A Few Words in Tenderness TO THE WELL-MEANING PROFESSORS, suiting the Present Season.  
UPon the serious Consideration of the various and long continued Contests and Oppositions of all Sorts of People against us, the contemptible People of the Lord, called Quakers; it hath seemed most strange and grievous, that any of the Professors of Christianity, who have had any Simplicity of Heart to God, and known any inward Work of the Spirit of Truth, should join with the Gentiles, who know not God, to make void that Blessed Work, which the God of Heaven by his pure eternal Spirit hath begun to work in our Days in these despised People, who have given up their Souls to serve him, and for whom their very Lives would not be dear unto them to give up for his Name sake.  
O unto you, who have had any experimental Knowledge of God and of Christ, through the Operation of the Spirit in you; unto you is my very Soul drawn out in tender Love and Compassion, desiring that the God of Heaven would open your Eyes, and give you a clear, spiritual and certain Knowledge of the inward State of your Souls before him, and bring you to the Obedience of his Heavenly Will, for, for this very Cause, for not being Obedient & answering the Lord in his Requirings Hardness of Heart is come over you, and Darkness hath covered you; so that that Simplicity and Tenderness that was once in you in the Time of God's Visitation, is much defaced, and an Enmity sprung up in you against the Appearance of God amongst us.  
I beseech you bear with me; for the Zeal of God is upon me, and dear and tender Love to your immortal Souls: Know you this all you who have any Simplicity and Tenderness left in you, that I now directly stand for God, and in his Name I plead with you and for you, that you may be reconciled to him, and that the Enmity that is yet in any of you against God's Heavenly Appearance and Revelation of his Son in us might be taken away; for God is exalting his Son over all, even this is the Work of God ●n this his Day, to exalt his Name above every Name, and we, the despised Remnant, are made Witnesses of the Heavenly Appearance of the Son of God, and cannot but testify of him: I say, we are made Witnesses by God, through the Revelation of Christ in us, a Holy Constraint is upon us, and not of or from ourselves or any Act of our own, but through the Begetting of Life we are made willing to exalt his Name in the Earth: And herein our Hearts are single before him, having no other Thing in our Eye, but the lifting up and spreading that blessed Name; and herein I can appeal to the Lord God of Heaven and Earth of the Integrity of my Heart to him, having this Faith begotten in me of the Lord, that while I stand in Simplicity and Singleness of Heart to him, he will be my Strength, and keep me in the Hour of Temptation, that I fall not, or ever turn my Back upon him; for truly I must confess that this Way of Truth which the Lord hath brought me to, is a very narrow and straight Way, so straight, that if I could have found Peace and Satisfaction out of it, I had not now been a Traveller in it: for being once tempted by the God of this World to withdraw myself from the Lord's People, and to retire and get from under his Yoke, the Lord pursued me with his Judgements, and Rest and Peace was taken from me, that I cried out, That it was a great Strength to be willing to live in the Earth: But the Lord fetched me in from my Wandering, and I was made to return to the God of my Life, and in my very Soul bowed to him, who is become my Defence and Holder up of my Head in the midst of many Enemies raised up by the Power of Darkness against us, to lay us waste, and to make void our Testimony for the God of Heaven in this Generation: But God will exalt his Name, and in vain do Men strive against him; for their very Strive shall turn to the Advantage of his Name and People, and the Shame of his Adversaries.  
Oh my Soul hath travailed for our Adversaries; for having in Years past been one with them in Profession, I cannot but have Love to them, and have cried to the Lord for them; Oh that they had an Ear to hear, they would then certainly bow to that blessed Truth ministered in God's Authority by his chosen Ones: And a strong Belief is in me, that the Lord will boar the Ears of many simple Hearts amongst them, and cause the Sound of his Everlasting Gospel to enter; and it shall be a Day of glad Tidings to as many as shall receive it.  
The God of Heaven open the Eyes of all the Professing People in this Nation, that all may dread and fear before him, and consider what they are doing in setting themselves against that living Word of God revealed in us. O Friends, it will be too strong for you; for it is not any fine coined Notions that we publish to please the Ears of the Curious, Wise and Lofty; No, no; but it is the living Word, the mighty Word, the very Word of the Lord God of Heaven and Earth that we exalt among Men, that Word that redeems from the Power of Satan all such as in Love receive it: It is that Word that comes not to us by the Will, Power or Wisdom of Man, but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ; nor no Man on Earth can attain to the Understanding of it, but by the Spirit of Jesus; a Man must be born of the Spirit before he can know the Things of the Spirit.  
And here lies the chief Ground of all that Warring and Contending against us, a different Birth, Children of an other Birth, though high and lofty in their Notions of God, and Christ, and the Scriptures, that if they were indeed what they speak, they were honourable; but the Root of the first Birth, and all Words from it are of another Nature, and want a living Spring: It is the first Man in his best Robe, that runs before he is sent, and in his own Wisdom would manage the Things of God and his Kingdom, before he knows the Power from on high, to break and confound all his curious Wisdom of Words, and to make him as a little Child; first, to desire the sincere Milk of the Word, that he might grow thereby, and then in the Strength of the Word of Life, to minister according to the Gift received.  
And in this first Birth are all the Children of the Flesh and Shadow exalting themselves, and opposing the Heavenly Appearances of Life in all their several Forms of Religion; and herein lies their greatest Unity one with another, in setting themselves against the enlightened People of the Lord, who own their enlightenings and Teachings from himself alone, and cannot satisfy themselves in their own Willings and Strive in their own Wisdoms and Understandings, but wait for the Ministration of the Spirit of Life and Power.  
Now wherefore is it that you all join together against us, and have Enmity to us? Have you Peace in so doing? Are you justified before God herein? And have you Hope hereby to lay us waste? O know assuredly, such Hope is vain, and shall certainly perish; for our Foundation standeth sure.  
O the Sen●e I have had of the Power of Darkness, strong Workings at this Day against us, to render us infamous in the Eyes of all People, not only as No Christians, but as Deceivers, Jugglers, Equivocators and Impostors, and as having a Diabolical Spirit. O thick Darkness, that we should be so judged by a Professing People; but we know we have a Testimony in the Hearts of many, which the Enmity of our Adversaries cannot destroy.  
Lord, what have we done? Whose Cause have we espoused? What Kingdom and Interest seek we to exalt, but the God of Heavens? We can in the Integrity of our Souls appeal unto him, and stand over the Heads of our Adversaries, and in true Patience bear with all the Revile and Reproaches of Men of all Sorts, counting it not a new Thing for the true Servants of the Lord to be so dealt with, when Christ himself found the hardest Measure from the strictest Professing Jews, who doing such wonderful Things, even to Astonishment, and which they were Witnesses of, and could not deny; yet their Darkness and Enmity was such, as to strike at his very Root and Spirit by which he did those wonderful Things, saying, He had a Devil, a Diabolical Spirit, and that by Beelzebub the Prince of Devils he did those mighty Things; and never rested till they murdered him. Oh that the same Spirit were not to be found among some of you.  
But I dare not charge all among you, believing that some have true Desires after God and his Truth, and truly desire more of the Knowledge of him, for whose sakes I had some Constraint upon me to publish these Things, to provoak you to a Retirement of Spirit, and to an inward Feeling of your States before the Lord, what you are in his pure spiritual Light; and if in the true Measure of the Light of the Lord in you, you feel not a closing with our Testimony, and have some Savour of our Life, then wait in that true spiritual Light, that the Lord may reveal it to you; and judge not those Things you know not, nor turn in Enmity to us, lest Hardness come over you, and Darkness cover you.  
But if in the Singleness of Heart before the Lord you can receive our Testimony, then be not hasty, but wait in the Light of the Lord for Strength, that you may come to the Obedience of his Heavenly Will; For it is the Obedient that inherit the Good of the Land, and whose Souls delight in Fatness.  
And until I was brought to Obdience and Subjection, I could never witness Satisfaction; for great and long hath the Travail of my Soul been after the Lord, even from a Child the Fear of God was upon me, and some Desires stirring in me after him under several Forms of Religion, and still I followed that Ministry and People where I found most of the Life of Jesus, and when I saw too much exalting of Form and idolising of them, and an inward Decline of that first Simplicity and Zeal that was once among many, and that Religion was grown a Worldly Interest and a Footstool to Promotion, my Soul loathed it.  
And upon the very hearing of a poor despicable People in the North of England called Quakers, of their Behaviours, Words and Conversations, my Soul closed with them, with Sense and Feeling of them, that they were the Chosen of the Lord, and then saw and declared of the Seasonableness of their coming forth, That when the pure Simplicity and living Testimony was just expiring among the Professors of the Nation; the Lord, who would not leave himself without Witness in every Age & Generation, in due Season raised up his Witness afresh in a poor inconsiderable People to bear up his Name in the Earth, whose Testimony was in Spirit, and in Life, and Power: Upon which most of the Priests and formal Professors in the Nation was stirred, and provoaked, and joined together to oppose them; and though they themselves in their Zeal had cried to God, to send f●rth his Light and his Truth, and that the Kingdom of Christ might be exalted, and that he would pour out of his Spirit upon his Sons and Daughters: yet when the Lord had chosen and raised a People thus to bear his Name, and to exalt his Truth on Earth, and to proclaim the Great Day of the Lord to levelly the Mountains, and to lay low the Lofty of the Earth, and to bring Proud Flesh into Contempt, and to raise the Poor to inherit the Kingdom: Instead of meeting with the Lord, who was about to perform those great Things themselves desired in the Day of their Tenderness, they evilly entreated those blessed Messengers, and overlookt them for their Meaness, and spoke all Manner of Evil of them, Imprisoning, Whipping, Stocking and reproachfully reviling them, many of whom died in their Imprisonment: And I do believe had not the Lord in his Righteous Judgement taken Power from them, they would have been farther deeply guilty of the Blood of the Innocent.  
But my hearty Desire for all that are tenderhearted among you, who have the Fear of the Lord upon you, that you take heed that you be not leavened with that Persecuting and Anti-christian Spirit; for the very same that now reproach us, and would unchristian us, would destroy us if it had Power.  
But the Hand of the Lord is to be seen in suffering all these Storms of Oppositions against us, to provoak us to the more Watchfulness and Diligence, and to brighten our Testimony for the Righteous God, whom in Spirit and Truth we serve.  
Therefore unto him do I commit our Cause, who sets Bounds to the Seas, and stills its Raging, who can appease the Wrath of Man, and scatter the thick Clouds of Darkness. with which he is compassed, by the bright Shining of his Day, in which ●ll Works, Doctrines, Principles and Spirits shall be made manifest; and in the Breaking out of this blessed Day doth my Soul rejoice before the God of Heaven.  
So Friends, in Faithfulness to the Lord, and in true and dear Love to all simple-hearted People, who have the least of Uprightness of Heart to God, and sincerely desire to follow the Lord wherever he shall lead them: I shall conclude, leaving this my Testimony to the Witness of God in all your Consciences, who am  
Your Real Friend in the Service 
 of Truth and Love, 
 Thomas Zachary. The 5th of the 9th 
 Month, 1674.