brains, who shall maintain any mere creature | pleadings should be in English; and even in the : to be God, or to be infinite, almighty, &c., or that shall deny the holiness of God; or shall maintain that all acts of wickedness and unrighteousness are not forbidden in Holy Scripture; or that God approves them any one who shall maintain that acts of drunkenness, adultery, swearing, &c., are not in themselves shameful, wicked, sinful, and impious; or that there is not any real difference between moral good and evil, &c., all such persons shall suffer six months' imprisonment for the first offence; and for the second shall be banished; and if they return without license, shall be treated as felons."* Though several ordinances had been made heretofore for the strict observation of the Lord's Day, the present House of Commons thought fit to enforce them by another, dated April 19, 1650, in which they ordain "that all goods cried or put to sale on the Lord's Day, or other days of humiliation and thanksgiving appointed by authority, shall be seized. No wagoner or drover shall travel on the Lord's Day, on penalty of 10s. for every offence. No persons shall travel in boats, coaches, or on horses, except to church, on penalty of 10s. The like penalty for being in a tavern. And where distress is not to be made, the offender is to be put into the stocks six hours. All peaceofficers are required to make diligent search for discovering offenders; and in case of neglect, the justice of peace is fined £5, and every constable 20s." Such was the severity of these times.t reigns of those princes, wherein our statutes were enrolled in French, the sheriffs were obliged to proclaim them in English, because the people were deeply concerned to know the laws of their country, and not to be kept in ignorance of the rule by which their interests and duty were directed."* The arguments in this speech were so foreible that the House agreed unanimously to a bill, wherein they ordain, "that all books of law be translated into English; and all proceedings in any court of justice, except the Court of Admiralty, after Easter term, 1651, shall be in English only; and all writs, &c., shall be in a legible hand, and not in court-hand, on forfeiture of £20 for the first offence, half to the commonwealth, and the other half to them that will sue for the same." And though this regulation ceased at the Restoration, as all other ordinances did that were made in these times, the late Parliament has thought fit to revive it. From this time we may date the rise of the people called Quakers, in whom most of the enthusiasts of these times centred; their first leader was George Fox, born at Drayton in Lancashire, 1624; his father, being a poor weaver, put him apprentice to a country 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 The Parliament having ordered the sale of in the country, he went from his friends a secbishops' lands, and the lands of deans and chap-ond time, in the year 1646, and threw off all ters, and vested the money in the hands of trustees, as has been related, appointed this year, April 5, part of the money to be appropriated for the support and maintenance of such late bishops, deans, prebendaries, singing-men, choristers, and other members, officers, and persons destitute of maintenance, whose respective offices, places, and livelihoods were taken away and abolished, distributing and proportioning the same according to their necessities. How well this was executed I cannot determine; but it was a generous act of compassion, and more than the Church of England would do for the Nonconformists at the Restoration. farther attendance on the public service in the churches: the reasons he gave for his condnet were, because it was revealed to him that a * Whitelocke, p. 460. + Scobel, p. 155. It is to be wished that Mr. Neal had not used this epithet, poor. It is not in the author whom he quotes, was needless, and has the appearance of contempt. The parents of Fox were truly respectable; his father, Christopher Fox, of such a virtuous life, that his neighbours called him righteous Christer; his mother, of the stock of martyrs, and a woman of cumstances in life; they were both members of the qualifications superior to the generality of her cirNational Church, distinguished by piety, and cherished the religious turn of mind which their son discovA motion being made in the House about ered in his earliest years. Virtuous and sober mantranslating all law-books into the English lan-ners, a peculiar staidness of mind, and gravity of deguage, Mr. Whitelocke made a learned speech on the argument, wherein he observes, that "Moses read the law to the Jews in the Hebrew language; that the laws of all the Eastern nations were in their mother tongue; the laws of Constantinople were in Greek; at Rome they were in Latin; in France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and other places, their laws are published in their native language. As for our own country," says he, "those who can read the Saxon character may find the laws of our ancestors in that language. Pursuant to this regulation, William, duke of Normandy, commonly called the Conqueror, commanded the laws to be published in English, that none might pretend ignorance. He observes farther, that by 36 Eliz., cap. iii., it was ordered that all meanour, 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. i., p. * Scobel, p. 124. Ibid., p. 119. Ibid., p. 111. 60.-ED. learned education at the university was no qual ification 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 travelled 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 author, 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 goodnight; 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 → Sewel's History of the Quakers, p. 6-12. supported by such passages of Scripture as these: "Swear not 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.* 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 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 smell thereof was very grievous to be endured. At place so filthy and intolerably noisome, that the night he was carried before the mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs of the town, and after examination was recommitted. But one of the sheriffs, whose uame was Reckless, being much affected with the sentiments he had advanced, removed him to his own house. During his residence there Mr. Fox The circumstances of this period, as stated by was visited by persons of considerable condition; Gough, will show the propriety of our author's lan- the sheriff, as well as his wife and family, were guage here, and preclude the suspicion that has fall- greatly affected with his doctrine, insomuch that he en on him, of intending to insinuate that the boldness and several others exhorted the people and the maof George Fox was criminal, and that the dissolution gistrates to repentance. This provoked the latter to of government had rendered him licentious. At this remove Fox back to the common prison, where he lay time the Independents and Republicans had accom- till the assizes. When he was to have been brought plished their purpose; regal dominion, the peculiar before the judge, the officer was so dilatory in the privileges of the nobilty, and the office of bishops execution of his business that the court was broken were abolished. Their professed principles were in up before he was conducted to it. He was, on this, favour of civil and religious liberty. The places of again ordered into the common jail, and detained public worship seem, for a season, to have been open there some time longer. As far as appears, he was to teachers of different denominations, and not un- imprisoned, detained in prison, and released, at the commonly appropriated to theological discussion and mere will and pleasure of the magistrates of Notdisputation between the teachers or members of va- tingham, without any legal cause assigned. "Such rious sects. These propitious circumstances fur- arbitrary exertion of power," well observes my aunished Fox and others with opportunities of dissem- thor, "ill agrees with a regard for chartered priviinating their opinions, and a fair opportunity natu- leges and equal liberty."-Gough's Hist. of the Quarally inspirits and imboldens to any undertaking.kers, vol. i., p. 83, 84. Sewel's Hist., p. 21, 22.-ED. Gough's History, vol. i, p. 72.-ED. t 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 fellow-believers, without any reference to their sex; nor does his narrative show that they consisted more of women than men, which Mr. Neal's expression seems to intimate.-ED. History of the Quakers, p. 18. 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 ex |