ART. I.-A Chronological Summary of events and circumstances connected with the origin and progress of the doctrines and practices of the Quakers.

(Continued from p. 349 in Last Volume.)

A. D. PERSECUTION GENERALLY RENEWED, the Declaration of In1674-5. dulgence having been revoked: See vol. ii, p. 339,

The king was brought to this act by the opposition of a party in Parliament, and by the representations of the French Court. In the Commons "Feb. 10th 1673, After a long and adjourned debate it was resolved, by a majority of 168 to 116, that penal statutes in matters Ecclesiastical cannot be suspended but by Act of Parliament;' and this resolution was embodied in an address presented to the king." Lingard, vol. vii, p. 545.

Gough, the historian, says of this address:

"When they presented this remonstrance to the King, he defended his right to issue the declaration, by virtue of his acknowledged prerogative of supremacy in matters ecclesiastical, which he did not claim in matters of property or civil rights. But the Commons, having in their hands a stronger argument than words, viz. the power of granting money, the want of which only obliged the King to convene them, knew where their strength lay, and used it accordingly; resolving that the money bill should not precede the redress of grievances, of which they seemed to consider this declaration as the principal. The Commons appearing determined, the King gave up the contest, revoking the declaration, and breaking the seal with his own hands.

"The conduct of the Commons in this case hath procured the general voice of our historians in their favour, and it must be acknowledged that they acted consistently with their duty in opposing the infringement of the constitution. That

in the present contest they acted a more manly and honourable part than in those preceding on the like subject in 1662, and as late as 1668; as proceeding upon sounder and more universal principles. Yet, as the King's apparent inclination to have the Dissenters exempted from penal laws would have merited praise, if it had been sincere, and attempted in a legal way, so the opposition of the parliament would have been entitled to the claim of greater merit, if it had not originated with many of them in an aversion to the principle of the declaration, (impunity to the nonconformists) as much as in the grounds upon which it was published; and if they had not laid the foundation for this contest in the various penal laws, which, under the influence of party pique, they had undeservedly enacted and revived, and on all occasions manifested a determined enmity to all dissenters from the established religion. For if they had not an aversion to the principle of the declaration, they had now a fair opportunity of legalizing it, by converting it into an act of parliament.' ." History, vol. ii, p. 373.

But it was an age (as Lingard very justly remarks) in which religious antipathy exercised an unbounded influence over the judgments of men. Take the following cases for example, and in proof of the fact of ' renewed persecution' above stated.

Bedfordshire: 1675. By an order of a Sessions held at Shefford on the 8th of the month called April this year, prosecutions were carried on afresh, especially in the parish where Justice Keeling dwelt, whose authority influenced inferior officers to act beyond their inclinations. From William Rogers, a wheelwright, they took his working tools [and this] not for want of other goods.-Another zealot in this work was George Blundell of Cardington, a justice of the peace, who seeing the people unwilling to buy distrained goods, said he would sell a cow for a shilling, rather than the work should not go forward. From four Friends of this county taken at a meeting in Bucks (and fined, and certified to Sir John Charnock) were taken goods worth £24 4s.; for fines amounting to £13 15s. (a)

Berks: 1675. William Dobson was prosecuted in the Exchequer, and sent to prison on the 6th Sept. this year, where after 20 months' confinement he died. He had besides taken from him, at the suit of Ralph Whistler his prosecutor, goods worth £156, for five or six years' tithe of a farm, the Yearly value of which had been formerly estimated at £4. At Reading Sir W. Armorer was active, as in former time; and in concert with the Mayor sent many friends to prison for meeting; treating them with great inhumanity. Seven friends, of New Windsor, were taken to Reading gaol, and kept five years close prisoners, on a Writ de capiendo, for trivial Ecclesiastical demands, amounting to but 12s. 1d. among them all. (b)

Bristol, where so great cruelties had been acted, from some cause was now permitted six years' enjoyment of meetings in quietness. (c)

Cambridgeshire: 1675. John Prime of Willbrum, at the suit of Thomas Witham, priest, had his household goods and other things taken by distress to the value of £74, for a demand of three years' tithe for a farm of but £22 per annum rent. The same Friend in 1676 suffered distress of two-thirds of his Estate, by Exchequer process for absence from the national worship, to the amount of £88.

George Friend, informed against by Edward Swanton, priest, for being at a meeting at Lakenheath, had all his goods taken from him, and himself with his wife and children obliged to lodge on straw, in the cold of winter. The goods taken were carried to the informing priest's house. (d)

Cheshire; 1675. Several distresses were made by warrants from Jeffery Shackerly, Governor of Chester Castle, on complaints of three informers, who made much spoil. Ten or twelve widows, who had many fatherless children,

(a) Besse, i, 9, 10. (b) Idem. p. 32. (c) Idem. p. 53. (d) Idem. p. 96, 97.

were bereft of all their goods, till they had not a skillet left to boil their children's food in.-John Daniel of Dansbury [styled Justice!] caused to be taken by distress from Thomas Briggs and others, to the value of £116 15s. 10d. in kine and horses, which the Justice kept, working them as his own; and also took to his own use their household goods, and other provision. (e)

Cumberland: 1673. Thomas Bewley of Haltcliff-hall, aged about seventyeight, was prosecuted by Arthur Savage, priest of Coldbeck, for £3' Prescription money' [what is this?] and had taken from him his feather-bed, bedclothes, and a cupboard worth £5. The hardship of the poor old man's case so affected the neighbourhood with compassion, that when the bailiff exposed these goods to sale, nobody would buy them at any rate. Whereupon the priest sued the bailiff, and made him pay both his demand and his costs.-The next year, the same priest again prosecuted the said Thomas Bewley for tithe of wool, lambs, &c. and sent him to prison: and in 1676, sent to prison, to be company for his elder brother (who had already lain there two years) Thomas, son of the aforesaid Thomas Bewley.-By the same person on an Exchequer process were also imprisoned, in 1676, four other Friends, two of them widows with six children apiece. A part of the priest's ruinous policy being, in all probability, by this means to burthen the rest; who were sure to support the families, while they were able. (f)

Dorset; 1674. Sixteen individuals being distrained upon in this and the preceding year, for meeting, and their goods taken to the value of £97, we have the following remarks. After mention of a strange piece of inhumanity on the part of the Justice, in kicking and striking with his dog-whip an innocent woman,' it is added; 'The like fury possessed one of the informers, who coming to make distress cut the arm of Henry Hodges to the bone. Another, clerk to one of the Justices, wished the quakers locked up in their meeting house and fire set to it, saying, He believed it doing God good service to kill them. Such wolves as these worried the poor sheep of Christ at their pleasure.' Yet, so firm and constant were this people in their religious assemblies to worship God, that by frequent execution of such warrants many of them were impoverished, and their whole substance made a prey to merciless Informers.' (g)

Glocestershire: 1675. "For meetings at or near Cirencester, in the month called May this year, Sir John Guise, a justice of the peace, issued his warrants for distress against John Timbrel, Richard Bowly [and twelve other Friends here named] and on the 16th of the same month John Cripps and Jacob Hewlings [see vol. i, p. 85] were fined for the like pretended offence. The constable to whom these warrants were directed was not forward to execute them: whereupon Sir John Guise, on the 3rd of the next month, sent for him and threatened him, that if he did not levy the fines by the 10th of that month he would proceed against him for neglect of duty. But the justice's purpose was prevented; for in returning home that day from Cirencester, he quarrelled with another man and was run through the body with a rapier. By means of this desperate wound, the necessary care for his own life diverted him from pursuing other men's ruin." (h) Hants: 1675. "For a meeting held at Newport, [Isle of Wight,] on the 24th of Sept. this year, Frederick Perdue, a poor boatman, having a wife and six small children, had taken from him by the Mayor's order two great boats with all their tackle, and also his household goods; the Town-serjeant charging the officers to leave neither bed, dish nor spoon. And it was with much difficulty they were dissuaded from taking away the bed his wife then lay on, being at that time near her delivery of a child, and having women attending her." (i)

Herts: 1675. The Constables of Buntingford, terrified by a blustering informer, entered the house of George Gates [of whom hereafter] breaking open (g) Idem. p. 170, 171.

(e) Besse, p. 106. (f) Idem. p. 132. (h) Idem. p. 218.

(i) Idem. p. 236.

locks and doors; and for a fine of £20, laid on him for a meeting house of which he was neither Owner nor Occupier, took away his goods to the value of £46.

1676. Robt. Cooper of Cheshunt was imprisoned for Tithes at the suit of Robert Winchestly, priest. The prosecutor gave order to keep him close, and not let him go into the town for any refreshment. His friends pleading that he was a poor man, and had a wife and many children, the Priest returned this answer, 'If his children starve, 'tis none of my concern: he shall lie there and rot: I will have no more mercy on him than on a thief: if the Law would hang him, I would: Tithe is my due and I will have it.' (k)

Herefordshire: 1676. For an account of a persecution acted for near half a year together (under Clerical influence) upon the Friends of Hereford at their meetings, see Gough, vol. ii, 422, and the Sufferings. (1)

Huntingdonshire: 1675. "On the 14th of the Month called June, several persons who attended the Interment of Robert Falkner in the Burying ground at Somersham, were fined on the evidence of two Informers, who swore it to be a Conventicle: The amount of the sums taken by distress on that occasion [one third to the informers] was £87 7s." The sum of £70 appears to have been taken this year in various other fines for Meetings.

1676. "On the 23rd of the month called April, for a meeting at Amy Peacock's in Erith, where George Whitehead preached [several were fined; two of them £10 each] and William Pryor, a young man of Somersham, being fined 5s., the officers came when he was in bed, and took away all his clothes except one stocking. He being poor was obliged to borrow clothes to wear, till by his industry he could repair the loss.” (m)

Kent: 1675. At a Meeting at the house of Nathanael Owen in Sevenoaks, the informers by the Justice's order pulled down John Abraham, then preaching, and dismissed him; seizing however his horse, and two others belonging to a poor man, Samuel Green, which were ordered to be sold. They fined Nathanael Owen 201. for his house, and 71. for the pretended poverty of the preacher (and in his stead) though he had told them he had an estate of his own, at Manchester. For those fines the said Nathanael Owen suffered distress of Linen and Woollen cloth, and other goods out of his house and warehouse, to the value of 771. 8s. 3d.In the same year, for refusing to bear arms, John Baker, John Harvy, Thomas Elgar, George Girdler, Richard Russel, Abel Burroughs, John Mainard, and Luke Howard, for fines amounting to 91. 7s. 6d. had their goods taken by distress to the value of 461.-Also Thomas Clarenbole and Richard Perry were imprisoned on writs de excommunicato capiendo for refusing to pay to the repairs of their Parish-church, so called. (n)

I have now gone through about half the counties and places, from whence the accounts of Sufferings recorded in my author were sent up. I might enlarge this extract beyond due limits by taking cases from the remainder; and still leave a great mass of evidence in these years untouched. We may find a future occasion of citing Besse, from Kent forward. What is now brought before the Reader may suffice to shew, that it was no longer the mere reckless overbearing insolence of a party newly restored to political existence, but in addition, the cool calculating malice of the priesthood; purposing utterly to impoverish and thus to overthrow the rising Sect, whose proceedings threatened the ruin of the craft of Babylon, in the hands of these hypocrites. But the sufferers were not thus to be quelled: the more they were trampled on, the more (like the lowly but most useful herbage) they spread and grew-their Testimony survived them, and descended to after generations; and it (k) Besse, p. 251. (1) Idem. p. 259. (m) Idem. p. 266, (n) Idem. p. 295.

is now becoming a serious question with the country, whether it shall not in effect be adopted and prevail; to the establishing of A FREE MINISTRY OF THE WORD OF GOD among us,--the only state of things consistent with the terms in which the blessed Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was originally proclaimed to mankind!

A. D. Barclay's Apology published.

1676.

The Title at length is, An Apology for the true Christian divinity, as the same is held forth and preached by the people called in scorn Quakers; being a full explanation and vindication of their principles and doctrines, by many arguments deduced from Scripture and right reason, and [by] the testimonies of famous authors both ancient and modern with a full answer to the strongest objections usually made against them: Presented to the King: Written and published in Latin for the information of strangers, by Robert Barclay; and now put into our own language for the benefit of his Countrymen.' The texts affixed as a motto are. Acts xxiv, 14: Tit. ii, 11-14: 1 Thes. V, 21.

The Apology was preceded by the fifteen Propositions which it treats, in Latin under the title of Theses Theologica. These were first separately addressed in print (and in English) as follows, To the Clergy of what sort soever, unto whose hands these may come; but more particularly to the Doctors, Professors, and Students of Divinity in the Universities and Schools of Great Britain, whether Prelatical, Presbyterian or any other, Robert Barclay, a servant of the Lord God, and one of those who in derision are called Quakers, wisheth unfeigned repentance [of their error and prejudice, we may presume to be intended] unto the acknowledgment of the Truth.' They were next expanded, in the manner described in the Title, into the present work; which being attacked by an author of the name of John Brown, in a book entitled, Quakerism the pathway to Paganism,’ the author published a Vindication of his Apology; contained in eighteen Sections, and half as large as the work itself.

6

The date of the address to Chas. 2nd prefixed to the Apology, runs thus, From Ury in my native country of Scotland, the 25th of the month called November in the year 1675: but the work was not, probably, before the public until some time in the following year; which was the 28th of the author's age. When we consider this so early production of so elaborate a performance, we may very well allow to the author the praise of industry;—and a perusal of it will oblige every competent judge to add to this the further meed of adequate reading and research. It is not for me, in this place, to enter into a full consideration of its merits-they are long since sufficiently admitted to be safe from future depreciation. I have no doubt, however, that had it pleased God to allot to the author a term of years, equal to the common maturity of human life, he would in many parts have been found greatly to exceed himself, as he now appears to us, by the addition of the maturer fruits of doctrinal experience to this product of a vigorous understanding, enlightened by the Gospel and subject to its power, in early youth.