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that men threw off the very profession of virtue and piety, under color of drinking the king's health; all kinds of old cavalier rioting and debauchery revived; the appearances of religion which remained with some,furnished matters of ridicule to libertines and scoffers:* Some who had been concerned in the former changes, thought they couldnot redeem their credit better than by deriding all religion, and telling or making stories to render their former party ridiculous. To appear serious, or make conscience either of words and actions, was the way to be accounted a schismatic, a fanatic, or a sectarian; though if there was any real religion during the course of this reign, it was chiefly among those people. They who did not applaud the new ceremonies were marked out for presbyterians, and every presbyterian was a rebel. The old clergy who had been sequestered for scandal, having taken possession of their livings, were intoxicated with their new felicity, and threw off all the restraints of their order; every week (says Mr. Baxter, produced reports of one or other clergyman whọ was taken up by the watch drunk at night, and mobbed in the streets. Some were taken with lewd women; and one was reported to be drunk in the pulpit. Such was the general dissoluteness of manners which attended the deluge of joy which overflowed the nation upon his majesty's restoration!

About this time died the reverend Mr. Francis Taylor, sometime rector of Clapham in Surry, and afterwards of Life, part ii. p. 288.

* Kennet's Chron. p. 493. Dr. Grey questions the truth of the above charge. But whoever reads Mr. Baxter's account of the matter, and of the conduct of himself and some of his brethren on the report of it. which rang through the city, will scarcely doubt the fact. But there is force and candor in what Dr. Grey adds concerning the reply of Mr. Selden to an alderman of the long parliament on the subject of episcopacy. The alderman said, "that there were so many elamers against such and such prelates, that they would never be quiet, till they had no more bishops." On this Mr. Selden informed the house, what grievous complaints there were against such and such aldermen; and therefore by parity of reas oning, it was his opinion, he said, that they should have no more aldermen. Here was the fault transferred to the office, which is a dangerous error; for not only government, but human society itself, may be dissolved by the same argument, if the frailties or corruptions of particular men shall be revenged upon the whole body. Grey's Examination, vol. iii. p. 267. Ed.

Yalden, from whence he was called to sit in the assembly of divines at Westminster, and had a considerable share in the annotations which go under their name. From Yalden Mr. Taylor removed to Canterbury, and became preacher of Christ-Church in that city, where I presume he died, leaving behind him the character of an able critic in the oriental languages, and one of the most considerable divines of the assembly. He published several valuable works, and among others a translation of the Jerusalem Targum on the Pentateuch out of the Chaldee into Latin, dedicated to the learned Mr. Gataker, of Rotherhithe, with a prefatory epistle of Selden's, and several others, relating to Jewish antiquities. Among the letters to archbishop Usher there is one from Mr. Taylor, dated from Clapham, 1635. He corresponded also with Boetius, and most of the learned men of his time. He left behind him a son who was blind, but ejected for non-· conformity in the year 1662, from St. Alphage church in Canterbury, where he lies buried.

S He lost his sight by the small-pox: but pursued his studies by the aid of others, who read to him. His brother, who was also blind, he supported, and took great pains to instruct and win over to serious religion, but not with all the success he desired: He was a man of good abilities, and noted for an eloquent preacher: and his ministry was much valued and respected. He did not long survive the treatment he met with, in being seized and carried to prison; but was cheerful in all his afflictions. Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, vol. ii. p. 57, 8. Ed.

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CHAPTERS III. AND IV.

MR. NEAL has allowed a few pages only, in the two preceding chapters, to the History of the QUAKERS: and they are chiefly spent on the wild extravagancies and sufferings of JAMES NAYLOR. But the lot of this people, while other sectarists breathed a freer air under the protectorship of Cromwell, was peculiarly hard and afflictive. The change of government, on his taking the reins, produced no revotation in their favor; but their sufferings continued to increase with the increase of their numbers. The subordinate magistrates were continued in office; and the ecclesiastics, their former persecutors, retained power to be troublesome to them. The protector has been represented as the friend to religious liberty; and so, in some instances, he certainly shewed himself, but the Quakers derived little benefit from his liberal views and regard to the rights of conscience. For, though he himself did not openly disturb them on account of their religious opinions and practices; yet those who acted under his authority grievously persecuted them, and he gave little or no check to their intolerance, although he had the power and was repeatedly and earnestly solicited to do it. The dominant parties had imbibed a spirit of hatred and animosity against this people: and the protector, it is supposed, might be fearful of disobliging them, by animadverting on their oppressive measures: or he might consider the Quakers as too contemptible or too pacific a body to fear any danger from, even under the greatest provocations.§

To give some color of law to the severities practised against them, pretexts were drawn from supposed violations

§ Gough's History of the Quakers, vol. i. p. 182, 198.

of the regulations of civil policy. A christian exhortation to an assemby, after the priest had done and the worship was over, was denominated interrupting public worship, and disturbing the priest in his office: an honest testimony against sin in the streets or markets was styled a breach of the peace: and their appearing before the magistrates covered, a contempt of authority: hence proceed. ed fines, imprisonments, and spoiling of goods. Nay, so hot for persecution were some magistrates, that by an unparalleled misconstruction of the law against vagrants, they tortured with cruel whippings the bodies of both men and women of good estate and reputation, merely because they went under the denomination of quakers."*

In 1656, Henry Clifton, only riding through Upwell, in Cambridgeshire, after having been carried before two justices, was sent to prison, where he lay a considerable time in the dungeon among condemned felons. Richard Hubberton and Richard Weaver, travelling from home to pay a friendly visit to Ann Blakely, who was, for her open testimony against the sins of the times, imprisoned at Cambridge, were also committed to prison. Thomas Curtis, a woollen-draper of Reading, going to Plymouth on business, and from thence to West-Alvington, accompanied by John Martindale, they were both cast, as vagrants, into Exeter gaol; and, at the ensuing assizes, brought before the judge, where nothing was laid to their charge. But, for not taking off their hats, they were fined 401. each for contempt, and for non-payment detained above a year in prison. During this term, Martindale, having obtained leave of the jailor to visit a friend at Ilchester, went to a meeting at Colyton; where he, Humphrey Sprague, and Thomas Dyer, lodging at a friend's house, were apprehended by a warrant, and carried before the justices at the quarter-sessions at Honiton; and, though one of them was but two, and another but five miles from home, were sentenced, as vagrants, to be whipped in the market-place, and sent with a pass from tything to tything; which was accordingly done. George Whitehead, a virtuous and learned young man of a reputable family in Westmore* Gough's History, vol. i. p. 139, 140. 38

VOL. IV.

land, preaching at Nayland in Suffolk, April 1657, was sentenced by two justices to be openly whipped, as a vagrant, till his body were bloody. The constable, to whom the warrant was given, employed a foolish fellow, void of discretion and feeling, to execute it; who laid on his stripes with unmerciful violence; whereby Whitehead's back and breasts were grievously cut, his skin torn, and his blood shed in abundance. But the insensible fool went on, unrestrained by the constable, till his hand was stayed by the cry of the spectators, who, affected with the cruelty, called out to him to stop. Humphrey Smith and Samuel Curtis, riding together near Axminster, George Bewley, John Ellis, and Humphrey Sprague, after a meeting in Bridport, were whipt as vagabonds, and sent away with passes. Joan Edmunds, wife of Edward Edmunds, of Totness, about ten miles from home being stopped by a drunken fellow who took away her horse, on complaining to a justice, was sent to Exeter goal because she had no pass; her horse was ordered to be sold, and part of the money applied to defray the charge of carrying her to prison. Her habitation lying in the direct road, she was taken six miles about, to prevent this injustice being exposed amongst her neighbors, who well knew she was no vagrant.*

Another pretext, on which many of these people suffered, under the form of law, very illegal severities, was that of breaking the sabbath. Their religious zeal, in frequenting their assemblies for public worship, obliged them to travel to the places, where they were held, sometimes at a considerable distance from their habitations. This was called a breach of the sabbath: and it was punished by impounding their horses, by distress of goods, by fines, by imprisonment, by whipping, and by setting in the stocks.†

If magistrates could be guilty of such unrighteous severities, it is not surprising, that the licentious rabble should attack this people with violence and abuse. In numerous instances and in various places, the houses, in which they held their assemblies for religious worship, were riotously assaulted. Their services were interrupted by hallooing. singing, and railing: the windows were broken by stones

* Gough's History, vol. i. p. 225-232. † Ibid. p. 271-2, note.

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