914 BUDGE (F. A.) Annals of the Early Friends, cr. 8vo, cloth, 1 /6. 1891 ANNALS OF THE EARLY FRIENDS. ANNALS Lmay»uw EARLY FRIENDS Series of ^SiogrctpfncctC JiRefc^es. FRANCES ANN BUDGE. [Reprinted from the Friends' Quarterly Examiner.] With Preface by EDWARD BACKHOUSE. " WE ARE NOTHING, CHRIST IS ALL."— George Fox. second EDITION. London : EDWARD HICKS, Jun., 14, BISHOPSGATE WITHOUT. 1891. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/annalsofearlyfriOObudg CONTENTS. PAGE William Caton - 1 John Audland and his Friends 29 Edward Borrodgh - - 55 Elizabeth Stirredge - 75 William Dewsbury ; and his words of Counsel and Consolation 97 John Crook Ill Stephen Crisp and his Sermons 129 John Banks - 147 Humphry Smith and his Works ----- 169 Mary Fisher and her Friends- ----- 197 The Martyrs of Boston and their Friends - - - 221 Passages in the Life of John Gratton - - - - 25 James Dickenson and his Friends ----- 267 William Edmundson 303 William Ellis and his Friends 335 Richard Claridge and his Friends ----- 367 Thomas Story 393 Gilbert Latey and his Friends ----- 423 George Whitehead 451 PREFACE. The Memoirs and Sketches of the lives of Friends of the Seventeenth Century, which have, from time to time, appeared in the pages of the Friends' Quarterly Examiner are, in this volume, presented as a whole, in the hope of thus obtaining for them a more extended circu- lation. They contain an account of the religious prin- ciples of the Early Friends, as well as narratives of the sufferings they underwent in maintaining the testimo- nies committed to them by the Lord Jesus Christ ; and it is hoped that their example may influence us, their successors, with boldness to maintain the Truth as it is in Jesus, and keep unfurled before the Churches the same holy banner that He has given to us also, " to be displayed because of the Truth." As a contribution towards the modern literature of the Society of Friends, these memoirs are designed to revive the memory of those who were valiants in their day ; and to inform such as may not be conversant with the history of Friends two centuries ago ; for they remind us of the costly price our forefathers paid — in blood, in loss of liberty, and of this world's treasure — to procure for us the religious freedom we enjoy* * For more complete details of the foundation and progress of the Society of Friends we would refer to William Sewel's History, which is doubtless to be found in most of the libraries attached to our meeting-houses ; to George Fox's Journal ; Besse's " Sufferings of Friends," &c. vi PREFACE. Many are little aware of the faith, patience, and intrepidity, with which the Friends of the first genera- tion not only endured insults and injuries, but perse- vered in their Christian course triumphing over every difficulty, notwithstanding the virulence with which the opponents of vital religion persecuted them, in many cases even unto death. From the year 1662 to 1697 (inclusive) — namely in the reigns of Charles II., James II., and William and Mary — John Field informs ua that thirteen thousand five hundred and sixty-two Friends suffered imprisonment in England ; while if we add the persecutions of the Commonwealth, under Oliver and Eichard Cromwell, and of New England and those of Ireland and Scotland, from 1650 to 1697, we find the aggregate of these sufferers for conscience' sake numbers more than twenty-three thousands : and that the total of those who died in gaol, or were executed, is three hundred and eighty-eight. The volumes published by Joseph Besse containing the account of the " Sufferings of Friends," show the terrible trials they underwent in those days ; when, locked out of their meeting-houses, or their meeting- houses having been destroyed and razed to the ground, Friends held their assemblies for worship in the streets, or upon the ruins, notwithstanding the furious attacks of the soldiery, who broke their swords and muskets upon their heads, sometimes leaving fifty on the street most shamefully wounded and streaming with blood. Four were hanged in New England by the bigoted professors of religion there : one was squeezed for hours in a torture-hole in the rock in Chester Gaol, called " Little Ease," in consequence of which he died ; while PREFACE. vii let it not be forgotten that many honourable and educated women (among them Elizabeth Horton, the first Quaker minister of her sex), were stripped naked to the waist, by order of Governor Endicott and the Council of Massachusetts, and mercilessly flogged through three towns in succession. Endicott and his fellows raged against the life of religion manifested by the Friends ; though they only came into their juris- diction to preach the Gospel, and specially to demand the repeal of their unrighteous laws, which made it penal for a Friend to enter the Colony. For this four Friends suffered death ; for the Governor and Court of Assistants at Boston, who professed to have left Old England for the sake of liberty to worship according to their consciences, " knew not what spirit they were of." Thus our forefathers bought the Truth ; and, having bought it, sold it not : for amid all their afflictions, they held that nothing in the whole world could compare with the glorious inheritance they had obtained. That inheritance was a heavenly one ; even the kingdom of heaven, into which they had entered ; and they valued its holiness and rest beyond the price of rubies or gold, or the treasures of this world, or liberty, or life itself. Well might they prefer the heavenly country of which they had even upon earth become citizens to anything the world could offer. William Dewsbury testifies to his own experience, and says, " My garments are washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb, who hath led me through the gates . . . into the New Jerusalem . . . where my soul now feeds upon the Tree of Life . . . that stands in the Paradise of God." Again and viii PREFACE. again the Early Friends record their faith in the cleans- ing blood of the Lord Jesns, and their own blessed experience of its power; testifying that Christ had become their personal Saviour from the power of sin, and that eternal life was theirs. " Yea," says Francis Howgill, " I am entered into the true rest, and lie down ■with the lambs in the fold of God, where all the sons [of God] do shout for joy, and all His saints keep holyday." Their exalted views as to the perfection of Chris- tianity (bringing full salvation to every one that will receive it) caused them to express themselves in glowing language worthy of the theme they dwelt upon ; but not more so than the glory of the Gospel of Christ manifested to His saints deserves. George Fox in his Journal says, "Now was I come up in spirit through the flaming sword, into the Paradise of Crod ; all things were [become] new . . . being renewed into the image of God by Christ Jesus." Ann Dewsbury, too, near her close, could say, " I have no guilt upon my spirit. In the covenant of light and life, sealed with the blood of Jesus, I am at eternal peace with the Lord." Stephen Hubbersty — encouraging Friends at a time when they were undergoing deep suffering from the violence of persecution — says, " It is the enjoyment of the sweet presence of God will encourage you to stand ; ... for we are come, blessed be God ! to the primitive Spirit, the Spirit of Christ which was in the primitive worshippers. . . . The Lord arm you with patience and boldness ; and let all these things drive you nearer and nearer to your Beloved. The Lord sanctify you to Himself, that you may be like the Holy Apostles, who, when charged to speak no PREFACE. ix more in Christ's name, would not obey, but chose rather to obey God. Let this be your choice : and ages and generations to come will bless God for you The Wonderful Counsellor preserve you single-hearted, and keep you over all. storms : a calm will come again ; and the joy of the Lord, which is as the joy of harvest, fill your souls with joy and peace in believing." John Audland desires that Friends " may be grounded rooted, builded, established ; and in the everlasting covenant of life, find peace ; where you may rest in the City of God, whose walls are salvation, and whose gates, praise." Ambrose Rigge, also, after ten years' incarceration in Horsham Gaol, could say, " I have been made both able and willing to bear all, for the testimony of Jesus and the word of God ; not counting my life dear unto me, that I might finish my testimony with joy ; being counted worthy not only to believe, but also to suffer for that ancient doctrine, faith, and practice, for which the ancient Christians suffered the loss of their liberties, and, many of them, of their lives." Their expositions of Scripture truth, and their appli- cation of the types and figures to their own experience, as well as to that of the Church, are also extremely interesting. They frequently quote from the Book of Revelation (as well as from all parts of the Old and New Testaments) ; but, as regards the Apocalypse, George Fox observes, that too many religious people view it as a sealed book ; whereas it contains very precious truths, and vividly sets forth many things which it is most important for us to appreciate. He tell us respecting the New Jerusalem, " I saw the X PREFACE. beauty and glory of it, the length, the breadth, and the height thereof, all in complete proportion. I saw that all who are within . . . the grace and truth and power of God, which are the walls of the City, are within the City, . . and have right to eat of the Tree of Life, which yields her fruit every month, and whose leaves are for the healing of the nations." This cannot be gainsaid ; because the New Jerusalem, we are told by the Apostle in describing his vision of it, is " the Bride, the Lamb's wife ; " that is to say, is the Church of the Redeemed ; which Church is one, whether on earth or in heaven. Thus George Fox held that all converted persons who attend to and dwell within the limitations of the grace and truth of God, and live in the power of the Holy Ghost, are in the Church, and belong to the family and household of God while here below. Would that we (who are the successors of the Early Friends) might understand from living experience, as they did, the blessedness of being at rest in the kingdom of heaven : and, like them, know for ourselves that Paradise is regained. Our first parents were driven out of Eden (after they had sinned) lest they should put forth their hands, " and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever." We also, if born again, are entered into the Paradise of God : and like the Early Friends may eat of the glorious Tree of Life ; for the Tree of Life is Christ. They entered into rest : we too may enjoy the rest of the everlasting Sabbath, of which the Jewish Sabbath was but a symbol. This is the true rest ; and whether on earth or in heaven it is one. The saints on earth PREFACE. xi and the saints in heaven, are at rest in Christ ; and drink of the River of the Water of Life ; which glorious River is the one Holy Spirit, into which all the redeemed of the Lord drink. We think there is a blessed future for the Society of Friends : if only our souls were possessed of a holy ambition to do the will of God on earth, as it is done in heaven : and to work in the Lord's vineyard. That was the ambition which possessed the whole soul of the Early Friends. Edward Borrough was " a son of thunder and consolation," who (to his friend, Francis Howgill's knowledge) " scarcely spent one week to him- self in ten years ; " while Ames and Caton, and a host of others, would gladly have spread the " Gospel net " over all. Such was the zeal which clothed their spirits, that they were men " who married as though they married not, and possessed as though they possessed not." They stood in dominion over the world, the flesh, and the Devil. The language of William Dewsbury is, " I can never forget the day of His [the Lord's] power, and blessed appearance, when He first sent me to preach His everlasting Gospel. . . . for this I can say, I never since played the coward, but joyfully entered prisons as palaces, telling mine enemies to hold me there as long as they could : and in the Prison House I sang praises to my God, and esteemed the bolts and locks put upon me as jewels ! . . . And this I have further to signify, that my departure draweth nigh : blessed be my God, I am prepared, I have nothing to do but to die, and put off this mortal taber- nacle, this flesh that has so many infirmities ; but the xii PREFACE. life that dwells in it transcends above all ; out of the reach of death, hell, and the grave ; and immortality, eternal life, is my crown for ever and ever. Therefore you that are left behind, fear not, nor be discouraged, but go on in the name and power of the Lord, and bear a faithful and living testimony for Him in your day ; and the Lord will prosper His work in your hand and cause His Truth to flourish and spread abroad, for it shall have the victory. No weapon formed against it shall prosper ; the Lord hath determined it shall possess the gates of its enemies, and the glory and the light thereof shall shine, more and more, until the per- fect day. Would that we, the successors of these " Valiants for the Truth," may do our parts towards the fulfilment of William Dewsbury's prophecy ! Edward Backhouse. Sunderland. WILLIAJVI CATOJN. B " Faith is the one condition on which the Divine power can enter into man and work through him. It is the susceptibility of the unseen ; man's will yielded up to, and moulded by, the will of God. . . . ' Because of your unbelief ' was, for all time, the Master's explanation and reproof of impotence and failure in His Church." "The School op Prayer," by Andrew Murray. Bnnals of the )£arl£ tfrienos. WILLIAM CATON. " I know that no visible created thing can satisfy that which longeth to be refreshed with the living streams which issue out from the fountain which watereth and refresheth the whole city of God. . . . A living fountain hath the Lord set open for Judah and Jerusalem ; and all that are bathed and washed in it come to enter into the holy city." — W. Catox. It was on a winter day, early in 1652, that unex- pectedly, and for the first time, George Fox arrived at Swarthmoor Hall, near Ulverston, the beautifully situated residence of Judge Fell, who was then absent on his circuit. This visit proved a very eventful one to not a few of the members of that large house- hold. William Caton was then in his sixteenth year, and had for some time resided at the Hall, sharing the educational advantages of the Judge's only son, who was taught by a clergyman, a relative of the Catons ; he soon became a favourite of the whole family, so that difference in social position was lost sight of. He shared George Fell's chamber, and was his com- panion in field-sports and fishing, as well as in study. From early childhood he had at times been the sub- ject of serious impressions, and had been very carefully brought up by his parents. The sudden change in his style of living had by no means the unfavourable 4 "WILLIAM CATOX. effect which might have heen feared, for he says that his heart was softened while thus living in " much pleasure, ease, and fulness, . . . forasmuch as Providence had cast me into such a noble family, where there were such sweet children, with whose company I was more than a little affected. In those days there remained an integrity in my heart towards God, and often did I call upon His name." In order to be alone whilst engaged in prayer he would of a mornimr linger in the bedroom until his companion had gone downstairs. He was much ex- posed to temptation during a few months spent by George Fell and himself at a country school ; but, he writes, " The Lord was wonderfully gracious to me, and many times, when I have deserved nothing but stripes from Him, hath He broken and overcome my heart with His Divine love." At times his soul ardently longed for communion with God, and he found that he could not satisfy its cravings by taking notes of sermons or writing paraphrases of them, though such efforts were commended by the family at the Hall. Much did he marvel at the unfashionable dress and simple manners of their guest from Fenny Drayton, •' Yet something in me," he writes, " did love him and own his testimony. And I began to find the truth of what he spoke in myself ; for his doctrine tended very much to the bringing of us to the light, with which Christ Jesus had enlightened us withal, which shined in our hearts and convinced us of sin and evil ; and into love with that and obedience to that he sought to bring us, that thereby, through the Son, we might be brought into unity and covenant with the Lord." WILLIAM CATON. 5 Deep, also, and lasting, was the effect of George Fox's ministry on the hearts of the mistress of Swarthmoor Hall (a descendant of the martyr, Anne Askew), her young daughters and their governess, as well as on the steward, Thomas Salthouse, the house- keeper, and most of the servants ; and when Judge Fell was crossing the sands of Leven, on his homeward journey, he was told that his family were all bewitched. His son, too, we find, was " somewhat touched with the same power," which helped to smooth the path of William Caton, who was experiencing in his own soul the power of the truths which they had heard, though he confesses that they often " extinguished the good " in themselves ; " but," he adds, " such was the love of God to me in those days, that I was as surely pursued with judgment as I was overtaken with folly." At times he would retire to some solitary spot that he might seek for spiritual refreshment by drawing near to God. After awhile his mental conflicts unfitted him for hard study, and Margaret Fell (the Judge's wife), with Christian sympathy and womanly penetration, divined the cause of his inability to write themes and make Latin verses ; she therefore suggested that he should leave school and occupy himself in teaching her daughters and acting as her secretary. Her strength- ening and soothing influence must have been very helpful to him, for he describes this period as a happy time : he found congenial employment in writing for her of " precious and wholesome things pertaining to the Truth : whereby," he continues, " I came to have good opportunities to be conversant with Friends, in whom 6 WILLIAM CATOX. the life of righteousness began to bud and spring forth, and who grew in love and unity, with which my soul was exceedingly affected ; and I desired very much to be one with them in it."' Meanwhile the good work which his Saviour had begun in his soul was carried on more rapidly perhaps than he was himself aware of. " When I was about seventeen years of age," he writes, " the power of the Lord God did work mightily and etfec- tually in me to the cleansing, purging, and sanctifying of me. . . . And then I began to be broken, melted, and over- come with the love of God which sprang in my heart, and the Divine and precious promises that were confirmed to my soul. Oh ! the preciousness and excellency of that day ! Oh ! the glory and the blessedness of that day ! how or wherewith shall I demonstrate it, that they that are yet un- born might understand it, and give glory unto the Lord Jehovah ? " This most merciful visitation was shared by many others of the household, and very closely were their hearts drawn together ; whilst such was their desire to worship unitedly Him who had done such great things for them that they frequently met for this purpose in the latter part of the evening, when other members of the family had retired to rest. Great was William Caton's disappointment when, in consequence of George Fell's wish to keep early hours — or, it may be, to avoid late meetings — he had to accompany him to his cham- ber, whilst his heart remained with the little company below; for, he says, the refreshment and benefit of these seasons was indescribable. " If," he adds, " we had suffered loss in the day-time when we had been abroad about our business or the like, then we came in a great measure thus to be restored again, through the love, WILLIAM CATON. 7 power, and mercy of our God, which abounded very much unto us." The young heir of Swarthmoor Hall had become indifferent to such matters, and William Caton was not sorry when, in consequence of his being sent to another school, they were separated. It was true that this might stand in the way of Caton's worldly preferment, but we cannot wonder that this seemed of little moment to ore who could say, "I was often overcome with the love of my Father, which did exceedingly break and ravish my heart, and so I know it was with others of that family ; and of the overflowings thereof did we communicate one to another to the comforting and refreshing one of another ; and truly willing were we to sympathise and bear one with another, and in true and tender love to watch one over another. And oh ! the love, mercy, and power of God, which abounded to us, through us, and amoDg us, who shall declare it ? " Many Friends at a distance, hearing how remarkably the Lord's power was manifested in this family, visited Swarthmoor Hall, so that occasionally visitors from five or six counties would stay at the house at one time. This gave especial satisfaction to William Caton, who, in consequence of frequently writing for Margaret Fell, had much intercourse with them. George Fox he re- garded as a tender-hearted father, who, not content with " having begotten him through the Gospel," endeavoured to lead him onwards in the path of the just ; whilst his " entirely beloved friend, Margaret Fell," cared for him as if he had been her own child. These peaceful days at Swarthmoor were but the preparation for his life labours ; freely had he re- 8 WILLIAM CATON. ceived of the grace of God, and freely was he to share it with others. George Fox says, " He was one like unto Timothy, who was an example in innocence, simplicity, and purity in his life and conversation, after he was converted ; for that did preach, as well as his doctrine, in the churches of Christ." William Caton himself thus describes his call to the ministry : " Seeing the darkness and ignorance so great in which people were involved, my spirit was stirred within me, and my earthen vessel came to be filled with love to their souls, and with zeal for God and His Truth. And about that time I began to know the motion of His power and the command of His Spirit ; by which I came to be moved to go to the places of public worship." Although, at that period, it was not a rare event for laymen to address a congregation at the con- clusion of the usual service, it can be no matter of surprise that a youth of seventeen should shrink from thus publicly testifying against the sins of preachers as well as of hearers. But he had given his heart to his Redeemer, and henceforth there was but one way for him to walk in — narrow it might be, and yet an indescribably blessed one. " Wherefore when I saw it must be so," he says, " I put on courage in the name of the Lord ; and having faith in Him which stood in His power I gave up to His will." Then he realised the fulfilment of Christ's promise that He would be with him : harassing doubts and the fear of man were alike taken from him, and power was given him — stripling though he was — to speak as " one having authority." Some were willing to hear him ; others, " as brute beasts," fell upon him ; but the Lord WILLIAM CATON. 9 preserved him from evil, and filled his heart with peace. In market places, too, he often preached, seldom knowing what he should say until he reached the spot, yet never lacking words wherewith to clothe his Master's message. " His word," he writes, " did often powerfully pass through me, and never did I go about any service for the Lord in which I was faithful but I always had my reward with me." Blows and beat- ings, stocks and stonings, he gave little heed to, for he found in the enjoyment of God's love that which made more than full amends for all ; and whenever he was most deeply tried, the tenderness of the Lord's love was most clearly manifested. He alludes also to the great help afforded him from the consciousness of the warm attachment of his fellow-believers. In the intervals of his ministerial service he indus- triously employed himself at Swarthmoor, still finding true spiritual refreshment with the household there, as they "spake often one to another and the Lord hearkened and heard." But soon he found that notwithstanding " the glorious days there," the time was at hand when he must bid his friends farewell, and go forth at his Saviour's bidding to work in more distant vineyards. Judge Fell was very unwilling for him to leave his house, but his wife, with truer affection, overcame her first feelings of regret, and freely gave him up. And yet, although they knew that they could still be near one another in spirit, it was amidst the freely -flowing tears, as well as the fervent prayers of the family, that the parting took place, on a winter day, when he was about eighteen. He travelled chiefly on foot and — bearing this in 10 WILLIAM CATON. mind — his diligence in his holy calling was wonderful. When twelve months had elapsed he had visited, in addition to many English counties, some parts of Scot- land, Calais, Eotterdam and other Dutch cities. In London he found several ministering brethren from the north, and, together, they laboured night and day. " The word of the Lord grew mightily," he says, " and many were added to the faith." Here he met with John Stubbs, who soon became one of his dearest friends. In the previous year Stubbs had left the army in consecpuence of the effect produced on his mind by the preaching of George Fox ; a holier warfare lay before him in many parts of Europe, in Egypt and America : he was well skilled in the classics, and a remarkable Oriental scholar. Like William Caton he greatly loved and esteemed Margaret Fell. In one of his letters to her he says, " How often in my distress hath the Lord raised one up to minister in season to me, both by word and by writing. . . . Truly He hath made thee, even thee, as His angel and messenger these two times to publish peace unto me." Whilst William Caton and John Stubbs were hold- ing meetings in Kent, they were brought before the magistrates at Dover, who decided that a penalty should be inflicted on any one who gave them lodging : they were therefore turned out from the apartments which they had occupied at the inn. In this time of need they were befriended by a shoemaker, named Luke Howard, who having been told on the previous Sunday that a Quaker was preaching in the churchyard, at once went there, and found a sermon even in William Caton's countenance and demeanour ; he protected him from WILLIAM CATON. 1 I abuse and insult, and carefully noticed the house which he entered, in order that he might visit him when the darkness of the winter evening should screen him from observation. But he soon grew bolder, for when the innkeeper no longer dared to entertain the young- preachers, Luke Howard said to them, " Go home to my house, for I care not for the rulers nor mayor either ; " and he refused to give them up when asked to do so by the constables. Two meetings were held in his house, of which the latter was regarded by him as the turning-point of his life. When his guests left the town he walked two or three miles with them, and gave them the names of some places on the coast, and also of some persons who might render them assistance : so much did he feel at parting with them that, even after returning to Dover, he found it difficult to keep back his tears. Deep inward trials were for a time his portion, but the Saviour to whom he had fled for refuge suffered not his faith to fail, and when almost ready to despair these words came as a heavenly message to his soul, — " I will cleave the rocks and mountains that the redeemed of the Lord may come to Zion." Casting all his care upon Christ, henceforth hope was the anchor of his soul though tempest after tempest might befall him. Thus, when describing his sixteen months' confinement in Dover Castle for attendance of meetings, he writes : " I had perfect peace, joy, and content in it all ; and the Lord made it good unto me both within and without." * * Luke Howard gives the following beautiful description of the consolation afforded him one night during this, or another imprison- V2 WILLIAM CATON. Before leaving Dover John Stubbs and William Caton had remarked in a letter to Francis Howoill and Edward o Burrough, " A fire is kindled among them which can- not be easily quenched." Nor were they mistaken in this belief, for Dover was one of the first places in Kent where, in accordance with their advice, a meeting was established by those who were convinced of the truths which they preached. During some years this meeting was held in silence, unless visited by a travelling minister ; but Luke Howard, at whose house the Friends at first assembled, says that the Lord was their Teacher, and manifested His power and presence in their midst. Whilst at Lydd, William Caton and his companion were kindly entertained at the house of Samuel Fisher, a very eminent Baptist minister, to whom they had been directed by Luke Howard. In his earlier life he had been a clergyman, but had resigned his living from con- scientious motives. At first he did not fully acknow- ledge the influence which the ministry of his guests had on him ; but when, after visiting some neighbouring places, they had returned to Lydd, and another Baptist ment :— " On the Third-day of the Eighth Month, 1661, in the night- watch, upon my bed of straw and chaff, in the common gaol of Dover Castle, as I lay in a comfortable sleep and rest, the hand of my God fell upon me, and His sweet and comforting presence awakened me, and so continued with me unto the morning-watch ; in which time the living presence of my God was with me and the comfortable presence of His Holy Spirit accompanied me ; so that my soul was filled with His living presence as with a mighty river, which did over- flow the banks, so that nothing appeared but joy and gladness, and the streams of His everlasting virtue ran through me exceeding swift. . . This is my God ; I have waited for Him, and His appear- ance to me is as the morning without clouds, and His beauty hath taken my heart, and His comeliness hath ravished my soul, and with His exceeding riches hath He adorned my inward man, and His everlasting strength is my salvation, even the Son of His love." AVILLIAM CATON. 13 minister publicly preached against them and their doctrine, Samuel Fisher arose and said, " Dear brother, you are very near and dear to me, but the Truth is nearer and dearer : this is the everlasting Truth and Gospel ! " To the preacher's exclamation, " Our brother Fisher is also bewitched," he made no reply ; in the course of that year he joined the Society of Friends. For ten years he diligently laboured as a minister at home and abroad, and also as an author, often suffering severe persecution for the cause which was dearer to him than life. He died in the White Lion gaol, in Southwark, after a long imprisonment. So grateful were some of the open-hearted Kentish people to William Caton and John Stubbs, who had been enabled to labour very powerfully amongst them that they urged them to receive gold, which was declined, with the reply that it was not theirs but them, they sought. But at Maidstone a different reception awaited them ; they were sent to the House of Correc- tion, deprived of their Bible, money, etc., then stripped, and, with their necks and arms placed in stocks, bar- barously whipped until bystanders wept at the sight. After irons and large clogs of wood had been laid on them, they were ordered to work, and because they did not were kept without food for some days. The women who lived in the house showed their pity by privately offering them refreshment, which they did not think it well to accept. Before they were set at liberty a few things were restored to them ; but they were dismissed from the town in contrary directions, each accompanied by constables, to whom (so states an old MS. of Friends of East Kent) " their heavenly images and sober lives 14 WILLIAM CATON. and words preached so much that they finally suffered them to travel alone whither they pleased." Neither knew where the other had gone, and great was their pleasure at meeting in London ; but soon they felt hound to return to Maidstone and, though fearing the consequences of so hold a measure, their faith did not fail, and they were preserved from further persecution. On re-visiting other towns in Kent they were cheered by the belief that their patient suffering had tended to confirm the faith of those to whom their * ministry had been an effectual message. From Dover William Caton crossed to Calais, where he had what he styles " a very gallant opportunity " at a mansion with some of the chief inhabitants, a Scotch nobleman acting as his interpreter. Soon afterwards he accompanied John Stubbs to Holland. They meant to sail from Yarmouth, whither they had walked from Dover, often travelling many miles a day — no hardship perhaps but for the fact that, in order to avoid expense, they sadly stinted themselves in food. Yet William Caton says that their reward was with them in all places and con- ditions. After a delay of three weeks they went on board a vessel, but, to their great disappointment, the captain refused to take them. As it seemed unlikely that they would obtain a passage from that port, they thought it best to go northward. William Caton longed to visit his beloved friends at Swarthmoor, and a suitable opportunity for doing so occurred, to his extreme refreshment of body and soul. Before sailing some meetings were held in Durham, which were of great service. WILLIAM CATON. 15 On returning from Holland, where very rough treat- ment was encountered, he again spent a short time at Swarthmoor Hall ; he writes, " A very precious time we had together, whereby my very life was much revived ; and therefore did my soul magnify the Lord, with the rest of His lambs and babes in that place." Soon he started for Scotland with JohnStubbs; many were their sufferings within and without, but the Lord sustained them through all, and their exceeding affection for each other was a continual source of comfort. In the following winter, in company with another Friend, William Caton visited Lancashire, Cheshire, etc., and says that time would fail him to relate " the extraordinary good service " which they had. He also attended a large General Meeting in Leicestershire, which was a very blessed time ; George Fox, whom he had much wished to meet again, was present. A little later, whilst on his way to Scotland, he visited Ambleside, in which place courage and power were given him to address a congregation in a chapel, though the people first attacked him as if they had been wild beasts. At Edinburgh and Leith many large meetings were held, sometimes in the streets, and much power in the ministry was granted to William Caton and the Friend who was with him. About this time we find the former ill from the effect of " sore travel " from place to place. On their return to Cumberland they held meetings, which William Caton describes as being very large and precious, and lie adds, " Friends were strengthened and confirmed in the precious truth which in those days did flourish and prosper very much ; and the Lord's power and presence was with us, through which we were carried on in His 16 WILLIAM CA.TON. work and service, in which our souls delighted to be exercised. There being such an effectual door open abroad in the country I was constrained, through the love of God which dwelt richly in my heart, to labour so much the more diligently, for I knew it was good work- ing whilst it was day ; and indeed a glorious and precious time we had, to make known unto the people the way of salvation, and what the Lord had done for our souls ; many believed and were converted, and brought to serve and worship the Lord in spirit and in truth." Many of these meetings were held around Swarth- moor j soon afterwards he bade farewell to his friends there, and bent his steps southward. He was greatly cheered by his intercourse with Friends at Bristol, and with the " large and gallant meetings " held in that city and neighbourhood, and says that he was enabled to " communicate to them of the overflowing of the life and power dwelling " in him. Then we find him travelling westward, usually alone and on foot, to visit George Fox and other Friends in Launceston gaol. Their intercourse was " in the fulness of endeared love," and though William Caton's chief aim might be to carry comfort to the prisoners, his own cup was filled to the brim. When at Totnes he was brought before the mayor, who threatened him with a whipping ; but the other magistrates thought more moderate measures might suffice. When they examined him a clergyman was present, and an excellent opportunity was afforded Caton to uphold the truth as it is in Jesus, for in that very hour, he says, the Lord was much witli him. After spending the night in prison he was sent on with a pass WILLIAM CATON. 17 from place to place ; an arrangement which had by no means the intended effect, for it soon became known, in one town after another, that William Caton was no pauper, but a Quaker, and as people came out of their houses to see him, he addressed them freely on the truths dear to his soul. After attending a General Meeting in Wiltshire, and some other services, he re-visited Kent. He was but twenty years of age, yet his Saviour's grace and power were so manifestly granted him that he shared in the wonder felt by others at the abundance given for the multitudes who came to hear him. When he turned his thoughts to his own weakness he was ready to faint ; but when he placed his confidence in Christ alone, he became strong. Often he did not know what he should say when he entered a meeting, and yet so much was given him to communicate that he would speak for two, three, or, occasionally, four hours. " Not unto me, not unto me, be the praise," he writes, " but unto the Lord alone. I can truly say that which I received from Him I delivered unto His people. . . . An exceeding glorious day I had of it, and did much rejoice in the Lord, notwithstanding my great travails and sufferings ; neither were they much to me, with all the perils and dangers I went through, both by sea and land, in comparison of the power and presence of the Almighty." In the summer of the same year he again sailed for Holland, this time alone — though he longed for a com- panion— and in poor health from the effect of exposure to heat and cold during his almost incessant journeys. He met with scoffing and abuse from some fellow- , 0 18 WILLIAM CATON. voyagers, who were, nevertheless, ready to give heed to his words when he addressed them in their dismay, during a dangerous storm, which had filled them with terror. Deep trials were his portion during this visit, which were increased when he became aware of the evils wrought by the extreme views promulgated by some who had joined the Society. At Middleburgh, William Caton and his interpreter were imprisoned for some days, and then conveyed in a waggon to the coast. They were accompanied by several soldiers to protect them from the violence of the citizens ; but, as William Caton says, the Lord was their chief keeper. Great were their sufferings during the following fortnight, whilst prisoners on board a man-of-war, in which they were carried to England. Though the weather was very cold and stormy, they were obliged to lie on the bare planks, and were not even allowed the covering of a piece of sail-cloth. But God had not forgotten to be gracious. Whilst undergoing this treatment, William Caton's health and strength were, in a great measure, restored, though for a time he suffered severe pain in the feet, the result of keeping on shoes and stockings during so long a period of exposure to the cold. Soon afterwards he paid an extremely satisfactory visit to Sussex. At one place where a meeting was held, a rude crowd marched up to the house with a drum, seeming ready in their violence to pull down the building on the heads of those assembled. William Caton went out to them and asked what they wanted. " Quakers ! " was the reply. " I am one," he said, and then power was given him to address them in such a manner as to make them withdraw in shame and fear. WILLIAM CATOX. 19 He met with a somewhat similar deliverance during his next visit to the Netherlands, where he spent more than a year engaged in ministerial service and authorship. On his return he was comforted by the blessed meetings held in London, where many were added to the Church ; and he speaks of how God bestowed exceeding power and wisdom from above on His servants and handmaids, who, in Christ's name preached the Word of Life, not in meetings only, but in churches, markets, streets, and highways, indeed wherever their Saviour led, and when- ever He constrained them. They gave themselves wholly to God, and marvellous was the result. " I made it my sole work to be found doing the work of God, unto which He had called me," writes William Caton, after describing meetings held in the north of England, where, as in many other parts of the country> the labours of Friends were producing extraordinary effect. Now and then he enjoyed extreme refreshment by intercourse with the family at Swarthmoor, " whom," he says, " he found in the same love, life, and power in which he left them." The very remembrance of these days was sweet to him in after years, and the more so from the continued consciousness of the love of Christ, by whose realised presence those seasons had been hallowed. It was this, also, which had often made his weary journeyings and arduous labours a source of delight. Early in 1659 he attended a meeting of ministers from various parts of the kingdom, held at the Bull and Mouth Meeting-house in London, which he writes of as being " very large and exceedingly precious." In the latter part of the day a meeting was held at Horsely- 20 WILLIAM CATON. down, where a great concourse seemed much impressed with the truths they heard. William Caton says : — " Great was our rejoicing and comfort which we had in the work and service of the Lord, in which we were abundantly refreshed together. And in that great assembly did our souls, even with one accord, praise and magnify the God of our salvation." A visit to Holland in the same year, with its perilous return voyage, was soon followed by one to Scotland. He set out on the latter expedition from Swarthmoor, and after his friends and himself had, as they thought, fully taken leave of each other, they felt that they could not yet part, and several hours were spent in waiting on the Lord, and in pouring out their souls in prayer. Whilst in Scotland he endeavoured to obtain an interview with General Monk, but, being unable to do so, he wrote an address to him and his army. A meeting which he attended at Warrington the following winter was broken up by some rough soldiers, who violently forced the worshippers out of the town ; but they re-assembled on the road-side, and had, we find, a " sweet and precious meeting." Before long the soldiers again interrupted them, and whilst William Caton was preaching, seized him, and to the great dis- tress of his friends, beat him with their muskets and spears ; then, having given vent to their fury, they allowed him to return to the meeting, where, he says, " The Lord's power and presence did exceedingly appear amongst us ; for, as our suffering at that time was greater than ordinary, even so was our refreshment in the Lord." About this time he records the death of his " dear mother " whilst he was paying her a visit. WILLIAM CATON. 21 When in London, in 1660, he alludes in a letter to full and peaceful meetings on the previous Sunday; and, after stating that the common topic of conversa- tion was the expected coming of the King, he adds, " But blessed be the Lord for ever, in whose power we can testify that our King is come who reigns in power and great glory." Nor can we wonder at these words from one who drew the strength and joy of his life from the knowledge that his citizenship was in heaven ; who might have said in the words of another, " When I die I shall change my place but not my company ! " * Redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, to Him William Caton freely dedicated his life, and the Lord, who loveth a cheerful giver, suffered not his faith to fail — to whatever extent it might be tried, " I have often observed," he says, " that, by how much the more I felt the weight of the service of the meeting before I went into it, by so much the more was my service in it, and my reward accordingly. Blessed and magnified be the Lord for ever." Before sailing for Holland, in the latter part of the year, he writes from Dover to George Fox. After mentioning the death of a Friend, of Staplehurst — probably a minister — who would be greatly missed in that neighbourhood, he adds, " I believe there will now be more necessity for Friends visiting them pretty often than there was before ; I desire that thou wouldst be mindful of them .... Dearly beloved of my soul," he * " Have you a glimpse of Christ now that you are dying ? " was the question asked of an old Scottish saint, who, raising himself, made the emphatic reply, " I'll hae none o' your glimpses now that I am dying, since that I have had a full look at Christ these forty years gane ! " 22 WILLIAM CATON. writes, " let thy prayers be for me that I may be kept in the power, life, and wisdom of our God, to His praise and to the comfort and consolation of the brethren, with whom I can rest in the Lord, even in the heat of the day; glory be to the Lord for ever." And, during the voyage, we find that he was " exceedingly filled with the Lord's love, and with the power of His might." One of his fellow-passengers, a Roman Catholic, not- withstanding William Caton's habitually courteous manners, openly avowed his hatred of him and his religion : but before they parted there was a complete change in his behaviour. Well did George Fox say, " Love, patience, and wisdom will wear out all which is not of God." In a letter of sympathy written from Amstersdam to English Friends, William Caton remarks that he believes those amongst them who were not yet cast into prison were in no greater danger from persecution than were their brethren resident in that city, where it was said that fifty men had conspired to break up their meeting, and pull down the meeting-house. It was about this time that he published a volume with the lengthy title, " An Abridgment or Compendious Com- memoration of the Eemarkablest Chronologies which are contained in that celebrated Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius." In 1661 William Caton visited Germany with William Ames ; at Heidelberg they had interviews with the Prince, and laid before him the sufferings of the Friends in his dominions on account of their con- scientious objection to the payment of tithes : he gave them a courteous reception, and made them dine with him. When next at Heidelberg William Caton had the WILLIAM CATON. 23 unexpected pleasure of meeting with his friend John Stnbbs who, with another Friend, was on the homeward route from Egypt. When the Prince heard they were at William Caton's lodgings, he sent his secretary to ask them to come to the Castle to see him, where, in the presence of his nobles, he conversed very freely with them about their mission, and, after what William Caton calls " a very gallant opportunity," he took an affectionate leave of them. • The enjoyment of William Caton in the society of his brethren was soon shadowed by tidings from Amsterdam of the death of a beloved friend of his, Niesie Dirrix, a faithful labourer for her Lord in her native land ; his sorrow was great until he was com- forted by the conviction that her mantle would fall on her sister Anneken and some others. On his return to Holland, some months later, he made proposals of marriage to Anneken Dirrix. Warm and enthusiastic O as his disposition was, he took extreme care to act rightly in this matter : lie wished her first to consider whether she " felt something in it as from the Lord," and asked for no reply until she had deliberately weighed three things : — First the difference in their outward circumstances and how little he had to offer her ; secondly, the liberty — more to him than the trea- sures of Egypt— which he should still need to travel in the service of the Lord : and, thirdly, the possibility that their union might be disapproved of by magistrates, by her relatives or others, and might thus bring trouble upon her. Her reply was to the following effect : — As to the first, it was not means that she looked to but virtue. As to the second, when the Lord needed him 24 WILLIAM GATON. for any service she should not be the woman that would hinder him. As to the last, if they " were perfectly clear of the thing before the Lord, she hoped to bear what people without should say, for that would be one of the least crosses ! " Still they did not think it right for a time to bind themselves by promise. William Caton thus describes his own feelings during an in- terview which they had after several months had elapsed : — " Waiting awhile exceeding steadfastly in the light of the Lord, the life began to arise, and the Word of the Lord testified unto me thus, saying, ' She is the gift of the Lord to thee.' Then was my heart also broken, and in the fulness of love and unity in the everlasting covenant did I receive her as the Lord's gift unto me." About three months after his marriage he embarked for England. Whilst in London he received much spiritual refreshment from a visit to Edward Burrough [of whom there is a sketch in this volume], then a prisoner in Newgate, where he died a week or two later. Their separation was not a long one : each was early called to the ministry ; each accomplished the labour of a long lifetime in ten or a dozen years. Like their Divine Master " clad with zeal as a cloak," " through faith they wrought righteousness, obtained promises, . . . out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." On his next visit to England — for his home was now in Holland — William Caton was accom- panied by his wife, who greatly longed to become acquainted with the Friends there, of whom she had no doubt often heard ; and with a similar desire some WILLIAM CATON. 25 other Dutch members of the Society sailed with them. The London Friends rejoiced, William Caton says, " to see people of another nation, and of a strange language, brought into the same living truth in which they were established, and to bear the same image which they bore, — and to be comprehended in the same Love." At a General Meeting at Kingston he acted as interpreter for one of his Dutch sisters. His wife and the other Friends from Holland returned some time before his mission was accomplished, but in the autumn of 1G63 he also set sail. When about ten leagues off Yarmouth, William Caton, who felt sure that a storm was at hand, unavailingly urged the captain to put back. That night a tempest overtook them, and at its height the helm became useless, and, as the vessel was very leaky, she was in extreme peril ; the sailors, wet to the skin and utterly wearied by toiling at the pumps and with the sails, were almost ready to despair. William Caton, who had been aiding them in their arduous work, now wrestled in prayer for their deliverance if in accordance with God's will ; " though, as for my own part," he says, whilst with deep gratitude recording their remarkable preservation, " I found myself exceeding freely given up to becpieath my soul into His bosom of everlasting love, and my body to be buried in that great deep." But soon storms of a different character had to be encountered. Whilst waiting at Yarmouth for a change in the wind he attended the meeting there, and, in company with seven other Friends, also strangers, was carried before the magistrates of the town. Because 26 WILLIAM CATON. they declined to take the Oath of Allegiance they were committed to the common gaol, where they were con- fined for more than six months ; when it was tendered to William Caton he said that he had never uttered an oath but once, in his boyhood, and having then incurred the displeasure of the Almighty he dared not swear again. So fully had the magistrates anticipated this steadfast adherence of the Friends to their conscientious convictions, that they made out their mittimus before putting them to the test. In a letter, written a few days later, William Caton alludes to the cruelty of their oppressors, which some- times made it no easy matter to obtain their bread and water ; but says that the only wonder was that he had not earlier found himself in bonds, " unto which," he adds, " I have long been freely given up in the will of God where my soul is in peace with the Lord." And again he writes of how " one day in prison, with the Lord, was better than a thousand elsewhere without the enjoyment of His presence, in whose love his soul solaced itself night and day." Some friends of the prisoners, thinking to beguile the long hours of their confinement, wished to give them a spinning-wheel, but were not allowed to do so. It was in the early part of 1664 that the Friends were liberated, after meeting with kind consideration from the judge who presided over the sessions, and from a justice of the peace. Five of William Caton's fellow- sufferers belonged to a vessel which had come to Yarmouth for herrings, and as, during this period, she was seized by the Turks, their English captivity was the means of saving them from Asiatic slavery. WILLIAM CATON. 27 In the following winter William Caton wrote an epistle from Rotterdam to his friends in England. After referring to his powerlessness to express the fervency of his love, and of his prayerful longings for them, he adds, " Yet herein can I satisfy myself, in that we come to read and feel one another in that which is immortal." He says that, although his heart is often saddened hy the many hindrances to the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom in Holland, he is supported by the " wonted goodness and tender mercy of the Most High, still perfectly continued to him." William Caton died in the latter part of the following year, at the age of nine-and-twenty. His wife did not long survive him. It has been remarked that " No truth or goodness realised by man ever dies, or can die ; " and surely such a life, though lived two centuries ago, has not ceased to convey a lesson. As we look around us we find no warrant for believing that the world no longer needs to be reminded of that Cross to which every helpless soul may cling, and of such truths as Christ's Headship of His Church, the Spirituality of the Gospel dispensation, and the reality of the teaching and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The fields are white unto harvest still ; still the Lord of the harvest has need of labourers ; of labourers who, with the knowledge that they are bought with a price, and that " voluntary obedience is liberty " — wholly yield themselves to Him to be trained for, and guided in, any service which He sees meet to assign to them, be it of what kind it may, for " all service is not work, and all work is not service ; " consecrating to Him, as 28 WILLIAM CATON. occasion may arise, every talent whether natural or acquired — " Ever by a mighty hope Pressing on and bearing up." " Do not," it has been said, " let Satan have all the benefit of ambition in his kingdom." Excelsior is no unworthy device for the banner of Christian warriors who are learning that they "are nothing, Christ is all." * " Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save ; neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear." He can " restore judges as at the first, and counsellors as at the beginning." May no unbelief on our part hinder the performance of " mighty works " on His. * " So long," writes the author of The Patience of Hope, " as we are resting on anything within ourselves — be it even in a work of grace — there remains, at least to honest hearts, a ground for con- tinual restlessness and continual disappointment. To know that we have nothing, are nothing, out of Christ, is to know the truth which makes us free." JOHN AUDLAND AND f RIEJ^D£ No harp was ever strung capable of yielding such music as of man attuned to righteous obedience." — MuNGEB. 31 JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FKIENDS. " In the Church of God there is no irrevocable golden age in the past In God's battles leaders cannot fail." — Author of " The Sckdriberg-Cotta Family." When John Audland was about twenty-two years of age he was a very popular minister amongst the Independents. Sewel describes him as " a young man of a comely countenance, and very lovely qualities, very religious, and having a good understanding." One Sunday morning, in 1652, he preach at Firbank Chapel, in Westmoreland. Before noon George Fox arrived at this place ; it was soon rumoured that he would preach there that day, and whilst some people went away for a time to dine, a large number remained. George Fox, having quenched his thirst at a stream, seated himself on the summit of a rock near the chapel, and from this elevation he, in the afternoon, addressed the vast multitude gathered around him. In this con- gregation were several preachers, including John Aud- land, who had brought his wife, a young lady of good family, with him. Probably as their thirsty souls drank in the words which fell with heavenly power from the stranger's lips, they were hardly conscious that he con- tinued speaking for about three hours, directing all to the Spirit of God in themselves. Glorious was the heritage he pourtrayed as the present portion of believers in Christ; that they "might know their bodies to be prepared, sanctified, and made fit temples for God and 32 JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. Christ to dwell in." He strove to turn the thoughts of his hearers away from all figures and shadows to Christ the Substance ; " Christ was come," he said, " who ended both the temple and its worship, and the priests and their tithes ; and all now should hearken unto Him." Effectual as was George Fox's message to many that day, it was more so to none than John and Anne Audland, and it was to their house that he adjourned when the meeting was over. Both were " chosen vessels unto the Lord to declare His name," and the life-long ministry of each began in the following year. Deep was John Audland's distress when his eyes were opened to see that his high profession of religion was valueless. " It is a Saviour that I long for," was now his cry, — " it is He that my soul pants after, Oh, that I may be gathered into his life, and overshadowed with His glory, sanctified throughout by His word, and raised up by His eternal power ? " The answer to his continued prayers was not long delayed ; the Lord, in accordance with His promise, ful- filled his desire, heard his cry and saved him. " Oh, how wonderful His ways ! All in love begin and end ; Whom His mercy means to raise ; First His justice bids descend." Thus baptised into Christ John Audland was, ere long, qualified to preach the word with extraordinary power. The remuneration which he had previously received for his services as an eloquent Independent minister he now returned to the parish of Colton. Anne Audland was the daughter of a gentleman of the name of Newby, who also became a Friend about JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. 33 this time ; she had been well educated, and during a seven years' residence with an aunt in London had often associated with Puritans. Before her marriage, when at her home at Kendal, she chose the most serious people of that town for her friends, uniting with some who often met together to wait on God in silence, or for religious conference and fervent prayer. Perhaps on the day of George Fox's memorable visit to Firbank she was already " not far from the kingdom." Two years later we find her, at the age of twenty- seven, preaching at Auckland, in Durham, on a market- day, in consequence of which she was confined for some hours in the town gaol, through the window of which she continued to address a not unmoved audience, one of whom, a gentleman named Langs taff, who was much respected in the neighbourhood, was so impressed by her ministry that he accompanied her to prison, and afterwards took her to his house ; here, however, she declined remaining when she observed bis wife's annoy- ance at the arrival of a Quaker guest, and went out into the fields to seek for some sheltered spot where she might spend the night. But Antony Pearson, a justice of the peace, who had lately become a Friend, had been told by George Fox, who was staying at his house, of Anne Audland's arrival in the town, and came with a horse and pillion to escort her to his residence. During the following winter, whilst travelling with Mabel Camm (the wife of John Camm), she was com- mitted to prison by the Mayor of Banbury, who had induced two witnesses to swear that she had spoken blasphemy : but after some days, two residents in the town gave bond for her appearance at the assizes, and D 34 JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. thus an opportunity for holding a series of meetings was afforded her. A remarkable blessing rested on these labours ; several hundreds, including the two " bondsmen," were effectu- ally led to Christ ; many were added to the Society, and not only was a large meeting formed in Banbury, but several others were established in the neighbourhood. These things of course kindled the wrath of her enemies, who threatened that she should be burned. Her hus- band and other Friends were present at the trial, when the indictment drawn up against her was that she had said God did not live, because, when speaking of a clergyman at Banbury, she had remarked that " True words may be a lie in the mouth of some who speak them," quoting Jer. v. 2. When the judge had ques- tioned her he soon discovered the falseness of the evidence adduced, nor did he fail to observe the innocent fearlessness of her deportment. Some gentlemen on the bench, being afraid that the case would fall to the ground, followed the jury and induced them to bring in a verdict of " Guilty of misdemeanour." It is satis- factory to find that these gentlemen were told by one of their coadjutors that he would not sit with them until they had more regard for justice, and other officers in the Court strongly manifested their censure. On her refusal to give bond for " good behaviour," she was sent to prison again, although the judge was heard to say that she ought to be discharged. For seven or eight months she was confined in a filthy dungeon, by the side of which was a sewer which received much of the drainage of the town ; she had a companion in Jane Waugh, who was also a minister, and had been impri- JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. 35 soned for no other offence than that of visiting Anne Audland. Here, unprotected from cold, and damp, and noxious gases, with frogs and toads crawling around them — kept by the peace of God — they abode, we are told, as in a palace, for they could say : — " Thy presence makes my paradise, And where Thou art, is Heaven." After her release Anne Audland and her husband had the joy of meeting each other at Bristol, and after some religious service they returned to their home in West- moreland. Frequent journeys for the advancement of Christ's cause were undertaken by both, unitedly and separately, to most parts of the kingdom. During John Audland's absence on one of these missions she thus writes: — " Dear Husband, — Thou art dearer to me than ever : my love flows out to thee, even the same love that I am loved withal of my Father. . . 0, how I am refreshed to hear from thee of thy faithfulness and boldness in the work of the Lord. 0 ! dear heart, I cannot utter the joy I have concerning thee ; thy presence I have continually in spirit, therewith am 1 filled with joy? all glory and honour be to our God forever. . . . Surely the Lord hath found thee faithful in little and therefore He hath committed much unto thee ; go on in the name and power of our Lord Jesus Christ, whence all strength cometh, to whom be all glory and honour for ever. O ! dear heart, go on conquering and to conquer, knowing this that thy crown is sure. So, dear heart, now is the time of the Lord's work, and few are willing to go forth into it. The whole world lieth in wickedness doing their own work ; but blessed be the Lord for ever, who hath called us from doing our own work into His great work. ... I am full of love towards thee, never such love as this ; the mighty power of the Lord go along with thee, and keep thee faithful and 36 JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. valiant, and bold in His pure counsel, to stand single out of all the world. ... A joyful word it was to me, to hear that thou wast moved to go to Bristol. 0 ! my own heart, my own life, in that which now stands, act and obey, that thou mayst stand upon thy alone guard : so, dear heart, let thy prayers be forme that I may be kept pure, out of all tempta- tions, singly to dwell in the life. So farewell! — Anne Audland." A series of meetings were held in 1654 by John Audland and his friend John Camrn, near Bristol, in a field called Earl's Mead, and were very largely atten- ded. In a letter to George Fox, Camm says, " We have here, in Bristol, most commonly 3,000 to 4,000 at a meeting. The priests and magistrates of the city begin to rage, but the soldiers (of the Commonwealth) keep them down ; for the Governor of the Castle is not against us, and the Captain of the Boyal Fort is abso- lutely convinced, and his wife loves us dearly. And many captains and great ones of the city are convinced, and do believe in us, and that we are of God ; and all within ten miles of the city round about the people is very much desirous after Truth. . . . Yea at any point we come we can have 400 or 500, or even 1,000 And ive hit some every day we shoot, for ' our bow abides in strength. ' " Edward Burrough and Francis How- grill were their fellow-labourers for a short time. These meetings were continued during three or four months, and Charles Marshall describes this period as " the glorious morning of the day of visitation of the love of God, in particular to the city of Bristol." He was then about seventeen, and an earnest seeker after God ; having been unable, as he says, to " find the living among the dead professions," he had spent much time JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. 37 alone in fields and woods, where " strong, great, and many," were his cries unto the Lord. Charles Marshall, before the arrival of John Audland, had been in the habit of meeting with a few others on one day of the week which they kept in fasting and prayer ; they assembled early in the morning, and some- times sat down in silence, but if any felt it right to engage in prayer vocally they did so, and even chil- dren occasionally uttered brief petitions. To one of these meetings John Audland and John Camm came. " They spake," writes Charles Marshall, " the power- ful word of life in the dread of His name who lives for ever, and we were seized on and smitten even to the heart ; and that day, and the visitation of it overtook us, which we had longed and waited for, and from darkness to the marvellous light of the Lord were we turned." On a Sunday morning Charles Marshall went with the ministers about a mile and-a-half into the country, to a little spring of water, by the side of which he had spent many solitary hours ; here they sat down for a considerable time, and then Charles Marshall observed that the minds of his companions were greatly exercised, and soon John Audland said, " Let us be going into the city." When they reached Broadmead Street they found several people who were inquiring for the strangers ; Audland asked if any of them had an interest in a field, in which they might assemble, and an old man answered that he had one pretty near. Thither the company repaired, increasing in number whilst passing through the streets. John Audland is described by Charles Marshall as " of a sweet and amiable coun- 38 JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. tenance, and cheerful spirit, one of the wise in heart, filled with the excellent, bright, glorious power of the Lord God." After John Cainm had spoken tenderly and fervently, John Audland arose, and to Charles Marshall it seemed that his face shone as, with a voice of thunder, he uttered the message of his Lord. " I proclaim spiritual war," he began, " with the inhabitants of the earth who are in the fall and separation from God." And the word of the Lord had free course and was glorified : so intense was the emotion of some present that they fell on the ground, whilst others cried out as the preacher laid bare their inward states ; many were effectually turned from darkness to light. " Indeed it was a notable day," writes Charles Marshall, " worthy to be left on record, that our children may read and tell to their children, and theirs to another generation, that the worthy, noble acts of the arm of God's salvation may be remembered." After this day the meetings became larger and larger, so that it was necessary to hold them in the open air, even in frost and snow, and the ministers laboured unweariedly to lead their hearers " to look from dead ways and worships unto Christ Jesus, the Fountain of Life ;" and many of these sought eagerly night and day to obtain salvation through Him, giving up their hearts wholly to His government, and walking in the way of self-denial — for we read that " This visitation of God's holy and blessed day was signal and inexpressible." Some, in their eagerness to obtain an opportunity for private conversation with the ministers, called on them before they arose in the morning, so that their labours JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. 39 be^an at six a.m., and did not end until eleven or even one o'clock at night. They were, indeed, so sought after that " every day was like one long meeting." Soon persecution arose, causing a tumult in the city ; the houses of Friends were broken into by the mob, under the pretence of preventing conspiracy, and they were themselves often treated with brutal violence, whilst the law afforded them no protection, and the clergy stimulated the rage of the rioters. One day, as John Camm and John Audland were crossing a bridge on their way to a village where a meeting had been appointed, they found themselves surrounded by a rabble, by some of whom they were beaten and kicked, whilst others shouted, " Knock them down, kill them, hang them ! " — so that they narrowly escaped with their lives. Charles Marshall was one of those who found in John Audland " a dear friend and father in Christ Jesus," and he afterwards became a very powerful preacher, the deep conflicts through which he had himself passed, the better enabling him to draw out his soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul. William Penn writes that " he was one that waited for the feeling of God's living and heavenly power to carry him forth in his ministerial exercises," by which, we find, many were turned to righteousness, and some induced to covet earnestly the best gifts. George Whitehead — who says that he " truly loved him for love's sake " — remarks, that " his sincere love and regard to Christ's ministers and messengers appeared to be a good and necessary preparation for him to be a witness and partaker of the same ministry." Uis faith was strong ; and, unhindered 40 JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FKIENDS. by the heat of persecution, he visited the various meet- ings throughout the land, his labours being attended by an abundant blessing. When, in 1670, at the age of thirty-two, God called him to the ministry, and laid this work before him, he said in his soul, " How shall I visit Thy people in these times, when the rod of the wicked is upon their backs ?" Then this reply seemed to be given him, " Go, / will prosper thy way ; and this present exercise, which is over my people, shall be as a morning cloud, and I will be to them as the tender dew through the land of thy nativity." Although during the next two years Charles Marshall visited every county in England, no hand was laid on him, nor did "he know of any one who lost five pounds on account of attending his meetings. When describing subsequent labours, he says that he believed thousands received the word of life ; and in some places, which had never before been visited by a Friend, meetings were established. " Oh," he writes, " the tenderness which mine eye has seen in many places through the land : the watering showers that descended on the Lord's plantation is beyond description." But long- continued painful labours were also allotted to him in consequence of the spirit of dissension which prevailed in some counties where John Story, John Wilkinson, and their party had obtained a footing. Yet he tells us that God was with him in this day of deep exercise, making his bow strong, and daily replenishing his quiver with arrows, even though his soul was, as it were baptised for the dead. In one of his pamphlets, "The Way of Life Ee- vealed," etc., he writes : — JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. 41 " The travail in spirit of the messengers and servants of the Most High in ages past, was the same as now it is, viz., To turn people from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan to the power of the living God ; thereby in nowise invalidating Christ Jesus, His manifestation in that bodily appearance, neither His sufferings, death, resurrection, nor ascension ; but brings all people guided thereby unto that which will open the eyes of their understanding, whereby they all come unto such a condition and spiritual under- standing, as to see and know their benefit by the appearance of the Saviour of the world ; for this we testify, all are perfected by that One Offering that are sanctified." And again he says : — " As there is a faithful abiding in inward watchfulness, and continual obedience to this heavenly light, there will be a growing from strength to strength over sin and the nature thereof, until thou seest all the rule and authority of the enemy to be subdued under the feet of the Lord's anointed, and the government in the soul upon His shoulders, whose right it is to rule over all. And here salvation, redemption, and restoration, is effectually enjoyed through faith, and the effectual working of the Almighty power and arm of God, unto whom be the glory of His own work for ever ? And so here will be a growing and increasing, until there is a coming into that precious state and image in which man was before he fell." By profession Charles Marshall was a physician ; he was remarkable for his kindness and generosity to the poor, and when on his death-bed he urged this duty on others. In the year 1682, he was prosecuted by a clergy- man for the non-payment of tithes, in consequence of which he was committed by the Barons of the Exchequer to the Fleet Prison. After he had been confined there for two years, the clergyman's conscience was so much troubled that he came in person to release him. Charles Marshall then settled with his family near London, 42 JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. where, during many years, lie diligently worked for his Lord. He died in 1698, at the age of sixty-one." * Another of the converts of Audland and Camm during this extraordinary visit to Bristol was a lady named Barbara Bhmgdon, who had been seriously inclined from childhood ; she became a minister, and suffered much from persecution : once, when coming out from a private house at Bristol, where a meeting had been held, a man in the street stabbed her very severely, though no vital part was reached. After her release from a six weeks' imprisonment at Marlborough, she had some conversation with the gentleman who had committed her, in consequence of which he never again persecuted Friends, but behaved with much kindness to them, even giving them his aid when able to. do so. He once called at Barbara Blaugdon's house at Bristol, and confessed to her that he was convinced of the truth of the views which she held, although he said that he could not himself walk in the way of self-denial. During a visit to Devon, where she was thrice imprisoned, she called at the residence of the Earl of Bath — where she had formerly often been received as a visitor — with the intention of speaking to his family on the vanity of the pursuits in which she had once joined them. When she inquired for the Countess, a servant, who recognised her, asked her to go to the * Charles Marshall's wife was the daughter of Mary Prince, who was another seal to the ministry of John Camm and John Audland, when at Bristol, in 1654. Two years later she visited New England as a minister, and, in 16G0, travelled extensively on the European Continent with Mary Fisher. She was three times committed to prison in her native city of Bristol, during the severe persecution there in 16G3 and 1664. JOHN" AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. 43 back-door through which he said his lady would soon so into the garden. But when she reached the back premises a very fierce mastiff was unchained, in order that he might attack her ; but before he reached her his ferocity seemed to be altogether subdued, for he suddenly turned and went away whining. Soon the Countess came to her, and after listening to her counsel, thanked her for it. When Barbara Blaugdon was at Great Torrington she was sent for by the mayor, who was not inclined to treat her with harshness ; but a clergyman, who was very anxious that she should be whipped as a vagabond, succeeded in persuading him to send her to Exeter Prison, where she was confined for some time, not being- brought to trial when the assizes were held. One day the sheriff came and took her to another apartment, where a beadle, who had accompanied him, whipped her until the blood ran down her back; meanwhile such joy was granted her at being counted worthy to suffer for Christ as to cause her to sing His praise. " Do ye sing ? I will make you cry, by-and-by ! " ex- claimed the beadle, whilst increasing the severity of the strokes ; but so graciously and wonderfully was she upheld, that she afterwards said that even had she been whipped to death, in the state she then was, she should not have been terrified nor dismayed. The sheriff, finding how unavailing their cruelty was,, at length bade the beadle cease striking her. He had thought that he had only a woman to deal with in her weakness, but found that he was fighting against God. On the following day she was liberated. The Mayor of Bideford, before whom she was brought, was much 44 JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FHIENDS. impressed by some serious conversation which she had with him, and was so eager to resume it, that, when she left the town, he followed her on horseback, and rode three or four miles with her ; before parting she knelt down and prayed for him. Apparently her influence was blessed to him ; once, after leaving the county, she wrote him a letter, which he received not long before his death. In the winter of the following year, 1655, Barbara Blaugdon crossed to Ireland. The vessel in which she sailed was in great peril from a tremendous storm, which the superstitious sailors attributed to the presence of a Friend, and conspired to throw her overboard. When she became aware of their design, she successfully appealed to the captain for protection, saying that, if he permitted such a deed, her blood would be required at his hands. The tempest continued, and as the chaplain was too much terrified to hold the usual service, Barbara Blaugdon went on deck, feeling that it was her duty to address the crew and pray for them. They were very grave and quiet, and afterwards remarked that they were " more beholden " to her than to their chaplain. On landing at Dublin she went to the house of the Viceroy, but was told that it would be useless to seek for an interview with him, as only on the previous day he had banished Edward Burrough and Francis Howgill from the island ; but after a while she was shown into a drawing-room, and a gentleman came to her from the Deputy's chamber, before whom those who accompanied him stood uncovered. Notwithstanding this artifice she was convinced that he was not the Deputy but a clergy- man ; and, when asked by those present why she did not JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. 45 speak to their lord, replied, " When I see your lord, then I shall give my message to him." Ere long the Viceroy made his appearance, and after he had seated himself on a couch she addressed him, bidding him beware lest he should be fighting against God by opposing His cause and persecuting the innocent ; at the same time expressing her belief that he was not so much in fault as were those who instigated him to this conduct. He was evidently impressed by her solemn words ; and when she spoke of how the teachers of the people caused them to err, he said to the clergyman, " There's for you, Mr. Harrison ! " and afterwards asked him what reply he could make her. " It is all very true and very good," he said, " and I have nothing to say against it if she speaks as she means." Barbara Blaugdon answered that the Spirit of God was true and spoke as He meant, but men of corrupt minds perverted the Scriptures by put- ting their own construction on them and deceiving those they taught ; but the Scriptures were of no private in- terpretation, being written by holy men of God as they were inspired by the Holy Ghost. She was told that the Viceroy was so much impressed that after she left him he declined joining in bowls or any similar pastime. From Dublin she went to Cork, where some of her relatives and acquaintances dwelt ; frequent were her imprisonments, though whenever she preached there were some who willingly received her message, whilst many of her former friends trembled at her words of warning. Once, when she was addressing the people in a market-place, a butcher swore he would cleave her head ; but whilst lifting his cleaver to do so a woman seized his arms, and presently some soldiers came to the 46 JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. rescue. On her next voyage to Ireland the ship foun- dered near Dungarvan, and she had a most narrow escape of her life, but was providentially saved by the bravery of the captain and one of the sailors. In Dublin she suffered much in a filthy prison, having given great offence by a religious exhortation to the judges in a court of justice. After a while she was arraigned at the bar, and when requested to plead Guilty or Not Guilty, answered that there was no guilt upon anyone's conscience for what was done in obedience to God. But as this was not considered a satisfactory answer she was sent back to prison. Here she was visited by some of her friends, Sir William King, Colonel Fare, and Lady Brown, who afterwards went to the judge to try to obtain her release ; they laughed when he told them, in allusion to Barbara Blaugdon, that he was afraid of his life— saying they had known her from childhood, and were so strenuous in their efforts for her liberation that they at last secured it. After she was set free she spoke very solemnly to the judge, who died the same night. A short time pre- viously he had condemned six persons to death on a charge of murder, five of whom were apparently in- nocent ; for the only witness against them, when accused by Barbara Blaugdon, who shared the same prison, con- fessed, while trembling exceedingly, that his evidence was altogether false ; and he once made the same admission to the judge, to whom Barbara Blaugdon wrote, begging him to take care that he did not condemn the guiltless, also telling him that the day of his death was at hand, and reminding him that he would have to render an account of his actions. But he took no JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. 47 notice of this remonstrance. At Limerick, also, Barbara Blaugdon found imprisonment awaiting her; on her homeward voyage she was robbed of all she had by the crew of a privateer, but reached England in safety at last. The latest allusion made to her by the historian Sewel is in reference to her being amongst the one hundred and fifteen Friends who were imprisoned at Bristol in 1682, whilst, in the face of threats and persecution, the meetings in that city were kept up by the children with wonderful faith and courage. During John Audland and John Cramm's remarkable visit there (twenty-eight years earlier), we find that George Bishop and Josiah Coale were also amongst those who "received their testimony." In 1664, George Bishop published the following brief address which was delivered to Charles II. and his Parliament : — " To the King and both Houses of Parliament ; thus saith the Lord : " Meddle not with my people because of their conscience to Me, and banish them not out of the nation because of their conscience ; for if you do I will send my plagues upon you, and you shall know that I am the Lord. " Written, in obedience to the Lord, by his servant, " George Bishop. "Bristol, 25th of Ninth Month, 1664. It will be remembered that the Great Plague visited London in the following year. Whilst the pestilence was at its height the Friends were less frequently banished than before ; from his prison in Bristol George Bishop sent them a letter exhorting them to stand fast in the Lord, and assuring them that if they 48 JOHN AUDLAXD AND HIS FRIENDS. were exiled God would protect them whilst they were faithful to Him, — that " none should root them out, but .that they should be planted and built up." At an earlier date he wrote a book oivinc; an account of the cruel persecution of the Friends in New England, in which he quoted Major-General Denison's words to those who ventured to remonstrate with him, — " This year ye will go to complain to the Parliament, and the next year they will send to see how it is ; and the third year the Government will be changed ! " When this passage was read to the King he was much struck by it, and calling some of his courtiers to hear it he exclaimed, " So ! these are some of my good subjects of New England, but I will put a stop to them ! " And when, after William Ledra's execution at Boston, Edward Burrough besought him to put an end to such proceedings by sending a mandamus thither, he yielded to his request. Josiah Coale was about twenty-one when the power- ful ministry of Audland and Camm proved an effectual message to his soul. " I saw," he says, " that my heart was polluted, and that there was no habitation for God, which caused me to mourn in desolation, and to wander in solitary places, until I was ready to faint ; and I said in my heart, Never man's sorrow was like my sorrow. ... If Thou, 0 God," was now his cry, " wilt help me thoroughly, then will I teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee." This was no vain vow ; it became his " life and joy " to declare the Gospel, and, with lips touched as with a live coal, he laboured valiantly for his Lord, at home and abroad ; on one occasion travelling with two other JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. 49 Friends from Virginia to New England through vast wildernesses and dense forests which had been thought impenetrable to all but the Indians, who treated the white strangers most kindly, although they had pre- viously been greatly exasperated by Europeans. Yet their lives were often endangered by the neighbourhood of beasts of prey and serpents, by the marshes which in- tercepted their path, and the effects of hunger and cold. Amongst some of the aboriginal tribes of Massa- chusetts, especially, Joshua Coale discovered true yearnings after God. "Through the goodness of the Lord," he writes, " we found these Indians more sober and Christian-like towards us than the Christians so- called." After his release from Sandwich gaol, the youthful minister laboured amongst the Algonquins, whose king said to him, " The Englishmen do not love the Quakers, but the Quakers are honest men, and do no harm ; and this is no Englishman's sea or land, and Quakers shall come here and welcome." Two or three years later, when imprisoned in Lon- don, he writes : — " Though great suffering and afflic- tions attended, as yet my heart praised be the Lord is not troubled, neither has fear seized me, because I see the intent of the Lord in it. . . . For the sake of the residue of the seed which is yet ungathered is my life freely sacrificed into the hand of the Lord. ... So let your prayer unto God be for me that I may be kept unto the end, and finish my course with joy, and in all things bring glory and honour to the name of the Lord." He died at the age of thirty- five, cheerfully laying down his life, we are told, " With perfect understanding, and in an extraordinary E 50 JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. enjoyment of the Lord's life, majesty, and presence." Amongst the many hundreds who attended his funeral was Sewel, the historian, who, young as he then was, greatly loved and revered Josiah Coale, and highly appreciated his kindness ; always availing himself of opportunities to attend meetings where it was said that he would be present. In 1656, two years after they had held the memor- able succession of meetings at Bristol, John Camm, and John Audland revisited that city. They were devoted friends, and had in the meantime often travelled together, whilst much blessing rested on their labours for their Lord* In consequence of the delicacy of John Camm's health his son Thomas often accompanied him. The strain on the voice and chest in large meetings, especially when held out of doors, were greater than John Camm's consumptive constitution could withstand, and he did not long survive his second visit to Bristol. As his strength slowly ebbed away he told his friends that his "inward man revived and mounted upward towards its habitation in the heavens." On the day of his death, at the age of fifty-two, after addressing his family, he seemed to be in a sweet sleep, from which they thought he would never awake. But, hearing their loud lamentations, he said, " Dear hearts ye have wronged me, for I was at sweet rest ; ye should not so passionately sorrow for my departure ; this house of earth and clay must go to its place ; and this soul and spirit is to be gathered up to the Lord to live * Elizabeth Stirrpdge, of whom there is a sketch in this volume, was another on whose mind an indelible impression was made by the ministry of John Audland. JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. 51 with Him for ever, where we shall meet with ever- lasting joy." Then, once more taking leave, he lay down and soon expired. His birthplace was Camsgill, Westmoreland, the ancestral seat of his family. From childhood he had been seriously inclined, and, like Audland, had eagerly received the truths taught by George Fox, when he visited their native county in 1652. At that time, we learn from his son, " the world seemed to smile upon him, and the riches and glory of it had exceeding increased and were then likely to increase more." But he willingly counted all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. He was a powerful minister, and was one of the Friends who visited London in 1654, and published the doctrines of our Society there. John Audland keenly felt his death, though he found comfort in the companionship of Thomas Camm, who was often his associate in Gospel service. John Audland died at the age of thirty-four, his life being doubtless shortened by the hardships and persecution which he had endured ; for, in addition to close imprisonments, we find allusions to " great perils, sore beatings, and cruel mockings — both of the rabble and also of the bitter- spirited professors." He was very patient during his illness, and often said, " Ah ! those great meetings in the orchard at Bristol, I may not forget ! I would so gladly have spread my net over all, and have gathered all, that I forgot myself, never considering the weakness of my body.* But it's well. My reward is with me, and I am * In a letter written by Francis Howgill to Edward Burrough, when in London in 1G5G, he says : — " From Bristol we have received letters from our dear brethren John Audland and John Camm ; the 52 JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. content to give up and be with the Lord ; for that my soul values above all things." Notwithstanding his weakness, marvellous power was granted him to make the friends who visited him in some measure sharers of his joy and overwhelming sense of the love of God, with whose praise his heart was filled. As his strength failed he asked to be raised up in order to kneel, and then fervently besought the Lord that His whole heritage might be preserved in the Truth, out of the evil of the world. Though tenderly sympathising with his beloved wife he said to her, " My will is in true subjection to the will of the Lord, whether life or death ; and therefore give me up freely to His disposing." And she, we read, " how dear soever he was to her, did so." Ten days after his death she became the mother of a little boy. In reference to her loss she writes : — " The Eternal God revealed His Son Christ in us, and gave us faith to believe in Him, the eternal Word of Life, by which our souls came to be quickened and made alive. . . . Our hearts were knit together in the unspeakable love of Truth, which was our life, joy, and delight, and made our days together exceeding comfortable. The dolour mighty power of the Lord is that way : this is a precious city and a gallant people ; their net is like to break with fishes, they have caught so much there, and all the coast thereabout. Mighty is His work and power in this His day ! Shout for joy all ye holy ones ! for the Lord rides on in power to get Himself a name." Another letter, with a similar signature, contains a reference to the same Friends : — " Our hearts were broken in separating one from another, for our lives are bound up in one, and we partake of one another's sufferings and of one another's joy." Like John Audland, Francis Howgill had been an eager recipient of George Fox's message at Firbank Chapel, and had found that the seed then sown in his soul was destined to bring forth a hundredfold. JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. 53 of my heart my tongue or pen is not able to declare ; yet in this I contented myself that it was the will of the Lord." Anne Audland afterwards became the wife of Thomas Camra, and for forty years, "in the utmost harmony and nearness of affection," they mutually served their Lord and suffered for His sake. Once he was imprisoned at Appleby for six years, and again at Kendal for three. But trials seemed only to fan the flame of devotion in the heart of his wife, who was greatly gifted as a minister : she spent much time alone in fervent prayer, and in reading the Scriptures and religious books. Humble and retiring herself, she was always ready to encourage the weakest of the flock. During a very severe illness she spoke of how she had enjoyed unspeakable peace here, as well as the full assurance of everlasting joy. In the autumn of 1705, when in her seventy-ninth year, in a farewell sermon at a Monthly Meeting at Kendal, she implored her friends to be diligent in the service of God. The following day she was attacked by the illness which ended her life. After begging her hus- band to give her up freely, she added, " I have loved thee with my soul and God has blessed us, and will bless thee and be with thee, and make up all thy losses. . . . I am full of assurance of eternal salvation and a crown of glory, through my dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." She spoke of how much she had desired to send a farewell epistle to Friends at Bristol and Banbury, " tenderly to advise professors of Truth to keep under the power of the Cross of Christ, by which they will be more and more crucified to the world, and baptised into Christ, and put Him on, the new and heavenly man, in 54 JOHN AUDLAND AND HIS FRIENDS. whom they will become new creatures and be enabled to serve God in spirit/' As she grew worse, her husband suggested sending for one or two of her relatives, but she answered, " Be not careful in the matter ; the Lord my God is near me and I have thy company, and it is enough. . . . The Lord gave us to each other ; let us bless His name, if He now take us from each other in the outward, that is all, for our joining in spirit remains for ever." One of the earnest messages she left was for her " prodigal son," asking his stepfather still to labour and pray for his return. Some of her last words were, " My hope is only in Thee, my dear Lord." When, more than fifty years earlier, George Fox was enabled to sow the good seed of faith at Firbank Chapel did he forsee the marvellous results which would directly or indirectly arise therefrom ! Though the rough blasts of persecution in that age caused Quakerism to take deeper root, can there be any need that it should droop and wither in the sunshine of this ? " New to the world at every hour, New runners find new races," yet are the conditions of discipleship the same as ever they were. From one source, and one alone, must vitality ever spring, and Jesus Christ is the same, yester- day, to-day, and for ever ; a Saviour who can inspire the heart with " a love so deep as to make obedience a delight." EDWARD BU^F^OUQH. " Consecrating the whole manhood, and not merely a few facul- ties' thereof, to God." — Charles Kingsley. EDWARD BURROUGH. " There is no created force in the universe greater than a feeble human soul that in simple faith yields up itself wholly to its Saviour as the mere instrument of His mighty power." " I have loved Thee from my cradle — from my youth unto this day ; and have served Thee faithfully in my generation," were the words of that devoted follower of his crucified Lord, Edward Burrough, when at the age of twenty-eight he laid down his life in Newgate, a victim to the frightfully pestilential air of the gaol, where in one room nearly one hundred Friends were confined with a large number of felons. A fuller record of his inner life, pourtraying more plainly the hidden source of the wonderful outward one, would have been of deep interest, but he seems to have written comparatively little of himself in any way. Edward Burrough's ministry began at the age of eighteen, and, young as he was, it is evident that he had in all reality learnt by heart the lessons which it was his Lord's design that he should be instrumental, in no common measure, in impressing on others. The messenger whose own soul dwells in the subject of his message cannot but speak with force of the things which, with the eye and ear of faith, he has seen and heard. Edward Burrough was born at Underbarrow, in Westmoreland, in 1634; his parents, who were mem- 58 EDWARD BURRO UGH. bers of the Church of England, gave him a good education. He writes concerning his early life : — " When I grew up towards twelve years of age something stirred in me, and showed me that there was a higher religion than that I was exercised in. ... I got to be a Presby- terian, and followed the highest of the priests and professors of that form, and grew in favour with them. Then I left some little of my vanity and lightness, and pride grew up in me. When I was about seventeen it pleased God to show Himself a little to me, and something struck me with terror. At this time I was much separated from the vain ways of the world and from worldly people. The preaching of those whom I had formerly much delighted in was withered and decayed. Yet it pleased the Lord to show Himself in love to me, and I had sweet refreshment coming in from Him to my soul, and had joy and peace in abundance, and openings of the living truth in me which the world knew not of. The mystery of the Scriptures was something opened, and I saw many glorious things which lie hid under the letter. ... I was brought out of the land of darkness, and could say I was in the light. But not knowing the cross of Christ I ran forth in my wisdom comprehending the mysteries of God. . . . Pride grew more than ever, and my delight was much in discoursing where I gave holy things unto dogs, and cast pearls before swine. . . . The earthly spirit ruled. I had left the Lord my Maker, who had so graciously made Himself manifest to me. I could tell of experiences, but they were dead to me, and something within began to question how it was with me ; for I saw myself to be ignorant more than formerly, and I saw that I knew nothing." He greatly longed for the peace which had once been his portion, for he found that it was in vain to try to comfort himself, as he would fain have done, with the doctrine — very prevalent amongst the Calvinistic Puritans — " Whom God loves once, He loves for ever." He saw the shallowness of much of the religion pro- EDWARD BURROUGH. 59 fessed by those around him, and felt that something of a very different nature would be needed to satisfy the cravings of his soul. It was at this crisis, and when he was about eighteen years old, that George Fox came to Underbarrow, and the young student con- fessed that this faithful servant of the Lord " spoke the language which he knew not, notwithstanding all his high talking ; " yet, unwilling to " endure the sound doctrine, he at first turned away his ears from the truth," endeavouring to refute it by skilful arguments. But these half-unconscious efforts to fight against God were unavailing. He soon saw the agreement of George Fox's teaching with the Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit showed him the state of his own heart ; this sight was followed by a time of weeping, mourning, and misery. " One vial of wrath after another," he writes, " was poured out, and then I separated from all the glory of the world and betook myself to the com- pany of a poor, despised, and condemned people called Quakers. . . . But praised, praised be the Lord for evermore, who made me partaker of His love, in whom my soul hath full satisfaction, joy, and content." In Christ he had peace, and therefore could be of good cheer whilst in the world he had tribulation. His parents were so incensed at his joining the Friends that they forbade his remaining in the family, and even refused his request to work for them as a servant. Unchristian and cruel as this conduct was at best, one must not forget that to them Quakerism seemed a dangerous heresy, and they knew that its upholders were in that day despised and condemned not only by members of the Church of England but 60 EDWARD BURROUGH. oy Dissenters also. Almost at once Edward Burrough felt that he was called of God to the ministry of the Gospel. Writing of his friends and himself he says : — " We tried all sorts of teachers, as many do at this day, and remain not gathered to the Lord. Such we were that sought the Lord and desired the knowledge of His ways more than anything beside. For one I may speak, who from a child, even a few years old, set his face to seek and find the Saviour. After our long seeking the Lord appeared to us, and revealed His glory in us, and gave us of His Spirit. . . . We found this light to be a sufficient teacher to lead us to Christ, from whom it came ; and it gave us to receive Christ, and to witness Him to dwell in us. . . . We harkened to the voice of the Lord, and felt His word in our hearts to burn up and to heat down all that was contrary to God. Whilst waiting upon the Lord in silence, which we often did for many hours together, with our hearts towards Him, . . . we often received the pouring down of His Spirit upon us, and our hearts were made glad, and our tongues loosened. Things unutterable were made manifest, and the glory of the Father was revealed. Then we began to sing praises to the Lord God Almighty, and to the Lamb who had redeemed us to God." What was this hut a realisation of the prophet's words " Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may he meat in mine house, and prove me now here- with, said the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it " ? In company with others who had, like himself, been deeply reached by the ministry of George Fox, and had willingly given up the world for Christ, Edward Borrough visited the Northern counties of England and some parts of Scotland. In that " day of good tidings " how could they hold their peace, though their onward path led them through perils and prisons, and brought " beat- EDWARD BURROUGH. 61 ings and bruisings " upon them ? It was not possible that such labour should be in vain in the Lord ; and there were many who showed the reality of the change wrought in their hearts, by willingness to join a people who met with persecution on every side. Places of public worship, markets, and streets, alike witnessed the ministerial work of Edward Burrough, who was enabled very strikingly to discern the spiritual state of those to whom his words were directed. "Whilst in prison he prepared a paper called " A Warning from the Lord,'' at the end of which he thus addressed his suffering brethren : " Be glad and rejoice in the Lord, for you hath He chosen to shine as lights in the world, and to be a burdensome stone to the nations." In the spring of 1654, Edward Burrough came to London. One of the first Friends who had visited this city was Gervaise Benson, a justice of the peace, who in the previous year told George Fox, in a letter, that he had been brought there by the love of God, and was kept there waiting on the Lord, to do whatever He might require of him. A little before this time some works written by Friends had been published in the Metropolis, printed, we learn, " For Giles Calvert, and sold at his shop at the Black Spread Eagle, at the West end of Paul's." Many persons who had heard of the rise and growth of the Society of Friends in the North of England wished to know more about them, and to such Gervaise Benson's attention was turned. Soon afterwards, Isabel Buttery came from the North to dis- tribute in London a paper by George Fox, on " The Kingdom of Heaven." Whilst engaged in this work one Sunday evening in St. Paul's Churchyard, she was 62 EDWAKD BURIiOUGII. brought before the Lord Mayor, and committed by him to Bridewell for the offence of Sabbath-breaking ! There she and a maid-servant who had been with her were lodged in the common gaol, where only those of the lowest character were usually confined. At this period the first meetings of Friends were held in London, in the houses of two brothers named Dring, and were often times of silent waiting on the Lord, though occasionally a little was said by Isabel Buttery. It was with Francis Howgill (who was about sixteen years older than himself) that Edward Burrough entered London. So greatly was his ministry blessed that many hundreds were effectually brought to the knowledge of the Lord. Having experienced much of Christ's teaching in his own soul, he was made skilful in speaking the word in season to others, Thomas Ellwood describes him as " bold in his Master's quarrels, yet open and free to every thirsty lamb ; " and he has been styled a Son of Thunder, yet withal a Son of Consolation. His eloquence and his powerful voice, like all else, were consecrated to his Saviour's cause, and from Francis Howgill we learn that, " Ofttimes buffetted, and sometimes knocked down, loaded with lies, bearing an exceeding weight of service, he made the work of the Lord his whole business," not spending even one week for himself during the ten years which lay between his conversion and his early death. The "subtle spirit of the Londoners " was at first dis- heartening to these preachers from the Northern dales ; but it could prove no insurmountable obstacle, for they came " in the name of the Lord of Hosts," who so gave the increase, that ere long they could say, " Hundreds are convinced and thousands wait to see the issue ; very EDWARD BURROUGH. 63 many societies we have visited are now able to stand." One incident is so characteristic of the age and of this young champion of the Cross, that even in this short sketch we cannot pass it by. At London, Sewell tells us, it was usual in the sum- mer evenings for many young men, on leaving work, to meet in the fields to show their strength in wrestling, to a crowd of eager onlookers ; passing near the ring at Moorfields, Edward Burrough, then about twenty years of age, stood still and saw how a strong and skilful youth, who had already thrown three combatants, vainly challenged others, none of whom would venture to enter the lists. At this crisis Edward Burrough stepped for- ward, whilst with bated breath the bystanders watched the issue, not knowing that " it was quite another fight he aimed at." Little was the successful wrestler prepared for such an adversary as now opposed him, and he quailed under the steadfast gaze and crushing words of one whose strength had been sharply tested in the conflict with spiritual wickedness. Presently his powerful voice, a fitting medium for the overwhelming words of his message from on high, was heard driving home to the hearts of the wondering and spell-bound multitude the reality of the " good fight of faith," as "he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come." Seemingly the seed was sown in stony ground, yet none cared to continue the sports, and the crowd separated ; some to confess afterwards that this season had been the turning-point in their lives. Whilst Edward Burrough and Francis Howgill were still in London they were thus addressed in a letter 64 EDWARD BURKOUGH. from George Fox : — " Stir abroad whilst the door is- open, and the light shineth. The Lord give you an understanding in all things, and His arm go along with you that ye may be to His glory. Dear Francis and Edward, in the life of God wait, that ye may with it be led, . . . that as good plow-men and good thresher-men ye may be able to bring out the wheat." How well Edward Burrough heeded this counsel we may learn from the Autobiography of William Crouch, who, although six years his senior, says that the spiritual relation in which he stood to him was that of a child to a father. " He was a man — though but young — of undaunted courage." William Crouch writes, " The Lord set him above the fear of his enemies, and I have beheld him filled with power by the Spirit of the Lord. For instance, at the Bull and Mouth, when the room, which was very large, hath been filled with people many of whom have been in uproars, contending one with another, some exclaiming against the Quakers, accusing and charging them with heresy, blasphemy, sedition, and what not ; that they were deceivers and deluded the people ; that they denied the Holy Scrip- tures, and the resurrection : others endeavouring to vindicate them, and speaking of them more favourably. In the midst of all which noise and contention, this servant of the Lord hath stood upon a bench, with a Bible in his hand, for he generally carried one about him, speaking to the people with great authority. . . . And so suitable to the present debate among them, that the whole multitude was overcome thereby, and became exceeding calm and attentive, and departed peaceably and with seeming satisfaction." EDWARD BURROUGH. 65 Two distinct kinds of meetings were then held in London. In one of these the Friends gathered quietly- together in the name of Christ the great Head of the Church, to worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, that the strength which was ofttimes severely strained might be renewed, that their sinking souls might mount up as on eagles' wings, and that, with hearts enlarged by the more conscious indwelling of the Com- forter, they might run and not be weary, and walk — though through much tribulation — and not faint. In this time of our outward ease have we, their successors, less need than they for putting on the inward armour ? The other class of meetings were " for all sorts and all sects," and were often very large ; the service resting, as George Fox suggested, " on three, or four, or six Friends who were grown up and strong in the Truth." With such workmen, —the secret language of whose souls was, " We have no might, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon Thcc ; " willing to wait, whilst willing also at their Master's bidding to go forward in faith ; " steadfast, unmovable, always abound- ing in the work of the Lord," because in Him their life was hid, — it was no marvel that many should be added to the Church.* " When we see such multitudes," writes Francis Howgill, " we are often put to a stand where one might get bread to satisfy so many ; but the wisdom and power of God has been with us." Very many eagerly drank in the words of these earnest Gospel ministers, who spoke in demonstration of the * Twenty-five years later there were 10,000 Friends in London alone. F 66 EDWARD BURROUGH. Spirit and of power; for their doctrine was no new thing, but the uplifting of Christ as the Light of the World, as being made unto man " wisdom and righte- ousness, sanctification and redemption ; " as bearing " our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness." In the summer of 1654 Edward Burrough and Francis Howgill went to Bristol, where persecution was already threatened. A meeting held in the Castle was attended by several hundreds. When it was over they went for rest to the country house of a captain in the army, whither they were followed by so many anxious to converse with them that the house was filled. Meetings were held daily in and around the city, which were largely attended, and on which the Divine blessing mani- festly rested. The following Sunday morning they were in the city in the dwelling of a military officer ; but his house proving quite too small to hold all who came, they went in the afternoon to the Fort, where about 2,000 persons assembled, including many of the chief people of the place. The company was a very quiet one ; but when leaving the spot Edward Burrough and Francis Howgill were so pressed by the awakened crowd as to be glad to turn aside into a private room. The following day they were summoned before the mayor, aldermen, justices of the peace, and clergy. Many officers and other gentle- men, whose hearts had been touched by their ministry, accompanied them, but were not allowed to be present during their examination. When asked why they came to the city, they answered, " By the command of the Lord, to whose name we have to bear witness, and to declare the Gospel committed unto us." On being EDWARD BURROUGH. 67 ordered to quit the town, they said, " We are freeborn Englishmen, and have served the commonwealth in faithfulness, being free in the presence of God from the transgression of any law. To your command we cannot be obedient ; but if by violence you put us out of the city, and have power to do it, we cannot resist." For a while longer they laboured in Bristol, and apparently without further interference. During this time some Baptists, from a town in Wiltshire, who had challenged them to a public dispute, were obliged to lay down arms, and were cowardly enough on their return home to report that the Friends denied Christ and the Scriptures. When, therefore, the two Friends visited this town, its inhabitants, in their indignation, had but a rough reception for them, though granting them leave for a meeting in the market-place to clear themselves. With a deep sense of their own helplessness, they drew near the large assembly, silently seeking for strength from Him whose promise is, " Call upon me in the day of trouble ; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." Then for two hours they spoke with irresistible authority. That evening the mayor called on them, confessing that they had spoken the truth, and that if he did not witness to it his conscience would witness against him ; and a justice of the peace asked them to his house, and was, we learn, with his wife, " convinced of the Truth." This meeting was the means of opening a door for them in the county. After a few weeks of earnest work in London, Edward Burrough and his friend again visited the country. A very large meeting was held in the Isle of Ely, to which Colonel Eussell (whose son married a daughter of Oliver 68 EDWARD BURROUGH. Cromwell) sent two ministers, who reported to him that the Quakers were " far before " them. This led the Colonel to invite them to his house, where, in a reli- gious family gathering, some hearts seemed to be touched, and the Colonel's wife shed many tears. In the spring of 1655, Edward Burrough believed that he was called to preach the Gospel in Ireland. On the day of receiving this summons from on high, whilst committing himself wholly into the hands of God, a promise was granted him that his life should be preserved. Unknown to him, Francis Howgill was guided to the same field of labour, and with a convic- tion that Edward Burrough would be his companion in it. From Dublin, the latter — who, notwithstanding his incessant active avocations, was a great writer — addressed a general epistle to his brethren, whom he styles " The camp of the Lord in England." Of himself, in a letter to Margaret Fell, he re- marks : " As in suffering with Christ I do abound, so my joy by Him and consolation in Him are increased also. . . . We have not spared to wound on the right hand and on the left ; and ' Victory, Victory,' hath been our word of watch." Of this visit he elsewhere writes : " Truly great service for the Lord we had ; . . . there is a precious work begun and seed sown, which shall never die." At the end of the year the two friends were placed by force on board a vessel bound for Chester. After travelling in the northern counties, Edward Burrough went to London, where he was soon joined by Francis Howgill, and, holding about twenty meetings a week, it is not to be wondered at that he was " almost spent; " EDWARD BURROUGH. 69 especially as much mental suffering was endured by himself and his companion in contending with the evil around them. In the following year, sometimes with a prison for his study, he still freely used his pen : it is interesting to read his unequivocal reply to Bunyan's charge that the Friends said that " salvation was not fully and completely wrought out for sinners by that man Christ Jesus." He answers: "This accusation is clearly false, and wickedly cast upon us ; for there is not salvation in any other, nor is it wrought by any other, but by Jesus Christ. It is hilly and completely brought forth by Him unto everyone who believes and receives the testimony of it in themselves." His simple definition of faith is as follows : " Faith is an act of God in the Creature. ... It gives the Creature to believe God in all that He hath promised." In an epistle of encouragement to " Such as are found worthy to suffer," this passage is found : " Be ye more watchful, and faithful, and valiant for the Truth upon the earth unto the end ; that you may . . . receive the fulfilling of the promise of God, and may witness God within you, the Emanuel, the Saviour, God with us. All that know this need not yo forth to the right hand nor to the left, lat salvation is come unto us. He takes away sin, and saves from it and from condemnation. . . . Believe not that spirit which draws back into the world, into its lusts and liberty and fashions, which pass away. That Spirit forgets God." He repeatedly wrote addresses of remonstrance to Oliver Cromwell, and in lti59 pub- lished a very remarkable prediction of the persecutions that awaited the persecutors of the Friends, and which was fully verified when, in the following year, Charles 70 EDWARD BURROUGH. II. was made king. In it he says that whilst in War- wickshire he was one day meditating on the woful wrongs of his people, when a cry went through him, " The Lord will he avenged ! The Lord will be avenged upon His enemies ! He will avenge the cause of His people ; " accompanied with the command, " Write unto the rulers, and yet once more warn them." Soon after this Edward Burrough went with Samuel Fisher to Dunkirk (which was then possessed by the English), their object being to visit Jesuits, Friars, and Priests. After conversation with the Capuchin Friars, Edward Burrough sent them some queries in Latin : " Is it an outward abstinence," he asks, " by the force of locks, and doors, and bolts, or self-separated and secret places, that subdues the world's nature in men and women ? Is it by such means that Christ gives victory over sin and overcomes it in His people ? Or is it not by the power of God in the heart only ? " Many meetings were held here, and opportunities were found for satisfactory service in the army, leading Edward Burrough to remark that he " must commend the spirit of our Englishmen for moderation more than the men of any other nation." Later in the year he published a long document, styled, "A message to the present Kulers of England," containing the following prophetic words : "Your estates shall not be spared from the spoiler, nor your necks from the axe ; your enemies shall charge treason upon you, and if you seek to stop the Lord's work you shall not cumber the earth very long." When in 1661, a committee was appointed by the House of Commons to prepare and bring in a bill to prevent any injury to EDWAKD BU1IK0UGH. 71 the Government from Quakers, etc., refusing to take oaths, and unlawfully convening together, Edward Burrough, George Whitehead, and Richard Hubberthorne obtained an interview with its members. Characteris- tically, the last thing said to them by Edward Burrough was that should this measure be passed, " so far from yielding conformity thereunto, he should, through the strength of Christ, meet among the people of God to worship Him ; and not only so, but should make it his business to exhort all God's people everywhere to meet together for the worship of God, notwithstanding the law and all its penalties ; and that he desired this might be reported to the House " ! Well might Francis How- gill say that " he was of a manly spirit in the things of God." A little later he had an audience with the king on account of the persecuted Friends in New England, one of whom had already been put to death ; telling the monarch that a vein of innocent blood had been opened in his dominions which, if it were not stopped, would overrun all. " But I will stop that vein," was the reply. Owing to Edward Burrough's diligence in following up the matter, a mandamus was sent to Boston, compelling the cruel rulers to release their innocent victims. After labouring in the neighbourhood of his birth- place, and visiting Thomas Ellwood who had been deeply impressed by his ministry, and was then ill of small-pox, in Oxfordshire, we find Edward Burrough once more in London. Then follows a visit to the Friends at Bristol ; both in meetings and in private he exhorted them to " faithfulness and steadfastness to that wherein they had found rest unto their souls," and 72 EDWARD BUKKOUGH. solemnly bade them farewell. " I am going to the city of London again," he said, " to lay down my life for the Gospel, and suffer amongst Friends in that place." Soon after his arrival he was violently arrested, whilst preaching at the Bull and Mouth Meeting-house, and committed by Alderman Brown to Newgate, in which filthy and frightfully crowded gaol his friend, Bichard Hubberthorne — of whom he wrote a memorial — died, not long afterwards, in great peace ; " That faith which hath wrought my salvation," he said, " I well know. . . . Out of this straightness I must go, for I am wound into largeness, and am to be lifted up on high, far above all ! " Whilst confined amongst the vilest felons, Edward Burrough, in a letter to some of his friends in the country, says that it would be "too large to relate, and too piercing to their hearts to hear, the violence and cruelty which Friends had suffered : " he begs them to be ready also to die rather than deny Christ before men, or cease from the free exercise of their consciences. Slightly alluding to the extreme sufferings of his companions and himself— easy to read of, hard to realise — he adds, " but the Lord supports ! " King Charles, who greatly respected him, sent an order for his release, which Alderman Brown and others managed to evade. It soon became manifest that neither his youth nor strong constitution could withstand the pestilential air. Calmly and patiently he awaited the close, night and day praying exceedingly for himself and his people whilst not forgetting his enemies, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Almost his last words were, " Though this body of clay must return to EDWAKD burkougii. 73 the dust, yet I have a testimony that I have served God in ray generation ; and that Spirit which has acted and ruled in me shall yet break forth in thousands.'' Truly, those who rejoiced at his death — in the belief that the cause which he had advocated would have been injured or destroyed thereby — made, as Sewel says, " a wrong reckoning." " Shall days, or months, or years," writes his friend Francis Howgill, " wear out thy name as though thou hadst no being ? Oh, nay ! ... The children that are yet unborn shall have thee in their mouths, and thy works shall testify of thee in genera- tions who have not yet a being and shall count thee blessed. . . . Oh, Edward Burrough ! I cannot but mourn for thee, yet not as one without hope or faith. ... I am distressed for thee, my brother; very pleasant hast thou been to me, and my love to thee was won- derful, passing the love of women." When George Fox heard of the death of this " valiant warrior, more than a conqueror," so he calls him, — " being sensible how great a grief and exercise it would be to Friends to part with him," he wrote a few lines counselling them, in his deep spirituality, so to dwell in Christ as to " feel dear Edward Burrough among them," that they might thus " enjoy him in the life that doth not change, which is invisible." It is difficult to bear in mind that the vast and varied labours of which this imperfect outline is given, were accomplished between the age of eighteeu and of twenty- eight. Without any doubt whatever, Edward Burrough was endowed with a powerful intellect, a large amount of energy of character, and the good gift of physical strength : yet it would be in vain to attribute to these 74 EDWARD BURROUGH. what Sewel speaks of as " his very glorious success." Surely it rather lay in this : — called and chosen, and faithful ; — conscious that, without Christ we can do nothing, and being well aware that " There can be nothing servile in the entire resignation of ourselves to be taught of Him, for He is the absolute truth — nothing unmanly in the yielding of our whole being to be wholly moulded by Him " * — he placed himself and his all at the disposal of his Lord. In the words of his faithful friend, Francis Howgill, " his very strength was bended after God." * Archbishop Trench. ELIZABETH $TIF(F(EDQE. " God's love so walls us round about, How is it possible to doubt ? " — Anon. 77 ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. She " had a Guide, and in His steps When travellers have trod, Whether beneath was flinty rock Or yielding grassy sod, They cared not, but with force unspent, Unmoved by pain, they onward went, Unstayed by pleasures still they bent Their zealous course to God." T. T. Lynch. " I can truly say," remarks Elizabeth Stirredge, when describing the earlier years of her life — " That I never coveted heaven's glory, nor to be made a partaker of the riches, glory, and everlasting well-being for ever, more than I desired to walk in the way that leads thereunto. And I did as truly believe that the Lord would redeem a people out of the world and its ways." She was born in 1634, at Thornbury, in Gloucestershire, and was the child of God-fearing parents, Puritans, by whom she was very carefully brought up. The consistent life of her father, and his fervent prayers in his family, were long remembered by her. " There is a day coming," he would say, " wherein Truth will gloriously break forth ; more glorious than ever since the apostles' days ; but I shall not live to see it." In spite of many advan- tages the childhood of Eliza,beth Stirredge — whose maiden name we do not know — was far from being a happy one. Naturally timid and pensive as she was, it does not seem unlikely that the training which might have suited a more vigorous mental constitution was 78 ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. scarcely adapted to her sensitive nature. She however gives no intimation of this herself, and probably when looking back at her early troubles she could thankfully set her seal to the truth of the blessed declaration, that all things shall work together for good to them that love God. When only ten years old she felt that she could take no delight in the pleasures which the world offers. As she grew older she found satisfaction in intercourse with some religious people, and it was very delightful to her to listen to their conversation ; but soon her sadness returned with the conviction that she was not living as the people of God did in former times. Unable to find relief in prayer, or comfort in reading the sacred Scrip- tures, she mourned because she had not lived in the days when the Lord spoke with Moses, in order that she might thus have known His will, or in the days when Christ was personally on earth, that she might have followed Him and sat at His feet ; all unconscious that, even in the midst of her trials, He who had loved her with an everlasting love was drawing her into closer fellowship with Himself than any outward one could be. In reference to Satan's subtle snares she says : — "The enemy will befool as many as he can, therefore look unto the Lord, and pray unto Him in the inward of your minds, though you cannot utter one word : know it assuredly that He is near to help His afflicted children at all times. Oh that I had known this in my young and tender years when the Lord was near me, and at work in my heart, and I knew it not ! . . . I had many times a concern upon my mind which brought great heaviness over my spirit ; but I knew not what it was, and I little thought it was the Lord who was ever good and gracious, kind, merciful, and slow to anger. I little thought He looked so narrowly to my ways. . . ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. 79 Hf. took me bij the hand and led me when I knew not of it ; and if I had not hearkened unto the enemy all would have been well." When Elizabeth Stirredge was twenty years of age, she attended a meeting held by John Audland and John Camm. The ministry of the former sank to the bottom of her heart ; and, leaving her companions, she walked home alone, the cry of her soul being, " What shall I do to be saved ? I would do anything for the assurance of everlasting life." Her earnest aspirations for a new heart could but be answered by Him who had redeemed her with His precious blood. To her children, in after years, she writes that they may " know the way to heaven's glory and to the enjoyment of true peace and satisfaction, because it is a straight and narrow way ; " and she begs them to keep their hearts with all diligence, in order that they may be brought nearer and nearer unto the Lord and "row in fellowship with Him. " My very aim," she adds, " is to make you a little acquainted with the work of the Lord in my heart, and also with the subtle devices of the enemy ; . . . his way is to set baits according unto people's nature, for therein he is most likely to prevail. And because I was of a sad heart and very subject to be cast down, therefore did he with all his might endeavour to cast me down into despair ; . . . many things he cast before me that seemed too hard for me to go through." The precious consciousness of the comforting and sustaining presence of her Saviour which had for a while been her joy was withdrawn ; and Satan insinuated that the sorrow which she felt at the loss of this sweet fellowship was most sinful, and 80 ELIZABETH STIKREDGE. that the fate of the murmurer was to fall in the wilderness. Just at this time William Dewsbury [of whom there is a sketch in this volume] visited Gloucestershire. His soul was especially drawn out in sympathy for those who were passing through such sorrow as had at one time well-nigh overwhelmed himself. After hearing his comforting language in meeting, Elizabeth Stirredge felt a great longing to open her heart a little to him : and yet imagining that, stranger though he was, an insight would be given him of her spiritual state, she feared that he would speak to her about the hardness of her heart, and that such an additional affliction as this would be more than she could bear. She was not mis- taken in supposing that he would understand her case- Before she had reached the spot where he stood the word in season was spoken. " Dear lamb ! " he said, "judge all thoughts and believe, for blessed are they that believe and see not. They were blessed that saw and believed, but more blessed are they that believe and see not." " Oh," she writes, " he was one that had good tidings for me in that day, and great power was with his testimony ; for the hardness was taken away, and my heart was opened by that ancient power that opened the heart of Lydia : everlasting praises be given unto Him that sits upon the throne for ever." She seems simply to have accepted the truth that " emotion is not faith ; " that when feeling is at its lowest ebb, faith — even from the fact of this great strain on it — may grow the stronger. " I can only say," she remarks, "that my heart and soul delighted in judg- ments. The Lord's end in chastening His children is ELIZABETH STIKREDGE. 81 to make them fit for His service." Not long afterwards Elizabeth Stirredge met with Miles Halhead, another minister in the newly-formed Society of Friends. Look- ing at her, he said, " Dear child, if thou continue in Truth, thou wilt make an honourable woman for the Lord ; for the Lord God will honour thee with His blessed testimony." Ten years later, and soon after she felt called on to speak in meetings, he was again the bearer of a message to her soul. " My love and life is with thee," he said, "and that for the blessed work's sake that is at work in thee. The Lord keep thee faith- ful, for He will require hard things of thee that thou art not aware of : the Lord give thee strength to perform it ; my prayers shall be for thee as often as I remember thee." The cruel persecution to which the Friends were exposed had no terror for her on her own account, for her heart, she says, " was given up to serve the Lord, come what would come ; " and she found that He in whom she trusted not only supported her under grievous trials, but so sanctified them as to cause her to rejoice that she was counted worthy to suffer for His sake. In the year 1670 she was for a while deeply dis- tressed ; it seemed to be her duty to write an address to King Charles II., and to present it to him in person. Such a service seemed to her strange and wonderful, and, having a very low estimate of her own spiritual and mental gifts, she tried to think that Satan was endeavouring to ensnare her into something better suited to a wise and good man, and prayed that a more simple task might be assigned to her. But such sore sorrow followed this unwillingness that she was led to G 82 ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. cry, " Lord, if Thou hast found me worthy, make my way plain before me, and I will follow Thee ; for, Lord, Thou knowest that I would not willingly offend Thee." Yet, being now a wife and mother, most naturally, her heart yearned for her little children, and shrank from the thought that she might not perhaps be allowed to return to her family alive. But He who " Never yet forsook at need The soul that trusted Him indeed," comforted her with this assurance, If thou canst believe, thou shalt see all things accomplished, and thou shale return in peace, and thy reward shall be with thee. The address was a very brief one, a solemn warning of what would be the consequences of the bloodshed and perse- cution of the righteous. This she placed in the King's hands whilst saying, " Hear, 0 King, and fear the Lord God of heaven and earth." He turned pale, but only answered in a sorrowful tone, "I thank you, good woman." On coming back to her family she found them well. " The Lord," she writes, afforded me His living presence to accompany me, which is the greatest comfort that can be enjoyed, and my coming home was with joy and peace in my bosom." Not long afterwards a constable and other officers entered the shop of her husband, James Stirredge, to exact a fine from him for the attendance of himself and his wife at the meetings of Friends. This he declined to pay, at the same time saying that had he owed the King anything he would surely have repaid him. The constable leant his head on his hand, and remarked that it would be against his conscience to take their goods ELIZABKTH STIRREDGE. 83 from them. Elizabeth Stirredge, on hearing this, said, " John, have a care of wronging thy conscience; for what could the Lord do more for thee than to place His good Spirit in thy heart to teach thee what thou shouldst do and what thou shouldst leave undone ? " He answered that he knew not how to act ; for, although he might take their goods once, the matter would not end there whilst they continued to go to meetings, as never had there been such laws. She replied, " John, when thou hast wronged thy conscience and brought a burden on thy spirit, it is not the rulers can remove it from thee. If thou shouldst say, I have done that which was against my conscience to do ; they may say, as the rulers did to Judas, ' What is that to us ? see thou to that.' " The officers, however, who were with him seized some of the goods, but with trem- bling hands, and compelled a poor man to carry them. " You force me," he said, " to do that which you cannot do yourselves, neither can I." When, a little later, a meeting was held to appraise the goods which had been taken from Friends, Elizabeth Stirredge felt, as she sat at work in her husband's shop, that it would be right for her to go to the room where the justices and others were assembled. She did not at all know why this was required of her, but the impression of duty became stronger while she hesitated. On entering the apartment she silently took a seat just within the door: some of those present repeatedly said that they could not go on with the business whilst she was with them, and ordered the owner of the house to turn her out; but he replied that he could not lay hands on her, which made one of the justices leave the room in a violent 84 ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. passion. On his return, " The power of the Lord," she writes, " fell on me with a very dreadful warning amongst them." A short time after this, two of the company died suddenly in the midst of the joviality of a feast. In the year 1670 the persecution reached such a height, that it was at the risk of life itself that the Friends held their meetings. Grievous, indeed, was the outward suffering of those days, yet to Elizabeth Stirredge and many others this caused far less sorrow than did the unfaithfulness of a few of their brethren. As the door of the meeting-house was nailed up, the iisual attenders felt it right to assemble outside : a bailiff and other officers, followed by an angry crowd, came with clubs to disperse the quiet congregation. But One was in their midst whose name is a strong tower ; and Elizabeth Stirredge and another Friend were enabled to speak words of encouragement to the company, and to praise Him who had given them a banner to display because of the truth. The power of the Lord so percep- tibly prevailed that their cruel adversaries were awed, though at length they exacted a fine of twenty shillings from each of the attenders, most of whom, however, left the spot with rejoicing hearts. John Story, an influential member of the meeting, was much displeased when he found that he could not induce his friends to save themselves by privately assembling for worship ; but, cost what it might, they felt they must confess their Lord before men. Then a second minister sent a mes- sage, suggesting the advantages that would arise from waiting on God in a quiet room instead of in the street. Can we wonder when we Jearn that some united in this ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. 85 view ? But there were many in those sifting times, men, weak women and even children, who, with a heaven-taught fortitude, delighted in the thought that " Love would have his children brave ! " Looking steadfastly at the strength of their Almighty leader, they — " Said not, 'Who ami?' but rather ' Whose am I, that I should fear?' " Century after century, in testing times such as these, has a simple trust in Christ, and an entire surrender of the soul to Him, triumphed gloriously, overcoming the world. How should we have acted had we lived in those stormy days 1 Yet surely such holy confidence is needed for the conflict with evil in every age. Very varied are the forms in which it confronts us. And is there less danger in passing over the treacherous marsh than in crossing the foaming torrent ; or less cause now for closely cleaving to Christ with the confiding prayer, " Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe," — than at a time when the path of the pilgrim to the Celestial City did not at least lead him through the perils of out- ward prosperity ? Very earnest were the prayers of Elizabeth Stirredge by night and day that she might be enabled to hold out to the end, and that the Lord would " strengthen His weak ones, and make the little ones as strong as David." " And," she writes, " according to the day was our strength renewed ; blessed be that Hand that never failed us, nor any that put their trust in Him." Above all she desired to know and to do her Lord's will. " Search my heart," was her prayer, " for I love to be 86 ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. searched and tried." She knew that God was calling her to be His messenger, to proclaim a warning in the ears of those who, whilst calling themselves His children, were denying Him before men ; " which," she says, " made me tremble before the Lord, crying, ' Oh Lord ! why wilt Thou require such hard things of me ? Lord, look upon my afflictions and lay no more upon me than I am able to bear. They will not hear me that am a contemptible instrument. And seeing they despise the service of women so much, 0 Lord ! make use of them that are more worthy.' . . . The answer I received was, 'They shall be made worthy that dwell low in My fear.'" About this time Elizabeth Stirredge paid a religious visit to the Friends in Wiltshire, where John Story, to whom allusion has been made, was causing much trouble, especially by his efforts to persuade others to save them- selves by the use of what he found it convenient to call " Christian prudence." The distress of Elizabeth Stir- redge was great; and she dreaded attending meetings for fear of what might be given her to express. Miles Halhead, whose words had twice before sunk deeply into her heart, came to see her. "He was," she writes, "wonderfully endowed with the power of the Lord, and with great discerning ; he said, ' My love runs unto thee, and that for the work's sake that is in thee ; for God will require hard things of thee ; thou little thinkest what is at work in thy heart. The Lord God of my life keep thee faithful ; my prayers shall be for thee as often as I have thee in remembrance. Thou art as my own life, and sealed in my bosom ; I cannot forget thee, so, dear child, fare thee well. The Lord my God hath sent me forth once more, and when I return home He will cut the thread of my life in two ! ' And so it was. But, oh ! the good- ELIZABETH STIUREDGE. 87 ness of the Lord with that salutation overflowed my whole heart and melted me into tenderness." A little later she went to Bristol, where John Story- was much disturbing the meetings by his long and life- less sermons. Her suffering became deeper and deeper. " Many a time " she writes, " have I lain down in my sorrow and watered my pillow with tears. ... I said, ' Oh Lord ! if Thou wilt open my heart to declare of Thy good- ness, and what Thou hast done for Thy people, and to tell of Thy noble acts, and Thy manifold mercies, how ready should I be to do it ; but these are hard things, who can bear them V . . . I knew what the Lord required of me as well as I knew my right hand from my left, and would not obey Him. I thought that if any one had borne a testimony before me, I could the better have borne it ; but to be one of the first — I thought I could not do it. But what mercy did not do, judgment did ; for the Lord was pleased to lay His hand heavily upon me, and with His correcting rod chastised me. And I did feel more of the displeasure of the Lord for my backwardness to His requirings than ever I did for my former transgression." It was needful that the Lord should choose His own messenger, and also that the lesson of trustful submission should be learnt at any cost, till there should be a willingness to say — " My soul the untried seas would dare, Or sands of every way mark bare, Should but Thy voice distinctly say, — ■ ' Go forward, soul, there lies thy way.' " But the Master whom Elizabeth Stirredge served is one who delighteth in mercy — who maketh sore that He may bind up, and woundeth that He may make whole. In her intense longing to be consciously restored to His favour, she now asked Him to exact from her whatever service He pleased, even if it should 88 ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. cause her to be hated of all men. It was on a Sunday morning that strength was given her to deliver a most solemn warning to those who, whilst still having the form of godliness, denied its power. Then a minister arose, beginning a sermon, remarkable for the heavenly- power which accompanied it, with these words : " A living testimony is the God of heaven and earth raising up among the poor and contemptible ones, that shall stand over your heads for evermore." It would seem that the Holy Head of the Church saw fit on that occa- sion, in an unusual degree, to " take to Him His great power, and reign " manifestly over the assembly. " Oh ! glory be to His everlasting name for evermore," writes Elizabeth Stirredge, " for His blessed appearance to us that day, who returned me a hundredfold into my bosom after all my unworthy consulting against the motions of the Spirit of so merciful and compassionate a Father, who, after He had corrected me, received me into favour again. Oh ! the peace and comfort and consolation that I received from the Lord, was more to me than all the world and the friendship of it." She saw that it was in order to train her for His own service that the Lord had " tried her as silver is tried." "There is no hearing of His gracious voice," she writes, "but by humbling under His mighty power, and subjecting the mind unto His will ; then doth He make known His mind and will, and then blessed are they that hear His word and obey it. Oh ! blessed be His eternal name for ever and for evermore, for all His mercies, and favours, and blessings, and good gifts, and tokens of His gracious love that He hath bestowed upon me ever since I have had a remembrance." It is interesting to notice the frequency of passages of thanksgiving and praise in her journal. Doubtless ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. 89 she felt it was well worth while to endure the chasten- ing which afterward yielded the peaceable fruits of righteousness ; and in the very midst of her sorrows there were seasons when to her hungry soul hitter things were sweet ; for she remarks : " I can truly say that my heart and soul delighted in judgment, though one woe was poured out after another." In 1683 Elizabeth Stirredge found a cruel persecutor in Eobert Cross, the clergyman of the parish of Chew Magna, Somerset, where her family had for some time resided. He was particularly enraged against her because, when visiting a neighbour who was ill, she had felt that a message from on high had been given her " to declare a day of mortality " to some who were in the room, which, she adds, accordingly fell out in two or three weeks' time. His anger increased when he found that she had spoken at the funeral of a young- Friend when many of his congregation had been present. The following week another burial took place, and some officers were sent with a warrant to arrest any one who should venture to preach to the large company assembled. But no human authority could hinder the accomplish- ment of His will who has chosen the weak things to confound the mighty, and it was with a " spirit greatly enlarged by the power of the Lord, and drawn forth in love towards the people," that Elizabeth Stirredge addressed them ; many faces were wet with tears, and not a few promised to amend their lives. By her side meanwhile was the officer with his warrant, which he unfolded with such trembling hands as to endanger tearing it. As he opened it he exclaimed, " Oh ! that T had been twenty miles from my habitation, that I had 90 ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. not a hand in this work this day." When she was brought before the justices, one of them said : "You are an old prophetess ; I know you of old." He had been present when, ten years earlier, she had been led to give an awful warning in their midst. To his violent threats she answered that she was not so much afraid of a prison as he imagined, though, if by sending her there he shortened her days, he would bring innocent blood upon his head. When he asked if she would keep the King's laws for the time to come, she said : " I do not know whether ever the Lord may open my mouth again, but if He do, I shall not keep silent." To the question whether a conventicle had not been held at the house of the deceased Friend, she made no reply until the justice said : " Why do you not answer ? I knew she would be dumb." Then she told him that she was no informer, as Judas was when he betrayed his Master. The indignant justice, addressing the officer who had arrested her, said : " You silly fellow, you have let all the men go and have brought a troublesome woman here ; you should have brought two or three rich men to have paid for all the conventicle." This officer, when asked what Elizabeth Stirredge had said at the burial ground, repeated some of her words, confessing that they had made his heart tremble, and that he had had no power to touch her until she had said all that she had in her heart to say. On hearing this another justice said: " Pray, neighbour Stirredge, go home about your busi- ness." She remarks that the honest confession of the man who had arrested her did her more good than her release. The clergyman, finding that few of his friends were willing to unite in his plans, sent to ELIZABETH STlIiREDGE. 91 Bristol for John Hellier, who was celebrated as a perse- cutor. On a Sunday morning he and some others rushed into the quiet meeting at Chew Magna ; they arrested those present in the King's name, set a guard over them, and then went to dine at the clergyman's house. During their two hours' absence, Elizabeth Stirredge says, " We had our solemn meeting peaceably, wherein we enjoyed the presence of the Lord to our souls' comfort, who never failed His children in a needful hour, but always gave them strength suitable to the day — ever- lasting honour be given to His holy name." Hellier and his companions returned from their feastings with faggots of wood, hatchet and axe, declaring that they were going to blow up the house and burn the Quakers ; they especially threatened the children, though the treatment of others present was violent and brutal, and a mittimus was made committing them to Ilchester Gaol. When the clergyman was told that his work had been well done, he said that it would add years to his life. But very soon some of James Stirredge's neigh- bours entered his shop, exclaiming, " Now you may abide at home, for Mr. Cross is fallen down dead in the churchyard." Although apparently dead he slightly rallied for a few days, but reason did not return. However there were others ready to carry out his schemes, and several Friends were confined in the com- mon gaol with three felons who were under sentence of death. Some fellow-sufferers in the next room gave them, through the grating, two blankets, some chaff pillows, and a little straw. The weather was intensely cold, they had not even a stone to sit on, and the ground 92 ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. was damp. Here it was that most of the captives "took their rest very sweetly." The black walls around them could not shut out Him in whose presence is fulness of joy, and they could say, as Richard Baxter did — " Heaven is ray roof, earth is my floor ; Thy love can keep me dry and warm ; Christ and Thy bounty are my store ; Thy angels guard me from all harm. " No walls or bars can keep Thee out ; None can confine a holy soul ; The streets of heaven it walks about, None can its liberty control." As Elizabeth Stirredge lay down in the prison she earnestly prayed that He, for whose sake they were suffering, would comfort them by the consciousness of His own presence. So abundantly did her Lord satisfy her soul with His goodness, that it was only the sight of her sleeping companions that prevented her from praising Him aloud. Several people gathered around the prison door when morning came to learn how many of the inmates were dead, and when they found that all were alive and well they exclaimed, " Surely they are the people of God if there are any ! " * A meeting was held in the prison. " The good presence of the Lord," writes Elizabeth Stirredge, " was with us, and filled our hearts with joy and gladness, insomuch that I was constrained to testify, in the hearing of many people, that we were so far from repenting our coming there, that we had great cause to give glory, honour, and praise to the Lord ; for His powerful presence was with * The winter of 1683-4 was one of exceptional severity, when *' Frost Pair " was held on the Thames. ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. 93 us, and sanctified our afflictions, and made the prison like a palace unto us." How long this imprisonment lasted we are not told. To Elizabeth Stirredge it appeared that even through these sufferings the Lord was honouring His steadfast servants by weaning them more and more from the world. " Amongst all the blessed seasons of His love," she says, " this was the greatest of mercies unto me, for the God of heaven and earth was with us at our downlying and uprising. . . . It seemed to me as if I had no habitation but the prison ; then was the time for the Lord to reveal His secrets unto His children that He had tried and proved ; ... for I cannot believe that he that is not true to a little will ever be made ruler over much. ... A great concern came upon me for many careless ones that had deprived themselves of that blessed benefit that our souls enjoyed with the Lord." Most fervent were her prayers for such as these, as well as for the deliverance of her persecuted people ; and whilst still with her husband in llchester Gaol, an assur- ance was afforded her that God would speedily proclaim liberty to the captives, who should declare His wondrous works that many might " hear and fear, and return unto Him." Night and day did she rejoice in her inmost soul at these glad tidings ; and whilst wondering at the condescending goodness of God, she besought Him to preserve her in His fear for ever. When the Friends were tried at the sessions of Brow- ton, she fully believed that the time for their release was at hand, although a second jury had been called, whom the persecutors hoped would suit their purpose. When they returned to the court, the foreman was so much agitated that he could scarcely give the verdict, " Guilty of not going to church, but not guilty of a riot." 94 ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. " Of not going to church," repeated the Bishop ; " that is not the matter in hand. Guilty of a riot you mean." But other members of the jury said, " No, my lord ; guilty of not going to church, but not guilty of a riot." Whilst the justices were dining, Elizabeth Stirredge says a great concern fell upon her to follow them. When the meal was over she addressed them, vindicating the inno- cency of the downtrodden Friends, and adding : " There is not a man here, nor any that draws breath in the open air, that shall escape the tribunal seat of God's divine justice," etc. When, on the following morning, the prisoners were called into the court, they found that the Bishop had absented himself, and the behaviour of the judge was altogether changed. More than eighty persons were that day set free. " Men would ruin you, but God will not suffer them so to do," were the words of the Crier, who took an affectionate leave of the Friends whilst begging their forgiveness for the part he had to act in the court. Elizabeth Stirredge spent the last fourteen years of her life at Hempstead, in Hertford. As her strength lessened, her labours of love were pretty nearly limited to that county, and were highly valued. When earnestly exhorting all to faithful dedication, she delighted to dwell on the wonders which " the great God of heaven and earth, that brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt's bondage," had wrought amongst her people as they put their trust in Him. To her children she writes : " Oh ! what shall I say in the behalf of all the Lord's wondrous works that mine eyes have seen ; but more especially the inward work of regeneration ! Oh ! ELIZABETH STIRREDGE. 95 my tongue is not able to demonstrate the tenth part of it that He hath been pleased to bring me through ! " She died in 1706, at the age of seventy-two. Whilst pondering such lives as hers, shall we not remember that we have the same unwearied enemy to withstand, though now he may wield his weapons in a different way ; and that still the only victory that over- cometh the world is faith — that faith which can alone be exercised by the faithful follower of Christ ? There- fore may it be the aim of each to give his whole heart to the Lord who died for him. The righteous in all ages could do no more than this, and why should any be content without steadfastly striving to do as much ? » WILLI AJVl DEW^BUFJY: and h 13 WOF^D£ OF COUNSEL AND CON^OLATIOjN. [i " Thy gifts are like Thyself Whom none divideth ; Thy gifts are like Thy love Which evermore ahideth ; Thou givest all Thyself to him Who in Thy word confideth. " Thy gifts are like Thyself ; In round unending, The river from Thy throne Back to Thy throne is tending ; And the Spirit that draws nigh Thee Is the Spirit of Thy sending." R. H. Cooke. 99 WILLIAM DEWSBURY; AND HIS WORDS OF COUNSEL AND CONSOLATION. " A King shall reign and prosper ; . . . and this is His name whereby He shall be called, The Lobd our righteousness." — Jer. xxiii. 5. 0. " Whatsoever thou hungerest and thirstest for in His life, thou art the heir of it, and the Lord will satisfy thy hunger witli His refresh- ings for His name's sake." — W. Dewsbury. The early years of William Dewsbury's life were spent as a shepherd's boy at Allerthorpe, in Yorkshire. His father died when he was eight years old (probably about the year 1630), and whilst giving vent to his sorrow in tears, he seemed to hear a voice saying, " Weep for thyself, for thy father is well." Exceedingly powerful was the impression then made on his mind. " Deep sorrow seized on me," he says, " and I knew not what to do to get acquaintance with the God of my life." When about thirteen, having heard of some Puritans living near Leeds, his anxiety was great to meet with them, and he begged his friends to find him some employment in that neighbourhood, quite indif- ferent as to what it might be, if it only brought him amongst those who feared the living God, that he might " thus become acquainted with the God of his life." But disappointment awaited him ; he found none who could tell him " what God had done for their souls in redeeming them from the body of sin. The flaming sword, the righteous law of God," he adds, " cried in 100 WILLIAM DKWSBURY. me for a perfect fulfilling of the law, so that I could find no peace in that worship of God the world had set up." His health suffered from these spiritual conflicts, and he found it hard to carry out the requirements of the cloth-weaver to whom he was apprenticed, though doing his utmost to fulfil them. When about twenty years of age he entered the parliamentary army. His biographer imagines that he had been led to believe that by this step he " would be going up to the help of the Lord against the mighty," and that " he was willing to give his body unto death, if by such a measure it had been possible to have freed his soul from sin. Failing to find the associates he longed for in the army, he visited Edinburgh, where, he tells us, that he only found formality ; nor did his inter- course with Independents and Anabaptists bring light to his soul. " Then," he says, " the Lord discovered to me that His love could not be attained to by anything I could do in any outward observances, and in all these turnings of my carnal wisdom, while seeking the kingdom of God without, thither the flaming sword turned to keep the way of the tree of life and fenced me from it. . . . Then my mind was turned within by the power of the Lord. . . . And the word of the Lord came unto me and said, ' Put up thy sword into its scabbard ; if my kingdom wer e of this world then would My servants tight ; knowest thou not that, if I needed, I could have twelve legions of angels from my Father?' which word enlightened my heart and discovered the mystery of iniquity ; it showed the kingdom of Christ to be within, and that, its enemies being within and spiritual, my weapons against them should also be spiritual — the Power of God." William Dewsbury now resumed his old occupation as a cloth-weaver, and whilst his hands weiJe thus dili- gently employed, Iris mind was frequently engaged in WILLIAM DEWSBURY. 101 waiting on the Lord. Carnal weapons were laid down, but spiritual weapons were wielded in a conflict more severe than any outward one ; but being wielded in that faith, the trial of which is more precious than of gold that perisheth, he found that they were mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds : — " He saw his sad estate, condemn'd to die; Then terror seized his heart, and dark despair ; But when to Calvary he turned his eye, He saw the cross and read forgiveness there." It was about this time that William Dewsbury married a young woman who, like himself, had passed through many inward conflicts. A few days after this event — when returning from a trial concerning some property, which had been unjustly decided against him — he was tempted with doubts about the propriety of his marriage, as it seemed likely that his wife might be brought to poverty. But having, through long and bitter experience, learnt how utterly powerless he was to overcome temptation in his own strength, he turned away from it to his Almighty Helper, with the prayer that the Lord " would make him content to be what He would have him to be." Immediately he felt in an overwhelming manner the presence of his Lord ; so exceeding was the weight of glory that he thought that his mortal frame could not long endure it, and he heard as it were a voice saying, " Thou art mine ; all in heaven and in earth is mine, and it is thine in Me ; what I see good I will give unto thee, and unto thy wife and children." It was at Synderhill Green, in Yorkshire, that William Dewsbury and George Fox first met. The latter writes 102 WILLIAM DKWSBURY. in his Journal that, " At an evening meeting there, William Dewsbury and his wife came and heard me declare the Truth. And after the meeting, it being a moonlight night, I walked out into the field : and William Dewsbury and his wife came to me into the field, and confessed to the Truth and received it ; and after some time he did testify to it." Sewel says :— " He was one who had already been immediately con- vinced, as George Fox himself was ; who coming to him found himself in unity with him." In the year 1652, ''The Word of the Lord," writes William Dewsbury, " came unto me, saying, ' The leaders of my people cause them to err, in drawing them from the light in their consciences (which leads to the anoint- ing within, which the Father hath sent to be their Teacher, and would lead them into all Truth) to seek the kingdom of God in observances where it is not to be found. . . . Freely thou hast received, freely give and minister ; and what I have made known unto thee in secret, declare thou openly." Six years earlier he had felt a strong inclination, as a public preacher of the Gospel, to invite others to come to the Saviour so pre- cious to his own soul; but he was taught by the Holy Spirit that the time for this was not yet come, and that if he waited until a future year there would be a greater openness in the minds of the people to receive his message. Knowing the voice, and following his Shepherd, he quietly pursued his trade, holding meet- ings for worship in his own house and neighbourhood. But the " tongue of fire, when it came, made up abun- dantly for all delays." This time of waiting was one of the most momentous WILLIAM DEWSBUUY. 103 in his history ; a time in which he learned what has been called " one of the hardest lessons we ever learn in our lives — that having Christ, we have salvation also ; . . . having the fountain we have its issuing streams."* Like the Great Apostle he was led to cry, "Oh, wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " " As I was crying to the Lord," he says, " to free me from the burden I groaned under, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ' My grace is sufficient for thee, I will deliver thee.' And by the power of this Word I was armed with patience to wait in His counsel ; groaning under the body of sin in the day and hour of temptation, until it pleased the Lord to manifest His power to free me, which was in the year 1651." From his own sore and unavailing struggles with sin he was taught that the only victory which overcometh is faith in Him who " bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness ; " who is ever ready to take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for our help. Knowing that neither height nor depth was able to separate him from the love of God, he did not fear to abandon himself fully, and trust himself wholly to His keeping' neither wishing nor daring to limit the Holy One of Israel in what He should do with him, exact from him, or bestoiv upon him. He believed that God " is able to do exceed- ing abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us," and according to his faith was it unto him. " Through the righteous law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus," he writes, " I was * Dr. Boardman. 104 "WILLIAM DEWSBURY. and am made free from the body of sin and death ; and through these great tribulations my garments are washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb, who hath led me through the gates of the city into the New Jerusalem, . . . where my soul now feeds upon the tree of life, which I had so long hungered and thirsted after, that stands in the paradise of God." When on his death-bed, alluding to this period of his life, he said that he never afterwards "played the coward, but as joyfully entered prisons as palaces, telling his enemies to hold him there as long as they could ; and in prison he sang praises to his God, and esteemed the bolts and locks put upon him as jewels." " Who that one moment hath the least descried Him, Dimly and faintly, hidden and afar, Doth not despise all excellence beside Him, — Pleasures and powers that are not and that are ? " It is not the object of this brief sketch to give the details of the numerous hardships, sufferings, and long imprisonments which William Dewsbury willingly endured in the service of his Lord. Once he was con- fined in Warwick gaol for nearly eight years ; and at a later period for six years more, when his little grand- daughter, Mary Samm, though only twelve years old, left her father's home in Bedfordshire, that she might comfort him in his captivity ; but a violent fever, most easily accounted for by the horrible state of the prison, soon ended her life. She appears to have been a child of remarkable character, and to have partaken of the religious fervour for which this era was specially distin- guished. To her aunt, Joan Dewsbury, she said, " Not any one knows my exercise, but the Lord alone, that WILLIAM DEWSBURY. 105 I have gone through since I came to Warwick ; " and the next day she remarked, " If this distemper do not abate, I must die : . . . 0 Lord, if it be Thy will take me to Thyself. . . . Oh ! praises, praises be to Thy holy name for ever, in Thy will being done with me, to take me to Thyself, where I shall be in heavenly joy, yea, in heavenly joy for ever and for evermore." To her grandfather she said, " I do believe it is better for me to die than to live. . . . Dear grandfather, I do believe that thou wilt not stay long behind me when I am gone." "Dear granddaughter," he answered, " I shall come as fast as the Lord orders my way." To her mother she said, " My grandfather and I have lived here so comfortably together that I am fully satisfied as to my coming to him. . . . And, dear mother, I would have thee remember my love to my dear sisters, relations, and friends; and now I have nothing to do, I have nothing to do." ''After which," William Dewsbury writes, "she asked what time of day it was. It being the latter part of the day, I said, ' The chimes are going four.' She said, ' I thought it had been more ; I will see if I can have a little rest and sleep before I die.' And so she lay still, and had sweet rest and sleep ; then she awoke without any murmuring, and in a quiet, peaceable frame of spirit, laid down her life in peace when the clock struck the fifth hour." In 1657, when visiting Devon, William Dewsbury had a strong impression that a storm of persecution awaited him, and, at Torrington, he shortly afterwards had to encounter it. He was arrested, and brought before the mayor and other officers, some of whom he says, " were very cruel and wicked against the truth of 106 WILLIAM PEWSBURY. God, and did deal very rudely with me." But when, in reply to their questions, he " was free in the Lord to declare to them how he came to be a minister of Christ," one of the justices could not refrain from tears, and the clerk said, " If thou hadst spoken thus much before, there had not been this to be done." Yet he was sent back to lie on the bare floor of his prison. When next brought before them he tells us, "My God had pleaded my cause ; . . . the man that said I should see his face no more until I was before the judge at Exeter, pulled the mittimus in pieces before my face, and said to me, ' Thou art free.' So did my God set me free." The ministry of William Dewsbury is thus described in a little book by " that ancient servant of God, Thomas Thompson " : — " 0 ! how was my soul refreshed and the witness of God reached in my heart. I cannot express it with pen ; I had never heard or felt the like before, . . . so that if all the world said Nay, I could have given my testimony that it was the everlasting truth of God." It was said by one who intimately knew him, that "to the tender he was exceedingly tender," which those who have read his epistles can well believe. " Beloved are you," he writes, " that hunger and thirst after righteous- ness ; for you are the children of the kingdom of my Father. With you my life is bound up." One of theL-e pastoral letters has this superscription : " Let this go abroad amongst all the afflicted and wounded in spirit." The following passages are taken from it : — " Oh, thou child of the morning, of the pure eternal day of the God of Israel, hearken no longer to the enemy who saith there hath none travelled where thou art travelling, WILLIAM DKWSBURY. 107 neither drunk of the cup that thou art drinking. ... In the word of the Lord God I declare unto thee, I drank the same cup, with my faithful friends, who are born of the royal seed ; every one in their measure have travelled in the same path, and have endured the same temptations. . . . The Lord God, He will throw down the enemy of thy peace. ... So in the power of His might, stay thy heart ; and tread upon all doubts, fears, despairing thoughts, question- ings, reasonings, musings, imaginations, and consultings. Arise over them all in the light of Christ. He will lead thee into the banqueting-house of the pleasure of our God. . . . And this shall be the portion of thy cup, if thou diligently hearken to the counsel of the Lord which calls thee to trust in Him. He will embrace thee in the arm of His love, and thou shalt praise His name for ever ! God Almighty, in His light and life, raise up thy soul, . . . steadfastly to wait for His power to lead thee in the cross out of all unbelief." At another time he writes : — " Watch over one another, . . . opening your hearts in the free Spirit of God to them that are in need, that you may bear the image of your Heavenly Father, who relieveth the hungry, and easeth the burdened, and maketh glad in refreshing His, in the time of need. Even so be it with you in the name of the Lord." Again, as an ambassador for Christ, constrained by His love, he writes : — " Oh, come away, come away, out of all your thoughts, desires, doubts and unbelief, which would turn you aside from the enjoyment of the love of God in Christ Jesus. Let none stand afar off because of your littleness, lameness, blindness, weakness or infirmities, who cannot live at peace until you be healed by the blood of the Lamb. . . . Give up to the drawing spirit of life in the light of Jesus Christ. He will carry thee that canst not go, in the arms of His compassions ; He will cause the lame to walk ; and thou who art sensible of thy blindness to recover thy sight ; yea, He will heal thee of all thy infirmities, who waitest in the light, to be ordered and guided as a little child by the washing and sanctifying 108 WILLIAM DEWSBURY. Spirit of the Lord Jesus. . . . Oh ! what shall I say of the unspeakable love of God in Christ Jesus, the husband of the bride. Oh ! ye sons of the glorious day, read and feel in the deep tastes of the unsearchable love, and you handmaids of glory, drink of the inexhaustible ocean which in the light flows over all opposition. This is the Son of the Father's love, . . . wounded for our transgressions ! . . . Let all crowns be thrown down before Him, He alone shall have the glory. . . . Whatever the natural man most inclines to, when the temptations beset you . . . look up to the Lord and resist the devil with boldness in the first assault, and the Lord God will give you dominion over them, . . . that in the perfect freedom every particular individual may reign in the measure of the light, over every thought and desire that is contrary to the will of God. . . . You shall break down Satan under your feet, . . . and shall overcome through the blood of the Lamb ; . . . and continually drink of the rivers of pleasure, the presence of the Lord Jesus, our Light, Life and Righteousness for ever. . . . Thou who lovest the light and bathest thy soul in the ocean of His inexpressible mercies, .shall never more want the fresh springs of life. The Lord will keep thee in the safety of His power." Early in 1688, William Dewsbury visited London. Very striking was a long sermon preached by him in Gracechurch Street Meeting, a few weeks before his death. He says : — " . . . Become as a little child, humbled and slain as to thine own will. . . . Thou wilt not question, ' Shall I live a holy life ? ' but will give all that life thou hadst for that life which is hid with Christ in God. 0 ! there is none come so far that ever miss of eternal life." Some friends having met together in his room, about a week before his death (which took place at Warwick), he, notwithstanding his weakness, rose from his bed to address them. " Fear not, nor be discouraged," were ome of his concluding words, " but go on in the name WILLIAM DEWSBURY. 109 and power of the Lord ; and bear a faithful and living testimony for Him in your day ; and the Lord will prosper His work in your hand, and cause His Truth to flourish and spread abroad." Of this faithful servant of God, may we not say that he, being dead, yet speaketh ? Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever. What William Dewsbury and other of the devoted early Friends were they were by the grace of God alone. And His promise to those who " chose the things that please Him, and take hold of His covenant,'" can be no less sure now than it was two centuries ago — " Even unto them will I give, in mine house and within my walls, a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters : I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off." JOHJN CF^OOK. •• I had long seriously thought with myself that besides a full and undoubted assent to the objects of faith, a vivifying savoury taste and relish of them was also necessary, that with stronger force and more powerful energy they might penetrate into the most inward centre of my heart, and there being most deeply fixed and rooted, govern my life." — John Howe. 113 JOHN CROOK. "The longer I was in finding whom I sought, The more earnestly I beheld Him being found." Beda. " I will not serve thee, 0 Satan, but I will serve the Lord God of heaven and earth whatsoever I suffer, or becometh of me therefor." Such were the words vehe- mently spoken by John Crook, when a little lad of some nine or ten years. Although so young he was no stranger to spiritual conflict, and it was when on the point of yielding to a violent assault of the enemy that be became aware of a mightier power within him, strengthening him boldly to resist the temptation. But a child's heart is small for so sore a combat, and he soon felt frightened and bewildered at the " opposite strivings " in his soul ; yet he at last thought that his deliverer could be no other than the Lord Himself. After this memorable hour he would, oftener than before, seek for some secret place to pray for help in the time of trial. Many were the tears shed at such seasons as he thought over his sins ; for when alone he says that he was " sure to hear of his doings." Yet he found himself unable to keep the promises of amendment which he made, and his soul was often weighed down with sorrow. When he saw the natural and healthy delight which other children took in play, he thought that they must be better than he, and that it was in anger that God I 114 JOHX CROOK. was correcting him. Indeed, it would be strange if at so early an age he could have conceived that at times — " The sharpest discipline On best-loved child is laid." His home, he tells us, was in the " North country," where he was bom in 1618. At the age of ten or eleven he was sent to London and attended several schools there until he was about seventeen. He states that the family with whom he was " scoffed at all strictness," so he spent his spare time in solitude and prayer, weeping much from the sense given him of his sinful- ness. During these years he did not — to quote his own words — "mind hearing of sermons, being little acquainted with any that frequented such exercises." However, when afterwards apprenticed in another London parish he often heard a Puritan minister ; he read the Bible much, and other good books, and so earnestly poured out his soul in his prayers, that he afterwards found the family with whom he lived secretly listened to him. " I remember," he writes, " when I was most fervent in my devotion, something in me would be still pulling me hack, as it were, as if I would not wholly yet leave those evils I knew myself guilty of, but would gladly have them pardoned and forgiven, and yet would I continue in them, which at last made me conclude I was but a hypocrite. ... I con- tinued professing, and praying, and hearing, and reading, and yet I could not perceive any amendment in myself; hut the same youthful vanities drew away my mind as before." Working hard by day, and shortening his hours of rest, John Crook was often allowed by his master to attend religious lectures and meetings. Whilst listening to different sermons he felt himself " tossed up and JOHN CROOK. 115 down from hope to despair." He did not dare to tell any minister of his distress, lest he should be driven to despondency if another judged as hardly of his condition as he himself did. With his mind in this state one cannot greatly wonder at the singular determination he one day came to, nor doubt that the delivering hand of the Lord was then outstretched to help him. " I resolved," he says, " one First-day afternoon, being full of trouble, to go that time which way I should be moved or inclined in spirit, whether it was up street or down street, east or west, north or south, without any predetermination or forecast, but only as I should be led." Wandering on in this strange manner he at length entered a church, where a young clergyman preached from the text, " He that walketh in darkness and hath no light, let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God," describing the state of one who, though fearing the Lord, yet walked in darkness, as if he had clearly known John Crook's distress, and was speaking to him only. Greatly was he comforted, and it was even with a rejoicing heart that he left the place ; but this consolation did not last long, for he writes of trouble overtaking him " through some negligence and coldness which gendered to distrust and unbelief." He thus experienced that if the soul consciously withholds any allegiance from Christ it cannot at the same time exercise unwavering faith in His all-availing aid. When his misery was inexpressible, as he was one day sitting alone, he says : — " On a sudden there arose in me a voice audible to the spiritual ear, ' Fear not, O thou tossed as with a tempest and not comforted, I will help thee ; and although I have 116 JOHN CROOK. hid ruy face from thee for a moment, yet with everlasting loving kindness will I visit thee, and thou shalt be mine.' ... I was tilled with peace and joy like one overcome, and there shone such a light within me that, for the space of seven or eight days' time, I walked as one taken from the earth. I was so taken up in my mind as if I walked above the world, not taking notice (as it seemed to me) of any persons or things as I walked up and down London streets, I was so gathered up in the marvellous light of the Lord, and filled with a joyful dominion over all things in this world ; in which time I saw plainly, and to my great comfort and satisfaction, that whatever the Lord would communicate and make known of Himself and the mysteries of His kingdom, He would do it in a way of purity and holiness. I saw then such a brightness in holiness, and such a beauty in an upright and pure righteous conversation and close circumspect walking with God in a holy life, . . that it sprang freely in me, that all religion and all profession with- out it were as nothing in comparison with this communion. For I remember, while I abode and walked in that light and glory which shone so clearly on my mind and spirit, there was not a wrong thought appearing or stirring in me but it vanished presently, finding no entertainment ; my whole mind and soul was taken up with, and swallowed up of, that glorious light and satisfactory presence of the Lord thus manifested in me." Long after, in a very beautiful letter of sympathy to Isaac Penington, John Crook says : — " Be thou still in thy mind, and let the billows pass over, and wave upon wave ; and fret not thyself because of them, neither be cast down as if it should never be otherwise with thee. The days of thy mourning shall be over, and the accuser will God cast out for ever. For therefore was I afflicted and not comforted, tempted and tried,— for this end — that I might know how to speak a word in due season unto those that are tempted and afflicted as I once was ; as it was said unto me in that day when sorrow lay heavy tipon me. By these things thou wilt come to live in the life of God, and joy in God, and glory in tribulation ; when thou JOHN CROOK. 117 hast learnt in all conditions to be contented ; and through trials and deep exercises is the way to learn this lesson." Well had he learned how to give comfort and support. In the same letter he writes of his own sore sorrow until his eyes were opened to see his Saviour, and his heart to receive Him as his all in all. " Sure I am," he says, " none can be so weary but He takes care of them j nor none so nigh fainting but He puts His arm under their heads ; nor none can be so beset with enemies on every side but He will arise and scatter, because they are His own, and His life is the price of their redemption and His blood of their ransom. When they feel nothing stirring after Him, He yearns after them ; so tender is the good Shepherd of His flock ! / can tell, for I was as one that once went astray and wandered upon the barren mountains."* At another time he writes : — " Your God sees and beholds, and ponders all your trials. Leave them all with Him, and cast your care wholly upon Him • for by all your care not one cubit can be added to your stature. . . . He hath tempered your cups that you may say of the bitterest of them. My God is the portion of this also." Two or three years after the remarkable visitation already referred to, John Crook found that, whilst "dwell- ing more without and less within," winter had taken the place of spring-time in his soul, and little seemed left him but memories of that sunny season. Many questionings about worship and the ordinances arose in his mind, and he thought that he should be guilty of ingratitude to the God who had done such great things * It is interesting to compare with this letter I. Penington'.s own words of encouragement to others in later years. — Letters of Isaac Penington. Nos. 3 and 73, etc. 118 JOHN CROOK. for him, if he did not seek for the purest way of worship- ing Him. At length he joined some persons whose views resembled those of the Independents, and who, like himself, hungered and thirsted after righteousness. A blessing rested on their meeting whilst, as John Crook says, they " were kept watchful and tender, with minds inwardly retired, and words few and savoury ; " in which frame of spirit, he adds, they were preserved by communicating their experiences one to another week by week. But, as might be feared, after some years, this became a mere form ; questions about their " Church state," etc., arose ; the sweet fellowship was no longer felt, and at last they wholly gave up meeting- together, and some of them completely cast off the yoke of Christ. John Crook could not go so far astray as some of his acquaintances, and at times his unhappiness caused him to resume religious reading and prayer. Much as he was tempted to adopt dangerous principles, the strong sense of his former wonderful deliverances and conso- lations, as well as the taste he had had of joy unspeak- able, made him sure that there was (to quote his own words) " a far better state and condition to be known and enjoyed in this world by walking with God in holiness and purity, than by all licentious and volup- tuous living, or covetous gathering of riches together, to get a name in the earth." Neither could he doubt that obedience to what his conscience told him was the will of God would bring him more peace than any outward observances could do. It was at this crisis, and when John Crook was about thirty-six years of age, that he was providentially led JOHN CROOK. 119 to the spot where William Dewsbury was preaching, thou"'li had he known that he was a Friend lie would O have avoided hearing him. " His words," writes John Crook, " like spears, pierced and wounded my very heart ; yet so as they seemed unto me as balm also. ... I remember the very words that took the deepest impression upon me. . . . He implied the miserable life of such who, notwithstanding their religious duties or performances, had not peace nor quietness in their spirits, . . . and wanted a spiritual understanding of that which might then have been known of God within ; which after- ward I came to know and behold. . . . Whereby I under- stood certainly that it is not an opinion, but Christ Jesus the power and arm of God, who is the Saviour, — and that felt in the heart and kept dwelling there by faith ; which differs as much from all notions in the head and brain as the living substance differeth from the picture or image of it. ... I came to see what it was that had so long cried in me upon every occasion of serious inward retiring in my own spirit ; so that I could say of Christ, ' A greater than Solomon is here.'" With such wonderful power did the minister's words sink into his inmost soul, that to him it almost seemed as if one of the old Apostles had arisen from the dead. He saw now that the victory could be gained over the sinful desires which resisted what he calls those " little stirrings and movings after the living God." In allusion to this time he speaks of receiving the earnest of the inheritance and seal of the covenant. The light which now shone around him seemed to illumine the painful path he had trodden in the past. And as he called to mind the " sweet refreshings " granted him all along in the midst of his sorrowful pilgrimage — his frequent neglect of the tender wooings of his Lord, and ingra- titude for His marvellous mercies — he was ready to 120 JOHN CROOK. cry out, " What ! was God so near me in a place I was not aware of? " And with a heart melted and over- come by the great love of his Father in heaven, realising that he was a child, an heir — even a joint-heir with Christ — he felt that nothing less than his all would be an offering worthy of being laid upon the altar. Now were the mysteries of the kingdom more and more revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, and it must be from his own blessed experience that, long after, he could write for the encouragement of others : — " Lift up your heads, you that have come, through and beyond all outward washings, unto the Lamb of God that your robes may be washed white in His Mood; that thereby you may overcome, and then sit down in the kingdom with weary Abraham, thoroughly-tried Isaac, and wrestling Jacob." " 0, the many devices," he elsewhere writes, " that the enemy useth. . . . That now we had lain long enough in the furnace, and nothing was left but pure gold ; but he lied unto us. . . . We saw we must into the furnace again, and there continue all the appointed time of the Father, till indeed we were changed into the state of the precious sons of Zion, truly comparable to fine gold." Nothing had ever seemed harder to him than the having to " lay down all weapons and crowns " at the feet of his Lord. But when this had been done he found that the cravings of his soul were satisfied at last ; and that it was refreshed by " a most sweet shower," while formerly it had only been revived by " summer drops ushering in a greater drought after- wards." Possessing now the riches of the glory of the inheritance of the saints, he says that a cry often arose in him that he might be kept poor and needy, in daily dependence upon his Saviour. Soon he found that he was called to publish to his JOHN CROOK. 121 fellow-men what he " had seen, felt and handled of the word and work of God." When he did not yield to this conviction, sorrow was once more his portion ; and some other who was present would now and then speak the words which had been in his heart. But when he simply followed the guidance of the Holy Spirit a rich blessing followed, as he went from place to place, and he does not scruple to say that many were converted who lived and died in the faith. " I found God," he adds, "always to be larger in His good- ness than I could expect, and more abundant in pouring out of His Holy Spirit than my faith could reach, even to the breaking of my heart many a time before Him in secret. . . . I was constrained to obey the Lord, taking no thought what I should say, but cried to Him often in my spirit, ' Keep me poor and needy, believing in Thee, and then I shall speak from Thee and for Thee.' . . From the deep sense I had of God's majesty and purity in my heart, I spoke of Him as I felt His requirings thereunto, and His rewards were in my bosom as a most sweet comforting cordial, that did lift up my spirit above all discomfortings from the enemies within and without, although both ofttitnes sorely beset me. ... I might swell a volume with this subject, but this is spoken to the glory of the Almighty God, that the all- sufficiency of His Holy Spirit may be trusted in and relied upon, as the only supplier of His ministers and people." Strongly as his strong faith was tried, he found that the Comforter had truly come to abide with him for ever. " Never did the word of promise fail," — though he was imprisoned ten times, was once tried for his life, and also incurred the sentence of premunire in 1662. John Crook had himself been a Justice of the Peace, and was well aware of the illegality of the sentence undergone by his companions and himself ; and on being remanded to Newgate he wrote an account of the trial, calling it 122 JOHN CROOK. " The Cry of the Innocent for Justice." This was printed, together with the Latin indictment, in which he pointed out many errors. One would fancy that his judges must have been taken aback by his bold words at the bar, and his accurate acquaintance with some details of law. When they told him that they had power to tender the Oath of Allegiance to any man, he answered, " Not to me upon this occasion, for I am brought hither as an offender already. ... I am an Englishman, as I have said to you, and challenge the benefit of the laws of England, for by them is a better inheritance derived to me than that which I receive from my parents ; for by the former the latter is pre- served." It is not known for how long this imprison- ment lasted. In one of John Crook's epistles, written in Hunting- don Gaol, " To those that are in Outward Bonds, for the Testimony of a Good Conscience," he says : — " Love nothing more than God, but let Him be thy whole delight, and count it thy glory and thy praise that thou hast anything to lose, or part withal, for His sake. Account His chains as thy ornaments, and His bonds as thy beauty, and His prison as thy palace. . . . You may not disparage your descent, nor undervalue the race from whence you sprang, for you are become companions with all that are born from above, who walk with God, and have fellowship with Christ through the Spirit, with all the royal race amongst the living." Such animating words, from one himself in captivity, must have carried comfort to many hearts. It is related of John Crook that, in consequence of preaching in a meeting, he was brought, late one even- ing, before a Justice of the Peace, who, being a kind- JOHN CROOK. 123 hearted man, was unwilling to send him at such an unseasonable hour to the distant prison ; so bidding the informer to call in the morning, he offered the offender a night's lodging, telling him, however, that, as he had company at the time, he could only spare him a room which one of his servants said was haunted. But haunted chambers had no horrors for John Crook, abiding, as he did, under the shadow of the Almighty, and he gratefully accepted the invitation. Not only was he courteously and hospitably treated, but oppor- tunity was also cordially given him for religious con- versation with the company, in which they were much interested. The Justice kindly showed him to his room, which was at the end of a long gallery, and he slept soundly until about one o'clock. When he awoke, it was with even an unusually vivid sense of that love which passeth knowledge — of being compassed with Good's favour as with a shield. Just then a rattling- noise was heard in the gallery, and when, after a time, it ceased, a shrill voice three times said, " You are damned." Quite undismayed, John Crook answered, " Thou art a liar, for I feel this moment the sweet peace of my God flow through my heart." All was again quiet, and he soon fell asleep, not waking until his usual hour for rising. Finding that his host had not yet come down stairs he took a walk in the garden, where he was soon joined by a manservant who, falling on his knees before him, said that it was he who had tried to alarm him in the night, and that his heart had been pierced by John Crook's words. He asked for his forgiveness and his prayers, going on to say that for some years past some of his fellow-servants and himself 124 JOHN CROOK. had been in the habit of secretly robbing their master, and, in order to facilitate their plans of concealment, had pretended that one part of the house was haunted. At John Crook's request he confessed his crime to the Justice, who pardoned him, and also gave his guest a dismission from the informer. The impression made that night on the servant's heart was a lasting one, and we learn that he afterwards became " an honest Friend and a minister." Four years after John Crook had become a Friend, a general Yearly Meeting was held at his house in Bedfordshire. It continued for three days, and was attended by George Fox and so many others from most parts of England that the inns in the neighbouring towns were crowded. John Crook has been described as an Apollos, eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures, and by his ministry not a few were turned from dark- ness to light; but no detailed record of this is left by himself, nor does he give many particulars of the persecutions which he suffered. He speaks of how God has made prisons to be schools for prophets and nurseries for divines. " He that would build high," he remarks, " must lay the foundation deep. There is flesh as well as spirit in us all, as the Apostle saith of himself (Gal. v. 17). Therefore there is great need of a strict watch to be kept ' with all keeping,' as the margin hath it, lest we forget there is going out of the truth by many unsuspected ways as well as goings in by Christ, the door." Again, in his eighty-second year he writes : — " Perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord is so far from lessening or undervaluing the merits or conquests of Christ, JOHN CROOK. 125 that it manifests Him to be able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by Him. Not only from the guilt, but from the filth of sin also, ... to make them whole every whit as He did those He cured outwardly." Writing of faith, he says : — " By this living faith Abel saw beyond the sacrifice unto Christ, the first-born of God, beyond the firstling of the flock which he offered ; and therefore God had respect unto Abel and his offering. But God rejected Cain and his offer- ing, thougli he had faith to believe it to be his duty, yet sticking to the form, and not flying on the wing of faith unto Christ, the One Offering, he missed the mark. . . . We believe that faith to be only true and saving that flies over self-righteousness as well as filthiness into the fountain of life in Christ, which faith hath nothing of man in it, but is as the breath of life by which the soul lives : not a bare assent to the truth of a proposition in the natural understanding, but the soul's cleaving unto God out of a naturalness between Christ and the soul, . . . not looking at its doing to commend it, but God's love and bounty in Christ, the Light, to receive it ; and yet holiness is its delight, and it can no more live out of it than the fish upon the dry land. This faith keeps the mind pure, the heart clean, through the sprinkling of the heart from an evil conscience by the blood of Jesus." Not long before his death he writes : — " Let not your outward concerns prevent your religious meetings and services on the week-days, lest the earthly spirit get up again ; but meet in the faith that you shall meet with God, whether you hear words spoken outwardly or not." On another occasion his words are : — " Watch, my dear friends, against the enemy of your souls that you may be preserved out of all its snares. ... So will you delight to meet together, and the joy of the Lord will be your strength, and you thereby encouiaged to wait upon Him. And His sweet and precious presence will be manifest 126 JOHN CROOK. among you, unto the building up and strengthening one another in the faith of the Gospel, unto the vanquishing of your fears and scattering of all your enemies." During the latter part of his life, John Crook suffered from intense bodily pain, which he bore with the utmost patience, though he admitted that, did he not feel the upholding arm of his Lord, he could not live under it. In a letter of advice to his grandchildren, he bids them embrace afflictions as messengers of peace. He counsels them to " wait upon God," adding — " I have had more comfort and confirmation in the truth in my inward retiring in silence, than from all words I have heard from others, though I have often been refreshed by them also." Although at so advanced an age his spiritual strength seemed unabated ; yet he rejoiced at the thought that he would soon be free from his suffering state. " Many of the ancients," he would say, " are gone to their long home ; they step away before me, and I, that would go, cannot. Well, it will be my turn soon also ! " About three weeks before his death he very emphati- cally said, " Truth must prosper, Truth shall prosper ; but a trying time must first come, and afterwards the glory of the Lord shall more and more appear." He died in 1699 at Hertford, which had been his home for many years. He leaves no details of his domestic life, but we learn from Sewel that some of his children were a cause of sorrow. He might well say that he had been afflicted from his youth up — yet be also knew what it was to glory in tribulation. Growing from one degree of grace to another, it was granted to him to experience, by faith, that the child of God is translated out of darkness into the kingdom JOHN CKOOK. 127 of God's dear Son ; and the eyes of his understanding were enlightened to know the riches of the glory of this inheritance. Realising as he did the exceeding great- ness of God's power to those who believe, neither perse- cution nor pain, neither grief nor care, could debar him from the privileges of his citizenship in the New Jeru- salem. For — to borrow the words of George Fox — " All that dwell within the grace, and truth, and faith, and Spirit, which are the wall of the city, dwell within that city," even the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. £TEPHEJN CRI£P AND £ER]V10N£. I " Purifying their hearts by faith " (Acts xv. 9.) " Faith is the victory over that which separated man from God ; by which faith he hath access to God. And it is faith that sanctifies." — George Pox's Doctrinals. 131 STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. Christ hath bound Himself to those that trust in Him. Stephen Cbisp. It was in the spring of 1655, when Stephen Crisp was about twenty- seven years of age, that the town of Colchester where he lived was visited by James Parnel* (a minister of the newly-formed Society of Friends), whose labours had already been greatly blessed although he had not attained his twentieth year. Night and day had Stephen Crisp been longing that the Gospel might be preached in his native place by one of the Quakers ; for though he knew that they were a hated and persecuted people, he was well aware that this had often been the lot of the faithful followers of Christ. He had, however, heard that one of their * James Parnel's services at Colchester, where many thousands came to hear him, are thus described by Stephen Crisp: — "He spent that week in preaching, praying, exhorting, turning the minds of all sorts of professors to the light of Jesus, which did search their hearts and show their thoughts, that they might believe therein. . . . Many did believe, and others were hardened. . . . To one that struck him with a great staff, saying, 'There, take that for Jesus Christ's sake,' he returned this answer, ' Friend, I do receive it for Jesus Christ's sake.' " He died about a year later, the victim of most cruel treatment coupled with close confinement, in Colchester Castle. *' Here I die innocently," he said ; " I have seen great things. Do not hold me ; but let me go." During his captivity he writes : — " Be willing that self shall suffer for the truth, and not the truth for self, ... all you that would follow the Lamb to the land of rest, and through many trials you will wax strong and bold and confident in your God; for God is not known what a God He is until the time of trial." 132 STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. tenets was, that sin might be overcome in this life, which at first seemed to him to be a ereat mistake : for — although from childhood he had taken a deep interest in religion, and as he grew older had made acquaintance with several sects, and had tried many ordinances and many means in the hope of finding a power which would give him this victory — " his arm," he says, " was never so long as to reach thereunto." Conscious of his own good abilities, his knowledge of the sacred Scriptures, and of numerous old philo- sophical works, Stephen Crisp thought to find an easy task in opposing the argument of the young stranger. He sought an opportunity for conversing with him, and on the same day attended a meeting in which he heard him preach the Gospel in the name and authority of the Lord. This he at once felt that no wisdom of his own could withstand. His reason also was convinced, and with all its strength he was soon to uphold and valiantly defend the views be had heretofore resisted. Hard indeed would it be for him thus to humble himself, but " a strong hand gave the stroke." " I was," he writes, " hewn down like a tall cedar. . . . The eye that would see everything was now so blind that I could see nothing certainly but my present undone and miserable estate." In touching words he tries in his journal to give some idea of the exceeding sorrow of those days, in which all trust in his own righteousness was swept away. In a sermon preached in after years, he speaks of how it is God's will that " man shall be beholden to Christ for all. . . . One would think it should be no great matter," he adds, " for men to lay aside their own works and duties and submit to Christ ; STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. 133 but I tell you it is very hard, and I found it hard myself." But He who has made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over, did not suffer His servant to sink into utter despair. Dawn followed the midnight darkness, and he felt a hope that this was the forerunner of that light in which the blood of Jesus Christ is known to cleanse from all sin. Weary of warfare, watching and waiting, he yearned to know how long this discipline must be borne ; yet he had to learn that even this seemingly lawful desire must, like all other self-will, be laid down. "Upon a time," he writes, "being weary of my own thoughts in the meeting of God's people, I thought none was like me, and that it was but in vain to sit there with such a wander- ing mind as mine was, while, though I laboured to stay it, I yet could not as I would. At length I thought to go forth, and as I was going the Lord thundered through me, saying, ' That which is weary must die,'' so I turned to my seat, and waited in the belief of God for the death of that part which was weary of the work of God. . . . And the cross was laid upon me, and I bore it ; and as I became willing to take it up I found it to be to me that thing which I had sought from my childhood, even the power of God. . . . Oh ! the secret joy that was in me in the midst of all my conflicts and combats ; . . . manifold and daily were God's deliverances made known to me beyond all recount or remembrance of man. . . . And as the word of wisdom began to spring in me, and the knowledge of God grew, so I became a counsel- lor of them that were tempted in like manner as I had been, yet was kept so low that I waited to receive counsel daily from God, and from those that were over me in the Lord." About four years after James Parnel's memorable visit to Colchester, Stephen Crisp felt the love of God so shed abroad in his heart as to reach to the whole human family, with earnest desires to share with them 134 STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. the unsearchable riches of Christ. He longed to be made willing to go whithersoever the Lord should send him, and he thought that he was so ; but when the call came to leave wife and children, father and mother, in order to visit the churches in Scotland, he found to his cost that " all enemies were not slain indeed." Gladly would he have excused himself on the easily-found plea of unfitness, or the care of his family. and his service in Colchester Meeting. He spoke of the subject to some faithful ministers and elders, half hoping that they would dissuade him from the performance of this serious and arduous work ; but, on the contrary, they urged him to be faithful in the carrying out of what seemed to him to be his Master's will. This he made up his mind to do, and, notwithstanding the sore trial of his wife's opposition, he was kept in much patience and quietness. As winter drew near he would fain have put off his mission until the summer, but was taught that the Lord's time must be his time ; he wished to go by sea, but had also to learn that the Lord's way must be his way, and the event proved that there were fields for him to work in before reaching Scotland. His faithful obedience was rewarded ; and, as he was more conscious of his Lord's presence than usual, his journey became "joyful," though he was "weak, poor, and low." He writes : " In every place my testimony was owned, and divers were convinced of the everlasting- Truth: then I marvelled and said, 'Lord, the glory alone belongs to Thee ; for Thou hast wrought wonders for Thy name's sake.' " With a heart constantly warmed by the constraining love of Christ, he cheerfully pursued STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. 135 his winter pilgrimage on foot, undaunted by many dangers and difficulties caused by the movements of the English and Scottisli armies. He had indulged the hope that, this mission accom- plished, he should be able to come back to his family and quietly follow his calling ; but the Lord had need of him to " be His witness unto all men of what he had seen and heard." He was now about thirty-two years of age, and the remaining half of his life was chiefly spent in active and devoted labour for his Saviour ; and probably, George Fox alone excepted, no one person was so active in caring for the newly-formed churches as Stephen Crisp. A few days' rest at home and a short visit to the Friends in London were followed by another northern journey, in describing which he alludes to many being turned from darkness to light, and writes of peace and joy as his portion, yet also of trials within and without ; the latter including his imprisonment when two hundred miles away from home. But the Lord, to whom he looked for aid, suffered not his faith to fail : yet, as he writes of finding the work every day more and more weighty, can we wonder at his owning that the hope of being freed from bearing these burdens lived long in him ; but, simply and faithfully doing his Master's bidding, he learnt to love the labour more and more — until " nothing in the world seemed so desirable to him as the spreading and publishing of His truth through the earth ; " and a longing filled his heart to be " as serviceable as possible in his generation, and to keep himself clear of the blood of all men." Fearless and forcible were his words of warning ; several of the remarkable sermons preached by him in 136 STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. London were taken down in shorthand by one of his hearers, who was not a Friend, in one of which we read the following passage : — " How strangely doth the man talk, will some say, con- cerning the Christian religion ! The Christian religion is all England over ; go to any meeting in London and they will tell you they are Christians. I would to God they were ; that is the worst I wish for them all ! . . . There are many in this city urging this very command of loving God with all their hearts, and their neighbours as themselves, as fer- vently as I can do, or anybody else ; and yet they will tell you in the next breath that no man in London or in the world can do this." At another time he says, " Is not man God's creature, and cannot He new-make him and cast sin out of him 1 If you say sin is rooted deeply in man, I say so too ; yet not so deeply rooted but Christ Jesus is entered so deeply into the root of the nature of man that He hath received power to destroy the devil and his works, and to recover and redeem man into his primitive nature of righteous- ness and holiness ; or else that is false to say that He is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. We must throw away the Bible if we say that it is impos- sible for God to deliver man out of sin." And again, " When you hear truth preached, there is an assent and agreement with it in your minds ; but when a command comes to be obeyed, and a cross to be taken up, and self-denial to be shown, or some interest of trade lies in the way, let truth go where it will, you must follow your interest." In a sermon preached a few weeks before his death the following remarks occur : — " What if I live in the truth, that will not serve thee ; and if I be a holy man, that will not sanctify thee ; thou must hearken to truth's speaking in thyself ; thoumayst hear it speaking it in thy own heart before thou be an hour older. ... If thou join with the truth and with that which is holy, thou shalt have strength and ability to withstand temptation, and overcome it ; and (I may speak with reverence) Christ hath bound Himself to those that trust in Him." STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. 137 In 1663 Stephen Crisp crossed the sea on the first of the thirteen or fourteen visits made by him to the Low Countries, where a large number of persons had adopted the views of Friends ; a mission which " the unknown land and unknown speech " did not hinder him from accomplishing in cheerfulness and peace, and with very satisfactory results. When, four years later, he again felt himself called to go there, he found " a dear companion " in Josiah Coale, who died in the following year at the age of thirty-five — his constitution prematurely worn out by the persecutions and hardships which he had encountered in the service of his Lord, x though long borne up by a manly, dauntless spirit. Many were the seals set to Josiah Coale's ministry, which was of a very striking character ; and most ardent were the longings implanted in his soul for the prosperity of Zion. Just before his death, when George Fox and other of his friends were around him, he said, " Be faithful to God and have a single eye to His glory, and seek nothing for self, . . . then will ye have the reward of life. For my part, I have, walked in faithful- ness with the Lord. And I have peace with Him. . . . His majesty is with me, and His crown of life is upon me. So, mind, my love to all friends." Soon after- wards he said to Stephen Crisp, " Dear heart, keep low in the holy seed of God, and that will be thy crown for ever." It was in this year (1688) that Stephen Crisp was imprisoned in Ipswich Gaol, where one of his valuable pamphlets — " The Plain Pathway Opened " — was writ- ten. Sewel speaks of visiting him during his captivity, which he bore with great cheerfulness and perfect 138 STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. contentment. His ministry had been the means of considerably adding to the number of Friends in Ipswich, to whom he still preached the Gospel when they came to see him. A heaven-taught submission to all God's will concerning him had altogether taken away the sting from sorrow : bearing the image and superscription of Christ, fervent were his desires to " render unto God the things which are God's." Thus, when he writes in his journal of the presence and power of the Lord leading him from country to country, he adds, " I was obedient thereunto, not of constraint now, but of a willing mind ; counting His service a freedom, feeling myself freed from the cares of this life, having now learnt to cast all my care upon Him." In the spring of 1669 he went, at the bidding of his Lord, from the Netherlands into Germany, apparently at the peril of life itself while passing through lands shrouded with the darkness of superstition. Yet he was safely led on to Griesham, near Worms, where he found a blessed service in speaking a word in season to many who were weary with long years of trial for con- science' sake : amongst these sufferers, others, whilst hearing him, were constrained to cast in their lot. One cause of trouble was the imposition by the Palsgrave of an annual fine on Friends for their meetings, which they did not feel it right to pay, and three times the amount was taken from them, an exaction borne with " great joy and gladness," for the sake of Him who had suffered for them, and who now called them to display His banner because of the truth. Stephen Crisp had an interview with the prince, in consequence of which the persecution was checked. STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. 139 The following extracts from his sermons show the value set by Stephen Crisp on spiritual worship and Christ's own teaching : — " Travail on in the faith committed to you and you will be more than conquerors ; . . . your communion will not be in words and doctrine and principles of faith ; but your com- munion will be with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. And so in all your meetings together the joy of the Lord will be your strength, and the joy of His great salva- tion your covering ; and He will manifest His gracious pre- sence with you. . . . When a man or woman comes to this pass, that they have nothing to rely upon but the Lord, then they will meet together to wait upon the Lord. And this was the first ground or motive of our setting up meetings ; and I would to God that this was the use which all that come to them would make of them. . . . People cry out of the bondage of corruption and of their subjection to sin and Satan. I would they were in earnest ! . . . Now, if there was but a willingness in every one of us freely to give up ourselves to that Power that created us, to obey His will, I am sure there is never a man or woman among us shall long be without a knowledge of it. . . . But methinks the sound and noise of flesh and blood grows loud here : I would be subject to God, but I would not have Him cross my interest and deprive me of that I love and thirst after. ... If you will become spiritual, and partake of spiritual blessings and benefits, I would advise you to turn from all kinds of reason- ings that come from the pit of darkness. ... As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the children of God. . . . As soon as a man comes to adhere and join to the poiver of God revealed in his soul, he sees the coming of the kingdom of God ; he sees it at a distance : he saith within himself, ' I will follow my Captain — I will become subject to the king- dom of Christ.' " Again, in relating the manner in which he and his friends had grown in grace, he says : — " Jesus was our great minister ; we waited upon Him and trusted in Him, and He taught us Himself. He hath minis- 140 STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. tered to us at our silent and quiet waiting upon Him those things that were convenient for us : He hath not only given strong meat unto men, but hath ministered of the sincere milk of His word unto babes that lived in sincerity and self- denial, loving God above all things. And He taught and conducted us in our way — this way of simplicity — until our understandings came to be opened ; until our souls came to be prepared to receive the mysteries of His kingdom." In a sermon preached a few days before his death he says : — " When a man or woman come to a meeting to worship God and hear the word spoken outwardly, they must pray for something that may be for their good : Lord, give me some- thing that may support my soul, and something that may withstand temptation. People should have their minds thus exercised ; and they should think upon the name of the Lord according to their particular necessity ; they should pour out their supplication to the Lord : this is such worship as God looks for, and such as He likes and is pleased with. He will deliver those that thus pray to Him out of tempta- tions, so that they shall not prevail over them. . . . There are none of you, if you would not be lazy and idle, but you might be delivered every day and have experience in your own souls that, when the devil comes and tempts, the Lord is at hand to deliver you by His grace and power." As Stephen Crisp was now able to preach in the Dutch language, the meetings which he had in Holland were very large. " Some present," he says, " were overcome by the power of Truth, and the overflowings of my cup made many glad." A journey to the southern part of Germany, where a great weight rested on his spirit on account of the wickedness which abounded, was followed by a visit to the Friends at Frederickstadt, whom he found assembled at their week-day meeting, and with whom he was refreshed in the " fellowship of the blessed STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. 141 Gospel." Meetings especially for the public were also held here, and were very striking ones, leaving a marked effect on the city, which was afterwards visited by William Penn and Thomas Green. Before leaving, Stephen Crisp and his companion Peter Hendricks, met with their friends early in the morning in order to commit one another to the Lord's care ; while the final parting, " in that love which never changeth," took place at the river Jider, without the city. In 1673 some six months were spent by Stephen Crisp in London and its suburbs, where the Lord, he says, was with him daily, to the rejoicing of thousands. " By His mighty power were many strong oaks bowed, and many subtle foxes prevented of their prey, and many wandering sheep brought home who had for a long time longed to find the fold of rest ; and whose souls will ever live with my soul in His covenant, to praise Him world without end." Durin<_>- his next mission across the seas he was led to visit " that hard-hearted city of Emblen," where a physician named Hasbert kindly welcomed him, and even offered his house for the holding of meetings, which were well attended. After a while some " were drawn in love to God " to assemble there regularly for spiritual worship. When this became known in the city sore persecution followed ; a few were banished sixteen or twenty times, spoiled of their goods, stripped of their clothing, and then driven through the streets to the ships in which they were to sail : " all which and much more" Stephen Crisp remarks, " by the mighty power of the Lord, did these innocent, harmless lambs, bear with great patience and quietness, and were not 142 STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. dismayed at all these cruelties." A year or two later, on revisiting Emblen, he found that a fine of £25 was to be imposed on any one who should harbour a Friend in his house; whereupon he wrote a book of " sharp and sound judgment" to the rulers and priests, who, how- ever, did him no harm ; for, as he says, a poiver came over them. Nor was the labour lost, for we find that the Friends soon had more freedom than formerly. At other times also he successfully pleaded on behalf of his persecuted brethren : yet throughout his constantly- renewed Continental labours no hand was laid on him, although, when in the Spanish Netherlands, he could but boldly bear his testimony against the grievous idolatry which weighed down his soul. During an exceptional winter, chiefly spent at his home at Colchester, he visited the neighbouring meet- ings— a service accomplished with " much joy of spirit," in spite of severe bodily suffering : — "I found," he remarks, "that though through long experi- ence my senses were exercised in the service of God, yet I had nothing to trust to how and after what manner to minister to the Church of Christ, but the same that led me in the beginning — even the immediate operation of the power that brings forth, in the will of God, all things suitable to their season, that the glory might be to the power, and the praises to Him that gives it, for ever and for ever- more." Again, he speaks of returning to his " place in the will of God, remaining as a servant waiting to he ordered, and as a child waiting to be fed." To the faithful disciples who thus wait will not service of some sort be surely sent by the Lord of the harvest ? STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. 143 Two or three years later Stephen Crisp's life was threatened by a severe fever. God's presence was with him, and into His hands he confidingly committed him- self. When he found that his days were to be prolonged he was well content that it should be so, as the one aim of his soul was still to spend them " in the service of God and His dear people." Apparently no meeting of Friends in the nation was left unvisited by him. In 1682, a sense having been given him of the suffering soon to befall the Friends who lived in Norwich, we find that at harvest-time it- came into his heart, " in the dear love of God," to go again to that city. Whilst worshipping with his brethren there on the day of his arrival, the assembly was violently broken up by a justice and constables, accompanied by a rabble who seemed ready to devour their prey. Stephen Crisp and about a dozen other Friends were brought before the mayor and aldermen. Strong was their desire to get him into their hands, but the Lord, who had hitherto helped him, taught him how to avoid the snares carefully set for him. As his mission to the city was still unfulfilled, it would seem that the possi- bility of any other course than that of performing it did not enter his mind. Such simple faith and obedi- dience could not be exercised in vain : in the two large meetings which were -held, the power of the Almighty wonderfully prevailed over all. It must have been consoling to him at this time to foresee that, though the fiery trial of persecution was about to test the faith of the Friends here, they would be ready for the conflict, being clad in the impenetrable armour of God. In the following year his beloved wife died. Although 144 STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. for thirty-five years her love and sympathy and trust in Christ had been invaluable to him, grace was given in his time of need to murmur not, but rather to praise the holy name of Him who had made her what she was. His second marriage took place in 1685, and was a most happy union, though of short duration, for he writes : — " It proved the pleasure of the Lord to try me, whether I could part with, as well as receive, this great mercy: . . . She was a woman beyond many, excelling in the virtues of the Holy Spirit with which she was baptised." Heavy as was the stroke, it was softened by the share which was granted him of the joy into which she had entered. In 1689, in spite of many bodily infirmities, Stephen Crisp, in company with other Friends, successfully appealed to Parliament for the suspension of those laws which had caused sore suffering for conscience' sake. After describing the failing of his physical power, he says : " Yet the word of the Lord lived in my heart, to the refreshing of my soul, and the souls of many tender babes that lived and grew up by the milk of it." This may be imagined by those who read the remarkable sermons delivered by him during the last few years of his life. " There are," he says, " many that have had some taste of great joy, and apprehensions of heavenly things to which they have not attained, but they know what they are waiting upon God for ; — not that they may have a little joy which passeth through them, but come to have that joy and tran- quillity which will accompany them in all their doings, and their whole conversation. . . . Let such go on and follow that guide by whom they have been directed, and they shall at last come — through the Divine Spirit of Grace which they followed, and so closely cleaved to — to have an entrance administered to them abundantly into the salvation of God." STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. 145 And again : — " If it be truth which you own, then exercise faith upon it — and whatsoever sin or temptation assaults you, say, I shall overcome in the name of the Lord Jehovah ; I shall bring thee under, be what lust, passion, or corruption, soever thou wilt ; in the name of the Lord I shall overcome thee." In the spring of 1692 it would seem that he felt the time of his departure was at hand. When taking what proved to be his last farewell of Colchester (before leaving for London), in several meetings his ministry both to Friends and others, was of an especially power- ful and exceedingly striking character ; he spoke of his wish to be clear of the blood of all men, and of his belief that he was so. In private families, also, the Lord did indeed make manifest the savour of His know- ledge by this good and faithful servant, whose mouth was " as a well of life " to many a thirsty soul. A few days before his death he preached at conside- rable length at Devonshire House. When increasingly ill, he was carried in a litter to Wandsworth (where in early life he had acted as usher in the celebrated college of Eichard Scoryer). To George Whitehead he said : " I have a full assurance of my peace with God in Christ Jesus.* . . . Dear George, I can live and die with thee." When George Whitehead was parting from him, he asked : " Dear Stephen, wouldst thou anything * " For my part," was Stephen Crisp's strong language in one of his sermons — " for my part, my tongue shall as soon drop out of my mouth as oppose the doctrine of being justified by faith in Christ ; but let me tell you this may be misapplied. ... If a man hope to be saved by Christ, he must be ruled by Him. It is contrary to all manner of reason that the devil should rule a man, and Christ be his Saviour." L 146 STEPHEN CRISP AND HIS SERMONS. to friends ? " But his life's labour was ended now, and he only answered : " Remember my dear love in Christ Jesus to all friends." He died at Wandsworth, 1692, aged sixty-four years, and was buried at the Friends' burial-ground, Bunhill Fields. A fitting conclusion to this short sketch of Stephen Crisp and his Sermons will be found in his own words in Gracechurch Street Meeting : — " I have considered many a time that there are many brave men and women in this aye that miyht have been eminent witnesses of God' in this world, and borne their testimony to His truth, but their faith has been iveak and ineffectual ; they have dis- covered their unbelieving hearts, and have joined with the common herd of the world, because they thought such great things could never be done; that the kingdom of Satan could never be pulled down and destroyed, and the kingdom of Christ set up within us. But I would hope better things of you, things that accompany salva- tion ; and that He that hath begun a good work in you will carry it on to perfection." J 0 H JS| BAJ\|K£. " I saw with wonderful clearness that we attain this nearness of access, not by struggling and agonising with ourselves, . . . but simply by ceasing to struggle and yielding the mind in trust to the care of the living Saviour." — J. M. Washbuen. 149 JOHN BANKS. " The soul that has made the discovery that it has nothing in itself to hang upon, must hang upon Christ."— Dean Goulbuen. On a winter's day in 1711 William Penn, whilst walking, cane in hand, up and down his room, dictated the preface to the autobiography of John Banks, whom he had known for more than forty-four years, and had, in the earlier days of his own religious experience, found to be " an ordinance of strength to his soul." This proved to be the last of Penn's literary productions. " Friendly reader," he begins, " the labours of the servants of God ought always to be precious in the eyes of His people ; and for that reason the very fragments of their services are not to be lost, but gathered up for edification. I hope it will please God to make them effectual to such as seriously peruse them, since we have always found the Lord ready to second the services of His worthies upon the spirits of their readers." John Banks was an only child, and was born in Cumberland, in 1637. When only fourteen, after having made a good use of seven years' schooling, he was employed as a schoolmaster. A year later, in order to please his father and some others, he held a weekly service in a chapel-of-ease near Pardshaw, where he read the Bible and homily, sang psalms, and engaged in prayer. One of his hearers, a highly educated but very intemperate man, told him that he read well, and added 150 JOHN BANKS. that he ought to use a form of prayer, offering to send him one in a letter. No sooner had John Banks made use of this form, than his mind was powerfully impressed with the Apostle Paul's description of the Gospel which he had to preach : " I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." He knew that he had had this form from man, and, moreover, from " one of the worst of many." The end of the year was approaching when payment for his services would be due to him, but he felt that he must refuse it, and that he could not read in the chapel again. " The dread of the Lord fell upon me," he writes, " with which I was so struck to my very heart that I said to myself, I shall never pray on this wise. And it opened in me, ' Go to the meeting of people in scorn called Quakers.' It pleased the Lord to reach my heart by His great power and pure living Spirit, in the blessed appearance and revelation thereof, in and through Jesus Christ ; whereby I received the know- ledge of God, and the way of His blessed Truth, by myself alone in the field before I ever heard any one called a Quaker preach. But the first day I went to one of their meetings the Lord's power so seized upon me that I was made to cry out in the bitterness of my soul, in a true sight and sense of my sins that appeared exceeding sinful ; and at evening, as I was going to the meeting, I was smitten to the ground with the weight of God's judgments for sin and iniquity, and I was taken up by two friends. Oh ! the godly sorrow that did take hold of me that night in the meeting." There was very little ministry, but a Friend, who deeply sympathised with John Banks' distress, was, as he said, " made willing " to read a paper suitable to his condition, and which was the means of giving him a little comfort. He now remembered that in the midst of his wildness and dissipation he had felt a restrain- ing influence in his heart, but had given no heed to it. JOHN BANKS. 151 " I did not," he continues, " only come to be convinced, by the living appearance of the Lord Jesus, of the evil of sin ; but by taking true heed thereunto, I came, by one little after another, to be sensible of the work thereof in my soul in order to tame and subject the wild nature in me, and to cleanse me inwardly from sin that I might be changed and converted." If the upward progress was slow, it was also sure ; the few following years of his life might not have been marked ones in his out- ward history, yet doubtless they were of deep im- portance in the sight of One who, having redeemed him to God by His blood, had entered his tempest-tossed heart, and with " An unseen hand was building For Himself a temple there." During this time he found neither body nor mind adapted to the "good and lawful" calling of a school- master ; he therefore diligently employed himself in learning his father's trade and a little husbandry, living meanwhile with his parents, who, to his great joy, he says, also " came to receive the Truth." Some of his spare hours were spent alone in the woods, in great distress from the temptation to despair. But the enemy was not suffered to uproot the grain of faith which had been sown in his soul ; and there were times when, conscious of the sincerity and steadfastness of his endeavours to follow his Saviour, he could even ask himself, " What evil have I done since I received the truth ? " " So," he writes, " through faith in the power of God, and shining of His glorious light in my heart, I overcame the wicked one ; through a diligent waiting in the light and 152 JOHN BANKS. keeping close unto the power of God ; in waiting upon Him in silence among His people, in which exercise my soul delighted. And oh ! the days and nights of comfort and divine consolation we were made partakers of together ; and the faithful and true in heart to God, still are ; but it was through various trials and deep exercises." Although he does not yet appear to have fully learnt that lesson — which seems very hard to learn — of trust- ing in the Lord with all the heart, he thus reveals the secret of his steady growth in grace : " Now the way of my prosperity in the Truth and work of God, I always found was by being faithful to the Lord in what He in the light manifested." After a while his mind became more peaceful, and he began to hope that the sore struggles with temptation were nearly ended ; aud great was his grief when he found that, though much evil had been overcome through the grace of God, Satan was well able to invent new allurements when old ones failed to ensnare. Yet, after all, victory must have been nearer than he imagined, for he was becoming "Confident in self-despair." "Oh!" he says, "how was I humbled and bowed, and laid low. Wherefore I took up a godly resolution in His fear — '/ will rely upon the sufficiency of Thy Power, 0 Lord, for ever." So that about six years after I had received the Truth by believing therein, I came to be settled in the power of God, and made weighty in my spirit thereby." Thus did he " venture his all upon Christ, And prove Him sufficient for all." He refers to the conflict he passed through with regard to his call to the ministry, but adds, " The Lord through His power wrought me into a willing witness." JOHN BANKS. 153 When lie was about twenty-five, he was one day attend- ing a meeting of Friends held out of doors near Cold- beck, when the congregation was disturbed by a justice of the peace, who rudely rode into the group as they sat on the ground. John Banks — who had knelt down to pray — he violently struck with his horsewhip over the head and face, and then ordered his man to take him away, which he did by dragging him down the hill by his hair. John Banks and three others, were com- mitted to the common gaol, where they were kept for several days without bread or water, because they could not pay the covetous gaoler eightpence for every meal. He told them he would see how long they could live without food ; and as he would not allow their friends to provide them even with straw, their only bed was the prison window, where, on the cold stones of the thick wall, there was room for one person to rest at a time. Their companions are thus described by John Banks : " A Bedlam man and four with him, for theft ; two notorious thieves called Bedhead and Wadelad ; two moss-troopers for stealing cattle ; and one woman for murdering her own child." Bad enough such company must have been at the best ; but soon these poor creatures were freely supplied with drink by some visitors, and began to abuse their quiet fellow-prisoners. " In that very close, nasty place," writes John Banks, " we were nearly stifled." Happily, the next day they were removed to another room. The hearts of his parents must have yearned for their only child ; but in loving letters he begs them to be " not at all dejected or cast down concerning him, but rather to rejoice. All I desire is that you may come to say in truth, ' The will 154 JOHN BANKS. of the Lord be done ! ' " He gives no details of out- ward sufferings to add to their sorrow, but says that he " never knew the worth of a prison so much before, to his sweet peace and inward consolation." About twelve months after his release he married ; and four years later went with John Wilkinson to visit the south and west of England, being made truly will- ing, he says, " to leave his dear wife and sweet child, and go forth in the power and spirit of the Lord Jesus." They had many meetings on their way ; in Yorkshire these were held daily, and were eagerly nocked to by the people, who seemed to be hungering and thirsting after righteousness. To his wife John Banks writes : — " The further I am separated from thee, the nearer thou art unto me, even in that which neither length of time nor distance of place shall ever be able to wear out, or bring a decay upon. ... I have been under weakness of body, but nevertheless I have faith to helieve that whatsoever the Lord is pleased to exercise me in, He will give me ability to per- form, and nothing shall be able to hinder it ; and therefore I am truly content whatsoever the Lord may suffer to ceme upon me, because hitherto He has kept me, to His praise and glory, and to my sweet peace. . . . The Truth of our God prospers ; yea, very many are coming in to partake thereof ; for people in many places are weary of the hireling priests and dead formal worship, and their assemblies grow thin." Meanwhile his wife was brought low by a violent fever, but writes that she is " well in mind and spirit, and desires nothing more than that the will of the Lord might be done in all things." The meetings held during this journey were very large and satisfactory, and John Banks says that to his companion and himself it had been a sweet and precious time. JOHN BANKS. 155 It was his desire that a brief record of what he was enabled to do and suffer for Christ should " be kept on record for the yood of ayes to come." Twelve times he crossed the sea to Ireland, often in violent storms. After he had sailed a few times from Whitehaven, the sailors became very anxious to have him for a passenger, saying, " You are the happiest man that ever we have carried over sea, for we get well alon