CHAPTER IV.

A Year in Derby Jail

1650-1651.

As I travelled through markets, fairs, and divers places, I saw death and darkness in all people where the power of the Lord God had not shaken them. As I was passing on in Leicestershire I came to TwyCross, where there were excise-men. I was moved of the Lord to go to them, and warn them to take heed of oppressing the poor; and people were much affected with it.

There was in that town a great man that had long lain sick, and was given up by the physicians; and some Friends in the town desired me to go to see him. I went up to him in his chamber, and spoke the Word of life to him, and was moved to pray by him; and the Lord was entreated, and restored him to health. But when I was come down stairs, into a lower room, and was speaking to the servants, and to some people that were there, a serving-man of his came raving out of another room, with a naked rapier in his hand, and set it just to my side. I looked steadfastly on him, and said, " Alack for thee, poor creature! what wilt thou do with thy carnal weapon ? It is no more to me than a straw." The bystanders were much troubled, and he went away in a rage and full of wrath. But when the news of it came to his master, he turned him out of his service.

Thus the Lord's power preserved me and raised up the weak man, who afterwards was very loving to Friends; and when I came to that town again both he and his wife came to see me.

After this I was moved to go into Derbyshire, where the mighty power of God was among Friends. And I went to Chesterfield, where one Britland was priest. He saw beyond the common sort of priests, for he had been partly convinced, and had spoken much on behalf of Truth before he was priest there; but when the priest of that town died, he got the parsonage, and choked himself with it. I was moved to speak to him and the people in the great love of God, that they might come off from all men's teaching unto God's teaching; and he was not able to gainsay.

But they had me before the mayor, and threatened to send me, with some others, to the house of correction, and kept us in custody till it was late in the night. Then the officers, with the watchmen, put us out of the town, leaving us to shift as we could. So I bent my course towards Derby, having a friend or two with me. In our way we met with many professors; and at Kidsey Park many were convinced.

Then, coming to Derby, I lay at the house of a doctor, whose wife was convinced; and so were several more in the town. As I was walking in my chamber, the [steeple-house] bell rang, and it struck at my life at the very hearing of it; so I asked the woman of the house what the bell rang for. She said there was to be a great lecture there that day, and many of the officers of the army, and priests, and

preachers were to be there, and a colonel, that was a preacher.

Then was I moved of the Lord to go up to them; and when they had done I spoke to them what the Lord commanded me, and they were pretty quiet. But there came an officer and took me by the hand, and said that I and the other two that were with me must go before the magistrates. It was about the first hour after noon that we came before them.

They asked me why we came thither. I said God moved us so to do; and I told them, "God dwells not in temples made with hands." I told them also that all their preaching, baptism and sacrifices would never sanctify them, and bade them look unto Christ within them, and not unto men; for it is Christ that sanctifies. Then they ran into many words; but I told them they were not to dispute of God and Christ, but to obey Him.1

The power of God thundered among them, and they did fly like chaff before it. They put me in and out of the room often, hurrying me backward and forward, for they were from the first hour till the ninth at night in examining me. Sometimes they would tell me in a deriding manner that I was taken up in raptures.

At last they asked me whether I was sanctified. I answered, "Yes; for I am in the paradise of God." Then they asked me if I had no sin. I answered,

No single sentence better sums up George Fox's whole theology than this: "I told them they were not to dispute of God and Christ, but to obey Him."

"Christ my Saviour has taken away my sin; and in Him there is no sin." They asked how we knew that Christ did abide in us. I said, "By His Spirit, that He hath given us." They temptingly asked if any of us were Christ. answered, "Nay; we are nothing; Christ is all." They said, "If a man steal, is it no sin?" I answered," All unrighteousness is sin." 2

I

When they had wearied themselves in examining me, they committed me and one other man to the house of correction in Derby for six months, as blasphemers, as may appear by the mittimus, a copy whereof here followeth:

3

"To the master of the house of correction in Derby, greeting:

"We have sent you herewithal the bodies of George Fox, late of Mansfield, in the county of Nottingham, and John Fretwell, late of Staniesby, in

2 These answers sufficiently differentiate George Fox from the "Ranters."

3 Here begins Fox's first serious imprisonment. The charge was direct and distinct. He was committed as a blasphemer. Under the law passed by both Houses of Parliament, in 1648, Fox might easily have been condemned to suffer a death penalty. It was an offense, punishable by death, to deny that the Scriptures are the Word of God, or that the bodies of men shall rise after they are dead. It was blasphemy to say that the two sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are not commanded by God. It was also blasphemy to declare that man has by nature free will to turn to

the county of Derby, husbandman, brought before us this present day, and charged with the avowed uttering and broaching of divers blasphemous opinions, contrary to the late Act of Parliament; which, upon their examination before us, they have confessed. These are therefore to require you forthwith, upon sight hereof, to receive them, the said George Fox and John Fretwell, into your custody, and them. therein safely to keep during the space of six months, without bail or mainprize, or until they shall find sufficient security to be of good behaviour, or be thence delivered by order from ourselves. Hereof you are not to fail. Given under our hands and seals this 30th day of October, 1650.

"GERVASE BENNET, "NATH. BARTON."

While I was here in prison divers professors came to discourse with me. I had a sense, before they spoke, that they came to plead for sin and imperfection. I asked them whether they were believers and had faith. They said, "Yes." I asked them, "In whom?" They said, "In Christ." I replied. "If

God. It was, of course, not difficult to find a charge of the violation of this drag-net act.

From Derby prison he wrote many letters, to the magistrates, to the justices, to the "priests," to the court at Derby, to the mayor, to the individual justices, and to "the ringers of bells in steeple-houses." He calls them all to obedience to the light within them. 66 "Mind that which is eternal and invisible." "Keep in the innocency and be obedient to the faith in Him."