shoemaker, but having a peculiar turn of mind for religion, he went away from his master, and wandered up and down the country like a hermit in a leathern doublet; at length his friends hearing he was at London, persuaded him to return home, and settle in some regular course of employment; but after he had been some months in the country, he went from his friends a second time, in the year 1646, and threw off all farther attendance on the public service in the churches: the reasons he gave for his conduct were, because it was revealed to him, that a learned education at the university was no qualification for a minister, but that all depended on the anointing of the Spirit, and that God who made the world. did not dwell in temples made with hands. In the year 1647, he travelled into Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, walking through divers towns and villages, which way soever his mind turned, in a solitary manner. He fasted much (says my author), and walked often abroad in retired places, with no other companion but his Bible. He would sometimes sit in a hollow tree all day, and frequently walked about the fields in the night, like a man possessed with deep melancholy which the writer of his life calls the "time of the first working of the Lord upon him." Towards the latter end of this year, he began first to set up for a teacher of others, about Duckinfield and Manchester; the principal argument of his discourse being, that people should receive the inward divine teachings of the Lord, and take that for their rule.

In the year 1648, there being a dissolution of all government both civil and ecclesiastical, George Fox waxed bold †, and tra

earliest years. Virtuous and sober manners, a peculiar staidness of mind, and gravity of demeanour, marked his youth. His chief employment under his master, who also dealt in wool and cattle, was to keep sheep, which was well suited to his disposition both for innocence and solitude. He acquitted himself with a fidelity and diligence, that conduced much to the success of his master's affairs. It was a custom with him to ratify his dealing with the word verily; to which he so firmly and conscientiously adhered, that those who knew him would remark, "If George says verily, there is no altering." Mr. Neal's expression," he went away from his master," may be understood as intimating a clandestine and dishonourable leaving his master's service: which was not the case. He did not begin his solitary travels, till after his apprenticeship was finished, and he had returned home to his parents. The leathern dress was adopted by him, on account of its simplicity and its durableness, as it required little repairing, which was convenient to him in his wandering and unsettled course of life. Sewel's Hist. p. 6-12; and Gough's History of the Quakers, vol. 1. p. 60.—ED.

Sewel's History of the Quakers, p. 6-12.

The circumstances of this period, as stated by Gough, will shew the propriety of our author's language here, and preclude the suspicion that has fallen on him, of intending to insinuate that the boldness of George Fox was criminal, and that the dissolution of government had rendered him licentious. At this time the Independents and Republicans had accomplished their purpose: regal dominion, the peculiar privileges of the nobility, and the office of bishops, were abolished. Their professed principles were in favour of civil and religious liberty. The places of public worship seem, for a season, to have been open to teachers of different denominations, and not uncommonly appropriated to theological discussion and disputation between the teachers or members of various sects. These propitious circumstances furnished Fox and others with opportunities of disseminating their opinions and a fair opportunity naturally inspirits and emboldens to any undertaking. Gough's History, vol. 1. p. 72.-ED.

velled through the counties of Leicester, Northampton, and Derby, speaking to the people in market-places, &c. about the inward light of Christ within them*. At this time, says my authort, he apprehended the Lord had forbid him to put off his hat to any one, high or low; he was required also to speak to the people without distinction in the language of thou and thee. He was not to bid people good-morrow, or good-night; neither might he bend his knee to the chief magistrate in the nation; the women that followed him would not make a courtesy to their superiors, nor comply with the common forms of speech. Both men and women affected a plain and simple dress, distinct from the fashion of the times. They neither gave nor accepted any titles of respect or honour, nor would they call any man master on earth. They refused to take an oath on the most solemn occasion. These and the like peculiarities, he supported by such passages of Scripture as these, "Swear not at all;" "How can ye believe who receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour which comes from God only?" But these marks of distinction which George Fox and his followers were so tenacious of, unhappily brought them into a great deal of trouble, when they were called to appear before the civil magistrate.

In the year 1649, he grew more troublesome, and began to interrupt the public ministers in time of divine service: his first essay of this kind was at Nottingham, where the minister preaching from these words of St. Peter, "We have a more sure word of prophecy," &c. told the people, that they were to try all doctrines, opinions, and religions, by the Holy Scriptures. Upon which George Fox stood up in the middle of the congregation and said, "Oh no! it is not the Scripture, but it is the Holy Spirit, by which opinions and religions are to be tried; for it was the Spirit that led people into all truth, and gave them the knowledge of it.” And continuing his speech to the disturbance of the congregation, the officers were obliged to turn him out of the church, and carry him to the sheriff's house; next day he was committed to the castle, but was quickly released without any other punishment §.

The words of Sewel are, "that every man was enlightened by the divine light of Christ." The term used, by this historian, for the followers of Fox, is fellowbelievers, without any reference to their sex; nor does his narrative shew, that they consisted more of women than men ; which Mr. Neal's expression seems to intimate. -ED.

History of the Quakers, p. 18.

See note of this page.

§ Mr. Neal's account of this imprisonment of George Fox is censured by a late historian, as not strictly true, nor supported by his authority, Sewel, and through a partial bias a very palliative narration. The fact more exactly and fully stated is this: That Fox was not taken immediately from the church to the sheriff's house, but to prison, and put into a place so filthy and intolerably noisome, that the smell thereof was very grievous to be endured. At night he was carried before the mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs, of the town, and after examination was recommitted. But one of the sheriffs, whose name was Reckless, being much affected with the sentiments he had advanced, removed him to his own house. During his residence there, Mr. Fox was visited by persons of considerable condition; the sheriff, as

After this he disturbed the minister of Mansfield in time of divine service, for which he was set in the stocks, and turned out of the town *. The like treatment he met with at Market-Bosworth, and several other towns+. At length the magistrates of Derby confined him six months in prison, for uttering divers blasphemous opinions, pursuant to a late act of parliament for that purpose.

well as his wife and family, was greatly affected with his doctrine; insomuch that he and several others exhorted the people and the magistrates to repentance. This provoked the latter to remove Fox back to the common prison, where he lay till the assizes. When he was to have been brought before the judge, the officer was so dilatory in the execution of his business, that the court was broken up before he was conducted to it. He was, on this, again ordered into the common gaol, and detained there some time longer. As far as appears, he was imprisoned, detained in prison, and released, at the mere will and pleasure of the magistrates of Nottingham, without any legal cause assigned. "Such arbitrary exertion of power (well observes my author) ill agrees with a regard for chartered privileges and equal liberty." Gough's Hist, of the Quakers, vol. 1. p. 83, 84. Sewel's Hist. 21, 22.-ED.

Mr. Neal is considered as passing over this treatment of Fox in too "cursory a manner" and is blamed for placing his conduct in the most invidious light it would bear, disturbing the minister. But, surely, if Mr. Fox spoke while the minister was preaching, without waiting till he had finished his discourse, it was disturbing him by an unseasonable interruption. But this circumstance is not to be clearly ascertained by Sewel. The treatment which Fox met with was iniquitous and violent to an extreme degree. The hearers of the minister "converted the place of divine worship into a scene of lawless riot, and the time set apart for the service of God into an enormous abuse of a fellow-creature; manifesting their religion to be such (observes Mr. Gough with great propriety) at the time when it should most affect their minds, as admitted of injury, revenge, and violating the peace and order of society. For they assaulted Mr. Fox in a furious manner, struck him down, and beat him cruelly with their hands, bibles, and sticks, whereby he was grievously bruised. After they had thus vented their rage, they haled him out, and put him into the stocks, where he sat some hours: and then they took him before a magistrate, who, seeing how grossly he had been abused, after much threatening, set him at liberty. But still the rude multitude, insatiate in abuse, stoned him out of the town, though hardly able to go, or well to stand, by reason of their violent usage." It should be remarked here, that the magistrate's conduct was extremely culpable, in not inflicting a punishment on these disturbers of the peace, for this unjust and violent attack on a man who had done them no harm, but meant to do them good; and in not affording to him his protection. Gough's Hist. vol. 1. p. 84-86.—ED.

+ Sewel, p. 22.

This was the language of the mittimus, by which Fox and another were committed to the house of correction; we regret that Mr. Neal should have adopted it, without giving his reader the grounds on which the severe epithet was applied to their opinions. After the service of a lecture, at which Mr. Fox had attended, was finished, he spoke what was on his mind, and was heard without molestation: when he had done, an officer took him by the hand, and carried him before the magistrates. Being asked, "why he came thither?" he answered, that "God had moved him to it" and added, "that God did not dwell in temples made with hands; and that all their preaching, baptism, and sacrifices, would never sanctify them ; but that they ought to look unto Christ in them, and not unto men, for it is Christ that sanctities. As they were very full of words, sometimes disputing, and some times deriding, he told them, "they were not to dispute of God and Christ, but to obey him." At last they asked him, "if he was sanctified?" he replied, "Yes:" "if he had no sin?" his answer was, "Christ my Saviour hath taken away my sin, and in him there is no sin." To the next question, "How he and his friends knew Christ was in them?" he replied, "By his Spirit, which he hath given us." Then they were asked "if any of them were Christ?" to which insidious query he answered, "Nay, we are nothing; Christ is all." He was next interrogated, "If a man steal, is it no sin?" to which his reply was, "All unrighteousness is sin."

By this time there began to appear some other visionaries, of the same make and complexion with George Fox, who spoke in places of public resort; being moved, as they said, by the Holy Ghost: and even some women, contrary to the modesty of their sex, went about streets, and entered into churches, crying down the teaching of men, and exhorting people to attend to the light within themselves.

It was in the year 1650 that these wandering lights first received the denomination of Quakers, upon this ground, that their speaking to the people was usually attended with convulsive agitations, and shakings of the body. All their speakers had these tremblings, which they gloried in, asserting it to be the character of a good man to tremble before God. When George Fox appeared before Gervas Bennet, esq. one of the justices of Derby, October 30, 1650, he had one of his agitations, or fits of trembling, upon him, and with a loud voice and vehement emotion of body, bid the justice and those about him tremble at the word of the Lord; whereupon the justice gave him and his friends the name of Quakers, which being agreeable to their common behaviour, quickly became the distinguishing denomination of this people*.

With what candour, with what propriety, with what truth, could the charge of blasphemy be grounded on these declarations, especially by the magistrates who examined and committed him? The names to the mittimus were Ger. Bennet and Nath. Barton: both of them were Independents, the latter an officer and preacher : men whose own tenets implied a supernatural influence, and admitted no interference of the civil magistrate in spiritual concerns, but were pointed in favour of universal toleration: one of whom could himself have no commission to preach but on the ground of God's moving him to it. These were the men who accused Fox of blasphemy, and imprisoned him: “a remarkable instance (observes Mr. Gough) of the inconsistency of men with themselves in different stations of life:" a remarkable instance, it may be added, how the law may be wrested and justice preverted by passion and prejudice. Mr. Neal's manner of relating this transaction unhappily conceals the criminal conduct of these magistrates, and is too much calculated to perpetuate the prejudice which misled and governed them. Sewel's History, p. 24; and Gough's History, vol. 1. p. 90-94.—ED.

*The above paragraph has given great offence, and is severely censured by Mr. Gough, as 66 an opprobrious description approaching to scurrility." The plain fact, as it stands in Sewel, has none of those circumstances of agitations, a loud voice and vehement emotions, with which Mr. Neal has described it, and for which he has quoted no authority. Fox, according to Sewel, having bid the justice and those about him to "tremble at the word of the Lord," Mr. Bennet took hold of this weighty saying with such an airy mind, that from thence he took occasion to call him, and his friends, scornfully, Quakers. This name was eagerly taken up and spread among the people. As to the convulsive emotions with which, it is said, the preaching of these Christians was accompanied, it is but fair to hear their advocate. "We readily admit (says Mr. Gough) these promulgators of primitive Christianity had no university education, were not trained in schools of oratory. It was plain truth and righteousness they sought to follow and recommend in a plain simple way, without the studied decorations of fine language, or the engaging attractions of a graceful motion; they spoke not to the head, or to the eye, but to the hearts of their auditors. Being themselves animated, and deeply affected in spirit with the inward feeling of the power of that truth, to the knowledge of which they aimed to bring others, that thereby they might be saved; an unaffected warmth of zeal in recommending righteousness, and testifying against vice and wickedness, might produce a warmth of expression, and action also, which to an inious eye might appear convulsive: but their convulsions did not bereave them

At length they disturbed the public worship by appearing in ridiculous habits, with emblematical or typical representations of some impending calamity; they also took the liberty of giving ministers the reproachful names of hirelings, deceivers of the people, false prophets, &c. Some of them went through divers towns and villages naked, denouncing judgments and calamities upon the nation. Some have famished and destroyed themselves by deep melancholy; and others have undertaken to raise their friends from the dead. Mr. Baxter says, many Franciscan friars and other Papists have been disguised speakers in their assemblies; but little credit is to be given to such reports t.

It cannot be expected that such an unsettled people should have a uniform system of rational principles. Their first and chief design, if they had any, was to reduce all revealed religion to allegory; and because some had laid too great stress upon rites and ceremonies, these would have neither order nor regularity, nor stated seasons of worship, but all must arise from the inward impulse of their spirits. Agreeable to this rule, they declared against all sorts of clergy, or settled ministers; against people's assembling in stecple-houses; against fixed times of public devotion, and consequently against the observation of the sabbath.

of understanding; they spake with the spirit and with the understanding also, of things which they knew, and testified of things which they had seen. And their doctrine was often effectual to open the understanding of their hearers, to see clearly the state of their minds, both what they were and what they ought to be." Gough's History, vol. 1. p. 96, note.-ED.

Baxter's Life, p. 77.

If but little credit is to be given to such reports, it may be asked, why are they introduced: when, if not refuted, they tend to mislead the reader, and to fix a reproach on an innocent people? Is it becoming the candour and dignity of an historian, by recording, to appear to give them a sanction? As to the case in hand, Mr. Baxter, on whose authority Mr. Neal speaks, though he was a great and excellent man, was not entirely exempt from the influence of prejudice and credulity. In general, stories to the discredit of a new, despised, and hated sect, are often eagerly adopted and spread with circumstances of aggravation. So it happened to the first Christians. This has befallen the Methodists in our times. And the Quakers, being particular objects of priestly indignation, had reason to complain of this. They were often confounded with an ephemeron sect, whose principles were totally incompatible with theirs, called Ranters, and whose practices outraged all decency and order. An active preacher amongst the Quakers, Mr. Edward Burroughs, and the celebrated Barclay, wrote against the practices of these people. Gough's History, vol. 1. p. 128, 129, note; and vol. 3. p. 15.-ED. This is not accurate, or is applicable only to the infancy of the sect. For, though they did not esteem one house more holy than another, and believed all times equally the Lord's, and that all days should be sabbaths or times of continual rest and abstinence from evil; yet as soon as their numbers were sufficient for the purpose, they held fixed and regular meetings for worship, particularly on the first day of the week, which they chose as more convenient, because more generally accepted than any other. In 1654, meetings were settled in many places in the north, and also in the city of London, which were held in private houses, till the body growing too large to be accommodated in them, a house known by the name of Bull-and-Mouth, in Martin's- Le-Grand, near Aldersgate-street, was hired for a meeting-house. And no body of Christians were more open, steady, and regular, than they have been in their public associations for worship or discipline. Sewel's History, p. 80. 84. Gough's Hist. vol. 1. p. 144 and 509.-ED.

VOL II.

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