Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

also, yet I could not keep out the wind and rain. Besides, they would not suffer friends to come at me; and many times not any, not so much as to bring me a little food; but I was forced, for the first quarter, to hire another to bring me necessaries. Sometimes the soldiers would take it from her, and she would scuffle with them for it. Commonly a three-penny loaf served me three weeks, and sometimes longer, and most of my drink was water, with wormwood steeped or bruised in it. One time, when the weather was very sharp, and I had taken great cold, I got a little elicampane beer; and I heard one of the soldiers say to the other, They would play me a pretty trick; for they would send for me up to the deputygovernor, and in the mean time drink my strong beer out,' and so they did."

[ocr errors]

Among many extraordinary men, whom suffering brought Fox acquainted with, was Cromwell himself. The whole passage is worth extracting. He had been sent up to London in charge of Captain Drury, for refusing to give his word to Colonel Hacker not to attend meetings.

"After Captain Drury had lodged me at the Mermaid, over against the Mews, at Charing Cross, he went to give the Protector an account of me. When he came to me again, he told me the Protector required that I should promise not to take up a carnal sword or weapon against him or the government, as it then was; and that I should write it in what words I saw good, and set my hand to it. I said little in reply to Captain Drury; but the next morning I was moved of the Lord to write a paper to the Protector, by the name of Oliver Cromwell, wherein I did, in the presence of the Lord God, declare, that I did deny the wearing or drawing of a carnal sword, or any other outward weapon, against him or any man; and that I was sent of God to stand a witness against all violence, and against the works of darkness; and to turn people from darkness to light; 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.' When I had written what the Lord had given me to write, I set my name to it, and gave it to Captain Drury, to hand to Oliver Cromwell, which he did. After some time, Captain Drury brought me before the Protector himself, at Whitehall. It was in a morning, before he was dressed; and one Harvey, who had come a little among friends, but was disobedient, waited upon him. When I came in, I was moved to say, 'Peace be in this house;' and I exhorted him to 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 hand unto God's glory. I spoke much to him of truth; and a great deal of discourse I had with him about religion, wherein he carried himself very moderately. But he said, we quarrelled with the priests, whom he called ministers. I told him, I did not quarrel with them, they quarrelled with me and my friends. But,

6

said I, if we own the prophets, Christ, and the apostles, we cannot hold up 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.' Then I shewed him, that the prophets, Christ, and the apostles, declared freely, and declared against them that did not declare freely; such as preached for filthy lucre, divined for money, and preached for hire, and were covetous and greedy, like the dumb dogs, that could never have enough; and that they who have the same spirit that Christ, and the prophets, and the apostles had, could not but declare against all such now, as they did then. As I spoke, he several times said, it was very good, and it was truth. I told him, That all Christendom (so called) had the scriptures, but they wanted the power and spirit that those had who gave forth the scriptures, 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.' Many more words I had with him; but people coming in, I drew a little back. As I was turning, he catched me 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 the other;' adding, that he wished me no more ill than he did to his own soul. I told him, if he did, he wronged his own soul; and admonished him to 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. He said it was true. Then I went out; and when Captain Drury came out after me, he told me, the lord Protector said I was at liberty, and might go whither I would. Then I was brought into a great hall, where the Protector's gentlemen were to dine. I asked them, What they brought me thither for? They said it was by the Protector's order, that I might dine with them. I bid them let the Protector know, I would not eat of his bread, nor drink of his drink. When he heard this, he said, 'Now I see there is a people risen, that I cannot win, either with gifts, honours, offices, or places; but all other sects and people I can.' It was told him again,' That we had forsook our own, and were not like to look for such things from him.'

[ocr errors]

Upon another occasion he observes, "Leaving Kington, we rode to London. When we came near Hyde Park, we saw a great concourse of people, and, looking towards them, espied the Protector coming in his coach. Whereupon I rode to his coach side. Some of his life-guard would have put me away; but he forbad them. So I rode by his coach side with him, declaring what the Lord gave me to say to him, of his condition, and of the sufferings of friends in the nation; showing him, how contrary this persecution was to Christ and his apostles, and to Christianity. When we were come to James's Park Gate, I left him; and at parting he desired me to come to his

house. The next day, one of his wife's maids, whose name was Mary Sanders, came to me at my lodging, and told me her master came to her, and said he would tell her some good news. When she asked him what it was? he told her, George Fox was come to town. She replied, that was good news indeed (for she had received truth); but she said she could hardly believe him; till he told her how I met him, and rode from Hyde Park to James's Park with him. After a little time, Edward Pyot and I went to Whitehall; and when we came before him, Dr. Owen, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, was with him. We were moved to speak to Oliver Cromwell, concerning the sufferings of friends, and laid them before him; and directed him to the light of Christ, who had enlightened every man that cometh into the world. He said it was a natural light; but we showed him the contrary; and manifested that it was divine and spiritual, proceeding from Christ, the spiritual and heavenly man; and that which was called the life in Christ, the word, was called the light in us. The power of the Lord God arose in me, and I was moved in it to bid him lay down his crown at the feet of Jesus. Several times I spoke to him to the same effect. I was standing by the table, and he came and sat upon the table's side by me, saying, he would be as high as I was; and so continued speaking against the light of Christ Jesus; and went his way in a light manner. But the Lord's power came over him, so that when he came to his wife and other company, he said, 'I never parted so from them. before; for he was judged in himself."

The reader will have observed that Fox was sent to London by Colonel Hacker, whose conduct towards him was throughout civil, and even kind. Fox, in return, attributes his hanging to the retributive justice of Providence, although we hear nothing of the non-hanging of his nephew, who proposed to cut off the Quaker, and certainly observed nothing of his uncle's courtesy. This severe judgment of others, under pretence of noting the judgments of the Lord, is an offence of perpetual recurrence throughout this volume. After his liberation from Scarborough castle, he observes, "I could not but take notice how the hand of the Lord turned against those my persecutors who had been the cause of my imprisonment, or had been abusive and cruel to me under it. For the officer that fetched me to Houlker-hall wasted his estate, and soon after fled into Ireland. And most of the justices that were upon the bench at the sessions when I was sent to prison, died in a while after; as old Thomas Preston, Rawlinson, Porter, and Matthew West of Boswick. And justice Fleming's wife. died, and left him thirteen or fourteen motherless children; who had imprisoned

two friends to death, and thereby made several children fatherless. Colonel Kirby never prospered after. The chief constable, Richard Dodgson, died soon after; and Morent, the petty constable, and the wife of John Ashburnham, the other petty constable, who railed at me in her house, died soon after. William Knipe, the witness they brought against me, died soon after. Hunter, the gaoler of Lancaster, who was very wicked to me while I was his prisoner, was cut off in his young days. The under sheriff that carried me from Lancaster prison towards Scarborough, lived not long after. And Joblin, the gaoler of Durham, who was prisoner with me in Scarborough castle, and had often incensed the governor and soldiers against me, though he got out of prison, the Lord cut him off in his wickedness soon after. When I came into that country again, most of those that dwelt in Lancashire were dead, and others ruined in their estates; so that, though I did not seek revenge upon them, for their actings against me, contrary to law, yet the Lord had executed his judgments upon many of them.'

[ocr errors]

The reader will remark the quiet Satanic triumph over poor Fleming, with his "thirteen or fourteen motherless children," of Hunter "cut off in his young days," of Joblin "in his wickedness." Such "judgments," fortunately, prove nothing, but the bitter and vindictive nature of him that records them; and, too certainly, that a submitting Quaker and inflicting Inquisitor are the same in spirit; the one possessing power inflicts the punishment on the imaginary wrong-doer; while the other, wanting power, delivers him over to the punishment of a Supreme Being, whom his bigotry and intolerance cannot contemplate as a God of mercies, but of vengeance, as a ministering agent to his own vindictive impotence. After much such another passage, Fox observes, "God's vengeance from heaven came upon them, for all such spirits I laid before the Lord, and left him to deal with them, who is stronger than all." Let us not be misunderstood. The question of a special providence is not here considered. We are contending only against that daring impiety, which impudently presumes to understand every act of that providence, and with blind self-will to interpret between God and their fellow-men. This is a presumptuous folly the world is not yet ashamed of, nor will be while fanatics have followers; it is the "clapper-dish" with which Judas fills his bag. The example this volume alone would afford would be ridiculous, but that the present age could equal it in number, which "sinks our laughter in a sigh." Man who knows any thing of man, or of himself, is well aware his best efforts are often unsuccessful, and his best wisdom folly. This is well

when it teaches him charity in judging others, humility in judging himself; impious, and the worst of impiety, when it leads him to judge God, and as a God. That it is the extreme of folly scarcely deserves proof. There is hardly one act of Providence, in judging of which men must not necessarily differ. Take an instance where passion could have no possible influence. One of the earlier Quakers, being on ship-board, speaks of a special providence, in consequence of his wife's prayers, by which the wind suddenly veered to the opposite point of the compass, and saved them from the rocks. Did he agree to this, who, after returning thanks for having the rocky shore to the windward during the first gale, was by this change driven on it, and wrecked? Can a Protestant and a Catholic agree in any one act, as the act of a special providence, in the lives of either Luther or Calvin? Can the French and the Russians agree about that providence by which the frost set in so early and so severely as to destroy the finest army in Europe? The worst means have often led to the most glorious events; the gloom of bigotry to the light of truth; the conduct of bad men to the happiness of good men; the tyranny of an individual to the freedom of a nation; the vices of Tarquin, and the virtues of Codrus, led to exactly the same consequence, the establishment of a democracy. These may be all instruments in the hands of a superintending providence ; but does it become us to consecrate the means, to commend bigotry, to uphold bad men, to applaud tyrants? And if men. cannot agree on those great events which in their consequences affect the whole, shall every splenetic, rash, presumptuous fellow presume to judge them; and judge every event in the beggarly detail of his own paltry existence?

66

It was a "special providence," according to Sewel, that led Fox into the ministry; for it appears that early in life he had some thoughts of practising physic. Fox and Dogberry, we have shewn, agreed in opinion that "reading and writing come by nature," and nature had not in this particular been bountiful to either; however, it was made up to the former in other things, that it now appears equally "come by nature," such as the knowledge of law, medicine, and divinity. "The three great professions in the world," says Sewel, “ viz. physic, divinity, (so called), and law, were opened to him; so that he began to deliberate whether he should practise physic for the good of mankind." We think Fox decided wisely. It is indeed notorious enough in the history of fanaticism, religious and medical, whether operating by faith or animal magnetism, that the mind has strange influence; still, palsy, pleurisy, gout, and epilepsy, in ordinary people, are not to be got rid of by these extraordinary remedies; diseases, in the uninitiated and

« FöregåendeFortsätt »