CHAPTER VII (5)

After this I went into the country, and had several meetings, and came to Swannington, where the soldiers came again; but the meeting was quiet, the Lord’s power was over all, and the soldiers did not interfere. Then I went to Leicester, and then to Whetstone. There came about seventeen troopers of Colonel Hacker’s regiment, with his marshal, and took me up before the meeting, though Friends were beginning to gather together; for there were several Friends come from various parts. I told the marshal, “he might let all the Friends go, I would answer for them all;” so he took me, and let them go, except Alexander Parker, who went with me.[35] At night they had me before Colonel Hacker, his major, and captains, a great company of them; and much discourse we had about the priests, and meetings, for at this time there was a rumour of a plot against Oliver Cromwell. Much reasoning I had with them about the light of Christ, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. Colonel Hacker asked, whether it was not this light of Christ that made Judas betray his master, and afterwards led him to hang himself? I told him, “No; that was the spirit of darkness, which hated Christ and his light.” Then Colonel Hacker said, I might go home, and keep there, and not go abroad to meetings. I told him, “I was an innocent man, free from plots, and denied all such work.” His son Needham said, “Father, this man hath reigned too long, it is time to have him cut off.” I asked him, “For what? what had I done? or whom had I wronged from a child? for I was bred and born in that country, and who could accuse me of any evil from a child?” Then Colonel Hacker asked me again, if I would go home, and stay there? I told him, “if I should promise him that, it would manifest that I was guilty of something, to go home, and make my home a prison; and if I went to meetings, they would say, I broke their order.”order.” I told them, “I should go to meetings, as the Lord should order me, and therefore could not submit to their requirings;” but I said, “we were a peaceable people.” “Well then,” said Colonel Hacker, “I will send you to my Lord Protector, by Captain Drury, one of his life-guards.”

That night I was kept a prisoner at the Marshalsea; and the next morning by six o’clock, I was delivered to Captain Drury. I desired he would let me speak with Colonel Hacker before I went, and he had me to his bed-side. Colonel Hacker set upon me presently again, to go home and keep no more meetings. I told him, “I could not submit to that, but must have my liberty to serve God and go to meetings.” “Then,” said he, “you must go before the Protector.” “Whereupon I kneeled by his bedside, and besought the Lord to forgive him, for he was as Pilate, though he would wash his hands; and when the day of his misery and trial should come upon him, I bid him then remember what I had said to him.him. But he was stirred up, and set on by priest Stephens, and the other priests and professors, wherein their envy and baseness was manifest; who, when they could not overcome me by disputes and arguments, nor resist the Spirit of the Lord that was in me, then they got soldiers to take me up.

Afterwards, when this Colonel Hacker was in prison in London, a day or two before he was executed, he was put in mind of what he had done against the innocent; and he remembered it, and confessed to it to Margaret Fell, saying he knew well whom she meant; and he had a trouble upon him for it. So his son, who told his father I had reigned too long, and that it was time to have me cut off, might observe how his father was cut off afterwards, he being hanged at Tyburn.

Now was I carried up a prisoner by Captain Drury from Leicester; and when we came to Harborough, he asked me, if I would go home and stay a fortnight? “I should have my liberty,” he said, “if I would not go to, nor keep meetings.” I told him, “I could not promise any such thing.” Several times upon the road did he ask, and try me after the same manner, and still I gave him the same answers. So he brought me to London, and lodged me at the Mermaid over-against the Mews at Charing-Cross. As we travelled, I was moved of the Lord to warn people at the inns and places, where I came, of the day of the Lord that was coming upon them. William Dewsbury and Marmaduke Storr being in prison at Northampton, he let me go and visit them.

After Captain Drury had lodged me at the Mermaid, he left me there, and went to give the Protector an account of me. When he came to me again, he told me, the Protector required that I should promise not to take up a carnal sword or weapon against him or the government, as it then was, and I should write it in what words I saw good, and set my hand to it. I said little in reply to Captain Drury. But the next morning I was moved of the Lord to write a paper to the Protector, Oliver Cromwell; “Wherein I did in the presence of the Lord God declare, that I denied the wearing or drawing of a carnal sword, or any other outward weapon, against him or any man: and that I was sent of God to stand a witness against all violence, and against the works of darkness; and to turn people from darkness to light; and to bring them from the causes of war and fighting, to the peaceable gospel, and from being evil-doers, which the magistrates’ swords should be a terror to.” When I had written what the Lord had given me to write, I set my name to it, and gave it to Captain Drury to hand to Oliver Cromwell, which he did.

After some time Captain Drury brought me before the Protector himself at Whitehall. It was in a morning, before he was dressed, and one Harvey, who had come a little among Friends, but was disobedient, waited upon him. When I came in, I was moved to say, “Peace be in this house; and I exhorted him to keep in the fear of God, that he might receive wisdom from Him, that by it he might be directed, and order all things under his hand to God’s glory.” I spoke much to him of truth, and much discourse I had with him about religion; wherein he carried himself very moderately. But, he said, we quarrelled with priests, whom he called ministers. I told him, “I did not quarrel with them, but they quarrelled with me and my friends.” “But,”“But,” said I, “if we own the prophets, Christ, and the apostles, we cannot hold up such teachers, prophets, and shepherds, as the prophets, Christ, and the apostles declared against; but we must declare against them by the same power and Spirit.” Then I showed him, “that the prophets, Christ, and the apostles declared freely, and against them that did not declare freely; such as preached for filthy lucre, and divined for money, and preached for hire, and were covetous and greedy, that can never have enough; and that they that have the same Spirit, that Christ, and the prophets, and the apostles had, could not but declare againstdeclare against all such now, as they did then.” As I spoke, he several times said, it was very good, and it was truth. I told him, “that all Christendom (so called) possessed the Scriptures, but wanted the power and Spirit that they had, who gave forth the Scriptures, and that was the reason they were not in fellowship with the Son, nor with the Father, nor with the Scriptures, nor one with another.”

Many more words I had with him, but people coming in, I drew a little back; and as I was turning, he caught me by the hand, and with tears in his eyes, said, “Come again to my house, for if thou and I were but an hour a day together, we should be nearer one to the other;” adding that he wished me no more ill than he did his own soul. I told him, “if he did, he wronged his own soul;” and I bid him “hearken to God’s voice, that he might stand in His counsel and obey it; and if he did so, that would keep him from hardness of heart; but if he did not hear God’s voice, his heart would be hardened.” He said, it was true. Then I went out; and when Captain Drury came out after me, he told me, “his lord Protector said, I was at liberty, and might go whither I would.” Then I was brought into a great hall, where the Protector’s gentlemen were to dine; and I asked them, what they brought me thither for? they said, it was by the Protector’s order, that I might dine with them. I bid them let the Protector know, I would not eat of his bread, nor drink of his drink. When he heard this, he said, “Now I see there is a people risen and come up, that I cannot win either with gifts, honours, offices, or places; but all other sects and people I can.” It was told him again, “that we had forsaken our own, and were not likely to look for such things from him.”

Being set at liberty I went to the inn again, where Captain Drury had at first lodged me. This Captain Drury, though he sometimes carried fairly, was an enemy to me and to truth, and opposed it; and when professors came to me (while I was under his custody,) and he was by, he would scoff at trembling, and call us Quakers, as the Independents and Presbyterians had nick-named us before. But afterwards he once came to me, and told me, that, as he was lying on his bed to rest himself in the day-time, a sudden trembling seized on him, that his joints knocked together, and his body shook so that he could not rise from his bed; he was so shaken, that he had not strength enough left to rise. But he felt the power of the Lord was upon him, and he fell off his bed, and cried to the Lord, and said, he never would speak against the Quakers more, or such as trembled at the word of God.

During the time I was prisoner at Charing-Cross, there came abundance to see me, people of almost all sorts, priests, professors, officers of the army, &c. And one time a company of officers being with me, desired me to pray with them. I sat still, with my mind retired to the Lord. At last I felt the power and Spirit of God move in me, and the Lord’s power did so shake and shatter them, that they wondered, though they did not live in it.

Among those that came to see me, was one Colonel Packer, with several of his officers; and while they were with me, came in one Cobb, and a great company of Ranters with him. The Ranters began to call for drink and tobacco; but I desired them to forbear it in my room, telling them, if they had such a desire for it, they might go into another room. One of them cried, “all is ours;” and another said, “all is well.” I replied, “how is all well, while thou art so peevish, and envious, and crabbed?” for I saw he was of a peevish nature. I spoke to their conditions, and they were sensible of it, and looked upon one another, wondering.

Then Colonel Packer began to talk with a light, chaffy mind, concerning God, and Christ, and the Scriptures; it was a great grief to my soul and spirit, when I heard him talk so lightly; so that I told him, “he was too light to talk of the things of God, for he did not know the solidity of a man.” Thereupon the officers raged, and said, would I say so of their colonel. This Packer was a Baptist, and he and the Ranters bowed and scraped to one another very much; for it was the manner of the Ranters to be exceedingly complimental (as they call it), so that Packer bid them give over their compliments; but I told them, “they were fit to go together, for they were both of one spirit.”

This Colonel Packer lived at Theobalds near Waltham, and was made a justice of peace. He set up a great meeting of the Baptists at Theobalds Park; for he and some other officers had purchased it. They were exceedingly high, and railed against Friends and truth, and threatened to apprehend me with their warrants if ever I came there. Yet after I was set at liberty, I was moved of the Lord God to go down to Theobalds, and appoint a meeting hard by them; to which many of his people came, and divers of his hearers were convinced of the way of truth, and received Christ, the free teacher, and came off from him; and that made him rage the more. But the Lord’s power came over him, so that he had not power to meddle with me. Then I went to Waltham close by him, and had a meeting there; but the people were very rude, and gathered about the house and broke the windows. Whereupon I went out to them, with the Bible in my hand, and desired them to come in; and told them, “I would show them Scripture both for our principles and practices.” And when I had done so, I showed them also, “that their teachers were in the steps of such, as the prophets, and Christ, and the apostles testified against.” Then I directed them to the Light of Christ, and Spirit of God in their own hearts, that by it they might come to know their free teacher, the Lord Jesus Christ. The meeting being ended, they went away quieted and satisfied, and a meeting has since been settled in that town. But this was some time after I was set at liberty by Oliver Cromwell.