1. Thomas Salthouse of Lancashire (but afterwards resided in the South of England,) was born about 1630, and convinced when George Fox first came to Swarthmore. He became an eminent minister of the gospel, for which he suffered much. In 1655 he, and Miles Halhead, being pressed in spirit to visit the Friends imprisoned at Plymouth, they were taken up on suspicion of having a hand in an insurrection which broke out a little before; and though the high Sheriff confessed he did not believe them concerned in it, he caused them to be kept close prisoners at Exeter for fourteen days, and then sent them from officer to officer towards home. In going towards Bridgewater, the officer who conducted them fell down, and lay grovelling on the ground in the sight of many people, and was able to go no further. So they returned to the justice to tell him what had befallen the officer, and to know what further he would do with them. But he declined to interfere with them again; set them at liberty, and desired the Lord to be with them.
For further particulars of Thomas Salthouse, the reader is referred to Whiting’s Memoirs, p. 452-460. Whiting concludes his account by saying, “He was a pleasant man in conversation, which rendered him acceptable to many others as well as Friends, had a large capacity, and an excellent gift in the ministry. He wrote some notable books, and excellent epistles to Friends, though never collected as they deserve. He died at his own house Cornwall in 1690, about sixty years of age, in peace with the Lord; and is no doubt at rest with him from all his labours and sufferings, and his works follow him.”
2. Near Handsworth-Woodhouse.
3. John Whitehead was a very eminent Minister amongst the early Friends, valiant for the truth, and a great sufferer for it. His life and writings have been published, to which the reader is referred. He wrote a very beautiful and encouraging epistle to Friends, dated Aylesbury prison, 12th month, 1660, which is inserted in Letters, &c., of Early Friends, 382-387. William Penn, in his preface to Whitehead’s Works, says, “He was among the most eminent for his sound mind and capacity, great zeal and boldness, and as great humility, patience, and labour in word, doctrine, and charity.”
4. Hugh Tickell was born in Cumberland, about the year 1610, being convinced by George Fox when he first visited Cumberland in 1653, he gave up his house for meetings, and entertained the Lord’s messengers. He became a faithful and eminent minister, travelling up and down in the service of the Gospel, suffering much for it, both in the spoiling of his goods and in imprisonments. In 1664 he was cast into Carlisle jail, with four other Friends, by priest Marshall of Crosthwaite, and though he kept him in prison three years, yet he took tithe of his land. But afterwards this priest fell down stairs and broke his skull, upon which he died. Hugh Tickell was again imprisoned in Carlisle jail, when about sixty-eight years old, by Richard Lowry, another priest of Crosthwaite, because he could not pay him tithes, who kept him prisoner about nine months, part of it in a cold winter, and in a damp nasty place not fit for men to lie in. This priest Lowry was suddenly stricken, and had the use of one side of his tongue, and his understanding much taken from him, and so continued a long time—a remarkable judgment.
Hugh Tickell patiently bore all his sufferings, and willingly endured them for the testimony of Jesus and a good conscience. But in his last imprisonment he contracted a distemper of body, which, increasing upon him after he came home, he grew weak, but continued in great patience; and being sensible his end drew nigh, set his house in order, and, taking leave of friends and neighbours, he sweetly departed in great peace in 1680, being above seventy years of age.
5. Of the William Wilson here alluded to, the following particulars have been gathered:—He was a man of an innocent life, and though he had little outward learning, God was pleased to teach him himself, and called him to bear a testimony to his name, which he did faithfully, not only in many parts of England, but in Germany and Scotland, which he visited several times. He was of a lowly and meek spirit, upright and just among his neighbours, which caused them often to submit their differences to his arbitration, in which he was careful to find out the real truth, and would never countenance deceit. In this service he was successful, seldom missing his desired end, viz., to restore peace. He was faithful in his testimony for the truth, and a sufferer for the same in prison at Kendal, in 1666, and several times afterwards, as well as by distress on his goods. Besides which he suffered cruel mockings, stoning, blows, and wounds, both from priests and people, particularly at Eskdale, where he exhorted the people “to mind that of God in their consciences, and turn to that holy light and law which he had put into their inward parts, that by the same they might come to know the will of God, and do it.” Because of these and like words, one Parker, a priest, beat and wounded him, and with one of his crutches broke his head, causing the blood to run down his shoulders. The priest being lame, and not able as he would to effect his cruel purpose, caused his horse to be brought, on which he mounted, and in the sight of the people broke his staff in three pieces upon William Wilson’s bare head, which made them cry out against such merciless behaviour. Before the priest got home, he was overtaken with sickness, and never came more to the steeple-house. During the time of his sickness he was very loathsome, and so died.
A few weeks after, William Wilson went to the same place at Eskdale, and for speaking to the people, one Fogo, a priest, took him by the hair of the head, pulled him to the ground, and drew him out. In rage and cruelty he also abused his brother Michael Wilson; but a few months after, this same Fogo, riding over some sands, accompanied by several people, fell into a quicksand, and was immediately smothered.
William Wilson left behind him a widow and two daughters, to whom he was a true husband and a tender father, instructing his children “to keep in the fear of the Lord, and to walk in the way of truth, which he walked in himself;” often saying to them, “it would be the best portion that they could enjoy.” His last illness was short. Having recently returned from a long journey, wherein his body was much spent and weak, he said, “I have not served the Lord unfruitfully; I have no trouble upon me; and I am very sensible that all is well with me.” Again he said, “He was content, whatsoever way the Lord pleased; he felt as a dove, harmless; and as a lamb, innocent.” A few hours before he died, at which time he walked several times over the room, he said, as he had often before, “My peace far exceeds my pain;” and standing upon his feet before two Friends, he said, “O that every one would mind the Lord, that they might keep life.” He then sat down and drew breath no more.
He died at his own house at Langdale, the 10th of the 5th month, 1682.
6. We cannot be surprised at the hard language sometimes used by the early Friends in protesting against the unchristian conduct of their persecutors. The rapacity of their enemies in the early periods of the Society carried their plunder to so great an excess, as not only to involve many in total ruin, but subjected them to long and cruel imprisonments, which, in many cases of particular hardship, terminated in death. It has already been stated that at one time there were 4,500 Quakers in prison in England and Wales at one time. In 1662, twenty died in different prisons in London, and seven more after their liberation, from ill treatment. In 1664, twenty-five died, and in 1665, fifty-two more. The number which perished in this way, throughout the whole kingdom, amounted to 369. But for fuller particulars of the cruelties practised against the early Quakers, the reader is referred to the two closely printed folio volumes, entitled Besse’s Sufferings.
7. The word Sirrah must not be confounded with Sir. It was no doubt made use of strictly in the sense of the only meaning Walker gives to it in his Dictionary, viz.viz., “A compellation of reproach and insult.”
8. Of Thomas Robertson not much is known, but he appears to have been a faithful labourer in his day. Ambrose Rigge, in the Account of his Life, states. “A fellow-labourer was prepared for me, which was Thomas Robertson of Westmorland; who was made willing to leave his dear wife and tender babes, to go with me into the Lord’s harvest.” In Letters, &c., of Early Friends, p. 226, is a letter from Thomas Robertson to Margaret Fell, under date 1655.
9. The person whom George Fox here and elsewhere styles Esquire Marsh, was a gentleman attached to the court of Charles II. He always remained attached to George Fox, and ever retained a most friendly interest for the Society in general. From his station at court and office as a magistrate, he had frequent opportunities of interposing his authority to protect the early Friends from the unjust oppression of their persecutors.
10. The sickness here alluded to was the “Plague,” which visited London in 1665. The state of the city during this dreadful visitation seems to have been most deplorable. The following striking description is from Ellis’s Original Letters in the British Museum. The letter is one addressed to Dr. Sancroft from J. Tillison, dated Sept. 14, 1665:—
“The desolation of the city is very great. That heart is either of steel or stone, that will not lament this sad visitation, and will not bleed for those unutterable woes! What eye would not weep to see so many habitations uninhabited—the poor sick not visited—the hungry not fed—the grave not satisfied! Death stares us continually in the face in every infected person that passes by us, in every coffin which is daily and hourly carried along the streets. The custom was in the beginning to bury the dead in the night only; but now both night and day will hardly be time enough to do it. The Quakers (as we are informed) have buried, in their piece of ground, a thousand for some weeks together past.”
George Whitehead relates the satisfaction and comfort many innocent Friends expressed on their deathbeds, both in Newgate and other noisome places during the plague. Death was truly gain to these: “it being through death,” says Whitehead, “that the Lord had appointed the final deliverance of many from the cruelties and rod of the oppressors, and from the miseries and evil to come.”—“Whilst the plague was raging in the city,” he adds, “our persecutors took fifty-five of our Friends (men and women) out of Newgate, where the distemper also prevailed, and forced them on board a ship for banishment, which lay for some time in the river. They were so crowded on board, and the distemper breaking out amongst them, most of them were infected, and twenty-seven of them soon died. I visited them, and had a meeting with them on board, and the Lord my God preserved me, both from the distemper and also from banishment, wherein I did humbly confess his power and special providence to his own praise and glory.”
11. See extraordinary occurrences in an attempt to banish a number of Friends recorded in a note in Letters, &c., of Early Friends, p. 142-145.
12. Ellis Hookes was employed in London as a recording clerk to the Society of Friends. It was he who commenced the Record of Sufferings (mentioned to George Fox in a letter bearing date 1660, inserted in Letters, &c., of Early Friends, p. 86, 87), which were written out into large folio volumes, still preserved among the Society’s records in London. These are continued down to the present day in forty or more of these large volumes. The clear and excellent writing of Ellis Hookes extends over a large portion of the first of these bulky folios. To the narratives of sufferings and persecutions, were added accounts of what were regarded as judgments upon persecutors; which were, doubtless in that day, ordered to be recorded, under a sense of the fear of God, and in testimony unto his overruling power.
Ellis Hookes died in 1681. In the London Register of Burials, he is described “of Horslydown in Southwark, scrivenor;” and “died the 12th of the 9th month, 1681, of a consumption (having been clerk to Friends in London about twenty-four years)—he was buried in Checker Alley.”
13. The great fire of London occurred towards the latter end of 1666. The narratives given in the Diaries of Evelyn and Pepys, who were eye-witnesses of it, are sad indeed. Evelyn writes—“Sept. 3. The fire continued all this night (if I may call that night, which was light as day for ten miles about), after a dreadful manner—when conspiring with a fierce eastern wind, in a very dry season. I went on foot to the Bankside in Southwark, and saw the whole south part of the city burning from Cheapside to the Thames, and all along Cornhill, Tower Street, Gracious Street, and so along to Bainard’s Castle, and was now taking hold of St. Paul’s Church. The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonished, that from the beginning (I know not by what despondency or fate) they hardly stirred to quench it; so that there was nothing heard or seen but crying out and lamentation, and running about like distracted creatures. O! the miserable and calamitous spectacle! such as happily the world had not seen the like since the foundation of it, nor to be outdone till the universal conflagration. All the sky was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, the light [being] seen above forty miles round about for many nights. The poor inhabitants were dispersed about St. George’s Fields and Moorfields, as far as Highgate, and several miles in circle—some under tents, some under miserable huts and hovels, many without a rag or necessary utensils, bed or board; who, from delicateness, riches, or easy accommodations in stately and well-furnished houses, were now reduced to extremest misery and poverty,” &c., vol. i. p. 372-374.
14. For some very interesting particulars respecting the setting up of Monthly and other disciplinary Meetings and their object, see Letters of Early Friends, pp. 288-292.
15. The William Smith mentioned here was originally pastor of an Independent congregation, living after the strictest manner of that people. He was convinced about the year 1658, and became a faithful labourer in the gospel. Many were turned to God by him, for he proved himself a minister of Jesus Christ, in labours, in travails, in watchings, necessities, and distresses, suffering much loss of goods and long and tedious imprisonments. For not paying tithes he was imprisoned twenty-one weeks among felons in Nottingham jail; and another time had the value of £42 taken from him, whilst he was in prison, for £7 demanded by the priest of Elton.
In the times of his frequent imprisonments, William Smith wrote several books, which were printed together in a folio volume in 1675, entitled Balm from Gilead, &c. When at liberty he travelled abroad strengthening the brethren, and though often visited by sickness, he was kept in patience and content, much of the power and presence of God appearing in him many times when he was in great weakness of body, to the admiration of beholders. During his last sickness, one evening, many Friends being in the room sitting in silence, he turned in his bed towards them, and plentifully declared of the love of God, by which they were much refreshed and tendered. He also testified of a large portion which he had in life eternal. Then he spoke to Friends “to be mindful of truth, and of their service therein, more than of their daily food; and so committed them to the grace of God.” The day before he died he called his children (six or seven), and tenderly exhorted them “to keep in the fear of God, and to love the truth, and God would be a father and portion to them.”
16. Some interesting documents, exhibiting the early care of the Society with regard to marriages, may bebe referred to in Letters, &c., of Early Friends, p. 259, 279, 283, &c. So early as 1659, at a meeting of Friends from four counties, an Epistle of Counsel and Advice was issued on this, and other subjects; recommending “that no marriage take place hastily or rashly; but in the fear of the Lord, and in the presence of many witnesses, according to Scripture example; that so no scandal or blemish may be laid upon the truth, but that all may be brought to the light; that a record in writing of the day, place, and year, be kept within the meeting where a marriage occurs, of which one or both are members; under which the witnesses may set their names.”
17. In the establishment of the schools at Waltham and at Shacklewell, at the suggestion of George Fox, we have evidence of his desire that a useful education should be imparted to youth. It is an error to suppose the early Friends depreciated human learning, and they must be exonerated from any such charge. They exhibited in their own persons, the practicability of the union of knowledge and virtue. While they were, many of them, eminent for their learning, they were distinguished for the piety of their lives. They were indeed the friends of both,both, but did not patronise the one to the prejudice and expulsion of the other. They always maintained (as Friends continue to do) that learning is not necessary to make a gospel minister, and here it is that many have mistaken their meaning.
Barclay, in his celebrated Apology, nowhere condemns the propriety, or usefulness of human learning, or denies it to be promotive of the temporal comforts of man. He says the knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, or of Logic and Philosophy, of Ethics or of Physics and Metaphysics, is not necessary. But mark his meaning. Not necessary to make a minister of the gospel. But where does he say that knowledge, which he himself possessed to such a considerable extent, was not necessary; or that it did not contribute to the innocent pleasures of life? What would have been the character of his own book, or what would have been its comparative value and usefulness, had he not been able to quote so many authors to his purpose in their original texts, or to have detected so many classical errors, introduced such apposite history, or to have drawn up his propositions with so much logical and mathematical clearness and precision; if he had not been among the first literary characters of his day?
William Penn was equally celebrated with Barclay as a scholar. His works afford abundant proof of his erudition, and of the high cultivation of his mind. Like the rest of his associates, he was no advocate for learning as a qualification for a minister of the gospel; but he was yet a friend to it, on the principle that it enlarged the understanding, and that it added to the innocent pleasures of the mind. He entreated his wife, in the beautiful letter he left her before he embarked on his first voyage to America, “not to be sparing of expense in procuring learning for his children; for that by such parsimony, all was lost that was saved.” And he recommended also, in the same letter, a mathematical and philosophical education.
Penn’s Secretary, James Logan, was also a patron of learning among the early Friends. He was a correspondent of Sir Hans Sloane and other literati of Europe, a contributor to Philosophical Transactions, and bequeathed his library, of 3000 vols. on arts and sciences in various languages, to the city of Philadelphia, with an endowment to preserve it for public use.
Thomas Ellwood, the companion of Milton, was so sensible of the disadvantages arising from a want of knowledge, that he revived his learning with great industry after he had become a Friend. “I mentioned before,” says he in his Journal, “that when I was a boy I made some progress in learning, and that I lost it all again before I came to be a man. Nor was I rightly sensible of my loss therein, till I came amongst Friends. But there I both saw my loss and lamented it, and applied myself with the utmost diligence at all leisure times to recover it. So false I found that charge to be, which in those times was cast as a reproach on the Society, that they despised and decried all human learning, because they denied it to be essentially necessary to a gospel ministry, which was one of the controversies of those times.” Ellwood’s friend, Isaac Penington, assisted him in this matter, and through his influence with Dr. Paget, procured him the means of improvement in becoming a reader to Milton.
18. The fourteen monthly meetings mentioned above as settled in Yorkshire so early as 1669, were York, Balby, Pontefract, Brighouse, Knaresbro’, Settle, Malton, Thirsk, Richmond, Guisbro’, Scarbro’, Kelk, Oustwick, and Elloughton.
19. The date of the marriage of George Fox and Margaret Fell, in the Bristol Register of Friends, is 27th of 8th Month, 1669.
Margaret Fell, it will be remembered, was the widow of Judge Fell of Swarthmore Hall. It is remarkable with what high esteem and Christian love this devoted woman appears to have been regarded by our early and most eminent Friends. She seems to have been generally acknowledged as a faithful nursing-mother of the flock; and she often addressed them, when in bonds or otherwise, with letters of consolation and encouragement. (See numerous letters to and from her in Barclay’s Letters, &c., of Early Friends). It is also probable she contributed largely from her means to the relief of their outward necessities. Having faithfully fulfilled her allotted labours, she died much beloved and lamented, at her own house at Swarthmore, in 1702, being near the eighty-eighth year of her age, and having survived George Fox about twelve years.
Some remarkable expressions of assured happiness fell from her lips during her last illness, if that could be called an illness, which was the decay of nature. At one time, under the meltings of heavenly love, she said, “Oh my sweet Lord! into thy holy bosom do I commit myself freely; not desiring to live in this troublesome, painful world—it is all nothing to me—for my Maker is my husband.” A little before her departure she called her daughter Rachel to her, saying, “Take me in thy arms”—after which she said, “I am in peace!”
20. The “Conventicle Act” so called, first passed in 1664, was renewed at the above time (1670), with increased rigour. The penalties were £5, or three months to the house of correction, for the first offence of attending a conventicle, if above sixteen years of age; £10, or six months, for the second; transportation for seven years for the third, with sequestration of estate, or distraint for the charges; and five years’ SLAVERY IN THE COLONIES, by contract between the sheriff and a purchaser, on being sent abroad, in defect of property to distrain upon; or out of which to pay £100 as a liberating fine. This fine to be repeated, and £100 added as oft as he should offend afterwards, or transportation, &c. (with death for returning), and the forfeiture of his life-interest in his estate.
Conventicles to be broken up by an armed force, under the direction of lieutenants of counties, sheriffs, &c. Even a femme covert could not escape; but must be redeemed by her husband, at the price of £40; or go to prison, or be transported with him. Nor could a peer of the realm: he must be fined £10 for the first offence, £20 for the second, and for the third, be tried by his peers. The fines to be levied by distress, by warrant of any two justices, or a chief magistrate.
The force of this Act was directed against the Quakers, by inserting, in the latter part of it, three sections, which brought their refusal to take an oath under its full penalties; and they suffered dreadfully through it! In the streets, or where they met to assert their religious rights, they were dragooned; in court they had oaths tendered, and were convicted under this Act upon their refusal.
“This Act,” says Besse, “was forthwith put into a rigorous execution, and many hungry informers [for the sake of their third of the penalties] made it their business to live upon the spoil and ruin of conscientious people.” Friends were great sufferers thereby, of the nature of which the reader may have some idea by reference to “Sufferings under the Conventicle Act;” Select Miscellanies, vol. iii., pp. 220-245.
21. The celebrated trial of Penn and Mead at the Old Bailey, above alluded to, may be seen at full length in Clarkson’s Life of Penn—“a trial which, for the good it has done to posterity, ought to be engraved on tablets of the most durable marble.” It was certainly one of those events which, in conjunction with others of a similar sort, by showing the inadequacy of punishment for religion to its supposed end, not only corrected and improved the notions of succeeding ages in this respect, but, by so doing, lessened the ravages of persecution, and the enmity between man and man. Nor ought posterity to be less grateful for it as a monument of the ferocity and corrupt usages of former times; for, contrasting these with the notions and customs of our own age, we see the improvement of our social and moral condition. Newgate is no longer the receptacle of innocent individuals suffering for conscience’ sake. In our courts of law we see an order, a decorum, and an administration of justice, unknown at the period of this memorable trial. Nor will the prospect be less grateful, if we quit the present for a moment, and direct our eyes to the future. We have the best reason to hope, on contemplating the signs of the times, that the day is approaching when the Christian religion, which is capable of cementing men in the strongest possible union, and for the noblest purposes, will be restored to its primitive purity, and made a blessing to all the dwellers upon the earth.
22. Isaac Penington has been mentioned before, but only cursorily, in the whole of this Journal; not often meeting with George Fox. But he was one of the most eminent, experienced, and beloved, of the Early Friends. He was well descended as to his worldly parentage, being the eldest son of Alderman Penington, who was two years successively Mayor of London, and a noted member of the Long Parliament. Born about the year 1617, he received a liberal education, having, according to Penn, “all the advantages the schools and universities of his own country could give, joined with the conversation of some of the most learned and considerable men of that time.”
From childhood, Isaac Penington was religiously inclined, and, in a paper written by himself, and found after his death amongst his writings, we have such a living portrait of a deeply-exercised mind, as demonstrates that godliness with him was indeed the “one thing needful.” “In the sense of my lost estate,” he writes, “I sought after the Lord; I read the Scriptures; I watched over mine own heart; and whatever I read in the Scriptures, as the way of God, to my understanding, I gave myself to the faithful practice of.” He became fully convinced of the principles of Friends, and joined that despised people—becoming a faithful sufferer for the cause of Christ.
He was six times in jail, some of his imprisonments being long, yet borne with great quietness and constancy of mind. His first imprisonment was in Aylesbury jail in 1661 and 1662, being committed there for worshipping God in his own house. He was kept there seventeen weeks, great part of it in winter—in a cold and very incommodious room without a chimney, from which usage he contracted so severe an indisposition, that for several weeks after he was unable to turn himself in his bed.
In the sixty-third year of his age “he died as he lived, in the faith that overcomes the world.”
23. Thomas Rous was a wealthy sugar-planter of Barbadoes. John Rous was his son, and son-in-law to George Fox, having married his wife’s eldest daughter. John Rous visited New England as a gospel minister when a young man, and suffered whipping and imprisonment there. After his release from Boston jail in 1658, except a visit which he paid to the island of Nevis towards the close of that year, we lose all trace of him until his marriage with Margaret, eldest daughter of Judge Fell, at Swarthmore Hall, in 1662. After his marriage he settled in London, in which, and in its vicinity, he appears to have resided during the remainder of his life. But few particulars respecting him are preserved, except a visit to the county of Kent in 1670, accompanied by Alexander Parker and George Whitehead; and to Barbadoes the following year with George Fox, as related in this Journal. Besides this, and a visit to the counties of York and Durham in 1689, we know nothing of his gospel labours after he settled in England. In his will, dated from Kingston in Surrey in 1692, he describes himself as a merchant, and his property, which, it appears was considerable, lay chiefly in Barbadoes. It is singular no record of his death has been found, but as his will was proved in 1695, it probably took place in that year.
24. The interest of Friends in behalf of the Negro may be dated from the rise of the Society, at least from the time of their acquaintance with them at the above date. In proportion as intercourse was more frequently maintained with the distant colonies, and the abominations of Slavery were more generally known, Friends were more decided in their opposition to it. In 1727 the whole Society, at their Yearly Meeting in London, passed a general resolution: “That the importing of Negroes from their native country is not a commendable or allowable practice, and is therefore censured by this meeting.” At several subsequent meetings, through a series of years, minutes were passed to the same effect, but gradually increasing in strength. In 1758, the practice was declared to be in direct violation of the gospel rule, and Friends were warned carefully to avoid being in any way concerned in reaping the unrighteous profits arising from so iniquitous a practice. In 1761 all were disowned who persisted in a practice so repugnant to Christianity, and so reproachful to a Christian profession.
Clarkson, in alluding to this subject, observes, “I must beg leave to stop here for a moment, just to pay the Quakers a due tribute of respect for the proper estimation in which they have uniformly held these miserable outcasts of society. What a contrast does it afford to the sentiments of many others concerning them! How have we been compelled to prove, by a long chain of evidence, that Negroes have the same feelings and capacities as ourselves! How many, professing themselves enlightened, even now view them as of a different species. But by the Friends we have seen them uniformly represented, as persons ‘ransomed by one and the same Saviour,’ ‘as visited by one and the same light for salvation,’ and ‘as made equally for immortality as others.’ These practical views of mankind, as they are highly honourable to the members of this Society, so they afford a proof both of the reality and of the consistency of their religion.”
See Clarkson’s History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and Copley’s History of Slavery.
25. The faith of the early Friends in the divinity and offices of our Saviour being called in question by some, they boldly resented such an inference. From a work published by Samuel Crisp, in 1704, take the following extracts:—
“Our faith is, and always has been in that Christ, the Son of God, who, according to the flesh, was crucified without the gates of Jerusalem: He is the object of our faith, to the merit of whose death and passion, with the work of his Spirit in our hearts, we trust only for life and salvation; with his stripes we are healed.”
“As to what he (a libeller) says of our forcing ourselves to speak with a seeming reverence and respect of the outward Christ, his death and sufferings, I would hope that he knows better in his own conscience than thus to represent us. We bear a true reverence and respect to Jesus Christ, his death and sufferings, and can never be sufficiently thankful to him who was pleased to humble himself to death, even the death of the cross; that all that believe in him might, through the cross, be made heirs of life and immortality.”
For further elucidation of the soundness of the early Friends in their belief as to the divinity and offices of Christ, see Evans’ Exposition of the Faith of the Society of Friends, especially John Banks’ “Testimony concerning his faith in Christ,” and an “Essay drawn up by John Burnyeat and John Watson in 1688,” contained in the above-mentioned work.
26. John Burnyeat, a fellow-labourer in the gospel with George Fox, and who is several times named in this Journal, was born in Cumberland about the year 1631. He was well educated, and religiously inclined from his youth, and convinced by George Fox when he first came into Cumberland in 1653. He became an unwearied traveller in the gospel, both in this country and in America, boldly proclaiming the glad tidings of salvation, for which he fell in for his share of abuse and imprisonments. Once at Ripon, when visiting twenty-four of his friends imprisoned there for the testimony of Jesus, speaking a few words to them he was haled away before the mayor, and several times knocked off his knees when at prayer, being sent to prison to his friends, and kept there fourteen weeks.
He married and settled in Ireland, where his service mostly lay in his latter days. In 1683 he was imprisoned in the Marshalsea in Dublin two months for meeting and preaching. His wife died in 1688; and he, having finished his course, and kept the faith, departed in peace in 1690. His works, and testimonies concerning him, with an account of his convincement, and journal of his travels, were published in a 4to volume, to which the reader is referred. See also Piety Promoted, vol. i. p. 179; and Whiting’s Memoirs, p. 416-430.
27. The instances of heathen kindness and hospitality, experienced by George Fox and others who have visited the Indians in a friendly manner, contrast very favourably in comparison with the many acts of bigoted intolerance and cruelty recorded in these volumes on the part of those professedly civilized and Christian.
Many incidents might be related in proof of Indian kindness when unprovoked to opposite conduct. When the Quakers were under a cruel persecution by the magistrates of Boston, in New England, Nicholas Upshal, “a man of unblameable conversation,” and a church member of their communion, showed the sufferers kindness, by giving five shillings a week to the jailer to let those confined in prison have the sustenance necessary for life—the magistrates having caused the jail window to be boarded up, that none might communicate with, or help them. He proceeded afterwards to reason with the magistrates, and warn them not to be found fighting against God, for which he was fined £20, imprisoned, and then banished; though a weakly old man, and the season the depth of winter. In his banishment in the wilderness, he met an Indian, who, having understood how he had been dealt with, took compassion on him, and very kindly told him, if he would live with him he would make him a warm house; and further said, “What a God have these English, who deal so with one another about their God!”
28. See Bowden’s History of Friends in America, vol. i., pp. 280-284.
29. This is the only mention of Christopher Holder in these volumes. He was a great sufferer in the New England persecution. In 1657 he and another Friend being at Salem, went to the Puritan place of worship there, and after the priest had concluded, Christopher Holder addressing the assembly, was not allowed to proceed; one of the commissioners with much fury “seizing him by the hair of his head,” and violently thrusting a glove and handkerchief into his mouth. These two Friends were subsequently sentenced, under “the law against Quakers,” to receive thirty lashes. The brutal manner in which this sentence was carried out, was in accordance with the spirit that prompted the rulers to pass the cruel law. A three-corded knotted whip was used on the occasion; and the executioner, to make more sure of his blows, “measured his ground,” and then “fetched his strokes with all his might.” Thirty strokes thus inflicted, as will be readily imagined, left the sufferers miserably torn and lacerated; and in this state they were conveyed to their prison cell. Here, without any bedding, or even straw to lie on, the inhuman jailer kept them for three days without food or drink; and, in this dismal abode, often exposed to damp and cold, were these faithful men confined for the space of nine weeks. We may wonder that, under such aggravated cruelties their lives were spared; but He, for whose holy cause they thus suffered, was near to support and console them. His ancient promise was fulfilled in their experience, and they rejoiced in the comforting presence of his living power.—Bowden’s History of Friends in America.
Previous to this, Christopher Holder and his companion had been banished from Rhode Island. The governor having hired an Indian to convey them off the island, ordered the Friends to pay for the passage themselves. But not being willing to facilitate their own banishment, and not feeling that it was their Divine Master’s will for them to leave the island, they declined to go, or to pay the Indian who was hired to take them. The governor directed the constable forcibly to obtain the requisite sum from the strangers, and gave peremptory orders to the natives to take them away in their canoes. The Algonquins, however, not being in any great haste to execute the bidding of the governor, contrary to the will of the Friends, and at a time too when the weather was stormy, entertained them for three days with marked kindness and hospitality. A change in the weather then taking place, and the banished ones feeling that it was no longer required of them to stay on the island, the Indians, at their own request, prepared to take them across. Before leaving the island the Friends offered to remunerate the natives for their kindness, but these poor people, from the generous impulses of their hearts, acting more in unison with the spirit of Christianity than those who were wont to be their teachers, declined to receive any reward. “You are strangers,” they replied, “and Jehovah hath taught us to love strangers.” Such simple and feeling language from the lips of North American Indians, was a striking rebuke to the bigotry and intolerance which marked the conduct of their highly professing teachers.—Bowden’s History of Friends in America.
30. This George Wilson, at whose house George Fox was entertained, is not mentioned elsewhere in the Journal. He was originally from Great Britain, and a great sufferer for the truth during the New England persecution. In 1661, it appears he was amongst twenty-seven other Friends in prison in Boston, who were liberated that year by an order from the home government. But these faithful messengers of the Lord, who were thus unexpectedly released from bondage, were concerned, almost immediately on leaving the jail, to preach to the inhabitants those truths for which they had suffered. The magistrates, already at their wits’-end, in fruitlessly endeavouring to arrest the spread of Quaker principles, being impatient at this fresh manifestation of devotedness, ordered a guard of soldiers to drive all the Friends out of their territory into the wilderness; an order which was speedily executed. George Wilson was among those who were thus forcibly expelled; but, undismayed by the new law for the application of the whip, they returned at once to their homes. There they were quickly apprehended, and sentenced to undergo a flogging through three towns, and to be put out of the limits of the colony. The executioner, desirous of lending his ingenuity to increase the severity of the sentence, provided himself with a singularly constructed whip, or as it is called, a “cruel instrument,” with which he “miserably tore” the bodies of the sufferers. Such was the new and barbarous character of the weapon used on this occasion, that Friends endeavoured, though unsuccessfully, to obtain it to send to England, as another proof of the malignant cruelty which actuated the rulers of Massachusetts towards the new Society. At the conclusion of this whipping at Boston, George Wilson, in the midst of his persecutors, knelt in solemn supplication to the Most High.
Being on a gospel mission in Virginia, George Wilson became a victim to the reigning intolerance, and was incarcerated in the dungeon at James’ Town. The circumstances of his case evinced great barbarity on the part of his persecutors. The place of his imprisonment was an extremely loathsome one, without light or ventilation. Here, after being cruelly scourged and heavily ironed for a long period, he had to feel the heartlessness of a persecuting and dominant hierarchy; until, at last, his flesh actually rotted from his bones, and, within the cold damp walls of the miserable dungeon of James’ Town, he laid down his life a faithful martyr for the testimony of Jesus.
The patience and resignation with which George Wilson bore his aggravated sufferings, and his faithfulness unto death, form a striking instance of the inflexible adherence to conscientious conviction, which so remarkably characterized the early Friends. Living near to Him who is the fountain and fulness of love, his enemies also became the objects of his solicitude; and, whilst lingering in the wretched dungeon, his heart was lifted up in prayer for his persecutors. “For all their cruelty,” he writes, “I can truly say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”—Bowden’s History of Friends in America.