A. D. Marriage of the Princess Mary, daughter of James Duke 1677. of York, to the Prince of Orange. Death of Archbishop

Sheldon.

The former of these events connects with our history, as one of those leading to the Revolution of 1688, and the establishment of a Toleration: the latter, as freeing us from an inveterate persecutor. 'He was succeeded by Sancroft, who seemed on some occasions too much to copy the spirit of his predecessor.' (g) Being applied to by George Whitehead and William Crouch, on account of the sufferings of Friends by informers, and rather pressed on the subject of the infamous characters and conduct of these persons, and the dishonour it was to his church to employ such agents, he did not scruple to own them, as such, by remarking that there must be some crooked timber used in building a ship!

1678. Congress of plenipotentiaries at Nimeguen, to conclude a peace. Robert Barclay addresses to the Congress an Epistle in Latin, and presents his Apology to the Ministers severally, and through them to the powers they represented.

Parliament being applied to, on the subject of the Penal Statutes against Papists, wrested by persecuting magistrates to the destruction of the Quakers, William Penn is twice heard before a Committee of the House of Commons in their behalf. The speeches made by Penn, together with the Petitions presented may be seen in his Works. (h) The application was likely to have been attended with success, in procuring some relief for Friends by means of a Clause in a Bill then before the House: but it was lost in the Lords by a sudden prorogation of Parliament. Penn says (in the petition to the Commons, which appears to be of his writing) That which with due respect and integrity we offer is, that our word may be taken instead of an oath; and if we are found faulty, that we may undergo that penalty which shall be inflicted in the other case: that we and our families may not be exposed to the malice, self-ends or revenge of any; which we certainly shall be, if you relieve us not.' The suffering state of our predecessors, here so emphatically described in a sentence, should not escape our recollection when we have occasion to speak of the relief from oaths, now (after the further interval of a century and a half) so fully accorded to us by our Country.

Gough says of the period we are come to: "From this time to the end of the king's reign party heats grew more and more violent; plots real or fictitious, prosecuted with acrimony by the opposite parties; a spirit of intrigue and hostility, influencing both court and country; continual dissensions between the king and parliament, both struggling for power which both carried too far; furious sallies of rage and revenge, to the almost entire extirpation of temper, sound judgment, wisdom, and justice; private animosities and public confusion, deform the history of the latter years of this reign. In the mean time the dissenters in

(g) Gough, ii, 431. (h) Penn's Works, Life, xxiii.

general, and Friends in particular, felt the hand of persecution heavier than ever; the penal laws being in full force, and the execution of them in the hands of their inveterate enemies, whose hatred was now edged by this temper of the times. For although the society attached themselves to no particular party, yet the Parliament's taking their severe sufferings under deliberation, especially those inflicted on them as Popish recusants, and intending their relief, was a sufficient reason to Magistrates subservient to the Court, as well as to the Court bishops and clergy, to consider them as the opposite side, and treat them accordingly." (i)

Again, "The magistrates, who were of the high-church party, retained their malignity to dissenters until their hands were manacled by law. Informers were encouraged to hunt after their prey, and the justices as ready to convict as they to inform. Prosecutions by the Acts of Elizabeth for £20 a month, and the seizure of two-thirds of the annual rents, were multiplied against the people called quakers, as the most expeditious mode of impoverishing men of estates. Advan tage was taken of the alarm occasioned by the rumour of the popish plot, to increase the rigorous persecution of a people of opposite principles and conduct [to papists:] under the specious pretence of the necessity, in this season of danger, to exert additional vigilance in guarding against seditious assemblies. And in order to turn the tide of the public temper against them, and expose them to the resentment and abuse of the undiscerning populace, some members [of the society] whose residence, occupations and manner of life were well known, were imprisoned under a pretended suspicion of being papists or con. cealed Jesuits; a character which was at this season in a peculiar manner the object of popular odium." (k)

Ministers deceased, viz.

1. "Richard Farnsworth, of Balby in Yorkshire, was one of those whom the Lord raised up early [in the course of the gathering of this society] in the work of the ministry. He suffered about twelve months imprisonment at Banbury in Oxfordshire in the year 1655, and many were turned to God by him. He was mighty in discourses and disputes with priests and professors, and after much labour and great suffering and persecutions, he at last finished his testimony in London." [Date 1666; omitted in its place.]

2. "William Bayley, a sea-faring man who joined the society from the Baptists at Pool, among whom he had been a teacher; and was master of a ship as well as a minister, among us, to the end of his days. He was esteemed an able Scriptural preacher, went through much suffering for his testimony, and died at sea, returning from Barbadoes, in 1675: laying down his head, according to his own expressions, in peace upon the waters, and trusting' in God,-the God of the whole Universe' [to raise him up.] (1)

3. Christopher Bacon, of Polling-hill, in Somersetshire, was formerly a soldier in the king's army. About the year 1656 some of the Lord's servants, called Quakers, coming into that country to preach the gospel, he went to one of the meetings, not to receive good, but rather to scoff and deride; but, through the Lord's mercy he was reached in his conscience, and received the blessed truth in the love of it; and afterwards-the gospel of Christ to preach, and was a diligent

(i) Hist. ii, 432. (k) Idem. 436. (1) Piety Promoted, pt. 1.

labourer in the work of the ministry; and travelled to London, and into Ireland, and Wales, and many parts of the nation of England, and several were convinced of the truth by him.

"In the year 1678 he came into the county of Cornwall, and there fell sick, being weak of body before, but had a good meeting of friends in the town: and upon his sick bed he desired a friend by him to write comfortably to his wife, if the Lord should take him away, and advise her, that she bring up her children in the fear and counsel of the Lord; and it was his fervent desire that his wife may be kept to truth; and for all friends. And said, 'Since it is my lot, after many great labours and travels for the service of truth, for me to come here and lay down my body, I am well satisfied in God's will and pleasure, and am at this time free and clear in my mind, willing to be with God.' Then making some pause, he said, 'Oh! friends, keep in mind your latter end, and that will make you draw nigh to the Lord, and seek after him.' And further said, 'Friends, take heed that you lose not an heavenly inheritance for an earthly.' And the day before he died, being the First-day of the week, he spoke to friends as they were going to meeting, minding his dear love to friends, and said, 'The Lord's presence be amongst you, for his presence hath attended me in all my labours, travels, sufferings, and exercises, for his name's sake.' His end drawing near, and his body weak, he continued to the last moment in sweet harmony, and lifting up his hands, in much quietness and peace he gave up the ghost the 29th of the Tenth month, in the year 1678, aged about fifty-five years. (m)

Whiting informs us this Friend was several times imprisoned for his testimony; and that his fourth confinement for tithes, in a very cold room in Bridgwater gaol, broke his constitution, so that he lived but about three months after his discharge. He was,' says Whiting, 'a valiant man for truth, and freely given up to suffer for it.' Being taken at a meeting at Glastonbury he was had before Bishop Mew at Wells, who reproached him, calling him rebel &c. for meeting contrary to the king's laws. Christopher said to him, Dost thou call me rebel? I would have thee to know I have jeoparded my life for the king in the high places of the field, when such as thou lay behind hedges.' Memoirs: pa. 30. See also Besse i. 613.

4. "William Coale, of Maryland, in America, was convinced of the blessed truth about the year 1657, and was a man of an innocent and tender spirit, of true judgment, and stood in the power and love of God against unrighteousness and false liberty, and for true liberty in Jesus Christ, and for holiness, peace and unity in the church; he freely and tenderly preached the cross of Christ, and was living and weighty in his testimony. He suffered imprisonment in James Town prison, in Virginia, with George Wilson, a friend of Old England, who travelled into America to preach the gospel, whom the magistrates of that town persecuted to death, after they had cruelly beaten and whipped him, and kept him long in iron chains; and the said William Coale was also much decayed in his body by that cruel imprisonment, and never recovered it.

"His visit to friends in Virginia was very serviceable to many, some were turned to the Lord through his ministry, and many were established in the blessed truth; and in the time of his sickness he was cheerful in spirit, freely given up to the will of God, as a living man prepared to die, saying, The living presence of the Lord is with me;' with many words more, of the great satisfaction he had from the Lord concerning his peace, saying, 'I bless the Lord, I have finished my course, and I have nothing to do but to wait on the Lord to die.' So in a short time he departed very peaceably and quietly away, about the year 1678. (n)

(m) Piety Promoted, pt. 1. (n) Idem.

5.

"Giles Barnardiston, of Clare, in the county of Suffolk, came of a family of great account in the world, and had his education accordingly at the university, and his natural parts were answerable thereto; but when he received the truth, he saw not only the emptiness of those things, but of their way of worship also; and, like Moses, chose rather to join with the poor suffering people of God (called Quakers) than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. After he was converted, it pleased God to commit a dispensation of the gospel unto him, and laid a necessity upon him to preach the same; which he faithfully performed to the day of his death, not regarding the tenderness of his body so much, as to fulfil the will of God.

"When he was about to enter upon an hard journey, or otherwise exercised, he would say, 'That is but for a short time and we shall have done in this world; and I desire that I may be faithful to the end, that I may enjoy that of the hand of the Lord, that I received the truth for. If it had not been to obtain peace of conscience whilst I am in this world, and hopes of everlasting rest with God in the world to come, I would never have left the glory and pleasure of this world, which I had, and might have had a share of, with them that are in it; neither would I now leave my house and home, where I have a loving wife, with all that a man, fearing God, needs to desire, if it was not to obey the Lord, and to make known his truth unto others, that so they may come to be saved: for this cause do I forsake father and mother, wife and estate; and whosoever thinks otherwise of me, with the rest of my faithful brethren whom God hath called into his work, to declare his name and truth among the sons of men, they are all mistaken of us, and I would they knew us better.' And so he continued faithful in the Lord's work to the end; and he was blessed in his labour, for he turned many to righteousness.

"It pleased the Lord to visit him with sickness, in his return from London to Chelmsford, and his sickness was short; in which time he gave testimony to the goodness of God, and said that the Lord was his portion, and that he was freely given up to die, which was gain to him. And on the 11th of the Eleventh month, in the year 1680, he departed in peace." (0)

6. “Isaac Pennington, of Chalfont, Bucks, an honourable, useful and virtuous member of this Society, was the eldest son of Alderman Pennington of London, a noted member of the Long Parliament, who was nominated (but never sat) among the King's judges [i. e. of Chas. I, on his trial under the Commonwealth.] And being born to a fair inheritance, his education was suited to his quality and expectations in life, having all the advantage which the Schools and Universities of his own country afforded:—a man of quick apprehension-sound judgment and good understanding. His disposition was mild and affable, free from pride and affectation; his common conversation cheerful, but guarded-equally divested of moroseness and levity-he was no less pleasing in the manner than instructive in the matter of his discourse. His father's station in public employments, and his [own] rank in life, opened a fair prospect of worldly greatness-but actuated by higher and nobler considerations, he was induced to relinquish the short-lived glories of this world, as unworthy to engage the principal attention of man, born to immortality. He stedfastly believed in a future state; was early impressed with a lively conception of the value of everlasting happiness therein, and early engaged in the arduous pursuit thereof.” (p)

Thus far Gough, concerning this amiable Friend, and constant sufferer for his Testimony; of whom mention has been made already, on various occasions, in these volumes. He joined Friends in 1658, and died in 1679. His Works, consisting chiefly of doctrinal and controversial Treatises and Essays in two thick 4to volumes, are in the Libraries of most families of any standing in the Society.

(0) Piety Promoted, pt. 1.

(p) Gough, ii, 439

It may not be unpleasant to the Christian reader not of our communion, to be refreshed, after so much of injustice and cruelty related, with these Testimonies to the blameless and useful lives, as well as peaceful ends of a few of the earlier preachers of the Quaker doctrine. Considering myself to have done justice to our Fellow-professors of the faith in Christ, by inserting, in the two former volumes, many accounts of ministers who appear to have been in the possession of it also, I am the more free thus to endeavour further to make my work edifying, as well as informing, to religiously disposed minds. And having read, perhaps, as much of Religious biography, of Christian characters of all denominations, as most men of the present age, I feel in no wise ashamed or afraid to commend, to those who would prove all things and hold fast the best,' the candid perusal of the whole of the homely records of the dying sayings of our members, out of which the foregoing were taken. Ed.

ART. II.—Remarks on Scripture Passages, Continued.

Luke v, 17. And the power of the Lord was present to heal them.'

And the healing power of the Lord was there. For what purpose, in the first instance, if not to have healed those Pharisees and teachers, gathered from so many different quarters, of their grand spiritual malady, unbelief, in order to the remission of their sins? They were come, it may be reasonably thought, to see and hear Christ, not on account of any bodily infirmities they had on them, but to determine for themselves and the nation whether he were the Sent of God or not. They might have yielded to the power they felt present in their hearts and have been convinced it was He-but they required miracles. And our Lordgratified their desire: but not till he had first asserted the main purpose of his mission, by addressing the paralytic person with, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.' This might have sufficed, had they been unprejudiced, to have reminded them of his office as their Saviour; according to the tenour of many prophecies concerning him, as recognized in the New Testament: Luke ii, 11, xxiv, 47; John iv, 42; Acts v, 31, x, 43; Rom. xi, 26. This doctrine, of the forgiveness of sins by one who seemed to be but a private person, and without atonement by the priest, was too hard for their present apprehension. They were however all amazed at the miracle, and filled with fear; so that at any rate they glorified God for what was done, and confessed they had seen strange things that day-some of which might be quite as great miracles as this wrought on the palsied man; but not attended with so singular an introduction to Christ's presence.

Chap. vi, 10. 'He said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand.' Observe, here, that our Lord thought fit to defeat on this occasion the malice of his adversaries, by effecting the cure in such a way, as that he could not be justly accused of doing any thing inconsistent with the due observance of the Sabbath. He merely says, Stretch forth