The History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People Called Quakers. William Sewel
it will carry him out.’
G. Fox did not stay long at Drayton, but went to Leicester, and from thence to Whetstone, where a meeting was to be kept; but before it began, there came about seventeen troopers, of colonel Hacker’s regiment, who, taking him up, brought him to the said colonel, where there was also his major and captains. Here he entered into a long discourse with them, about the priests, and about meetings; for at this time there was a noise of a plot against Cromwell: and he spoke also much concerning the light of Christ, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. The colonel hearing him speak thus, asked whether it was the light of Christ that made Judas betray his Master, and afterwards led him to hang himself? G. Fox told him, ‘No; that was the spirit of darkness which hated Christ and his light.’ Then the colonel said to George, he might go home, and keep at home, and not go abroad to meetings. But he told him, he was an innocent man, free from plots, and he denied all such works. Then the colonel’s son, Needham, said, ‘Father, this man hath reigned too long; it is time to have him cut off.’ G. Fox asked him for what? ‘What have I done, or whom have I wronged from a child; and who can accuse me of any evil?’ Then the colonel asked him, if he would go home, and stay there. To which G. Fox answered, that if he should promise him so, it would imply that he was guilty of something, to go home, and make his home a prison to himself; and if he went to meetings, they would say, he broke their order; but that he should go to meetings, as the Lord should order him; and that therefore he could not submit to their requirings: and having further added, that he and his friends were a peaceable people: the colonel said, ‘Well then, I will send you to-morrow morning by six o’clock, to my lord Protector, by captain Drury, one of his life-guard.’ The next morning, about the appointed time, he was delivered to captain Drury. Then G. Fox desired he would let him speak with the colonel, before he went; and so the captain brought him to the colonel’s bed-side, who again bade him go home and keep no more meetings. But G. Fox told him he could not submit to that; but must have his liberty to serve God, and go to meetings. ‘Then,’ said the colonel, ‘you must go before the Protector.’ Whereupon G. Fox kneeled on his bed-side, and prayed the Lord to forgive him: since, according to his judgment, he was as Pilate, though he would wash his hands; (for he was stirred up and set on by the priests,) and therefore George bade him, when the day of his misery and trial should come upon him, then to remember what he had said to him. Far was it now from Needham, who would have had G. Fox cut off, to think that one time this would befal his father, in an ignominious manner, at Tyburn. But what afterwards happened, when he was condemned as one of the judges of King Charles the First, will be related in its due place.
G. Fox then having left colonel Hacker, was carried prisoner by captain Drury to London; where the captain went to give the Protector an account of him; and coming again, he told G. Fox, the Protector did require, that he should promise, not to take up a carnal sword or weapon against him, or the government as it then was: and that he should write this in what words he saw good, and set his hand to it. G. Fox considering this, next morning writ a paper to the Protector, by the name of Oliver Cromwell, wherein he did in the presence of God declare, that he denied the wearing or drawing of a carnal sword, or any outward weapon, against him, or any man: and that he was sent of God to stand a witness against all violence, and against the works of darkness; and to turn people from darkness to the light, and to bring them from the occasion of war and fighting, to the peaceable gospel; and from being evil-doers, which the magistrates sword should be a terror to. Having writ this, he set his name to it, and gave it to captain Drury, who delivered it to Oliver Cromwell; and after some time returning to the Mermaid, near Charing-cross, where G. Fox was lodged, he carried him to Whitehall, and brought him before the Protector who was not yet dressed, it being pretty early in the morning. G. F. coming in, said, ‘Peace be in this house,’ and bid the Protector keep in the fear of God, that he might receive wisdom from him; that by it he might be ordered, and with it might order all things under his hands to God’s glory. He had also much discourse with him concerning religion, wherein Cromwell carried himself very moderately, but said that G. Fox and his friends quarrelled with the ministers, meaning his teachers. G. Fox told him, he did not quarrel with them; but they quarrelled with him and his friends. ‘But, (thus continued he,) if we own the prophets, Christ, and the apostles, we cannot uphold such teachers, prophets, and shepherds, as the prophets, Christ, and the apostles declared against; but we must declare against them by the same power and spirit.’ Moreover, he showed that the prophets, Christ, and the apostles preached freely, and declared against them that did not declare freely, but preached for filthy lucre, and divined for money, or preached for hire, being covetous and greedy, like the dumb dogs, that could never have enough: and that they that had the same spirit, which Christ, the prophets, and the apostles had, could not but declare against all such now, as they did then. He also said, that all Christendom, (so called,) had the Scriptures, but they wanted the power and spirit, which they had who gave them forth; and that was the reason they were not in fellowship with the Son, nor with the Father, nor with the Scriptures, nor one with another. Whilst he was thus speaking, Cromwell several times said, it was very good, and it was truth. G. Fox had many more words with him; but seeing people coming in, he drew a little back: and as he was turning, Cromwell catched him by the hand, and with tears in his eyes, said, ‘Come again to my house; for if thou and I were but an hour of a day together, we should be nearer one to another:’ adding, that he wished him no more ill than he did to his own soul. To this G. Fox returned, that if he did, he wronged his own soul; and bid him hearken to God’s voice, that he might stand in his counsel, and obey it; and if he did so, that would keep him from hardness of heart; but if he did not hear God’s voice, his heart would be hardened. This so reached the Protector, that he said it was true.
Then G. Fox went out; and captain Drury following, told him, that the lord Protector said he was at liberty, and might go whither he would: yet he was brought into a great hall, where the protector’s gentlemen were to dine; and he asked what they did bring him thither for? They told him it was by the Protector’s order, that he might dine with them. But George bid them tell the Protector he would not eat a bit of his bread, nor drink a sup of his drink. When Cromwell heard this, he said, ‘Now I see there is a people risen, and come up, that I cannot win either with gifts, honours, offices, or places; but all other sects and people I can.’ But it was told him again, that the Quakers had forsook their own, and were not like to look for such things from him.
It was very remarkable that captain Drury, who, while G. Fox was under his custody, would often scoff at him, because of the nickname of Quakers, which the Independents had first given to the professors of the light, afterwards came to him, and told him, that as he was lying on his bed to rest himself in the day time, a sudden trembling seized on him, that his joints knocked together, and his body shook so, that he could not rise from his bed; he was so shaken, that he had not strength enough left to rise. But he felt the power of the Lord was upon him, and he tumbled off his bed, and cried to the Lord, and said, he would never speak against the Quakers more, viz. such as trembled at the word of God.
The particular occurrences that befel G. Fox, when he was at liberty in London, I pass by. He had great meetings there, and the throngs of people were such, that he could hardly get to and from the meetings, because of the crowd. In the meanwhile the number of his friends increased exceedingly, and some belonging to Cromwell’s court were also convinced of the Truth preached by him. He wrote about that time several papers, one of which was against pride, gaudy apparel, and the world’s fashions.
I do not find that about this time there was at London any persecution from the magistrates, but in other places there was: and it was in this year that Anne the wife of John Audland, coming into a steeple-house at Banbury, said, after the priest had ended, that those that were without the doctrine of Christ, though they said the Lord liveth, yet spoke falsely, according to Jer. v. 2. For this she was imprisoned as guilty of blasphemy, and two boys swore against her, that she had said that the Lord did not live. Thus false accusations prevailed, and at this rate persecution was cloaked.
The year drew now to an end, and Cromwell concluded a peace with the United Netherlands; to get things the more clear at home, it seems he endeavoured to remove troubles abroad. And there being a rumour spread of a plot as hath been hinted already, to be the more assured of the parliament, he caused a guard to be set upon the door of the house, to keep out those members that refused to sign a paper, whereby they