon forget the Lord our maker; nor we must not fear your close & strait Prisons, nor your Banishments, nor Deaths, nor the lingering sufferings which you do or may inflict upon us, nor the hastening of the Execution of your new invented Law against us, which you are hastening the execution of to the ruin of us and our families, which have much been oppressed already for several years together, and will be accounted for in the day of our God, and our sufferings do cry already, and will cry more loud, and will be very piercing. Oh that you would consider! can you bear and endure the heavy and doleful, and piercing cry (that will pierce the heavens against you) of them that will be left fatherless and widows, which will be so when their dear Husbands and Fathers shall be taken from them, and also their near and dear relations separated the one from the other by your cruelty, and to be exposed to all manner of sufferings and servitude and bondages, being to be sold as slaves out of other native Country, and to become Captives in strange Lands, and this for no other cause, but for meeting in peace to worship the Lord God. Oh! will not the sound of this go over all Nations, and the folly thereof be made manifest, that an innocent harmless people, which are a support to the Nation, and have as true a right in it, being freely born in the same, and have not in the least forfeited their birthright by any evil whatsoever; that such a people should be sold and banished, who are industrious and faithful in all their deal that most men desire to deal with them, because of their faithful deal, and keeping their word and promises. O ye Rulers in England, are ye so void of gravity and policy as to banish the very support and well-being of your Nation, which consists of Manufactures and Tradesmen, and also to banish such as God is well pleased with, and for whose sake the viols of his wrath are yet stopped, that they are not poured forth upon this Nation, which will undoubtedly be poured upon you when God suffereth you to pull it down upon yourselves, by your forcing his just Lots from among you. Oh! do you think that God hath forsaken the earth? Nay, he hath not, nor will not forsake his people that call and cry upon him for help, because they have no help in the earth but him; and as sure as the Lord our God liveth, that brought the Children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, and through the Red Sea, and delivered them from under Pharaohs yoke, and his cruel Taskmasters; he will arise for the sighing of the poor, and for the crying of the needy, and he will plead our cause against the highest of our enemies; but however, we in God's holy fear are freely resigned up to stand in the cause of our God, for it is his cause, and so we are not careful in this matter, whether God will deliver us out of these your cruel intentions yea or nay: But this God doth engage our hearts to stand in the truth, that we certainly know to be the truth, which he hath made manifest unto us; for which truths sake we suffer by you, and for no evil doing: And we would have you to know, that the weight of all our sufferings will lie upon them that are the causers of it, and that will be a weight that ye will not know how to bear; but bear it you must that have a hand in it: and the cry of our distressed Wives and Children, and near and dear relations will intercede unto our God against you; besides the cries of many fafamilies which have a dependence upon us in point of Trade, that will feel the want of such as may be banished, on whom their dependence hath been to maintain themselves, Wives, and Children, and their want will cry against you; and besides all this, though now it may be not believed by you, you may feel the weight of that word of our Lord Jesus Christ, which saith, He that offends one of those his little ones that believe in his name, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he thrown into the midst of the sea: though now you may cast these words and many more of the same kind and nature behind your backs, you will one day feel the weight of them except ye repent. Oh! my soul can desire that repentance may not be hid from your eyes; and therefore my exhortation to you is in God's fear, Repent, and do no more hurt to them that would not hurt one hair of your heads, but seek your and all men's good, and have a pity for you, and have tender bowels of compassion towards you, and can freely forgive you for all the sufferings we have sustained by you, though we have little hopes as from man, that we shall be delivered from your cruel prosecuting against us, because we see and feel your resolution: and be it known unto you we are resolved, and not in any headiness, or rashness, nor forwardness, or stubborness, nor in any way of contempt, but in God's holy fear, and in the weightiness of our minds, being stayed and settled in true soberness and serious consideration, that we may not turn our backs upon the cause of our God: now because we are like to suffer all manner of sufferings, if we keep to that principle of himself which we know he hath made known unto us; and now if we should deny the Lord before men, he might justly deny us and departed from us; and therefore upon these weighty considerations are we resolved to stand to our principles, and we know that our resolution is grounded upon a better foundation than yours can be; for God hath resolved us, and that with full purpose of heart to cleave to the cause of our God; but your resolves are out of God's fear, and from your own wills; but ours are to the crossing of our own wills, and your resolution is from the wisdom which is from beneath, which is earthly and sensual, but ours is from the wisdom that is from above, which is pure, peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, as much might be said in this case; and we know that our God is stronger than all the force you can raise against us; and your trust is in the arm of flesh, and outward force and strength, but our trust is in the living God, and we know you are in the friendship of the world, which is enmity against God. O therefore that you would mind that saying, Love not the world, nor the things of the world; for he that loves the world the love of the Father is not in him: And so I have in a few lines cleared my conscience unto you, whether you will hear or forbear, and we could desire that you would manifest yourselves so moderate that we might reason a little with you of a matter of so great concernment, as toucheth our well-being both here and for ever hereafter: but however we can say, the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver; the Lord is our King, and he will save us; and to him we are freely given up whatever you do unto us.  
William Brend. The 22 of the 6. Month, 1664. From Newgate.