G. Fox being acquitted by the court, as hath been said, it made the priests fret to hear it cried about, that the priests had lost the day, and that the Quakers had kept the field. To revenge this, they got some envious justices to join with them, who at the following assizes at Lancaster, informed judge Windham against G. Fox; which so prevailed upon him, that he commanded colonel West, who was clerk of the assizes, to issue forth a warrant for apprehending him, but the said colonel telling the judge of his innocency, spoke boldly in his defence. The judge offended at this, commanded him again, either to write a warrant, or to go off from his seat. Then the colonel told him in plain terms, that he would not do it, but that he would offer up all his estate, and his body also for G. Fox. Thus the judge was stopped; and G. Fox coming that night to Lancaster, heard of a warrant to be given out against him, and therefore judged it better to show himself openly, than to make his adversaries seek him. So he went to the chambers of judge Fell and colonel West; and as soon as he came in, they smiled, and the colonel said, ‘What! are you come into the dragon’s mouth?’ But G. Fox was always undaunted, and did not use to flinch in danger. So he stayed some days in town, and walked up and down there, without being meddled with, or questioned by any.
Yet his Friends in the meanwhile did not suffer the less; for all the villany or insolence that could be thought of, was not judged by some to be too bad to vex them. It was about this time that Richard Hubberthorn and several others were hauled out of a meeting by some wicked men, and carried some distance off in the fields, where they bound them, and left them so in the winter season.
G. Fox being now come again to Swarthmore, wrote several letters to the magistrates and priests who had raised persecutions thereabouts. That to justice John Sawrey, was very sharp, and after this manner:
‘Friend,
‘Thou wast the first beginner of all the persecution in the North. Thou wast the first stirrer of them up against the righteous seed, and against the truth of God; and wast the first strengthener of the hands of evil-doers against the innocent and harmless: and thou shalt not prosper. Thou wast the first stirrer up of strikers, stoners, persecutors, stockers, mockers, and imprisoners in the North; and of revilers, slanderers, railers, and false accusers, and scandal-raisers. This was thy work, and this thou stirredst up! So thy fruits declare thy spirit. Instead of stirring up the pure mind in the people, thou hast stirred up the wicked, malicious and envious; and taken hand with the wicked. Thou hast made the people’s minds envious, up and down the country: this was thy work. But God hath shortened thy days, and limited thee, and set thy bounds, and broken thy jaws, and discovered thy religion to the simple and babes, and brought thy deeds to light. How is thy habitation fallen, and become the habitation of devils! How is thy beauty lost, and thy glory withered! How hast thou showed thy end, and thou hast served God but with thy lips, and thy heart far from him, and thou in thy hypocrisy! How hath the form of thy teaching declared itself to be the mark of the false prophets, whose fruit declares itself! for by their fruits they are known. How are the wise men turned backward! View thy ways, and take notice, with whom thou hast taken part. That of God in thy conscience will tell thee. The ancient of days will reprove thee. How hath thy zeal appeared to be the blind zeal; a persecutor, which Christ and his apostles forbad Christians to follow! How hast thou strengthened the hands of evil-doers, and been a praise to them, and not to them that do dwell! How like a mad man, and a blind man, didst thou turn thy sword backward against the saints, against whom there is no law! How wilt thou be gnawed and burned one day, when thou shalt feel the flame and have the plagues of God poured upon thee, and thou begin to gnaw thy tongue for pain, because of the plagues! Thou shalt have thy reward according to thy works. Thou canst not escape; the Lord’s righteous judgment will find thee out, and the witness of God in thy conscience shall answer it. How hast thou caused the heathen to blaspheme, and gone on with the multitude to do evil, and joined hand in hand with the wicked! How is thy latter end worse than thy beginning, who art come with the dog to bite, and art turned as a wolf to devour the lambs! How hast thou discovered thyself to be a man more fit to be kept in a place to be nurtured, than to be set in a place to nurture! How wast thou exalted and puffed up with pride! And how art thou fallen down with shame, that thou comest to be covered with that which thou stirredst up, and broughtest forth. Let not John Sawrey take the words of God into his mouth, till he be reformed. Let him not take his name into his mouth, till he depart from iniquity. Let not him and his teacher make a profession of the saints’ words, except they intend to proclaim themselves hypocrites, whose lives are so contrary to the lives of the saints; whose church hath made itself manifest to be a cage of unclean birds. You having a form of godliness, but not the power, have made them that be in the power, your derision, your by-word, and your talk at your feasts. Thy ill savour, John Sawrey, the country about have smelled, and of thy unchristian carriage all that fear God have been ashamed; and to them thou hast been a grief. In the day of account thou shalt know it, even in the day of thy condemnation. Thou wast mounted up, and hadst set thy nest on high; but never gottest higher than the fowls of the air. But now thou art run amongst the beasts of prey, and art fallen into the earth; so that earthliness and covetousness have swallowed thee up; and thy conceitedness would not carry thee through, in whom was found the selfish principle, which hath blinded thy eye. Thy back must be bowed down always; for thy table is already become thy snare.
G. F.’
Sharp indeed was this letter; but G. Fox thought himself moved thereto by the Lord: and it is remarkable that this justice Sawrey, who was the first persecutor in those parts, afterwards was drowned, and so died not a natural death. To the priest William Lampitt he writ also, and another letter to others, to reprove them for their wickedness.
Some time after he went to Westmoreland, where mischief was intended against him, but prevented by justice Benson, and some considerable men besides. Coming to Grayrigg, he had a meeting there; where a priest came to oppose, but was confounded; and there being many people, some of the milk-pails that stood upon the side of the house, tumbled down by reason of the crowd; from which the priest afterwards raised a slander, that the devil frighted him, and took away one side of the house. And though this was a known falsehood, yet it was given out as true in public print.
Another time this priest came to another meeting, and fell to jangling; saying first, that the Scriptures were the word of God. To which G. Fox said, that they were the words of God, but not Christ, who is the Word. And when he urged the priests for proof of what he had said, the priest, being at a loss, was not long before he went away. Some time after coming again into a meeting, and hearing that G. Fox directed the people to Christ Jesus, the priest taking out his bible, said, it was the word of God. Then G. Fox told him, it was the words of God; but not God, the Word. The priest however persisted in what he had said; and offered to prove before all the people, the Scriptures to be the word of God. But this quarrel tending to vain logomachies, or contest about words, ended in confusion; and many of the priest’s followers came to see the vanity of his assertions.
1653.
The year being now come to an end, and a war kindled between England and Holland, King Charles II. then in exile, asked the Dutch to be received in their navy as a volunteer, without any command: but this was courteously refused by the States-General. Oliver Cromwell, in the meanwhile, strove for the supreme authority in England, the more because he perceived how some of the parliament, jealous of his increasing greatness, endeavoured to cross him in his design. This made him labour to get the parliament dissolved: but they not going on so quickly as he would have them, to put a period to their sitting, he resolved arbitrarily to make an end of them. And entering the house in the month called April, 1653, after having rudely inveighed against them, that they had made a bad use of their authority, and that without their dissolution the realm would not be safe, &c. he at length cried out, ‘You are no parliament:’ and then ordering some musqueteers to enter, he made the members depart the house, and ordered the doors to be shut; thus putting an end to this assembly, that had been sitting nigh thirteen years.
But